February is one of my favorite times of year. Growing up that wasn’t always the case. As a kid I associated Valentine’s Day with just one day of the month and although it was wonderful the rest of the month felt dreary to me. Then, as I got older, I associated Valentine’s Day with couples and figured it was a holiday just for those with a “plus one” and I had mixed feelings about that depending on my current “plus one status”.

Now that I am happily married with kids I do, and see, Valentine’s Day a little differently. In our family it is a month long affair where we focus on love in a broader aspect. We focus on what love means, the power love has to create a positive impact, love in friendship, love for community, and love in our family. We do service and random acts of kindness with our 14 day Spread Love Challenge and try to spread love and give back a little to our community. I love helping to empower my kids and I love watching them light-up as they create positive change. It is wonderful!

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This new focus has broadened the effect of Valentine’s day for me and filled the whole month of February with loveliness. (Which totally helps the fact that we can start to feel a little disheartened by all the cold and winter sometimes this time of year.) Below are our favorite books to pull out for February. They include both both Valentine’s Day books as well as more general books about love. Each one is beautiful in its own right and we love them all.