Hapity Birthididityday

To my Jaren! (On the 19th)

He is wonderful.  And sweet. And fantastic.  And my favorite.  And nice.  And patient.  And thoughtful.  And super good looking.  And he makes really good sponge bob mac and cheese.  And he is 4 years and 8 1/2 months older than me.  And he doesn't act it.

What I mean is he doesn't treat me like I'm so much more immature and inexperienced than he is.  That I'm only 24 and he's a big whopping 29.  The wisdom he has on me.

Nope.  He comes to me and talks to me about his day.  About work.  About friends.  About situations.  And then he listens when I talk back.  And when I give my opinion and advice and suggestions.  And what's even better is that when I suggest something, he usually does it.  And a lot of the time it works out.  Because even though I'm 24 I'm pretty much mature enough to be 25.  And even though Jaren is 29 he is mature enough to be 34 and he even looks 26.   I told him so.  And he said "thank you".

The point is that I love him.  And that I am so grateful every single day for him because there is no one else on this earth that would respond to me in the way that he does.  When I'm super emotionally charged he is incredibly patient and understanding.  When I need to talk and talk and talk because Naomi just doesn't talk back and I need someone to talk back he listens and talks back.  In fact, when I'm particularly pent up and need to vent and go on and on about everything he sits down, turns off the T.V. and says, "alright, let's talk about feelings"  Which means let me know exactly what your thinking and feeling and we will discuss it.  And I always always feel better.  And it makes me feel important when he asks for my advice on things.  And keeps me in the know with things going on.  I need those things and I'm grateful he knows that.

He also let's me know how much he appreciates me.  Even when all of his shirts aren't ironed or the floor isn't picked up.  Because a lot of times he notices that I vacuumed, then the toys were scattered on the floor.  And he notices that because there is a sink full of dirty dishes there is dinner for him in the oven.  And he says thank you.  And he goes back for seconds (because he knows that's how I determine if he liked dinner).

The point is that he is wonderful.  And he is mine.  And he is the best baby daddy I could have ever hoped for.  Naomi says he's the best daddy she could have ever hoped for, too.  Because today she decided to let go of furniture and walk into the room until something got in her way.  My baby is walking....  And she said, "Bye"  At least that's what it sounded like.  And she said it while waving bye to her Grandma and Grandpa.

Anyway.  I drove back from Twin Falls (where I was visiting my brother Nathan, his wife Stephanie (who also used to be my roommate in college) and their little boy, Conner) this afternoon and when he ran into town to get his picture taken for his new lisence I finished the card I was making him and I wrapped his presents.

And I numbered them.  Because there is order to this chaos.  Kind of.

The front of the card.  

I can call him old all I want because forever he will always be 4 years and 8 1/2 months older than me.

I'm no artist.  I think I'm the equivalent to an 8 year old when it comes to drawing.  But this is how we like to do our cards.  We draw pictures and write on them.  I tried to find the ones from years past, but couldn't.  As soon as I do I'll share them.

The best thing about this?  That his arms are longer than his legs.  He has quite the shapely behind.  I'm wearing a spanx dress that hides every out of place bump and I'm wearing heels! (can you tell?)  And I'm always the one behind the camera capturing priceless moments.  Like Naomi's first steps (that I haven't take a picture of yet.... and barely caught on film tonight)

He loves my cards.  They are very wordy.  I'm always very wordy if you haven't noticed.  And I am such a great artist he knew right away he was the sumptuous bummed kneeler in the picture.  Oh, and Naomi wrote him a little note, too.  She's so thoughtful.

This big giant Time book that I'm particularly proud of getting for him.  He loves history and was pleasantly surprised.  Normally I'm a pretty predictable present giver.  Clothes.  

Here is the rest of his loot and booty.

A snazzy shirt that he really liked.  I knew he would.  And some super nice socks because he is kind of a sock man.  Ask his FOUR sock drawers.  Seriously... FOUR.

This fancy little number.  He was excited about it, except that we don't have room in our closet for it yet.  I told him I'd make room or we could wait till we build a home and have a giant closet.  He said we could wait, but I think I'll surprise him by moving my coats to another location....

Can you tell what these are?  I told him I'd make him lasagna.  The kind where I make the sauce from scratch and slave over it for hours.  He said no, I want mini pizza's.  So the three on the right are his - with just canadian bacon.  I'm not so picky.  I have canadian bacon, green pepper and mushrooms.  Mmmm...  Did I tell you I worked at a pizza restaurant for a few years?  I am a master pizza maker.

UPDATE:  In the process of writing this post my daughter started vomiting in her crib.  So I ran upstairs and she continued to throw up a good 4 to 6 times after that until 2 a.m.  During that time Jaren was there every second.  She refused to lay down by herself - even in our bed.  Which is unusual.  Usually she likes to sleep all on her lonesome.  She wont sleep on you.  Not last night.  It was so sad.  Anyway, he got me set up on the recliner and each time that she'd start to vomit again he was there with a towel.  He traded me off a few hours later because I couldn't sleep in that position and my head was killing me.  He couldn't sleep either, but didn't let me know.  I slept beautifully next to him on the couch.  He could have asked me to trade him off again or simply kept me up to keep him company.  Nope.  And when she decided it was wake time at 6:30 I told him he could go sleep and I'd take care of her.  Nope.  Stayed out with me because she was still not in the best of moods and was very needy.  He is the most wonderful father.  The best husband and I am so grateful for him every moment of every day.  It's time's like last night that remind me why I want to have 325 of his babies.

Happy Birthday to my Jaren!