Day 118

Valentine's Day.

Today was also Sharon's birthday.

It was also a day that Nathan came home from work because he was feeling really sick.

Needless to say (but I will say it anyway) it was a very hard day for the family.  One year ago, we were all at Nathan's parents' house to celebrate Sharon's 56th birthday.

Nate woke up and wished me a Happy Valentine's Day, then followed it up with "mommy I am really sad today.  Even sadder than normal because I miss Nana on her birthday."

During our Valentine's dinner (minus sick, sleeping Nathan) after each of us said our best and worst parts of the day, we also said one of our best memories of Sharon/Nana and something we loved about her.

I told Nate the day didn't need to be sad, we could miss her, but we can be grateful for the wonderful memories and times we had with her, and be happy in those memories and in the love she gave us.

It seemed to satisfy him for that moment.

And we made it through the day, Valentine's Day, Sharon's birthday, and I think that was a giant hurdle to clear.

Day 84

 Day 84 was a filled to the brim one.  Today, although it could have been a disaster, seeing as how I couldn't sleep in the middle of the night, and got caught up watching The Prince and Me at quarter of three, not going to sleep until it was over sometime after four am, and having both Brody and Keira in my bed, both arms falling asleep as they both snuggled as close as close could be (don't get me wrong, I love snuggling these two, sometimes it just is a bit hard falling back asleep, and can be a bit crowded.),  and because Ty and Nate were having a rough time getting along in the morning, and my house felt dirty to me, so I spent the whole morning cleaning and scrubbing an mopping, I somehow salvaged those feelings and exhaustion and turned it into a wonderful day.

After cleaning, I decided to put up Valentine's Day decorations, (which I always forget to do until two days before V-Day,) I gathered the kids to make a cute Valentine's Day project to hang up.  Each child had four hearts to color and decorate as they saw fit, and I made two larger hearts, one to go at each end.  We strung those together on a string, and voila! A cute decoration.

Brody and Keira decided to put on a funny performance, which made me laugh

Keira and I painted our nails a pretty purple color.

I actually got two french braids in Keira's hair, which may or may not look like corn rows, but I did it!

And the kids and I finished off the day with a major Just Dance session, and then some Kinect bowling.

Everyone crashed fairly early and the day felt warm and fuzzy and cuddly to me at the end.

 

Brody and Keira's performance.

  

Our V-Day craft

  

Keira's braids... hey, I tried!Don't judge please, remember I have had three boys.

  

Brody was in rare form.  Or not so rare actually.

Live long and prosper.  Have I ever told you how much I loved Star Trek:The Next Generation when I was younger?  I am a total dork.  I hate my hand in pictures, so I had to do something weird.  Pretty purple color though, right?

Love Bug

I hope you all had a wonderful, love filled Valentine's Day! Although our normal tradition is to make our own fondue, but since I still am unable to eat much, and I really look forward to once a year cheese and chocolate feast, we opted to hold out for a couple of weeks. Saturday night Nathan made the boys a steak tip dinner with rice and butternut squash. We all cuddled up and watched a movie together. Sunday morning Nathan got the boys donuts and I set their places with their Valentine's Day gifts. The boys and Nathan gave me a gorgeous new jewelery box and two new pairs of earrings. Ty had his last regular season basketball game, which they won! Ty got two baskets and did great. We then headed to Nathan's parents house for his mother's birthday dinner. It was a great day. I even have come close to catching up on all the laundry from when I was sick.
Now I am at the beginning of vacation week and am praying for sanity for the next seven days.

Valentine's Day

"What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life - to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories."

George Eliot

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day! Ours started off a little, let's see, how shall I put it, shaky, at best. The kids were in not so rare form, and Brody was up before 6am, Nathan threw his back out and could barely walk, but things got a bit better (or maybe I was just more able to deal with everything) after I took a nap with Brody. When I woke up, I had roses waiting for me, and they were beautiful, and of course made me instantly happy. I went out with Brody and picked up some last minute things for our fondue dinner, and also made a stop to get Nathan a heat/cold pad for his back. Thankfully the pad I got is amazing, and has a band to hold the pad in place so he could walk around with it on, etc. He said it made him feel much better so he wasn't stuck in one position. We decided to do an early dinner, and the kids were getting really excited and were helping hand us food and throw things away. We made a copy cat recipe from The Melting Pot, it is their Swiss cheese fondue, and served it with sourdough and french bread, carrots, asparagus, broccoli, and baby bella mushrooms. I have to admit that I thought the kids would avoid the veggies altogether, but they loved trying all the different things to see what they tasted like with the cheese. My personal favorites were the mushrooms and asparagus. We have LOTS of leftovers, and will heat it up again for lunch today. We then exchanged gifts. Nathan was really excited about his new pjs and took a bath to help his back some more and change into them. The kids were very excited about their gifts, and surprisingly didn't even ask about their candy, in part because they were stuffed and knew we still had the chocolate fondue to eat. Brody hugged his little dog I gave him for the rest of the night, and made me read his new books to him over and over and over again. The kids gave me a really cute card (Nathan gave me a really nice card also) and Nathan gave me a gorgeous necklace. It is back and red and very "me." I put it on right away, so you may be able to see it in the pictures. The kids got me earrings to match (although they are not an actual set, they go perfectly together. Again, they are very "me" and I love them so much!!! My four Valentine's made me feel very special and loved. We decided to wait until after Brody went to sleep to make the chocolate fondue, but we had to wait a bit before his bed time. I had rented Madagascar 2 the night before, so we all watched that together. (It was cute.) and Brody lasted almost half way through it before he started saying "night night" and waving to us, letting us know he was ready for bed. Nathan had made the chocolate fondue while I was putting Brody to bed, and when I came downstairs, we cut up the fruit and angel food cake and brought it into the living room to finish watching the movie. We cut up kiwi, bananas, strawberries, and grapes. The bananas, strawberries and kiwi were my favorites. The kids loved the grapes the most. After we cleaned up, we played Parcheese. This was our first time playing this game together, and it went surprisingly well. I am so happy we can do things like that now. Nathan won, with Ty coming very close to winning. We said goodnight to the kids and crashed afterwards. It was around 930 when we finished the game. We watched the movie "W." but we were both so tired, we decided to call it quits and stop the movie 1/2 way through. All in all, despite the rough start to the day, it was a really nice Valentine's Day, and I think we all felt loved.Nathan stirring the cheese, getting ready to eat.Brody enjoying his veggiesOur cheese fondue and dinnerBrody hugging his doggieBrody and meMe and TyMe and Nate

Our chocolate fondue dessert.