Sweet stress

Valentine's Day. A day to plan surprises for Jon. I get to plan what we do because he gets to plan what we do for our anniversary 2 weeks later. We decided this was fair and would save money if he wasn't allowed to buy chocolate or flowers until they were on clearance. This year had an added twist - teething-no-nap-ten-month-old-covered-in-unknown-rashes (we ended up at the walk in clinic the next morning to find out what they were) and 5 month-in-process-of-growing-baby-that-feels-like-I-swallowed-a-brick-it-sits-so-low-and-heavy. I like them both a lot but between the two of them I nearly threw in the towel on Valentine's Day plans. Sunday night we had been planning on taking Jack to a free babysitting night that Kim and Daniel's small group was offering to everyone in the church, but not knowing if he was contagious or not my parents offered to babysit him at home and spare the other children. :) Jon and I took them up on it and went ice skating on the outdoor ice terrace downtown. It was lovely, and though I picked the wrong couple to be the ones we did see a couple get engaged. I so called it.

 I knew Jon would love new laces in his sketchers, so I got him some for a surprise.

 Don't they look energetic? It took him a while to notice (I really don't know what could have taken so long!) but he seemed genuinely...speechless, pleased, humored...

 Eggplant parmesan for dinner - a new recipe with it baked instead of fried may have increased my enjoyment of eggplant!

Eventually (around 8:00) I think we ate dinner. It was yummy. The dessert was a flan with nutella sauce and fresh strawberries. Unfortunately I didn't notice the temperature for baking was written in celsius on the recipe! 2 hours later instead of 20 minutes, our dessert was finally pudding like. That suited my day just right. Every bit was scrumptious, and it gave more time to talk while we waited for it! I guess my lesson of the day was that all the days between holidays are actually my favorite ones to be with my husband and son. I get kinda over-the-top-ambitious when I start planning up ideas. Next year I'll make a red heart valentine and scrambled eggs for breakfast. Or not...I'll probably forget and try all over again!