Our 1-Year Anniversary

This weekend, Kelly and I celebrated our 1-year Anniversary together on Sunday. If you remember from a recent post, exactly a month ago we headed to Gatlinburg for a weekend getaway to celebrate. We were not sure at that point when our niece would show her beautiful face in this world. Mark & Bridgette were actually due today on our anniversary, but Elizabeth was born on July 17th. I can't believe she's already 9 days old! So because of that, we headed to the mountains a month early for several days to spend time together for our anniversary. It ended up being a wonderful trip, especially with Kaitlynn making her debut in the next 6 weeks or so!!

Kelly has always known and made a big effort to spend time with me everyday, and especially on special occasions. Time together is my top love language. Time is what means everything to me. If he is going to be late from work; he calls. If he's staying late to work out; he calls. If he goes with some co-workers for an early dinner; he calls. He always tells me if he's going to be late, but that's maybe one day here, one day there. Kelly always comes home after work so we can spend time together in the evenings. That is my most valued gift and the best gift he can give me on a daily basis.

Because of that, we decided to relax all weekend and make no plans!! We wanted to do things as the days progressed - if that meant nothing or if that meant going to a park, the movies, the mall, or out to dinner!

FRIDAY:
The weekend started with Kelly calling about staying & working out. After he left the gym, he called and headed to the grocery store to pick up a few things for me so I didn't have to change out of my P.J.'s :) For anyone pregnant - early, mid, or late pregnancy - this is a wonderful gift that's free and means a gracious amount to us women. When Kelly got home, I heard the door open so I went to meet him, and in his hands were a bouquet of summer flowers!! The arrangements was lime green and bright orange - beautiful and very different! He simply smiled and said that he wanted to start our anniversary weekend off with a simple arrangement of flowers. Kelly also knows how much I LOVE getting flowers!! Plus I really enjoy getting them when they are least expected. I would have guessed he would have gotten some on Sunday, but it made me smile so big when he walked in the door Friday evening with them to start our weekend of celebration! We cooked dinner together - shrimp pasta & a side dish of unbelievable strawberries and spent some time catching up on our day. After dinner, I decided to give Kelly a small gift I put together for both of us. Our trip to Gatlinburg was our gift to each other, so I didn't do too much. I took one of the double 8X10 frames we received this past Christmas and put one of our favorite wedding pictures on the left, and typed up our vows we wrote to each other and placed it on the right. Kelly loved it! We spent time reading over the vows we wrote to one another last year - it was such a special time! We decided we would hang it in our bedroom the next day! We also decided to rent 'Knowing.' There are definitely some "scary" parts in the movie, but overall I ended up liking the film. After the movie, with my lack of sleep these days because of my constant bathroom visits - we headed to bed around 10:30pm.
Oh how crazy we are!! :)

Flowers from Kelly:


Anniversary frame I put together from our Wedding:


SATURDAY:
We didn't have to make breakfast this morning because I had made sausage balls earlier this week, so we had those!! We both really like them so it worked out well. We spent some relaxing, then got ready to grill out some hamburgers with french fries of course!! We invited dad over for lunch - unfortunately Zully works every Saturday so we didn't get to see her. After lunch, we went ran some errands which included going to Wal-Mart, then Best Buy looking at Video Cameras. We picked one out after doing some research between two different kinds - Sony & Cannon. We ended up going with the Canon & getting a 16GB for it as well - holds up to 6 hrs of film:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9239549&type=product&id=1218065984971
After making the purchase, we grabbed an ice cream cone from Brusters and came home. I wasn't feeling my best so we ended up taking a nap the rest of the afternoon. Once we got up, Kelly told me he would hang some pictures in our house. We were debating whether to hang anything or not because we didn't want to put screws into the fresh paint. Thanks to dad, he gave us a tip on what to buy to use in the den that would only make small nail holes in our wall and new paint.

A few pictures that Kelly put up:


The Battery, Charleston, SC - decided to put something smaller over our fireplace


My Bridal portrait


Kelly surprised me and hung the frame I put together in our
bedroom while I was resting on the couch after our nap :)


Mirror & Key holder - haven't seen this since
we opened our wedding gifts last year!!

We also spent some time working in Kaitlynn's room as well. We hung a few things today as well as a few days ago. Here are a couple updates on her room:


Guest Bed - pictures about bed are what Kelly hung Saturday night


Frame #1 - pictures of us from Kristin & Shea's Wedding


Frame #2 - top picture: Smokey Mountains (taken by Kelly)
bottom picture: Butterfly Garden at Callaway Gardens (taken by Kristen)

Shelves I painted for Kaitlynn's room..........Kaitlynn's 1st Alabama outfit

SUNDAY:
The day started quite early seeing as though Willa hurt her leg sometime over the past day or so, and me not exactly sleeping these days. We were both up around 6:30am this morning!! Willa either was bit by something outside or sprained her left leg. Thankfully she can walk on it while occasionally picking it up, but she's having a hard time jumping up on the couch and beds. It definitely hurts my heart to see her hobbling - this is her first "injury." Outside of our interesting non-existent night of sleep, our morning started by us wishing each other a happy anniversary, having breakfast, and getting ready for church! As I was finishing up getting ready - my favorite part of the entire day happened - Kelly brought me my engagement ring and wedding band into our bathroom, got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him again! It was absolutely precious and definitely one of the sweetest moments from today. He put my rings on my left hand, gave me a kiss and told me how much the past year meant to him and how much he was looking forward to this next year of marriage. After we spent our morning at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church (we have been visiting Johnson Ferry for a year now! We're taking the Membership Class in a few weeks and then hopefully joining the church soon after. We are both very excited about our decision for a church home and family.), we spent some time relaxing around the house together which included lunch, a much needed nap, the World Championship Swimming in Italy on DVR, and getting ready for our date. We made reservations for dinner at Brookwood Grill in Roswell, GA. It was wonderful! After dinner, we headed back home to cut into the top layer of our Wedding cake from last year & have a toast to the next chapter in our lives together - starting our 2nd year of marriage and becoming parents! Here are a few pictures from our evening:


Heading out for dinner

Our toasting glasses from our Wedding Day last year!!

Getting ready to cut into our cake & toast to our
next year of marriage - year-long frozen cakes aren't the best!!
Thank goodness we had an anniversary cake in Gatlinburg :)

Our unity sand and toasting glasses

Willa Grace not feeling her best :(

I feel quite lucky being able to celebrate our wedding weekend twice!! I enjoyed spending this entire weekend with Kelly - mostly relaxing - but definitely enjoying time with just each other! Even though we've celebrated our wedding weekend twice, we have celebrated our marriage and our unity together as husband & wife underneath Christ's blessing and leadership and the blessing of our families everyday! I am so thankful and honored to have a strong, godly leader as my husband and future father to our children. Words cannot describe Kelly in the perfect way, but all I know is that I love him more each day! He is my best friend and has always taken care of me and will always take care of our family! I cannot wait to see him interact with our daughter because it's definitely going to be one amazing adventure. He has always had such a kind and gentle spirit towards me - he's definitely going to be such a loving father to Kaitlynn. He's very ready to be a dad and I'm so thankful I'm the one that's a part of that dream coming true!

Happy 1-year Anniversary, baby! I love you unconditionally!