3 years ago today at 9:22pm, a little girl entered our lives…

changing us forever.

I tend to sit and reflect on my children’s birthdays (or even my own). Birthdays aren’t just about celebrating for me, but a time to look back and see the growth, changes, and looking forward to what is to come this new birth year.

I honestly have a hard time remembering Savannah ever being that tiny newborn pictured above, or even as a toddling one year old.  It seems like we’ve always had this intelligent, curious, sassy little girl.

The two’s were filled with…well…two year old behavior. One minute she was my best little buddy and the next she was throwing a tantrum because it was time to leave the library. But even on a long, frustrating day there was always a redeeming moment that made the whole battle worth it; Like her falling asleep in my arms as if she was a baby again, or making up a new game before bedtime. Those moments are what keeps us Moms hanging on.

The two’s exploded our home with new words and an imagination that doesn’t stop, even at 2 am.  New skills emerged, like discovering her love to be crafty or cook like her momma, learning numbers and letters, how to build with blocks or finish puzzles.  The two’s brought new stories and voices (coming from the two year old mind/mouth) of princess dolls, Thomas the train, or anything she felt needed a voice. It seems like a new discovery was made every single day, it was a mind blowing year of development. It was the year we finally got sleep issues under control. The year she finally gave up the pacy and crib, officially becoming a “big girl.”

And now, we have a three year old. I imagine that means even more development, independence, and sassy attitude but I hope it also means more great memories as she blooms into the person she is.

Happy Birthday, Savannah! We love you, oh, so, very much.

My, how we’ve come so far in just 3 years.

As individuals and as a family.

I know, I know. Christmas was 3 weeks ago, and I’m just now getting to posting pictures?  Life is busy.

The high lights:

-Savannah got way too many toys. I guess that happens with a Dad who’s a kid at heart himself and many sets of grandparents.

-She got pretty much all things princesses. The only thing she asked for this year (she went right up and told Santa herself) was a Snow White dress.  We used this desire as a bribe to reward her for sleeping through the night (it worked!) and so Christmas she finally got it. It’s funny how much she loves princesses and yet she’s never watched any of the videos, fine by me.

-Mark’s big gift from me was Panther’s football Tickets. He’s a huge sports fan and didn’t think we could afford tickets right now. His face was priceless! (Once again, I love me some mommy board finds!)

-I got mainly house stuff for Christmas and loved every minute of it. Between gifts and giftcards, we’re almost all set to go now!

-We had our Kaylee Christmas visit, staying the night again.  Savannah and Kaylee had a blast playing  together, I love watching them and the friendship they have formed.  Kaylee is really possessive over Savannah being her “baby sister” and doesn’t like to share play time with her brother, poor Blake gets left out. Mark and I had fun hanging out with their parents as always.

-I gave Kaylee a photobook for Christmas that shares a little bit about her birthfamily. Most of it is my family of course since that’s what I have more access to, but I contacted Kaylee’s birthgrandma for some information about her Birthdad growing up I could include. I added a page or two or random facts like birthdays, where we went to school, our hobbies, eye color, etc. and also shared our dating story and some pictures.  Kaylee liked it, but was totally confused that her birthdad is not Mark.  Hm…don’t know how to explain that one to a 5 year old!

-And to end my winter break with a shabang, I had my visit with Victoria!  We had our week jam packed with things to do and it was a blast (exhausting, but a blast)!  I saw historical things like the Liberty Bell in down town Philadelphia, we went snow tubing in the Poconos (so much fun, everyone should go!), went bowling for her birthday, got our nails done (first time since I got married, what a treat), painted pottery, ate the most amazing burger and french fries I have ever had at The Pop Shop (it was on the Food Network, it’s that good!), and finally got to meet her birth family.  It was so much :-)

-I, however, decided I can ever live in the north because the drivers and the road designs (ie. lanes just suddenly ending with no warning signs) stresses me out way too much.  We seriously almost crashed 20 times.  I love my easy going south.

And the big news:

We close on our house next week!

I am unbelievable excited and have been shopping like crazy to get the rest of the house things we needed. We also bought paint tonight while it was on sale at home depot.  I cannot wait to see what a difference the paint makes. We just need a washer and dryer, food, cleaning supplies, and blinds and we’ll have a home :-)

Holy Moly! Has it been 2.5 weeks already since I posted?  Going out of town through my life out of whack and I’m still trying to catch up with all the things I’ve missed (101 emails, anyone? or 100 blog posts to read? or 174 facebook updates?).

Today was the first day of classes and I can tell I’m going to have a challenging, work filled semester. Thankfully, it’s the last one, but bear with me as I post when I can between assignments and the 100’s of pages of readings on top of laundry, spending time with Savannah, planning her 3rd birthday party, and oh yeah…buying a house and moving all our stuff and making it look presentable. I’m stressed just thinking about all this and I have a feeling my blog posts will get pushed down to the bottom of the to-do list. 

