I Didn't Marry My Best Friend...

Four years ago today I married my best friend.

Wait.

No I didn't.

I married Shane.

I had only known him for 5 months and it was a crazy, whirlwind romance, most of which was conversations over the phone since I was in Arizona and he was in Utah.

I was certain of only two things:  one, he was hot; and two, he was good.

Deep down to the very center of his core good.

I needed someone good…the hot was just a bonus. :)

I had no idea what the reality of our life together would be, but I hoped it would be special.  I hoped he would be kind, I hoped he would be honest, I hoped he would love me and my kids, I hoped for a fairytale.

So the first morning we started our "real life" together and the kids and I were eating breakfast and he took his bowl of cereal upstairs to watch ESPN on the TV in his room I was worried.

Very, very worried.  (although I have to admit, I thought it was hot that he was watching ESPN).

Anyway, it was the first sign that things weren't going to be exactly as I hoped.

I reasoned in my mind that he had been a bachelor for the last 34 years and perhaps he didn't know this was not okay.

I took a deep breath and walked upstairs to the room, smiled my best smile and said, "Nope.  Not okay."

He wasn't angry at me for this (which is what I was expecting).  Instead he smiled, apologized and realized that he was just doing what he had always done.

...And then he joined us.

He has been with us ever since.

Shane spent the entire first year of our marriage rubbing my back every.single.night and assuring me that he would never leave.

Never ever.

He knew I needed to hear that, even though I never told him I needed to hear that.

He still rubs my back every night.  You may think I'm exaggerating when I say "every night" but I assure you, it is every night.

He no longer has to assure me that he's here to stay because I know it.

Somewhere, over these past four years, I have realized that our reality is better than a fairytale.

It's real.

I didn't marry my best friend, but he has become my best friend.

He's everything I hoped for…

...and so much more.

Observant Owen...

We have a token system at our house for doing chores.

Make your bed, clean your room, and brush your teeth every morning = 1 token.

Do an extra job = 1 token.

You can get just 2 tokens a day.

When we started this the kids would ask me constantly, "Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom….what can I do for an extra job?"

And then I would wander around the house trying to find something for them to do:

  "You can wipe down the bathroom counters."  "You can empty my bathroom garbage."  "You can take out the recycling."  "You can fill Jersey's food and water."  etc.

You get the picture.

One day I realized that I had an opportunity here to not only teach them how to work, but also how to be observant.  To see things that need to be done on their own.

Brilliant!

So I started telling them to look for something that needs to be done.  I figured this would train their eyes to see these things.  It's been great and they are finding things to do on their own for extra jobs.

But today I realized that it is working even when they aren't looking for extra jobs.

I had made cookies earlier today and put them on my island to cool.  When I took them off and put them away the wax paper and cookies left behind that gross oily spot on the island.  I hadn't gotten around to wiping it off and a little while later Owen was walking by and said, "Whoa mom, this needs to get wiped off!"

Now you tell me, how many 7 year old boys notice a counter that needs to be wiped off?  No, no wait.  You tell me how many 37 year old boys notice a counter that needs to be wiped off?

Someday Owen is going to make some woman very happy.

Besides me. :)

p.s. I do happen to know one 38 year old boy that is great at wiping down counters and he makes this woman very, very happy. :)

Baby Mayzie...

My sister, Allyson, done had herself a baby on April 3rd.

She's awfully cute and she's named Mayzie.

We were there for about an hour to visit and she didn't cry a peep even once!

And….I got to change her first poopy diaper ever. 

So Mayzie and I will always have that. :)

Owen and Morgan were enamored with her.

(Olivia was at synchro)

They couldn't believe how small she was or my stories that they used to be that small.

Allyson and I kept sharing details of birth and delivery and Owen was shocked and disgusted at each one.  Just wait my son…sooooo much more to it. :) 

Here you can see the baby hunger in my eyes.  I suppose this is why they keep such tight security on the maternity wards these days because I just wanted to run out of there with that cute baby. :) 

Love her! 

Welcome to the family baby Mayzie!

Shane's iPad Cake

So somebody had a birthday yesterday.

38 years old this guy is.

He may be born on April Fool's but we have made it a family rule that BECAUSE he is born on April Fool's we will never play any April Fool's jokes on him.  

It makes him exempt. 

(we may have learned this the hard way in prior years. :) )

So, as is custom for me, since Owen's first birthday when my neighbor, Jenalee, taught me how to make special cakes for the people I love according to what the interests of that person are at the time, I made Shane a special cake.  

For Owen, at age one, it was an Elmo cake. (pretty easy)

For Shane, at age 38, it was an iPad cake. (not as easy)

*(I fear for future reference if I do give credit to Olivia now for helping me come up with this idea I shall hear it for the rest of eternity.  So let it be known, Olivia came up with the iPad idea!)

But then...I had to figure out how to do it.

Now let it be known, this is simply a labor of love.  

I'm no professional (obviously) and I have no special tools, so what I do I make up as I go along or try to find a YouTube video to help me out.

This was my second fondant cake ever.

Here is what I came up with:

Shane is taking an App Design class for his PhD right now and is really enjoying it...and spending plenty of time on it.  That's how I knew he was interested in it...you see how that works.

So that's where I came up with the oh so clever: h"APP"y birthday.  

That wasn't Olivia at all.  That was all me. :)

The many hours this cake took was worth it to see how excited Shane was about it.

He loved it! :)

We didn't have 38 candles, but I did have a 3 and eight other candles that Lana tried to put on the cake in the shape of an 8.  Can you tell?

Here is Shane making a wish.  

I'm hoping it was for a million dollars...or world peace I guess.

Let's hope it comes true...

...whatever it was. :)