Happy Birthday Baby

Today we honor the day my bride, the love of my life, Jeanne-Ann's birthday. I love this woman so much it's crazy. I have gotten myself worked up before thinking how hard life would be without her. Not a thought I ponder much on. The other side of that, the side with how amazing life is as a result of her, I do ponder often. Much of it is the little things. If you are in love, you know what I mean. The longer we know each other the more amazing those things become too.

I love to laugh with Jeanne-Ann. She makes me laugh a lot. She is fun. She is sneaky. She loves to play tricks. I love when she has tried to pull something over on me and I realize it. That laugh. That is awesome! She gets a lot of that from her dad, which I love. I love how we both cried at the Christmas Eve service when we it hit us, separately, that we never thought we would get to Christmas without having the referrals of our children. I love how she prays for me to respond to certain things and I do. I love that she buys bagels from our favorite local bagel shop and then cuts the whole bag of bagels for me ahead of time. I love what a great teacher she is. This year she is full time and it is a lot of work, but she knows that it is helping to bring our babies home and that makes it worth it. I love that she loves the more difficult kids.

I love how she loves on our kids. She is soooo good with them. She is an incredible mother. God created her well for that role. We talk about strategies in raising our kids and she is constantly coming up with new things for us to be doing or not doing that make so much sense. Candy day, for example, is genius. On Saturdays our kids can eat all the candy they want. The rest of the week it's (pretty much) off limits. As a result, they don't eat a ton of candy on Saturday either. Summer Soda is another great idea. We don't drink a ton of soda in the house and in the summer she makes it special on certain days. Not that they don't have soda throughout the year, it just makes it special. Part of that is building memories. We talk a lot about that. We want our kids to have great memories of growing up. We want them to remember how "we would always do..." More than remembering "that one time." The special occasions are VERY important, but the consistent stuff is huge. That is important to her...and it is important to me.

The way she loves me is amazing. I learn from her every day. I want to love like she loves. I want to care like she cares. She helps balance me so well. I would love to be out every night with people. If we could have a party like we had last night every night I would get so pumped about it. She is very different from me. In that respect she would love if we hung out at home and just did family stuff. As a result, we "compromise" and end up being better for it. She knows I need to be with people, but she also knows I need to chill and slow down and just be for a while. My soul needs that too.

I seriously don't know what I would do without Jeanne-Ann in my life. My life is better because of her. Every part. My day is different because she is in my life. I breathe better because of her. I smile bigger because of her. I love deeper because of her.

So, I celebrate and honor you today babe. I thank God and your parents from bringing you to this world! Happy birthday My Love!