Hopefully coming this week:

-Christmas pictures

-Kaylee visit!

-My mommy getaway trip recap

-House news

In short: a lot has happened in the last 2.5 weeks so be ready for update overload!

I hope yall had a fantastic Thanksgiving!  We’re enjoying our trip to see my family and lots of good food, of course. We’re having a second Thanksgiving tonight with more family and to eat foods we didn’t get to eat yesterday (like stuffing and watergate salad!).  I know that we should be thankful for our lives and things within our lives every single day, but I’m glad we have at least one day a year to remind us of that and allow families time to take off work to be together.  We’ve got much to be grateful for and my heart is swelling with thanks.

I can’t believe Thanksgiving has technically already come and gone though. And, while I love Thanksgiving for the food and family time, I love that it also officially kicks off the holiday season and I can bring out Christmas music and movies without feeling lame.  My family’s tradition goes something like this: eat food, do lots of talking, come home tired, now bring out the Christmas movies! As soon as we got home from Thanksgiving lunch yesterday, we popped in The Polar Express (Savannah was in my lap the entire time because it was intense for her! I loved all those snuggles).

And now that it’s Friday, I can especially bring out my music favorites: Snowed In (renamed as The Christmas Collection here) by Hanson and pretty much anything by Amy Grant. It’s just not Christmas without them.  Don’t laugh, I was in love with Hanson as a 90’s kid and they still have a spot in my heart. Sure, this CD is pre-puberty and they sound a bit like girls compared to their latest awesomeness in a CD now that they are in their 20’s, but like I said, it’s just not Christmas without these songs!

Less than a month until Christmas! Crazy…

With Savannah away at my parent’s for the next week, I’ve decided to use all this extra free time to not just refresh my sleep (though that 12 hours I just got was lovely!), but also refresh my soul. These past few months have certainly brought me closer to God, but I still feel like there is so much more God wants me to learn and do with my life.  I want our home to be a place that is filled with God’s love, and right now if it doesn’t exist in my husband and I, it can’t over flow to Savannah and our home. I need to learn to prioritize my time, and it starts with God.

For starters, even though I don’t have any close Christian friends near me, Victoria and I are going to be doing a daily devotion together over the internet using Proverbs 31 Ministries.  I’m stoked. We both love our God but we both fail at spending as much time with Him as we should, so this will not only strengthen our friendship but also our relationship with God as we keep each other accountable.

Secondly, we’re looking around for a church that has more opportunities to get involved. We love, love, love our church but as Savannah grows older and Mark and I are growing as well, I feel this need to be apart of a group that has more things to offer than just a Sunday service, like Bibles studies, financial studies, women’s groups, kids groups, etc.  It’s sad because we love our church, we even feel a sense of guilt like we’re “cheating” on our church lol! But, I figure there is no harm is searching, even if it just leads us back to where we are.

Also, I’m thinking about reading the book “Hidden Joy in a Dark Corner” which even has a weekly online group to discuss things on the author’s website.  The older I get the more I realize how my childhood, especially abuse, has scarred me to the point that it affects my relationship with my husband. I am seeking a Christian counselor to better help me, but I thought reading this book might help as well to see how people can over come this (and Wendy’s story is way more traumatic than mine).

So that’s my game plan right now.  I think I’ve hit the point after grief where the world is starting to look better and I’m thankful for my experiences, though painful, because of the growth it always brings.  When Kaylee was born my (amazing) social worker gave me a journal that she wrote the poem “After A While” by Veronica Shoftsall in it along with a note to me.   I use that journal now as my prayer journal so I pulled it out today for the first time in months and read it over again.  In the light of the fresh loss of our babies, it rings even truer today than it did back then at the age of 16.  Though this poem is about love relationships, I see my children that I’ve had say goodbye to one way or another in it.  But, in the last lines I’m finding strength again.

And you learn that you really can endure;
You really are strong, you really do have worth.
And you learn, and you learn
With every goodbye you learn.

I’ve been a horrible blogger! Has it been like…a week? Forgive me.  We have been busy with tests, speeches, a growing little girl who is makes us laugh as she learns new things every day, and we took a few days to visit with family during fall break.  I’ve been preoccupied by playing in the fallish weather (though…it’s 87 degrees right now?!) and picking out pumpkins.

And…being crafty with my little sister.  I made this for Kaylee’s Christmas present and was quite proud of myself it.  It’s a K for her wall (see the cute pumpkins and how gorgeous it’s been here?!).

I loved making it so much I want to make more! Anybody want one? I so would start a little etsy shop if I knew people would buy it :-) Maybe I’ll do a little giveaway as well!

