how we celebrated 5 years of marriage

we played it pretty low key for our anniversary this year. when you have a husband in his second to last semester of college, in the middle of finals, and you're 28 weeks pregnant, taking care of an almost 2 year old....sometimes the fantasy of a 5 year cruise, or overnight get away, or a spa day, or laying on a beach somewhere to celebrate your 5 years of marriage just isn't going to happen.

we rotate who plans the anniversary celebrations each year and this year it was norman's turn. a few weeks before our anniversary i told norman (knowing how stressed he was about the impending end of the semester) not to worry about planning a big "ta-do" for our 5th anniversary this year. to just focus on school and that would be good enough for me!!! i had already given him a new shotgun, and he had already surprised me with tickets to taylor swift back in october, so...we didn't really need to spend more money on presents, either....

however, my cute husband still managed to pull through in all his sentimental glory. (he's good at that sentimental thing...me...not so much). so the day of our anniversary we had an ACSE (a civil engineering society) dinner to go to. it was delicious and we had a nice time! we headed home, put grant to bed, and i was ready to just hang out, watch a movie, take a bath, something relaxing and norman tells me he has a little surprise for me. which was surprising because i honestly wasn't expecting anything due to finals. he told me that he had looked up what the traditional 5 year anniversary gift was, and it was wood.....

so he pulls out a handful or so of different sizes of stained pieces of wood and a drill. now, on my pinterest board for a while now i have had this shelf pinned that someone made that spells out the word "love". Well norman looked it up, figured out how to make it, cut all the pieces of wood, stained them...and now we were going to put them together! i thought it was the most thoughtful gift!! so when we said "we" were going to put them together, we really meant he was going to... so while he put it together, i popped in a movie, and got out our journal we write in every year and read through some of our old memories (we write 10 new memories from that year each year on our anniversary and then write down goals we want for the next year). it was so fun to reminisce and laugh and think back on our 5 years of marriage. it was a perfect evening.

i can say that we are in a place right now that i love! we have grown so much through these last 5 years and it's exciting to think about new experiences we have ahead of us. we have learned to compromise better, forgive quicker, laugh more, stress less (maybe not as much on that one...), and love harder. marriage is tough, but it's fun to figure it out with this guy that i get for forever.

happy 5 years to my handsome husband!
12.11.15

^^we don't have it hung up yet, so here's what it looks like...laying on my bed :)^^