Finding Peace

Well my sweet girl, you have officially been our everything for 2 months today. Two months ago we knew that our lives were about to change, but we had just no idea how much brighter, how much crazier, and how much more fun our days were about to be. We had no idea how much more we were going to smile, or how proud we were going to be or just how in love with you and with eachother we were about to be. In the last two months you have changed SO much, and sometimes we even find ourselves talking about "when you were little," as though you weren't little anymore! Your Auntie Carrie sent me a beautiful poem the other day, and it made me cry, because I don't want any of these precious moments to pass. Even the hard moments are wonderful, and although other amazing moments will happen every day, I almost wish that these ones would stick around forever. My darling, at about 6 weeks you started to coo (for your Daddy who didn't know what "coo" meant, it me...

 There is something about the word "Mom" that makes me just a little bit emotional these days. Perhaps it is partly because I am now a Mom myself, but I think it is mostly because I am realizing, on a whole new level, just how much my Mom has been to me, continues to be to me, and is now to my daughter. My sweet girl is nearly two months old, and as we were driving back from a visit with Ava's Auntie Carrie, Uncle Derran, and Cousin Austen today, my mind went back to the day that she was born and how important the role that my Mom played on those two days was. After many hours of contractions, Brady and I called my Mom and Dad and headed to the hospital. They got there just in time for us to be sent home as my contractions were not yet close enough. Dad went back to Carrie's house and Mom came home with Brady and I, to help me through contractions, to rub my back, to make me soup, to do whatever it was that I needed her to do. She laid in bed with me holding...

What a whole different experience Christmas is going to be for us, now that Ava is in our world. This year we spent Christmas with Brady's family, in Westbank, at his Nana and Papa's house. It was sure special to be able to not only introduce our sweet girl to two very important people in our lives, but also to be able to spend Christmas with them. Ava quickly learned that Nana would be her go-to when she needed soothing and that Papa would be the one to make her laugh. Ava started getting ready to smile a few days before we left for Westbank, and her Dad claims that he had been seeing the smiles for  couple of days, but I saw my first big gummy grin two days before Christmas, as her Daddy and I were giving her a bath in the kitchen sink. To think that after our first experience giving her a bath weeks ago, I was sure she was going to hate it! After she broke through with that big smile, there was no holding back for the rest of our visit, it was so nice for Brady to be ...