100 Things I Love About My Wife

There are thousands of things I love about my wife. Here are 100 of them.
by Matt Michaelis

1) She has a genuine interest in how I am doing.
2) She is great at asking questions.
3) She loves Koalas.
4) She knows how to word things in potentially sticky situations.
5) She understands how I work, despite how complicated I am.
6) She finds joy in being in “her kitchen.”
7) She has developed a good balance between being a “doer” and a “relaxer.”
8) She has developed a strong sensitivity to people’s feelings.
9) She has freckles.
10) She receives energy from socializing.
11) She has a smile that radiates happiness.
12) She understands how I best need to handle setbacks.
13) She treats everyone the same—as if they were her friend.
14) She loves chocolate.
15) She ran a marathon only a year after picking up running.
16) She gets over things fast.
17) She understands how hard I try at various things.
18) She is outgoing and friendly, much more than I could ever be.
19) She makes me feel like I’m funny.
20) She will let someone in as far as they are comfortable enough to go, and she will befriend someone as far as they are comfortable enough to be befriended.
21) She is good at cultivating an eternal perspective.
22) She sees me for all my positive characteristics.
23) She tries to cultivate righteous desires.
24) Her “maturity rate” is exponential. She has grown so much in our marriage, and I mean that as a compliment.
25) She is a hard worker—in everything—she isn’t the type of person that lives life in 2nd gear. She is passionate in everything she does.
26) Deep down inside, she is a little girl — who likes to dress up, has a curiosity of unicorns and princesses, and will always be willing to watch “Never Ending Story.”
27) She has worked hard over the years and become an amazing cook — but not by most people’s standards. She specializes in things that are fat free, whole wheat, and sugar free...and makes them taste amazingly good.
28) She is a bargain shopper. She is a coupon nazi and has the humility to shop for clothes at a thrift store.
29) She is, because, she cuddles.
30) She works hard to set up dates with me by finding babysitters and bargains for date activities.
31) She wants “us time” more than “me time.”
32) She is always trying to get me to watch chick flicks.
33) She is non-judgmental and good at giving people the benefit of the doubt.
34) She likes being outdoors and enjoys traveling to new places.
35) She is very smart, but is not cocky about it.
36) She always knows what’s going on in a movie.
37) She is financially savvy.
38) She loves berries.
39) She is calm when our kids are sick.
40) She copes well when she operates on little sleep, and is actually quite amusing.
41) She is good at persevering through trials.
42) She would rather be in harmony with me over winning a battle.
43) She is not the type of person who will go off and do something crazy — she is a homebody.
44) She loves the beach.
45) She laughs.
46) She gets down on the floor and plays with her kids.
47) She is very much in touch with her aesthetic Autumn.
48) She loves planning social gatherings.
49) She cares about family more than self.
50) She leaves overly thorough phone messages.
51) She is an amazing dancer, and always whines about missing dancing with me.
52) She is a strong woman — she doesn’t complain much.
53) She is passionate about molding our kids’ little minds.
54) Though she rarely knows which way is north, she always knows where everything is at.
55) She is great at assessing whether something is important or not — I confider in her because she has a great ability to sift what should be focused on in a situation.
56) She is an open-minded person.
57) She makes birthdays and holidays so fun and special, to say the very least.
58) She makes our kids feel so validated for their accomplishments.
58) She is committed to magnifying her callings.
59) Whatever is important to me, or our kids, is important to her. She can watch a basketball game or pretend to be a transformer as required.
60) She is passionate and knowledgeable about health and fitness.
61) She is faithful.
62) She always says she is not attracted to other guys, and I believe her.
63) She is a good prayer, she makes things very heartfelt.
64) She exercises hard — she puts her aerobics students through boot camp too.
65) She is always the type of person that I will always be attracted to — pregnancy weight or not, make up on or not. She has no clue how beautiful she really is. Sometimes I like that but sometimes I really wish she would see herself as I do.
66) She is sympathetic.
67) She is a very clean person.
68) Having been an artist, she understands and appreciates artistic and creative endeavors in others.
69) She is a very good runner. She consistently finishes in the top 10 percent of females in all races she runs.
70) She is patient with me about the things that I do that bother her.
71) For some reason, and I don’t know why, I know that she will never talk bad about me to her friends.
72) She is not politically stubborn.
73) She is great at teaching gospel principles to our kids.
74) She loves spending time with my family.
75) She loves flip flops.
76) When she is pregnant, she waddles.
77) When she is not pregnant, she walks with confidence.
78) She is service-oriented. She often makes cookies for those who may be having a hard time.
79) When I’ve had a bad day she tries harder to make a good meal.
80) She will read as many books to our children as they want in one sitting.
81) She is great at answering our children’s questions.
82) It is impossible for her to have cookies without milk.
83) She is very laid back.
84) The first thing she does when I get home from work is talk to me. I love that because the last thing I want to talk about when I get home is work.
85) She is great about initiating the spiritual things when I forget to.
86) When we were engaged, she wanted more than anything to secure the possibility of a temple marriage, so she initiated setting rules for physical expression.
87) She has a wonderfully developing sense of humor.
88) She enjoys musicals.
89) When she hears a catchy love song for the first time, she repeatedly sings it (while bobbing her head) for the following few days.
90) She gets so much out of watching her favorite TV show is “The Biggest Loser.”
91) Whenever I commit serious fashion faux pas, like wear socks and sandals, she politely recommends alternatives.
92) With our boys being mamma’s boys, she always tries to find ways to get them to want to do things with me.
93) She is adamant about taking pictures of our family.
94) She is very unselfish.
95) She really wants to go see France with me someday.
96) When our kids are not around us the first thing she does is hold my hand.
97) She makes running any type of errand seem doable and stress-free.
98) Honestly, I can talk about anything with her.
99) Her personality stands out in a crowded room. Like sunshine breaking through the clouds.
100) I love her because she is Autumn, and she is the love of my life.

