Anniversary Saturday

The girls and I have been enjoying some of the mistercausecause blog archives of late.  A few days ago, I began reading to them from the very beginning of this blog, and they have especially delighted over the photos and videos of themselves when they were younger.  Both girls seem particularly fascinated by the videos of Madeleine as a baby.  So much so that I now suddenly have two babies in my house instead of a 6.5 and 3.5 year old.  I whole-heartedly embrace and support their love of pretend play, but it REALLY doesn't help matters when I'm trying to get everyone out the door for Julia's swim lesson and I have two children crawling around the kitchen floor babbling at me in baby talk instead of getting their shoes on.

At any rate, it has been such a pleasure re-watching past videos together that I began thinking I'd like to burn our family videos onto a DVD.  Since Ethan and I are celebrating our 11th wedding anniversary today, I had ordered him a DVD burner so that we can eventually put this project together and have family memories to enjoy later on down the line.

I should know better than to ever try and buy anything electronic/technical/machine-related without consulting with Ethan first.  I watched him examining the DVD burner with an expression of amusement on his face.

ME: What's wrong?
ETHAN: Yeah, so we'll have to exchange this.  We don't have a machine to actually put this inside of. We need one that can work with a laptop.

Yes, that is how UN-tech-savvy I am.  I bought an internal device for a desktop computer, despite the fact that Ethan and I both own laptops.

At any rate, the girls became aware of our anniversary gift exchange during brunch, and like with everything, they wanted in.  Ethan and I were touched to receive the following anniversary gifts from our darling daughters:

From Julia.  I'm honored to be considered as one of the best parits.

From Madeleine.  This is Madeleine Bunny with Daddy Bunny.
I have mentioned my childrens' predilection towards phallic symbols in their artwork before, no?  This one kind of takes the cake.

While Ethan and Julia were out getting haircuts this afternoon, Madeleine helped me make a batch of brownies to serve as an anniversary treat as well as a Father's Day dessert for tomorrow.  And the brownies could not have come out more Madeleine-style if we'd tried.  Behold, the newly baked dessert:

Brownies, with a BIG LUMP.

After the usual Saturday errands were finished with, the Rowe family took a trip to the Franklin Park Zoo, where we spent time visiting the animals, riding the carousel, and playing on the playground equipment.  It was a beautiful day to be out and about, and despite the fact that the girls didn't particularly seem to care about any of the animals, Ethan and I enjoyed seeing a lot of our favorite zoo buddies, like the giraffes, the tortoise, and the gorilla family.

This is how little the girls seemed to care about the animals:

ME:  Madeleine, what was your favorite part of the zoo?
MADELEINE: Uh...YOU!
ME: Julia, what was your favorite part of the zoo?
JULIA: (thoughtful) I guess playing on the playground.

Hey, if there's something there for everyone, it doesn't really matter if we all enjoy different aspects of the same place, right?

Since we were unable to procure a baby-sitter for the evening, Ethan and I didn't get to follow our usual anniversary tradition of eating at our favorite restaurant in Newton, as it is not exactly a kid-friendly sort of place.  Instead, the whole family went out to eat at Stone Hearth Pizza, which is one of the kids' favorite restaurants, and one that Ethan and I like as well.

Going out for an anniversary meal with the kids is just a *little* different than going out to eat as a couple.  Here are a few key differences:

-We had to actually ask the kids to switch seats so that Ethan and I could sit next to each other.  Not that it mattered ALL that much, because Ethan wound up spending most of the time playing tic-tac-toe and Hangman with a very eager Julia, and Madeleine needed my help with just about everything.
-Instead of lovingly sharing bites of food with my spouse, I instead had Madeleine next to me repeatedly begging for bites of my bread bowl, despite the fact that her own dinner was plain pasta with a side of bread.
-Nothing says "romantic dinner" like a chunk of time spent in the one-seater bathroom with Julia while she does a marathon poop.
-Anniversary dinners for two don't *usually* include a crying spell over an ice cream scoop not being big enough.  Nor do they end with one half of the couple needing to leave the restaurant well before the other.

But one key advantage to being out to eat as a group was that we actually had a photographer handy, instead of my typical attempt to set my camera up on some nearby object and auto-time a picture of my husband and I.  Tonight, I was able to rely upon Julia's handiwork:

Not bad...slightly-off-centered, but we'll try again.

Cut off Daddy's head.

Cut off Daddy's head again.  (And mine as well)

Attempt #4: ta-da!  Photo of the happy couple!

Really, I can't complain about a day and night out and about with my three favorite people, and Ethan and I will (hopefully) get a chance to celebrate together a bit more tonight with one of the other anniversary gifts I presented to him - a fancy bottle of wine - along with some delicious BIG LUMP brownies!

Happy Anniversary to my favorite guy around!