6th Anniversary

A few days ago I was having a busy, kind of frustrating day in the clinic. When I sat at my desk, I looked up and saw the pictures of Stacie that I have there, and felt a great feeling of love and gratitude for her. I couldn't wait to get home and be with her. I'm just grateful that I have a loving, beautiful wonderful woman to come home to every night and spend my life with. As the years go by I love and appreciated her more and more.

Stacie is always busy doing good in the world. I'm proud that she's often the one volunteering to take dinner to her friends and neighbors who have recently had a baby or been sick. She loves her nieces and nephews and finds ways to serve and make them happy. She is always looking for ways to serve her family and fill any need they might have.

She's also an incredible mom. I've talked about this a lot on this blog before, but I'm so glad my boys have her for their mother. We're having our 4th boy in November, and I can't say enough about how much love she showers our boys with and how lucky this new little boy will be to have her as a mom. Just as an example, today, despite being pregnant and not feeling great, she is taking our boys swimming while I'm working in the instacare, and I'm sure they'll have a fun filled rest of the day as well. Besides making sure they're having a fun filled summer, she is also always thinking and worrying about their development and their needs. She often initiates conversations with me about how one of our boys needs more encouragement or attention and how we can help them.

Another thing I appreciate about Stacie is how much she makes holidays and birthdays fun and exciting. She is great at holidays! She always makes sure the boys have a fun activity, and she spends hours preparing gifts and treats and decorations for each holiday. Even for St. Patrick's Day she made sure the boys had a green breakfast to start they day, she wanted it to be fun for them. It is an example of how much she loves life and tries to live it to the fullest, and I love that about her.

I feel really blessed to be married to Stacie. She is beautiful, fun, loving, strong and kind. She serves and loves me and our children with enthusiasm and caring. I'm grateful I have her to spend my life and eternity with. Stacie I love you, thank you for six great years and I look forward to the rest of our lives together.

I can't believe that Stacie and I have been married for five years already. Its been a great five years. Stacie and I have gone from single to married and parents of 3 active boys in that time period--no wonder it has gone by so quickly. I have a great life with Stacie and I wanted to pay tribute to her and our marriage today. She has been an incredible wife and partner. I can honestly say I'm a much better man for being married to her. She inspires and encourages me every day. I love her and I'm grateful to have her in my life.

I'm constantly in awe of her amazing personal strength.  And the source of her strength is the Savior. I see her turn to Him through prayer, the scriptures and priesthood blessings and  I'm grateful for that example for me and for our boys. They love their mom fiercely and so her example is so important for them. I know they'll grow to love and trust the Savior as well.

I love that Stacie is so active and athletic. It was her idea to get us both enrolled in a crossfit gym recently and it's been a great experience so far.  We just started last week and I've been so sore that I haven't been able to walk normally since, but it feels good to be exercising. We usually go at separate times because of the kids, but we've gone to a few classes together and it's fun to be working out with her again. I also have to work hard just to keep up with her. When we were engaged we trained for a marathon together, and spending so much time out on the road running together made me appreciate her more and more. We both love running and exercising, it's fun to share that with her. She's also an avid soccer player and our boys love to go watch mom play in her games.

I really appreciate how thoughtful Stacie is in keeping me involved in what our boys are doing even when I'm at work. She texts me funny stories about them or pictures of what they're doing. I love getting those and checking them in between patients. It helps me feel connected still to my family. I posted some of the pictures she has sent me. I'm sure my coworkers get tired of me bugging them to look at this picture of my boys or listening to the latest funny story about my boys, but I get pretty excited to get those texts and pictures. Here's a text she sent me this week: "Nap fail!!!! Kyler wouldn't go to sleep but he was pretending to be. I could tell he wasn't asleep but thought if he faked it long enough he'd eventually fall asleep. I brought them both in the house and laid them both down in their beds. After a few minutes I could hear them laughing together. I listened in the monitor and it was so cute. I heard Braden say, lets just count to 12 and wake up. Then they both counted and came out with armfuls of stuffed animals. It's a good thing they're so cute!"

She is also careful to make sure I know how much she appreciates me working for our family--and she uses it as a teaching moment for our boys. She makes sure to tell me before I go to work in the morning: "Thanks for working so hard for our family!" The boys have picked up on it too, so they'll chime and say it with her. It makes me feel better about leaving every morning, I appreciated her doing that for me. Of course, she is also working super hard for our family, taking care of and teaching our boys so well each day. I know it's exhausting work but she does an incredible job at it!

I'm so grateful to be married to this wonderful woman. Thank you Stacie for marrying me five years ago, and making my life so great. I love you, and happy anniversary!

