A Valentine's Day Lunch -

Hi!
A Happy Valentine's Day to you all! :) I hope your day was as lovely as mine was! I truly had a wonderful day with some of the people I love, eating food I love, and listening to music I love...and...so forth. :) I had the idea a couple days ago to have somewhat of a "tea" without the tea. Haha...I know, but it sounded fun to me. I had really been missing one of my dearest friends, Paulina, who is away at college and is busy lots....and so I thought we should get our "gang" together on Valentine's Day for a lunch! And so....I planned it, and Mom and I made it happen.


We went to Publix this morning, and there were these lovely tulips. Mum loves tulips, and I told her to buy some, and left her to get some things. When I came back, she was standing in front of the tulips with a cute and wistful smile on her face, and I then decided that I needed to really get her one! I helped her pick one out, and told her it was from Dad, since he gets her flowers, anyway. :D This is it...so pretty, huh? She was quite happy while we shopped. :)

Mama set the table just lovely. Thank you! Paulina had just arrived here...thus, the cupcakes.

A closer look down the table at our "tea" luncheon. See, the thing is...I planned tea and sandwhiches, but I don't like hot tea with sandwhiches. So....haha, I thought this was hilarious....we used teacups and had soda in them! It was fun...I loved it. It still felt elegant, yet we had soda instead! A&W Root Beer and Ginger Ale. Oh, and we had my 40's music playing.
The name cards that I made - I printed out the names, and glued it to cardstock.
The namecards did not take me long....these did. I worked on 5 of these from 12:30-1:30am. Yes, really. They are little "books" that I thought of. Red cardstock cut into squares, and then a long rectangle folded over the squares to form the outside, stapled together, then a cream front, with their name, date, and Scripture reference of 1 Cor. 13.

Doesn't sound hard, huh? It shouldn't have been. But it was. I have "Cannot-cut-in-a-straight-line-syndrome", and I highly dislike it. It took me an hour to make 5. Let's say it this way...I have about 10 more red squares that were wrong sizes, the edges never did match up, I practiced anger management while I ripped one into pieces, and on one of the namecards I cut it too small, because I was listening to Brad Paisley sing. Yes, it's true. But they turned out really cute, no one cared that they weren't perfect, and we all wrote in them about what we loved about that person. I know I will treasure mine...it almost made me cry. SIGH......(Longest pre-comment/explanation on photo so far on blog. Yikes!) :D
Our teacups. :) My grandmother's everyday china, that we all love.
The really beautiful and yummy cupcakes that Paulina brought...thank you! They were so good! :D
Olivia, Paulina, Emily, and Anna...dropping her strawberry. HA HAHA! Soo funny.
Our sandwhiches. I made turkey with mozzarella, and ham with American cheese. And then we had strawberries(so good), Sunchips, soda, cupcakes, and then brownies and milk! YUM!

It's a Stone thing. Trust me. They do it with odd and various foods. Here's Anna. Or not? Anna?

Our dessert. Anna insisted on sticking her fork into her brownie...so, whatever. The brownies turned out so delicious...just perfect brownies. I was pleased. :)

Our milk in the lovely goblets Mama brought home from Ohio.

A second shot.

Then, at 1pm, Paulina had to leave, but we had to get pictures of us. So, we handed the camera over to Mom, and smiled. Aww....gang's all here! :D Olivia, myself, Anna, Paulina, and Emily.

HAHA...Mama told us to pose sofisticatedly, and here we all are cracking up, because it was just too funny. Haha....ya'll are such fun.

There we go - five sofisticated ladies. We decided we aren't very good at trying to be snobbish. Which is good!

I ran over to see what we had got, and shot one with Mom, and viola! GAH! I LOVE THEM!
So, Paulina left...and we were all sad, and consoled ourselves by taking pictures. What else?
Here's Mopsie Moose with me. Thanks Anna! :D
I know. This picture is blurry...and I look silly. But Emily is so lovely. And Anna captured her sweet smile that I love so much. Plus, I love her, so I just love this picture. So there.

And Olivia put her sunglasses on Mopsie, and it was so hilarious! She actually sat still for 30 seconds, trying to figure out what was on her face. :) You can see Anna in the glass. :) Cute.

Here Anna takes a very good shot of my Dad's autoharp that I am trying to learn to play.

Anna and I. Yep. I officially love her too. And not just on Valentine's Day.

Emily playing the song that we all love now - "A River runs through you" or whatever it is.

While Anna and I laughed at pictures we were taking of ourselves laying down on the floor.
We all got into it. Here we are....making faces. (clap, clap...yay for Jean, she can distinguish!)

And after...(choke) 15 shots, we actually get one of us all "sleeping" with our eyes closed. Yay.

Awww...cute. We look cute when we sleep! :) How vain can we get! Stop it already! Haha.

All of our hands. Bottom left all the way around - Anna, Olivia, Emily, and me. I was the only one not with a ring on. :) Someday when we are all married (God willing), we'll take a similar picture with rings on our left hands. :)
Like our friendship. Entertwined hands....serving, helping, praying, holding. Caring.
In color.
Something I just had to write at 1:30am this morning to remind myself why I was doing what I was....I was doing it because I love. Because I love my friends and family. I put this up on the fridge as my reminder. I'll leave it up there for a while...to remind myself what love is.So, that was my Valentine's Day! I hope ya'll's was just as fun and dandy and sweet. :) I am very thankful to God for Anna, Emily, Olivia, and Paulina and my family. They all have ministered to me in different ways this year. In huge ways. I've needed them to cry on, pray for me, laugh with, keeping me straight, spill my feelings to, and distract me from life in general. They are not the only ones, keep in mind! To all of my friends that have prayed for me, and kept me going this past year, thank you! I thank God for you!

Today it was important to me to remember Who really loves me best, and marvel about that. It truly blows my mind how God could love someone as worthless and sinful as me! I am so thankful, yet so uncomprehending, I will not truly understand until I see my Savior's face.

To you all - I hope you know the Savior's deep love for you, and that you rely upon Him alone for the changing of your hearts, to fall in love with the Lover of your soul even more.

I love you all! Happy Valentine's Day! :D
Ever loving life under my Lord,
Jean Marie

P.S. A special thank-you to my Mama, for letting me do this fun luncheon, as well as shopping with me, and helping me get it all done! Setting the table, doing dishes, and being sweet! :D