My Beautiful Days

Good morning and Happy Monday to you all!  Today I am very excited to announce that I have a guest blogger here on My Beautiful Day!  My guest is my oldest brother, Jeremy.  He is an amazing brother, a husband and father to four beautiful kids (the last of whom is not yet two weeks old!), among other things.  He also is the one person who harasses me constantly that I'm not good at keeping up with writing on my blog - and every time he says this to me, I always tell him that he's welcome to do a guest post and that way my blog will have new content.  Well, this time he took me up on it!  What he wrote is something he posted on his Facebook page and told met hat I could use it for his guest post.  I love what it says and appreciate any positive  feedback you might have for him.  Even if you aren't in agreement of what he says, at least be positive with your response. So, without further ado, here is my big brother! Minnesota Marriage Amend...

I can't find a good title for this blog post.  This topic is something that's been on my heart for awhile and I think it's definitely worth sharing.  I remember at a young age having a very idealistic perception of how my married life was going to be.  We would always be happy with one another, my house would never  be messy, life would flow smoothly and things were always going to be great.  Marriage is what I longed for, what my heart desired, as my lifelong dream was to be a wife and a mom.  Well, I can tell you that, truthfully, my marriage is not that far off from that idealistic picture I had in my mind!  I am incredibly blessed in my marriage, but I believe it's because we both work very hard at making it so wonderful.  Granted, that whole 'my house never being messy' thing probably needs a lot of work, but I'm proud to say that my first fifteen months of marriage have been fabulous!   What's the catch?  Well, I think a lot of i...

You know what's great?  When you already have a blog post in your head that you want to write about, and then there's an incentive given to you to write about that very topic!  Aaaahhh yes!  JuiceBoxJungle (you know, that widget on the right side of my blog) wants to know if and when my hubby and I go out to dinner.  Add on top of that the fact that  Restaurant.com  is sponsoring this blogging frenzy and I've got a few reasons to blog about this! Monte and I have been really good about a weekly date night ever since we were married a year ago.  Maybe it's the fact that we're a newlywed couple with four children, maybe it's just the fact that we're a newlywed couple, or maybe it's just that we like each other's company that much!  Whatever the reason, we have found time in our schedule to head out together once a week.  Don't get me wrong, we do miss a week here and there (because sometimes our schedule is just that busy!), but overall we tr...

I've been asked several times to share the story of how Monte and I met and eventually married.  I've always been hesitant about sharing this story on my blog, as it really opens me up for judgement.  However, I recently met a new blog friend who asked me about it and I went out on a limb and emailed the story to her.  Her encouraging words that I received in response gave me enough motivation to post the story - so here it is!  Enjoy ... [This is copied directly from my email to Laura] I am slightly hesitant to tell the story of how Monte and I met, just because the timing of it all is something that super opens me up for judgement, which is why the story hasn't been put on my blog quite yet!  I'm happy to share it with you, yet somehow it's still hard to tell!  It's so weird because I am proud of my husband, proud to be his wife and everything worked out perfectly for us regarding our relationship, engagement and marriage -- yet the hurriedness of it...

One year ago today this woman ... was wed to this man ... ... and these children ... ... and she's never had a moment of her life that's been happier than this past year.  Happy Anniversary honey - Happy Anniversary kiddos - I love you all so much!

Some days I feel incredibly frustrated with myself. This morning is one of those days. See, about a week ago, I had the pressing thought that maybe, just MAYBE, it would be a good time to run a backup on my computer, as I have not done so in almost a year. However, having many other things on my schedule for the day, I put the thought off. It came back to me several times that day, and I continued to push it off, telling myself that I would do it later. Guess what? Later never came. Wednesday morning I pushed the power button on my laptop and sat there and watched as it crashed before my eyes. AAGHHHH!! Alright, maybe I can't say crashed, but I can say that the crazy thing won't start. It keeps running a "startup repair" program, that just can't repair the startup. I'm at a loss! Thankfully, I purchased this laptop a little over a year ago from my friend Chris, as he has a business account with Dell. Chris has informed me that the computer is cov...

I'm a newlywed, but I'm not a normal newlywed. On December 6, 2008 I was bound in marriage to the most wonderful man I've ever met. On December 8, 2008 we left for our honeymoon in Kaua'i, Hawai'i. We spent nine (eight? ten? I'm honestly not sure!) glorious days together in the pouring rain visiting tourist traps, eating out, enjoying our cottage by the sea ... it was a dream come true. Aaahhh the life of a newlywed. I'm a newlywed, but I'm not a normal newlywed. On December 6, 2008 I was bound in marriage to the most wonderful man I've ever met. On that same day, I was bound in marriage to the four most amazing step-children any woman could ask for. On the same day that I was began learning how to be a wife, I also began learning how to be a mom. Upon arrival back home from the sunshine pouring rain of Hawai'i, I became instant step-mother. I became the reader of bedtime stories, the kisser of owies, the preparer of dinner, the receiver of t...

In my most recent post I received an anonymous comment regarding my relationship with my husband and I want to address it. Here is the comment, for those who did not see it: Anonymous said... what does a 25 yr old single woman and a 42 yr old man have in common??????? It sounds to me and looks like to me that it was all about money! In a yrs time you went from living with your brother and "just making it" to being a "stepmom"! How does that work? Sounds kinda fishy to me. July 1, 2009 8:49 PM One thing that I have to say, first and foremost, is that I am not at all offended by this comment (though my step-daughter, Claire, who is sitting next to me says "I am!"). I understand that, if you don't know me and you don't know my husband, if you don't know us together, it certainly can look like something really crazy. The thing is, it IS crazy, but a really good kind of crazy! What 25-year-old do you know who would give up a good job that she...