Valentine's Day

Oh, what a day! I haven't felt this tired since Maren was a newborn, I think. I'm so ready for bed, but just want to get this down really quickly. For Valentine's Day this year I made Michael one of those cheesy love song compilation CDs. What I didn't realize was how long it would take to RIP songs from the CDs to the computer. I got to bed at 2 a.m. and at 2:30 Evan was hysterical because there was a fly in his room. I think I got to bed for good around 3:00. Oh, boy. I'm yawning just thinking about it. Anyway, Michael really loved his CD and he said with each song he listened to on his way to school, it seemed to peel away another layer of hardness (not that he has been lately, or anything) and tenderize him. So that was nice. As a joke of sorts, I put the song "If You Want to be Happy" at the end. The one that says: if you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife. So from my personal point of view, pick an ugly girl to marry you. Well, we used to totally laugh about that and I would teasingly say, "Good thing you picked me, Babe. You'll be happy forever." Ha ha! And we'd dance around and laugh. Well, he thought it was absolutely NOT a laughing matter that I put it on there. He said he was loving the whole thing and then got pretty angry when that song came on. He demanded I make him a new CD without that song. Joke's over, I guess. :-)

And, for me...he made me an x-ray. Ha! Actually, it is very, very cool and thoughtful and creative. He did a chest x-ray (not on a real person...no needless x-ray exposure) and over the heart he put a little note that says, "Property of MDB 4Ever". Aaahhhh...how cute! I have to wait until tomorrow to get a good picture that will show up. It's so wonderful. :-)

The last thing to share tonight is about Maren. We got Michael's favorite kind of ice cream to have for dessert tonight. Tillamook Chocolate Peanut Butter. Heaven. Well, as I was cleaning up dinner dishes, Michael puts a bowl of it in front of Maren. I was going to just share mine with her and keep the mess to a minimum. I'm not sure what he was thinking!!! She tried the spoon a few times, but you know how hard it is to scoop hard ice cream some times...especially when you're only ONE! So she picked up the heap like an apple and started eating it. After a few bites it fell into her lap. She was in shock from the cold and her clothes were a chocolatey mess! This happened a few more times. Her arms were getting sticky. There was chocolate over her face. Then she did what Michael and I call sealing the deal. Meaning the bath deal. She LOVES baths and sometimes it seems like she gets super, duper messy on purpose so she can seal the deal and make certain that she's going to get a bath. Anyway, she put the bowl on her head. Repeatedly. She thought it was great fun and it looked like a silly beany. But that hair...that was some seriously crunchy, tasty hair afterwards. And she did get her beloved bath.

Oh, side note...Evan was so cute. He washed Maren's hair and body tonight. He is just so cute and gentle and sweet with her. I love it. Oh, another interesting thing for me to remember...Evan has been talking about Dallin a lot and about us having other babies in our family. It's been really interesting and has brought up a lot of great conversation with him. So, I guess while he and Michael were reading books tonight, something about that came up and they had a discussion about death. And then about the plan of salvation, resurrection, etc. Evan came in and explained pretty much the whole thing to me. It is so amazing to me sometimes how much information they can soak in and really understand. A great reminder not to dumb things down for kids. They are a lot smarter than we realize. Okay, that's been a lot of random blabber, but now I'm ready for bed. I'm still 3 hours behind on work but it will be waiting for me tomorrow.

Okay, another p.s. Why, oh why isn't the spellcheck working lately? It's driving me crazy! Like I want to sit here and read over my whole post to make sure there's not a mistake in it. But I'm sure not going to publish it before I do that. Frustrating.