Happy Daddy Day!

A moment to honor my favorite dads...

My Dad: It has been nine years since my dad has been around for Father's Day. He was in a coma for his last Father's day so I guess it's been more like 10. He was such a hard worker. He loved yardwork, which was not something I really loved doing as a child or young adult, but it's become a passion over the past couple of years. We would joke that he would work in a yard, make it become as beautiful as it could possibly be, and then we'd have to move because there was nothing left he could do to it. Probably why we moved every five years :) He loved making things grow and making our homes beautiful. He always "protected" his two girls by making the boys mow the lawn, but I'm proud to say I think he'd think my lawn lines were straight as I am a co-primary lawn mower for our rental, and hopefully by next year, this house. He loved music. He loved to write music, he could feel songs. I have been so long without a piano I think I've lost that a bit, but I hope in time, it's something that will come back. He had a testimony of the Savior, and loved his family very much. He would have been an amazing grandpa, and I find comfort in knowing that at some point he got to meet each of my sweet babies on the other side. It's also comforting to know that my children have him watching over them as they go through this life...in this crazy world I can use all the help I can get making sure they turn out all right!

Bryan's Dad: This is our first father's day without Dad, so it's a bit surreal. He was also a very hard worker, to the extreme sometimes. He loved to create, he loved to beautify. When we were working on this house together, and I'd be carting Asher around on my back while doing this or that, he'd call me "pioneer girl." That was my favorite compliment from him...that someone who worked as hard as he did thought I worked hard meant more to me than he ever knew. He loved his grandchildren. Even when he was hurting constantly, he made time for the kids, coming up with this project or that. One of the last things I remember them doing together was sorting a huge bucket of pens into piles of ones that worked and ones that didn't. Zerin, Liah and Aeden all helped him scribble on scrap papers testing each and every pen...there were hundreds! He had a gift with words, and a testimony that has carried through to each of his children. Those who knew him had no doubts as to his love for his Savior.

Bryan: I'm always singing Bryan's praises on here, even if he is a punk half the time ;) so bear with me as I do it again. Bryan is the kind of dad I think most dads would hope they are or can be. He LOVES being with his kids. Anything he is doing, he is always involving and including them. You would be hard pressed to find him without at least two of them when he isn't at work. He has been home for the last two weeks, and I always learn so much about being a mother by watching him be with the children. He manages his time around his family and how he can spend the most possible time with each of his sweet kids.

This last year, as he hasn't been feeling well, pretty much all the time, I have watched him master his body as he puts that pain aside to put on a happy face and play baseball, or build a treehouse, or dig a hole for a pond, or take all 4 kids on a bike ride, or a hundred other things he does with his kids each and every day. He has even helped me tackle potty training with Aeden.

He has taught our kids to pray for each other. A few weeks ago, when his turn would come around in family prayer, he would go through person by person, and thank Heavenly Father and ask for blessings on behalf of each individual in our family. Family prayer now takes twice as long as each of our kids do the same thing. I think every one of them has prayed Aeden will use the big boy potty this week because last night he finally got #2 in the potty!!! Our children know the Savior because they can see Bryan knows Him. They have faith in the power of the priesthood because they have seen and felt his priesthood blessings provide miracles and relief. They have watched him deal with physical pain most of their lives (some of them all of their lives) and are gleening from that example one way of overcoming the natural man.

When I was dating, weighing if this person was right or if that person was right, one of my biggest qualifications was what kind of father would they be? Would he be ready to give a blessing at any time, would he play with the kids when he got home from work or be too busy playing golf or reading the paper, would he be willing to help change diapers, and on and on. I admit, looking at it now, my list was fairly incomplete. But in the best-case-scenarios that I imagined in my mind, I couldn't have hoped for a better father for my children than Bryan. He's my hero :)