Last minute valentines...

My husband and I like to make little valentine cards to celebrate the Feast of St. Valentine with our children. We usually go for something punny. Sometimes we have so much pun, we can't stop ourselves. It's a sickness, I know.

Here are some I made up tonight. If you have leftover chocolate coins from Christmas, you can use those. (Yeah… right.) Ok, so then check your local Hobby Lobby or World Market. Ours carry them year round. Heck… you could even put a handful of real coins in or go to the bank and get some shiny new quarters or fancy gold dollars! Always impressive to little ones and big ones too. 

If you want to surprise your kids with this valentine treat tomorrow, you can find the printable cards here. I printed mine on ivory card stock and glued it to pink card stock. Pop everything in a sandwich sized zip top baggie, cut off the zip top and tie it up with a ribbon. Easy peasy. I really like the way the joke sticks up above the coins and the sweet message is hidden below. 

{I also made a version that can be used by your kids to give to friends. It says, "I like you just the way you are." You can find that one here.}

Happy Feast of St. Valentine!

St. Valentine Coloring Page

St. Valentine coloring page

~ click here ~

{p,h,f,r} St. Valentine's edition

{pretty}

My beautiful girls decorated the table last night creating this centerpiece with some garland and electric candles.

{happy}

Happy to be fever free today. Happy to be able to breathe through my nose occasionally. But mostly, I am so happy that I had planned ahead and had everything waiting in my closet. It wasn't a big celebration. One of our local stores had some fun hats on clearance. I found these chocolate mustache's for the boys and chocolate roses for the girls. (No, they did not give up chocolate for Lent and while we do limit treats, we allow them on special feast days.)

{funny}

Does this picture really need a caption?

{real}

Pinterest lies. I saw somewhere, Pinterest, I think, that you could make heart shaped muffins using a marble. They look kind of heart blobbish to me. Oh well. They were eaten with gusto. That's what counts.

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~ with the lovely ladies at Like Mother, Like Daughter

St. Valentine's Day in the evening

My favorite part of the day... homemade cards! These two are from BigBoy, aka...my Loverlove. The one with the puppies says "I love you more than a chocolate covered cream-filled donut". Husband cracked up when he saw the red one BigBoy left in his bag... "Dear Dad, thanks for helping me make Mom's card."

I hope your day has been filled with lots of love 

(and maybe a chocolate covered cream filled donut)!

St. Valentine's Day in the afternoon

 Of all the pretzel dots we have ever made, I gotta say that these made with plain Hershey kisses and Valentine themed peanut butter M&M's just might be our favorite. Pretzels, chocolate and peanut butter...what's not to love!? 

 The girls are cooing at how the pretzels look like hearts!

St. Valentine's Day in the morning

 Chocolate covered strawberries make an awesome breakfast treat! I'm just sayin'.

These were gifted to us and arrived on Friday. We hoped to save them until tonight but the berries got a little weepy yesterday. Breakfast to the rescue!

Past Valentine's posts here. Coloring page here.

Happy Feast of St. Valentine!

Love

To love God is something greater than to know Him. ~ St. Thomas Aquinas

Love consumes us only in the measure of our self-surrender. ~ St. Therese of Lisieux

Where love exists, it works great things. ~ Pope St. Gregory the Great

Happy Feast of St. Valentine!

Happy Saint Valentine's Day...

After setting up all of this, the last thing you want to hear is "Mom, I don't feel so good." The Professor is sick in bed with a fever, headache and an upset tummy. Please don't let this be a stomach flu! He was in such good spirits last night making valentines for his sisters and brother (and this from a boy who can't stand anything lovey, dovey). I was so proud of him for not just being a good sport but actually joining in!

These are the cards that we made for the kids. I chose the design last night after Husband had already braved the lines at the jewelry store to pick up this sweet little charm that I knew nothing about it until this morning. I lost my charm bracelet about 2 years ago along with all of the beautiful charms he and the children had picked out for me. :( He has slowly been replacing the old ones, but this one is new. Two minds, one thought!

And here is my valentine to all of you sweet friends, known and unknown...
Yes, those are my crooked fingers traced just for you and my gift to you all today is this prayer offered for your families. It is the prayer we say every year for our own children.

Heavenly Father, we ask You to guide our children in the choice of spouse.
Don't let them be carried away by false charms or be fascinated by mere outward glamour, but guide their minds to look beneath and beyond all external attractiveness for the deeper things which alone are worth while.
And especially let the choice be of one who is a fervent Christian,
true in thought and word and deed to those ideals
which are Yours especially the value of their purity.
Dear Father of us all, give Your guiding help to our children,
who are Your children too. We'll be letting them go soon,
but please, don't ever let our children go from You. Amen.
St. Valentine, patron of romantic love, pray for us!

Have a La-la-la-la-lovely day!

A LOVE-ly Day

Happy St. Cyril and Methodius Day! I am as fond of these two saints as any good Slavic girl with Bohemian and Moravian ancestry could be, truly. My wonderful, Catholic grandparents* were married in a church dedicated to Sts. Cyril and Methodius. I have often wondered how similar the Slavic language that these amazing saints used for Mass and preaching was compared to the beautiful language I often heard lilting around the old farmhouse where I spent many a summer day. My grandparents also spoke fluent English, mind you. Their parents insisted on it! They only slipped into Czech when they didn't want me to know what they were talking about. Considering my entire Czech vocabulary consisted of "grandma", "grandpa", "Merry Christmas", and a saying that when literally translated has something to do with a billy goat wagging it's tail, their secrets were very safe!

