let's go back to aug 15th, shall we?

alternate title: "why i have the coolest daughter (& best babysitter) ever"


so, you might remember, doug and i just celebrated our 15 year anniversary and went to Dayton for the weekend. and i posted about it here with a 'to be continued' at the end.

well, i finally have a moment to continue it. LOL. life's been a lot on the crazy busy side lately.

so on the way home we kept getting frantic phone calls from the oldest girl, asking when we'd be home. she was up to something and didn't want her plans foiled. we were given strict orders to call when we were within and hour. and that call gave us orders to call within 10 minutes.

we arrived home and were quickly told to close our eyes and were escorted up the stairs by the young set. and when we opened our eyes, this is what we saw on our bedroom door....

what a riot, right!? then, we had to close our eyes again, so ashlyn could open the door and place herself just perfectly inside---wanting to see our expressions, i suppose. we opened our eyes to see our bedroom transformed into a little girl's decorating masterpiece. awwwwwwwww.



complete with her bedspread on our bed, mix-matched sheets, her heart pillow with her wedding flowers from her dress up box and her favorite fuzzy little teddy we bought for her before she was born. and streamers that were embellished with "happy anniversary" in her 3rd grade scrawl.

oh, wait....there's more. butterfly balloons and welcome home soldier balloons and a congrats on your wedding balloon too. LOL. so, adorable, that girl.

and a poster board with the most adorable drawings ever!


side story: on the poster board....you see that heart with the keyhole and the key. well, the mister, every time he see's a tattoo shop starts talking about "when i get my next tattoo....." and proceeds to tell me about what he'll get. so when we were in dayton, i saw a tattoo shop and said, hey, let's get tattoos! then talked about what we'd get. it started with matching somethings, then got creative from there. of course, i'd want something cutesy, he'd want something that wouldn't have his friends calling him a pansy. so, we decided i'd get a heart with a keyhole and he'd get a skeleton key----both small-like on our wrists.

but, yeah....we didn't do it. then he'd have to be committed to me---for life. *insert heavy sarcasm*

i should mention that this planning/decorating, was all ashlyn. suzi just funded her imagination. gosh i love her. she'll be an awesome momma someday, i just know it.


so, now, zooming in close to the bed, you can see a little 'love tray' filled with a box of our 'favorite' candy---hot tamales for me, gobstoppers for him. some sparkling white-grape juice and a cupcake to smash in each other's face, um.....eat.

she was SO proud of herself. so proud. but falling apart every few seconds because all spidergirl wanted to do was play with the balloons and bat them up to the ceiling then pull them back down and do it all over again.

so, then we all had some sparkling white-grape juice, while locking arms and looking like a total doofus----who/why is that even a wedding tradition anyway!? awkward.


then ate smashed cupcakes.


and later, when looking at the pictures, realized...........how perfect---we were sitting right in front of the picture wall where i have "established 1995" on the wall in the background. totally not planned.

the end.

new stickers---SRM Everyday Boy

designing with SRM Stickers is effortless....i'm so thankful to be a part of the team.

today and tomorrow myself and the other team members are featuring two of the newest sets of stickers they released at CHA in Chicago. Everyday Boy (today) & Everyday Girl (tomorrow).

i chose to work with the Everyday Boy set since it's quite seldom that i do "boy themed" pages. thought i'd give myself a little challenge, ya know. so, i grabbed a little October Afternoon, so Bazzill, my SRM Stickers and a recent favorite photo and went to town.

if you're not familiar with SRM, the stickers from them on the layout are: That's My Boy and the arrow underneath, the 15 years, and 'life is pure ADVENTURE'. so, all of them with the exception of the yellow alphabet stickers.

for me, looking at this layout it feels bare. totally not my normal layered textured style, but the combination of patterned papers makes me ridiculously happy. :)

once again, i looked to my blog for the words. journaling taken directly from the end of my Great Adventure post on my anniversary last year.

as you see, i also decided to throw on some of the new SRM Number stickers. they are PERFECT. i think. not too small, not too big, playful font.

