Happy Valentine's Day 2017!!!

Today was my first official Valentine's Day as a single woman in almost a decade. Instead of a day of professing your love to my significant other, I thought back over how I'd spent this day in the last decade. One thing was consistent until the last few years, we always went to Shogun's even when we had a third wheel because our friend's husband got called into work. There's one yogurt place that I've only been to for dessert after a Valentine's dinner at Shogun and I always think of that when I drive by. We ran races, photographed my baby bump, did baby photo shoots with lots of lipstick, and we had our annual play dates, with me playing air guitar, and our dinners morphed into heart-shaped pizza that looked like a butt.

They were never bad, Matt always did something thoughtful, so being that this was my first love holiday without a significant other, I had zero expectations for the day. The day ended up being pretty awesome and I felt TONS of love! I cannot stress enough how awesome my friends and family are and how the right people come into your life with no explanation but they make your life whole and right and happy and anything other good word you can think of.

Here's a recap of our awesome day!

Here's the set-up AR woke up to this morning. a sock monkey with candy, her love note, and a new placemat with her picture on it because the girl has gotten to be a pretty messy eater!

She was pretty pumped about the gift, especially when I let her eat a piece of her chocolate before breakfast.

She wore her love shirt and picked out the whole outfit on her own. Take a look at my girl, she was not feeling good today, really warm, no high fever, but just not herself, but still smiling.

I went to work and my awesome co-worker, April, brought me this and it totally made my day!

Monday when we got home from school, I started to unpack AR's backpack. I found two cards like this in it and left them in there. Later, I said, "Hey, I think there's something in your backpack that maybe you want to put away." She looks in her backpack, reaches in, and walks it over to me and says, "Here, Mommy." I suggested maybe she wanted to give it to me the next day and she was like nah. I finally convince her to give it to me in the morning. Cue Tuesday morning and I'm helping her get dressed, I see the card and ask if she has anything to give me. AR.... "no." *shaking my head* She finally gave me this super awesome card and I love it! I hung mine up at work so I could see it all the time.

I thought AR's card and April's chocolate was it but no! I got a text late in the afternoon from our friends in Arizona that said something was waiting for us at the Hallmark store. So we swung by and picked up this GIANT teddy bear, a Willow Tree figurine, and some chocolate pretzels. AR was pretty pumped!

This bear was so big that it needed it's own carseat! Thank you, J & D, for thinking of us and I'm glad you two were together today.

We had dinner at McAllister's then came home and got in our jammies. Matthew stopped by with a gift that AR had picked out for me over the weekend. She got to give her his card and the chocolate we got for him. He visited for a little bit and she got to snuggle with her daddy on Valentine's Day. AR picked out the Minnie cup so that we'd have matching ones now.

Oh! I totally forgot she made this super adorable LOVE sign at the babysitter's today. I am, well, so in love with it that I think I might get it framed and hang it up in my bedroom.

Me and my Valentine, the best one I could ever ask for!

After Daddy left, it was time for bed and seriously, that bear... it's almost as big as her!!!

For a day that I wasn't expecting much out of, I felt more love from so many different people. It was wonderful to be thought of so much and to realize how awesome our true friends and family are. They're our village and our village is so completely amazing! The real lesson here is that you can be single and Valentine's Day can still rock if you're got an awesome support system like we do! 

Hope you all had a Valentine's Day as fabulous as ours. We'll continue celebrating tomorrow with her class party!