A Thankful Heart: My Husband

 A willing participant at the Go,Dog, Go! Party

With Thanksgiving just a few more days away, I wanted to share a few things that make my heart thankful. I think we should move forward in life with a continual thankful heart, but since this season is for taking special notice of those around us, I wanted some things I am thankful for.

My husband has been my closest friend since we were in high school. Hours upon hours have been spent on the phone, talking and learning about each other. Years of knowing the ins and outs of life, sharing in the ups and downs, laughing, crying and living together.

While I am obviously very biased, my husband is the best sort of man. He works very hard at a job that is not his favorite. He provides for his family. He does the bedtimes and the baths with the boys. Always. He reads. He engages with people around him. He cares about his co-workers. He researches how to help people and than how to put that into action. He runs. He leads a life group in our church. He tutors. He loves his boys. He loves me. But most of all, he loves his Lord and that reflects in everything that he does.

Instead of continuing to gush on and on about my great man, I wanted to let you read a bit about his thoughts. Here are two posts that Ryan wrote on giving and thankfulness.

Give Thanks and Give a Goat

Thanks is a Verb

See? He is a good catch, that husband of mine.

He makes my heart thankful.

Meet Miss Audrey Bird

Well, her name is not really Audrey Bird. I just like to call her that. Officially she is Audrey Hazel Johnson and I am her aunt.

She is my first niece by blood. (I married into aunthood with 4 nephews and 2 nieces)


 So I flew to Michigan last weekend to meet her and to help out when I could.

My help included: making chocolate chip cookies from scratch, holding baby, snuggling baby, taking pictures of baby and installing a winter covering for the car seat. All serious business.

Her parents like to call her "bean" or "sugarbean".




 But I think she is more of a sweet little bird, an Audrey Bird.

 

So while my poor, poor husband toughed it out with two wild boys, a leaking ceiling and an extremely tardy plumber, I snuggled with this little bug.

Not a bad way to spend a weekend, wouldn't you say?

There is one problem though. Babies. They always seem to get bigger, regardless of what you tell them. So hopefully this little lady will stay little enough for her Uncle Ryan to get lots of cuddle time, but big enough to handle her cousins' "love", cause they sure want to love on her.

Lately...

We have been doing some fun fall activities of late. It has finally cooled down enough to be outside most of the day and be comfortable. The boys have been loving it.

We spent the day in Williamsburg last weekend, shoe shopping for the boys and just enjoying the area. We let the boys loose in Colonial Williamsburg and they tore all over the place, free from the constraints of a stroller and an outlet mall.

We did our yearly trek to the local pumpkin farm to let the boys play in the hay and visit the  petting zoo. Colin just wanted to jump off the hay bales head first.

The best picture of the bunch. We only got smiles after Colin insisted on holding ALL the pumpkins on his lap, and than Jack had to have the BIGGEST pumpkin next to him...and they are not even looking at me. Real life, right there.

I was able to sneak in a picture with my littlest man. The real pumpkin was the obvious star of this show.

Those are the painfully close faces of two people that have been married 6 years and spent their anniversary at a pumpkin patch with their little boys. Fun, but not the most romantic. Maybe next year, the boys will be old enough to hold the camera for us :)

I also turned 31 this week. Celebrated with a little cake at home with my three favorite men.

What are you doing on these fall days?

Step Up!

A couple of weekends ago, my little family had the privilege to be a part of the Down Syndrome Association of Hampton Roads Step Up for Down Syndrome walk. That good looking group up there? We were the Reese's Pieces team!

And THIS is my sweet Reese, the reason we all went on this walk. Isn't she the sweetest? She is a feisty little fighter, this one. One of my favorite things about Reese is when she is really tired, or getting sick or just wants to snuggle, she will ask to be picked up. She will snuggle in, suck her thumb and hold on to your earlobe. It is her little comfort thing. Her thumb, your earlobe and snuggles.

I have known Reese's mommy for the last 5-6 years. We worked together and had our first babies together. Lots of nursing and napping play dates for us. Soon after that, there was Reese. A few months later, we had Colin and now their little lady #3 will be coming soon! So excited for a new girl to snuggle. We make the boys, they make the girls, we keep this earth evenly populated. :)

They had lots of fun things for the kids to do before the walk. Bounce houses, live music and even face painting. Jack got his face painted for the first time! He is not too sure about it, but he ended up loving his spider.

We had lots of fun on the walk, especially Reese. Don't you just love a laughing, running child? So much energy and joy.

Colin did almost the whole mile and a half walk all by himself!

It was such a fun morning and for such a good cause. We were so proud to be on Reese's team and look forward to doing it again next year.

To find out more about the  DSAH, click here.

To read about Reese and her wonderful family, click here.

Six

Today I celebrate being married to the love of my life for six years.

On one hand, it seems impossible that it has ONLY been six years, as we dated for much longer and I don't really think of life without him in it.

On the other hand, it seems like just yesterday that we walked down the aisle to say "I do."

Six years seems legit, though. Like we are a real married couple, with a few years under our belt.

Either way, I look forward to many, many, many more married years with my man.

He is my love, my best friend, my confidant, my heart and the father to my babies.

I am excited to see what adventures lies before us.

Highs and lows, good and bad, if Ryan is by my side, I know I can go through it.

Happy Anniversary, my love.

M&Ms

We really want to start potty training Colin. He is over 2 now and we are done with diapers. Colin also gets horrific diaper rashes from certain foods and diaper changes are painful for him. Most of those issues would be alleviated once potty trained.

Colin show some signs of being ready, but mostly just tell us NO! when we ask if he wants to go potty like a big boy.

So today I bought some M&Ms, his very favorite candy, as incentive to have him start to THINK about going on the potty.

Here is a snippet of our conversation today.

Colin: "I want an M&M"
Me: "You have to go potty on the potty first."
Colin: "I don't want to go potty. You go potty. I want an M&M."


Yeah.

We have a long road before us...

Observation

Matchbox cars on my window stile.

Or transforming Autobots ready to defend Earth from the Decepticons.

Just depends on how you look at it.