I woke up this morning, took my shower, plopped down to check my email and this stared me in the face immediately:

You know who that is? Oh, that’s my Step Brother, Joey Cheek. It’s not every day you wake up to a member of your family’s face in the news. At least, I haven’t seen it since 2006 when he won the gold. But more importantly he’s made a good of his celebrity status and has been helping others in Darfur with his earnings and his time since then. And ya know, going to Princeton on top of all this. And I thought I had a hectic life.

Here’s the article of you want to read it.

Anyways, eventually I’ll get a vacation post up. Today is just busy, busy.

I promise we’re still alive and well. I’ve just been busy…or not in the mood for writing. (Of course I finally start writing and some one calls!)

Things we’ve been up to:
1. Little surprises for Mark for when we get back home tomorrow. Just had to throw that in there to drive him crazy!

2. Playing games and shopping with my little sister. We got matching shoes. And, Savannah shop-lifted a bracelet! Oy. I returned it promptly.

3. Painted the hallway with my Dad. I’ve become a mighty good trim painter, if I do say so myself. Plus, it was just nice to do something with my Dad, that doesn’t happen often these days and it’s exactly why I just had to come back for another visit since he wasn’t around much last time because of work.

4. Said goodbye to our cat, Sam. For this, I am so glad I made the spontaneous decision to come to my parent’s earlier than planned, because other wise I wouldn’t have gotten to spend so much time with Sambo, or maybe even not have gotten to say goodbye.

See, this cat was nearly as old as I was, I can’t remember a time he wasn’t around at my Dad’s. We think he turned 19 this past Wednesday and that makes him a little under 2 years younger than I am, with myself almost 21. He went down hill extremely fast just since I had gotten here and we all just knew it was time. It was horrible to see him in so much pain, hardly being able to move around. He hadn’t eaten or drank much in days so he was literally pretty much starving and dehydrating before our eyes. We spent Friday snuggling him, telling him how much we loved him, said our final goodbyes, and eventually they took him to the vet.

I’m sure you guys could care less about our cat, but to us he was like another member of our family and it’s been hard to not have him around. And surely, if you’ve ever lost a pet, you know how it feels.

I keep thinking about how when I was little he liked to come sleep on my chest at night when I stayed with my Dad. And some how this week, he managed to make the climb up our steps and up to my room where I was working on some editing to have one last good snuggle. I will forever cherish that moment, knowing that he climbed up stairs, willing to jump up on to the very tall bed (but I didn’t let him, I picked him up since he’d had a habit of falling lately), in his fragile state just to come be with me for a little bit longer. He was such a sweet kitty.

I know he’s in a much better place now, free of pain and playing with his best friend, our dog who passed away 10 years ago.

I feel like I’ve been traveling all summer, and we still have much more to do! I wish I could say we are back home now, relaxing, but we’re not. As soon as we got back, slept like rock and did some laundry, me and Savannah were right back out the door to visit my family again.

Our little weekend trip to visit Mark’s family for forth of July went very well. Long drive for a very short visit, but worth it. Savannah has turned into a marvelous little traveler and I’ve been thanking God all summer long for that. It gets so much easier when they get older, oh my goodness! No stopping every 2 hours to feed, no bottles in the car, no messy baby food. A box of yogurt covered raisins or crackers and the girl is set for a few more hours. Since our trip was about 7 hours long, we brought along a lap top and played her Baby Einstein videos to help pass the time (quietly). She didn’t watch it the whole time obviously, but it helped those last few hours when she was getting more antsy. We also brought along the Kid’s music mix that doesn’t hurt my hears.

Things I learned on this trip:

1. I now get car sick in the back seat, not matter how long or short the drive. This is new to me, as when I was a kid I could read, play games, anything, no matter where I sat. Now? It’s pure torture. It’s sad when you prefer to drive than be a lazy passenger!

2. Savannah has learned how to get her arms out of her seat belt. Oy.

3. Driving through Atlanta with their 7-8 lanes of traffic is intense.

4. Savannah loves food.

5. I’m addicting to reading Karen Kingsbury books. I’m about to finish up the Firstborn series, and my library doesn’t have the last one right now. erg!

6. Spitting sunflower seeds is much fun. Not in the car, of course. The highlight of the trip for me was at a little league baseball game with Mark, spitting seeds at each other and laughing like we were little high school kids in love.

Remember that hand-me-down dress shared from Kaylee to Savannah? Well, I found something even better in that same box from Kaylee: My own dress.

I had this picture taken when I was two years old. I know, I was cute, wasn’t I? This has always been my favorite picture of me as a child, me in my “fishy” dress. Which, until last week, I really thought it was fishies. But apparently they’re whales (it almost was a “Santa isn’t real?!” moment inside). And now 4 girls have worn this dress: myself, my little sister, Kaylee and now Savannah.

And I’ll keep holding onto it for Savannah to pass down one day, too. Of course, it could be completely out of style by then, but oh well. Memories are memories, treasures and treasures. No matter how out dated.