As much as I’d like to say my beautiful kiddos are my Valentines, they are not. They are sweet. They are beautiful. They light up my life and I would do anything for them.

But they will grow up and move on. They will (hopefully) fall in love themselves and have families of their own. Where will that leave me?

With Juice. I am so lucky to be able to say that I get to spend the rest of my life with Juice. He is so kind, so considerate, so compassionate. To know that I get to grow old with him makes me so happy. So here’s a list of 14 things I love about my love on Valentine’s Day.

1. He always smiles when he sees me. Even if I haven’t showered in days, the house is a mess, children are hanging off of me and snotty, he always smiles.

2. He fixes things. Sometimes I feel a little sad that I can’t go out and buy a new appliance or something because he always fixes it. Sometimes I am thrilled that he fixed it because then I don’t have to get a new one. But I love that he CAN fix anything and does if I ask him to.

3. He cares about others. Who else would have spent 3 hours in a snow storm pushing cars up hills and digging people out? Who else would see our neighbor cleaning off his car with a shovel no bigger than his fore arm and rush out with our shovel to loan to him? He enjoys serving others and inspires me to do the same.

4. He takes our faith seriously. I have recently seen how important this is to our happiness together. I am so glad he is strong in his faith.

5. He loves those kids. He is SUCH a good Daddy. He is always on the floor playing with them or reading to them or teaching them. At the end of the day, I can barely pull them away from him to each dinner or get ready for bed. I love that he’s such a hands on Daddy.

6. His hair. It’s a silly thing, I know. But he has the most awesome thick straight hair I’ve ever seen. It has a natural part and is rarely out of place. He has so many little natural highlights in his hair too. I hope one of our kids got this hair.

7. He works hard. His job is important to him, but not as important as our family. I like it this way. Yes, I know he will never be the boss or high up in the company with that attitude, but I don’t want him to be. I want him to spend time with us. I love that he knows that is more important.

8. He loves to read. Granted he doesn’t read that much, but he understands my obsession with books because he also loves to read. Plus, we like to read the same stuff.

9. He is focused. Sometimes this gets him in trouble (like when he gets focused on a computer game) but I like that he is not pulled in tons of directions all the time.

10. He loves his family. He is the baby brother to some pretty awesome siblings. He may not talk to them much, but I know he really loves to when he does. His parents are always included in his daily prayers. And his 14 nieces and nephews have a mutual admiration society together. He says it’s sad that he will only ever have 14 since everyone is done having kids. He would love as many as he could get.

11. He is patient. This is a good trait for him. He is so patient with the kids. When he does loose his patience, I know it’s my turn to step up and get some of my own patience. He’s teaching me a lot about it.

12. He loves to vacuum. He also picks up all the toys to do the vacuuming. I rarely have to do it. Awesome! He also does the dishes every night, helps me fold laundry, cleans bathrooms and sweeps. He is also really great at shoveling snow.

13. He makes amazing waffles. It may be my recipe, but I can never make them as fluffy and wonderful as he does. He made some for us this morning. Butterfly had 2, Professor had 2 and Pirate had 1 1/2. I also love that he tried to get up early enough to bring some up to bed for breakfast for me this morning. Sadly, kids got up before he could make them. Still, I love that he thought of it!

14. He is all mine. I don’t know why this gives me so much pleasure, but it does.

He is a GREAT Valentine.

Safire