On the Tenth Day of Christmas

If you know me, then you know how much I love my husband. I think he is the bee’s knees. And while there are million things I love about him, but today I am going to share my top ten!

 Brandon has this amazing silly spirit. He has the ability to let loose and have fun in almost any situation. He can break out in a dance party in an instant, and he has the ability to lighten anyone’s mood. I have never met anyone who could make me smile like this man can.

In San Francisco.

Brandon being silly. 

My husband is a giver. He will give you the shirt off his back and then give the last twenty in his wallet. On top of that he loves to help fund the Kingdom of God!

Brandon holding Elisha's hands on his first amusement park ride.

Brandon is a great daddy. He is always down on the floor rolling around with the boys, he is kind and tender with them and is a great example of the love of our heavenly Father.

 My husband is brilliant and has a deep seated thirst for knowledge. I love that he loves learning about the Lord and the Bible.

My absolutely favorite thing about Brandon is that he has one of the tenderest hearts I have encountered. He is compassionate and has an unbelievably sweet spirit.

I love Brandon’s ambition. He dreams big and has caught a great glimpse of God’s vision.

I love that my husband is amazingly talented. He is artistic and creative and a genius, if I do say something myself. I love how he can pull entire worlds from his imagination.

Brandon is the wittiest person I know. He is quick. I am not sure how his brain functions that fast but he could be a stand up comedian if he wanted to. Humor is certainly something that isn’t lacking in our home, and I am sure that I will as we age our laugh lines won’t be fading, but hey, it is totally worth it to married to an amazingly funny man.

He can even make babies laugh!

If you know Brandon, you can probably guess that his love language is words of affirmation. It is easy to guess because he is so good at lavishing loving words on others. Brandon is a naturally born encourager. He is inspiring and uplifting and really sees the best in us.

 The absolute best thing about Brandon is that he is, without a doubt, a man after God’s own heart. He wants nothing more than to please his Lord. He is always seeking after the Lord and has a great desire to see the will of God carried out in his life and God glorified. This is, hands down, the best thing about my handsome husband!

The Twenty Four Books of Christmas

This year I decided to acquire and wrap 24 books about Christmas for my little men. Each night they get to unwrap one and we read it for our bedtime story. We are only a few days into the month but this has been so much fun.



Here are the books we are doing and I will try to update as often as I can and let you know what we thought of the books!

1. The Crippled Lamb 
2. Mortimer's Christmas Manger
3. Santa's Favorite Story
4. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
5. The Nightmare Before Christmas
6. Olive the Other Reindeer
7. The Polar Express
8. The Tale of Three Trees
9. God Gave Us Christmas
10. The Night Before Christmas
11. J is for Jesus (When we read this book my five year old pointed out that it is ridiculous to put a baby in a manger full of hay. Especially since babies are bald all over and hay is itchy and pokey. But, besides the downsides of hay, this book is adorable, geared toward a younger audience and catchy rhymy version of the gospel story.)
12. Humphrey's First Christmas
13. The Christmas Miracle of Jonathon Toomey
14. The Pirate's Night Before Christmas (This book is absolutely hilarious. It is short and super cute. We read it three times the night we unwrapped it and I can say with all sincerity that I enjoyed it as much as my children did. It even has a pirate glossary in the end to translate all the pirate words. Definitely worth owning because it is one you could read over and over again.)
15. The Gift of the  Magi (This is unquiestionably my favorite Christmas story, other than the Biblical account of Christ's birth of course. We read it every year, I never make it through without tearing up. It is a beautiful story of self sacrificing love. Because it was written quite a while ago you can get the full text of this short story on the internet. I would recommend reading this to your children even if you don't buy the book!)
16. The Nutcracker (This one is a classic but this version doesn't include much on all of the special trips that the little girl takes with the nutcracker. I honestly don't know enough about the original story to know whether those were just added in the ballet or whether they were edited to make the story shorter, either way, they are my favorite part but this was still a good book, especially for my 8 year old. The five year old lost interest in a few parts.)
17. Angela and the Baby Jesus
18. Only a Star
19. A Charlie Brown Christmas
20. Mary's First Christmas
21. The Wild Christmas Reindeer
22. The Lightlings
23. Who is that Knocking on Christmas Eve
24. Queen of Christmas