My love,

Today, you are thirty years old.

Thirty. 🙂

So
it seemed fitting that in honor of your thirtieth year on this earth, I
would list the top thirty reasons that I love you. Know that this list
is in no way exhaustive nor is it in any order. You are my dearest
friend, my favorite person and my sweetest love. There are infinite
reasons I could list. 😉 But in order to not keep you here forever, here
are some of my favorite reasons why I love you:

1. You love Jesus. Actually, there might be some order to this list since that is hands down the biggest reason I love you.

2. I love the way you look all dressed up for a date with me.

3. And I love the way you look in your comfy sweatpants when we are about to snuggle on the couch and watch a movie.

4.The expression on your face when our boys were born. I will never forget that as long as I live.

5. How much you love your boys. You love them so much and you care for them so well. And they adore you. It brings tears to my eyes to think of how you father our children.

6. You get teary when sweet things happen with our boys or while watching a movie. I love that.

7. You’re always great for a good, long hug.

8.
You work hard, long hours for the students at your school and you genuinely
care about them and their futures. I wish every child had a teacher
like you.

9. I love that when I’ve taken my ring off to bake
or put on lotion or something and you find it on the counter you
come propose to me all over again every single time. It’s my favorite.
😉

10. That you understand that we need lots of nights of no deep conversations
and just straight relaxing on the couch after I’ve had a long day with
the kids or trying to cram in a writing to meet a deadline.

11. There are no words to tell you how much I love that you take over when Nathan has a stomach bug. No words.

12. I love that you’re willing to watch my sappy chick-flicks and Christmas movies with me but you don’t suggest we watch your movies that you know will scare me.

13. I love that you are so proud of your kids. It is so sweet to hear you talking about them.

14. The mornings when I wake up after a long night with the baby and you’ve got the kitchen cleaned and dishwasher empty before you leave for work. Sometimes that almost makes me cry, I love that so much.

15. That you are more concerned that we had a fun, good day than that our house is in any order when you get home. I really appreciate that!!

16. Our inside jokes from other inside jokes that originated with TV shows or movies that we can’t even remember anymore.

17. When we all burst into the Chicken Dance in the kitchen after dinner. 🙂

18. I love standing next to you at church while you hold Parker in one arm and my hand in your other hand and you sing the songs with your eyes closed, just totally worshiping Jesus. I love those moments.

19. I love when we’re debating something and you totally know I’m right and you just resort to tackling me onto the couch rather than admit it. 😉

20. That you get just as excited about new kitchen sponges as I do which just further solidifies how pathetic our adult life is. 😉

21. I love that you love playing with the boys so much. They absolutely adore every second of it. And I love that you are totally willing to dress up in whatever ridiculous outfit Nathan wants you to wear.

22. When I’ve fallen asleep on your shoulder in the middle of one of our shows and you keep jostling me and making me wake up so I won’t miss it. I still never remember what it was about. 😉

23. That we always end up ordering the same thing at restaurants.

24. The way you get so excited over every milestone the boys cross and commiserate when I get so sad about how quickly they are growing.

25. I love the way you can always make me laugh, even on my very worst days.

26. I love that we are both late-night-snackers together. I absolutely love our sweet, boring routine every night.

27. That you do cool tricks off the diving board or dress in goofy outfits or talk in silly voices just to make Nathan laugh.

28. I love that you spent so much time getting your Masters and tried to do it without it affecting Nathan and Parker as much as possible. And I especially love that you are DONE!!

29. This crazy, loud, busy, sleepless, cozy, goofy, perfect life that we’ve created together.

30. Because you are you. I’m not going to say never change because we are constantly changing, but let’s just keep changing together and keep Jesus close to us. 🙂

I love you, Jon!! Happy 30th birthday!

I am playing catch up over these next few days!! Between the deadline, getting Christmas stuff up and ready and everything else going on, I feel like I’ve barely sat down for weeks!! And when I have sat down, I’ve been trying like crazy to write. 🙂

But the sitting is only going to get more rare because a certain little bear at my house started army crawling today… 😉

A few weekends ago, Jon got two tickets for a Lobo football game and we decided that it would be best if he took Nathan with him. And soon after that, he got an email saying that they were going to be honoring former lettermans at the same game and so Jon actually got tickets to go on the field as well! Such an amazing, amazing night for my little boy!!

My favorite two Lobos!! 🙂

Before the game, they got to eat a special tailgate dinner for the former Lobos inside the basketball stadium. The cheerleaders came and led everyone in the cheers and Nathan was a big fan of that. 😉

Howling like the lobo. 😉

I think this picture is hilarious. And I have to give credit to Jon here – I demanded requested that he take tons of pictures since I wasn’t going to be there and he did a great job documenting their entire evening. 😉

Watching the pre-game warm up. He was a little in awe, I think.

He told Jon that this was his game face. Ha!!

Here comes the band!! 🙂 They got to stand on the field as the players ran out of the tunnel and they all gave Nathan high fives. He said they hit too hard. Ha!

