7 years!

Wow, tomorrow I will have been married to Jon for 7 years. I would have to say that at this point in my life I am pretty much exactly where I want to be. We have three wonderful kids, a nice home, a nice yard, and Jon is a better husband and father than ever! Since it is our anniversary tomorrow, I want to brag a little about my amazing husband, companion, and best friend, Jon. These are not in any special order, just as I think of things. I warn you, this is probably a little sappy, so don't read it if you don't want to--I won't be offended.
Jon--the amazing man!
1. He is always extremely kind and tender to me. He NEVER yells at me or gets mad at me--sometimes he gets frustrated with me, but then feels badly--and I usually deserve for him to be really mad at me at those times!
2. He is amazing with our kids! I love it!! He plays with them and he loves it! He brought many toys into our marriage and he and the kids build legos, play He-Man, play Star Wars, play Star Trek, and make up lots of fun adventures! I am not good at doing this, I feel too silly, so I really appreciate his talent in this area. I enjoy doing other things with the kids--things that don't require too much imagination. He is amazing at coming up with crazy fun stories that the kids just love!!
3. He is a good employee--I know this may sound funny, but it is because of his diligence, good people skills, and love for life that has gotten him into his jobs--along with his qualifications, but he really has done well and been a good employee and I appreciate that. I know that he will do all that he can to support our family and make it so that I can stay at home with the children.
4. He has a strong testimony and is very good at teaching our children and being a good example. He helps the kids read a verse of scripture every night at family scripture study, he helps teach them how to say prayers and be reverent and he teaches excellent family home evening lessons.
5. He keeps romance alive. Although we rarely go on dates because of cost, we have so much fun as a couple and we just love being together. We have "dates" at our home after putting kids to bed. We own a ton of DVD's because of this--we wait for a movie to come out and get it for $14 at WalMart rather than going to a theater and paying for tickets and paying a babysitter. He always compliments me, sends me nice emails of how much he misses and loves me, buys me little treats here and there and always holds and kisses me like he truly loves me.
6. He supports me in whatever I want to do. He doesn't boss me or get upset with me--he lets me do things I want to do and supports me in it. He would let me do anything and he would never get after me for spending money (though I am pretty good at not spending money).
7. He helps me immensly with the kids--he bathes them, gets them ready for bed, and for church, he plays with them in the evening when I am tired and often tired of kids. He lets me sleep in at least one of the days on the weekend and takes care of the kids--it is really wonderful.
8. He helps immensly with chores and housework and yardwork. He helps me to get things straightened up each evening, he vacuums and dumps the garbages. He helps with any chore that I don't get done or am falling behind on. He is amazing with the laundry--he checks tags and never dries things that don't go in the dryer. He loves to do the yardwork--he loves our yard. He and I really enjoyed working in the yard togethe last summer--making and planting our garden. We are even making it bigger this year!
9. He takes wonderful care of me when I don't feel good--brings me whatever I want, goes shopping and anything else he can do for me--besides taking care of the kids (he has had to do a lot of this lately with the pregnancy/miscarriage).
10. He is very concerned and aware of my needs and our childrens needs and really tries to address them. He tries to teach/play/guide/discipline the kids according to their needs and tries to really be sensitive to their individuality.
11. And one of my favorite things about Jon is his love and excitement for life. He gets so excited about things and he tries to always see the good side of things. He has a wonderful smile and a wonderful attitude! I just love it!
Okay, I could go on and on, but probably nobody is going to want to read this--I really will have to send it to Jon because he probably won't be reading it anytime soon and he is the one that should read it!
One last thing--
We recently watched "The Holiday"--yes it had some not so good material, but I really enjoyed that movie--such a fun and sweet romance that did my spirits a lot of good.
Anyway, after watching it I just realized how blessed I am to have Jon because he is like the romantic, fun guy in romance movies. Graham was so cute with his kids, totally romantic and tender in that movie and it just reminded me so much of Jon. It was fun to watch a romantic movie and rather than wish for such a romance to happen upon me (as I used to in my young single years) realizing that I had such a romance--I just need to see it more and enjoy it more!

So that is the first 7 years of our life together!

Jonathan's 2nd Birthday

I have a tradition with the kids' birthdays to let them help me make the cake batter--and then they get to lick out the bowl. This has been a fun thing to do with them and we usually make it a day or two ahead so that it is cool and ready for decorating the following day.

Here we are putting the cake mix into the bowl.

