10 Years...then and now

Friday, 9/25, was our 10 year wedding anniversary! It's hard to believe it has already been ten years, though that time in our lives also seems like a lifetime ago. We were living in Asheville, North Carolina at the time so we were married in the mountains right outside of Asheville. It was perfect. It was very important to us that our wedding ceremony and celebration reflected who we were as a couple and as individuals so we wrote our own ceremony and vows, which made it so much more meaningful for us....and, I think, for our friends and family, too. The entire day was just perfect and it was exactly what we had dreamed about. We had a great celebration after the ceremony that was complete with a bonfire and a beautiful full moon. Who could ask for anything more?!?!

Ten years ago


Jason and I have actually been together 16 years as of this November. (Wow. Where has the time gone?) We met during my sophomore year of college. Jason had just transferred to the school that year and lived in the same dorm as me. In fact, he lived directly below me! I knew from the instant I saw him walking through our dorm that I just HAD to meet him. No if's, ands, or buts about it. I had to meet this guy! Our first conversation lasted about two hours and after our first "date" I knew he was the guy I was meant to marry. No joke! I have it documented in my journal! hehehe!

I am so lucky to be married to my best friend...to someone who understands me better than I understand myself, to someone who puts up with all of my craziness, and to someone who still makes me laugh everyday.

A Perfect Moment

Everyday, God gives us the sun - and also one moment in which we have

the ability to change everything...

-Paulo Coelho

I scream, You scream...

We all scream for ice cream! Pea finally discovered what the ice cream truck is all about this past weekend. He is very familiar with hearing and seeing the truck and knows that it is an ice cream truck, but...he had no idea what that really meant! The truck comes through our neighborhood regularly so we figured it was close enough to the end of summer to get a dose of the ice cream truck. (We deliberately did not do this at the beginning of summer. No need to create an ice cream truck monster too early!)

Notice the shadow? My attempt to be in the picture!





Shadow Family


Dora ice cream. Pea loves Dora. I think more than Diego, but not as much as the Backyardigans!


mmmmmmm...yummy!


Trying to get some of daddy's ice cream.

Who's Missing?

I recently read this great post on iheartfaces about self-portraits and putting yourself in the picture. Read the post HERE. Most of the family pictures I take are of Eli with a few of him and his daddy. I am typically the one behind the camera so I am often left out of most of the pictures. Sometimes I will hand Jason the camera, but usually I am just focused on capturing pea and his little personality. It dawned on me after reading this post that, by not including myself in a lot of the pictures, I have definitely fallen into that mommy trap where it is so easy to forget about me. I have officially become the invisible mom behind the camera. I don't want pea to look back on these years and have very few pictures of us together. I absolutely love seeing pictures of me as a child with my parents! Those pictures have helped to form and maintain so many of our family memories, our family story. Isn't that what is important? So, that is one of my new goals...more FAMILY pictures...not just pea pictures.

Here are a few from our visit to the park this past Saturday. It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun feeding the ducks, throwing rocks in the water, looking at the crabapples (pea trying to eat them!)...just being together.












Okay, one token pea-only picture. ;)

Takin' A Break

I took a little unplanned break from blogger world. There have been too many other things robbing my time and attention! You know how that goes. Since school recently started, Jason is back to work and adjusting back to our school time routine. As hard as it was working all summer with my fav fellas home all day, I REALLY enjoyed having a stay-at-home hubby for the summer! He did the laundry, would start dinner, ran errands for me, planned our Mexico trip, etc, etc. Aren't I lucky? But, alas, it's back to the grind. Sigh...

So, even though I haven't posted in a few weeks, I certainly have been thinking about some "blog worthy" things such as how do you deal with rude stares (I have been noticing this more and more), how do you talk to your kids about adoption and their story, and I recently read a great post about the importance including yourself in photos with your kids! But, those posts will have to wait for right now.

In the meantime, I have really been into cooking lately and trying new recipes (if you haven't noticed already!). My newest thing? Meal planning. I am not much of a planner so this is a new venture for me and it is working out pretty well. Of course, my "plan" is a very flexible one but that is what works for me! I am finding that I have the motivation to cook more if I know what's on the menu! I generally plan about 3 meals per week since we usually have leftovers and we have a standing weekly dinner date with my parents.

So, tonight's menu included homemade Italian Breadsticks and Chicken Pesto and Couscous. Both recipes are from one of my new favorite blogs to stalk: Cooking During Stolen Moments.
I have already made several of her recipes! Now, I still make adjustments to "lighten" up some of her recipes, but every recipe has been a hit so far!

Here are the Italian Breadsticks. I have never, ever made bread from scratch before so I was a little intimated by the whole yeast, dough thing. WOW! It was so EASY!!! These breadsticks were so yummy and, I swear, they were about 1.5" thick! I made these after I got home from work and we were still sitting down at the table to eat by 6pm. Check out the recipe here. I will definitely be making these again.



We ate the breadsticks with a side of Chicken Pesto and Couscous. :) If you have never had couscous, give it a try! It cooks in 5 minutes and you can generally substitute it for rice in various dishes (though it is not as "hardy" as rice). We love the whole wheat couscous from Trader Joe's. I made this with chicken, tomatoes from our garden, zucchini from a friend's garden, and of course my garden fresh pesto! Check out the recipe here. She served this recipe cold, but we ate it straight from the skillet. Either way is delish!


Okay, next post I hope to tackle one of the topics I mentioned above!