happy annibirthary 2010!!

iiiiiiiiiit's that time of year again!
for those of you who may be new to team stephens, you might be wondering what our annibirthary is?
you see, on august 14, 2004 dathan & i got married. then, on our 2 year anniversary, we had our first child, sean. so, i got tired of describing august 14th as "our anniversary and sean's birthday" so i just put the words together and decided to call it annibirthary. we love it!

2004. the last time august 14th was on a saturday (as it is today) was on our actual wedding day. i cannot believe it's been 6 years!! it was a hot summer day and about 450 people we love came to celebrate with us!

2005. i got dathan a grill for our 1st anniversary (awesome wife, right??). on our anniversary we invited my parents over to our friends house for a "bbq to celebrate our anniversary." but really it was a surprise "25th" anniversary luau for them! we put "25th" in quotes because their actual 25th was 10 days before our wedding so, needless to say, they didn't get to do anything. they were definitely surprised and we had a great time!


2006. sean was born 12 days early. 7lbs 10oz. 21.25in. 7:43am. not exactly how i thought we would spend our anniversary, but he was the greatest anniversary gift we could ever receive! he was just our present baby- we found out we were pregnant with him on Christmas eve, so he was our Christmas present. my very first ultrasound of him was scheduled on my birthday, so he was my bday present. then he came on our anniversary. what a precious gift that he still is!


2007. we realized that we no longer had an anniversary on august 14th, but sean's birthday became the priority ;) that was ok, we can celebrate on another day. we threw sean a big "surfer" birthday party. and i don't think we did anything for our anniversary. whoops!


2008. we drove to oklahoma for my brother brian's wedding on our actual annibirthary day. the weekend before we threw sean a finding nemo party at our house. we were able to "celebrate" our anniversary by staying in a hotel in oklahoma for the weekend while there for the wedding. my parents even took sean one of the nights so we could be by ourselves ;) i was about 11 weeks pregnant with nolan and had just had our first ultrasound of him a few days before we left.


2009. sean had a super hero squad birthday party at the church. we were determined to do something for our 5th anniversary even though we had a 5 month old who i was still nursing. my parents were visiting from california and agreed to watch the boys for a weekend so we could go. we went to huntsville and spent some great time together. my parents went to dathan's parents house where the 4 of them watched the 2 boys together :)


2010. we are in california! sean is having a toy story birthday party today (2:00 pacific time). we are not doing anything today for our anniversary but plan on dinner and maybe a date to paint a dream one night this week. i cannot believe dathan and i have been married for 6 years! we have been through so much and God has done so much in the both of us. i'm blessed beyond measure. and sean is 4 today! wow! he's so grown up, i really don't know what to think. i just signed him up for preschool this week... total mixed emotions about that (he, on the other hand, is SO excited to go to school). so really i've been thinking... aren't dathan & i too young to be married 6 years and have a 4 year old? i think so! ;)


i love to see how our family grows and changes each year on annibirthary day! who knows what's in store for the stephens clan in 2011.....????