Whole lot o' lovin'

My kids have completely embraced Valentines Day as an official holiday. Michaela almost put it on the level of Christmas this morning as she was sitting down to heart-shaped pancakes. Not that we've done anything to build it up as such. Well, perhaps my husband may have had something to do with it...

Last Sunday he begun what he termed, "The Seven Days of Valentines". Each day gifting us with new ways to say "I love you." (I know women it completely took me off guard.) We've experienced: 

• messages written on mirrors and windows (I still am driving around with a "I love my red hot smokin' wife" on my review mirror) 
• full message murals on our garage floor (took me a while to discover that one because I didn't go out there all day)
• floating messages in bottles in our master bathtub (we had to listen to The Police's "Message in a Bottle" to figure out where to go for that one)
  
• flowers (ok that sounds pretty boring after hearing about the other ones)
• scavenger hunts

So you can see now why my kids believe it to be a MAJOR holiday. They were so excited this morning to get up early and decorate with streamers and posters--a thank you to their dad for his week-long lovin'. The height of the festivities? Oh this is good...Michaela created a pinata out of a Trader Joes frozen banana waffle box. Complete with candy inside and string attached. Because every celebration has a pinata! She's believed in this since she was two. So, Scott put up the ladder in the family room and and they each took turns batting the life out of it. (btw--TJoes frozen waffle boxes are like the cheerleader Claire from Heroes--totally indestructible.)

As I write, the day has yet to end. But the kids did take a break outside while it was briefly sunny. Umbrellas are the best. Though Zach really didn't want to be seen with the Dora the Explorer one. But it was my opportunity to take advantage of the beautiful light and make today's use of my camera easy. The parting clouds, revealed sun, and a light sprinkle of rain is my kind of peaceful moment. It was a nice break in the Morris family holiday.

p.s. I did take a picture of M's banana waffle box pinata. Not a very artistic picture but perhaps I'll post it just so it can be documented.