Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day 2020

How was your Valentine’s Day? Do you celebrate? I love Valentine’s Day, and I think it stems back to the fact that my parents always made it a joyful day in our house when I was growing up.

Valentine's Day Heart with scripture

My mom would help me create and meticulously decorate a Valentine’s box out of a shoe box for my classroom parties in elementary school and take me to the store to pick out Valentines for my classmates. After a party at school, I would usually come home to find a stuffed animal or small box of chocolates on my bed and it always made me so happy.

I can also vividly remember my dad taking me to a local chocolate shop to pick out just the right chocolate heart for my mom.

Thinking back on so many happy childhood memories had me wanting to make Valentine’s Day special for our little family. It started with thinking about how we could spread some love! On the 13th, I baked strawberry cupcakes and Jimmy, Sadie, and I decorated and packaged them up with a little note and delivered them to our neighbors.

Decorating Valentine's Day Cupcakes

Decorated Valentine's Day Cupcakes

Valentine's Day Cupcakes

We have been incredibly blessed with sweet neighbors all around us and were excited to treat them to something sweet for all the kindness they’ve shown us over the years. That night, I made us a special dinner (chicken tikka masala!) and we just hung out. It was a nice night 🙂

On Valentine’s Day, Sadie and I decorated the house. I put hearts with scripture about love on them all throughout the house (see the first picture of this post for an example, lol) and she and I made a sign out of craft paper, ribbon, stickers, paint, and scrapbook paper.

Mom and daughter with Valentines Day sign and flowers

Jimmy surprised us after work with flowers for each of us girls and an adorable card for me. We decided to celebrate by drawing a name out of a hat and shopping for whomever we picked! The limit was around $10 and we split up and had fun surprising each other with little gifts.

The papers also had questions to fill out about who each of us shopped for, so we read those during dinner. Some of the questions were “My biggest prayer for you is” and “My favorite memory with you is” etc. Jimmy’s biggest prayer for Malcolm? To stop biting everyone, LOL. My biggest prayer for Sadie? To know and love God and to be saved ❤

Valentines Day questions

I gave Jimmy gloves and a Kinder candy bar, he gave me puffins cereal and almond butter, Malcolm got a new toy, and Sadie got puffs and bath coloring tablets. It was a fun, special, and memorable Valentine’s Day ❤

Tell me about your Valentine’s Day!

Scenes From Valentine’s Day + Two Trips to the ER

Well, we have had quite the week in the Zottola house! Our Valentine’s Day get-together was absolutely lovely.

Aunts and uncles with baby girl

We had Jimmy’s siblings and their significant others over for games, candy, and a dinner of grilled barbecue ribs, chicken, roasted potatoes, and salad with apple pie and cupcakes for dessert.

It was such a fun evening and had Jimmy and I wondering why we don’t do things like that more often!

Valentine's Day Dinner of grilled barbecue ribs, roasted potatoes, apple pie, and candy

We went to bed with full bellies and full hearts from such a fun evening. Jimmy and Sadie even made me a Valentine’s Day card together!

Jimmy said it involved a little crying on Sadie’s end, but oh will I be treasuring that card forever!

Dad and baby with homemade Valentine's Day card

We woke up around 2:30 am thinking that Sadie needed to be fed, but she actually ended up throwing up and had a fever. We gave her Tylenol and rocked her back to sleep. She was so pitiful. The next morning she threw up again, so we headed to the pediatrician where she was diagnosed with the stomach flu.

We spent Friday just trying to keep Sadie girl comfortable. She slept most of the day and it just killed me to see her so sick and sad. Thankfully my mom was able to come over and help with snuggling Sadie.

That night, Jimmy started throwing up pretty nonstop. He couldn’t keep anything down, was shaky, and feverish. I called his mom and she brought him to the emergency room where he was given anti nausea medication.

Right when Jimmy got home from the hospital, I started throwing up. Thankfully Jimmy’s mom came over and took care of Sadie while Jimmy and I spent the day sleeping and getting sick.

At one point, I had a fever of 103 and felt so shaky. My mom and dad stopped by in the evening to help out with Sadie and by the time they left, I started feeling really awful.

I got up to brush my teeth before bed and passed out. Somehow, Jimmy caught me while he was holding Sadie. I have no idea how he did it.

He called his mom and she came to the emergency room with us and held Sadie while I was treated. Poor Jimmy somehow managed to carry me to the car when he must have been feeling so weak himself.

I was able to get two bags of fluid, anti nausea medication, and some ibuprofen before we were released a few hours later.

We think the combo of throwing up, not being able to eat or drink, and nursing Sadie was just too much for my body.

Whew. What a crazy past few days! We seem to be on the upswing and have even managed to eat some food! Sadie is still pretty worn out, but in good spirits.

We feel so incredibly blessed that Jimmy’s mom and my parents were able to help us out because we literally have no clue what we would have done being the sickest we’ve ever been while caring for our baby.

Unfortunately, my parents caught the bug and have been down for the count, which we feel so bad about. Somehow, Jimmy’s mom was spared, though, which is great news!

We are looking forward to a (hopefully!) uneventful week this week 🙂

Have you ever had the stomach flu?

Did you do anything fun for Valentine’s Day?