9 Years In {aka November, Part 1}

It's been nuts lately - so much to share, so little time! But if all goes well, in the next few days I'll have our November memories safely archived. Wish me luck.

First up: our anniversary, which was...interesting. I joked with a few people that it was canceled, but I didn't for one second forget that it was, very much, still a beautifully significant day in which we were very blessed to celebrate the gift of each other--and not be on opposite corners of the globe. It fell on a week when the timing just wasn't the greatest: I was in exhaustion mode, a kid had a fever, Peter had a late meeting on our actual anniversary, and he had to travel over our anniversary weekend. So it was very much a "this-is-real-life" affair. We celebrated the night before our actual anniversary with dinner in the dining room for two, interrupted frequently enough by the fruit of our love, and our gift to ourselves was a new toilet seat (of the fancy self-lowering variety!). Like I said, real life.

Don't be jealous, now.

But it's our life--the kind I wouldn't want to trade no matter how glamorous others' lives may seem from the outside. He left some goodies for me to find when after I overslept on our actual anniversary (the kind I can actually eat!) and we had some really special moments too that day and in the days to follow between all the busy-ness.

Gearing up for a tough work weekend. Obvs.

Our "big" celebration  happened when Peter took off work the Monday after his weekend of travel so we could spend the day together. We did some old married couple shopping in the morning while all three kids were in school, hitting the bookstore first, of course, followed by a bunch of furniture stores and the phone store (mine is slowlyyyy dying)--and we managed to only buy two small things: a collector's edition of Jane Austen novels [because duh] and a back scratcher from World Market because Erik had been begging us for one. Back scratching is his ultimate love language.

After we picked Ethan up (he still only has school in the mornings) we spent the afternoon outside, taking a late autumn walk through one of our favorite places, Hudson Gardens. They gave Ethan a nature scavenger hunt card so it was especially fun for him.

Seriously love this place.

I was also perusing Hudson Gardens with future anniversaries in mind. I've often said that my biggest regret from our wedding is not getting better quality photos. In an effort to be frugal (getting married near NYC is not overwhelmingly affordable), I found a less expensive but also less experienced photographer. She took a huge quantity of really good photos and gave us the rights to every single one, but the file sizes were so small that none of them are great image quality, especially for printing anything larger than a 4x6, which makes me sad. So I decided last year that for our 10 year anniversary next year, our gift will be to dust off my dress/Peter's uniform and get some fun professional photos. Lucky Peter, ha. Maybe at Hudson Gardens, maybe somewhere else (local friends, any recommendations?). We've got a whole year to plan, of course, but that's always half the fun.

On the evening of our actual anniversary, despite all the chaos, Peter grabbed our wedding album and we all piled on the couch to page through some of the incredible memories that we do have, high resolution or not. It was a beautiful impromptu few minutes together.

I also was finally able to save the only video footage that we have from our wedding, which I have been trying to do for all nine years we've been married. It was taken by our wonderful friend Brother Carlos, and I watched it about fifteen billion times that day with a big goofy grin on my face. I'm sticking it here, as well as backing it up a few other places, for safe-keeping.

I said it before and I'll say it again: I'm grateful for the gift of every blessing that's come our way the past nine years, and I'm doing my feeble best not to take it for granted. Although I never could've imagined the details--the sheer depth of all the good or the fact that even the happiest seasons are still punctuated by their fair share of challenges--it is still a beautiful, incredible thing to gradually understand that this life I'm living is ultimately the one I'd always dreamed of. The sacramental gifts continue to grow and mature along with us, and as I step back and look at us, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, I can only thank God for this incredible, loyal, hardworking, supportive, caring, giving, snarkastic soulmate He hand-selected for me and for our family.

Easily the best decision I've ever made.

Roundup: Birthday, Halloween, and Stuff

Time for a recap of all our back-to-back celebrations. Namely, a million pictures...

Ethan's Birthday

A week ago our Ethan man, my baby, turned 5. All the emotions here, of course. But he was 100% happy, bringing in treats and getting his birthday crown from school earlier in the week (since he didn't have school on his birthday), getting measured (4 inches taller!) on his actual birthday, eating waffles made for him by Dad, rocking the Spiderman gear, going to mass and seeing his patron, St. Jude, whose Feast Day is also the same day (no coincidence there) and finally, partying the night away with friends at Chuck E. Cheese. I should say that he was 99% happy, since he did shed big crocodile tears the second his token card ran out. It was his party, he could cry if he wanted to. But he was consoled by the new Spiderman PJs awaiting him at home. And I got to bid farewell to the psychedelic Cheese house for the remainder of the year, praise the Lord.

