Happy, Happy, Birthday!

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Today is one of our top ten favorite days of the year when we can stop and give thanks for Daddy (and Uncle Jeff!) being born. I don’t think there are enough words in the world – or that I am an eloquent enough writer – to truly do justice to my most wonderful husband. I am so in love with you, J. Thank you for being my best friend, a faithful and loving husband, a fearless and generous provider, and the absolute best father to our girls.

Hoping your day – and entire year is fantastic. Happy Birthday, love.

xoxoxo,
~your girls

Uncle Jeff – we are wishing you a very happy birthday today, too!!

*This photo was one from our session with Rose awhile back – but it is still one of my all time favorites of the girls with J.

All I want for Christmas….

Ah, as I was typing that title, I realized that I haven’t uploaded either of the girls’ Christmas program videos yet.

Sigh….Must. Do. That.

And in case you are wondering how my stream of consciousness writing got me from that to this – Emma’s class sang “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.”  Ahhh, see? I haven’t completely lost my mind. Yet.

Anywho…J. asked me what I wanted for Christmas a few weeks ago and I told him I really just wanted to go back to Michigan to see my sister and family. Let the girls soak up some cousin love for a bit, they are clearly in need of a little.

So, my Christmas present is indeed plane tickets, we leave the day after Christmas. So we get to have three different Christmases – a week of Christmases! That is a great gift if you ask me.

Last night we were making our lists (and checking it twice, ha!) of things I needed to get today and I was looking over J.’s shoulder at his very logical, engineer-like spreadsheet of gift giving. I mean, it is color-coded, I kid you not!

J: Hey! You aren’t supposed to look at this, I have presents for you on it.
C: You already got me my present. The plane tickets so I could see my sister that was supposed to be my gift.
J: Maybe I got you something else, like glasses. So you could see your sister. Or binoculars…or a telescope! You could see her with that!

Ha. Ha. Ha. HiLARious! See what I’ve got to work with here?

From Indiana Jones…to this.

Nineteen years ago J. and I went on our first date. We had “hung” around together after school and at each other’s houses for awhile before this, but this was an “honest-to-goodness date-date.”

I remember being nervous, although I can’t imagine why. We had been friends for a few years before we ever started going out. I knew that he was a good “safe” date and we would have fun. I think I was just a little cautious about “the” date because it was that step of moving us to the not-just-friends level.

At any rate, he picked me up. We had Taco Bell for dinner, (it was/has been a staple of our entire life together!) and he suggested we go see the Indiana Jones movie. I had not seen the two previous Indy movies and was not really sure that it was my type of movie, but not wanting to seem stubborn (he would see that lovely side of me for himself soon enough!) and being a little nervous (see above) I agreed, “Yeah! That sounds great!.”

Loved. Loved. Still love the movie. Maybe a tiny bit of it is nostalgic, since it was our first date – but I really do enjoy the movie. It started my fascination with Sean Connery and my admiration for Harrison Ford. And it was also the start of J. getting me to watch and read many things I thought I wouldn’t like.

J. has followed the on-again, off-again rumors of the making of the new Indiana Jones movie for years. We would get our hopes up that they were really going to make another, and then they would be dashed.

But tonight? We are going to see the new Indiana Jones movie. Thanks to Jeff we have tickets for opening night for one of the most anticipated movies of the summer (and our marriage!).

I do hope our date tonight ends up a little bit better than our first one, though.

Let’s just say there was some orange soda, a tumble down a huge hill, and trying to explain grass stains on my t-shirt and shorts to my parents.

So in summary, Carrie is very excited for the movie tonight. She is also stubborn and very, very clumsy.

Sometimes I really do marvel that J. has stuck around for as long as he has.