Oh Lovely Day!

Valentine's Day is as good a day as any to resume blogging, right? Matt and I usually celebrate fairly low-key. The past couple of years we have decided to treat each other with a bottle of cologne/perfume. We headed to the mall together and took turns smelling a mix of perfumes and coffee beans to select just the right scent for one another. But this year, neither of us really needed perfume (maybe I need to wear mine more, even if I am just at home! ;). So we went out to dinner on Friday night as an early celebration to avoid the crowds, and then last night we exchanged small gifts. Earlier in the month, I came across a cute letterpress card (I can never turn down the beauty of letterpress), and the cute design prompted me with a gift idea - yay for no-brainers!


Matt pulled through with a dozen red roses and not one, but two boxes of chocolates. It's been a joke between the two of us that the hubby always tries to buy pricier boxes of chocolate (the truffle type), but, honestly, what I really want is the inexpensive chocolates from Walgreens (the ones usually found only during February). I love opening a box full of variety... cream, caramel, coconut and yes, the occasional truffle filling. Hey, Forrest Gump's saying didn't resonate with so many for no reason. Needless to say, we won't be losing any weight in February, but each night when we sit down on the couch to relax after JA goes to bed, we'll at least have all the mystery that a box of chocolates can offer!

And the cheeriest little Valentine of all received this adorable Fisher Price record player. I've had my eye on these for a while now, love the old-school look and the brightly colored records. After opening it for JA I realized some of the components are a little over her head (having to move the "needle" on top of the record, turn a dial to wind it up, and slide a button side to side to stop and start the record- phew! that's a lot of steps for a 17 month old), but she loves the simple tunes and the record-style notes that come chiming out. She also likes that she can carry it from room to room by its handle and put all the unused records in a bottom storage compartment. There's nothing better than watching this girl pump her fists and shake her booty to The Farmer In The Dell and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

The pictures from this post were taken with an Android phone app called Retro Camera. I'm loving the style of the Little Orange Box which mimics a cheap 1976 camera from the USSR with "aggressive cross processing" and vignetting on the corners of the images. Funny how I can take an online photography class and learn so much about using my DSLR camera in manual mode and then later enjoy using an instant camera on my cell phone. The beauty of technology!