Sweetness on a special day

Q and I celebrated Valentine's Day a little bit yesterday and some today because we were working on the Senior Saint Valentine Banquet.  Q surprised me with this simple bouquet of flowers yesterday, originally placed in a tin which I had seen just sitting in his office (I had hinted before that I wanted this antique-looking tea tin).  It's small enough for me to place above our kitchen cupboards with the other fun tins I've collected.  The water kept leaking out of it, so we decided to put the flowers in a vase that we kept from our wedding reception.  It sits on our table right now as a beautiful centerpiece.  The flowers were accompanied by a special card in which he wrote some special thoughts to me.  It was very sweet and almost made me cry.

When we got home from the banquet, I surprised Q with a simple gift, too.  I used some red and pink floral fabric and cut out a heart out of it. I glued the heart on with a glue stick and let it dry for a while before stitching around the edges with my sewing machine.  Inside the card, I wrote a special message to my Q.  Something that I've done since our dating days is to seal the envelope with one of my scented lotions that he loves the most.:)

Along with the card, I gave him a little sack full of real licorice pieces.  I cut out a circle out of sparkly red felt, then cut slits all around the edges of it.  I cut out a strip of the matching rose fabric and did some weaving in and out of those slits.  When that was completed, I pulled the two ends together to gather it into a little bundle and tied it into a bow.  I used the same fabric to tie a bow around a large bar of Kit-Kat, another one of his favorite treats.

Today after church, we went to Enzio's Italian Kitchen for our final valentine celebration.  We thoroughly enjoyed our meal, especially the dessert.  It was called, "Chocolate Torte for Two." The flourless chocolate cake was shaped into a heart, then had a chocolate ganache on top of it and strawberry sauce on the bottom of it.  Strawberry slices and a little scoop of vanilla ice cream were placed on the sides of the cake....so rich and delicious!

Valentine's Day is a great day to express your love to your spouse, family and friends, but I'm always reminded of a couple things on this day:  first, I don't have to wait until Valentine's Day to show my love. Cards, flowers and chocolates are special, but it's the kind words and actions of love that we should be expressing to one another every day. Secondly, I'm reminded of God's love for us on a daily basis. He consistently gives grace, provides for our needs and loves us no matter what!  I guess the list can go on with all the things that God does for us all the time, right? Reflect on that, not just during this holiday time, but every day. Let's give love back to the One who loves us the most by spending time with Him and glorifying Him each and every day of our lives.