3 Year Anniversary

Today was our 3 year anniversary. Yes thats right 3! I can't believe we have been married for 3 years already. Lets say it one more time, 3! haha. Its gone by so fast. I guess all that baby makin' makes time fly. Plus we just have a good time together and enjoy being with each other so it went fast. I just love him and am grateful for everything that he has brought to my life. He made me a mother, and continues to make me a better women by being with him. He is such a great loving husband and father. We both try our hardest at everything we do because we want to create a good life for each other and our family. I am so blessed to be his. I love him more every day.

These last 3 years have been filled with babies, love, kiss, getting to know each other more, adventures, fights, make ups, tears, laughs, hugs, more love, silliness, and fun. I wouldn't change a thing about it! I just love my growing little family.

We wanted to go to the temple today to do sealings but that didn't end up happening sadly. What better way to celebrate our eternal marriage than to help others have theirs too? I'm bummed we didn't get to go on the day of our anniversary but we will go later for sure. Sean was up late with Bekers and therefore was super tired this morning. I got Rebekah dressed and took her with me to a clothing exchange at a friends stake center. Adriana had invited me earlier this week and I'm so glad I went. It was pretty fun and I found a couple cute things for the kids and a skirt and dress for me. I got home a little before 9am and Noah had just woken up a half hour ago. It was nice that Sean got to sleep for a little but he was still exhausted so I played with Noah and Bekah while he slept. Andrea got to our place at 9:30am to baby sit so we could go to the temple but Sean was still sleeping. He ended up sleep until 11:30am. Andrea had stayed and helped me entertain Noah while I took a shower and did some chores. She is a superb sister and Auntie. I just love her. Thats why we are best friends. Any who. By the time Sean was up it was going to be too late to be able to get dressed and to the temple and be able to do sealings with out having to rush in order for Sean to be home in time. He had to leave for work at 1:30pm. When I go to the temple I want to have plenty of time to just enjoy the experience and then sit and reflect on things and pray before having to leave, so we decided we would just go on Tuesday. Instead we went to Texas Roadhouse for lunch. Its one of Sean's favorites because he loves steak and mash potatoes. It was nice to get out and have a good meal and conversation. I love my honey. Afterward we still had 20 min til he needed to be home so he suggested we go to Target for my anniversary present. I took me shopping for clothes! Best. Husband. Ever. Target has the cutest clothing and so affordable. I got a couple shirts and a dress. Sean is getting a couple things off itunes as his gift. He just loves him some fine music (as he says haha) 

Sean went off to work and I stayed home with Andrea and the kids. Andrea said she wanted to go swimming and invited Amanda and her two kids to go. It was a blast. We had the two toddlers and the two babies and took turns holding the babies. Noah and Cortney both have floaties so it made it easier. Noah is much more confident now in the water. He still gets a little scared if he is too far from me but he doesn't' feel the need to cling to anyone anymore which is nice. Him and Cortney had fun splashing each other and being thrown by Amanda. Rebekah enjoyed the water again as well. 

It was a nice day filled with people I love :) 

Oh also good news! Our  friends Ben and Melissa had her beautiful baby girl this morning! She was induced last night and had her early today. I'm so happy she is finally here. Our babies are exactly a month apart now. Gracelyn Emma. She was almost a week late! I'm sure Melissa is thrilled to not be pregnant anymore and finally have her baby in her arms. Sean and I are going to visit them tomorrow. Now Rebekah and Gracelyn can have play dates! 

Happy Fathers Day

For Father's Day I got Sean a new baby. Haha. I didn't have a chance to think of something to get him. It's been a busy month with his birthday, preparing to have a baby, having a baby, grandpa being sick and then passing away. I totally spaced getting a gift for him. Good thing his birthday gifts were pretty awesome. I did wish him a very happy Father's Day and have him a big kiss this morning. Also I told him how much I love him an appreciate all the things he does to take care and provide for our family. He is such a wonderful father to our children. He lights up when he cares for them and plays with them. I love how sweet and gentle he is. We are a blessed family to have him in our lives.

When I have time tonight I'm going to make some cute coupons for him for a date out with me, back rub, and other services I can do for him.

I love my Sean so much!! 

