9 Random Facts for 9 Years!

July 3rd we celebrated God's gift of each other & togetherness for the past nine years! 9 years seems like a very long time. All you folks who have been married much, much longer can now laugh at me. :)

I seem to only update my blog a few times these days, and one of those rare occasions seems to be our anniversary! So here we go! In honor of nine years of bliss ;) here's nine facts about us....

1)  James and I have known each other for 20 years! We met in November of 1992. I was 10 and he was 15. I don't remember our first interaction together. My first recollection of him is of him and his brothers singing a special in the Garland Bible Church Christmas play.

2) in our 9 years we have lived in 6 houses and have moved 5 times. James has also worked at 8 different jobs.

3) I have been pregnant and/or nursing for approx. 7 of our 9 years. That would include the time I carried our two babies we lost.

4) We have had 1 pet (excluding goldfish) in all 9 years. It was a cat named Solomon, who James let me get when we had only been married a couple of months. I used to have a blog for him. ;) When we moved to an apartment my mother kindly took him in :) Just this past month he disappeared from her house. :(

5) We've had 8 or 9 cars in our 9 years. The shortest we have had one is about 2 or 3 weeks. We overheated and ruined one we had just bought on our 1st anniversary (in approx the same spot where we had run out of gas on our wedding night!)

6) James is a night person and Hope is a morning person. Although we both do what we have to do, and even sometimes enjoy it, It's comical how interactive James is at night while Hope can barely keep her eyes open, and then how bubbly and talkative Hope is in the morning while James takes his turn trying to keep his eyes open.

7) We do not fight about the toothpaste or which way the toilet paper goes. We do however have extremely different ideas about the way dishes and laundry should be done. I'm afraid it has a lot to do with the difference in our personalities....one of us tends to be a perfectionist and the other not so much ;)

8) James is extremely patient and kind. I wish I could explain how much he puts up with, and how often he turns  turns a blind eye and chooses to look over so many things I do or say that I shouldn't. He is also willing to speak up and tell me hard things when he believes he should. I am grateful to have someone like him.

9) When we were waiting to get married it seemed like marriage was the end goal. Something we had waited all our lives for, (which IS true! ;) ) and was something to "arrive" at. We see now that it was just the beginning of a whole new chapter of our lives!

Just another day in paradise....

....the kids were playing with water in Emma's room. It seemed like a better option when they decided to do it in the bathroom. Until lunchtime, when I happened to walk in there. The floor was COVERED with water. Three toy tubs sat full of water on the floor, and various toy kitchen things were tossed here and there, also full of water.I can't remember if that was before or after Patrick covered the faucet, sink, handles to the cupboard, doorknob and his shirt with triple paste....oh, and his hands, too.

....I got my shower! No matter that it's almost 10 pm, and the nightgown I put on smells vaguely of spit up and rotten milk.

....Some people have trips to Paris on their "to do" list....ya know "things to do before I die" type of thing. The top priority on mine lately? Shave my legs.

Oh, and yes - the last time I blogged here, I was pregnant. The baby is here! and um, he is four months old. :) We've moved since then, too. Life never stops! Before I know it these four adorable little people will be big people. That will be a bittersweet day. 

 ...but today they are my little darling, funny, wonderful, crazy,busy, LOUD, precious little clan of kiddies. I wuv them.