1. His squinty eyes (that nearly disappear when he smiles).
2. His brown skin.
3. His deep dimples.
4. His pearly white smile.
5. His black, shiny hair.
6. His hands.
7. His broad shoulders.
8. The way he can coax me out of grumpiness.
9. All the private jokes we share.
10. His never-ending movie-knowledge.
11. He builds.
12. He paints (art).
13. He acts.
14. He sings.
15. He writes.
16. He kisses really, really well.  He is just such a good kisser.
17. The foot rubs, omygosh, the foot rubs!…!
18. He gets me, and I am pretty un-gettable.
19. He lets me choose the movies I want to watch.
20. He is not threatened by chick-flicks because he understands the rewards of seeing them with me.
21. He lets me choose the restaurants I want to go to.
22. He cooks for me. 
23. He knows when I just cannot face the kitchen and he feeds me food to soothe my soul.
24. He buys me junk food even when I have sworn off of it and hides it until I really need it.
25. He stashes candy bars around for emergency chocolate fixes.
26. He secretly charts my months and knows exactly when to appease me entirely.  This is an art!
27. His hugs, my safe place.
28. Sleeping snuggled to his arm and shoulder, my other safe place.
29. The backrubs (though he stinks at back-scratching, I am sorry to say).
30. He washes my clothes and hangs them before they have a chance to wrinkle!
31. He organizes my closet – by color!
32. He plays with my hair while we watch TV.
33. He threw out that shirt I hated!
34. He was a we’re-in-this-thing-together kind of dad.  He never “babysat” our kids – he daddy’ed them!
35. He changed as many diapers as I did.
36. There wasn’t ever, ever: it’s-your-turn-with-the-kids, because it was always all of us together ~ a family.
37. He loves me.
38. He loves his family.
39. He is the most loyal man I have ever known.
40. He would do anything, lay down anything, pay any amount of money for me or our kids.
41. When I was pregnant, he never let me vacuum or do laundry.  Sometimes we still play that game!  Or we play “Queen for the Night” and that is fun, too!
42. He likes to hear me sing.
43. He reads all my blogs.
44. When I was having a total meltdown a few years back, he would quote scriptures over me until I could sleep.  He knows hundreds of scriptures.  Sometimes that was the only thing that kept me afloat.
45. He prays for me.
46. He hears from God on my behalf and speaks into my heart.
47. Sometimes I will wake up in the middle of the night and hear him praying for our family beside me in bed.  Those moments make me love him more.
48. He is humble.  He is sometimes too hard on himself.
49. He is a finisher. 
50. No matter how hard life gets, he keeps going and…he keeps staying.

Dave turns 50 on March 23.  You can tell him HAPPY BIRTHDAY here at the blog, or here: dave@daverhoades.com