Love One Another Chart

In June we did a "Love One Another" chart as part of a Family Home Evening.  The way that the spaces around the heart were colored in was by a kind word or act done or spoken in our home.  We had the graph hanging, until just recently. (The reason for the bad hand-writing is because it was awkward to write on the wall while leaning over the bookcase to get to it!) Last night it was on the counter when Stace was making some ice cream, and he spilled his treat on the paper! Sad!  I suppose it's time to say goodbye to our graph, but not without giving it the proper documentation on the blog: 

Daddy helped Mommy start the lawn mower. Julian gave mommy a BIG HUG when he woke up from his nap! Julian: early in the morning while we were all snuggled in bed, Julian turned to Ella Grace and said "hey baby girl! I think you're pretty!" Julian: after a family outing at Tioga, Julian turned to me out to the blue and said "hey Mama, I love you too." Julian: gave Mommy BIG unprompted kisses. Daddy: got fuel for gas can for Mommy. Julian: When I got home from a church meeting, Julian said "Mommy! I missed you so much!" Julian: Dada walked in and Julian said "Ella Grace! It's Dada! I'm so excited!" Ella Grace: gave Julian a kiss for the first time! Julian: while pulling out of the driveway, he sees my face as I check for cars and said "I love you, Mama." Julian: "Thank you Mama!" (when I told him I was making him pancakes.) "You're so sweet, Mama!" Dada: always tells Julian he loves Mama. Julian: At church, Julian looks in my eyes and says "I like your pretty eyes, Mama!"

Look at that little man and his cute profile and hair...he's so precious...I die!

 Julian was so tired, and doing everything he could to talk us out of the idea that he actually needed a nap! He subsequently slept for three hours...

Big hugs, big kisses, big tickles, big jumps, big giggles, big snuggles...that's what makes life so sweet. When these babies are grown, sweet moments like those listed on our chart are what I hope I remember the most.

No title is adequate to precede this quote

"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance and imitation suicide; that he must take himself for better or worse as his allotted portion: that though the wide universe is full of good; no nourishing kernel of corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed upon that plot of ground given to him to till. The power which is in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is that he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

What I must do then is all that concerns me, not what people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve as the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinions; it is easy in solitude to live after your own. But the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love this quote.  I believe He led me to find it the other night...tucked away in a book I haven't picked up for years and years, in one of the very last chapters. Comfort.  
He knows me and loves me.

Grateful. 

Ella Grace is 10 Months Old

I really hated typing that sentence. humph...sad face:( 

This month Ella Grace started to walk along with this little lion and she LOVES it! It's probably her favorite thing to not only walk along with it, but to dance to its music:)

don't mind that cute pile of clothes to be washed in the background:)
Ella Grace also played this month with her baby friend Ayla! Sweet little girls in their baby blues... 

She's been eating much more, and is up to about 2 jars a day (at the beginning of her eleventh month-- now-- she's doing 3)

 She does thing thing sometimes where she bites down on the spoon when she puts it in her mouth. She smiles when she does it and it's so cute! It's like a little game to her:)

 She stuck out her tongue for funsies for a brief time period, and seems to already be done with it. It was cute while it lasted! 

 We inherited a picnic table from our sweet friends who moved onto their next adventure.  Julian thinks it's the coolest thing ever, and Ella Grace likes it, too!  

Her crawl morphed into one where her knees are up off the ground!

She had her first Fourth of July and looked so cute and patriotic!  

 The next week we went up to Atlanta with Aunt Beth and her girls and Julian. It was so fun!  Ella Grace waited patiently while her cousins and brother rode the merry-go-round.

The next day we went to Union Station in Atlanta for some lunching. 

 While there we visited my BFF, her Aunt Kathleen. Here we are at Kathleen's job waiting for her to be done so we could go partay partay party:)

 She became well-acquainted with her baby friend at Aunt Kathleen's!

As I watched her as I took these pictures I couldn't help but think how crazy it would be to have twins! 

On the drive home, she and Caroline were playing a little game, and she'd lift her legs every time she would make her little noise...it was pretty silly!

When we got home from Atlanta we went to visit Grandpa Bill.  It was so fun!
I love watching my dad with these babies...it's pretty sweet:)

 He kept talking to her and calling her "Grandpa's girl"...
It reminds me of the tenderness he always showed to me as "Daddy's girl"

 It's really hard to get him to be in pictures, so I'm so happy with these!

 We got back to Gainesville just in time for our friends' daughter's 3rd birthday party.
She was just as cute as can be in her floppy hat!

 The kids and I sure missed Daddy! 

 That night they had fun shopping with us as we got groceries for the week. 

I love watching these two interact...

 

My sweet baby girl, how are you already 10 months old? 

She really is the sweetest little thing. She plays so well independently, but she sure loves any and all loving and attention!  She loves to make you smile and laugh.  She made it clear this month that her favorite book is "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do You See?" and she also still LOVES "Baby Cakes!"  She learned how to clap this month, and give high fives:

She has blown a few kisses!  She gives the sweetest biggest opened-mouth kisses, and she has given me a couple closed-mouth ones too. She makes the cutest & happiest little noises ever.  She is very vocal when she is trying to tell you something! ha!  She is learning how to be "soft" when she touches your face (got a ways to go on that one!), she LIGHTS up whenever she sees someone she knows and you can see how she loves you so easily from her eyes. She loves the water. She loves it when Daddy flies her through the house like an airplane near the ground...she flails her arms and legs in complete glee! She loves, loves loves kisses and snuggles and raspberries. She LOVES looking at her letters while on her changing table.  She hates a diaper change. Her hair is getting thicker and thicker by the day.  

 She also has the cutest little tummy and I think her hair is starting to decide it is one day going to curl!  

