Happy Valentine's Day...Eve?

Well, tomorrow is Valentine's Day. For James and I, it's not a huge holiday. We might make the excuse and buy some candy for each other, go out to dinner, etc., but we don't obsess over it or spend insane amounts of money because of it. I might jokingly ask if he has anything planned for it (these poor men definitely feel the stress and guilt this time of year -- the pressure's on!), but I truly don't expect anything. I think I would rather us do little things unexpectedly for no reason than have it based on a holiday anyways.

So yeah...when we woke up this morning (around 8am), we both laid there thinking about what to have for breakfast -- yet neither of us wanted to budge. We wanted pancakes, yet knew we had run out of syrup earlier this week. Plus, neither of us had any desire to go into the kitchen and cook anyways. So with the excuse of tomorrow's holiday, I mentioned doing IHOP takeout. We love big breakfasts and figured since Mondays are James' roughest workday, we wouldn't be doing much tomorrow anyways, so why not do a little something today? Not that IHOP is all that romantic, but the time spent together without the cooking/cleanup and having that quality time makes it a winner for us...

Before I could even finish asking if he was interested in the IHOP idea, I received an immediate "yes!" With that, we went onto their website, figured out what we wanted, and James headed out. The local IHOP is only about 2 miles away so there's no issue of having cold food by the time it gets back to the house -- a major perk when we had no interest in getting ready for the day just yet...after all, church wasn't for another 3 1/2 hours! So IHOP it was. Oba sat at the front door and cried -- longing for his daddy -- while I reminded him that his world will continue and that James WILL be back.

Let me just say, that nice little breakfast totally started our day off right -- who doesn't love French toast?! Mind you, I couldn't move for an hour afterwards -- talk about overindulgence! There's this problem I have when the food's good, I can't help but clear my plate -- then I pay for it later. This little issue nearly made us late for church, as I ended up cutting it close with the whole getting ready for the day factor...my stomach just didn't agree with the idea of getting off the couch for awhile.

Well, enough rambling about our morning. That was our little way of remembering this holiday. We're quite the exciting couple, aren't we? IHOP in bed, haha. It was great though, and our usual Sunday routine (as of lately) of going to church, grabbing lunch (we split a meal after that huge breakfast), then running errands totally wore me out. By 6pm, I was passed out on the couch while James caught up on his DVR'ed shows. I'm definitely thankful for my sister's call about 2 hours later, or I would've been up at midnight not knowing what to do with myself after a super long evening nap!

What a day. And tomorrow's the real holiday -- which also happens to mark Liv's 14 month angelversary. I was thinking about that today when I realized the date. It's just wild to think of where she would be and what she would be doing -- all the while thinking of how big Samuel's getting and hopefully continuing to grow. Now that I'm feeling Samuel kick more often (they're still very faint kicks, but they're noticeable), it just makes it that much more bittersweet. I love it, but yet grieve for Olivia at the same time. We've left our Olivia Bear on the couch -- thank goodness Obadiah has not tried to steal it since the first introduction! -- and I have found myself hugging the bear while we veg out in front of our favorite shows. While sitting there with the bear and feeling Sam move around, it brings so many thoughts. Excitement, sadness, hope, grief, etc. Oh, what a life we live...

With tomorrow being Valentine's Day AND Liv's 14 month mark, our family made sure Liv was included. At her grave lies a decorative basket for this particular season...

Jake and Jordan are never forgotten either...

The butterflies placed there by my nephews are in there, too...

We love you, Livy...