An unsettling Valentines Day morning...

That was a disaster in the making.....
It all started out so romantic ~ with a nice Valentines day breakfast - homemade and heart shaped biscuits with strawberry cream cheese, a strawberry milk shake, cute little Valentines for the kids, nice decorations, candles.... PERFECT!

Until......

.....the thank-goodness-it-was-me-Mama pushed a candle too close to all the decorations! Nico noticed it first and started hollering "Mama, the card is ON FIRE!!!!!! The card that Alex had made for me was not the only thing affected, though. It was also the tulle and Nina's straw hat that was melting and smoldering. Trying to extinguish it all, we also spilled the hot wax on the table. The table, that Nico and I had JUST finished refinishing (pictures below!).
Well, thank God, nothing major happened, and Elia (who was actually sick) felt so bad for Alex, who had his card ruined, that he got out some paper, stickers and scissors, and made a new one, trying to copy Alex's closely. How sweet!


That's what I think Valentines Day is all about anyway ~ showing that you love each other in every-day-kind-of-ways. Elia's act of kindness really blessed my heart.
And I'm thankful.
It could have.....
Nope, don't want to go there!
Thank you, Lord!
***********

Here are the pictures of our refinishing project. My parents bought us this beautiful and very large table several years ago, when it became obvious we were going to outgrow the one we had bought when there was just the two of us...
Although it is a well built table from a well respected company, the finish just did not hold up. It literally started to dissolve, and you could scrape it off with your fingernails. It was nasty, and the top always felt sticky.
I had done some refinishing work years ago, but not for quite a while, so we participated in a refinishing workshop here in town, and it was a great project for Nico and I.

The excited assistant

After we stripped all the old finish off the table

And then sanded it

And then it was re-stained and varnished. All done! It's a bit lighter than it was before, but I didn't realize that until we had it all done and back home. It's still MUCH nicer than before!