Sweet boys. 🙂

Cheering for the game!! It got super cold that night!!

I love this picture!!!

Jon called as he pulled into the driveway so I could come see Nathan. Someone was all tired out. 😉 Love this. He doesn’t often look little to me anymore, so this just melted my heart.

I’d say it was a successful Dad/Son date. 😉

It’s not possible.

Our sweet little guy turned eight months old yesterday! I cannot believe how quickly time is flying past now. I feel like I am on fast forward through the days.

Parker is just the sweetest little man! He’s loud, silly and super smiley. He loves his big brother, loves his mom and dad and does NOT tolerate being left somewhere outside of the vicinity of any of those three people. 😉 He loves, loves, loves to be held and I’m pretty sure he would happily spend his entire day being carried around by me.

He’s up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth a lot (and even sometimes hops his knees forward), but he still hasn’t figured out how to get those hands to move without face-planting. so, we’ve spent a lot of time face-planting lately. So thankful we put carpet in this house!! He’s been trying so hard he’s gotten rug burn on his cheeks, but we much prefer rug burn to bonked heads on tile floors. 🙁

He’s eating like a champ. We tried green beans this last week and he liked them but his tummy did NOT and it took a few days for it to settle back down. He has a much more sensitive stomach than Nathan ever did – I feel like if I even look at a tomato, he immediately is up with a gassy stomach all night long.

He’s sleeping, for the most part, much better than he has been in the past and I think that is totally due to the essential oils I’ve been using! He usually starts nursing about 7:30 right after we get Nathan in bed and is in bed asleep by 8. He’s usually back away by 7 or so and then takes his first nap at 9 and his second nap around 12:30 or 1.

He loves to dance, loves to play, loves his pacifier, loves to roll over and pull the DVDs out and mess with the clock and open and close the fireplace and loves to smile. He is seriously the smiliest little guy!!

Some 6-9 month clothes still fit him, but they are getting quite tight! We just pulled out all the 9-12 month clothes of Nathan’s and it’s killing me that he’s already that big.

Time is just flying past and I feel like if I could just find an extra few minutes every day to stop and just fully enjoy these fleeting moments…oh, I would give so much for that. As it is, I try my best to enjoy as much as I can!!

We love our sweet Parker Bear!

Guess what is now available for pre-order on Amazon Kindle?? 🙂

Match Made, the fourth in the Lauren Holbrook series, officially releases on December 20th! I can’t wait for you guys to catch up with the old gang and meet some new friends. 🙂

Yay!!

These two. 🙂

So, note to self, it is basically impossible to get a picture of two VERY active boys under the age of five both smiling and looking at the camera at the same time.

Just you know, in case I was ever wondering why most (read 99.8%) of my pictures look like this:

Sigh.

Anyway.

Here’s what we have been up to:

As I have mentioned on here before, Jon has been going to school to get his masters degree for the past two and a half years and as of a couple of weeks ago, he turned in his final project. He has one more two hour class to attend next week and then he is DONE.

I could not be more proud of that man. He has worked so hard through some of the longest, most sleep-deprived years of our lives and we are so thankful for him! The boys are totally, completely, one million percent loving having their daddy free on the nights and weekends now (as am I!!!!). We all are so happy in this no-more-homework stage we are in!

This is my little buddy most BSF mornings. Nathan goes to his class, I go to my class, Parker goes to his class and then I pick him up on my way back into the big group lesson to nurse him and he usually falls asleep and I take notes on the app in my phone. 😉 I am soaking in these moments with everything I have because I just can’t believe how fast time is passing!

He is everywhere and he is great at making huge messes and he talks a lot and laughs a lot and I just love him.

These two are just the sweetest friends. We love this family!

One year ago yesterday, we found out that the fourth person joining our family was going to be our sweet baby BOY. And I cannot imagine anyone else filling this role in our family!! He is the sweetest little brother with the cutest chubby-cheeked baby smile. This little Parker Bear is dearly, dearly loved. 🙂

And finally, I absolutely LOVED doing our book club!! I have a couple of ideas for November’s book – but do you guys have any suggestions of books you would like to all read together?? Also, today is the last day to enter the contest for the sequel to Let Them Eat Cake, so hurry over to the post and leave your thoughts on the book! 🙂

Have a great Thursday!

We had a great Halloween with these two littles!! Nathan FINALLY (after much waffling and debating for months) decided he wanted to be a knight in shining armor and so the hunt was on for a cute dragon costume for Parker. I found it about two o’clock Halloween afternoon. 😉

And I have to share our big project the day before: Nathan’s first pumpkin carving! He drew what he wanted carved on the pumpkin and we cut it out for him. 😉 I think he did a great job!! I mean, not every little kid can draw Mickey Mouse like that. 😉 😉

I’m busy working, working, working on making my deadline so I will write more soon!! What did you all do for Halloween??

Have a wonderful afternoon!!