Unexpected bonus

I've been really busting my butt at work for the past couple months, working long hours and at a fairly frantic pace. My company has more work than we know what to do with and, so far, have not had any luck in finding another person to bring onto the team. S has been so patient with the overtime even though it often means super long days with two active toddlers and putting his own work on the back burner.

A couple days ago the three partners at the company pulled me into the only space in the office that has a door and closed it behind me. First thought, oh crap, I've been here almost 6 months, maybe they think I'm not measuring up to their expectations when they hired me!  Gulp!

The convo started with the usual review type questions, how do you feel you are settling in, how has the transition been, etc. Quickly though they started singing me praises and said they just wanted to take a break out of the busy schedule to let me know they appreciate the hard work... and if that wasn't enough of a boost for me, they handed me an envelope on my way out the door with a nice little bonus check in it.

It's been a long time since I've been in a work environment where I feel that my knowledge, efforts, and hard work are valued and even longer since I've received a random bonus. It really makes all the difficulties S and I have faced since the move seem like they are worth it! And honestly, the check couldn't have come at a better time. The boys are at the upper limit of the height class for their infant seats and it's time to get the bigger seats. With no savings and very little extra cash in our budget I didn't know how we were going to afford two expensive car seats that would fit in our compact cars.  

So $500 of the bonus is going into savings so we can finally have a little bit of an emergency fund and the rest will go to car seats! What a relief!