Love

I realize that it is the very last day of February and I am just now posting about Valentine's Day...sorry. Autumn I love these 4 girls...SO much. I think that is pretty obvious. Valentine's Day is kind of a funny day when you are single. People treat Valentine's day so differently...either they are so in love, or so angry that they aren't. So, as a single person, you have a choice...either you can choose to feel sorry for yourself and look at everything you don't have, OR you can choose to look at the life the Lord chose for YOU to live, and enjoy every single moment of it. Guess what I chose...yep...to enjoy ALL of the people that I love very much in my life...especially these four girls! I am thankful for this crazy life God has chosen for me! Never in a MILLION years when I was younger did I EVER think that I would end up raising four sisters with MY sister....never did I dream that. My dreams included a dreamy man, wedding, and children...but wow....God's plan is AMAZING. HIS ways are so much better than OURS!!! Thank you Lord for your plan. Thank you for your unending and unconditional love. Thank you for your grace. And thank you for leading me always.
So....what did we do for Valentine's Day??? Well...we have a few traditions. One tradition is our party in a box. My grandma, otherwise known as G-ma, has made a tradition to always send her great-grandchildren a party in a box. The girls love to receive it. It always has plates and napkins and candy. This time, it had some other fun trinkets and surprises. We love traditions. The girls' first years of life were full of instability and insecurities, that traditions are so much fun in our house...they mean so much. Knowing that G-ma ALWAYS sends a party in a box...knowing that you get a heart braid on Valentine's day, knowing that every V-day move the table to the living room and get out the nice china and have a nice dinner...those are traditions that build stability. Those are things that mean much more than just fun traditions....I LOVE them!

So...the little balloons they are holding in the picture, well those are just TONS of fun. They came in packages that looked like candy, but you do NOT open the package. No, you just pound the package, and it starts to inflate, then all of the sudden, it POPS out of the package and makes a really loud sound....and in our house, that means that 5 of us scream really loud. Can you guess who doesn't scream really loud? We really had so much fun.
I did S's heart braid for church the day before, but I did not get a picture of it...sorry S.