Why I Love My Husband

I've been meaning to do this for a while, and what better time than right before Father's Day, when the thoughtful Cari gave us "Dad" as a photography theme!

 

 

Kaitlin has an awesome series called "Why I Love My Husband" - here are some of my reasons!

 

 

 

First, my absolute favorite picture I've ever taken of him - the very early days of the twins, when our life was pretty much what you see!  Sleeping whenever and wherever, diaper pail and bouncy seat in the background, never not holding a baby.

 

 

Check out more Theme Thursday takes on "Dad" and see my reasons below:

 

1.  He does EVERYTHING.

He works full-time, he cleans (ALL the time), he vacuums, he mows the lawn, he weeds, he bathes the kids, he changes diapers, he rocks babies to sleep, he snuggles babies in bed in the middle of the night, he washes dishes, he takes out the trash, he does pretty much all the laundry, is there anything he DOESN'T do?

Well, I don't let him cook because I like it too much.  But if I let him, I'm sure he would!

Acts of service are pretty much my love language.  I would rather have my husband clean the kitchen and do all the laundry than buy me flowers.  And he does it! And he does it WELL!

2.  He knows how to have fun!

Even though he does all things domestic, he knows when to take a break and have fun with his kids:

 

He tickles better than anybody.  Try as I may, I can't get the kids to giggle as hard as he does when he tickles them!

 

And he makes up his own quirky activities to do with the kids:

 
 

Peep jousting sans microwave is apparently just sticking toothpicks in peeps and then eating them...

 

3.  He knows how to balance the fun with learning

Doing a science experiment with John Paul

 

I get soooo tired of reading to Cecilia all day long that the second he comes home that for the rest of the day any time she brings me a book I immediately say, "Go ask Dad to read it!"

 

And he NEVER (well, almost never) groans and tries to distract her with anything else.  He sits her down and reads Cinderella for the 87th time in a row, and he doesn't even skip words OR pages!

 

 

 

4.  He LOVES babies

 

I'm like Colleen, I'm not a baby person...  Want to know what Andrew's first response was when he found out that we were having twins?

 

Not shock.  Not horror.  He said, "Now there will be TWO babies for us to snuggle!  One for each of us!"

 

He has a patience with our babies that I totally lack.  He knows exactly how to hold them so that they fall asleep in his arms.  He has been pooped on, peed on, spat up on more times than I can count and he STILL wants more babies!

Once we hit the less snuggly phase, he starts to get that little glimmer in his eye every time he sees a tiny baby.  He LOVES nothing more than that tiny bundle phase when they just snuggle and sleep all the time.  Is there anything more wonderful than a man who loves babies?

 

5.  He takes no breaks

 

I read somewhere that when a husband gets home from work, you shouldn't just hand the baby to him, but you should give him 30 minutes to decompress on his own.

 

Ha!  Sometimes he gets his shoes off, but normally he comes to take one or both babies from me, takes the big kids outside or downstairs, and gives me time to cook dinner without interruption.  No complaints from him, he knows I'm MUCH happier and dinner gets finished a lot more quickly when I don't have 4 kids begging for my attention!

 

He's pretty handsome, too!

 

Just this past week he left me in Cecilia's room to nap while he played outside with the kids and did science experiments with them - best husband ever!

 

6.  He's Catholic

 

When we started dating, I didn't think it would work out in the long run.  After all, he was a Baptist!  But after a few months and Sunday Mass together almost weekly (he came with me because it was more time we could spend together).  Right before he left for college, he discerned that he was being called to convert to Catholicism.  That's when we both knew that maybe this was more than just a summer romance! 

 

11 years later, he takes his role as the head of our domestic church VERY seriously, and is always doing things to bring his family closer to God.  Total consecration to the BVM, Latin Mass (when we can handle it), daily Mass (also when we can handle it), reminding me to go to confession, late night adoration dates (again, when we can handle it...), teaching our 3-year-old all the Latin chant he can handle...  He loves his faith and takes his job of getting his family to heaven seriously!

 

And read his Easter blog post here - doesn't it just give you butterflies?

 

I just can't express all the reasons I love this man - he has changed so much since we started dating back in 2002 and is constantly striving to be a better man, a better father, a better husband.  A Darth Vader apron seems a silly way to show my love and appreciation...

 

Happy Father's Day, Andrew!