Valentine’s Day is fast approaching. Everything about the retail industry will try to convince you that you must celebrate love on this day. And you must celebrate that love with stuff that you buy from the retail industry.

It is my hope that my children will have a different perspective on love than the one being sold to us. Do not get me wrong, flowers, chocolate, diamonds, etc. are all very nice. But, what means even more to me, are the incredible moments, the unplanned moments, especially the everyday moments that I share with my spouse.

We have not been married very long.  It will be 4 years in June.  I knew that he was the one for me within one month of dating him. It might seem crazy, but I still hold strong to it. I knew I loved him in a forever kind of way.

We’ve come so far since that day

And I thought I loved you then. – Brad Paisley, Then

It has been 6 years since I first told him I loved him. There have been so many big moments in those 6 years that made our love so much deeper and so much stronger:

The moment we met. The moment he first held my hand. (Yup. That was really special to me, even at 24 years old.) The moment we first said I love you. The moment he asked me to move to Minnesota with him. The moment we overflowed a hotel room with bubbles because we thought a jetted tub would be better with Mr. Bubble. The moment he asked me to be his wife. The moment I said yes. The moment we moved to Minnesota. The moment we signed our first lease together. The moment we first saw each other on our wedding day. The moment we said “I do.” The moment I told him we were expecting our first child. The moment we met our sweet girl and my husband cried, “It’s a girl! Baby, we have a baby girl”. The moment we bought our home. The moment I told him we were expecting our second child. The moment we met our sweet boy and my husband cried with excitement and joy.

Yes. We have had some incredible moments. There has been a lot of love in these moments. We would not have gotten to these gigantic and incredible moments without all the simple, random, every day moments in between.

These simple moments make my heart melt even more for the man I am sharing my life with. It is the moments he wakes up with the kids so I can sleep in for an hour. It is the moments he lays on the floor and plays with our children. It is the moments he brings me a coffee on his lunch break and prep because he thought  I might need one. It is in the moments he wakes up with me in the middle of the night to help our non-sleepers, sleep. It is the moments he lets me be in control because he knows me. It is the moments he bites his tongue and the moments he shares his heart. It is the moments he cleans the house and folds the laundry. It is the moments he makes my lunch in the mornings. It is in the moments he hustles to work because the kids and I have made him late. It is in the moments he chases our daughter around the house quoting her favorite movie and telling her he is going to get her toes. It is in the moments he cheers for our son as he is learning new things every day. It is in the moments when we are together as a family, raising our children. It is in these moments that he shows me that he truly is my teammate and my other half.

Oh, and when the kids are old enough
We’re gonna teach them to fly

You and me together, we could do anything, Baby

– Dave Matthews Band, You & Me

We are both so busy with life and functioning many days in survival mode, that we forget to tell each other that we notice these things and that these are the things we love about the other one. Everyone of those moments make my love go so much deeper.

I do notice. I love you… I thought I loved you then.

Have there been flowers, chocolate, diamonds… and a random sports bra… through the years? Yes.

Have there been overwhelmingly special days? Many.

We will not get to the next overwhelmingly special days without noticing and appreciating those random and simple days, with simple moments, filled with love.

For this girl, I will take those simple, every day, moments. They mean far more to me than the things that can be bought in a store.

Love means a lot more.

Find love in the every day moments, the random moments, on the random days, like a Tuesday.

My love and I a few months before our wedding.