When I agreed to scheduling our wedding the day AFTER my birthday, I had only one stipulation: 

We were NOT allowed to combine my birthday celebration with our anniversary celebration. 

Obviously, I was highly against the idea of getting gypped out of two HIGHLY necessary celebrations. At some point (while we were engaged) we agreed that we would celebrate future anniversaries at the end of the April, when we got engaged, so that we could spread out the celebrations and have more to celebrate year round.

And so that was the plan! ...until we realized that that meant celebrating our "one year anniversary" only six months after getting married. ha. Every year we say we're going to celebrate in April, and every year it just feels awkward and we don't. And when our anniversary comes around we usually don't do much since we just celebrated my birthday...and it becomes EXACTLY WHAT WE SWORE WOULD NEVER HAPPEN😑. 

This year, though, I was determined to make our anniversary special! When I realized my parents were going to be in town for my Grandpa's Rasband's birthday party the weekend of our four-year anniversary, I coordinated with my mom to have her and my dad stay with Lydia and Elliott and planned a little surprise getaway for Stephen and me. It was a blast! We did a "zipline tour" in Park City (sounds a lot cooler than it is hahaha, see video) and then spent the night at the Zermatt Resort in Midway! Considering it was our first time away from Lydia overnight, AND the first time we'd stayed in a hotel since our Honeymoon...it was long overdue! 

Here's a little VLOG I made throughout the busy and fun-filled week! 

I've been so busy lately concentrating on instagram and growing my youtube channel (oh yeah, and being a mom of two under two 😅😂) that I'm afraid I've let this little blog of mine fall through the cracks. I really don't want to let it die completely, but I'm not sure I'll be able to consistently make time to post new content on it, so I'm going to start posting my instagram photos here as well. For those of you who already follow me on instgram, these posts might feel a little redundant, but I have a few siblings who STILL don't have instagram (no matter how much I plead for them to jump on the wagon ;)) AND since instagram's feed is no longer in chronological order, it might be nice for people to keep track of it on here. Most of all though, this space is still primary my "life story" if you will, and I think it will be nice to have more of my story in one place. (I'm going to try to be better about posting my youtube videos here right away as well.) 

To take full advantage of this moment with both kids napping, I'll provide a quick update: Life is GREAT. We have love love loved the addition of Elliott to our little family and he continues to be the happiest, chillest, and chunkiest baby ever. I would guess he is WEEKS away from surpassing Lydia in weight and I daresay his head is already bigger than hers. haha! Stephen continues to work long and hard for our family and we have LOVED the long summer days that have allowed us to get out of the house after he's home and still have hours of daylight to hit up the splash pad or the slide at a nearby park. Thinking about the fact that soon he will be coming home after dark already has me a little apprehensive (is it just me, or do days seem to DRAG AND DRAG when the sun is out for such a short time?). Thankfully I feel like the kids and I are in a really good routine (although don't ask me how I feel on Friday - SNOW is in the forecast😭!!!) and we are SO GRATEFUL to be living in our apartment with so many friends around during the day. 

Thanks for being here and I'm really hoping to back here again SOON! 

_ _ _ 

han.

This evening, entirely unprompted, you grabbed a book off of the shelf and took it to the couch to read to Elliott while Dad and I were finishing up dinner. You draped a burp rag over your legs like a tiny blanket and flipped through the pages of the book, showing Elliott the animal on each page and making their sound. When you finished the first book, you wrapped the "blanket" around Elliott and walked across the room to the bookshelf to get another. The stack of books next to you grew as Dad and I watched, and we silently mouthed to each other just how blessed we are to have two incredible babies, not wanting to ruin the moment by making a peep. We smiled and each other and agreed (yet again) that you are, without a doubt, THE BEST big sister.

_ _ _

han