Valentine's Day

Before I let it go any farther and forget, I have to write a post about my amazing husband.

For Valentine's Day, we had a little "talk" about how he hates Valentine's Day because it basically has no purpose. You go to the store -- any store, really, where flowers are sold -- and see that they've jacked the price of flowers, chocolate, anything associated with Valentine's Day really, way up and expect you to either pay the prices or feel like a poor schmuck for not getting your wife flowers or chocolate or jewelry or whatever. He said he would much rather we just do small, nice things for each other that come from the heart. Is there any question why I love him so much? I feel the same way!

I made him sugar cookies with my friend Anna -- I wrote, "David - you are my sunshine." And that was it -- about as 'romantic' as I get these days. We got to spend the day together, got to witness one of our friends be sealed to his fiance -- sealed means married for time and all eternity -- and spent the entire day together (I know I mentioned that already, but at this point it is worth mentioning two or three times because it was HUGE and I LOVED every second of it!). I don't think you could beat a beautiful drive, cheap-er gas, a temple sealing, and a wonderful wedding dinner! It was fantastic!

Well, what I want to add is that Dave IS always doing nice little things for me. A few examples:

Last semester when Sleeping Beauty came out on DVD, I had just had a really hard series of nights with our little Miss Abigail. That seems to have been the name of the game for the last six months, but sometimes things go more smoothly than others. This particular week was one of the less smooth weeks, and I was dragging but still trying to keep things going. Anyway, I woke up (around 10 or 11 after a very late night and a long night of ups and downs) and found on the table the DVD and a short, hand-written note of thanks for all I do to raise our children and keep our home running. I am sure you can imagine how many loads that lifted, and it was VERY easy to count my blessings and feel their abundance that day.

Again a week or so ago, I woke up to a note on the dry-erase board in the kitchen, "Melinda, you are my sunshine, my ONLY sunshine!" That's kind of our theme song ever since we had the babies. I sing it to the babies ALL the time; Dave is, in turn, picking up on it and has also started to sing it all the time. It's really fun. And that note made me smile all day long and the days after when I saw it over and over again.

Then on Wednesday, I woke up at around 5-5:30 to feed Abby and decided to just stay up and take a bath and get my hair done and get ready for the day before Isaac woke up and Dave was gone and I was by myself. After I got up, I went in to make sure Dave had lunch for the day, see if I could get him some breakfast, etc., and he looked at me and said, "Melinda, you look really tired. Why don't you just go lay down and get some sleep?" After only about four hours of sleep the night before (again, not uncommon for the last six months of my life to get little to no sleep time and time again), I had one of my first mornings of the 'morning, sleepless headache' that I have started to get more frequently lately. I said I would try but first wanted to make sure everything was in order for his day. Finally I went and laid down. I heard the front door shut and then open and shut again. I figured Dave had run out to get something or forgotten something. He hadn't -- rather, he had bought me some roses the day before and left them in my beautiful red pitcher on the top of the piano with a note that said, "For my beautiful wife. Thanks for all the amazing things you do. Your adoring husband, David."

I have the best husband in the world. And for us, Valentine's Day is a random-acts-of-kindness and sincere-acts-of-love occurrence that happens all the time!

Happy late Valentine's Day to everyone!