I’m sure Amelie has inherited lots of things from me, some better than others, probably. But one cute thing that I think is kind of fun is that she often says, “amn’t”–a contraction I used as a child. Amn’t is short for “am not,” as in “I’m going to her house, amn’t I?” It actually makes a lot of sense. “Aren’t” should be reserved for plural subjects, right? It makes me smile to hear that sweet contraction coming from her, especially because my own mother has told me that I used to say that, too.

Ever since we got married, Bryce and I have tried to make weekly date nights a reality. With each child that’s come to our family, that’s gotten progressively harder. Finding babysitters can be a chore, paying babysitters can be a bother, and often we’re just tired from a busy week and not eager to go out and do something. We’d fallen into the habit of just watching a movie at home and maybe getting take-out from someplace local. This year, we decided that we wanted to make date night a little more special. We decided that we would really try to do something fun together one night a week, even if we didn’t leave home. To make sure it happened, we decided to alternate and take turns being in charge of date night every other week. I have to say, it’s been great so far! Just knowing that we’re going to be doing something special and that the other person is planning and thinking of ideas is wonderful.

Here are some of the things we’ve done so far at home for our date nights: a cheese tasting (complete with a selection of fine cheeses, sliced pears, and sparkling cider), a yoga night (with scented candles, a relaxing yoga DVD workout, and a documentary on yoga), a curry making night (this has turned out to be one of our favorite recipes to make now), a mystery themed night (we played the game MindTrap, ate a treat called Mystery Dessert, and watched a mystery movie), and a night of myths (we watched a couple episodes of the show MythBusters and played a board game called Urban Legends). You’d be surprised who was in charge of those. For instance, I hosted the cheese tasting and Bryce planned the yoga night! There have been other nights when we’ve actually gone out and that’s great, too. It’s nice to have a change of scenery every once in a while.

It has been so much fun! And I am proud of us for making it happen each week, even when we’re tired or sick. One week, I was really sick with a cold, so my date night plan was to simply watch some TED talks (really interesting lectures that you can watch online). But it was still something.

Here’s to 10 more months of date nights!

(Please read the title of this post in your best Bob Barker voice.)

On Saturday our family got a new car! Well, new to us, at least. Our family car has been our Ford Taurus for the past 5 years. It served us well, but with room for only 5 passengers, it clearly wasn’t going to work for us much longer. Although Bryce never saw himself as a minivan man, we decided that a van would best suit our needs. I was thrilled–a Honda Odyssey has been my dream car for a while now.

We ended up getting a 2003 Honda Odyssey with pretty low miles (under 85,000), leather interior, power sliding doors (which have been so handy!), a DVD player, and, most importantly, lots of room. So, now this baby boy can come and we’ll actually be able to fit him in our car. Hooray!

A couple weeks ago, Bryce and I decided to get our family blog printed as a book. We thought this would be a fun family treasure to have and look through and Bryce pointed out that it’s a great piece of family history, too. I’ve been posting on this blog since 2008–tons of stories, memories, milestones, pictures, and special moments recorded on here! Bryce found a program that turned our blog posts into a printable document. There are lots of companies that will do this, but it was hard to find one that could do it with our privately hosted WordPress blog. But, he found one and once that phase was completed, he got the cover and other details formatted to be printed, bound, and shipped to us by Blurb (a printing service). It arrived the other day and we are so pleased with how it turned out!

The front cover…the book came shrink-wrapped and everything.

The back cover…Don’t worry, that sticker wasn’t permanent.

The first page of the Table of Contents.

Over 250 pages of writing and photos!

We have loved looking through this. The kids think it’s pretty fun!

It’s amazing to flip through it and see how things have changed in the past 5 years.

I am so glad we have this!

are my two front teeth!