Love is...Day

I know that I already posted today, but this deserves its own separate post. Cuz it's kind of a big deal.

I have decided to make every Friday from here on out a very special day. Fridays will now be known as "Love is... Day"

For those of you who attended our wedding you would know that we did not do a conventional guest book. Instead we had you fill out cards telling us what love is. This was honestly one of my favorite details about our wedding. We had so many awesome responses and it would be wrong of me to keep them to myself.

I ended up making this wall display for our home, and I change out the cards when I get the urge.

I have now made it my goal to change out the cards every Friday and to share at least 3 of the responses with you. Here goes!!

(No changes have been made to the grammar or spelling on the cards)

Love is...

wine you be nise to uthers

From Natalie the Bruschke

Love is...

The best thing that could happen to enyone on Earth.

Love, Hyrum Myers

Love is...

getting up in the middle of the night to check out the funny noise...

What is love to you? Feel free to leave a comment and we will make you an honorary guest card and add it to our wall display! 

My husband

Today I am feeling all lovey-dovey and sentimental. It may be because of pregnancy hormones or it might just be because of how I woke up this morning...

Because I woke up next to my prince charming. He rolled over and without even opening his eyes he managed to land a perfectly gentle kiss right on my forehead. He then wrapped his arms around my ginormous belly and held me while we told each other about our dreams--- I'm not sure when this became part of our morning ritual, but everyday we spend at least twenty minutes in bed just talking about our dreams. It's the perfect way to wake up (or fall back to sleep if you aren't careful). 

My dreams were crazy and one of them included me running the 800 at my old high school track. I won the race but woke up completely exhausted. 

Rob dreamt about our Gideon. He dreamt that I had given birth and that Gideon was tiny and perfect and lovely. I seriously almost cried as Rob described how much he loved our baby and how much he wanted him to come. He is gonna be the best daddy ever. 

Since I'm feeling all twitterpated I'm going to share a couple of things that I didn't know I loved about Rob when we got married

-He is very particular about his socks. They have to be the right height, thickness, and weight. He has a different pair of socks that he prefers for almost every pair of shoes. You may think that this is frustrating (and sometimes it is) but lately it's become an adorable quirk that I love.

-He cannot eat food plain. I don't know if it's because I took him out of his bachelor/experimental food  years too early or if it's a result of burning off his taste buds with hot peppers but this boy cannot just have a simple meal. Case in point: Chicken Nuggets

I came into the kitchen Sunday afternoon just after he had finished off a plate of chicken nuggets and 

this is what I saw

Yes. He is holding a bottle of Tabasco. Yes. There is a bottle of Honey Ray's BBQ Sauce on the table. And a bottle of Balsamic Vinegar. And a bottle of Red Taco Sauce. And a jar of peanut butter. 

OK, so I had left the peanut butter out from making a sandwich BUT he really did use all the rest of that stuff on his chicken nuggets. At the same time. And I'm pretty sure that if we had had any Ranch that would have been on the table as well. 

Why do I love this about my husband?? I have no idea. It just makes me smile. 

-He is amazingly talented with music. Now, I knew this before we got married but I did not realize how it would translate into our everyday lives. Sometimes while I'm cooking or reading or just laying there like a beached whale he will pick up the violin and just start playing. Often times he looks up songs that I love and then learns to play them by ear. He's romantic like that. 

-When he works on projects around the house he talks to himself. Not just little mumbles---full on conversations. I get to hear the exact process of problem solving that he goes through as he fixes our things and beautifies our home. It's kind of neat to see how his brain works and it makes me feel involved even though I'm not doing anything.

I hope he doesn't hate me for sharing all of these details with you. I just wanted to document some of the surprising and lovable things I've learned about my husband since we've started our life together. 

A long time coming...

Journaling has never been my strong point. Not when I was a kid (even though mom would make me write every monday) and not now. That being said, I'm going to try to do better. No promises though!

To add to the shame of not being a good journal-er I realize that I'm also not a good scrapbooker/photo organizer. We have taken so many photos over the past few months since I've written--which would make sense because in that time we've gone to France, Belgium, and The Netherlands, we've gone on 3 family camping trips, I took a trip to San Francisco and Orange County, we drove to Fairbanks to visit Ann and Sean, Rob went on several scouting trips AND we've had three separate trips to the hospital due to preterm labor! We've gone to the zoo, we've gone to the Alaska State Fair, we've taken scenic drives. We've seen bears and moose and mating muskrats. We've taken picnics, we've done craft projects, we've celebrated birthdays. We even moved apartments!

So in an attempt to play catch up, here are some photos from our adventures!

                                                                                              We had a very long, very awful layover and I felt no shame sleeping on the airport floor (I blame pregnancy!)

We "locked" our love on a bridge over the Seinne and threw the key away. Literally hundreds of people have done this before us.

Rob climbed on anything he could while we were in Europe.

Although I have hundreds of other pictures from Europe, you will have to facebook stalk Rob in order to see them.

Below is one of the only pictures I seem to have from my trip to California in May. Photo credit goes to my incredibly handsome 16 yr old brother, Michael.

Camping with my in-laws is one of my favorite summer activities. We drive a couple hours out of town and set up camp at a secluded little lake and then we lay around and eat food for a couple of days. It's pretty awesome.

My nephews are rockstars.

Campfires are great, but they lose a little bit of the classic appeal in "The Land of the Midnight Sun"

This is our palatial 3 room tent. Much appreciation goes out to Dad and Mom Higham for the Christmas gift---we will be using it for many years to come!

Bradley had a birthday!! I made a cake!

Our son, Gideon James. I believe the classic *face palm* may have been a reaction to Rob's attempts at humor during the ultrasound. 

Kristy and Rob played a beautiful musical number at church. People literally came up to me crying to tell me how good it was---After which most of them asked me what talent I had that complimented my husband's "there MUST be some talent you have that attracted him to you".  Well folks, I've been asking myself the same question for a long time and the answer is nope. No talent worthy of his beautiful music, but somehow he still fell in love with me (THANK GOODNESS)

Our home living room doubles as Rob's music studio where he teaches violin lessons so this was our collaborative effort to beautify/organize the place.

I bought Rob an inflatable kayak for funsies. Real kayaks are WAY too expensive for us.

Gideon wants to come out and play!! The green line shows contractions, which were coming pretty strong about 2-3 minutes apart for two hours before we even went to the hospital. BTW terbutaline is the worst drug ever.

One day I looked out our apartment window to see this:

Rob's boss Petr is riding a giant unicycle. All in a days work, right?

The Alaska State Fair was way fun but rainy.  Since I'm pregnant and wasn't able to ride any of the rides we pretty much paid the ridiculous entrance fee in order to pay the ridiculous prices for the ridiculously delicious food. Between the two of us we consumed two giant turkey legs, a brick of fries covered in cheese, cotton candy, funnel cakes, a giant cream puff, and cheesecake in a cone. Had any of that food lasted long enough I probably would have taken pictures of it, but we consumed it all in record time.

The sign on the pig pen reads "Hi, I'm Princess I am going to have babies here at the fair :)" We were instant friends.


Even though these 20 pictures don't do the past 5 months even a little bit of justice, I feel proud of myself for even making the attempt. And I'm proud of you for making it to the end of this post.

And because I'm so proud of us for our combined efforts I've decided to upload one bonus picture for your viewing pleasure.



                   Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present to you LESTER*, the amazing rooster-like thing.

*ok. So I made his name up. and I'm not sure what kind of animal he really is. I guess I could have read the sign that gave me all that information but I was too stunned and mesmerized by Lester's good looks.