Our Everyday Talk

More Anniversary Fun!

Yesterday was a full day, so Todd and I are going to celebrate our anniversary this weekend and decided to do something fun and simple last night.   We made lasagna together when he got home from work.   We like cooking together.   Todd loves to cook, I enjoy cooking but love cooking with Todd.   For dessert we made chocolate brownies with a white chocolate/cream cheese/whipped cream topping.  YUMMY!   While we cooked, the kids set the table.   They came up with the idea that they would eat out on the porch so we could have dinner by ourselves.   They set our table with special plates, candles, and Hannah showed her artsy side by including spinach leaves and grapes in her candle centerpiece arrangement.   Then they left us alone, “to look at each other” as Noah put it.

Here are just a few of the pictures that the kids and I looked through while I told them stories about our wedding.   Look at all that big hair!

My bridal shower at Jody’s apartment with Lori and Jen

I love this picture of my sister, Maria, and my sister-in-law, Jen, as they open their gifts from us at our rehearsal dinner.   So silly!

 

Jody and her adorable daughter, Jonnay.

Hannah saw this picture of my cousin, Carol, and her tough looking husband, Bob, and asked, “Did you have security guards at your wedding?”  (hee …hee…hee)

Us showing up at the Pirates Cover for dinner.   My kids all remember watching the video of this scene last year on our anniversary, and said, “Oh . . . yeah, with Aunt Jennifer screaming in the background!”   Yep, all you hear during this portion of the video is my brother honking his horn, and my sister-in-law hoopin’ and hollerin’ really loud for a really long time. (hee …hee…hee)

My gang of High School friends.   Lori, Jody, me, Mary, Judi, and Julie.   Judi passed away just 3 years later, but I still keep in touch with the rest of them and we all get together at least once a year.

My Grandpa and me

 

Our wedding cake.   Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.  Yum.

Our decked out car.

Todd and I dancing to “Always” by Atlantic Starr.

 “Ooh, you're like the sun
Chasing all the rain away
When you come around
You bring brighter days

You're the perfect one
For me, and you forever will be
And I will love you so for, always
Come with me my sweet
Let's go make a family
And they will bring us joy for always
Oh boy I love you so
Can't find enough ways to let you know
But you can be sure I'm yours, for always!”

                              from Always by Atlantic Starr

It's been 20 years!

Today is our 20th wedding anniversary.   My day started with a good-bye kiss from my sweetie, as he was off to work.  I laid in bed a few minutes, until I heard the kids whispering in the kitchen.   As I came out into the hall, Noah met me and pushed coaxed me back into my room.   A couple minutes later they appeared with a breakfast tray covered with home made cards and gifts.   Hannah had made me a necklace and matching pair of earrings.   Jewelry making is a huge hobby of hers.   The boys made us coupon books full of coupons for a variety of chores.    The kids brought me our two wedding albums and I walked through the album telling them the stories of our engagement and wedding.

And then I heard it.   I had anticipated that this was going to come up today, I knew it would.   “You’re finally old!”   I don’t remember which one said it, but as soon as he or she did, the others all nodded and agreed.   It might sound like an odd greeting on your anniversary, but I’m just happy that it wasn’t the first word of greeting from each one of them this morning.

Somehow, I don’t remember how, but about this time two years ago, I made a casual remark that I had always considered people being married 20 years to be “old” but now that we were getting close to 20 years my perspective had changed.   So for the last 2 years whenever the topic of age has come up, my kids have teased me, “You’re not old mom, you still have fill in the blank for how many more months until you are old.”   Filling in the blank with the number until our 20th wedding anniversary.   Even yesterday Todd asked me, “Are you ready to be 'old' together tomorrow?”

So here it is, the day that I become old. (LOL)   Let’s take a little stroll down memory lane in pictures.

Todd and I met in college at the Univ. of MN.   This is a picture of us in my apartment on the night of the Spring Formal.

Our wedding day.

Our honeymoon

 

At Todd’s brother’s wedding, we’ve been married almost 3 years.

 

Married 5 years with our first 2 “kids”, “Choli” and “Kam.”   (Just as a funny side note, each of these dogs weighed over 100 lbs.   Our 13 and 11 year old sons don’t weigh anywhere close to that.)

A year later with our 3rd “kid”, Jasmine, and pregnant with Noah.

 

Married 6 1/2 years with 3 week old Noah (and Kam and Jasmine, Choli couldn’t fit.)

 

Married 8 years and pregnant with J.D.  (We still have all 3 dogs, but have decided pictures with dogs are just too much work.)

 

Married 12 years and very pregnant with Hannah

 

Married 14 years

 

Married 17 years

 

Married 20 years

 

There you have it 20 years in 12 photos.

And Todd tells me, “Being ‘old’ isn’t so bad when you’ve got good company.”