Things are progressing

I'm officially in the 3rd trimester! 27 weeks:) 3 months to go and we get to meet our little Rebekah. I have a dr appointment this Thursday. We will get to hear her heartbeat and hear how she is growing. I think I get another ultrasound around 30 something weeks. I don't think I've gained much weight still but the belly is growing. I've been having heartburn a lot but nothing crazy. Also I eat all the time!! I'm always hungry!!! Bekah moves so much and very strongly. It feels like he is doing gymnastics in my belly haha. I don't remember Noah's movements being this strong.

Noah is doing well with me holding other babies now. He doesn't mind when he sees me holding Joshua as long as he gets to be close to me too. He grabs at my belly a lot and says Bekah an sometimes bites my stomach. He is going through a biting stage. We are trying to break him of that habit. He does it to be silly. He doesn't realize it hurts. It's because we play bite him but we use our lips. He hasn't figured that out.

Other news for our growing boy. Noah took a tiny little poo in the toilet this week! He let daddy know he had to go so Sean put him on the toilet and he went! It was exciting. I was at work but Sean texted me about the bug moment. He said he gave him lots of praise and that Noah was very pleased with his accomplishment. We will see how this all goes. I probably am getting my hopes up for nothing but it would be A-Mazing if Noah was potty trained before Rebekah came and doubled the diapers. He had been using the toilet every once in a while all week now. And is even in pull up diapers now. He lets us know after he pees and sometimes he does before. That's when we get him to the toilet in time.

Sean is doing really well in his classes and loves learning. He likes to tell me about it all and it's fun. He is working out almost every day now and it is paying off. His biceps are getting big. I like :) haha.

After our nap one Sunday after church.

Noah loves helping Grandma with outside chores. Especially with his little man rake.

We are lazy in the mornings and kind of lounge around for the first 15 to 30 minutes.

Cortney and Noah love playing together :)

Sean's Dad Mitch came and stayed with us for two nights so he could be there for Seth's Farewell talk. Noah had a lot
of fun playing with his Grandpa.

Noah loves clocks! He calls watches clocks too. So we decided as a treat to him we would
take him to walmart and let him pick out his own little "clock" We thought he would like the
little kid ones with fun characters on them. We were wrong. First thing when we brought him to the
watch section that was the one he grabbed. We showed him the other ones and he was not even slightly interested.
Turned out that grown up watch was only $5 and the kid ones were around $10 or $12. He carries it around and plays with it a lot. So adorable.

Kind of fun fact. I still fit into non pregnancy clothes. Those pants I'm wearing are my brother in law's. Seth leaves for his mission this week so he gave a bunch of his clothes to Sean. I was wearing a dress at their house on Easter and wanted to change into pants so I tried on his and they fit!! . . . Well kind of. haha I had to use a rubber band to keep the button kind of closed. But they will fit me better when I'm not all preggie. Pretty cool they fit otherwise.

Loves

Ya we are that cute :) I love him

Lovers Day!

Yesterday was lovers day, aka: Valentines day! Sean and I aren't that big on presents. We enjoy recieving gifts of couse, I mean who doesn't right?! But we just have a hard time buying them for each other. Typically if we really want something we budget for it, save and buy it. Also we would rather make memories with a fun date activity or something than buy a present. So we decided that we would just stay home and watch a movie and get take out. Of couse we would have tons of cuddle time too :) Our little Noah is sick so that was also a factor in us wanting to stay in that night as well. He went to sleep at 6pm and we began our night of loves. We rented two movies from redbox (free rental promo codes are wonderful!), Sean went to Buffalo Wild Wings and got us a ton of wings to feast on. Before going home from work I had stopped at the store and picked up some other goodies of donuts, brownies, cheetos and milk. It was nice to just chill at home and enjoy each others company. Sean is such a sweetheart. He takes care of me and Noah and Rebekah so perfectly. He is a worthy preisthood holder, hard worker, great student in school and amazing father and husband. I couldn't have asked for a better man to be with for eternity :) He is my world, my love and my best friend. Love you Dear Husband, thanks for being mine.

2 years, say what?

