Happy Birthday Dean

My wonderful husband is 28 today. That means a few things to me. First, he's approaching 30 quickly. Second, I'm not far behind because my birthday is next Friday (although I'm a year younger). Third... we've kinda been together a long time because when I met him he was 21. Wow. Time goes by quickly!

So in honor of his birthday, I wanted to make a list of 28 things I love about him, in no particular order:

1. The way he makes sure to spend a good amount of time with us throughout the day.
2. The fact that he still takes me on regular dates.
3. How protective he is of Tommy.
4. How protective he is of me.
5. How he pretends not to like Dorsi and threatens to give her away on a daily basis but then I catch them snuggling on the couch at night.
6. When Tommy gets up in the morning and wants to talk in bed and I can't function because it's the morning, Dean just pops right up and starts a conversation. I don't know how he does it!
7. He's an incredible leader, both in public and at home.
8. His night time snack of choice is a glass of milk and a handful of pretzels. Weird.
9. Whenever we go to out of town football games, he makes it seem like we've gone to this city just to do stuff in the town and Oh, look, there just happens to be a football game as well!
10. He keeps in really good touch with his friends.
11. He calls to check in on me every few hours.
12. He has unbelievable confidence in me.
13. He can go to a college baseball game and sit all by himself. But he still invites me to go along.
14. His uncanny ability to talk his way in or out of anything.
15. The way he always knows people no matter where we go (we've run into people we know at a random football game in North Carolina before)
16. The fact that I'm no longer surprised when he talks his way in or out of anything or when he knows random people that we talk to.
17. His devotion to the Gospel.
18. His desire to see others be devoted to the Gospel.
19. His heart for his city.
20. His almost cult-like love for Leon High School.
21. His very unselfish love for me.
22. His very unselfish love for Tommy.
23. How close he is with his family.
24. How he always asks for either a cut up apple or cereal in a bowl with no milk for breakfast.
25. His random great road trip ideas.
26. He's always ready to drop everything and take a vacation with me.
27. The way he plays with Tommy, always devoting so much attention to him.
28. He's the best pastor I've ever had.

And those are just 28 of the reasons I love him. When we were engaged, I made him a gift of 101 cut-out hearts with a different thing I love about him written on each heart (we were apart for about 100 days and he could read one a day). So I have lots of other things but those are just a random 28. Happy Birthday Babe!! I love you!!