if you can't find these stickers local, you'll find them at SRM's online store:

Everyday Boy
Everyday Girl
Numbers

for more inspiration & ideas using the Everyday Boy stickers, click over to the SRM Stickers Blog today......tomorrow will be the Everyday Girl feature.

thanks for stopping by. :)

gosh, i love this man.

two weekends ago, we left the kidlets in the care of their most favorite babysitter ever, and snuck away to the land of Dayton, Ohio for two days. not the extravagant way most would celebrate 15 years, but with him, it's easy to find fun or make our own fun regardless of the destination.
















dayton is only a bit over an hour away--just far enough to feel like there were new places to discover, but not too far in case we needed to get back home in a hurry.

on saturday,
we shopped the Fairfield Commons mall.
shared fajitas at our favorite restuarant for lunch.
stopped in pier one to be visually inspired--i LOVE that place.
i fell hard for an apron while there.
didn't buy it because doug does most of the cooking these days.
found our hotel.
fell asleep to the sound of a flash flood storm.
put on my new favorite sweater.
drove in circles trying to find Old River Park....stupid Garmin.
made our way to Festiki to visit an artist friend exhibiting there.
shared a snowcone & funnel cake.
enjoyed the sunset while driving for dinner.
laughed when the Garmin told us to turn on Menstrual Dr when looking for a dinner destination.

on sunday,
we ate breakfast at the hotel.
put on my new favorite sweater again. :)
wrote on the hotel mirror with a dry erase marker and took silly pictures.
drove to the United States National Airforce Museum---still can't believe it's a FREE museum.
walked the museum until my back couldn't stand it anymore.
the headache started at that point, so i rested in the car while he shopped one store.
ate lunch at Don Pablos---again! *this was the best part ever!*
did a small amount of school clothes shopping for the kids.

then arrived home early Sunday evening to the sweetest scene ever........ (to be continued)

yes, i do.

today, we celebrate our 15th anniversary.
oh, yeah baby!

i have so many more words just waiting to spill out, but for now, be amazed at my super sweet video making skills. i mean, it only took me 10 hours and 7 redo's to finally figure out how to make a 3 minute video. HA.

all for love, all for love.

hot diggity!

i got the news yesterday that tonight, it's just me and this guy. :)

livin' it up while the girlies are having a sleepover! we have the entire night to do whatever we want.

noooo flippin' way! really? yes, way!!! you have no idea how rare of an occasion this is. so rare, in fact, that the options for what to do are endless.


suggestions have been....
A. get take out chinese and watch a movies at home.
B. go to a karaoke bar.
C. have dinner at a restaurant we don't get to often.
D. grill out steaks at home.
E. catch a flick at the theater.
F. visit Hayden Falls
G. go to Homestead Park

what to do......what to do. hmmmmm.

option A sounds fabulous because i can get chinese without having to pick out all my baby corn and share it with the girls AND we can watch two movies in the time it normally takes to watch one. trying to watch a movie with two needy children in the house is like trying to pull a lions teeth, ya know.

option B sounds adventurous only because 1. i've never been to a karaoke bar 2. i don't sing 3. bars in columbus are smoke-free 4. i'm all for adventure and doug isn't afraid to sing.

option C. that restaurant would be Carraba's.......or Don Pablos. oh yum, delicious. my mouth is watering already thinking about it. but we're on a small budget and we want to take the kids to an amusement park soon. this probably really isn't an option.

which leads us to option D. just the mention of steak makes his mouth water. nothing beats a nice thick juicy steak in his book. me? meh. i had my fill of steak as a kid. another story. another day. but this is the front runner at the moment. maybe mixed with a movie at home.

option E is quite feasible. Date Night is what he'd like us to see.

option F & G...the weather has kinda squelched those options.

i honestly don't care what we do, as long as it doesn't involve fish. i'm easy like that. :)

the great adventure

on August 12, 1995, we walked out of the ceremony with the lyrics to Steven Curtis Chapman's "Great Adventure" echoing through the sanctuary.

Video here.

