5 years.

Five years ago today I married JDM. He's my best friend and the one person I can spend hours on end with and, even though we might not have much to say, I'm having fun.

Our relationship started with a blind date set up, thanks to both of our roommates (who were dating at the time). Though we had a rocky beginning (John says he "played" me ... but that's another post entirely), we've been together for almost nine years, and, now, married for five.

In the past nine years we've definitely had our ups and downs, and fair share of fights and disagreements, but there's not a single other person I'd choose to spend my life with. And now we have the most amazing little boy who brings us so much joy!

Below is a Party Pic from our first date, Chi Omega Hooties & Harleys. It was a biker themed date party, and I have to tell you, John so looked the part, I swore people were going to think I'd actually picked up a biker to be my date! Ha!

So funny how young we look!

Here's to the rest of forever with my love!

four years.

If it's hard to tell from the picture, we had a great time at our wedding.

Four years ago today I married my best friend and I couldn't be more excited to start our newest adventure {baby M} together. 

J, you're my best friend and the love of my life. Here's to many, many more. Smuh!

ps -- I've added a little poll question to the left. At this point, I will not be posting sonograms/ultrasounds, but if you guys {proud commenters and quiet lurkers alike} want to see a belly pic or two, let me know! 

Tasty Tradition

For the last 2 anniversaries, J and I have stayed home the night of our actual anniversary and cooked dinner. And, considering things have been working out, why mess up a good thing?

I got some filets, asparagus and potatoes and we planned to "hunker down" and have a nice dinner {a la TV trays} and watch the Yankees get beat. I had a special surprise for J up my sleeves, though.

J loooves mushrooms, and The Pioneer Woman had an awesome looking recipe for stuffed mushrooms on her blog a couple of months ago. Luckily something triggered my memory and I remembered that I  had emailed myself a link to the recipe, otherwise he would have never tasted these savory treats.

I set out to make the stuffed mushrooms, and though the recipe looked easy enough, I got a little flustered as I got through the steps. I definitely started browning the sausage a little too early, but all in all, the mushrooms turned out great {so J said...I'm not so much a mushroom fan}!

After the mushrooms were in the oven, we started prepping for dinner. Cut up the potatoes {J loves to fry them in our new cast-iron skillet}, oil/salt/pepper the asparagus and season the steaks.

{I could give you the play by play of the cooking of our meal, but I'd be bored just typing it...}

Here are a couple of pretty terrible pics of our food {sorry I was too busy stirring, tossing, etc. the food}.

stuffed mushrooms in the oven

mushrooms fresh from the oven

potatoes in our cast-iron skillet

steaks ready for the grill

asparagus, ready for the grill

Then, we watched the Yankees. Well, correction, I watched about 6 innings and gave up and watched Tuesday and Wednesday's episodes of Young and the Restless {if you aren't watching, you're missing out, btw}.

In defense of the Yanks, Cliff Lee pitched the game of his life, and grease-ball Chase Utley had two home runs. I have to wish the Bronx Bombers better luck tonight...let's tie up the series!

THREE years!!

Three years ago today, J and I had the best night ever!

We were married in Austin {my hometown} at Hope Presbyterian and then our reception was at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.

That day went by sooo fast. I wasn't really nervous to walk down the aisle, but when the doors opened and I started toward J, I definitely got a little emotional. I loved that I had my dad and grandfather, Popi, escort me. It's something I'll always cherish!

We did the usual ceremony stuff: vows, prayer, unity candle {that we light every year during the week of our anniversary, and is currently lit on our kitchen table}.

A quick sidenote about our unity candle: It's on some shelves with other candles and pictures, etc. Unfortunately, it's fallen off of there a few times and quite a bit has broken off of the top. We like to think of it as a bit of a reflection of a relationship: you stumble and fall but it's still in tact, which serves as  a reminder of the vows that we took.

After the ceremony, we were off to the reception. J and I had dinner upstairs before hitting the reception, and that was our best decision. There's no way we would have been able to sit down and eat anything since we were "working the room" and tearing up the dance floor.

Our honeymoon was in Maui and we were so ready to relax. When we were there, we kept hearing stories from the wedding/reception, so we had to call and find out all of the hilarious stories! For months people kept asking when we were getting married again...if that tells you anything.

Maui was the best. So beautiful. And, most people, while on their honeymoon, go on a sunset cruise or have a candlelit dinner on the beach...we did NONE of those things. We didn't do anything. Our days consisted of getting up {too early}, having some breakfast, hitting the beach, going to the little shopping village {and stocking up on provisions at the ABC store} and finding somewhere great to eat dinner.

So, I'm sure that you want to see pictures now, right. Well, we luckily unfortunately did not get digital pictures. Our photographer used film, and we have yet to get all of the pictures transferred to cds...but I'll work on scanning a few of my faves and post them when I can.

Either way, I want to wish J a VERY happy 3rd anniversary and I look forward to many more to come!