8 Years and Still Kickin'

It was a sweet day 8 years ago, March 27th, 2004, when I married the love of my life. I need to figure out how to scan a picture in of our wedding day, which would be more appropriate. Here we are tonight, Esther snapped a picture of us as we were headed to dinner. Walking out of the Olive Garden Steven told me "I didn't know I would be this happy being married to you." At first I was like, "thanks, babe," but he went on to explain that marriage is a little scary and intimidating before you get into it. We had both seen many marriages fail, and as Christians we don't believe we could just walk out of it. Thankfully, neither of us want to, and I pray we never will. The Lord is gracious and I am so blessed to be Steven's wife, to enjoy our day to day routine and also special dates like tonight.
A little tradition we have is to watch the "trailer" of our wedding video - a 3-4 minute video collage to "Come Away With Me" (Norah Jones) that plays at the beginning of the DVD. Esther and Sadie watched it with us, then I went upstairs to put the kids to bed. It was still rolling when I came back down (the actual video is pretty long) so I finished watching the reception. I danced a lot at my wedding, probably too much, but it was such a fun night. If you think you can't get anyone to dance at a wedding without alcohol just come over and I'll show you my video. Just kidding, I would never do that to anyone (except Esther, I think she watched the whole thing... sweet girl). It was fun to see the people in my video tonight and think of all that has happened in 8 years. Several of those friends have since married, and probably close to 20 babies have been born to our wedding party alone! I actually registered Sadie for Kindergarten for the fall, at Pleasant Garden Elementary. I can't believe my baby will go to school in a few months! She will love it. We were playing the animal game the other day (you give a clue to have the other person try and guess the animal you are thinking of) and I said "my animal is extinct." Immediately Sadie said "skunk!" I laughed a little then explained what extinct actually means. Eli is getting better at the animal game, he used to always say "my animal has a long neck....can you guess what it is?" again, and again. He also loves to play "honey and babe" with Sadie, their version of husband and wife. And his favorite food currently? Pampakes.
Oh! I forgot to report, I did pretty well with my "no sweets" diet (Sadie called me on it last weekend when I tried to eat a chocolate-covered donut for breakfast....is that really a sweet?). I went to the Rush today and was down 6 pounds, supposedly. Olive Garden for dinner, including dessert, probably negates at least 2 of those pounds, but that's OK, the donuts dipped in chocolate were totally worth it.
Another report....I have been couponing. Triple couponing, this week. I thought I was doing pretty good until I read some other people's blogs, but my receipt says I'm saving almost half. Hopefully I'll remember what I bought and eat it so it's actually worth it. Somehow I feel like I've been cooking less since I started couponing so that's not really going to help the budget. And after 2 very carefully planned Harris Teeter trips this week (1 with all 3 kids...ahh!), somehow we're almost out of milk...oops. What's that saying, you can't win for losing? Or trying? I can't remember it. But couponing is kind of fun, so I'll stick with it for now.
I need to go to sleep, somehow I am again awake at midnight. Maybe this will be one of the rare nights that no one wakes up. Either way I will sleep well, thankful for my snoring hubby beside me and the 8 sweet years we have had. Goodnight!