14 years ... and counting!

Wow, it's "the most wonderful time of the year" in our household! Sadie born on the 11th, anniversary on the 23rd, Christmas, New Years ... very busy, blessed time. That's for sure! Today marks our 14th year of marriage. It's been a good 14 years. I take that back. A GREAT 14 years. I'm pretty lucky to be Matt's wife. And I will say, he's pretty lucky to have me, too! :) The day was spent just hanging around. I'm sewing PJs for the kids Christmas presents, so I worked a little on those. Later on, my good friend Melissa brought food for us because of our newborn. Holy cow! Good food! Funny thing is, I make lasagna like on a weekly basis. When the older boys started eating it, all I hear from them is, "This is the best lasagna EVER!" I was like, "Hey! What about my lasagna!" I didn't say anything though because I had to admit, it was sooo good! We've been watching a bunch of Gordon Ramsay shows and my oldest says, "This is like fancy Italian restaurant stuff!" I've got to get her recipe. My own lasagna needs a tune up! So for our anniversary celebration, we went out to eat. Ruby Tuesdays. But since it was our SPECIAL night, I went ahead and ordered the shrimp. I don't think I've EVAH ordered shrimp at a restaurant before. Always super expensive. 1st world problem, I know. Sadie slept in her carseat for a little, but not long. We took her out after about 10 mins. The guy who sat us asked if she was our 1st. We both said "no" and we both just looked at each other and remained silent. Just didn't feel like dealing with reactions that we typically get when we tell people how many kids we have. It's a blessing, a great blessing, to me to have 8 beautiful, perfect kids. Not everyone sees it that way. They're problem, I know, but it was apparent by both of our identical reactions, neither of us wanted anything to put a kink into our evening. The food was great, though I don't think Gordon Ramsay would have been happy. The cucumber in my salad was wilted and MAYBE the mashed potatoes were from a box. Sad thing is, they tasted fine to me, but I honestly couldn't tell! Ramsay could probably just look at the mashed potatoes and know. Towards the end of our dinner a super nice couple sitting at the bar, right acrossed from us, congratulated us on our new baby. "Boy or girl?" "Girl" (as she's dressed in pink with 2 pink blankets, but hey, it was sorta dark.) "Is this your 1st?" the husband asked. He looked to be about my own dad's age. We answered just like we did the host who sat us. "No. She's not." Then the guy goes, "Well, just don't tell me she's number 7!" Matt and I just busted out laughing and I said, "Actually, she's number 8!" The guy and his wife start laughing, he starts saying, "Open mouth, insert foot" over and over. The thing is, they were a super nice couple. From upstate NY. It was cool hearing him talk. He had the same exact accent as my dad, even used the same frases, like, "Good G_d Almighty." (Though my dad says good GOSH Almighty.) He gave us his coupon, saying, "You've got 8 kids, you can use this coupon!" It was one of those coupons you get in the mail. So it had his address on it. We're going to send him a family picture, just for the heck of it. I think he'll get a big kick out of seeing the kids. So many thoughts right now. So many feelings of gratitude in my heart. Heavenly Father has blessed me with so much. I know the kids don't realize right now how blessed THEY are to have parents who love each other, who love them, but one day they will. We talked a little about how we felt regarding more kids. Right now, it's too soon for me to say. I'm enjoying not being pregnant. I'm also enjoying Sadie so much. I'm enjoying ALL my kids so much. At this moment in time, I can only say, regarding more kids or not, "we'll see." By the time Sadie's Colby's age, Colby will be 26. Time just FLIES so fast. I've only got Colby for 5 more years and then he'll take off, with his brother practically hanging on to his feathers to leave. Then they'll all take off, one right after the other, just like that. Do I fill these last 5 years with another pregnancy? Or is it time to totally turn my attention to my growing kids? Not that another pregnancy is bad. I've been super lucky and blessed with easy pregnancies, but just something to think about. Which is why I say, "we'll see." Heavenly Father will let me know. This is another reason I just recently marked my photography prices higher. I realize that I TOTALLY run the risk of never having another photo shoot again, but that's fine. Not being so busy with photography will let me write more about life with the kids, something that's SO IMORTANT for me to do which I've totally neglected over the past 2-3 years. And it'll free up my time so I can spend more time with the kids. I'm looking forward to it!!