A holiday date with my love

My husband and I aren't great about scheduling date nights. With four children there is a lot of hustle and bustle, but we find that we are still good about connecting nonetheless. The older girls have a strict bedtime of 8:30 pm on the weekdays and a little later than that on the weekends. These days after the girls go to sleep I'm stuck on the bed nursing Ava to sleep for about 2 hours, but before she got in the habit, H and I would sometimes watch a movie or television series together and talk. I'd be drinking my passion flower tazo tea and he'd be drinking his earl gray black tea like a couple of old farts. Haha. Ok not like old farts but we have been enjoying tea these days. He doesn't like going to the movies so when we go out it's usually to a nice restaurant, or it might be a shopping trip just taking the baby. Hey, she's usually sleeping so we can just pretend she's not there right? Just kidding. She's totally hating her car seat these days.

This past Friday H had an event to go to for work so it was fun to once again put on a pretty dress, shoes, jewelry and slap on about 50 pounds of makeup. It was also the first time we scheduled a babysitter for our now crowd of 4. $20 an hour people. That's how much the babysitter was. I'll tell you what if I wasn't nursing I probably would have been throwing back the cape cods at the gala to try to feel better about that hole in my pocket book. The babysitter was great though and I kept checking in because my poor Ava pretty much went on a bottle strike. She doesn't like taking a bottle and I've only tried twice before. She hardly ate at all while we were gone. I was torn between staying at the gala or going home, but obviously we came in one car and it would have been hard to leave and come back for H with the kids later. It was pouring that night. Thankfully she fell asleep for about 2 hours and when we came back home around 11:30 pm, she wasn't overly fussy. It doesn't look like I'll be leaving her for longer than 2 hours anymore though until she starts eating solids. H and I still had fun at the gala. We met a few new people and it was fun for me to get out and have some adult conversation. Getting out also helps us to appreciate our children more and we are always eager to hurry back to them.

Have a great Thursday!

Anniversary Trip Part 2

I just wanted to share some more pictures from our recent trip. We really did have a great time and as much as I missed the girls--to the point where I sometimes thought about picking up someone's baby and hugging them, it was really nice to have some quality alone time with H. 

You make me happy when clouds are gray..

Swoops in and falls into blogger's arms.....

I'm ex-haus-ted you guys. H has been home sick all week, so basically I've had four children to look after all through out the day, and sewing during naps and after the kids go to sleep. I've been crashing out around midnight every night, up 1-2 times during the night to feed Mariam and then up by 7am. Pretty sure the only time I sat down for more than 10 minutes today was when I watched one episode of "Sons of Anarchy" while dinner was cooking and the girls were napping.

Poor H, he started complaining of a sore throat Sunday night and by Monday he was in a lot of pain that came with fever and body aches. He went to the doctor on Tuesday and she told him it's just a bad virus that's been going around and told him to take some over the counter meds. He has been in pain since! The left side of his throat is killing him and he can hardly swallow or talk. I've never seen him this bad before and I feel so bad for him. I hate to see him in so much pain. It makes me sad just thinking about it. He called the doctor earlier and she called in a prescription of antibiotics for him. I was hoping he'd get it looked at again, because I suspect an abscess, but he's going to give the antibiotics a shot first. I hope it helps. I really do. I've been praying and doing the best I can with making him teas and doing what I can for him. Needless to say, the girls and I have been pretty much cooped up in the house, but then again it's been really hot outside minus a few tolerable mornings. 

Now onto some pictures. Looking at them always brightens my day....now only if I can get Serena to let me photograph her more so I could share more pictures of her. 

 
 
 

 

 

Happy Father's Day

The only thing better than having you as my husband, is our children having you as a dad.

Happy Father's Day.

Movie date & outfit

On Friday, I dropped the girls off at my parent's house and  H and I went to go see The Hobbit with another couple and it was AWESOME! I loved the movie but then again, The Lord of The Rings movies have always been my favorite. I found the movie humorous and endearing. I'll gladly watch it again when it comes out on DVD.

 

I do love this coat I bought from Forever21 a couple years ago.