*This is not to say that my paternal grandparents weren't wonderful. They were wonderful in their own way, oh...and they were Baptists.

I have to admit it though, I just can't quite give up my affection for St. Valentine in favor of these two Slavic icons (pun intended). I know they were two amazing men, and we know more about what they did while on this Earth than we know about all 3 saints named Valentine.

But.....

....it's.....

.....Saint Valentines Day!

We have already mailed Valentines to the in-state cousins. I made heart shaped buttermilk biscuits this morning that turned out horribly dry. No pictures for fear that the flash would cause them to spontaneously combust. I have never had that problem with any recipe that calls for buttermilk before (insert pout here). I promised the kids heart shaped pizzas for dinner which means
Mommy doesn't have to cookwe can have a little fun later. We are going to decorate chocolate lollipops for each other with mini M&Ms later (a little act of love and service).

We will read Saint Valentine by Robert Sabuda which is one of my favorite books for this feast day. The illustrations look like mosaics in beautiful muted tones. Of course, it is a fictional legend but it does mention that he was a priest. While it does not have any examples of why he is the patron of romantic love, we always find a way to work it into the story by telling the children that the jailer probably knew of St. Valentine from the Roman soldiers who had been secretly married by him. (I had no idea it was a Catholic Mosaic book. I think I just might have to get that book.)

BigBoy asked to watch Signing Time #4. He calls it "Love" because of the awesome song Rachel Coleman sings at the end. La-la-la-la love!

Lastly, a present for my valentine, the man who ignored his inner Cookie Monster and chose to marry me even though I am just above the Mendoza line when it comes to cookie baking. Did you notice how powdered sugar covers the
burntcrispy edges nicely?

He won't.

That's why I love him!Thank you, sweetie!

The Loveliness of Romance

St. Valentine is the Patron Saint of Romantic Love although a quick perusal through the junk in the mail and the ads on TV would lead you to believe he was the patron of jewelers, florists and candy makers. I think there is more to romance than just flowers and candy, although...those things sure are fun! Personally, my husband can't look cuter than when he is pushing a vacuum. I admit, "romance" has been hard for me. I grew up in a house where it was an obligation for one and often times, a disappointment for the other. So I tried to find a definition of romance; one that didn't just refer to a medieval tale of chivalry or modern tale of bodice ripping. Here is what I found:

romance (noun) 1 a pleasurable feeling of excitement and wonder associated with love. 2 a love affair. 3 a book or film dealing with love in sentimental or idealized way. 4 a quality or feeling of mystery, excitement and remoteness from everyday life. 5 a medieval tale dealing with a hero of chivalry, of the kind common in the Romance languages.

I wasn't so sure I could identify with any of these definitions. The only mystery in my day is whether or not that smell is coming from the steamed broccoli or the toddler on my hip. Remoteness from everyday life? Ha, ha! I am the remote control of the lives that are found here every day. (Stop that! Rewind and do that again. You might want to change your channel, I mean... attitude!) I got a little worried. Maybe I'm not the romantic type? Maybe the romance is gone?

But then I saw the word... wonder. I can identify with "wonder". I frequently find myself wondering.

I wonder what he does all day? I wonder what he is doing right now? I wonder how he sits in traffic twice a day without shooting someone? I wonder if he notices I'm not 22 anymore? I wonder if the pants draped over the tub are clean or dirty? I wonder why he left them here? I wonder if he thinks I'm crazy? I wonder if he knows how much I depend on him? I wonder if he minds?

Is it a pleasurable feeling? Definitely. I wonder why he picked me? It is a mystery only Our Lord can solve. I am just excited to be in this tale with my hero speaking our own unique language of romance.

There is one other thought that I have in mind especially today. Many children of my generation and my children's generation have had to endure the pain of their parents' divorce. It can be devastating psychologically, emotionally...spiritually. To some, it is the reason they shun all forms of meaningful relationships. For others, they try to find what they missed by falling in love easily but without a proper understanding of marriage and the hard work it requires. These relationships are doomed to fail, over and over again.

We have no idea what kind of family our children's future spouses are growing up in or the hardships and sorrows they are facing. Maybe by offering a prayer for our children's future spouses, we can help earn some of the graces they need to grow spiritually and keep them close to Our Lord as they travel through this valley of tears. Perhaps when we finally meet them, we will be more inclined to treat them with kindness and charity no matter what their history or family background includes. It might make it easier to learn to love them as our child does and to accept their new place in our child's life (and also easier to accept ours). We mamas often times want to protect our children from every kind of hurt and pain, physical and emotional. Shouldn't we also want to do the same for the person they might spend the rest of their life with?

O glorious advocate and protector,
St Valentine,
look with pity upon their wants,
hear their requests,
attend to their prayers,
relieve by your intercession the miseries
under which they labour,
and obtain for them the divine blessing,
that they may be found worthy to join you
in praising the Almighty for all eternity: through the merits of
Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
St. Valentine, Patron of Romantic Love, pray for us.