9 Years!

We celebrated our 9th anniversary of being a family on Tuesday!

I have issues with baby-sitters (and leaving the kids in general), so last year, we celebrated our anniversary as a family. This year, we did the same. It's a perfect tradition because the day we got married, was the day our family began. Love celebrating it together!

Plus, like I said, I don't have to leave the kids.

I will work on my issues soon. Probably after the kids are grown and out of the house. ;)

We looked at doing a lot of things, but we didn't have a big frame of time from when Adam got out of school and had to be in bed. The kids really wanted to "eat out" (not sure what that says about my cooking...), but we had made a goal to not eat out anymore. At all. We need a bigger place, and eating out just kills the budget.

Mike suggested (as a compromise) that we deposit our "coin jar" and use that money to eat out. That way, it wasn't coming out of the bank (and messing up the budget), but we could still get out. Away from my cooking. Apparently. ;)

There was almost $30 in the jar! Crazy!

We picked up Adam from school and went to the Bellagio. They have a beautiful conservatory that they change every season. We had only seen "summer," and everyone had told us that "spring" was great.

It was beautiful! The kids LOVED the butterflies and ants!

After going through the garden a few times, we went outside to see the fountains. We LOVE the fountains! Grace thought they sounded like fireworks.

Even though we live in Las Vegas, we hardly ever go down to the strip. Really, just when family are in town. I always hear about Las Vegas on tv, in magazines, books, etc. It's kind of surreal when you live here, especially when you are LDS. I don't associate "my" Las Vegas withe one I see/hear about in the media. We really just don't pay attention to the casinos, gambling, etc. However, when we do go down to the strip, to a nice place like the Bellagio, I'm always reminded that we do live in the same city, and there is a lot of fun, family stuff to do.

Afterward, we went to Chili's for dinner.

I'm totally in love with our family. I'm so blessed to have these sweet, fun, and funny children to raise and love. They are so precious. And 9 years ago it all began!

Happy Anniversary to us!