Valentine's Day: Mom Edition

Valentine's Day is usually a no fuss kind of holiday for us.  With my birthday in March and my Husband's in April, we usually just acknowledge Valentine's Day with sweet cards and a nice dinner.  No fancy gifts or extravagant surprises happening over here, which is totally fine with me.  With that said, I didn't really think of what it would be like to celebrate my first Valentine's Day as a Mom.  Who knew a little holiday would mean so much more when you had an extra Valentine on your list.

Still keeping with our usual tradition of cards and a nice dinner, I couldn't help but get super giddy when picking out Mykenzi's Valentine Card for her Daddy.  I melted over every Daddy Valentine card in that store.  I finally settled on one, and I was more excited for my husband to open her card than for him to open mine.  Sure mine said something like "Marriage with you means everything to me," but I mean come on, "Daddy, you're my favorite Valentine!" totally blows my card out of the water.  Then it dawned on me ... All these "little" holidays that didn't really hold much meaning when it was just the two of us, mean so much more now that we have a little one to share them with.

We knew restaurants would be crazy Valentine's Day evening so we decided to wait until after the weekend to have our Valentine's Day dinner.  We decided on our favorite Japanese Restaurant, its has a nice quiet setting which would really allow us to connect.  Normally, I'd spend a few hours getting all nice and gussied up for a date night but my dear, sweet daughter decided to boycott her nap and scream at the top of her lungs all afternoon.  So this Momma had to spruce up dirty hair, add a layer to already existing make up, and throw some kind of outfit together in 30 minutes.  Ah, I'm sure this won't be the last time.  (PS: Thank you all for the sweet comments on Instagram about my dirty mom appearance.)

We enjoyed a nice dinner then headed over to Starbucks and had coffee and conversation.  I seriously felt like we were 19 and dating again.  We laughed, razzed each other, and did everything in our power to not talk about baby.  It doesn't sound like much, but I think in the 12 years we've been together it was by far one of the best Valentine's we've celebrated.

I loved reading all your Valentine's Day posts with your little ones.  Children really do make life special and I think this Valentine's Day I truly learned just how special they make it.