Black and White Smiles

Oh such joy he fills our day with. 

He brings a new definition to the word "happy".

Getting Stuff Clean

This is why it's taking me forever to get Adrian's room packed up - I make neat folded stacks of his clothes and he barrels through them full-force. 

Oh well, I'd much rather play with him anyways :) 

There will always be time to fold clothing.

I love you, Silly Face.

Fill In the Blank Friday

1.  My favorite color is  always changing. I love blue, turquoise, kelly green or light green and pink and red :) Lately I've been a tad obsessed with fuchsia though. I always go through a fuchsia phase.

2.   My home decor color palette includes blues and reds and greens. I'm working on changing it up a bit for our new house.

3.  Other people always tell me I look good in the color  red or blue.

4. The color I detest is  orange. I've never liked it and probably never will. I'm especially not okay with bright neon orange. It's obnoxious.

5. If you were to look in my closet most of the colors you'd see would be  greys, blacks, purples and blues.

6. A color that I simply cannot pull off no matter how hard I try is   khaki. Actually, most people can't pull of khaki. It makes me look dead.

7.  The color of my favorite dress is  blue and white striped. I'll be excited when I can wear it again.

One Year Old

 

Now off to start the next year of adventures.

We love you, one-year-old little man.

Happy Birthday, Sweet Adrian

 Happy Birthday Gheegars,

I was wearing a red t-shirt and gray shorts the morning I found out you were growing inside me.

For some reason, I always remember what I'm wearing on significant days in my memory, and I know I'll never forget this. I put the pregnancy test on the counter to wait and pulled my hair back and left the bathroom, knowing it would be negative, because I was always not pregnant (and always thinking I was).  I was sitting cross-legged in the computer chair, son, when your daddy came in and waved the test at me. He had that goofy grin and rolled his eyes when he asked, "what is this"? I should say, I was a little addicted to pregnancy tests - I just had to KNOW. Positive or negative...I wanted to know.

"How many lines?"

"Two"

(tears) "Do you know what that means? We're pregnant!"

We hugged and wept because we didn't expect you yet.

I put my hands on my belly because I wanted to feel you...because you were there....in all your poppy-seed sized girth. I didn't want to walk or breathe or move or laugh because I thought I would break you!  I felt instantly connected to you - dot sized or not, you were my son. Adrian, I could literally feel my heart grow with love for you!

You grew to be the size of a watermelon really fast. I wore a red shirt and black pants when I went into the hospital to have you. The labor was hard, Adrian, but it was worth it and I was glad to have you as the fire-work-like finale to my 42 week pregnancy. You, Adrian, were more than worth it and the best moment of my life was when the midwife laid you on my belly and I got to see your sweet face and feel your tiny fingers in my hands- the identical image of your daddy. You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen!

Dear Adrian,

I have been thinking of how I wanted to write this letter to you for a few months now. There is no way to put into words how much I love you.

I love everything about you. I love how you are so aware of your surroundings and such a sweet, happy baby.

I love how you love music and dance and sing.

I love to watch you laugh when I tickle you.

I love how you giggle when I kiss your neck.

I love to give you finger kisses and toes kisses and belly kisses.

I love putting you to bed so sweetly and welcoming your gleeful self into my arms in the morning and when you wake up from your nappy-nap.

I love bragging about you.

I love giving you baffys and playing with the water with you.

I love how I have a new take on life as I watch you discover new things.

I love your own little personality that is so strong and prevalent in you already.

I love your stubbornness, and I love your strength.

I love how independent you are, but at the same time I love how much you need me.

I love to watch you love your daddy - there is nothing I'd rather hear than to hear him tell you over and over that he is crazy about you. Those words are healing to my heart, you know.

I love how you bellow, "CAT" every time Molls happens to enter your line of sight.

I love how you make me kiss your fingers.

I am sad that you are growing too fast, but happy that you're here making our life so wonderful. You've introduced us to a NEW kind of wonderful and we love you for that!

Adrian, at one year old, you are passionate and engaging, loving, silly, emotional, sticky sweet, strong, loud, musical, gleeful, playful, squishy, round, full of kisses, purposeful, and driven. You know what you want and you know how to communicate what you want. You're a fast little crawler and love to dance and sing. You play very well with your little friends. You are sooo cuddly. You are soft. You are ours!

Sweet Adrian, you are the gift that I have always wanted, something I never could have known would make my heart grow to hold such love. I have so many hopes and dreams for you and I want to watch you succeed in everything you do. Your daddy and I have so much love for you - so much hope and dedication.

Mostly, sweet Adrian, I want to watch you grow to love Jesus and serve Him with all the passion, strength, joy, and stubbornness that HE put inside you.

He made you to love Him, precious son, and I want you to know that.

I love you, 

Mama

Dear Adrian,

 

Happy first birthday baby boy!  Adrian, I can’t believe I’ve already had you in my life for a year.  It has been so amazing to see every thing you have learned and how much you have already changed.  Your momma and I love you so much that if we have even half a day away from you it hurts and makes us miss you desperately.  You have brightened our lives so much and have been better than we could ever imagine.  I love you so much Adrian, and I am already so excited about the boy and man you are growing up to be.  You have brightened my life more than I ever could have imagined before. 

