M.P.E.'s My M.V.P

Tomorrow is Mike's 32nd birthday and because we won't be getting online tomorrow, I thought I'd tell you today a little bit about him, maybe some things you don't already know.

First, if any of you have ever had us stay the night, or if you've stayed the night with us, or if you've stayed the night in our neighborhood or even in a neighboring town, you've probably noticed that he snores. Like a dang grizzly. I can sleep through it but ONLY if I fall asleep first, and that's a big "but". (Not like MY big butt, that's a whole other story)

He was the pickiest eater in the world when I met him. You may not believe me, a guy as big and cuddly as he was, but trust me. Maybe "picky" isn't the word I should use. How about, um...limited. He ate pancakes, and hamburgers, but no pickles, no mustard, no lettuce, no tomato. He didn't eat green or yellow or orange or red peppers because he thought they were HOT (which actually makes perfect sense to me now that I think of it. If you weren't used to eating them and you were approached with something called a "pepper", woudn't you make the same assumption?) and he never ate his eggs any way else but scrambled. Basically, if it wasn't meat + potatoes, he didn't eat it except for sometimes spaghetti, and sometimes scrambled eggs. Oh wait! Nevermind, he ate subs too. He liked subs, but only ones with meat and cheese. Sometimes he'd just make a sandwich with meat on bread and some cheese. Dry. Really. Now he not only eats everything we try (vietnamese, sushi, middle eastern food, mayonaisse, eggs over easy) but he actually cooks and invents things. Things the kids love. The other night he made homemade burritos with leftover pork roast and spices and rootbeer extract and sugarfree cherry koolaid (for real, and no it wasn't gross surprisingly) and taco seasoning and and and. Um, I don't remember what else he put in there, but it was good.

He sits in silence while he works with his headphones on, always. He can be home for 2 hours and the kids don't know he's here because he can come up to the office and start working on his side-jobs and we don't even hear a peep because he even types quietly. He's a funny guy. Oh and he hates to have his picture taken. See here:



He played football all of his life, even through college, but now he doesn't turn on a game unless one of us wants to watch. He keeps up on them, and since one of us always has a game on this time of the year, he watches them but I'll never come home and find him watching by himself. Can I tell you how awesome that is? I never have to fight Eli Manning for some love and attention from Mike. Ever. (oh and he's the one on the top left in the football picture below) Oh and speaking of the picture, we just went to a wedding for the shorter guy in the middle, and every one of the guys in the picture were there, as well as many many other friends Mike's had over the years. That's one more thing about Mike. When he makes you his friend, he means it, and he means it for life.




He kisses me every morning when he leaves for work. He seeks me out and kisses me every day when he gets home. If he's running to the store on Saturday, he kisses me goodbye. If he's going to a meeting for an hour, he kisses me when he leaves. He can't know how awesome this is for me. I'm used to it now, but when we first started this, I had not ever experienced this, so every time he was kissing me goodbye, I thought he was driving off into the sunset for good. I mean, at that point, who could blame him? He married a lady with 4 kids!

Speaking of those 4 kids, they adore this man. On Saturday mornings, the first thing I wake up to is one of them screaming "MIIIIIIIIIIIIIICHAELLLLLLLLLLL!!! Come see this!!!" It's always some YouTube video of some crazy new video game, or some cat who likes to swim, or a baby who blows bubbles with their nose or something gross that they know he'd appreciate. When it's dinner time, they know to look to him when someone will ask "who's saying the prayer?" When Tiff comes home from dates, she comes to him first to tell him about what she did. When Kenzie gets asked out (again and again) by boys at the park, she comes home and says "Guess what boy asked me on a date?" *insert much eyebrow raising* When Jonah has a new flock of girls chasing him, he will come in and tell Mike about what a playa he is. (Mike thinks this is awesome and hilarious every time) When Casey needs help with anything, he comes to Mike first. Sometimes I'll get Casey's homework folder on Friday and it will have been signed for all of the previous days by none other than the one and only Michael Easley. That's love for you, people.

Harper thinks the world revolves around the man. 'Nuff said. (look at the lips on those boys down there! Absurd.)


Heck, I think the world revolves around the man. Well, I think the world revolves around us. Actually, I'm just glad to be IN the world with him. He showed me that really, you can be married and never raise your voice. That really, you can be married and treat each other nicely. That really, you can have really amazing and intelligent conversations when you're married. That really, you can share yourself with someone and not expect anything back. I think he's pretty darn neat, and I really believe that one day eons ago, God said "I'm going to make someone who fits perfectly 100% with this other person and when they find each other, they will know what Life really is about". Thank goodness I found him. No, thank the Lord.

(photo above by one of our favorite friends together, the amazing Brooks Ayola)

(oh and for Mike's birthday, I'm giving him a baby, but it's on back-order til March. (thanks Christina for the "back-order" idea part. You crack me up girl))