Valentines twenty-twelve.

 

  Since we’ve had kids (which has been most of our marriage.) I’ve totally sucked it up on gifts.  I always have spectacular ideas that come flooding into my mind and I get really excited…..two days before the holiday that requires said gift.

  And then I’m doing laundry and cleaning up spit up and picking nits, and I just end up doing something really lame.  Lame, like, for Christmas I printed off two pics of our girls at CVS, put them in frames, wrapped them, and voila…lame-o Christmas pictures for your office.

No forethought.

 

SO.

For valentines, I read about this really great idea of putting together 12 envelopes, one for each month of the year, each one filled with a pre-planned, super fun date.  That way we have at least one date already planned for each month, and my Mister doesn’t have to feel all the pressure to come up with some good date night idea.

 

 

I turned my date night envelope making into a craft project with the girls, and I actually got it done in time!

I’m super excited.

Some of the envelopes already have tickets in them for events that month, some of them have gift certificates, and some of them are just ideas for things we don’t do very often together.  And he gets a new surprise every month!

 

 

We celebrated valentines day last night, and so Brian already has his present.  I’m not totally ruining it by posting the entire thing on here.  That would make this a lame present, instead of a great one.

 

Anyway, I’m going to post every month when we do our fun date so that we can keep the memories of our dates this year.

 

can’t wait!

5 years.

  Five years ago right now I was at the church, putting on my dress, surrounded by my family and friends who would coach me down the aisle to marry my best friend.  (Only gently aided by half of a muscle relaxer on loan from my dad.)

 

  Five years sounds impossible – both too short and too long.

We tend to pack a lot of life into our years.  We’re good at that.  And that’s the way we like it – after all, we’re not going to run short on life to fill our years and so we might as well pack it in.  I think we average at least twice as much change, transition, and excitement as the typical couple – but if you know either of us, this makes sense.  We are absolutely live to the fullest, why not try it, hit the ground running kind of people.

 

  And I love it, this life we’ve built.

 

For our fifth anniversary, Brian surprised me by taking me to the church that we were married in.  Not ten minutes later, my mom showed up with Sylvia and Naomi (Bella was on a visit), and a photographer.

My, how life has changed in five years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our first five years has been full of ups, and very few downs.  Thank you Lord for this life you have given us.  Here’s to another fifty just as full of life as these five.  Love you, Bri.

 

(Photos thanks to John Gaugahn Photography.)