Celebrations

Sunday night the girls returned to us after 17 or so days of being spoiled mercilessly by Grandparents after we abandoned them in Yellowstone. The girls had a blast, the Grandparents all seem to have survived (mostly) unscathed, and the family members who transported them home weren't even bald by the time the drive was done. Win/win/win. It was so very nice to have some time together with Jim as just the two of us, but I confess I missed the girls like crazy and am so glad to be insanely busy with them now that they are back. 

Don't they look thrilled to be home? Well, technically we're not home yet in this picture but we are all together and they are already feeling the pain of returning to parental expectations. 

They came home Sunday night, and Monday was our one year anniversary. 

It's been an awesome year. Beyond description, actually. We celebrated our anniversary at the Nike employee store lugging children through boring-to-them shopping, a couple other stops, and then 2 hours in the car home. Jim went in to work for an hour during which I heard "When is daddy going to be home?" about 37 million times. Ellie put these B Y U letter stickers on her fingers and wanted a picture but since she sits still about as well as most other 5 year olds this is as good as we got it. 

Once Jim came home he and Ellie headed to the bike shop. We'd long been planning on buying her a bike this summer but come to find out she actually has summer homework from her new teacher to practice riding a bike. Talk about fun homework! Once it was assembled both girls rode their bikes with Jim as he went running, though I'm sure the pace was a little lot slower than he's accustomed to.

The girls wanted nothing to do with a picture.

Over the past year, I honestly spent a lot of time thinking about how our anniversary would be. I figured we'd go out for a nice dinner and I'd try to wear my dress again (since I got a semi-formal one that's easy to re-wear) and make a night of it. We're both pretty sappy individuals, but it didn't quite happen as either of us imagined. 

Aeryn got a fever and the moodiness that goes with it

Ellie was sad that Jim sat next to me at dinner

Aeryn was sad that I sat next to Jim

Both girls were crying as we started eating

We tried to talk about what they want to do the coming weeks but both girls were upset and crying that we're not doing anything (oh, the irony)

I tried to surprise the family with a cake but Jim is tall enough to see the top of the fridge without trying

Aeryn was upset I wanted her to eat (even though she knew about the cake because I was bribing her)

Ellie was upset we stopped her from eating third helpings because we knew she'd want cake

When I tried to have a talk about how awesome our family is and how grateful I am for everyone the kids just whined about wanting dessert

Then the battles began over who was going to shower and who was going to take a bath and which one of them was going to go first.

The kids were finally bathed, tolerably happy, and in bed by 10p.m. 

I honestly laughed the whole night over the craziness of it all. All I could think of was my cousin Erika telling me about how she and her husband folded laundry for their 10th anniversary. I suppose when you get married already having kids the celebratory romance gets automatically kept in check. In all fairness, we did get two weeks to ourselves and we went out to dinner a couple times and even to a movie. 

It may not have matched our imaginations, but it was a good day. I can't believe it's been a whole year since we became a family. It's been amazing so far, and it's only looking up from here!