Please don’t ask me how I’m going to pull all those subjects together, because it’s probably not going to happen. Or at least, it’s not going to happen gracefully.

Think of it more as a list of things that I need to tell you and less of a title. It’s like I jotted myself a note at the top of this page in hopes that I wouldn’t forget anything.

First, Happy Birthday to President Lincoln and my friend Kirsten. (This has nothing to do with the list; they just share a birthday that happens to be today).

You are both tall and wise.

Much love to one of you. The living one.

While we are celebrating the birthdays of this fine pair, let’s announce the winners of the tutu!

Congratulations Jo! You won a tutu of your choice. Personally, I think the fact that you named your dog Badger gave you an advantage. The invisible folks over at Random.org guarantee this was completely random, but I’m not buying it.

Either way, I’m so glad you won! I think perhaps you might need to send us a picture of your domestic Badger.

As for the badgers in this house, they have been crowded out by all the paper hearts, glitter hearts, and doily hearts that a certain little girl has plastered about our home. She is a valentine making machine. Hallmark should be very nervous.

This year, she brought her heart creations to whole other dimension: 3D, pinata style.

She cut red and pink tissue paper into long strips and then cut the strips into small squares. Then she counted out three squares of tissue,

Wrapped them around the end of a pencil,

Dipped them in glue,

And pressed them onto the a large heart cut out of cardboard.

She made a border of red tissue and then added pink to the middle.

We had to switch from a black pencil to a white pencil. Apparently saliva plus graphite turns a colored pencil into a type of eyeliner that will paint black stripes across your cheeks and shirt. Who knew?

You can add ribbon to hang it on your door or two hands to hold it over your head.

Not only is it a super sweet Valentine’s Day wreath, it’s a fantastic way to entertain your preschooler. I’m just glad that all those hours spend on making all those 4-H floats has finally come in handy. Thank you Mrs. Z!

We were going to hang it on our door to welcome four little pink clad girlfriends tomorrow morning, but there is this thing called the throat tickle, which at this writing has upgraded to a full-on burning.

I woke up this morning with that scratchy sense of dread. All day I tried to ignore it, running around to pick up the last bits of pink and red for the next morning’s activities. And now I’m comatose on the couch hosting the fever and her pal, the chills and a few of their other less cordial friends. I’m dreading the morning when I have to tell Ava that her party was canceled due to her mama’s state of contagiousness.

Oh, I’m so sad. I love Valentine’s Day parties. Is it possible to postpone them? Could we go ahead and have the party on the other side of February 14th?

What do you do for Valentine’s Day? Crafts? Chocolate? Cupids?

Do tell.

It will be a good antidote for the guilt and disappointment of the morning.

And I do have a giant tissue heart to cheer me up.