Happy Anniversary Momma!

This year, we celebrate 13 years together and 8 years married. I have had the privilege of loving Jill as a young girl and as a grown woman, but my favorite is getting to love her as a mother. She is the captain of our ship. Sometimes we are all sitting on the couch and I am holding Lincoln. When Jill turns to look at us, she sees that we are both just staring at her. She normally laughs and calls us both creepers. We sometimes do this on purpose to get under her skin, but mostly we do it without even knowing we are doing it. Maybe its because we feel undeserving of her. Maybe we do it because we just love her so much. Maybe its because she makes us feel safe. It is probably a combination of everything because we know that as long as Momma is here then we have nothing to worry about.  Just like Lincoln, I depend on her for my survival. Without this beautiful woman by my side I would not have the drive to get out of bed in the morning or the courage to make our lives better.

On Saturday, I planned out a surprise date for Jill. So we got Lincoln set up with Aunt Lolly and were off. At an attempt to not be "boring parents", our first stop was to Zero Gravity in Dallas. We both decided to go through with it, and ended up doing a 160ft free fall into a safety net. It was pretty amazing, but probably one of the most terrifying things either one of us have done.

We then went on a trip to the farmer's market to get more vegetables than I would probably eat in a year. After that we ended our day having dinner on a patio since the weather was perfect. We planned on staying out until midnight, but after a long day we were back home with baby boy by 9.

However, the best anniversary gift was the news we go to kick off our weekend. We received a call from our attorney letting us know that our petition had been filed with the courts and has already been approved. This means that we are ready to set our finalization date. We will be gathering with some family and standing in front of a judge to legally make Lincoln a member of our family.  Lincoln has consumed every thought in our heads ever since we saw his sonogram picture for the first time. I am sure that is no different than biological babies. But with adoption, this is a very special day. It's hard to explain. Not that we think anyone is going to come take him away from us or that we can't do certain things with him, but I'd be lying if I said that it never crosses your mind. Getting to add a legal obligation to our lives has never felt so good! 

Any of you that are married, know that it is a lot of work. We are no exception. After spending 13 years with anyone, you are bound to drive each other crazy from time to time. For instance, when I am watching football and my beautiful wife comes over and starts talking 100 mph about everything and nothing at all. "Look at this idea on Pinterest. We should do something different to the backyard. Look at this recipe on Pinterest. You should listen to this podcast.  Oh my goodness, you will never believe who I talked to today. Look at this baby room on Pinterest. You can build this!" I have to admit that for a split second I thought to myself, "What if she just bit her tongue off right now?" But the truth is, no matter how busy I am or how focused I am on the game, all I have to do is turn and look at her and all of the sudden I am transformed into that same 15 year old boy falling in love with the girl of his dreams. I may have doubled my age, but until the day I leave this world, I will forever be that little boy doing everything in my power to try to get THE Jill to like me.

Happy Anniversary to the best wife and most amazing mother!