Seven

We have now been married for seven years.
Which is weird when you think about it, that is as long as middle and high school took.  Those seemed like they took a painful eternity, while seven years of marriage has gone by in a blink of an eye. I use to wonder how anyone could choose to get married, how would you know you wanted to spend an eternity with anyone?!  A few months later I knew I was going to marry Brent, thinking I would regret it forever if I ever lost him.  Now I realize an eternity won't be long enough with Brent.

Let me tell you about our grand anniversary plans.  Oh wait we don't have any.
Its five days after christmas, and a day before news years, let me assure you we have no grand plans.
Our tradition has been to go out to dinner or a movie with whatever gift certificate we got for christmas, while we have free babysitting.  Oh it was a dream really, but seriously I know of no one who has grand anniversary plans if they were married at christmas time. (I actually really appreciate all those gift cards, because there were a few years we literally were too poor to afford a date.  Many years where we spent a total of $20 on christmas presents on our child, and after going in on group presents for parents, and me making presents for siblings, we literally had nothing left in the bank account that wasn't going to our tuition in a few weeks.)
Now that we actually have babysitters, go out here, and cash, I thought we need something more this year.  Yeah it was pathetic but ok in previous years because it was one of like seriously four dates the whole year, including going to the temple together (we don't always go together). Plus no money. This year was going to be different, so I started brainstorming ideas.  Some of my siblings have family anniversary parties, as in a party with their kids of when the family started.  I thought that's a good idea maybe we should do that, but then I realized the last thing I was going to do is throw another party five days after christmas.
Then I was back to just Brent and I ideas.  A friend who's anniversary was three days ago, said she wants to start celebrating when they got engaged instead because they don't even go out to eat on their anniversary.  When I thought about it, that was a no go.  We got engaged on my birthday, I love my husband, I love our marriage, but I'm not giving up MY birthday for us.
I don't remember when we actually started dating, so that is a no go.
We never had a DYR talk, so we can't celebrate when we were officially dating.
Although we did have a define your date talk.  I was positive Brent and I were just friends, so we were friends hanging out, he assured me dinner and movie is a date.  I didn't believe him, but I don't remember the calendar date of that.
But I do remember we finally kissed fourth of july weekend.  I thought we could celebrate then.  But once again that is a holiday, and clearly my anniversary is the lowest common denominator in holidays.
We don't even do anything special for Valentine's day.  Its my husband's birthday, then my son's two days later.
Yes, Happy Anniversary me and hubby.
Congrats to us because we can't find the time in the year to ever go on a special date.
That being said, neither of us are romantics, my husband doesn't like big celebrations, and if you knew the story of how we got engaged you wouldn't expect anything different then what we are doing for our Seventh Wedding anniversary.


Actually, what to know how I'm planning to spend it?
Buying a new handmixer, after 7 years I burned out the motor in one of the wedding presents we use the most.
I'm also shopping for a new iron, so apparently 7 years is when your wedding presents wear out.

Here are my real anniversary plans.  Forcing my husband to write me a love letter.  I recently read in Martha or somewhere about how a couple exchanges love letters because that is really the only thing you can give that no one else can give.  When I told him of my plans he said what?  I said we use to write love letters... ok maybe texts.  Then I thought about it I remembered a few love notes he had given me that didn't occur on a cell phone.  So I know he can do it.  This is actually a tradition for holidays, forcing him to made me cards.

Merry Christmas

Hope you are enjoying your Christmas, and even getting fitting some religious thoughts into the day.

This was the primary picture in our Christmas card.  I wanted a picture of us in front of our house with snow.  All the bushes are dormant, and we needed snow to cover up all the twigs poking out of the rocks.  It snowed a couple times in October, so I thought no problem.  Then it didn't snow a single day in November!  I was getting worried, then finally December hit and it snowed, but then I started to chicken out.  Luckily my husband kept my dreams alive, he set up his camera with a timer across the street.  Not the most amazing pictures, but perfectly great for a family christmas card.  I think My kids are absolutely adorable, but I wonder why my husband and I aren't as photogenic.  Just so you know I did plan out what we were wearing and I know layers are all fashionable in photos, but we actually don't have any props in the photo other than my daughter's hair clip, we were freezing!  The gloves, hats, boots all necessary.  I know the kids wished they had snow pants on so they could actually played.  I wish I would have had a hat over my ears, but I didn't really want to sport that look in the picture.
Great thing is when we finally paint the outside of our house, we can do this picture all over again!
In case you wanted to know what our house looks like, imagine the picture going to the left with a three car garage.  Ah all the painting dreams I have for this house, number one being the door.  The door looks all wrong in my opinion.