4th Anniversary

Stacie's and my 4th Anniversary is tomorrow. I can't believe it has been four years already. Being married to Stacie has been a great blessing and I wanted to pay tribute to her here. I know I said my last post would be the final one for this blog, but I decided to bring it back since I haven't written anything about actually getting married and how I felt about that.

Our Anniversary coming up has brought back memories of the day we were married. It was the best day of my life, literally. Our sealing ceremony was full of emotion for me. Stacie looked beautiful, and it felt so perfect and right to be marrying her. I had a feeling of certainty that marrying her was what God wanted me to do, that he was blessing me with this marriage to her. Our time in the temple was so peaceful and joyful. And the rest of the day was great as well--it felt like a perfect day. The time with family and friends on the temple grounds after our wedding, then the wedding dinner, were full of joy and fun. It was a great celebration of our uniting and creating a family.

Now, four years later, my love for Stacie has grown, and so has our family. There are four of us now and another on the way in a few months. It is a lot of fun to have a family. I am so blessed to have married Stacie and be living the life that I am. Stacie is amazing at taking care of us all. She is the love of my life, and I can't imagine being without her. Our two boys are so much fun and such great kids. I love the way that Stacie takes care of them. She is a dedicated and loving mother. They are in love with her! She is also a super fun mom. The other morning it was raining when we all woke up, so Stacie told the boys we needed to go outside and play in the rain. They were excited and Braden ran and got his boots on so he could jump in puddles. Pretty soon we were all out getting soaked in a warm summer rain, jumping in puddles. Stacie, despite being pregnant and not feeling very well was in the middle of it all with our boys, loving being out in the rain as well.

I love that Stacie is such a great mom to our boys. She puts a lot of work into taking care of them and teaching them, and it is a lot of work. The few times that I've been in charge of them for the day have worn me out, and Stacie does this every day! I feel full of gratitude that she takes such good care of our boys every day. She is a great teacher to them, and I'm constantly amazed at the things Braden knows how to do at his age. She is great at teaching them the gospel--I'm always amazed at how she can come up with a great family home evening lesson that is brief enough that the boys will pay attention to it, but full of the simple parts of the gospel that they can understand. And her testimony shines through as she teaches our boys, I know they can feel it, and it is a great blessing to them to feel that from their mom.

She makes sure they have fun as well--we have had a great summer full of Disneyland, swimming, slip 'n sliding, fishing, parades, fireworks, and being outside, all of which Stacie plans for these boys.  She is also so in tune to their little personalities--she always seems to know why they are happy, or grumpy, and how to make them feel better when they cry.

Stacie is an amazing wife, too. I love being around her, and she makes me feel taken care of in little and big ways. For example, she does simple things like putting surprise notes in my lunch or cooking dinners she knows I'll like. Or she pretends we have an important reason to go somewhere like the Recreation Outlet while we're out running errands. When we were at Disneyland she kept insisting that I go on rides like Tower of Terror and Space Mountain while she stayed and waited with the kids--I really appreciated that, though I tried not to take her up on it too often. She also does an amazing job at birthdays, Christmas, Father's Day, and other holidays. I can never top her. She always thinks of thoughtful gifts and plans fun parties. I had to put a picture in from my birthday a few years ago when she bit the bullet and wore BYU gear, put Braden in all BYU clothes and made BYU birthday hats for everyone. It was a fun way for her to show how much she cares.

I love this woman, and I'm so happy that we were married four years ago. That was the best decision I have made in my life, and I'm so glad she decided to marry me as well. I love living life with her. Even the every-day things in life are better with her at my side. I love that she is full of love and concern for others. I love that she is gentle and kind to children--even all of the neighborhood kids love her. I love her sense of humor and how she can find the funny side of any situation. I love her testimony and faithfulness. I love her inner strength. I love going running with her. I love how beautiful and radiant she is. I love that she texts me funny stories about our boys while I'm at work.  I love that she likes to take care of me--cook dinner, and pack me lunches, and ask me how I'd doing. She is a beautiful, brilliant, amazing woman, and I look forward to an eternity with her and our family.

Braden will be talking about this day for a while

Braden wanted to go running in the rain with Mommy

At the parade

Braden loved going on this ride with his mom

Painting snow, playing "spider webs" and running through a finish line.

We have a fun mom.

The cousins getting pirate treasure at Braden's birthday party-Stacie put together a treasure hunt complete with a map and treasure chest. For the next few weeks Braden kept asking when he could have another pirate party!

