oh, how i love him

.

riddle me this: i slept with a 29 year old hottie last night and woke up next to a sexy 30 year old. how am i not a dirty sloot in need of a little of the cami-secret treatment for my adulterous soul?

TWIST! these are both the same man.

jesse *thinks* he was born at 6 am, so while we snoozed this morning, the boy i have loved since we were 21 left me behind and blazed the trail into the thirties!!!

photo by jason tatum

this boy makes me coo-coo for his cocoa puffs. ew, wait a second. not like that. but sort of. but not really. not out loud on the internet, at least.

this man is the best thing that has ever happened to me (because jesus created me, i kind of happened to Him, thus, jesse gets to be #1 in this category).

this husband of mine is humble, caring, hilarious, kind, talented, brilliant, mature, and smoking hot.

he has put soooooooooo much effort and work into becoming the amazing husband, father and christ-follower that he is today and he has let that same christ do so many good (but still hard and painful, sometimes) works IN him.

it shows.

i sit in the audience on sundays as he leads worship for our church and i am just so mind-numbingly, bring-me-to-me-knees, thankful that the story of my life (and the inscription on jesse's wedding band) reads: with you. in him. forever.

forty hundred points if you can find me in this picture.

and its not about some rockstar-sex appeal thing that can tend to happen when a man gets on stage with a guitar in front of a crowd that makes my soul-panties drop like whoa.

that room could be empty and i would still feel like i do.

watching this man that i am one flesh with (it's not icky, its jesus-magic!) worship our king does something to me that is so purely love and so unique to my entire life experience, that i am just in awe. it only happens for a few seconds at a time and it's so intense that i almost cant stand it.

it happened this week when he was singing "how he loves us" (which is a pretty intense song just on its own). seeing my husband let go and let himself sink in the ocean of grace and love is a seriously intimate experience. even with 500 other people in the room.

it's like my soul is finally doing the thing my vocal chords never can: singing in perfect harmony with someone else. it's the briefest of glimpses of what it must have been like in the garden: a husband and wife worshiping their creator and being utterly content in the love he is pouring over them. it feels heavenly.

like i said, i am able to hold onto this harmony for maybe 8 seconds before my stupid, fallen, pancake-brain goes, "oh look, something shiny!"

but the impression is made and this complex love of ours is another layer deeper and richer for it. my husband is a man of god and a man whose heart is chasing after jesus and his kingdom. that's a gift i do not want to take for granted (though i do).

speaking of gifts...let's talk about a few lesser ones. (awkward segue out of deep mushy land).

jesse drinks coffee, so over the last few months i have stocked up on a few bags of his favorite starbucks whole bean bags (haha, beanbags). we got a coffee grinder at one of our wedding showers (thanks, hess!) and he loves putting it to work making fresh ground coffee like a fancy pants who owns cuff links or something. these bags will last...not long. he's a fiend.

they both wanted to "try a bean." we let them. guess which child actually chewed it up?

but he cant resist the white sweetness (in his coffee AND his bed..HIYO!) so he takes a little sugar in his coffee (though he would have it known that he likes it black too...like a real man. because beanwater is MANLY!).

our sugar cannister is huge and annoying so i made him a little tupperware thing full of it with a plastic scooper to use over by his coffee setup. but still. that takes two hands and all kinds of lid closings and chaos and it's just too much!

so i was delighted to gift him this gem this morning which is one-handed, safe from the ants, and dispenses a perfect teaspoon every squeeze. a great gadget that solves a real problem for $10, please and thank you.

he will be getting more gifts as the day unfolds.

i went to make him a savory delicious breakfast to go with his coffee, but our little locust horde of toddlers mowed through all our eggs and special link sausages sometime this week without me noticing.

so all we had was bread and i needed to make it spectacular. cue the pioneer woman's cinnamon toast the right way (just follow the recipe at the bottom because her post is confusing ans shows 4 ways to make it but only one is right!).

oh sweetbabyjessicafelldownawellandthengotrescued, this stuff was UNREAL!

like crispy, warm, melty, sweet candy atop golden buttery bread.

it is henceforth known as birthday toast in our house:

a birthday toast to jesse! (i love myself).

for moms who dont plan ahead, we are thankful there is judah's used 3rd bday candle and a fruitloop in our pantry playing the party of the 3-0 candles!

here's to the man who butters my bread in all the right ways. (mostly i just mean he puts a lots of actual butter on my bread at restaurants and stuff...but still, that would be THREE sex/breakfast puns in this post thankyouverymuch).

happy birthday jesse! you make my heart go boom boom and i am eternally ecstatic that you were born and you are mine!

and hey, i'm sorry that i wasnt able to give you sausage this morning, but maybe tonight--nope, shut it down. i've gone too far.