 She makes everyday better. Happy 10 month birthday sweet baby Gracie!

2,190 Days

This was us 2,190 ago: 

2,186 days ago: 

1,825 days ago, breaking into the top tier of our wedding cake: 

and saying goodbye to it!

Out to dinn-dinn that night...

 1,460 days ago we went to Osaka to celebrate two years of marriage (sad...we didn't take a picture). I had just started my big girl-post-graduation job and full-time roll as Sugar Mama. 
We went on our very first date EVER upwards of 3,650 days ago at Osaka. 

1,095 days ago, we celebrated three years of married love at Moe's in Gainesville. (Again, no pic. The horror!) But I did post this on our anniversary.

730 days ago we had a seven month old baby, and my little sister was living with us that summer.  

We went to the Flying Biscuit Cafe for our anniversary dinner.  

 Then we went to Target and bought a $5 purse so I could have something to hide our Coldstone Ice cream in for our movie (we've done Coldstone in movies since Coldstone first opened by the AMC in Tallahassee). 

 365 days ago, we had a 1.5 year old and I was very much with-child!  My mom was staying with us. We went out to a great local Gainesville place called Leonardo's 706 and it was delish! 

We came home to this:)

 

This year may have been our best celebration of all!  We spread the celebration out for the whole weekend.  It started out with this bad boy on Friday: 

a Chick-fil-a Cookies and Creme milkshake is my favorite, favorite treat! 

On Saturday we woke up and got ready to go to Silver Springs in Ocala. Our first stop once in the park was a glass-bottom boat ride: 

Then we went on the merry-go-round, which Julian was SO excited about! It's all he could talk about all the way there. But he didn't want to actually ride on one of the animals...

Next we fed Mr. Giraffe!  It was so cool! I had no idea how stinky giraffes are, though! 

It was funny because Julian was slightly terrified, but he stopped and smiled mid-terrify for the photo! ha! 

Next Julian played on the playground and then drove the boat and loved ringing the bell. He wouldn't ride unless I was right next to him.  He's definitely not the daredevil type, that's for sure! 

We saw some awesome birds (parrots, macaws) which Julian enjoyed mimicking, and also some very cool big cats.  At one point Stace picked up Julian (and the stroller he was sitting in) to look at one of them through the glass, but he accidentally pinched Julian's skin when doing so, so Julian was crying pretty hard. The mountain lion, who had been sleeping five feet from us, lifted his head and looked at us like "what in the world is all that racket?!" for the duration of Julian's cry. When J was done, he laid his head back down and went to sleep. ha! 

We also saw a creepy amount of gigantic alligators: 

We caught them during feeding time:

It just seemed like the park allowed us to get too close...this photo is not zoomed in: 

there was about a 5.5 foot glass separating me from this beast. I just tilted my camera over and above the glass and snapped this pic. 

Then we saw the albino crocodile: 

The park really tuckered Ella Grace out: 

When we got home from Ocala we got ready for our hot date!  We went to Mark's Steakhouse, which we had actually never heard of, but it's right downtown.  I love downtown Gainesville and we really need to explore it more. When Stace told his supervising professor Andy he was taking me to Mark's, Andy said "oh, that's the best place in town!"  So we were even more excited. Stace, of course, had a Groupon:)  

I got this amazing grouper: 

Stace got the filet mignon: 

and we shared this lobster mac n' cheese as our side! AH! SOOO good. 

I LOVED this place, and if my dad ever comes to town, I now know where I'm taking him he's taking me:) He'd love it too. 

 In the rush to get out of the house without the kids getting too upset, I forgot my purse.  So...we were again in a dilemma ...where to hide our ice cream for our movie!? 

Oh, not to worry! Julian's choo choo train bag was there in our backseat to save the day! 

I felt so chic...

 We saw the Amazing Spiderman and WE LOVED IT!!! I just did not expect that I would like it that much because I don't really love the others.  But I love all the actors in it. I can't wait to watch it again when it comes to Netflix! 

Our actual anniversary was Sunday. On the way home from church, Stace told me he wanted to cook me dinner and for me to relax. So sweet. He made some magnificent spaghetti and meatballs, with a side of broccoli and toast:) Then we went to go take a nap while the kids slept, but beforehand he gave me this: 

 

I was so excited and surprised to see that Cloud 9 bag because just this past Thursday night we had a women's meeting at church where the people who'd been in Gainesville a while were filling in the new people on the treasures to be found here. One of my friends said "if you ever want a special treat from your husband, like for a birthday or anniversary, tell him to treat you to something at Cloud 9 Spa. It is the BEST!" I asked Stace if he'd known about that comment somehow (like if he asked a friend of mine or something) but nope! He's just that good:) 

He always gets me the sweetest, sweetest cards.  They mean so much to me,

 and I have saved every single one of them from every single occasion. 

 

I had mentioned to him a little while ago how I loved this scent I found in a magazine called "Miss Dior". I haven't had perfume in a while (though he got me some lovely Victoria's Secret body splash after Julian was born). But I was totally surprised when I unwrapped the present and found this! 

He remembered...I had even forgotten! 

He told me it was just the lotion (the perfume itself is pretty pricey!) but he sweetly said "I figured you could start with that" :) I'm super excited:)

 He also got me flowers and tonight I made him snicker doodle cookies, annnd... he's eaten pretty much the whole batch! I'll post the recipe soon! 

 It has been a wonderful anniversary. 

 I can honestly say it has just gets better all the time...and it started out pretty great! :)  In my patriarchal blessing, I am told something very special about the relationship I would have with my husband, and I can say with all of my heart that that statement is true.  

The best part about what happened 2,190 days ago, aside from who I was with, was where we were: 

I am so grateful I get to look forward to eternity with him.  Six years down and forever to go!