Good gosh, girl

Maggie's room is messier than usual. It needs a major overhaul of trash and going through old toys.

Tonight, Maggie came and asked me if I could get her tent from the top of her closet. I asked her why she didn't ask steven to get it since he is taller and could reach it.

She sheepishly replied, "well, daddy will go in my room and say, 'good gosh, girl, your room is a mess."

It was exactly what he would say!

George

This is a picture that I took last Friday morning at McDonald's. 

George is one of Steven's friends. They eat breakfast at McDonald's and talk and talk and talk. 

Last Friday, they started talking about a radio show that George was on. George wanted credit for being on a radio show called "how does your garden grow?". So, Steven edited the wikipedia page. George thought this was great that you could edit the internet!

George is a very interesting man and can talk to a brick wall. He has met his match in Steven. They are really good friends and I snapped this picture while they were editing wikipedia. 

Thanksgiving Day #22

I didn't know what to be thankful for today so I asked Steven what I should be thankful for.

His humble reply?

Me. Be thankful for me.

And I haven't really written about Steven yet in this month of thankfulness. And I am very thankful for Steven. He is a Godly man and I love him. He does so much for our family and for me. Last week was pretty rough and he did so much for all of us. I love him and I am VERY thankful for him.

Me turn

Brenda gave us a golf set a couple of months ago. Patrick loves it. He doesn't try to hit people with the clubs very often. Why do clubs automatically turn into weapons, by the way?

Patrick quickly wanted to trade his plastic ball for a real ball.

Here he is concentrating on his form.

Daddy showing him how to hit the golf ball.

Patrick wanted to use Steven's club. He would say "me turn" over and over again.

Daddy showing him how to hit the ball.

The club is taller than Patrick.

Steven and Patrick had a great time in the backyard today.

The final reasons....

30. He made all of our family's Halloween costumes last year. He sewed them and designed the iron on patches. Then, he created a trunk for our trunk or treat contest at church.

31. He can go anywhere and find someone that he knows. Or someone that he has a connection to. It is kinda of weird. I mean, we will be in the middle of nowhere and he can find a connection to the person next to us.

32. He is passionate about his job and ministry. One time I asked him what he would do with his free time if he won the lottery. He said that he would still be a pastor, but just wouldn't take a salary.

33. He has an extreme love for hair metal bands. We always play a game where I try to guess what band it is if we hear a hair metal band song. My guess is always "white snake". Unbelieveably, I get it right a lot of the time.

34. If we see a car with an out of state license, one of us says "I guess they are a long way away from home." The other person says "or maybe they are just borrowing a friend's car". It's an old joke that we started when we were dating. It's not really funny. We just say it out of habit now and laugh cause we are dorks.

35. When I was pregnant, he would paint my toenails for me. He even learned how to do a french manicure on them.

36. I haven't loaded up luggage into our car for a trip in over 11 years. I lay out the clothes and stuff I want to pack and he puts it in the suitcases and then loads it up. Then, when we are leaving, he does the same thing. He also checks the hotel about 4 or 5 times to make sure we haven't left anything behind and checks under the bed there.

37. He made a playhouse in the backyard for the kids.

38. From Maggie: He gives us a lot of kisses and hugs.

39. He loves Jesus. He leads our family to love Jesus, too.

Happy birthday, Steven. I love you.

I love him some more

25. He knew my brother first. He was the new youth minister at the church that Jonathan attended. Jonathan brought him over to our house on Sunday afternoon. My computer was acting up and he tried to fix it for me. He is still fixing my computer and phone for me 11 years later.

26. Last year, he lost 60 pounds. It took a lot of work and breaking addictions to overeating. This was an amazing accomplishment. I'm so proud of him. He looks great and he did it so that he can be around a long time for our family.

27. He has run 2 marathons.

28. Now, he is helping me to train to walk a half marathon. We get up early every morning before the kids get going and walk together. I love spending this time with him and I get in some exercise.

29. He hasn't cut me off of his Amazon account yet. He just rolls his eyes when I order cases of peanut butter. I keep expecting him to change the password on me.

A few more reasons

20. He coached Maggie's soccer team. It was a group of 5 and 6 year old little girls. The team was called the puppies. I don't think he really enjoyed this very much, but he did it.

