Sharing the Love!

We had a sweet Valentine's Day this year! A few years ago, we started a fun family tradition: Each member of the family has a mailbox, and for a few weeks leading up to Valentine's Day, we all write lots of "I love you because" notes to each other. Then on Valentine's morning everyone gets to read their notes. It was something I did on a whim the year we started, but it has become a family favorite for all of us.

This year, we weren't able to use our regular mailboxes since they were still in storage when we got started, so everyone got to decorate a new box.

They turned out pretty cute!

We spent the week leading up to Valentine's Day getting our house ready to move into, and that morning was our first morning in our new house (in other words, complete chaos), but I was able to find our V-Day decorations in a box and have this ready for the kids when they woke up:

I brought a few little V-Day candies and small gifts with me when we left the states a month ago, and they were all excited about their new dry-erase boards (in their favorite colors) and the Valentine M&Ms and SweetTarts they found at their places.

They also loved reading their notes from each other. I think Sawyer is giggling here about the note from Lee Anna that said, "I love you because your hair is funny in the morning!" Some were silly, others were super sweet.

And Sawyer (with his funny hair) wrote us all this sweet note when he finished reading his cards:

I'm so glad I get to love these people--on Valentine's Day and everyday!