Are you feeling the love?

I found out this Valentine's day that there are a lot of people who don't really love the day of love. I wonder why that really is? Is it because they don't have a boyfriend or a husband and they feel left out? Is it because they do have a boyfriend or husband and they are NOT good at showing or expressing their love? Or is it because people think that it is a day that people have to spend a lot of money in order to give a proper Valentine?
Here are my tips to enjoying a great Valentine's Day to all you haters out there.
1) You don't have to have a husband or boyfriend to feel loved. You can surround yourself with other people who love you. Maybe it is your kids if you have them, your mom or dad, your sisters, your brothers, a few great friends. All that matter is that you around the people who matter most to you in your life.
I am a lucky girl because I spent my day with my girls. Since Valentine's day was on a Monday, we had Chinese takeout for dinner together. It wasn't all candles and roses, but it was fun. (Picture is minus Layla because she was napping)

 2) Spend more TIME rather than MONEY on your gifts to others. My gift this year I have to say was one of the sweetest I've gotten. I had to go to a church meeting on Saturday morning, and while I was away my hubby and daughters made this huge homemade card and a vase full of roses. Which my hubby purchased at the local grocery store because he knows I hate wasting $75 dollars on something that dies in a few days. They are just a pretty and smell just as nice for $10. Anyway, when I walked in the house from my meeting, Alyssa and Bella were standing in the entry holding the homemade card, and Rob pulled a homemade contraption that made fake rose petals fall on my head as I opened the door. It was SO cute and fun to see the girls involved in it. I have my big Valentine card up in my office still today and everytime I look at it, I smile.

3) If you don't have a special someone in your life. Maybe take a little time to think about why that is? Write down a list of things you are looking for in a boyfriend or husband. What is most important to you? I did this a long time ago when I thought I would never find love again. I wasn't even looking for it and POOF! Robert came into my world and change it for the better.
If you are lucky like me to have a special someone in your life, Valentine's day is just a day to remind us to stop from the daily routine of everyday life and spend some quality time with that person you call your Valentine. My hubby took me out to dinner and a movie Saturday night. I know. Typical. But we had not been out a date without kids for a LONG time. So it was heaven. Good food. Good romantic comedy. Good laughs. Good company. And after the kids went to bed...good ummm... enough said. Just a night to remember why I choose him as my Valentine forever.

Hope you had a great Valentine's Day too! XOXO!

Bella's Surgery Day

It has been 3 weeks since Bella had her surgery, and I am just now getting around to posting about it. Our house has been plagued by the flu the past couple of weeks. The best that I could do taking care of 3 sick girls and being sick myself was to just endure it. It wasn't pretty. Enough said.
I do want to say that Dr Jerry Puckett is a wonderful ENT specialist, and he was able to calm my nerves the day of Bella's surgery just by how confidant he was. I could tell he has done a million procedures like this before. It was just another day at the office for him. However, with that confidance, he showed compassion towards a worried mommy, and he is good with the "little people." (aka children)
I felt really sorry for myself as I walked my 3 year old baby girl into that surgery center, knowing what pain she was going to be in soon. But looking around I quickly realized that there were a lot of parents that had it worse than me with their little infant babies in their arms.

 I came down with a really nasty cold flu the day before Bella's surgery and that made for an even longer day. This is Bella right before they took her back to the operating room once she her "loopy juice" had kicked in. She is so tiny that it didn't take long to set in. She was pretty funny. Someone should have given me a dose of loopy juice too.

Bella's surgery lasted an hour, and once they woke her from the anesthesia they brought us back to the recovery area to be with her. Bella was hysterical when she was woke up. She was very disoriented from the drugs and was in a long of pain. But the more she cried and screamed, the more she hurt. She was kicking and screaming and trying to get her IV out. It was horrible.

It took an hour to calm her down and get her to fall asleep for awhile.

Bella's favorite thing she took from her experience was this little bear that they give all their patients. She sat with it and slept with it by her side through the whole week after her surgery. It took her about 5 days to start feeling like herself again.

We just went for her post operation appointment today. Her tonsils and adenoids are all healed up beautifully. She had another hearing test and they said that she is hearing at the level she is supposed to now with the tubes in her ears. I can already tell a difference in her speech and that she is more sensitive to sounds around her.

This whole experience has really made me grateful for modern medicine and having children in these days. I think about women having babies back in the pioneer days, and I shutter at the thought. When their babies were sick or born with deformities, they would just have to watch them suffer and more than likely die from them. I am so thankful to have access to specialists that know just what to do to fix my babies. I have a friend who's baby girl just had surgery to repair one of her kidneys this week. It is truly amazing what can be achieved in the world of medicine today. AMAZING!