Weekend busyness & birthday!

Last weekend was a busy weekend full of wedding busyness for Evan & Elisabeth. Friday night was their singing shower. Saturday night was the personal shower. Saturday morning I made lots of food for the shower and then we did peaches at my moms. Saturday afternoon I went over to Marisa's to finish making food for the shower. Marisa went to a lot of work for the shower and it was very cute. It was a lot of fun! The group I was sitting by was hilarious entertainment....love my new cousins I've inherited! :)

Oh she is soo special to me! One week till the wedding!

The eating table

The food table

I had to take a picture of the desserts, because I made them! :) 

 We made little trifles in mason jars...they were so cute, but extremely time consuming! I made chocolate covered strawberries for the first time too. Bless Daniel's heart for doing most of them! :) Yes, I have a wonderful husband...he helps me so much in the kitchen!

Elisabeth & the bridesmaids! Special girls!

 Sunday we went to Congerville with Evan's family. It was good to go see Hannah too. :) We went to Evan's parents for dinner Sunday night. It was a beautiful evening to be outside... but I felt pretty miserable the whole day. Daniel was sick last week, so I got his bad cold. We all got a taste of the cake and punch that will be at the wedding reception! :) They decided to practice and use that as our dessert. One more week until the wedding!

Monday was my birthday. I still wasn't feeling the best, fighting my cold and sinuses. But I was blessed by how many people remembered my birthday. Work was really boring that day, but Daniel took me out for lunch which was sweet of him. :) In the evening we went to my parents to celebrate. Bless Hannah's heart she came and stopped by!

We enjoyed eating and sitting outside

Kinda wish I could still have dinner every night with them...I miss our dinner conversations :) 

Oh how I've missed this girl!

Carter is such a sweetie...

Haha.... this picture just looks like we're so tired and not feeling well! 

 This year I realized that my birthday isn't a very big deal to me anymore... I've always felt that a child's birthday is more special to the mother. After all, I can't reflect on my own birth day. I'm looking forward to when I can remember and reflect on my own kids' birth days. Our anniversary is a wonderful time time to reflect too, and now that is the most important date to me!

Our Celebration..

Some people think it's normal what we did for our anniversary...some people just laughed. :) 

On Saturday we went to the Magic Waters water park near Rockford. Just the two of us. I have driven by that water park every year for the past 12 years on the way to our Wisconsin vacations. Every year I make a comment about how I want to go there someday...

When making our plans for the weekend, I told Daniel I just wanted to go to the pool and relax. That's when he suggested going to Magic Waters. I was quite excited. :) He had been there before, so bless his heart for going with me! He said he didn't care at all, as long as we were together. :) It was a ton of fun, the slides were huge... by far the fastest/scariest slides I've ever been on. The only downside was that it wasn't super sunny... and there was a breeze. This made it freezing standing in line for slides, and the lazy river was just freezing.

There was only one slide I wouldn't go on... and it was this body slide. Oh my word, it took a person 6 or 7 seconds to get to the bottom. Daniel tried it... and didn't want to go on it again. :)

That's Daniel :)

We left the water park around 5, so we stopped and got some food on the way home and relaxed the rest of the evening at home. Such a fun day.

Monday was the actual day of our anniversary. Daniel sent me TWO dozen roses to work... they were gorgeous, and they make my office smell wonderful!

We went out to eat at Granite City that evening. I took this picture... obviously I need some practice. I thought Daniel looked good though. :) I just look chubby because I have a mint in my mouth. Oh well, I have to document everything we do, so it's just gonna have to work. :)

When we got back from Granite City, we cut into our cake topper. I'm not sure if I really get that tradition. At all. I don't really like cake at all, but I took a bite. It wasn't terribly dry, but I've tasted better. :)

I'm sure every year our anniversary won't involve this much celebration, but we might as well do it while we can! :)

1 year!

Today is our 1st wedding anniversary. These past couple of weeks it's been so good to reflect on the past year and thank God for all he has done for us.

I can't believe I've been married an entire year. The year has flown by. Sometimes I still have thoughts of, "I can't believe I'm actually married." Seriously. This year I have learned how perfect Daniel is for me, and why God chose him for me.
This year has been pretty easy to be quite honest. Of course it's been hard in the way of just getting used to marriage and realizing just how selfish I am. But we didn't have any really hard times or trials. I am so excited that I have Daniel to go through hard times with. No, I'm not excited for hard times, but I'm comforted to know that I have him right beside me to support me with whatever may come our way in the future years of our marriage. I'm excited to see how trials will strengthen our marriage.