He posed on the steps and said "will you take a picture of me when I'm five?!"
He also asked me to play hockey with him, to which there was obviously no saying no!

All Saints Day/Halloween

Everything else this year was a pretty last-minute affair; I was on a bit of a costume strike this year (as in, for the sake of my sanity I was not going to spend any more time on costumes for Halloween or any other event than absolutely necessary).  

So when our church held an early All Saint's Day festival, the boys grabbed their knight costumes and some props to be St. George and St. Michael the Archangel. Marie wanted to be St. Francis of Assisi, which I wanted to support, but since we had no brown habits and I wasn't about to try and figure that out (see above) I convinced her to be St. Kateri Tekakwitha. Good thing they rocked it. 

(And she got a few moments in as St. Francis after all.)

Halloween was unseasonably balmy and warm this year, which was pretty much the best thing ever. Erik and Marie wanted to be Ninjas, but Ethan was set on wearing a cardboard ghost mask punched out from a box of he had baked with his Gran. So I was forced to break my costume strike and figure out how to dress up the cardboard mask. I went all out and bought a bedsheet, cut some holes, and he spent his entire time in costume hilariously attempting to see and needing to be led around.

Peter decided to go the Force Awakens route and dress as Han Solo, so I figured I would whip something together and accompany him as Rey. Since we had some bedsheet left over, I decided to use it as Rey's sash thingy, and suddenly I found myself sewing and for the first time every dyeing fabric with tea. So much for my strike. But it only took a few minutes, start to finish, and now we have ample fabric for future toga parties.

We also carved pumpkins last minute because the jack o'lanterns we'd been growing all season long were commandeered by the squirrels. But it ended up being a good thing because they barely made it through a single day of our indian summer before wilting pitifully.

Halloween parades. Guide Mouse to the rescue!

Star Wars costumes in the making. Really, I have no idea what got into me.

Cowpolks Gran and Granddad joined us for some chili and trick-or-treating, along with a few friends.

The fun of the finished product made it worth it!

Oh yes, and in all the craziness I also voted on Halloween, because God help the U S of A. I'm still counting on the second coming to save us all but I haven't seen any lighting and hellfire yet...so maybe God's just waiting till 8th. Otherwise, you can feel free to join us here until 2020!

Happy November!

Fall Photo Shoot {2016}

I would say that we lucked out with the perfect day when we set out for a family photo attempt two weeks ago - but really, living in Colorado, we are spoiled with perfect days on the regular.

Still, for an autumn day it was about as perfect as perfect can get, with the contrasting colors of the changing leaves against the expansive blue of the sky filled with just the right amount of puffy white clouds.

Which was definitely lucky, because I decided that we should squeeze pictures into an already full day - starting with hockey for the kids at 6am and ending with Marie's first sleepover and a sitter for the boys while Peter and I escaped to go enjoy Octo"beer"fest at a friend's (super cool frinds who brew their own beer, I might add). Oh, and I also had a haircut scheduled that morning, and when I mentioned our plans for the day, my hairdresser decided to give me some nice curls so I didn't even have to do my hair! Score. [Not that it mattered that much with the wind, but hey - I was happy].

Picture snagged by sneaky Peter

We still take our own pictures for various reasons (and why not, now that I'm actually getting the hang of it), so we packed the camera and tripod and trekked over to nearby Daniel's Park, one of our favorite hangouts - and perhaps the most perfect backdrop of the Rockies from our little corner of Denver.

We got one really good family photo, some others that were eh, pretty good, (with a funky kid expression or hair taking flight here and there), and most blessedly, we actually had fun! It wasn't a miserable experience [as it very well can be] - we picked one spot for the tripod, the kids helped snap a few frames and even ran back and forth to press the timer, and then we did some exploring and just enjoyed the view. Not bad at all.

I brightened up the lighting and cropped a few of these shots just a tad, but for the most part, it was a no filter kind of day. Here are the winners - including an outtake or two, because of course.

The One

Honorable Mention

Kids

Grownups

Just ignore the random shirtless man behind the curtain. Someday when I'm not so lazy I might Photoshop him out...

Combos

Outtakes

Okay kids, for this one just hold hands and pretend like you like each other.

No, like you actually like each other. [Oh and don't blink].

Just kinda stand there and put your chin in your hands. Like that, yeah! Er. Never mind.

Goofy

Because the kids these days, they just live for the goofy ones. 

A little to the left...now up, no down... eh. #intentversusexecution

#findMarie

Phone Captures

And finally...the ones I snapped on my phone of the fun part!

Happy Fall, Y'all!