21. This one is courtesy of Maggie. She said that her favorite thing about Steven is his scratchy moustache.

22. He has taught himself how to play the piano. He just sat down earlier this year and taught himself how to play.

23. Almost every night, I leave the living room and go to bed. I say, "hey, don't you want to come to bed?". He will say, "yeah, I'll be there in just a minute" and then he comes to bed like at 4 a.m. This scene replays almost every night. It used to bother me when we first got married. Now, I just think it's funny that we do this every night and expect different results. He wants to just do "one more thing" before he comes to bed.

24. I like the way that he gets down on the floor and wrestles and plays with Maggie and Patrick.

9 more reasons

10. He will fix anything. He likes to fix things on his own. It is very rare for us to pay for someone to fix something. He loves to work on stuff.

11. He is fine with my parents living with us. Enough said. :)

12. He loves history. He loves to hear stories about the past and his favorite channel is the History channel.

13. He is completely addicted to pistachios. It reminds me of my dad. My dad used to eat them a lot, too. His were dyed this red color. Steven eats the natural ones and we need to buy them in bulk.

14. He understands my need to be somewhere early or at least on time. From a man who was chronically late, this is a big deal. This caused a lot of our early marriage fights. But, now, he doesn't get mad that I want to be somewhere on time. He has actually adapted to more of an early person.

15. He values how flexible my job schedule is and encourages me to keep with it. I could make a lot more money with a full time job, but he sees the value in me being at home and being there for our family.

16.He is extremely loyal. If you are his friend, you are his friend for life.

17. He is a really good golfer. I wish he more time and money to play more often.

18. (facebook just sent me a reminder about what I wrote in 2010 and this popped up. thanks, facebook lol) We are watching top 100 songs of the 90s and we are singing along to Beck and Weezer. Celine Dion's "my heart will go on" comes on and we both groan and reach for the remote!

19. He left for a trip last weekend and had to leave super early. Before he left, he cleaned up the living room. It reduced my stress level tremendously!

39

Steven Cole is turning 39 on August 27th. I've decided to spend the days before his birthday listing 39 things that I love about him.

So here are 39 reasons that I love Steven Cole:

1.He puts up with my pets. Willie and the cats appreciate that.

2.He turns the tv to Paula Deen when I am upset. It does make me feel better.

3. He wears boots every day. Every single day. I'm surprised he didn't wear them on the beach. Because of this, Patrick thinks that boots are awesome and calls all shoes "boots". His boots are Cars crocs, so they are his "ca chow ca chow boots". You need an interpreter around here.

4. He is the only male on Maggie's school's community club. It puts up with a lot of hormones and craziness. I think it says a lot about him to put up with that much estrogen in order to help out at Maggie's school.

5. He is passionate about Aggie football. Even though we are far, far away tv coverage of it. If there's ever a Cowboys' game on tv, he is totally immersed in the game. I love watching him watch a game. He is instense!

6. He will watch Sponge Bob over and over and over again with the kids. And laugh at it.

7. He has a little following of old guys that he has met at McDonald's. He goes to work on his computer at the local McDonald's. He has started talking to some of the old men who drink coffee there. They love talking to him every morning.

8. He drinks unsweet tea like nobody's business. We always say that the "only" reason we got married was because we were the only two people in the south who like unsweet tea.

9. He has owned 2 trucks his whole entire life. He blames me for getting rid of his first love cause I didn't want my babies riding in his truck. He is still a little bitter about that. I can't imagine him driving anything else but a truck.

Packing

Steven is going to Colorado on Thursday.

Tonight, I am sitting in the living room as he plans and makes lists and lays out the stuff he is planning to bring on his trip.

I asked him what day he was going on the trip. Maybe I was confused and he's leaving tomorrow. I mean, Steven has NEVER purposefully packed for a trip a day before he leaves. He's more of a midnight-the-night-before-a-trip-packing-kinda guy.

He confirmed that he was leaving on Thursday, but he had a lot going on tomorrow. He's also trying to pack for 5 days camping, but not check his bag. And packing camping stuff on an airplane is not the easiest thing to do.

Then, he said (sweet words to my ears), "I think that you are also rubbing off on me in this area."

WHAT?!

Ten years of being married and I feel a lot of joy from this conversation. My list making ways have finally rubbed off on him.

Just think....maybe ten more years and we'll start wearing matching outfits on Sunday mornings.

12 long years together

Tonight, Steven and I were discussing how crazy it is that we will have been married for 10 years tonight.

In a way, it seems like it has gone by in the blink of an eye. But then it feels like we have been together for a very long time.

I asked him if it had been all blissful years together.

He said that 8 of those years had been amazing.

