Hearts, treats, and Julia's sweet words

FPD #14: Hearts

Well, that's easy to do on Valentine's Day. Julia and I made white chocolate cake batter blondies for the aunties and babies. The babies got their own little tiny hearts.

We also made brownie cupcakes. Yes, one of those Pinterest pins that I actually did! Of course, I am not a food photographer so they are not the beautiful pictures you would see on Pinterest (and probably weren't as good as the ones in the picture I pinned either), but here is proof that we made them.

 brownie batter on bottom

 covered with strawberry cake

 with buttercream frosting

Mmmmm.

We delivered cupcakes to our wazungu friends, the ones who might appreciate that sugary sweetness. Kenyans don't really like our kind of sweet, although they will always pretend to! They don't want to miss out on the American goodness....whether they truly think it is "good" or not.

Julia decorated more valentines that we put on Kenyan biscuits to pass out to some of our friends. These were the ones we passed out to people who would have no idea what to do with a cupcake.

Happy Valentine's Day!

YOU are God's greatest Valentine. He loves you today and every day!

(message in Swahili & English)

Julia got such a thrill out of passing them out to friends....the man who grazes his cows on our road, the askari (watchman) who stands outside of the gate a few houses down from us, the ladies who sell us vegetables on the street in town, the people in the Posta who always help us, the burned man in the bank parking lot who always waits at our car, the old mama at the shop at the end of our road where we buy bread and eggs, and the boys who always ask to carry our bags for us when we are shopping in town.

When we were talking about giving people valentines, I was so touched to see it all click in sweet Julia's head. This morning after she ate breakfast, she couldn't wait to hurry and finish so she could the special valentine out to Ambrose, our groundskeeper. "Mommy! Today is the giving day! We can give them the love that Jesus put on us and the sweeties!" 

 Can't you just see the sheer joy on Ambrose's face?! He felt so special.

And as we were talking about who we could show God's love to today, she had such sweet thoughts. "Mom, you 'member the burned man who wants oranges? He is just sad. Maybe sweeties and love will make him happy." I love this little girl!


After a busy day of sharing God's love with our friends ~ some whom we know, and some whom we do not ~ we made it to the baby house to give our aunties and babies their Valentine's treats!

This was perhaps one of the best Valentine's Days of my entire life!! I am 36 years old, have never had a "real" valentine on Valentine's Day, never been on a date on Valentine's Day, and as much as I want that and can't wait for that to happen, I must say that it is going to have to be pretty darn great to top this Valentine's Day!!! Truly an amazing day, and so full of God's love that it just poured out all around us.