Today

These are the days I love. Not to sound lazy, but I have just been thoroughly enjoying just being home today! It seems Blakely is enjoying herself as well!

Sunday Snapshots

Today we celebrated Mom's __ Birthday! (You like that Mamma?) 

Here are some pictures:

& here are some from our visit to Mema's house today:

Playing with Aunt Deanne & Amy

Happy Sunday!

Papa's Garden

Even with nobody to maintain his garden-

Family at the Lake

The weather at the lake this week was gorgeous! Definitely not 'laying out' weather but just extremely beautiful! We are so lucky to have such a beautiful space to enjoy God's wonders.

These pups were in Heaven!!!

Uncle Gray Gray with Blakely

My favorite!

That's a vizsla for you...

Fighting over the ball

My LOVE!

God's Promise Sky

As a little girl one of my most prominent memories is hearing my mom speak of God's "promise sky".  I have so many memories flood my head of going through troubled times and then seeing the most amazing sight-a sky truly painted by our great creator himself. My mom would ooooh and ahhh over it while speaking to me of our savior and His promise of never leaving us or forsaking us. She would tell me whenever she saw this sky, she felt warmth, love, joy and peace-no matter the circumstance. As a family, this past Tuesday (the day before burying my beloved grandmother) this is the beautiful 'promise sky' God painted on his grand canvas.  

Grandmommy is now dancing upon the great streets of gold, reunited with her husband, parents, and brother as of Saturday night. She is now able to breathe freely and know no more pain. In some ways, I am so extremely joyful yet in so much pain. This past week has forced me to reflect on my life and my true purpose. Why am I so selfish? I am so rigid with routine, errands and 'my time'. I fill my mind with so much meaningless stuff-mainly material stuff I want and things that need to be done, and memories that I want to create...I have come to realize that my main focus is making Kate happy. Anything that causes discomfort is pushed away or avoided at all costs.

I realized this week that one entire generation has moved on in my family and I now fill the spot my mother has filled for the past 26 years. Funny as it may sound, I think it is finally sinking in that I am a mother and my mother is a grandmother. How did I get here? Where did my youth go? 

More than anything, God gave me an insightful gift with the passing of my sweet Grandmother. A gift that hopefully will not swift by but will dwell within me for the remainder of time I am left on this earth. I am not here to be comfortable. I am here, as a child of God, to glorify Him. I am here for the sole purpose of bringing him glory. Life is so short and before I know it I will be in the 'grandparent' generation. I am now seeing my life through new eyes. Eyes that yearn to soak up each and every moment of every single day. Eyes that desperately want to make a difference for my Father while I am here on earth. Eyes that see selfishness and long to for once be selfless.

Watch Me Grow-10 Months Old

I seriously feel like I was just posting about Blakely's 9 month old stage just a day ago, but here we are at the 10 month mark. She is so happy these days. The pictures did not turn out at all because she literally never sits still, not even for a second!

This is an extremely common face that we are seeing these days! I love it =)

Pulling up on everything!

Since our scale is in need of some weirdly different battery, I have no idea what her weight is. She has definitely gotten heavier though-trust me. I will have to go over to my mom's sometime to get a weight for the month.

Length: I'll fill this in later too (she is taking a nap)

• Diaper size: 3
• 12 month/sometimes 18 month clothing 
• As for the napping-this girl can sleep! Just after the time changed two weeks ago she was sleeping in until around 9:00, then going back down an hour later until lunch, then again going down an hour after that until her 3:00 bottle, and then again after that one! I really messed up her schedule being at the lake this whole week though (didn't sleep at night & missed quite a few naps) SO she is literally sleeping all day and all night these past few days. I mean she slept until 9:45 this morning...I guess she is growing! 
• Eating is going very good! She loves crackers. My dad gave her a whole club cracker without me knowing. (I'm paranoid of her choking & break everything into teeny tiny bites) She did great with it though, so I have been giving her that lately! She also LOVES yogurt, cheese, bananas and blueberry waffles. She still likes green beans, sweet potatoes, carrots, squash, applesauce, pears, peaches and so on...She doesn't give me any trouble with the table food however, she hasn't been cooperating with her bottle. Sometimes she eats it all and other times not even an ounce! I can't figure it out-I have just learned to go with it though. I just remind myself that she knows when she needs to eat and when she isn't hungry. One thing is for sure-this child isn't starving! =) 