Two years have gone by since I married my best friend in the whole wide universe. Guess what?! It's been pretty great!! I love him more today than I did then. Didn't even know that was possible that day when I was staring at him from across the alter thinking how lucky I am to have caught him. But it has happened, I love him more and more and more. We have been through a lot in these last 2 years. So much to be grateful for. And some experiences that have been tough. Marriage is hard people. Not hard like "oh no this is too hard lets quit" Thats just crazy talk. But it is a lot of work and isn't all smiles and laughs. There is a lot of that though :) We have had differences that needed to be worked through and we have grown closer to each other and to our Heavenly Father by going through them.
Two years of marriage practically makes us experts right? I mean in a world where wedding to divorce last 72 days, 2 years is a pretty dang long time. So here is some advice from us: The old married couple.

• Love each other. Say it often. Its good to be reminded that you are loved.
• Serve each other
• Find what your spouse is interested in a become interested in it too. Even if its just so you know one or two things on the subject. Trust me they will appricate the effort. I'm not a fan of sports but I look at yahoo sports when I have time at work so when I get home I can have something to say when Sean wants to update me on the world of sports happenings. He is alway impressed when I know something before he tells me.
• Forgive easily.

Not to say our marriage is perfect. We have our disagreements and all that but we always respect each other and even more than that we love each other. I have the best husband in the world. My husband can beat your husband up. haha j/k. Well I don't know he might actually be able to. But thats besides the point. Sean is so kind, loving, thoughtful and puts others before himself. I don't know what I did to deserve such a sweet man but I am so grateful I have him. He makes me feel love constantly. I love his silly stories. I love his funny faces he makes to make me laugh when I don't feel like it. I love how he makes me feel beautiful even when I just took off all my make up and got ready for bed in grubby pj's. I love how sweet he is with Noah. How he strives to teach him things and makes sure Noah experiences all the lovely things in life. He has such a good out look on things. No matter what is going on he knows its going to work out for the good. He is my best friend, my baby daddy, my love.
So, we made it 2 years and have an eternity to go, bring it on! We love this adventure of love and marriage.

So I bet you are wondering what the love birds did for their big 2nd anniversary. Well its pretty epic... haha ok not really but we enjoyed it very much. I had to work so after I got off the fun started. We were going to take Noah to feed the ducks at the park but we decided to stop by walmart to pick up the bread and to turn in our old car battery to get money back. Turns out walmart has horrible customer service (who knew big companies don't care about the little guy, right?) and they took half an hour just to get a customer service rep to the cashier so they could do the money back exchange.

By the time we got our money it was already getting dark and rainy. Love summer monsoons :) But they don't do well for park trips. So we took Noah to his Grandma Howells for the night. He has such a fun time with Grandma.

We went to dinner at one of my favorite resturants. Red Robin. I just love a good hamburger and they have delicious ones! We were pretty hungry so we scarffed down our food pretty quickly. They were so kind and gave us the onion rings for free for our anniversary.

Notice we are wearing our wedding colors? I didn't realize this until we were on the way to dinner. So Fun!

Then we went to the theater and saw The Amazing Spider-man. It was A-Maz-Ing! Much better than the first set of movies. Sean got me popcorn and a water and even held my hand during the movie. Ya thats true love right there. Everyone say "awww"

 Looking pretty cool in our 3D glasses.

 That was our night. It wasn't very much but we liked it still the same. We have Noah's bday party this week and the following week we are going to Florida so we decided to just keep the anniversary a small celebration. There was lots of hand holding and kisses. yay for love <3

Dating after Marriage

Remember those days before you got married (or if you aren't married yet remember those days like last week) when you had a date with a new guy/girl and you were so excited and nervous about how it would go. And how elated you were when you walked up to the door to pick her up or waited on the other side of the door waiting for him to knock. I sometimes think back to when Sean and I first started dating and how I would get ready for the date and I just felt the jitters the whole time, anxious for him to get there already so our splendid time together could start. Then those moments, or rather hours, it took to say goodbye at the end of the night because you just couldn't stand the thought of leaving each other. As soon as you close the door wishing it was the next day already so you could be together again. Remember all the time you put into planning and deciding what to do on the date. Dating was thrilling, exciting, scary even,because you didn't know what was or could happen next, it was new. These feelings can still carry on into dating after marriage. Well not the scared part because luckily you are fortunate to already know whats going to happen: You get to spend forever with that person! yay! So one thing that causes difficulty in dating after marriage is you have to make time for it. With all the other things going on its easy to forget to date your spouse. Courtship shouldn't end after you capture your true love. President David O. McKay said "I should like to urge continued courtship, and apply this to grown people. Too many couples have come to the altar of marriage looking upon the marriage ceremony as the end of courtship instead of the beginning of an eternal courtship." But I admit Sean and I occasionally to forget to date. We see each other everyday and spend the night with each other but that doesn't count as a date. Websters Dictionary defines a date as:

