The Big 10

Today is our official 10 year anniversary.  If you know our family at all, you know a rose ceremony was part of our wedding.  This is where we all (LW, GG, The Hubs and myself) exchanged roses.  The point of this was to symbolize the change in our relationships as we became a family and we come together every year to exchange roses again - adding Bug and Bunny along the way, and talk about what our personal goals are to help make our family stronger.  Since we're all very busy people, we don't always do it exactly on our anniversary, so last night was our night to celebrate.  Since it was our TEN YEAR anniversary, I thought I'd shake things up a bit.

A few weeks ago I sent an email out to LW, GG and The Hubs asking them to provide me with 10 unique reasons they like/love LW, GG, Bug and Bunny respectively - with  reminder that they can't submit reasons why the love themselves.  Their egos are fine people, just trust me on this.  I sat down with Bug and Bunny separately and asked them to do the same thing. Then I got to crafting, hole punching, cutting - SO MUCH CUTTING - and double sided sticky taping and this is what I came up with.

Each kid was presented with this little booklet, made from playing cards and craft paper. It included 10 reasons from each of their siblings, 10 reasons from The Hubs, 10 reasons from me and then two extras reasons about why we like/love them to make 52 reasons.

The thing I really liked about this project was it really made everyone think about each other.  Really figure out what it is they love about them.  It was fun to see when everyone came up with similar answers - Like Bug is really funny, or Bunny sings a lot.

And more funny when the answers contradicted each other.  Like when LW said that GG wasn't judgmental, but GG said that one of the things she loved best about LW was that they could sit and judge things/people together.  (All in good fun of course - no feelings were hurt in the making of these booklets).

The best part though, was letting the kids read their booklets and try to figure out who said what.  Some were obvious, and some not so much.

But ultimately, it let each of the kids feel really good about themselves and about how the rest of the family sees them.  I can't believe we've made it 10 years, but it's easy to see the love in our family that holds us together.

Seriously.. Thoughts?

PS - this project was not my idea, I found it on Pintrest!

Rose Exchange

Waaaaaaay back when The Hubs and I tied the knot (literally.. we tied a knot as part of our wedding), there was a part of our ceremony where all four of us, LW and GG included, exchanged roses.  It was a symbol of our becoming a family.  Before we exchanged them, we each just had three roses.  And once we had exchanged them, we still all had three roses.  But now, they were different.  They weren't OUR roses anymore.  Now we carried a rose from each member of our new family.  Just like before the ceremony we were just four people, and after the ceremony, after committing to be a family, we were different too.  The ceremony included a section where it asked us to come together once a year as a family, to exchange roses and to be reminded of why we all came together in the first place, and how we became a family.

So, every year around this time, we as a family - all six of us now - come together to exchange roses.   

We each pick out 5 roses.  We say what we like most about every member in our family and hand them one of our roses.

When we're done passing out all of our roses, we make a promise for what we will do to make the family stronger in the coming year and light a candle.   Sometimes it's little goals like LW promising to get a job or GG promising to spend more girl time with Bunny.  Sometimes it's big things like controlling a short temper better and trying to have more patience - yeah.. that was me - it's me every year.  

Bug and Bunny have participated in varying stages of success since they were born.  This year I think was the first time Bug really got what he was suppose to do and say.  He thanked each of his sisters for the different ways they play with him and said he was going to try to whine less in the coming year.  

Bunny just kept telling everyone how much she loved them and promised to be a better listener and not get into so much trouble. And with a little help from their big sisters, they each sealed the deal by lighting a candle.  Such big promises, I think from two such little people.

Corny? A little Brady Bunch? Yeah, I guess you could say that.  But it's one time a year where no matter what else is going on in our family dynamic, we can all come together and be reminded why we're here.  Why we agreed to be a family.  To remind ourselves to work hard for each other, to be kind to each other, and to love each other.  And more than that, to remind each other we're each worth that love and respect.  It reminds us to try a little harder, to do a little more, and mostly, it reminds us no matter what, we're family.  We're all in this together.

And when it's all said and done and we blow out the candles..

we walk away different.. changed by each other and what it means to be in this family.

Seriously.. Thoughts?