Happy 28th Birthday, Alan!

So today marks the beginning of a very busy week at our house. Alan's birthday is the 11th, followed by Mason's birthday on the 17th. We tried to get in a good birthday celebration for Alan's, but he's working all around his birthday (as always). We went out last night with the guys from the fire station and their wives to watch the Jazz game and have dinner, so that might be the big celebration. We'll have family over later in the week to mark Mason's third birthday.

In honor of this, I changed the banner and our playlist. The playlist this week includes a few of the boys' favorite songs. Guess which ones belong to whom--it'll be fun!

I've seen a lot of people name X# of their favorite things about their husband to correspond with the number of years he is old; I'm not going to do that because I have a three year old trying to beat the tar out of the house with a toy golf club during this unsupervised moment. However, what I will do is still share some of the things I love about my husband as quickly as I can.

First of all, the picture I have above is one of him doing something he is pretty good at -- teaching. He was teaching me how to shoot a gun while we were camping this summer. He teaches me, he teaches Mason how to do things (some of them, like "pull my finger", I would probably prefer not, but.. well, it's kind of funny), and he teaches at work. He puts so much time and energy into learning and then turning around and teaching that it's fairly inspiring.

Second, he is a hard-working daddy who does everything he can to support our family. He's given up most of his interests and he doesn't understand the concept of "alone" time. He rarely takes a break and is always either at work or home with us. I know he loves his job and may or may not feel like the time away from us is sacrificed, but I appreciate all the sacrifices he makes so I can be at home (mostly) with Mason.

Third, he will do just about anything for anyone. He is always willing to help our family, neighbors, and friends if they need it, no matter how icky the job might become. If he is available to do it, he will and he'll keep doing it until the job is done to his exacting specifications. That being said, he also is a very creative problem solver who constantly keeps me in awe. Just one brief example: he once got navy blue paint out of our tan carpet; I only know because he told me.

Sometimes he's an exhausting perfectionist with extremely high standards, but everything he does is because he cares about our little family and our comfort in the long run. I appreciate the focus and determination he tries to instill in me, and everything he does to keep me focused on the "big picture". He's the exact person I need in my life to keep me grounded and I'm so glad to have found him. Happy Birthday, Alan!