19 reasons after 19 years

19 years ago today I married the man of my dreams. Little did I know then, how much real life could exceed my dreams. Here are just 19 of the reasons I love him . . .

1) He is so amazingly patient!

2) He treats me like a queen – he genuinely cares about my happiness.

3) He calls me everyday before he leaves work and asks if there’s anything I need for him to do on his way home. After working a 10 hour day, he still thinks about showing kindness to me.

4) He makes me laugh.

5) He makes our kids laugh (and he seems to instinctively know when he needs to step in and lighten the mood.)

6) Some days after working a hard 10 hour day, he comes home and sees I’ve had a hard day with the kids; he just starts making supper, no complaining, no guilt trips. He’s amazing!

7) He loves me for who I am. He knows me better than anyone, even myself sometimes, and loves me anyway.

8) Because I know there are moments he doesn’t “feel” loving thoughts towards me, but he tries hard not to communicate those thoughts at that moment.

9) He is an awesome father to our 3 awesome kids!

10) He’s just so darn sexy, he still lights my fire!

11)  He works selflessly to provide for me and our children. He always puts our needs and wants before his own.

12)  He’s willing to “take one for the team”, when I’m going through my occasional Psychotic Mood Swings – as we refer to them around here, he just takes it and makes the best of it.  I don’t know that I could be that loving if the shoe was on the other foot!

13) He will do just about anything I ask him to, to help me around the house. He told me once, he doesn’t ever want to scrub a toilet. Since he’s more than willing to do everything else I’ve ever asked of him, I haven’t ever asked him to scrub a toilet. 

14) He puts up with my complaining about this, that, and the other thing. Sometimes he adds the appropriate, “that’s just not right!” at just the right time. Other times he honestly asks, is this something you want me to fix or do you just want me to listen?

15) He kills the spiders. I could do it if I had to, but I love him for doing it for me.

16) He is a fantastic example of a Godly man to his 2 sons and his daughter!

17) He takes equal responsibility for teaching our children, he may not spend equal amounts of time, but he feels equally responsible for it.

18) He steps in whenever I ask him to with homeschooling our kids. He’s so good at it! The kids love it when he’s their “substitute teacher.”

19) He loves God and is an awesome reflection of Jesus for me and our kids!

Thank you God for this amazing man! Hannah said it so well tonight, while our family was watching the video of our wedding day.  She was telling us how nice we looked and how happy we looked. I said something about being so happy because I knew what an amazing man I had married, and some day she was going to be just as happy to marry an amazing man that God had picked out for her. She smiled and nodded, then said, “Well he can’t be more amazing than Daddy, because there’s no one more amazing than Daddy!”

I nodded and agreed, “No one MORE amazing, but some day you’ll meet someone who’ll be JUST as amazing as your daddy for you.”

Here’s a picture of us 19 years ago.
Happy Anniversary Honey, I'd say "I do" all over again in a heartbeat!

N.

 

 

We celebrated . . .

T. and I celebrated our wedding anniversary last weekend a few days early, driving to Maple Grove for dinner and the movie, Fireproof.

 

It’s an awesome movie! It’s got a little bit of suspenseful action, a few really funny scenes, and great romance; without going over the top like most movies do these days. Do you know what I mean? I get so tired of movies shocking us with the biggest explosions and most blood and gore they can imagine, or using disgusting and degrading humor, or so much skin that it leaves NOTHING to the imagination! That’s just one of the reasons we hardly ever go to the movies. This is actually the first movie that Todd and I have seen together in a theater in probably over 15 years – not counting the half a dozen movies, or so, that we’ve gone to as a family (Flicka, Over the Hedge, Toy Story, etc.) We probably watch at least 1 movie a month that we’ve borrowed from the library.  But most of those movies are either movies that never made it to a theater near us, or oldies that were made before T. and I were even born, or before we knew each other anyway.

 

I’d recommend Fireproof to everyone! And I’d encourage you to invite friends that might not be Christians, or maybe are Christians but that you sense could use some encouragement in their marriage. The main characters in the movie are a couple struggling on the brink of divorce. It beautifully conveys 2 truths, 1^st - that without a love relationship with God we can’t fully understand how to love our spouse, and 2^nd - marriage is meant to last a lifetime.

 

A central part of the plot is a book called, “The Love Dare.” I’ve ordered the book and am excited to read it with T. We’re doing a small group book study at church right now on the book “Love and Respect”, and I think this book will be a good follow up to that.

 

So go see this movie, bring a friend or two, and love your husband, life doesn’t get any better than that!

 

I’m hoping the movie will be showing closer soon!  Right now the 2 closest theaters are in Maple Grove or Willmar.

 

Here’s the trailer.

 

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

 

N.