I asked what was wrong with the other 4 years.

Insert pause here.

Steven said, "Beth, 4 plus 8 does not equal 10."

I think this disqualifies me from helping with Maggie's math homework from now on.

He's cute, too

So everyone is looking a different way in this picture. But, it's all my cuties in one picture, which counts for something, right?

Happy Birthday, Steven!

Tomorrow is my husband's birthday. I was trying to think of a cute blog title and I kept remembering the nickname that my brother gave him before I even knew him. When Jonathan was a senior in high school, he got a new youth minister at his church. Jonathan really liked Anton, the last youth minister and thought that this new guy was kind of annoying.

So, he called him "Steve Cole, the fruit bowl".

I'm sure it was a term of endearment.

He brought "the fruit bowl" home one afternoon after church and this guy even helped me fix my computer.

11 years later, I'm married to that guy and he's still fixing everything that we break around the house.

I don't want to get too mushy on this blog. But, I'm amazed by all that he does and how well he does it. He's setting up for a Back to School night right now at Maggie's school. We'll join him after I pick up Maggie.

He's going camping this weekend and I'm afraid that because of our crazy week that we won't be able to truly celebrate him. He's not as big on birthdays as I am, but I think that we are going to take him out for breakfast before school tomorrow.

I love you, Steven, and I'm so glad that we get to celebrate you a little bit tomorrow.


P.S. I hope next year's blog has a big ol' picture of you and Patrick and Maggie!

My hubby

Steven had a birthday today. I hope he had a great day. We are going camping this weekend, so we tried to keep it pretty low key. He played golf, went to olive garden, played a new wii game with maggie and got some chocolate ice cream cake. That sounds pretty awesome to me.

My favorite part of the day was when he went to Walgreens at 1 a.m. to get Maggie some medicine. She has been under the weather on and off for a few days. When he left to get the medicine, Maggie said, "My daddy is so sweet. It's HIS birthday, but he went to get me medicine."

Later, she cried because "he is turning 37 and is going to be too old"!

We are going camping/fishing/jet skiing this weekend. We need it. It has been such a crazy week. We have been out every night of the week. I hope we can just relax and hang out. And Willie gets to try out our new tent. It has a special "room" just for dogs.

So, happy birthday, Steven. I hope you had a wonderful day. Thank you for being a wonderful husband and an awesome daddy.

(I took some awesome pictures of the items that Maggie bought for Steven that I will post later. They are hilarious, but very "thoughtful".)

Breakfast in bed

This morning, I could not get my lazy butt out of bed. I was so tired. I was in and out of sleep for about 30 minutes til my wonderful husband brought me eggs and bacon and a coke zero in bed. How sweet was that? Maggie suggested that he make breakfast for me in bed and he followed through on her suggestion. How sweet.

36 years ago today

(I wasn't born)

However, my cute husband was born. I have to say that unlike Michelle Obama, my husband is a different man than the one that I fell in love with. I just think that we are both so different. I guess it's true that if you are married to someone long enough you will start to look like them. Does that mean that I will have a goatee soon?

He is a wonderful, Godly man. I'm glad that I am married to him. We are very different, but have a lot in common. There's no one that I would rather discuss something with besides him. He makes me laugh like nobody else.

I love watching him with Maggie. Tonight, they were playing "football" which is basically Maggie trying to tackle Steven. She has a great example of what a husband is supposed to be because of him and I love him for that.

He is so compassionate and caring. It takes a lot to annoy him and he is willing to listen and take time with people.

I love him and I love how he challenges me. He is the person who made me want to grow deeper in my relationship with Christ. I hope he has a wonderful birthday!

My husband = awesome

Be sure to check out his blog. He's giving away a book.

www.stevencole.org


He also described our stinking, bad day. However, he saved the day. On the way home, I noticed that were passing a sign for Lodi. I thought that was weird. I thought that Lodi was on the way to Sacramento, which is the opposite way from our house. Then, I saw a sign for the Elk Grove Auto Mall. I was confused. Then, it hit me. He was taking me to CHICK FIL A. It made up for a very bad day.

I heart my hubby

1. He spent all morning on the phone with the IRS. They said that Maggie didn't exist because of an inverted number in her SS number. She does exist and now they believe us. However we won't be able to get her as part of the stimulus package until next year. Good thing we weren't counting on it.

2. He is so cool that the Brethren church wants him to speak at the National Conference next week. He's going to kill me for talking about this. Want more details? Bug him on his blog.....www.stevencole.org