How We Celebrated the Day of Love

Lots of pictures. LOTS. Steel yourself. 

This Valentine's Day was our second that was actually spent together. Our first Valentine's Day as a couple was when we were engaged, but I was in the wedding of two wonderful people that day, 2700 miles away from Carson. We didn't do anything (though he did send some lovely flowers) so last year was the first.

This is what went down on Valentine's Day:

First, I purchased a bag of conversation hearts. I'd seen this idea on other blogs but can't find a specific link. 

This was my original one. You can't see the words very well in this picture but these are dollar store version conversation hearts and those were all the options. Disappointing. So I bought another bag.

And this is what was birthed out of that. It is ridiculous and so corny but that's one of the best parts about Valentine's Day anyway, and I wanted to use as many hearts as possible.

I gave it to Carson before he went to work. He thought it was hysterical and couldn't stop laughing.

 Carson gets up before I do, so he crafted this lovely envelope system. 

At times during the day, I would open an envelope and find the gift intended for that letter. The gifts weren't related to the letters, but they were fun to look for!

This gift was accidentally left on the table the day before. I kept trying to drop hints (because of course I saw it) but he didn't fall for them so I eventually told him that I'd seen one of the gifts.

This was wrapped in the back of the cabinet where I hide things anyway, the cabinet I use and Carson doesn't. I saw it immediately because I went to get a pitcher and there it was. So he told me to unwrap before he left. SO cute! I love owls.

So those envelopes were to be opened at specific times. Which I did.

The first letter was written from the perspective of the first time we met.
No, he didn't write it that day and just save it; he wrote it the other day. But it was sweet.

I found the first gift in the crockpot. 

It was this green mug. 

There are quite a few pictures to go through so I'll show them without words...
The basic idea for each letter though was to go chronologically through our relationship and write letters that were "from" those times. Such a sweet idea!!

These were size 5.5... and I'm a 6.5 or 7. He thought these would fit better. Points for trying. 

And here are the letters and gifts. 

When Carson arrived home at 5:20, I had his gift already waiting.
To recap, this was the process of making the gift... Erica, Molly and I each made one for our guys.

And the only bags that were the right size happened to be baby bags... we promised our husbands that it wasn't some sort of announcement.

Anyway, when Carson opened the baby bag, he knew what it was immediately. "It's a blankie!" (he adds an "ie" sound to a lot of words, not sure why)

It's big; 2.5 yards of fleece. As I type this, it's keeping me cozy and warm. 

After he opened his gifts (there was candy too), we got ready to go. 

We opted for Jimmy Johns because the real restaurants were crowded and expensive that night. We took our sandwiches to the mall food court and ate. It wasn't candlelight and roses, but it was still fun. 

After dinner, we walked to the movie theater to see The Vow. Carson didn't like it because he thinks Rachel McAdams looks like me (I don't see it either) and hated that it looked like I had lost my memory. 

It was a great Valentine's Day!