Happy Veteran's Day!!

Twelve

My Tommy and I have been married for twelve years today.  So, in honor of our anniversary, here are the top twelve reasons I love him.

1.  The way he makes me laugh even when laughing is the last thing I want to do.
2.  That he still loves me even though he knows my faults more than anyone else in the world.
3.  The way his hazel eyes look at me,  speaking thousands of silents words only I can hear no matter how many people are around.
4.  For the person he is when nobody is looking.
5.  For all of the cries he has hushed, all of the fears he has calmed, all of the celebrations he has rejoiced with and for our children.
6.  For the dreams we share together.
7.  Because he trusts me with his heart, his thoughts, and his fears.
8.  Because he yells at me- when everyone else he turns off, tunes out, and ignores.
9.  The way he leads his family in devotions (almost) nightly, the way he and our children sing praises to our Lord together.
10.  That he goes to work to provide for us even when he doesn't want to.
11.  That he needs me to wash his socks.
12.  For the memories from the past 12 years, the hopes for the future, and the now that we have together.

Sweet, Salty Air

We went over to my mom's house this past weekend to celebrate Ian's birthday (again!  that blessed kiddo!) after we opened presents and enjoyed some brownies with ice cream and hot fudge we went on a boat ride.  It was an absolutely beautiful day to be on the water.

Abigail has never been afraid in the boat before, however when we started up there was some trouble with one of the engines so she was a little hesitant.  It just took some reassuring from her Daddy to make her feel safe again so she could enjoy the salty air, the crisp river soaked breeze that swirls all of your cares away if even for just a moment.

Aunt Kim and Uncle Nathan were with us and they held Jonathan for a minute so I could take some pictures.

We stopped so the children could hop up top for a while and the baby could nurse.

On the way back Jonathan gave into the rhythm of the water and fell asleep.

Once back at Grandma's house the children chased butterflies and even caught a few.

It is Fall ...

I have so terribly neglected my little ole' blog.   Fall is here- that means walks to the library, nature scavenger hunts, and lots of baking.

We took a walk to the library the other day and Mr. Ian was the main photographer.  Ahem.  217 pictures later and I think I may have a few to post.

Can you see how cute that adorable little man is?  Man, he just melts my heart in incredible ways.  That beautiful little girl in the bottom corner?  She is helping a friend fix her shoe.  That is what she does best, help.  She is a helper at heart and is such a blessing to me.

If I didn't know any better, I would think that he was trying to point out that his sister got paint on her dress.

Of course, what walk would be complete without a picture of heavy equipment?

Ian is EIGHT!!

Ian's first minute as an 8 year old.  Please ignore the caseless pillow behind him. 

I spent the entire day in bed in incredible pain.  It was major gall bladder type pain that took up most of my trunk, but I don't have a gall bladder!  I told Ian that I really didn't feel like I could go the baseball game that was to be his present but that they should all go without me.  He said that he didn't want to go if I wasn't going and that we could just order dinner in so I could stay in bed.  For a while I was going to do that, but Emily brought me up some vitamin C to see if it could help me so we could go for Ian's game, breaking my heart even further. 

I did start to feel better just had an all over exhausted feeling.  Just two birthdays ago I was having a miscarriage on his birthday, and was able to participate so I knew that I could do it if I really tried.  I put my favorite outfit on and pulled my hair back to help me suck it up and go.  I'm so glad we did because my boy had the time of his life.

When we got there, Tommy went to go pay for our lawn seats and a gentleman stopped me and asked if we had tickets yet.  He said he had been looking for a family to give his tickets to but there just weren't any families.  We very thankfully took the tickets that happened to be right on the first baseline, where Tommy caught 4 foul balls (we gave two away to the only other two children around us), a friend from church brought Ian a ball and yelled for the team to come sign it for his birthday and they did, then another gentleman gave us a ball, and when they were playing in the sand pit they got a home run ball!

I stayed until they put his name in lights then Jonathan and I went to the car to sleep.

After I left, Pinch (the mascot) came with the Tie Dye Guy and our whole section sang happy birthday, they gave him a bag of m&ms and they all signed all of their balls.

He had a great day!