I could go on and on with how blessed we have been. But sometimes fewer words are better. I will just say this year has been the happiest year of my life. I enjoy and am so blessed with Daniel's family. Daniel fits perfectly into my family. At first it took some adjusting, but now I feel at home with my new church family. Most of all, I am blessed with Daniel, God chose the perfect helpmate for me, and I am excited I have someone to help me to the Heavenly Kingdom someday!
I had no idea how overwhelmingly blessed I would be when I took that leap of faith and said yes to a man I knew nothing about. I never imagined I would love him like I do today.

Wisconsin Vacation

Time to blog about our wonderful vacation we just back from a week ago! Oh I how I was looking forward to this vacation... I needed a break from work so bad. I hadn't taken a day off in a year, so it was time. :) 

We've gone to Wisconsin almost every single year since I was 8... but this year we went to a different place. A place that would be better with the little kids and that was a closer drive. We left on Saturday morning, and Daniel and I rode with Heidi & Luke and the kiddos. It was only a 4.5 hour drive which was wonderful!

The kids traveling...thank goodness for portable DVD players!

Lunch stop at Culvers!

We went to a resort that was on a lake in Arkdale, Wisconsin. On Sunday afternoon I went fishing out on the boat with these guys:

 But the fishing wasn't the greatest at all. I think maybe a total of 5 fish were caught.... I gave up fishing pretty much on the first day. I decided I wanted to spend my time otherwise, even though I love to fish. I seriously spent my week doing what I wanted to do. Sleeping in, eating delicious meals, running, going to the pool, eating, going to the pool, playing tennis, playing board games, playing with the kids, going on walks... you get the picture. :) Basically eating and sitting by the pool! But it was so wonderful... I would've done 2 more weeks of it!

Bridget became buds with Daniel real fast. Probably because he's overly silly with her..especially in the pool!

Dinner time...the condo was so spacious!

These boys keep looking more and more alike...

The resort was on a golf course and a lake. Our condo was more on the golf course part of it. No one in our family really golfs, but the boys borrowed some golf clubs just to go to the driving range in the evenings a couple of times.

The boys going to the driving range

The boys ended up in our backyard of our condo...

Such a good smile of Adam

Daniel

We all loved having the kids around for a week! They were so darling and good!

I really don't have many good pictures...there wasn't much to take pictures of since we didn't do much. So most of my pictures are of the kids. :)

The kids loved playing basketball in the pool

We played games a lot in the evenings...which usually ended in a slap happy mood. :) At least for me! I'm not used to staying up that late!

Carter's hilarious..he eats anything anyone gives him. He ate all of mom's salad one night!

The lake one evening... I didn't wait for the sunset, but I should've. Adam has beautiful pictures.

Me & Daniel

                                                   

One view of the resort, where our condo was

Bedtime stories with Grandma

This is what Dad did a majority of the trip...trying to figure out his new smartphone, and downloading apps. :)

More pool time...the kids usually went before their naps and after too!

Playing by the lake and the sand..

Too sweet!

Carter was doing exercises with Grandpa one morning...

Bridget thought anything of mine was great...(like the sunglasses)

Ready for bed... Carter stealing all of my grapes. This kid eats sooo much!

The last night we were there we were going to go out to eat. But none of us felt like getting ready/cleaning up, we just wanted to enjoy our last night there. So mom and dad went and bought some frozen pizzas for supper. 

Messy eater! 

Watching Pinocchio with Grandpa!

Family pictures before leaving on Friday morning... I do not have a group picture, that's on mom's camera.

The ones who made the trip possible...thanks Mom & Dad!

The night before returning home, but had us go around the table and tell our highs and lows of the trip. I didn't have any lows... my highs were the following:
-Sleeping in until I want to
-Getting to go to the pool everyday
-Playing Tennis... I discovered I love it! (and I think it's the only sport I can actually play...)
-Going on runs and walks
-Not having to cook, just assist (Thanks mom!!!)
-Watching Anne of Green Gables... even the sequel. My family loves this movie...Daniel had never seen it, and it's kind of a tradition to watch it on vacation every once in a while. :) I was a little emotional by the end of it... :) That movie never gets old. I just love Anne.
-Getting to be with my family and the kids was great, but it was also GREAT to spend that much time with Daniel... he didn't have to go work any night shifts or anything. We haven't spent that much time together since our honeymoon. (Sorry if that was cheesy, but it's the truth...)

This list could go on and on and on... needless to say, I cannot wait for our next family vacation! This was a TRUE vacation, getting all rested up! :)