Big Bad Five!

Wow, my baby is 5 years old. Am I qualified to have a 5 year old? Of course, I have been asking if I am qualified since Nathan was born. I still feel far from qualified to be the one in charge around here, but here we are nonetheless now with a 5, 3, and 1 year old.

My mom asked me why I was giving Nathan a birthday party when I gave him one last year and said they would only get them on their even-yeared birthdays. I told her it was because we had moved to a new area. Like that means anything. Really, I just love a good party. Plain and simple. I love to throw them and, go figure, my kids like to have them, so it's a great relationship. So, instead of presents, my kids are probably always going to get parties from me (or the choice of either) - at least until they get old enough to demand expensive parties.

(*Though, mom confession - I couldn't handle two days of birthday celebration, since I do like to make a big deal of birthdays. So, I pretended like his birthday and birthday party were on the same day, when they were actually one day apart. But, since the kid doesn't even know the days of the week or months yet, I am assuming he will be fairly unscarred from this pretense).

Unlike Carter, Nathan's primary class has about 13 kids in it (Carter only has a handful of kids his age), and almost all boys. So, I chose to keep it inclusive and invite almost the whole gang, plus a few hero-worshipped 6 year olds, and a buddy who is 4.

I was proud of myself though - I didn't take the easy route and buy all the nicely premade transformer things ready to go for the price of one of your appendages in the store - you know, the transformer invitations, masks, napkins, cups, plates, party bag goodies, etc. I knew with that many kids to keep costs down I would be going the homemade route.

It started with the invitations. Thanks BYU for my art education that I almost used to get an Art Major, then almost an Art Minor (officially, nothing at all - I stopped 4 credits short of the minor in boycott of the ridgid program and a critical teacher or two that brought me to tears - but that's another story). I don't do much art these days, though still enjoy it. My latest creation I am proud of - sad to say, these pop up invitations.

Pretty nifty, eh?

The party itself was a blast - I honestly had a good time. We did energon cube races (energon is the source of transformer power), which was just the good old marshmallow on a spoon race, Transformer bingo, Transformer memory, Optimus Prime says (same as simon says). Matt did the Optimus Prime says and it was great - the kids were captivated as Matt had them punch bad guys, jump in circles, do all kinds of fun silly noises.

Energon cube races:

Transformer bingo (when they got a bingo they said, "Autobots transform and roll out!" It was very cute). Thank you wide world web for providing me access to someone elses' hard work in making these great transformer bingo cards!

Transformer bowling:

Optimus prime says (with each kids face very serious as they punched those bad guys!)

Then we had a little intermission for a pizza dinner (thank you $5 little cesear deal!). My favorite was Nathan's hero Ashton (one of the 6 year olds) who had a blob of sauce on his forehead all of dinner because "Benny triple dog dared me to put my pizza on my forehead"! Finally, we played everyone's favorite game: Decepticon bombing. Aka - throwing 150 water balloons at 4 bad guy pictures taped onto my garage door (since we have no backyard, had to do it in the driveway). Amazingly enough, everyone listened to my threats and no one threw them at each other and came back inside fairly dry (I know, I was either brave or crazy doing water balloons, but I just knew it would be a hit and braved it nonetheless).

Finally, our half autobot half decepticon birthday cake and ice cream with presents. Nathan's friends couldn't handle the anticipation and definitley helped him open his presents, but everyone seemed to just enjoy the excitement.

The whole birthday gang (yes, just one little girl. Nathan was convinced she wouldn't want to come because it was such a "boy" type party, but I told him to invite her and let her chose. She is a tough cookie and if anything has those boys running circles around HER not the other way around!)

Nathan you are a cute, intellegent, cuddle bug and we love what you bring to our family! We can't wait to see what another year will bring! Happy birthday kiddo!