a : an appointment to meet at a specified time; especially : a social engagement between two persons that often has a romantic character b : a person with whom one has a usually romantic date

See clearly it takes a bit more thought than just spending time together. A date however does not need to cost a lot of mula $$ in fact a date doesn't need to cost anything. As the song goes "my love don't cost a thing" haha I had to put that. So here is a list of dates that cost $0 to a little bit. Of course if you have the money to spend then feel free to take a helicopter ride, go to a fancy dinner, Broadway play etc. For those of you that are .... well lets say, financially challenged pick one of these lovely dates.

Awesomely Cheap Dates for the Financially Challenged Couple:

• Ping Pong or Pool at a local institute building
• Put a large puzzle together.
• Stay fit together- Go work out, Go on a walk or run
• Do a service project for someone. Help with yard work, clean the house of a new mother (they are super busy and dont have time for such things sometimes)
• Make a delicious dinner at home
• Go to the AZ Science Center on the 1st Friday of every month, its free!
• Play Frisbee
• Take a trip to the library and read love poems to each other (cheesy I know but it sounds so sweet too, you know it does)
• Go to a sporting event (This one could be cheap or expensive, depends on what time of event it is. High School, Church, College, Professional)
• Have a night with each others family
• Play a board game, or two or three! I love board games
• Fly a kite *Disclaimer- Wind is needed for this activity
• Be a kid, Get some crayons and some coloring books and Color!
• Take pictures of anything and everything. Then make a collage of art
• Have a Scavenger hunt. May need more people for this, or not, you decide
• Have a bonfire.
• Find a pool and go swimming
• Baby sit for someone
• Gather up a bunch of magazines, Make a story complete with captions with the pictures
• Watch the Spanish channel and make your own dialogue
• Check out Astronomy books from the library, Find constellations and planets
• Cut out Pictures of houses. Now play cut and paste to create your Dream Home
• Go on a walk down Main Street, stop at each statue and make up a story
• Go to a local school play or performance
• Go to Open Houses and pretend you have money to buy it, just to have a look around
• Get a movie, get a lap top, pack snacks, go to the desert, lay out a blanket (or sit in the back of a truck bed) and watch the movie in the beautiful outdoors
• Look at childhood pictures and tell stories of how you grew up, memories, anything that comes to mind
• Go to garage sales and find treasures
• Go to hobby lobby (or a store similar) get some model cars, put them together
• Have a mini road trip. Drive out to the desert, find a neat restaurant, eat, drive back home
• Go to see a play. Broadway Palms is pretty inexpensive and serves dinner
• Throw your own Prom
• Invite friends to come over dressed up fancy in big dresses, tux or nice suit, and have a fancy pot luck dinner.
• Be a hero and Save lives! Donate blood together, then go replenish yourself with dinner
• As you wish- paint your own pottery store
• Go to a park, play music, finger paint
• On a hot summer day, wash the car together, with the intent of splashing each other with water
• Make a movie. Be creative. Use puppets, paper dolls, really dolls, figurines, what ever you have around the house.
• Watch youtube video's and critique them. 
• Create mad libs, write poems, or a short story
• Take a free tour of a local factory. Available tours range from candy factories to a motorcycle manufacturing plant. To find free tours in your area Click Here
• Have a candlelight picnic in the back yard
• Who said date night can only last one night? Go on a camp out

There you go. You have a huge list to chose from. Now you have no excuses. And if you aren't married these are still wonderful ideas. So go out and have fun. Court your spouse, fall in love again, and again and again. If you aren't married then go out, date, court, and fall in love for the first time. Then when you get married continue to do so.