A home filled with love....

I live in a home filled with love from the ceiling to the floor and wall to wall and I am so thankful to our Father! I wanted to share what my boys did for me this last Valentine's Day. Celebrating February 14th has never been a big priority in our home. I usually give each of the boys a card and buy one of those little $1 hearts filled with 4 or 5 chocolates.....that's it. This year money was tight so they didn't even get the cards. So, it was not unusual this past February 14th when we reversed our school schedule and declared the morning a work morning and pushed school work till the afternoon. I did this because we had some people volunteer to help us work on a farm project in the morning....since many hands make light work....I jumped at the opportunity.

We worked on our apple trees all morning. Had a wonderful lunch filled with fellowship and hit the school books. It was "brought to my attention" that someone was out of feed and I needed to go to town and pick some up. I hate going to town. It takes 30 minutes to get there and 30 minutes home....plus the time to do what needs to get done. I have so much on my plate right now that unexpected trips to town are expensive both financially (gas at $3 a gallon!) and in terms of time...they irritate me. Turns out my Mother was headed that way and I was able to catch a ride with her. We ran into the bank, hit the feed store and headed home. The entire trip took about an hour and 20 minutes.

You won't believe what I found when I got home. These three boys stinkers that I live with had cleaned up the kitchen, neatened the living room, BAKED CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES, and decorated the house....and dinner was well under way. IN AN HOUR AND 20 MINUTES! How did they do that? The practical part of me wants to know how they got the butter to soften to make the cookies....

Apparently Elijah was in charge of a great deal of the decorating. The living room wall looked like this:



How can I tell this was Elijah's work....let's just say he is fond of tape...and where a little will do then a LOT is better. (His opinion on staples closely resembles his opinion about tape!) The heart on the right had a secret present hidden behind it.....I didn't have a clue till they pulled it out.

When I looked up I found this:



The hearts were held together by....staples....lots and lots of staples! If I'd been a magnet.....well...I digress. As I headed up the stairs, marveling at the smells from the kitchen, I found this:



Can you guess who was in charge of making these and putting them up?

When I got to my room, I found two things. The first to catch my eye was this one....



Elijah was looking at me with great anticipation - he gets as much enjoyment (no.... more!) in giving to someone than he does in receiving. He is always planning special things for family members. He likes to be right there when you open the gift....so I stifled my desire to give a lecture on fire safety and gave hugs and kisses instead.

Then I noticed his sparkly eyes....he had something else up his sleeve - he told me to "look around your room Mom!" and I found little hand-cut hearts in red scattered all around my room....sort of the "rose petal" scenario you see in movies. However, there was one white heart with a number on it. Pick it up and follow the directions...aaahhhhh....it was a scavenger hunt! Elijah loves to make scavenger hunts for his brothers. He hides notes and presents around the house (and sometimes around the farm!) and I think he enjoys it more than we do. This was the first time I had been blessed with this wonderful game. As one heart led me to another, instead of presents they were parts of a song. THE CHILD HAD WRITTEN ME A SONG...BOTH MUSIC AND WORDS!!!



My mind was racing....he is 9....writing music....how did he learn?? He is just a beginner in piano lessons, being taught by me....and we haven't had a class yet on writing music! I thought I might save that until he learned to read all the notes....like...maybe....3 or 4 years from now!

Turns out the stinker just copied the staff and colored in notes randomly...but you know what...when I played it....it was a beautiful song.....I think they call it a love song.....