Recently, John and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary.  Honestly, the date almost got lost in the midst of welcoming a tiny new person into our lives.  But with a week and a half between Jacob’s birth and our big day, we managed to arrange for a little celebration with a somewhat unexpected assortment of family and friends.  Some visits were planned in advance, others were a surprise the day of, and altogether it was a perfect combination.

 

Spending a day with a brand new baby is certainly not the typical way to celebrate a first anniversary—except maybe in John’s family.  His older brother was born on their parents’ first anniversary.  John’s dad was hoping we might continue the tradition.  Looking back on it now, can you imagine how big Jacob would have been?!  Eek.

 

We ended up with my parents, my maid of honor, a groomsman, and another close friend over, snacking on whatever was in the fridge and watching football.  As far as I was concerned, this was the perfect way to celebrate our second big day.  A year after we were wed, we had our happy home open to family and friends, and had started a family of our own.  One of the highlights was the twenty minutes five of us spent cheering Jacob on while he was on his tummy.  For a ten-day old baby, that kid was strong!

 

The “official” lists of anniversary gifts, year by year, say that first anniversary gifts should be something made of paper—show tickets, etc.  We decided Jacob was gift enough for us both, so we just exchanged cards over a quick dinner out, while my parents watched our little guy.  It was a little strange to be away from him; it was the first time in ten months I was without him either in my belly or outside of it.  What a bizarre feeling, knowing that I was still recovering from delivering him and this huge change had happened in our lives, but for the first time passersby on the street would have no idea.

 

Soon enough, we were back home again, marveling at the little man who had dominated so much of this first year of our marriage, and would certainly be a large part of many years to come.

 

When I was pregnant, we tried to take a series of “baby bump” photos, showing how Jacob and I were growing together throughout the pregnancy.  We weren’t really very diligent about it, plus I couldn’t figure out when I personally would go back and look at these photos again.  I realized it would be more meaningful to me to track the growth of our whole family over time, not just me and this baby.

 

So this year we started to take what will become our annual anniversary photo.  No matter what we’re doing on the big day each year, we’re going to sit down and take a family photo together.  We may be home late from work, busy with homework or sports practice, whatever, but we will find a quick moment to join together for this photo no matter what.  I hope over time, this will be a beautiful way to watch how our family has grown and it will be something of a keepsake for us.  After our wedding photo then, I leave you with our first anniversary photo, aka my new favorite picture in the whole wide world.

Here’s to many more to come!