 

Getting ready that day also taught me that I can easily give my hair body with no teasing by blow drying my hair and then putting it in a half messy ponytail and leaving it in for at least an hour. I really just put it up so I can go about the day tending to the girls and I was going to fix my hair later so it was by accident I stumbled across this trick. To start, you can't just do the ponytail by standing up straight, you have to flip your hair upside down and put your hair up in a ponytail that way. When you look in the mirror the sides of your hair should be poofy. Sort of like how the hair of a geisha would look. I'll see about photographing the steps soon and posting. I did create some waves with my curling iron once I let my hair down but the half ponytail really helped me cut the time I would normally spend in half.

 

 



Lady Mariam

I promise every post this week won't just be about her, but I've got to show off these adorable pictures of her. I'm completely enamored by this little peanut. H is completely taken with her too and I fall in love over and over again with him watching him interact with the girls. I've said it before but he's such a great father. When I gave birth to Mariam and he saw that she made it safely into the world, I got to witness that look in his eyes I've seen before of love and awe of another baby--and my heart melted.

 

 

The wedding & it's our anniversary..

Today is a special day for us. It's the day when H and I pledged our undying love for each other. A day that I will always remember. These past years have honestly flown by! It doesn't even feel like it's been that long, yet here we are with soon-to-be three girls, and a lifetime of memories. No big plans tonight other than possibly going out to eat with the girls, but H is taking off Friday and Monday so we might do something this weekend to celebrate. Today is also my parent's anniversary.

 

{Walking down with my dad}

and they lived happily ever after....



Wedding Series: Planning part 2

 

Flowers, decor & cake

The colors for my wedding were pink, white, and champagne so naturally I wanted simple pink and ivory roses with greenery for my venue flowers and bouquets. I also wanted to save some money so I bought bulk flowers online and did the table settings myself. For the bouquets, I had a professional do those. We had a 5:00 pm ceremony time so on the day of the wedding, I was at the venue decorating. I'm sort of a control freak like that sometimes. I had help though so it didn't take me too long.

 

I absolutely loved my cake. The pastry chef did an amazing job at replicating a picture I had given him. It wasn't exact which was a good thing. It looked even better than I had envisioned.

 



The stairwell leading up to the venue also looked amazing. The same florist that did the bouqets, also added some pretty touches throughout the venue and balcony.

 

 

Tell me, were there things you did yourself for your wedding or plan on doing? Did or do you plan on hiring a wedding coordinator?  

Wedding Series: The Proposal

My wedding anniversary is this Thursday 9/27/12, so I thought it would neat to do a wedding series this whole week. Here is how it will be broken down:

Monday: The proposal

Tuesday: Planning part 1 {dress, hair, makeup}

Wednesday: Planning part 2 {flowers, decor, music, cake}

Thursday: The wedding

Friday: Honeymoon

 

I hope you'll tune in and share aspects of your wedding too!

The proposal
 

Years ago, H and I got engaged at the Hotel Monaco in Seattle, Washington. We had been to Washington twice before and fell in love with it. It's sooooo beautiful there. On this particular trip we actually went to Victoria, BC first and then came back down to Seattle. Truth be told, I wondered if he was going to propose on this trip. We had briefly talked about marriage before and I had a feeling he had bought a ring several weeks before. Our trip lasted for 4 days and on the last day there, he hadn't popped the question so I figured it wasn't going to happen. So on the last night, I remember filling out our breakfast card for the next day and then going to sleep. I woke up early around 7am and got up to brush my teeth. I noticed right away that there was a diamond on my finger! I squealed like a little girl and raced back to H and snuggled up to him.
 

He stroked my hair telling me how beautiful I was a few times and asked me to marry him. Sighh... Such a beautiful moment. If only we could go back in our heads and relive certain memories. We didn't take any pictures that morning but we do have quite a few--ok a lot from the trip. Unfortunately those are on the upstairs computer and I'm too lazy to blog from there because the computer screen is also a TV in the armoire which means there's no chair in front of it. However I've got a disc of all my wedding photos here in front of me.

