Anniversary-8 years

 So, way back at the beginning of May, Max and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary! 8 years, sometimes it seems like 8 years is a long time and in some ways we feel like we are just beginning. Either way, we love being married to eachother and raising our children together. Our celebrations were simple and perfect. Life has been crazy for the last couple months closing and selling some houses. Max had spent many many hours on properties and occasionally wasn't coming home until 4 or 5am. It's been exhausting, but our first property finally was sold and closed on our anniversary, so we had that relief to enjoy, plus our realtor gave us a gift card for a fancy Portland restaurant we got to use. Our anniversary was on a Tuesday and we actually have a regular babysitter that comes most Tuesdays so she came on over a little early, and we made our way to the restaurant called Merriweather's. This restaurant was delicious and beautiful but let me tell you something funny..if you've ever seen a clip from Portlandia where a couple goes into a restaurant and want to know every detail about the chicken they are eating...they ask what the chicken was fed, if the chicken is organic, if the chicken's food is organic, how much space the chicken has to roam, if the chicken has any friends, and what was the chicken's name.  Anyway, this was that kind of restaurant. The waitress emphasized the local and organic nature of their food and claimed that they have their own personal river where they catch their fish...(how does that even work?) haha! Anyway, everything was fancy and delicious and we had a great time.
And all our photos are food photos and phone selfies!
So then we made our way to get ice cream at salt n straw and it was an abnormally warm night so we walked together as we ate our ice cream cones. When the ice cream was gone we made our way to Powell's books to "write our story." We keep talking about writing a book about our lives for fun, including crazy stories from our childhood, and other funny anecdotal stories. We ended up spending time in the children's book section and picking out a book for our boys and one for Charlie to donate to his preschool classroom. Then we found a bench in between tall book shelves to start drafting our story. Neither of us are writers so I'm not sure how this will work but we had a lot of fun reminiscing about our past. we stayed until closing then bought our books and our annual drinking glass to add to our collection.

We brought home some chocolate for our wonderful babysitter, Doreen. And called it a night. Also, when Doreen babysits, the kids are always asleep and the house clean...it's amazing!
 
Anyway, so eight years! 3 kids! And we've been in the same house for 4.5 years! (This is significant because we moved 10 times in our first 3 years of marriage!) This last year has been more challenging as we overcome obstacles with our business and other challenges life throws at us, but we decided long ago that we would face trials together, on the same side, and that has made all the difference in our marriage. We have chosen to take any life experience and find a way for us to grow closer rather than apart. I feel so lucky to be married to this patient and hardworking man.

And leading up to our anniversary, I pondered some of the most romantic moments of our relationship so here are 8 to celebrate 8 years of marriage!

1. Prayer for me to be his girlfriend- Way back in high school, Max wanted to date me but had never had a girlfriend before and just wanted to do everything right. Before he asked me to be his girslfriend, he prayed about it, and distinctly felt the prompting "You'd be lucky to date Rebecca" Shortly thereafter we started officialy dating relationship, Max was 18, I was 19.

2. meeting in the airport-When I came home from my mission, I hadn't seen Max in 3 years. When he left, we kind of left it at "If you're not married when I get home we'll see how things go..," Little did he know (or myself) that I would also serve a mission. Through our letters and our tape recordings, we never spoke of dating, but it was apparent that we had a strong friendship that would continue after our missions. Max flew from Utah to be in the Portland airport when I got home and it is one of the best moments of my life!

3. Knowing you wanted to marry me when serving a mission-I didn't always want to serve a mission, and it wasn't until Max had sent me a package from Chile, on my 21st birthday and had casually asked if I had thought of serving a mission. I drafted a letter multiple times telling him that I wasn't planning on a mission and in the process, I realized all my "reasons" were just excuses and there was no reason why I couldn't serve a mission. Through personal prayer and inspiration, i decided to serve. It was years later that he told me he knew he wanted to marry me when I had written to him that I had chose to serve a mission (I left 6 months before he came home)

4. surprise dates-Max has tried to plan surprise dates for me, and almost every time I have figured it out before the date. I still love that he tries, some of these dates include prom, dance lessons, facials and pedicures...

5. Our wedding! I'll spare all the details for now but that was a pretty wonderful day!

6. Seeing you be a dad for the first time- It never gets old, with each child. Seeing the love you have for our boys is one of your most attractive qualities.

