birthday boy

this guy had a birthday on saturday.

last year poor AWD's birthday got lost in the manic mess of the few weeks before the wedding. so this year i wanted to do it up right.

my biggest project was making his favorite donut-- the elusive maple bar-- from scratch. this was a mixed success. the final product tasted delicious, but the dough never rose, so the final product was also remarkably dense. we decided to call them maple bricks.

after a post-mortem with my parents it was concluded that i "killed" the yeast. turns out my definition of "very warm water" and the generally accepted definition of such are two rather different things. now i know.

we spent a lazy saturday doing exactly what we wanted to do (which was not much) and finished up with korean chicken wings from bonchon. there was also the requested angel food cake, some ginger snaps made from great-grandma frances' recipe, and i even put up some decorations.

yes, i am accepting nominations for wife of the year.

for his favorite memory of the past year, AWD picked our wedding. (naturally.) and for his goal for the next year, AWD picked getting back into some good habits he had when he was single that seem to have fallen by the wayside since we got married. (my bad.)

and, even though it wasn't my birthday, i am going to add that being married to AWD has been the best thing to happen to me in the past year, too. i am super glad he was born, and super super glad i get to be with him all the time forever.

last week our friend rachel asked us to be "expert" guest speakers in a marriage preparation class she was teaching for church. the topic was how the atonement of jesus christ can help you in a marriage relationship, and we had a really great time thinking and talking about it. we came up with a lot of ideas, but here is the one that stuck out most to me.

the atonement has helped me love and forgive myself even under the laboratory microscope of marriage, which seems to magnify every fault i have, including the ones i didn't even know i had. but, even more miraculously, it has increased my capacity to love AWD in a way that i never imagined.

this is barfy mushiness, but i really do love him more every day. he gets more hilarious, more kind, more handsome, more loving, more lovable and more a necessary part of my life. the atonement lets me see AWD as heavenly father sees him, and to love him the way heavenly father loves him. which is far more than my limited mortal capacity would ever allow. it is completely amazing to me, and i feel so thankful for it.

and, so thankful for AWD. now there's someone i'd be happy to celebrate every single day.