Lyrics
Saddle up your horses we've got a trail to blaze
Through the wild blue yonder of God's amazing grace
Let's follow our leader into the glorious unknown
This is a life like no other - this is The Great Adventure

Come on get ready for the ride of your life
Gonna leave long faced religion in a cloud of dust behind
And discover all the new horizons just waiting to be explored
This is what we were created for

Saddle up your horses we've got a trail to blaze
Through the wild blue yonder of God's amazing grace
Let's follow our leader into the glorious unknown
This is a life like no other - this is The Great Adventure

We'll travel over, over mountains so high
We'll go through valleys below
Still through it all we'll find that
This is the greatest journey that the human heart will ever see
The love of God will take us far beyond our wildest dreams

Yeah... oh saddle up your horses... come on get ready to ride

And an adventure it has been and continues to be as we make our way through seasons of love. adventure that started immediately following our reception with the birdseed fiasco. hahhahaa. (you know we'll never let you forget jon & nik! *smooches*)

the Spring of our marriage was full of abundant growth as we learned more about each other day by day. blossoming in love, we took each day to nurture each other and watch our relationship bloom. the days were spent focused solely on one another, with the most stress endured while we moved from one apartment to another with each flip of the calendar. it became quite a joke for those who helped us move time and time again. our biggest challenge in the early days of our marriage was finding a diagnosis to my heart condition and teaching that puppy not to piddle on the carpet. stressful stuff, i tell ya. carefree and ready for adventure, we 'saddled up our horses' and moved forward on that trail we were blazing and created a life away from family a few hundred miles north of home. those days were full of unknowns and adventure. learning to lean on each other with no other support system around. we became quite loved by our church family and the youth. we were blessed with two daughters both born at our home away from home, moving back shortly after the second came along--we were away for 5 years in all. looking back I wish our season of Spring was double the 6 years we had without children so we could store up some reserves for the days that lie ahead.

before we knew it, we entered our season of Summer. the hot, sticky, sometimes miserable days of child-rearing seem unbearable at times. days filled with struggles seeming to pass slower than molasses. for along with the mental, physical and emotional draining that naturally takes place during child-rearing, there is still everyday life and challenges that don't involve the children that need some attention too. as we try to instill values in our children and they get our very best, may they see joy on our faces and love in our eyes and written upon our hearts with the reserves we have leftover to give each other. thankfully the joys outweigh the heartaches we've experienced during these years and the reward at the close of the season will be worth it all as we grow closer in love with each other, trying with all our might, not to get tangled in the trappings of this world.

as we enter Fall, we will wonder how our Summer passed so quickly and we'll be itching to experience those moments again. for, surely they are fleeting. i pray we will rediscover what it was that made us fall in love…laugh about all the times in our Summer that we let our arguments push us apart, rather than make us magnetic. i'm sure we’ll be sad that our Summer has passed, but we’ll cherish all the days of Fall we have together, for Winter will be just around the corner.

when our Winter arrives i will be thankful for your everlasting LOVE and faithful commitment to my heart and soul. i'll be thankful for unconditional love and for the fact that we didn't become a statistic during life's challenges and heartaches. in our Winter, absolutely more wise than in our Spring, we’ll be aged and gray, with failing health--but none of that will matter. For as we vowed on August, 12, 1995 “Until that day when one of us has to lay the other in the arms of Jesus, I will be with you, and you will be with me.”

like i said last year...
it's been a tremendous adventure of ups and downs--mountains and valleys—trials and successes. we had NO idea what love really was on that day 13 (now 14) years ago when we both thought we held enough love for a lifetime in our hearts. no idea at all. our love has definitely been tried and tested over the years and somehow survived. it has grown deep and wide and has been a beautiful (and sometimes not so beautiful) dance of give and take. one where I must say that he gives, way more than he takes and he can see beauty in me when no one else does. and I am here today to say that I am still so very blessed that he is mine.

may we have a lifetime of Great Adventures ahead. happy 14 year anniversary, my love.
(i still don't feel old enough to have been married for 14!!!! years)