7 Years and still in LOVE!!

Sometimes there are times when words just aren't enough to describe how you feel. Today is Jonathan and I's 7 year anniversary-and when I think about him and our life together the past 7 years-words just aren't sufficient. I know that those of you reading this and who know him already know how incredibly LUCKY I am to be married to such an amazing person-and believe me I truly feel this every day! Sometimes I am brought to tears when I think that he is the one I get to be with FOREVER! We have the best time when we are together and I never once have ever felt like I need a break from his presence-in fact I always feel just the opposite and wish there were more hours in the day to spend together. I knew when I married him 7 years ago that our life together would be good-I had NO idea that it was going to be this good! I love you honey-Happy Anniversary!

7 Years ago


Current

The Nutcracker

The day after Christmas we went the the ballet The Nutcracker. It was SO much fun. All of the kids loved it-we couldn't believe how still even Austin sat through the whole performance. When I was younger we would go every year-so I have been wanting to take our kids for a long time. It was just as magical as I remember.

Ally even got her picture taken by a real life Sugar Plum Fairy-she was in heaven. At one point she leaned over to me and whispered, "Mom, I can't believe I am here!"-it was so sweet.

We lost Isaac with about 10 minutes to go and right beofore he fell asleep he said, "Mom, I'm ready to be done with this!"-he did so great through the whole thing until he crashed!

Santa found us in Arizona!

Yep, he came-it was such a great day!! We all loved every second!

More Christmas Eve Events

After a yummy dinner and the nativity performance we all donned our matching pj's for the 2nd year in a row, sang some Christmas songs, read a story and each opened 1 present. Jonathan and I opened ours together which was a darling calendar that Ally had made in school for us. She was SO excited for us to open it-she could hardly stand it. She had told everyone else what it was but kept it such a good secret from us-it was so cute and we loved it. The kids each opened a present that one of their cousins got for them-another tradition we missed not being in Idaho! A big, pink princess chair for Ally, a Dino-sketcher for Isaac and a baseball mitt and glove for Austin-they all loved what they got! Thanks Logan, Macee and Colby!! We then set out cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer and tucked them all snug in their beds. It was a perfect day and night.

Again-sorry this is so dark-we were kind of doing everything by the light of the Christmas tree.

Nativity

This year we weren't able to be with all of Jonathan's family for the annual "cousin" nativity-so we decided to do our own little family one! We had a lot of fun doing it together on Christmas Eve! Cast: Mary-Ally; Joeseph-Isaac; Baby Jesus-doll; Shephard-Austin; Wiseman-Uncle Jamison; Angel-Rachel (a very pregnant angel we might add!); Narrator/Piano Player-Jonathan. Sorry that the video is a little dark. And for the record I am NOT the opera singer you hear in the background-it is one of Jamison's friends who took the video for us-not that there would be any confusion-but just in case!!

Sunday Best

We couldn't get a picture of all of the kids looking or with their eyes open-but they still look cute!

A New Tradition!

Every year we make gingerbread houses. While I am neither patient or talented enough to make them cute enough to want to display them for a long time, we started a new tradition with them this year. Since I knew that I didn't want them around the house for a long time, we decided to do them late in the season. We had such a fun time making them-with a lot of snacking of course! After we were done and I was trying to think of some place they could sit for the next few days, one of the kids came up with the brilliant idea of eating them right away. Jonathan and I both looked at each other with the exact same thought in mind when they asked if they could-GREAT IDEA!! So about 1 minute after they were complete, they were being destroyed-happily. We definitely will continue this tradition in the years to come!!

A fun day at home!

Ally is now out of school for Christmas break and it seems like all the Christmas hustle and bustle is slowing down. We had such a fun day at home-I love those days! Jonathan was even able to be home for some of it until he had to go in to work the night shift. The kids had so much fun just playing together. This is a picture of them playing house. Ally is the mom and Isaac likes to be the dad but it bothers Ally that he's not as tall as she is-we always have to have a talk about how that doesn't matter and he ends up being the dad despite her unliking- she is so funny about stuff like that. Austin is of course the baby and always ends up in Ally's doll stroller-he loves it as much as they do. I'm not sure where the Santa hats came into the picture-but I thought it was cute anyway! We are loving just being at home!

Our "not-so living" Christmas Tree

Since this is our 5th December living in Arizona, but only the 1st Christmas we will spend here, we thought it would be so much fun to get a real Christmas tree instead of using our usual fake one. So the Monday after Thanksgiving we went and picked out our beautiful, real tree. It was so much fun to set up and we loved the way it looked and smelled. About 2 1/2 weeks after we got it, it just started to loose is freshness and we noticed that in fact it was almost completely dead. We made sure it had water every day-but it still died. Seriously-how terrible! So on Saturday we took all the decorations off and Jonathan took it back to where we got it. He picked out another tree and brought it home. I watched him take it out of the truck and stand it up and just as he did, about every needle on the tree fell onto the sidewalk. I thought I would die laughing-there was seriously only sticks on the whole top 1/4 of the tree. So off he went again to return the second tree. They gave us our money back since every tree on the lot was just as dead as the two we brought home. By this time it was getting late on Saturday and we had a TON to do, so we just figured that instead of going tree hunting we'd just set up our old, trusty, fake tree and save the money. So we set it up and put up all the decorations for a 2nd time this year. Buying Christmas trees in Arizona must just not be quite the same! We're just glad to have a place for Santa to put all of the presents when he comes!

Now about our Christmas tree. Since Ally was born we decided to start the tradition of letting each of our kids pick out an ornament every year to hang on the tree. So we have everything from pink and blue baby shoes, baseballs, dinosaurs, Barbies, Buzz Lightyear, Ariel-on and on, on our tree. We write their names and the year somewhere on them and hope to one day pack up all of them and send them on with each kid as they have their own trees. As much as I would love to have a beautiful "themed" tree, I love the memory of when I was little and getting out each of the ornaments and the special meanings that were tied to each of them. We decided that one day when we have a little bigger house we will have 2 trees-one for show and the other for memories and fun. We love our tree and the kids love to look at all the ornaments over and over-real or fake-it makes no difference to them!!

Congratulations!

Congratulations to our brother-in-law/cousin Nicholas who just found out he got in to medical school!!! Their little family will be packing up and moving to Yakima, Washington this summer to get ready to start in the Fall. We are so excited for them-he'll be an awesome doctor!

FYI: For those who don't know, my littlest sister married Jonathan's cousin-yes, we set them up!

We're seeing PINK!!

We just went to the doctor today and found out that we will be having another little GIRL. We are all thrilled-especially Ally, she can't wait to have a sister. It's always so much fun to add a new baby to the family and we are very excited (even though May still seems SO far away!).