Lonely Little Christmas Tree

Neither Brent or I felt like investing in a larger tree this year. 

 Ahh, my kids before church in their cute christmas outfits.  Ok, I bought J nothing new, why would I. He likes black pants, and a white shirt, because that is what he dad likes.  No khakis for my men, for whatever reason.  J almost wore a red tie, but then he chickened out, who can blame him.

 This picture was actually not posed.  We know what Christmas is all about in our house.

I have a three year old.

The night of her birthday we had a family party with dad, and grandmas knew exactly what she wanted Dolls!

 Here she is helping big baby walk.

 While the other grandma made her a J and N dolls.  She loves playing pretend, with her brother and her doll. She was so happy to have her very own grandma special dolls.

 She got the doll carrier and backpack from me.

 We ate the butterfly cake with dad, and the girls had cupcakes at the party.

But then they wanted the cake so bad, that we shared some more with them at preschool the next day for snack.
I can't believe I have a three year old daughter.  She says the funniest things, and is definitely not a baby.
Like last night she said, good night mom, love you, NOW leave, pointing to the door.
She is trying really hard not to suck her thumb during the day after the dentist asked her not to.
She always says, well actually... then follows up with any old thing.
For example, well actually I want chex for breakfast.

Third Year Party

One of the sad parts of moving this year is we no longer have family around.  Last year at my daughter's birthday our apartment was filled to the brim with relatives and it was wonderful, including our immediate family I think we had 18 people over.  It seemed so lonely only to have three family members for my daughter's party.  So we invited her four preschool friends, and two older siblings, the afternoon of her party.  J needed a friend anyway.  

We had a butterfly/hello kitty party. Back in October I bought dollar store wings for all the girls.  Then I made butterfly wands for them.  The party started with a dance party.

 Then free play, then we played caterpillar, caterpillar, caterpillar, butterfly.

 Then presents.

 Then cake.

I originally liked the plan of only having friend parties on even years.  But we haven't ever followed that plan, we just love parties too much. I doubt we ever will.

The Nativity

Nan is JoySchool, and since it is not a government run school, the Christmas party was all about religion.  The girls performed the First Christmas, and now Nan completely relates to the story of Jesus's birth, and gets who is who.  She is in class with five girls, we decided the play would work well with 6 people instead so an older sister played the role of Joseph. 

Here is the Angel talking to Mary.

 Here is one of the Inn Keepers telling them no room.  We had two more inn keepers who then turned into Shepherd.

 Mary and Joseph laying down the baby.

 The third inn keeper, turned into the wise man.  A hot pink, queen, wiseman, with a camel, saw the start in the east.

 Her face goes rashy from sucking her thumb.

 Singing Jingle Bells.  My three old new favorite song, because they sing it at her school.
Don't mind that this is the only picture with the other two innkeepers or the Shepherds, they weren't too big into acting, and my husband was taking pictures, because I was the audio specialist.

Santa and Dinners

Our school had pizza with santa.  For $15 we got a whole pizza, salad, juice boxes, cake and two crafts for the kids to do.  The kids loved it, but Santa was more disappointing than a ward party santa, but my sweet 5 year old didn't mind, or notice. He was trilled to find out that he wasn't on the Naughty List, and reminded me of that for a week.  I would have rather spent more money on the night and had a nicer looking santa.   I got purposely took the picture so you wouldn't notice, that Santa looked like they picked up a homeless man.

 My daughter was terrified of Santa, so she didn't want to join in the fun of Santa, but loved the rest of the night.  We could have also seen the Grinch, but he was even more terrifying than Santa, to both kids.

Then the following week went to the church party and saw Santa again.  It was great, I accidentally poked J in the face right before his turn, and once again we had a terrified daughter.

I believe that is also our community Santa.  Our small town does their own Toy for Tots, where the police department, fire, and local school collect toys, then Santa has commissioned our Chief of Police to deliver the toys. We go to church with the Chief.  Every year I want to buy toys for my kids to give to charity, and never do, this year I finally did.  J totally got it, Nan was very sad to see the huge box of toys and walk away from it.  We talked about sharing, and the importance of giving to those who need help.  J told me for a few days how happy he was to share.  At one point I thought why don't I just drop the toys in the box for toys for tots and save me the hassle.  But I like to start on community level first and go up for there, I wanted to help my community be self sufficient, plus I think it made more sense to the kids to not drop the toys of at the store we bought them.