Balentime's Day.

Well, this Valentine's Day was WAY different from last year's! Last year I was in the hospital recovering from a delivery and counting down the minutes until I could go home and rest in my own bed! 

This one was different, but I have to say that I have the three sweetest Valentines in all the land. James calls it "Balentime's Day," and he was especially excited about it this year. {Although, last year I'm not sure he even knew it existed. It sort of got overshadowed by Will's birthday and I didn't let him go to preschool for his Valentine's Day party because of teacher probs and the fact that I was freaking out over tree nut allergies.} {I'm still a freak about the allergies, but I've calmed down considerably. I allow him to do things, I just make sure to tell people over and over what he can't have.}

James' party at school was yesterday and he was thrilled to be taking THESE to school for his friends.

He had the most fun and was thrilled to open his bag of goodies yesterday when he got home from school.

Today when we woke up we had to go to Bible Study and Eddie wanted me to wait to give the boys their Valentines when he was home at lunch so I mentioned it but didn't make a big to-do over it. The boys did wear their sweet little Scout Valentines t-shirts that Mrs. Hether made for us, but they've worn those every time I've washed them since we got them so that wasn't even anything new. At some point during the morning, James said, "Happy Balentime's Day, Mama!" Sweet thing!

Both boys got their Valentine buckets when Daddy got home, Daddy got a bag of peanut butter M&Ms and those sneaky boys gave me an Amazon gift card {in addition to the Stella & Dot earrings I'd already purchased for myself a few months ago!}. I think my Valentines love me! {Eddie is not a gifts kind of a guy so I spoke his love language this afternoon and cleaned up around the house and CLEANED OUT MY CAR. He was thrilled! For real. He is an acts of service man. Just ask anyone who has tried to buy him a gift.}

Another fun thing at lunch - Will got whole milk for the first time! I can't say that he LOVED it, but he did drink some of it. The first swallow he spit right out, but after that he drank it. We shall see how this goes. He's ready not to nurse but I'm a little worried the switch might not go as easily as the switch did for James.

This afternoon my kiddos were a little out of sorts. James was headed to Grandmama's house so he could not settle down and sleep. I'm not sure what was wrong with Will, but he didn't want to sleep either. Anyway, Will finally fell asleep around 3:15 and I let James get up around the same time. When they fight naps it leaves me exhausted.

James and I got his bags packed and ready and once we got Will up and fed we headed off to Daddy's office to pick him up. We drove halfway to meet Grandmama at Chick-fil-A for the kid swap and then turned around and came back. No-nap-James fell asleep before we were out of our county.

Eddie picked up dinner for us for tonight and tomorrow so we could avoid the crowds. Want to know what we ate? It's disgusting. I wanted nothing more than Lipton Fettuccine and Eddie got a frozen pizza. I think we ate for under $5. Cheap date, huh? I have been so busy this week that I have eaten HORRIBLY. We'll be fixing that VERY soon.

Speaking of being busy, here's what has been going on. Monday we went to storytime at the library and the flood of '13 began. Or maybe it began Sunday night. Anyway, the flood. It's important to our story. Tuesday we stayed home. I spent the day calling Eddie and saying things like, "The master toilet it bubbling," and "I hear bubbles coming up in the master tub," and "When I washed clothes the soap came up into my sink in the bathroom and then the washer wouldn't drain and spin out." Guess what happened??? When you don't live within the city limits and you have a septic tank and it rains over 7 inches in two days your septic tank fills up and won't hold anything else. Fortunately, no sewage backed up {gag!} but anytime we flushed or showered or washed dishes we would see and hear water in other places. And it looked like all of our potties had slow-draining clogs. It was AWESOME. Especially since this is birthday party week and I didn't need laundry and dishes piling up, you know??? So Wednesday was Will's birthday, James' "Balentime's" Day party, Will's one-year checkup, and Will's little celebration. Today we had to take breakfast to Bible Study and get James ready for Grandmama, and Saturday is Will's big day! Whew! Fortunately, now that the rain has stopped the water has gone down and things are working normally. I joked that I was going to send Scout out in search of an olive branch. Gracious. It DEFINITELY wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it sure was inconvenient. Ha!