Final Post

Well, I'm not sure how to say this, but this is my last post on this blog. As my old life has been replaced by a much, much better one with Stacie as my wife, so my blog will now be replaced with a much, much better that Stacie and I (mostly Stacie) will do together. Expect more regular, well-written and humorous posts with pictures! It's only been going since July but it already contains posts than my entire life-long blog! I'll be posting there from now on.

Home

Three years ago when I was single I bought a modest two-bedroom townhome. I was pretty excited and quickly outfitted it with a couch from the DI (then added another used one when a roommate moved it in but not out), a big picture of Zion National Park, satellite TV, various used kitchen items from the DI or donated by family members, boxes full of sports and camping equipment under the stairs. . . well you get the picture. Then I proceeded to not spend much time there due to residency, and for the past year, a wonderful girlfriend whose apartment was much more inviting and comfortable. Now things have changed incredibly for the better. Inspired by impending marriage to Stacie, I redid much of the kitchen, cleaned as much as I knew how, and then finally we moved Stacie’s nice stuff to what is now our home. Then she did some awesome womanly decorating and cleaning and now it’s an entirely different place, and I love it. It seems almost unreal that we live in a place that is such a home, and definitely blessed with a woman’s touch. It feels like I could spend a vacation just hanging out here. Among many other great improvement and changes, my office/bedroom is now the craft room/office, the living room is a coordinated set, the bookcase is not one I bought in a box from Walmart, the bathroom rug matches the shower curtain and the towels, the kitchen is always clean, the refrigerator has actual groceries in it, the pantry has food in it and is organized (as opposed to mix of camping gear, dozens of plastic grocery bags, etc., etc.) our bedroom is impeccable (and there are beautiful dresses hanging in the closet), there are decorations and pictures on the walls, and best of all, Stacie lives here! She may have felt some nostalgia and sadness at moving out of her apartment, but I was ecstatic to have her here with me! The old condo really doesn’t exist anymore. It’s now our home, complete with our wedding pictures on the walls. I love to just sit in the living room with Stacie and enjoy being there, and I’m grateful for this amazing change in my life.

Humor

Stacie has a phenomenal sense of humor. When I think of Stacie often its a picture of her laughing at something with a huge smile that makes me want to smile with her. Her beautiful eyes dance with joy and you can't help but be happy to be around her. When you're with her you can expect to laugh a lot as well. I could tell when I first met her that she had a great sense of humor, and we laughed a lot on our first date and I remember being delighted at her sense of humor. She likes to tease good-naturedly and we joked a lot about who was going to win at miniature golf. She also is very witty, and can quickly find something funny in any situation. For example, a few weeks ago when we made our date video she had us sliding down the kids slide but on the way down the camera guy got too close and she hit her head on the camera. She told me later that it hurt but she laughed about it with us, not wanting to miss the funny moment. Stacie doesn't miss the potential humor in situations--for example we went to get snow cones at our favorite stand today and we realized that we're becoming regular customers to the teenager who works there. Stacie joked that he was going to think I was bringing my homeless girlfriend since she had just played a soccer game (she actually looked spectacular by the way with an energetic glow from having just played that soccer game). She also likes to do funny things like jump up and down when shes excited or sing a fun song to bring a smile to peoples faces. When were at parties together she is definitely the life of the party, doing something funny or entertaining. Her family enjoys her humor too-this evening she called home to tell her mom that she had broken her leg at her soccer game, hoping to get a good reaction. Her brother answered, pretended to rekay the message, then told her that now all the nieces and nephews were crying. He was just kidding as well, which he told her after she got worried and told him to tell them it was a joke. I am definitely no as funny as Stacie, so I will hopefully absorb some of her great sense of humor over the years.

Family and Motherhood

nother thing I love about Stacie is the priority she places on family. She knows the Proclamation on the Family very thoroughly and has made sure we've read it together several times. Reading it with her has been a treat because she knows it so well and has good insights to point out. I can tell her testimony of the family as central to Gods plan is strong and deep. She talks about looking forward to being a mother often and really believes in the importance of motherhood. She tells me that as she was growing up her goal and greatest desire was to be a great mother. She has had a great nurturing role in the lives of her nieces and nephews, and when I see her with them I am excited about how great of a mother she'll be to our children. She is has so many great qualities that will make her an amazing mom-she is very spiritual and will teach the gospel and be a great example, as well as be able to seek and recieve personal revelation to guide her parenting. She is fun and will keep our kids active, outside, and athletic. She's really smart, has always done well in school and can teach our children how to succeed there as well. She is patient with kids and can be firm and keep them in line without having to get angry or yell. Finally, Stacie loves children and they love her. I am so blessed to be forming a family with Stacie this week!