Ok here are some that I've thought about:

Playing board games together. These were some of my favorite memories together and I love recreating these moments with my kids too. I especially love when you open the box and see all the scores from prior games and liked that we always kept them.

I loved how special I felt on my birthday. It's true that there are only a handful of gifts that I remember really getting excited about, but I loved the feeling of finding surprise notes or special cards on my birthday. Birthday parties were always super fun too and really about what I wanted to do. I appreciated feeling special and also copy that with my kids 😉.

Doing donuts in the snow in Queen of Peace Parking Lot with Dad driving. I recall being really shocked that Dad was ok with doing that!

Mom helping me make a pretzel stick log cabin as a project for school. I loved the final results, but I remember really enjoying just sitting together working on it.

Being allowed to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor in Mom and Dad's room if you were scared or sick. Also I'm pretty sure Mom clocked in hours sitting on the top step of the third floor just waiting for me to fall asleep if I asked her to wait there.

"Can't means won't". I say it in my head all the time. Huge driver in my determination from this quote.

I credit them both for honoring all of our individuality. I always felt like each of just knew that we were not the same people and that that was ok.

I loved our basement. There weren't many rooms that we were allowed to be crazy in 🤣😜, but I mean that basement was amazing. Games, hermit crab races, Nintendo (especially the mat), Toll Booth, etc.

Is it weird that I looked forward to the note mom would leave for us, Kev after school when she went back to work...."Hi, hope you had a great day. Please do : dust living room, unload dishwasher, sweep kitchen". We also each had 3 small chores after school and I strangely loved that routine and that note.

Those are some that have stuck out when thinking about this request. I'll send more as I think of them ❤️

Appreciate you putting this together. I know they will both love it.

It wasn't until adulthood that I realized how worried they were about finances at certain points. As a child, I never ever perceived any of that. I never felt like I didn't have what I needed and then some. As an adult, I so appreciate the efforts that I know went into keeping the train on the tracks and applaud them both for all of the hard work that went into that. I remember one night for some reason vividly waving to Dad from the upstairs windows as he (I think) was leaving for his later job.

I imagine it was also stressful that once they were both back working as we were older and I started having health issues. I always knew I came first before work (and our family for that matter). That meant so much to know that even though I felt guilty for something outside of my control, I never perceived that anything else mattered or was stressful in the moments.