In Honor Of Our Anniversary

10 Things I Love About My Husband:

1. His smile, which was the first thing I ever saw him wearing. It seems that his soul shines through that smile
2. His adventurousness, which makes for great vacations
3. His talkativeness. He can talk about anything. We just had a 45-minute conversation about Hitler with interruptions here and there to talk about orthodonture
4. His brilliant mind, which possesses knowledge about everything from thread count to historical debates to the names of 50 shades of brown to how to design and build an airplane
5. His sometimes blond, sometimes brown hair, which is so fun to toussle
6. His connection with nature, which makes us feel like we're making breakthrough discoveries each time we walk through our yard
7. His singing voice. Nothing sounds better than hearing him sing to Gabriel
8. His balance between childish enjoyment of life and adult wisdom and responsibility. We may do the New York Times crossword puzzle in the morning and then play a video game at night
9. His patience, which he needs with me as a wife
10. His generosity. Pregnancy was so easy because he made breakfast, lunch, and dinner just about every day, as well as almost all of the housework, so I could get my rest. And I never even asked.
11. +1: The way he inspires by example. He teaches me about being a good spouse and a good parent every day

10 Things I Love About My Wife

1. Her freckles, which stole my heart
2. Her dedication to her task, whatever it may be, that makes it impossible for her to give up until the job is done (and done right)
3. Her brilliant mind, which seems to know something about everything on Earth and well beyond.
4. The way she always seems to know exactly what I need, when I need it, without me having to say a single word or make a single gesture.
5. The way she can switch from mother to wife in an instant, and is always eager to be a wife first.
6. Her amazingly inquisitive nature and the way she asks questions about everything
7. That she loves baseball, puts up with my rants about Michigan football (mostly), and most importantly keeps my perspective on what is really important.
8. Her musical talent, which she greatly downplays.
9. That she never, ever, needs make-up to look gorgeous and that she is so uncomplicated.
10. Her absolute and never ending patience with me and my quirks.
11. +1: Her adventurousness, which can turn even a routine trip to the store into an exploration of places we've never seen before.

p.s. Neither of us knew the other had actually listed 11 things. Guess that's #12: we think alike.

p.p.s. Amazing parallel between our #1s and #3s. Huh.

Nice Weather

While our family up north is suffering through the beginning of winter, we're enjoying a nice extended summer down south. It was so nice today that we sat out on the back deck with the newspaper and spent a lot of time watering the lawn and spraying the outside of the house. Gabriel had a great morning. He loves being outside, and he especially loves playing in the leaves. We saw a hummingbird, a cardinal, a lizard, and some really interesting butterflies today, as well as a creepy variety of spiders.

The inside of the house looks like a tornado came through. Or, more accurately, Hurricane Gabriel. But it would be unfair to blame it all on the little guy, because he didn't pile the dishes in the sink or allow newspapers to pile up in the kitchen, and he certainly didn't throw dirty laundry all over our bedroom or neglect to unpack many boxes that still sit around making us anxious. We will blame the potatoes all over the floor, the toys and books all over the living room, and the credit cards strewn about the kitchen floor on him.

Tooth Report

We noticed Chip's upper right premolar today and his lower left premolar on Wednesday. His new tooth total is 11!

Bird Watching

Well, we must have gotten the mix right this time. We refilled the hummingbird feeder yesterday and joked that all we had to do is stand there and watch them come to the feeder. We weren't far off; this morning, there are two hummingbirds fighting over it! First, one of them ate a lot more than usual, and then he sat on a nearby branch, which you can see in the photo. He sat there for a while, cleaning his beak on the branch like he was sharpening a knife, and preening his feathers. All of a sudden, he saw another one and chased it away. A few minutes later, the second guy came back and drank a lot of nectar, and then he sat on the same branch as the other one had, watching for crows or hawks every time he heard one. They have been drinking and fighting for a while now. Hmmm... sounds like college. Anyway, they like to fly up to our window and look at us face to face, so we have a couple of photos of that, too.

Hummingbird #1 sitting on a branch

Hummingbird #2 taking a drink

Flying in to see the giant human

Posing for the camera

Web sites say that these should be ruby-throated hummingbirds, but if they're female or young males, they don't have any red in their feathers, so it's difficult to tell. These don't. The other way to tell is to look at their wing shape and size, which we will do the next time one alights near the window.

Chip's Room

Here are some photos of Gabriel's nursery. The only thing left to do is to hang the growth chart, which we will do today.

The new rug

Navy blue tab-top curtains

Propeller finial

Light fixture

Do you think we went overboard in this corner?!

Although Chip already has a great nightlight, he loves this new one

In other news today, the priest swallowed a fly just when he was about to do the sign of peace. He said after mass that the square piece of cloth, called the pall, is placed over the chalice traditionally to keep out flies. He said that we are protected from eating them, but he obviously isn't!

Artistic License

We did a lot of work on Chip's room today. We painted his light fixture and reinstalled it, we installed a big star light on the wall, and we installed his curtain rod and hung the curtains. P was struck with inspiration after painting the glass, and after finding some canvases downstairs, and created a painting for the room that will go above his dresser. Here is a photo of it. You might notice that the words in the clouds match the word "imagine" on his rocking chair. That's because we used the same stencil that his Grammie used.

When we finished with the curtains, G was more than ready to go to sleep, so we didn't take pictures yet. We definitely will tomorrow (today, technically). In the meantime, enjoy the painting and feel free to tell us how much you love it (ha ha!). We're more than pleased with the way it turned out!

In other news, today was Chip's friend Patrick's first birthday. After tutoring, we went to his new house to celebrate. He's already walking and is very much like Gabriel. He likes to open and close doors, is quick to smile, and loves to practice walking. We gave him a little baseball tee so he could practice hitting the ball. His daddy (Tom) is very eager for Patrick to learn to play. We can identify with that - we practice throwing the ball with Chip every day, and we've even started teaching him to catch, not that he gets it at all. Anyway, we got there just in time for Patrick's nap and had some cake and chatted for a while. We had a great time.

And we might as well mention the stupid game. Matt cheered ("Why don't they just run it up the middle again", "We suck; we're going to lose", "Michigan sucks", etc.), Patty fell asleep, and after a frustrating game, a great nap, and a thorough kitchen cleaning (M cleans when he's angry, incidentally, the most useful information P learned when we met), we decided to adopt a second team. It had to be one that is good, one that will not play Michigan and will not have an impact on our season, and one that has a UM connection. We chose LSU, which has a former Michigan assistant coach and can potentially beat lots of SEC teams that we do not like, especially Tennessee, Florida, and the Tide, not to mention UGA, whose fans are rabid. Anyway, we were very happy with our choice when they beat Arizona State in one of the best games we've seen in a long time.