Love in a Jar

My friend Hayley sent me this idea while Evan and I were engaged. If I can find the original blog it came from, I will link it here. The idea is simple, find a jar and throughout your first year of marriage write little notes about why you love your spouse and drop them in the jar. On your anniversary, you get to dump them all out and read them!

Evan and I really enjoyed our love jar. We kept a pen and note pad on our dresser throughout the year and we wrote down funny moments, inside jokes, sweet things the other one had done....things we wanted to remember or tell the other person. Last week we got to laugh a lot and cry a little as we read through our first year together.

I'll share a few...

"We don't get good night's sleep right now. Too much tossing and turning and considering the other. We're two weeks in or so."

"I love you for not staying mad at me when I made you put back the avocados because they were too expensive. $1.79 each."

"I like not having to text you that much. Living with you makes that unnecessary."

"I love when you sweet talk flight attendants on our way to California and manage to get everyone free drinks!"

"I love having real conversations with you about our struggles, what we want to work on as individuals and getting to do it together."

"Remember when I had the hiccups and you scared me so bad I cried?!"

We talk often about living a simple life- one that is focused on the things that really matter and not cluttered with the unnecessary. This little project/game/whatever you want to call it fit in well with our motto. This was just about us, our year, and what the Lord had done, plus this precious, personalized gift was totally free. We even borrowed the jar. (Thanks Phillip.)

I love extravagant things every once in a while... and I'm holding out for a great anniversary getaway one of these years... but this was perfect. Just the two of us, reading our notes, eating year-old cake and laughing.

And just in case you think I'm overly sappy, Evan liked it so much that he suggested we do it every year!