You rock my world!

Happy Birthday to the greatest husband in the whole world! I look at you all the time and think how lucky I am to have you, you are amazing. Not everyone can shave pervert beards, get excited about things like Chemistry, watch girly BBC movies with me, be a kind and loving father, take care of all sorts of things around the house, attend to your amazing wife and still have a smile on your face. You are awesome, I love you. I also love that for four months we are only four years apart.

Uh, okay..

One morning Gus was laying in my bed and he looked at me and said, "Mom, I want to walk up there and look at the doors." Uh, what? He pointed down the hall and up at the ceiling. He was intent on walking on the ceiling, so James did his fatherly duty and made his dreams come true. He was not impressed, clearly not as cool as he had imagined.

A whole new world

I wish I had pictures of all the rooms in our house when we first moved in, it was really bad. There was pink carpet everywhere, pink paint on the walls, poop in the closets, water in the basement. Horrible... The last room on my to-do list was our tiny bathroom, it was dark blue when we first moved in and made the little bathroom seem even smaller. I hated it, but I didn't care enough to change it either. Then Marlo started offering her painting help and I decided it was time to make a change. The bathroom now looks awesome. There is no angle I can take pictures of the bathroom where you can see much of anything, so this is what you get a snipit of beauty. The new shower curtain (shout out to Mama Ford) makes me feel pretty while I get ready for the day.

Matching Ties, that's right

My friend has recently started a tie company that specializes in ties of every size. They are so awesome. I don't know about you, but finding a tie for little boys is really hard. The best part is you can get one for the kids and one for the dad, Gus and James get tons of compliments when they are matchy-matchy at church. Super well made and such cute patterns.

www.thematchingtieguy.com

We don't need no stinking cable

James wired up this gigantic antenna that is in our attic and with that a whole new world has opened up to us. We now have clear reception all the time and... we've also been graced with an 80's music video station. I'm addicted, I love it. It's like watching Wayne's World, that's how funny the commercials are.

Gus has a crazy obsession with vacuums (sharks), and their attachments (we've gone through several obsessions some of you may remember the cupboard love.) At nap times he chooses his favorite attachments to nap with and first thing in the morning, we have to pull out the vacuum. The other day we took Gus' favorite attachment (brush shark) to the grocery store with us. When we got home we realized it must have fallen out of the car when we were loading up. Gus was distraught, I felt horrible so we went back looking for the brush shark with no luck. Gus said a prayer in the parking lot that we would find the attachment, but we didn't. He brought it up several times, so on Saturday we went back to get some groceries and James found the brush shark in the lost and found. I couldn't believe that someone had picked it up and turned it in. It was a real testimony builder to me to see how a simple prayer from Gus was answered. Heavenly Father knows what we need, even if it does seem silly.

Personal History: Fall 2005

The remainder of our courtship is so different depending on which one of us you talk to. James told me at the end of August that we were on the same page for getting married and we really wanted to get married on November 11 (11/11 so we wouldn't forget). So in my mind I'm thinking we will have about 2 1/2 months to put everything together, tough but totally doable. James did not want to do any official planning until he had officially proposed, and so I waited...and waited. I did get the green light to check out reception halls and I went out the same day and looked and booked (paid a non-refundable deposit) on a place. Weeks went by and James wouldn't even talk about getting married, I was freaking out. I wondered if he had a change of heart, but didn't want to tell me. I panicked, I would either have an awesome party at the hall to celebrate my life as a single woman or I would be having a reception. I had told my Mom about the upcoming wedding and in preparation she had bought tons of pies and had begun her mother of the bride duties. Both of us, were a little worried. On September 30th (yeah, that's right, the END of September+) I was at bunko night and stewing over my plight. I couldn't tell my friends about what was going on, and I was so frustrated. I made up my mind on my way home that I would give James an ultimatum, tell me we are getting married and start planning with me or break up. I was very determined and pretty peeved. I called James on my way home and asked him to come by my house. He was out with his friend and they were having a great time, with some "girls." I was so beside myself, but I decided to relax and discuss things rationally when he came over. 1 1/2 hours later I heard a knock at my door, that was enough time to get me mad all over again. I would end it at the door and I wouldn't bother with drama. I got to the door and there was James with a huge bouquet of roses. I started to cry, I was still pissed but glad he came to apologize. He handed me the flowers and dropped the fresh packet, while retrieving the packet he pulled out my ring and asked me to marry him. All the frustration disappeared and I was so shocked. I was so sure that he was done with me, I didn't expect the proposal at all. We kissed and celebrated!

Santa showed up

The slinky was very exciting

Parking garage (does anyone remember playing with this when they were a kid?)

Ty took the polar bear plunge

An intense game of bocce

This Christmas was by far my favorite since we've been married. It was so much fun with Gus getting into it and being just as excited as I needed him to be. We went and did all our traditional Christmas stops and came home just in time to hear Santa's bells outside. This was oddly very disturbing to Gus, who was a little concerned about the proximity of Santa. Gus got a parking garage with lots of cars, but ended up playing most of the day with an empty slinky box. We did service Christmas between siblings in my family and we got hooked up. I had both Wes and Ty here for a whole day doing little projects that needed done, it was great! I'm always excited to see a new year come, and look forward to new adventures.