why I love my husband

There are hundreds of reasons. 

But this one has stood out to me most lately: 

He is a phenomenal dad.

I was irretrievably smitten when I married the man. But I do remember having moments of lucidity during the courting.  And in those moments I'd always worry about just that - Jim as a dad.  He didn't like children much and expressed no interest in having any of his own.

But this was one area where I have been most surprised and most grateful. 

He spends time and energy with each of these lucky three.  And he teaches them.  

On Monday he taught us a simplified lesson on Jacob 5, which is anything but simple.  It was a chapter we had only skimmed over in our morning scripture study, and he wanted his boys to understand more.  So he came home from work fully prepared with handouts and enthusiasm.  Of course, the boys didn't understand the allegory fully, but they did understand that it was important to their dad.  And the lesson ended with Aidan saying, "that was really interesting". 

That night when Davyn knelt with me to pray, he said, "Bless us all so we can be good fruits." 

Amen.

Coming from the branch of my Jim, they have a good chance of being just that.

Halloween

D is a man (boy?) of vision.  It was months ago that he first dreamed up his Halloween costume.  And then became a perfect tyrant in the cause of making it "just so".  As something of a perfectionist tyrant myself, my heart beamed with pride as he'd compare parts of his costume to pictures of Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter online. 

All in all, I think he turned out great (considering that I made the hat myself):

These next two pictures are my favorites...for Davyn's cute face, obviously, but even more for what's going on with my Jim in the background.  Check it out. 

I never would have known Jim was trying on hat/wigs on the sly!  So not him!

Aidan wasn't so particular about his costume.  He was unsure until about three days before our big party, and the decision was only made when we passed this knight costume at Target.  There was also a headpiece that he quickly ditched. 

Azure was a little witch, and this was the only moment (and believe me, it was no more than a moment) she actually wore her hat.

For Halloween night we invited some friends to dinner.  I ordered these great bread bowls that were made to look like pumpkins.  Filled with potato soup, it was delicious.  We used the insides to make homemade croutons for the salad (if you have never made homemade croutons, you are definitely missing out!).

I pulled out my foodsafe markers and let the kids draw jack-o-lantern faces on their bread bowls. 

And the night was topped off with homemade donuts, modeled here by my friend Henry. 

I initially wasn't too excited about Halloween on a Sunday, but it was refreshing to only dress the kids up for one event and then simply relax with friends on Halloween night.  

Davyn - of course - is already thinking about next year. 

How in the world do you make an eyeball costume??!

a slice of my life

7:07 a.m. on a dimly lit staircase. 

The girl and I had just returned from walking.  Her tiny fingers were ice cubes (note to self: buy gloves).  Aidan heard us coming up the walk and gallantly swung the door wide at precisely the right moment.  He pulled Azh out of the stroller, and the two hugged and chatted on the stairs, awakening a sleepy-eyed Davyn, who clambered down to join the Love.  

I grabbed my phone and snapped this picture...a slender slice of a perfect moment I can now savor tomorrow and tomorrow and forever.

I love my job.

miscellany

Too much of life is being lost as I neglect to write.  My inner perfectionist pleads with me to wait until proper time can be given for good writing and good pictures.  But I have a burgeoning realist (quite impressive if you know me!) who is beginning to realize that there's only a Now.  And right NOW life is good, and I want to remember. 

So here is the short & non-perfection version of several posts that have been running through my head over the past week.

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Yesterday I was part of a surprise baby shower for my friend Melissa.  These are the cookies I made and packaged as favors.  The design comes from Bake at 350...I saw it a few months back and fell in love.  I LOVE decorating cookies.  Less stress than cakes, and I adore the happy bundles they make when packaged.  

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In other treat news, I spent last Saturday afternoon making two boxes full of popcorn balls.   A *thank you* for our Primary children, who did an incredible job in our program that day.  It's the first time I've been part of a Primary program, and I felt very blessed to work with these little ones.  Especially my two boys.  When each of them stood to speak their lines, a lump filled my throat.  They have grown so much over this past year. 

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About two months ago I realized that Aidan's church clothes were looking ratty.  Ratty every day clothes don't overly bother me, but I like my boys to look sharp at church.  With the hustle, bustle flurry of our typical weekends, shopping kept being pushed back.  Finally, with the primary program being last week, I just decided it had to happen.  So I took him out.  With every intention of buying the simple slacks and white shirt ensemble that our budget demanded. 

We tried on a few ill-fitting pants.  THEN he saw the suit on the end of the aisle.  A three-piece, pin-striped black one, to be precise.  He stood in front of it, looked up at me and said, "I just think wearing a suit to church adds a nice touch."  The phrase cracked me up, won my heart over, and - of course - we walked out of the store with the suit.  Which did indeed add a *nice touch* to his Sunday self.

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I love writing birthday letters to my little ones.  But perhaps it's a selfish practice.  I write them, thinking about their grown up selves reading them twenty years from now and feeling my love in the words.  I don't think we even begin to properly appreciate our parents until we're parents ourselves.  So I mainly write so their adult, parent selves can catch a glimpse of the little people they were and how much they were loved. 

Anyhow, all that as an intro to the fact that I haven't taken the time (or HAD the time!) to write Azure a birthday letter yet.  Plenty of thoughts have filled my head, so hopefully they'll be placed into permanence here soon.

In the meantime, here are some pictures I took to put up at her party. 

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I'm participating in a health challenge over the next 12 weeks.  There are 10 points possible each day, earned by following these rules:  drink 48 oz. water, 30 minutes exercise, no soda, no sweets, no fast food or unhealthy snacks, 2 fruit and 2 vegetable servings, 15 minutes uplifting reading, journal (or blog) writing, personal goal.  You can check out the details here.  I'm excited about this because these are all habits that I'd love to cultivate anyhow.  And the fun part is that each participant contributes a prize.  The person with the most points at the end of the contest gets to choose their prize first.  So everyone ends up with something and gets motivate by "the goods" that are already posted on the site. 

I started this week determined to earn full points, but have learned this lesson as the week as the week progressed:  the biggest deterent to good habits is the combo of busy life and inadequate planning.  On some days, I cornered myself and couldn't accomplish everything.  Good planning could have easily eliminated this problem.  Hopefully this week will be better!

holy moly!

We went to the zoo today.  The part I *should have* photographed was my wonder woman friend Angie powering her two sets of twins up the hills in a quad stroller.  But I didn't even pull the camera out until she left early for naps.

I leisurely watched the boys at the play area and snapped a few pictures.  It has been a while, and I really need to document more of our lives.  But the surprise (holy moly!) came when I got home and looked at those pictures.

I have two BIG boys. 

Some time this year (while I was laundering clothes, feeding the girl child, scrubbing toilets, avoiding scrubbing toilets,  reading books, making dinner for the two hundredth time!) these two turned into real boys.  Not little boys. 

Do they look crazy grown up to you or am I just crazy?!