7. Reading about us in your journals-That one time, 2 years ago, we discovered that you had kept a journal all through high school that included our friendship, first date, first kiss, your excitement and concerns about having a girlfriend. etc. Those journals are pretty great!

8. Cleaning up vomit-A couple months before Edwin was born, Miles woke up throwing up. Max took him to the bathroom while I worked on changing his sheets and cleaning out his bed/crib. It was turning out to be quite uncomfortable with my large pregnant belly. I took our sick Miles in the cozy chair while Max finished cleaning his bed and the trail of vomit that led to the bathroom. The sight of him on his hands and knees, at 2am, (in his undies) cleaning up vomit, while I held our sleeping sick boy, is one that's forever in my mind and represents the love and dedication Max has our family for our family. (there have been many time situations similar to this, but this one is just very ingrained in my mind)

Anyway, there is a highlight reel but sometimes I make notes of all the ways he has shown love for his family in a single day and the list gets pretty long. Happy Anniversary Max...now that we are almost to our 9ths since I'm so slow at blogging!

Rainy Garden

Way back in the early weeks of spring...actually I think Spring was half over but it was still raining. I attempted one of my first outings alone with 3 boys. We went to our secret garden because last year at the same time the Wisteria was amazing! When we got there this time...the wisteria hadn't even started blooming.

We ventured around anyway to get some fresh air and find other signs of spring.

Miles seemed to trip a lot, which led to a lot of whining. So the outing ended up being kind of short and the kids were whining on the way home so...we haven't been back yet and surely missed the Wisteria. 

 But these spring flowers weren't too bad!

Tea Party

I'm not even sure how this came about but Charlie kept asking for a tea party. I think he may have seen my teacups I got in Armenia and then was excited to use them. I have had this tea set since I came home from Armenia and NEVER used it. It's been nearly 9 years since I've been home, so we decided it was as good a time as ever and we made the boys triple promise that they would be so careful with them!

And this was just a random quick event between dinner time and bedtime so we threw together what we had and took blurry pictures, but the special memories are there!

 

The boys gathered flowers from the yard that smelled lovely!

We found some pop tarts in the cupboard which were our delectable pastries (at least the boys thought so) we also had some cinnamon rolls already made. The boys got to use tiny spoons to add sugar to their tea which was a hit.

Max made sure everyone needed to put their pinkies up and speak with an accent. I thought I had videos of the boys trying out accents but apparently I don't. Whenever Miles tried to put his pinky out his tongue came out too and it was hilarious to watch.





And here is Edwin's "tea"

Which he overdosed on as he usually does. (Also this photo was taken half of his lifetime ago)
And there was our impromptu tea party. Thanks Charlie for inspiring us to still be fun sometimes!

Easter

You know Easter? that holiday we had 3 months ago? Yup! We celebrated that, and it's just now getting on the blog. And I wasn't even that great at taking pictures so we will see what I can remember. The Saturday before Easter, we went to our church for a little Easter celebration. The kids sand songs, made Easter wreaths, and listened to stories of Jesus' last week on Earth. All of these were very Christ centered and it was a great way to begin our Easter weekend. Then the kids all went outside for a good old Easter egg hunt.

Shortly after that activity we went to my Red Grandma's house who always throws an incredibly fun (and fair...like she puts the exact same amount of candy in each egg) Easter Egg hunt. We had dinner and played with cousins and it was a good time.

Nothing better than giving little boys heavy wooden mallets to swing around, right?

And Elizabeth was way better at talking pictures so the next group of photos is from her! Thanks Elizabeth!

Charlie the Diva...

I love this photo from Elizabeth so much. It reminds me of a Norman Rockwell painting, rusty bike no shoes...

My baby back when he was more of a baby. 

We went home with enough time to dye our own eggs. Miles picked out the a cool metallic egg kit, so after you dye the eggs, you paint them with metallic paint. Yay!

So the next morning, the Easter bunny left some surprises for the boys and they were then sent on an egg hunt. They sure are at a fun age for these kinds of traditions so I'm really trying to soak in the excitement they feel. We then made our way to church to bring our focus back to the Savior.

He was pretty excited about his pinwheel he got in his Easter basket.

And there you have it! I'm trying to catch up on our blog now that I'm not pumping milk for my baby so much. ha!