Anniversary Fest is finished for another year.

As the clock creeps towards midnight anniversary-fest is officially being put to bed as well. Jeremy took Thursday and Friday off so we could just enjoy our little family and all the schilltastic4 goodness we could stuff into 4 funtastic days.


Our actual anniversary was Thursday and we decided to spend the day together doing family stuff. A tradition has been born over the years that we have a 'family date' on our anniversary to involved everybody in our Family Birthday. I cannot begin to describe how much I love this tradition (but read on I'm sure I'll try!) because it was born completely in our family. I think traditions are fantastic when they are passed down from generation to generation but I also like that we've given the children a way to celebrate and embrace the importance and significance of our wedding day.


I woke up Thursday after everybody was already awake to find a beautiful bouquet of flowers waiting for me and Kaity had made a card for us. She is through and through a holiday kid, so the card was not a surprise but it was so sweet and beautiful. She wrote "Happy Family Birthday" and drew each of our faces on the front surrounded by hearts. On the inside she wrote a poem:

"Out of our family you two are the first part
Because of you our Family had a start
Then came Joshy and me
To make one big happy family"

It made my heart swell with a combination of joy and pride. She is such a sweet girlchild, and I am reminded so very often.


A little bit later Joshua was looking at the flowers and asked "Are the yellow ones dandelions?" I told him they were not so he started turning the vase very very slowly, checking out each flower in the arrangement. I was watching him and could almost see his wheels turning, I didn't know what he was thinking but I could tell he was really concentrating. "I don't think Daddy got any dandelions in here, doesn't he know they are your favorite?" What a thoughtful guy, to remember all winter long what flowers make me smile come spring. I then showed him my second favorite (snap dragons) and how Daddy had gotten several of those instead. Moments like that make me feel like I've done my Mom gig justice, if my 5 yr old is convinced that my favorite flower ever is a dandelion I've surely not messed up too badly along the way right?

We got ready and headed out to have our fun. We had lunch at the coolest place ever invented in the eyes of my babies.....THE FOOD COURT! If it's their favorite who am I to argue?
We played glow in the dark golf and had the place entirely to ourselves, it was so much fun. We laughed our way through all the orange course and part of the green before heading to the final putt. Joshua and I both won free games for the next time we go which was a total bonus! Glow in the dark golf was a pretty high bar to set for our first family activity so in order to meet the level of cool we headed over to Chuck E Cheese where we bought drinks and lots and lots of tokens and had at it for a few hours. It wasn't very busy and the kids have been saving their tickets so they each ended up getting a pretty cool toy at the end.
Our typical Thursday afternoons are spent cooking for youth group and as we loaded into the van to head to church Kaity had a moment of panic and shouted "We forgot to cook the food!" Again, sweet girlchild she is :) Earlier in the week another family at church volunteered to buy the kids pizza for youth group which was a total blessing and welcome break so we could enjoy our day.

Silly me, I thought the anniversary fun was over at this point. I couldn't have been more wrong, those wonderful teenagers had arrived early for youth group to decorate a room. There were signs hung that said beautiful things, balloons all over the place, and hearts filled the walls. I am so touched by their thoughtfulness. "Happy Anniversary" was chorused over and again, I am in awe of how blessed I am to have such wonderful people in every corner of my life.


Friday was the couple portion of Anniversary fest and we seriously got our grub on! Opa in Vernon Hills is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!! We are already planning a repeat visit because we didn't meet a dish we didn't dig! We had a lovely lunch and enjoyed the occasional quiet between bites that sometimes gets lost when you have kidlets at the table. After lunch we made a quick stop at the cheesecake factory for a much needed (for me at least) slice o'cheesecake to enjoy during our movie. We saw "Date Night" and it was pretty funny, definitely a good date night movie!


All the while Kaity and Joshy were at home protecting our home from an invasion....or rather staging an invasion! We walked into the house and were met by a monster on the door....another was found in the cupboard! Another in my candy stash! Another in the freezer?! I went potty and closed the door to find a monster waiting behind it! While we were out having our fun they were home having their own with a family friend. They went on a bike ride and played outside and then started drawing pictures. Somehow it became drawing monsters and eventually they were hidden all throughout the house, it seriously makes me crack up and most of them are still chillaxin' as we speak. Kaity, at the wise old age of 8 3/4, is rather aloof and trained in the ways of playing coy when waiting for a joke to unfold. Joshy with all his 5 yrs of experience is more like a chihuahua on a sugar buzz.....without actually saying LOOK HERE!! LOOK HERE!!! he would coax us to "fix food from THAT FREEZER...hehehehehehehe" or "GO POTTY RIGHT NOW! tehehehehe" It was beyond adorable to watch them both play it out, and if ever I need a quick poker buddy, my money is on the girl.

The rest of the weekend was spent in the sunshine and having great fun which will be blogged about soon, but for tonight I'm heading to bed. Happy and Blessed, there is nothing better.