Here is the ring..including our wedding bands. He picked out a perfect princess cut diamond for me. He knows I like classic elegance so naturally I loved it.
 

So tell me, where/how did your significant other propose? Let me know in the comments. I'd love to hear about it.

Surprise birthday party for H!

He turned 30 on Sunday and I really wanted to do something special for him. It had to fit my shoestring budget though--so I thought "why not a party?"

I did it here at the house and had his older brothers take him away for the day (We had the party on Saturday).  I think it turned out nice and while the crowd wasn't huge, his closest friends came and there was enough people on time to be here for the actual surprise. We had more guests show up later in the evening. One of my concerns was that everyone was going to be late, and it was just going to be me and another couple if that to be here for the surprise. It worked out beautifully though and I had my mom watch the girls for the evening, but they ended up coming back around 10:30 pm and then just went off to bed. 

I wish I would have gotten a picture of him walking in, but his brother knocked and walked in first which was a little odd but whatever. The funny thing was, H walked in with his other brother carrying a new oven (Ours broke about 2 weeks ago), so he was definitely surprised but he was asking questions the night before because he thought I was up to something. ;)

I didn't take nearly as much pictures as I wanted too but here are a few.

My great love..

"We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly." 

~ Sam Keen

I'm so thankful to have H in my life!! With each passing year I fall more and more in love with him. I was crazy about him when we were dating and I still am. I still love when I see his name come up on my caller ID when he calls me from work-or from anywhere really.

I really feel so lucky to have him and I appreciate how hard he works for us. I try to make his life as easy as possible by being supportive, keeping the house clean, having dinner cooking when he comes home, and taking care of errands. Some of the other stuff I do may be considered 1950's, but I do these things because we both give and take in the relationship and don't take each other for granted. If I serve my husband first it has nothing to do with being submissive and subservient. I do it out of respect and love for him. He has always loved me and treated me the way I've wanted to be loved and treated.

I never really had a dream guy in mind when I was little other than the standard tall and handsome, but who would have thought the love of my life would come from the opposite side of the continent. H was born in Jordan and moved to the US when he was around 7 years old. He is the baby out of 7 kids. We actually met through a mutual friend dated for almost 2 years and he proposed at the Hotel Monaco in Seattle. He is Muslim and I am Catholic so after a secret ceremony on September 26th (another story), we pledged our love again the next day on September 27th in front of our family and friends. I couldn't have asked for a better wedding. I'll talk all about it in September when our anniversary comes up.

Seeing him with our girls just makes me fall even more in love with him. I can't even describe the feeling. He's such a good father and loves his girls immensely. I thought maybe with this pregnancy he may be more nonchalant about it, but once again he's proved me wrong. He makes sure I'm taking care of myself and protects me. He is not put off by my growing belly and places his hands on it alot to feel the baby move. Best of all he makes me feel beautiful and sexy.

People say marriage is hard work but honestly I haven't felt that way. Maybe because we've always had common goals and enjoy marriage and all that it brings. We love and respect each other but we have our disagreements too. He has his bad habits and I have mine. You have to pick your battles. For instance do I want to yell at him about leaving his stinky work socks in the living room, or should I get on him about not taking the trash out. Ha-ha! He would probably complain about how quick tempered I can be or how these pregnancy hormones make me fly off the handle. 

We've both changed over the years but I still find him as handsome as the day I met him.

We've been through our fair share of life events: A wedding, pregnancies, searching for our perfect house, a miscarriage, career changes. Through it all he's always been supportive and is always so calm and reassures me when I start worrying. As I mentioned before we had a hard time trying to conceive our second (Layla) and I had a miscarriage before her. I actually had my D&C the day before one of her wedding anniversaries and I was devastated. I remember I had to buy a new anniversary card because the one I had already written had the baby mentioned. My heart was broken but H was always strong and knew that we would concieve again one day and not to worry. He never lost hope and sure enough our second blessing came.

I wish I had pictures of Serena as a baby on the computer but this was 2002 when I still used a disposable or polaroid camera. Alot were also accidentally lost. I do have a few baby pictures but more family pictures than anything starting when she was little.

Love him!