happy birthday to the love of my life

boy howdy, do I love this guy (both of them).

We're coming up on seven years of marriage now. This is the eighth of Neil's birthdays we've celebrated together. And every day--I kid you not, every single day--I've just been so grateful that I'm married to this man. If you know us "in real life," you probably know how much he has helped me to mature as a person. I'm so grateful for that, and so grateful for him.

Also, I am grateful for the fact that he makes dinner every Sunday. I love playing sous-chef.

yesterday for dinner we had stuffed mushrooms and a salad of red-leaf lettuce, spinach, sprouts, pomegranates, and ripe pears, topped with tangy red onion dressing (which he also made). Juliet loves, loves, loves "papa-dammits" [pomegranates]. We shouldn't laugh, but we do. A lot. Although we did finally teach her to say it the right way.

random Neil fact of the day: he does the best vocal imitations I've ever heard, hands-down. Especially when singing--he can give you Colm Wilkinson's Jean Valjean or Gaston (from Beauty and the Beast) with equal facility. I often tease him about getting a doctorate when he really should be doing voiceovers. In any case, storytime with Daddy is always very exciting (although the one time that he was reading in Rasputin's voice Abigail said, "Gross, Daddy! You are spitting on me!" Classic). And speaking of storytime, every night he tells the girls a very complex and ongoing story about Princesses Abigail and Juliet and their dragon Indin (named by Abigail). They love it. They love him, and I love him.

Happy birthday, sweetie.

p.s. I'm glad we didn't die from eating so many stuffed mushrooms yesterday, because then we would not be able to eat lots of cheesecake today. ooh la la!

dear neil,

remember when my flat iron got a short and blew up? and i refused to buy another one because i'd already spent all the "miscellaneous money" for the month? and then i was having a really bad day, and i'd been wearing my hair in a french braid for three weeks, and you came home and you had bought me a new flat iron on the way home?

and then remember today when i really tired because nobody napped today, and when juliet was finished eating you steered me to the door, library card in hand, and sent me out for two blissful hours to wander the libraries?

it's for thoughtfulness like this that i married you. and you're right, i'd way rather have a new flat iron than flowers. you win.

love you.