Dear Bryan

Dear Bryan,

I have been putting off this post all day because I still as I write am not sure exactly what to say.  I feel like I need some grand gesture to send off my project and labor of love for you for the last year.  As I reflect back on what I learned, I know this: my love for you has not changed except to grow exponentially with each passing day.  I don't know that I have managed to make sweeping changes in myself as a wife, though I know that I am no super-wife.  I believe that I have become more considerate and more aware of you and your needs and have learned to put us before me as part of my natural way of thinking.  I hope that I am providing a good example of what a wife should be for our daughter and that I am giving our sons ideas of the good things that they can expect from a marriage themselves one day without setting them up for expectations that their wives would hate me for :)  If nothing else, we can say that by the end of 2011, our regular side dish for steak has become mashed potatoes instead of boxed mac and cheese.  Knowing my lifelong aversion to potatoes, that should count for something right??

In all seriousness, my project may have ended today, but my ongoing desire to continue to improve my abilities as a wife has not.  I strive and pray to notice you more, to be attentive to your needs and desires, and to make us more important than me.  I am also striving to strengthen my personal relationship with my Savior, knowing that He must always be first in my life but that he gave you to me to be my second.  In 2012, I hope to continue to grow together as a couple, and it is my prayer that our growth will be in Him as much as in each other, for in that, our greatest strength must surely lay.

I want you to know from the bottom of my heart that you are the thing I am most grateful for on this earth, and my prayer each night is that we will one day celebrate our 50th anniversary together with all of our children by our side.  It is my fondest wish in this world, and I intended to enjoy each day with you that we are granted together, hopefully to that amazing landmark milestone and beyond.

Even after a year, I still cannot express to you how much I love you, but I promise to never quit trying.

You are my best friend, soul mate, and I love you so much.

I am ever yours,
Amy

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

Dearest Barney,

It is the holiday season again, and it has been so fun so far this year.  The children have loved Christmas this year, from putting up Christmas decorations to counting down on the advent calendar, the anticipation and joy in their faces has been so wonderful.

Christmas is always one of my favorite times of year with you, as I love the giving and receiving of presents from you, with each present designed to show our love and make the other one happy.  My "big" present to you this year is a wheelbarrow, with one each for both of our oldest children as well.  I love seeing you outside working in the yard with the children in tow.  It makes our new house feel like home in a way that our first house never quite did, even though it was very much our home.  There just feels like more of a sense of homeownership with this house.

I have several other odds and ends for you as well, but the other "big" gift that I have for you this year is a book of all of my writings and letters to you over the past year.  I will do one more post after this one, and then I will be hitting my one year mark, which will signal the close of this project, though certainly not the close of my determination to more carefully focus on you as a daily goal for the rest of my life.

I love you far more than I have ever adequately expressed in this project.

I am always, yours,

--me.