On Sunday T. and I spent almost two hours making stained glass hearts for Valentine's Day, for T. to pass out to her class. We made these last year, too, and I'd forgotten just how much work was involved! They turned out beautifully, though. If you don't mind the multiple steps involved--cutting heart shapes out of wax paper, peeling and "grating" crayons, ironing the hearts so the crayons melt (make sure you cover the heart with a dishtowel first), then these hearts are unique and so fun to do. We used a hole punch to punch a hole in each one, threaded a piece of yarn through, and added a colorful bead for extra decoration.

When I was clicking back through past Valentine's Day posts, I came across the one I pasted below, and I had to smile. There is nothing like feeling sorry for yourself on Valentine's Day because you're sick, and tired, and the entire world, it seems, is telling you to look (and feel) sexy, well-rested, and happy.

Which I don't feel this year, either, because it's the middle of February and I'm sick, and tired, also. But I am happy, and thankful, for all the love in my life, because there is so much of it. I can't ask for much more, truly--that's what Valentine's Day means to me.

Happy Valentine's Day!

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This was from Valentine's Day 2008...

Love is in the air and it is T minus 1 day and counting until Valentine’s Day.  Do you have something special cooked up for your loved one?

SPH and I aren’t big fans of going out on Valentine’s Day.  Many restaurants have only set menus with limited offerings, and quite frankly, they inflate the prices since the demand for special Valentine’s Day meals is huge.

Why not make something at home that will “wow!” your special person?  Here are my top 5 Romantic Dishes, all of which are fairly simple to make:

1.  Slow Cooker Orange Chicken:  The flavors here are vibrant, yet smooth and fresh.  Prep this recipe in the morning and you can have it cook all day, giving you time to spend with your loved one, instead of working in the kitchen.

There are a lot of veritable cookie artists out there; I am not one of them.  I was on pinterest.com the other day exploring food ideas, and there were a ton of beautiful, gorgeous Valentine’s Day desserts and cookies.  Trouble is, I just don’t have the time or the talent to recreate them!  But I love Valentine’s Day, so I just had to come up with a fun cookie idea to share with you!

I happened to have some fresh baked sugar cookies:

So I simply iced them:

Groundhog Day sort of snuck up on me this year.  Not that I typically do anything to celebrate it:  we do not hang up Groundhog decorations, nor do we countdown to Groundhog Day like we would a major holiday or birthday.  No, I think why Groundhog Day is usually on my radar screen has nothing to do with the holiday itself.

Typically by the end of January in Ohio, we’ve had our share of big snows.  Not so this year:  like most of the country, our winter has been mild and largely snowless.  I’ve written about how this has made my snow-loving boys none-too-happy.  Without a big snow, we feel suspended in this “late fall/early spring” streak in our weather.  Why just yesterday and also last week, we had temperatures hovering around 60!

So when I started to plan out my week on Sunday, and realized I needed to flip over to February, I saw “Groundhog Day” and thought to myself, “already?!”  When Punxsatawney Phil emerges tomorrow morning, I will be far from downtrodden if we have more winter coming.  Heck, I hope, for my boys’ sake, we do!

I have a big birthday party post simmering on the back burner, but I'll have it up tomorrow. It was a busy, fun-filled weekend, and I spent most of Sunday in recovery mode after T.'s party: just enjoying a day to unwind, and soak up the quiet. I went for a long run in the morning (I love it when it's cold out, and the air just winds its way all through you and wakes you up) , and we visited the flea market (the kids scored some books!), and Scott's mom and I took L. to see "The Adventures of Tintin" while Scott and T. headed off to a Y-Princess meeting.

If you  have a Tintin lover in your house, I really recommend the film. It was great fun, the story was well-developed (a merging of two Tintin adventure books, L. tells me), and I can't remember the last time I so thoroughly enjoyed a simple, good adventure tale. On the way home L. proceeded to tell us, in  great detail, all the ways in which the film deviated from the two books it was based on. He enjoyed the movie version, though, and was so excited on the drive to the movie theater.

And today we have a Monday off, thanks to the birth of this great man.  This morning, as T. and I were mixing up pancake batter, she said:

"Happy birthday, Martin Luther King, Jr.! It's an honor to almost share a birthday with you."

A friend called me yesterday. “Have you prepared the kids for going back to school?” she asked.

Sort of, I told her. Psychologically, at least. Maybe. About a week ago we began dropping little references about school into our conversations with L. We let him know how many days of vacation were left—almost a week, at the time we had the conversation. Yet although L. claimed to be happy school would start in one week, I could sense waves of anxiety rising off of him at the mere mention of it. I have spent eleven plus years tuned into this child; there is little, I think, that slips past me.

It’s okay, I told him. We still have lots of days left.

But I could feel him shutting down, withdrawing, even as I spoke the words. He’s pulled his shell in close; it’s been impenetrable. He piles his books around him at night, and reads over the same pages in his Star Wars visual dictionaries, over and over again, his mind finding comfort in the same old pictures and diagrams. Around and around his brain goes, treading along that safe groove. I despair, for the thousandth (millionth?) time how we will help him learn—if not to embrace change and transition—to accept it and to function well within it.

Even though I am, by nature, a positive-minded person (at least I like to think I am), I also go through my days keenly aware of both the sweet and salty sides of life--the joyful and the bitter, the two-sidedness of every experience--especially as a parent. I've often written about how each exciting, monumental milestone along the road of your child's development--that first tooth poking through a pink gum, the first bow-legged tentative steps, the first words, the first of everything (because there is NOTHING like being a parent and getting to witness the unfolding of life firsthand) has always a backside to it, like when you find the most unexpectedly perfect pastel and ivory shell at the beach, one side worn smooth like silk from the waves, and then you turn it over and see the rough outside, dark and scratchy, and maybe there's a barnacle or two clinging to it.

The holidays are a great time to teach kids about gratitude. Teaching kids to say thanks is an important lesson that needs to be taught more than once for them to understand it's importance and function in polite society.  Thank yous don't have to be notes ( though here is a cute one if you want it to be) here are 3 fun ways to say thanks with your kids help.

1. Take a video! Family near and far will love to see your kids saying thanks, or if they are too little just playing with the toys they got them this holiday. Post it to facebook, send it in an email or upload it to YouTube for viewing.

2. Take a photo. I know it seems odd to many of us in the digital generations to not have email, or access to the internet but yes it still exisits. For these family members and friends take a good old picture of your kids smiling with the gift and include a personal note.  You can even add text right to the photo like we did above.

3. Finally get your paints, glitter and crayons out and create a picture of the item and send it off for an artistic thank you. You will be teaching your kids about manners and having creative fun at the same time.

When the kids tumbled out of the van and into my parents' house, with the usual chaos and excitement and pent-up energy after 6 + hours in the van (I think this was the first roadtrip in many that passed so peacefully--no bickering, no meltdowns from L.!), they converged around the Christmas tree, as they do every year, soaking up the look of it, and lifting the lids of cookie and candy tins, just as they do every year. I love watching my kids rediscover all the things they savor about Christmas at my parents' house--this is the best part of the trip for me. L. especially appreciates the now-routine rhythms of the holiday around here--the predictability of what he will find. He gets his own room at my parents' house and it's an added bonus that the same room houses my mom's iMac computer, and plenty of space to spread out his visual dictionaries.