And then cracking the eggs.

And tasting the finished product! Yeah!

I think our cake making was a success--see how happy he is!

The following day I had to come up with what was going to go on the cake--I usually do a character or something they love. Well right now, Jonathan loves He-Man--yes that outdated show from the early 1980's. We have several He-Man toys as well that he just loves to play with--I think much inspired by a very fun father, who also loves to play with the toys with the kids. So we got on-line and looked up some images for He-Man. Well, I did the best I could at making it similar to the image--definitely not perfect, but not too shabby, and especially for a 2 year old. He loved it!!Jonathan is watching and playing with He-man as he watches the cake being decorated--and Aubrey is also there by him pointing out the things on the cake that really aren't like He-Man--his hair is more orange, his skin is more brown, the wrist bands are too big, etc.

For those of you who don't know, when He-Man pulls out his sword and then holds it like this, there is white light all around him as he gains his He-Man powers.

Jonathan, what can I say--adorable! We actually took the cake to our family Sunday fast dinner so that cousins and family could all enjoy it rather than coming out to our house the following day--making it easier on people. Well, Jonathan didn't really understand that it wasn't his birthday yet, but we were doing the cake and we would do presents the following day. Infact that night he was quite sober and we said, "tomorrow is your real birthday and you will get balloons and presents". His face lit right up and he was VERY excited. Poor kid, I think he thought he just didn't get any presents.

He blew out his candles very well! He loved hearing everyone singing to him!

Another tradition I have is to let the birthday child pick whatever part of the cake they want--Jonathan got the whole sword! Some of the other kids were quite jealous about this, but hey, it's his cake!

We have another tradition that the birthday child gets to open one or two things in the morning that they can play with throughout the day, then we open the rest that evening after dinner. Jonathan is opening his morning gift. We also put candy or small toys inside of balloons and they get to pop the balloons to get the prize. The girls have always been too scared to pop the balloons. Jonathan was another story! He loved trying to pop the balloons and after his many attempts of jumping on and hitting and sitting on balloons with no success, Aubrey gave him a tack. With delight, he popped those balloons, not even flinching--Mariah stood far away and covered her ears!
Later that day, Jonathan was sitting up at the counter looking at the remnants of his He-man birthday cake. He looked up at me very sadly and asked, "where's He-man?" I reminded him that we sang to him and we all ate the cake. I asked him, "did you eat He-man's sword?". He sadly nodded his head and said, "yes." It was adorable!! I told him that it was alright to eat the He-man cake.
Here is Jonathan playing with one of his presents.

Here is Jonathan wanting to see the camera rather than posing for it--he got the foam sword for his birthday and tring to be like He-man, he tucked it in his sweater on his back--what a funny boy!

And finally, since we already did his cake and candles, we made some brownies and sang and blew out candles again! He had a blast! Especially with his birthday extended so much!

Ahhh-the quiet moments, but they just don't last

Well here I am, looking at people's blogs while I eat breakfast. I try to do something when I eat because otherwise I think too much about what I am eating and the mouthfeel and all I can say is that this pregnancy, food doesn't do well with me, especially in the mornings.
The kids are in the tub, playing nicely together--a sound every mother loves to hear. But, why are they in the tub, besides the fact that kids get stinky and sticky in a matter of minutes and need baths on a regular basis.
Well, I woke up to Jonathan trying to climb into my bed, fortunately I have an innate sense of smell that instinctly kicks in whether or not my brain is fully functioning. This instinct told me to not allow him into my bed or to sit or lean against anything and to change his diaper immediately. Yes, he had a major blow-out diaper. So much so that I spent quite a while rinsing the onsie in the toilet to get all the grossness out. Jon would have just thrown the onsie away. This called for a bath, but Jonathan hadn't eaten or I should say, engrossed himself in, breakfast yet--which is usually quite the event in and of itself. He loves to make himelf into an art form with whichever cereal he is having. For this reason I generally don't dress him until after he is finished. So today, I fed him in the tub. It brought back memories of feeding babies and teaching them how to eat, so it was kind of fun, and he didn't get all messy. Aubrey and Mariah could use a bath too, so as soon as they were done eating, I had them get into the tub. Then it was off to start the yucky laundry, clean up the girls breakfast and ahhh, sit and read some blogs. Well, now I have taken too long-- Aubrey is calling for me to come and bath them and Jonathan is getting out of the tub. Off to finish a task in a day of a mother!