 

Son, as you are growing up we want the very best for you.    I want you to try out music or sports or other hobbies, but I’ll understand if you don’t love any of them.  I want you to grow up and make friends, but whether you have a lot or a few is okay either way.  I want you to work hard, but it doesn’t matter if you make a lot of money or not.   

There is one thing, above all else, that I want for you Adrian.  

 God put you on this earth, and God brought you into our lives as a sweet and wonder gift.  God has been teaching us so much about His plan for our lives over the past years, especially with you here, and we are still learning.  Adrian, I want you to know that the most important thing in your life is that you know God and love Him with all your heart.  You need to look for Him, learn about Him, and give your everything to Him no matter where you are.  God made your life and He has a great plan for you.   

Adrian, trust Jesus to guide you no matter what’s happening in life.  I’m not a perfect dad, and I’ll make more mistakes I’m sure.  But Adrian, Jesus will never let you down.  Only be like me when I am being like Jesus.  Loving and trusting in Jesus is the very best for you.  I love you son.  I’m so proud of what you're becoming, and I can’t wait to see what the next year holds. 

 Thank you for being my boy.

 

Love,

 

Your Daddy

Happy 11 Months, Adrian!

Adrian is 11 months today! This year has been the fastest one of my life, and I just know the next few years are going to go by just as fast.

At 11 months, Adrian is constantly "talking" and singing. He says a few words (mama, dada, hot, cat) and signs a few (please, thank you, more). He LOVES music more than ever and loves dancing to any sort of sound he hears.
He is eating a lot more solid foods, and takes great pleasure in feeding himself. I haven't found anything that he doesn't like.
He has 4 teeth as of today that came in in random order. He got his bottom right tooth first, then his top right eye tooth, then his bottom front left tooth, and then his top front right tooth. His top left tooth and his top left eye tooth will be in very soon. They've come in really fast since he spent the first 10 months of his life completely tooth-free!
He is still not walking, but has become really fond of the push-walker I found at a garage sale and uses it often mostly because we give him lots of obnoxious praise and applause. I'm sure I'll be running after him before too long.
One of his favorite games is putting things into our mouths. He will just crawl into our laps, force a toy car, animal cracker, stuffed toy, his bottle, etc. and crawl away with the most satisfied look on his face. It's quite hilarious.
Nick and I are always laughing about him. The Lord has truly blessed us and we are SO thankful to have this sweet child in our life :)

Our 5th Valentine's Day

I realized today that today Nick and I are celebrating our 5th Valentine's day together.

That's exciting! 5 is a big number to me :) I'm thankful to be married to him for several reasons, but today especially I'm thankful that he not only "deals with" but embraces whole-heartedly my very cheesy appreciation for Valentines Day.

I love it. Like, really majorly love Valentine's Day.

To celebrate, Nick got me a Diamond Candle. I saw the website a few months ago and asked for it specifically because it is oh.so.fun. I didn't mention it again, but being the caring and precious hubby that he is, he got me the "orchid meadow" scented candle. Orchids are my favorite flower so kudos to him for that as well.

For those who don't know what it is, here's the link: Diamond Candles

Also, when I woke up this morning, there was a long trail of love note post-its (my favorite) and sweetheart candies leading to a very giant box of chocolates. It was a magical way to start the day.

I got Nick a new pair of dress shoes (he has hinted several times that he wanted some new ones) and a pair of Angry Bird lounge pants. He was quite pleased with both gifts.

Adrian got a dancing monkey. He LOVES it and insists that it never stops dancing. We're going to go raid the valentine's section tomorrow when things go on sale to see if we can get him a different dancing toy for his birthday. It's so fun to give to my sweet loves!

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Fill In the Blank Friday

 

1.  I started my blog because   I was overwhelmed by my pregnancy and impending motherhood and wanted to document my thoughts and what I was learning so I could look back on it later. I didn't see myself journaling on a physical notebook because that had never worked before. Here I am, a year and a half later, still going strong!

2.   One thing I love seeing on other blogs  are photos of children, DIY projects, blog help, true stories, encouragement, other women being vulnerable in their walk with the Lord and in their family life.

3.  Something I love about blogging   is that I can have a creative outlet by changing the layout. I also love reading other blogs and being inspired by other blogging moms. It's nice to feel that what I write may hopefully encourage someone, and if not, at least I got it off my chest. I always feel better after blogging.

4. A favorite blog post of mine is probably  blogging about how Nick and I met and fell in love, as well as Adrian's birth story. It was exciting to see how all those anxious prayers had been answered by the Lord, who is always faithful!

5. Something my friends in real life know about me that I've never before mentioned on my blog is   a lot of things. A blog is a very public forum and I try to be mindful of that.

6.  My new favorite blogs to read are  http://www.aholyexperience.com, http://momastery.com/blog/, http://shabbyblogsblog.blogspot.com/, http://colormekatie.blogspot.com/, and of course my mom's blog ,http://aponhodgepodge.blogspot.com/.

7.  Some things I tend to avoid doing on my blog are  being too transparent - if I'm writing about something controversial (which is almost never), I try to be respectful. I also try not to complain or be super negative. A blog is not the platform for that. I also try not to be fake or overly-joyous. I want my blog to be real and positive.