día de amor y amistad

Valentine's Day (or "Day of Love and Friendship" in Spanish) was sufficiently celebrated around here; we thoroughly enjoyed our day, although it was busy, busy, busy!

Thursday night after church, Adrienne was trying to decide what to do for valentines for all the kids at school... and we decided to just whip up some heart cut-outs right there and then! It was very fun, but we could not have pulled it off without all three of us - more specifically, Adrienne and I to make the mess, and A. Ruth to come along behind and help clean up! It's always fun to have an excuse to make cookies for an occasion, and judging by Adrienne's report from the next day, they were very appreciated by the kids!

Valentine's Day itself was a flurry of activity - Uncle Keith put a second coat of paint on our bedroom and bathroom (he also did the first coat, the day before... we are so grateful) and Jan and Ruth were busy working on food for our Valentine's Day party that evening. I was doing decorations and trying to keep Ivory out of trouble. The pictures below are a little deceiving - she did not enjoy her holiday attire that much. Leah, Seth, and Addie had sent her a package of Valentine's goodies, including a hair bow, but she didn't have enough hair so I clipped it to a headband instead, but I think that lasted less than an hour. Oh well. 

One of her favorite activities right now is to watch the street and listen for dogs... 5-gallon water jugs make an excellent gate.

In the evening, A. Ruth and I and some of the women here hosted a Valentine's Day party for junior high, high school, and young group girls. The group ended up being younger than expected, but it was a fun evening, even for those of us who were hosting. A. Ruth especially put so much work into it and the girls appreciated it a lot. We had a couple of activities - making flower hair pins and making cards for the older sisters in church, before our meal and a Bible verse activity dealing with verses about God's love. God blessed the evening and I'm so thankful!

Set-up

Making flowers

Making cards

Eating supper!

Guess who I stole this picture from? These were the name tags.

And this was the set table before everyone started eating. Not sure if you can tell, but A. Ruth brought real-looking plastic silverware and plastic "wine glasses" - everyone loved them!

And that was our Valentine's Day party! And then this morning, I had the opportunity to demonstrate true love to Roberto, who had misbehaved at school earlier this week along with a few other boys in the class. Their punishment was to come in on Saturday morning at 8 a.m. and clean the school... and their moms were to accompany them. So guess who got to go with Roberto? In all honesty, I'm very thankful for the time we had together, and I think he learned his lesson, but I can think of things I'd rather be doing on a Saturday morning first thing than helping mop a classroom floor.

Uncle Keith and Aunt Ruth have been here this week and have shown us so much love and blessed us in so many ways... I'm constantly reminded that love is not just for February 14. This very minute Aunt Ruth is washing dishes and watching Ivory so I can have just a couple minutes to blog... for those of you who know her, doesn't that sound just like her? Hopefully we'll have a word from her on the blog sometime in the next couple days before they leave on Monday.

We love you all!