Many moons ago, (enough to total 40 years,) two twenty-somethings started their life together as husband and wife. Together, they made a wonderful, loving home in which they raised their two children.
Today, 40 years later, their family has grow five-fold.
Mom & Dad – today we celebrate the commitment you made to one another back on September 7, 1974, and have lived out every day since then. Thank you for saying “I Do!”
We love you!
The Shecklets served as my test subjects prior to taking couple and family photos at my parents’ house today. They all grew so much over the summer!
“Mommy, I think the next movie is going to be “Melted.” Said to me by Shecklet #3 as she is looking at the “Frozen” movie case.
I love stuff like this about my kids. Their little brains work in such amazing ways.
8/19/14 – Edited to add: apparently #3 heard #2 talk about “Melted” as a sequel name to “Frozen” and it she remembered it the next day. 🙂
An experiment on Pinterest caught my eye a while back and we finally had a chance to give it a try.
I asked the kids what they thought would happen to the bar of Ivory soap when we put it in the microwave. Shecklets #2 and #3 said it would melt. Shecklet #1 said it would explode.
Turns out Shecklet #1 was correct.
After the experiment, we added a little water to the poofed up soap pile, pressed it flat and the kids used cookie cutters to make their own personal soap shapes. Good clean fun!
Shecklet #2 has been asking to spend some of his birthday money on a Lego Hobbit set. We placed his order on Amazon and it arrived last Thursday. It only took him three days to put the set together! He is so proud of the final product!
Growing up, it always felt like I had two grandmas on my dad’s side. My Grandma Fran was a twin, which made us the recipients of double the love, homemade bread, and prayers.
We were able to make a trip up to see my Great Aunt Helen (and introduce her to Shecklet #4) today. Jake and I got to spend almost 2 hours with her, listening to stories about the early years of her marriage and motherhood. Meanwhile, my dad’s cousins, Mary & Helen, were kind enough to keep the Shecklets entertained – such a gift!
After visiting Auntie Helen, we called and left a message for my Aunt Ann and Uncle Gene to see if they wanted to meet us for dinner. After attempting to decode the message we left, (apparently the background noise of the wind made the message nearly impossible to understand) my uncle called back and invited us to their house for dinner. We had a great time catching up and eating together as a family!
I am so thankful for this day and the memories we made!
When left alone in the basement, the boys come up with stuff like this:
They made Minecraft people, snakes, a creeper and a spider. They’ve yet to play the actual game, but they are fully aware of what the characters look like. The way they use their imaginations blows me away almost every day.
Shecklet #1 is learning about golf this week, so for three hours every day, I only have three Shecklets. Today we decided to take a bike ride. The girls were cozy in the trailer while Shecklet #2 and I rode around for an hour. The weather was perfect – sunny with a slight breeze. We stopped mid-way for a water break and I captured these smiles 🙂
Easter morning came early for us this year. In order to make it to mass on time (7:30 am) with all six of us dressed in our Easter finery, my alarm went off just a tad before 5:30 am. I longed to hit the snooze button just one more time (I had already pressed it 4 times) but I manged to get myself out of bed to start the day. The kids were wonderfully chipper and got ready without incident. If there’s one perk to attending the “early” mass on Easter, it’s being able to arrive at the church 10 minutes prior to mass beginning and still get a front row pew. And we had all the space we needed, which comes in handy now that Shecklet #4 is a wiggler/mover.
After mass, the kids searched for their Easter baskets and were treated to some new duds, flip-flops, gum, Holy Heroes cd’s and a few chalk activities for the driveway.
A little while later, we packed up and headed to Jake’s grandparents’ house to have brunch with family and friends. The weather was gorgeous – we couldn’t have asked for a nicer day.
Once we returned home, we let the older kids break out the sidewalk chalk paint. (We have yet to bust open the new box of chalk. I don’t know who is more excited – me or the kids!)
I was hoping to snap a few more photos today, but instead chose to just enjoy the moment and conversations taking place around me. I did capture a few pictures of relatives we don’t get to see very often as well as one of Lincoln with Uncle Mark. They were sporting similar hair styles 🙂
