Happy Birthday Joel!

Joel turned 30 on Thursday. Old! Being the thoughtful wife that I am, I made arrangements to have a huge dinner for him, complete with turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, pumpkin pie . . . haha, I'm not really that thoughtful. Some might think that it would be a little anti-climactic to have your birthday on Thanksgiving, but we had a great time. Joel's mom came into town, and she made him a yummy crepe birthday breakfast, which we ate under the crepe birthday streamers I had put up all over the kitchen. Then, we baked/cooked away in preparation for Thanksgiving dinner. I had all of Joel's family members and in-laws email me a favorite memory and/or thoughts about Joel, and I put each one into a little card. My plan was to give him one every hour on the hour, but since I ended up with 22 cards, I just ended up handing them out randomly throughout the day. Kind of overwhelming to be loved so much, huh? I think it was pretty easy for people to come up with thoughts about such a wonderful, lovable guy.
(this post is sort of constantly going to be morphing between birthday post and Thanksgiving post, so hang on tight)
One of my contributions to the Thanksgiving dinner was a ginger-meringue pumpkin pie that I had read about in a magazine. It ended up tasting like nothing special, but it sure looked pretty, if I do say so myself.

Then we went over to Stephen and Meghan's house to put it all together. The resultant dinner was super yummy and definitely helped us feel grateful for all of our blessings. I should have taken a picture of the lovely spread, complete with cranberry ball centerpieces, but I didn't. It was beautiful, though.
We played outside for a bit while we waited for the finishing touches on dinner. Here is Dane in his Thanksgiving outfit, refusing to look at the camera:

Here is Lauren in her fancy Nancy dress:

My mom made Dane a little harvest bow tie to complete his little outfit.

Then, Meghan announced that it was mandatory nap-taking time, so we all obeyed. Once we were all refreshed, Joel blew out birthday candles on his birthday pecan pie, we sang him every birthday song any of us had ever heard, and he opened some presents.


Here are Kenji and Dane, looking equally bemused:

All in all, it was a happy, full day (in more ways than one).
To conclude, here are thirty things about Joel that you may or may not know (this idea was taken from Laci's birthday tribute to her husband, Christian)
1. He would happily eat pecan pie over practically any other dessert, hence the birthday pecan pie.
2. He has huge, gorgeous feet.
3. He makes everyone laugh.
4. He is thoughtful and helpful.
5. He has a million creative ideas a day.
6. He has a great sense for good editing and film making in general.
7. He loves his family.
8. He wrestles with Dane and makes him laugh uncontrollably.
9. He often runs home from the train station to see me and Dane as soon as possible.
10. He is smart, witty, and insightful.
11. He doesn't like being in a crowd but is perfectly comfortable being in front of a big crowd.
12. He does all the vacuuming and ironing in our house.
13. He gets nervous when ordering at a restaurant and often ends up ordering something he didn't really want. This is very funny to me.
14. He has an amazing talent for impersonating voices and mannerisms. Ask him to impersonate anybody, and he can most likely do it with uncanny resemblance.
15. He'd rather eat Grapenuts or plain Cheerios than any cereal that is remotely sweet, which baffles me.
16. He is a talented pancake maker and flipper of any food that needs flipping.
17. He has the ability to stay awake during any movie, no matter how late or boring, but will often fall asleep if I am trying to have a conversation with him at night. I am starting to get suspicious.
18. He is very popular. Even now, almost four years after graduating, we can't walk across BYU campus without someone that knows him striking up a conversation.
19. He has pretty much kicked his lifelong habit of biting his fingernails.
20. There is pictoral evidence that he once posed for a high school picture wearing bib overalls and no shirt. Yes, he was flexing. No, I don't have that picture. But if I ever lay hands on it...
21. He is not a fan of dogs, but he puts up with my family's two pugs.
22. He carries a handkerchief.
23. He is honest and hardworking.
24. When necessary, he contributes to the "swear jar," even if I was not there to hear it.
25. He always lets me choose the restaurant when we go out to eat.
26. He claims to love almost everything I make for dinner.
27. He is very strong.
28. He is generous with his time, talents, and service.
29. He is a wonderful father and husband.
30. He is mine forever, and I love him!
Happy Birthday, Joel!