Blakely, you are at such a fun stage right now. You are into EVERYTHING! You love crawling to our bookshelf that the TV is on and pull yourself right up. You go through each and every basket, taking out every DVD one at a time. You love your house and spend so much time ringing the doorbell and opening and closing the window. One of your favorite things is when me or dad goes to the other side of the door and you see us through and open the door for us to come on through. You love books. You love to play in the bath. You love playing with your bath toys even when you aren't in the bath. When I am cleaning up in the morning-you will crawl in the bathroom and go to your toys behind the door and just hit them together and of course put them all in your mouth. The other day I was taking a bath and you were totally wrapped up in playing. Then I saw those adorable tiny fingers grab the top of the tub & there you were peeking over at me! I have never witnessed a smile that huge! You really melt my heart! You LOVE elmo & his song-LA LA LA LA-when I sing it you go crazy! You love standing on the couch with your arms on the back cushions. You will jump and squeal! You come to us when we call you & that makes both me and your dad so happy! You love other people-in the grocery store, at someone's house-wherever-you just love the attention! I have never seen someone stare the way you do. I guess you are just taking in everything and everyone! You LOVE your Zizi. The sweetest thing happened yesterday. Zizi was sleeping on the couch and I was feeding you your bottle. You crawled over to her and laid on top of her (head and all) you cuddled like that for a couple of minutes! We tried to get a picture, but of course Zizi heard the camera coming out of the bag! You love music-nothing calms you more than 'be thou my vision'. You love your Mimi and Kaki! You love Sleepie & Raphie Oh, you LOVE LOVE LOVE paper. You would eat an entire notebook I'm afraid, if I let you! You love hearing yourself make noise & most of all you love sleeping! 

There are not many things you don't like at this stage. You are an extremely difficult little person to change - diaper and clothes. You don't like having to sit still! Your two top teeth are coming through & you don't like that (who would)? You really don't like when I try to feed you and you don't want to eat!

I love you so dearly Blakely! You are such a precious gift to all of us! We are so blessed because of you! 

Jail Buddies

It is so hard to believe it's already time for us to baby proof our house. Thanks to my handy husband, we got this sucker drilled into our wall at the top of our stairs. Blakely loves it, Zizi not so much! Since Blakely is pulling up and standing whenever and wherever she can, this little gate is perfect for her. She  has really gotten the hang of the whole pulling up and standing bit. In fact, I plan on going to go buy one of those activity centers that she can play with while standing up. It is amazing to see the progression each and every day of our little buddy. Just a few short days until we are looking at 10 months-whaaat?

Good Morning Sunshine

This is what I have been waking up to lately:

She is so sweet when she wakes up in the morning. No more crying from this little one-only coos and giggles. She is such a precious gift! This whole time change bit has thrown her off a bit. She has been sleeping in until around 9 every morning this week! Gotta admit that I'm loving the time to myself!

Happy 2 Years!

What a ride it has been! Many really wonderfully great moments, followed by some "There is no way I'm gonna get through today without shutting my eyes and grasping my savior's hand in attempt to survive kinda moments". We have seen more in these 2 years than some see in a lifetime! I couldn't have made it through with anyone else! I love you so much Clint! It definitely could have been worse but let's see...We got married, bought a house, got pregnant, lost a job (which lasted my entire pregnancy...), had a baby & got a new job...whew! and that isn't all of it, just the major stuff!

Let's reminisce if you will:

Terribly dark picture I know, it is sadly the only one I have of the two of us on my computer. I never got a disc of our wedding-just a hard copy album. I'll have to see about scanning in some of the good ones!

Here is one of our wonderful honeymoon in the bahamas:

man oh man, what I would give to be there right now!

Then we have "March-ish" 2010:

(Pretty sure this was taken on Easter last year. I didn't really take any pictures of me when I was pregnant...so I don't actually have one of our anniversary last year which was spent in Atlanta-ooops!)

Then we have this year:

We had an amazing night out at The Cheesecake Factory. Thanks Mom & Dad for watching Blakely! We really enjoyed ourselves. We are hoping for a calm year #3 of marriage! Just time to soak in our family and the precious time we have with Blakely as an innocent baby. 

I really do want to thank you Clint for being my everything. You have shown me so much strength these past 5 years of knowing you. I have grown in so many ways and most of which is thanks to you. You are such an amazing blessing in our lives. Thank you for your love and support. We all love you so very much! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! Here's to a wonderful year #3!