Mostly...I'll Just Miss Her

I started this blog back in 2009. I was a new, stay-at-home-mom with a lot of time on her hands and a brain that felt like it was turning to mush. I needed an outlet! I needed SOMETHING! I had been working and going to school since I was 18 years old and at age 34 with a new baby at home, I felt sort of lost. So, that something turned into writing a blog.

And I'm so glad I did. :)

I've chronicled so many of life's events and adventures here.

Birthdays, anniversaries, moves, job losses, new jobs, new cities, firsts, lasts and a bunch of in-betweens.

But this week marks a milestone. 

My new baby that changed my whole world 5 years ago will now be leaving the nest and heading off into the big new world of elementary school! 

I have been an emotional wreck this week...I won't lie.

I've cried many tears and thought many things....a lot is swirling around in my mind.

Mostly...

I'll just miss her.

I've thought about all the smiles and giggles and laughs we've had. The tickle fights and the corny jokes only a preschooler and her mommy understand and have a chuckle over. I'll miss those.

But mostly...

I'll just miss her.

I think, "Will she be safe? Of course she will, silly." I tell myself. "School is the safest place on earth!" And then I'm reminded of those Kindergarten babies who won't get to start first grade this year because school became the most unsafe place for them. But I quickly shake off those feelings because I'll go nuts if I don't, and instead I say a prayer for the parents of those sweet angels from Sandy Hook. I know they miss their babies.

I've thought about how it will all feel to her. Will she be afraid? School is terrifying when you're small and all alone with your hall pass, and the corridors to the bathroom seem so long and the ceilings so tall. Your stomach feels a little queasy when there stands a potential new friend and you're trying to muster the courage to talk to her. You don't exactly feel safe when you're asked to "leap" a hundred times a day into unknown waters when all you're prepared to do is dip in your big toe. I wonder how she'll handle all this...without me? I'll really miss being her personal cheerleader and holding her hand.

But mostly...

I'll just miss her.

She and I have an understanding you see. She knows where my limits lie, and I give her a lot of wiggle room. I set boundaries, she tries to push them. I lay out parameters, she oversteps them. I allow her to grow and explore and push and pull where I feel she needs to. I understand her and she understands me. I've been with her nearly every moment since the moment she was born, and she with me. How could we not? An understanding such as we have only comes from the daily ploddings along together. From the stamping of little feet in protest to the quick turn of mother's head and the explosive twinkling in her eye that warns, "You better stop that this instant!" I'm going to miss our daily battles, our tugs of war...for better or for worse. 

But mostly...

I'll just miss her.

Will everyone think she's as wonderful as I know she is? She has such a pure little heart. She has a temper. She loves to play and to laugh. She loves music and rhythm and loves to wiggle and dance. She's been reading for a whole year now and saying her alphabet and counting since she could talk practically. She's so smart and loves to wax poetic about her five years...all she's learned all she's seen. "Mommy, did you know that Jupiter is the biggest planet and it's made of mostly gas? But Mommy, what is a planet?" I'll miss her questions and our talks. I'll miss our lunches together and watching "Peppa Pig" together and making snorting pig noises. 

But mostly...

I'll just miss her.

My husband reminded me of something. "God kept His promise you know."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Five years ago when you so wanted to be home with your baby. He kept His promise and you've been with her until she started school...just like you prayed for." He reminded me.

And yes...so beautifully and simply put. "God kept His promise."

I'm on the other side of the prayer I prayed while my precious little one was still growing in my tummy. I had no idea if it would be answered or not, but content with His will alone...and I gave her to Him.

Wow.

So, standing on the edge of another season of unknowns, I will choose to trust once more, knowing with all my heart that He, who loves her infinitely more than I do, is so very faithful to us both.

Gabby, 16 months.

So, as I turn the corner on a new season in my life, I wonder where the time has gone. It truly goes by too quickly. Luckily, I've taken the time to record a lot of our daily happenings here, on this blog, and will continue to do so as my now big Kindergarten girl does class projects, wins awards, goes on field trips, and as I move on to whatever God has planned for me. 

I truly have such a blessed life. :)

Right out of bed! Bright eyed and bushy tailed!

One last pic before we leave for school!

Kisses at school.

Mommy and Daddy are so proud of you, 

our little angel, Gabriella Joy. 

I'm going to miss you.

I Want You to be CHUBBY!

Since moving to this new apartment with 3 floors, I have had some serious problems with my knees. After going up and down stairs a million times a day, they really hurt. Not to mention, I'm completely exhausted by 3 pm.

We're either going to have to move again soon to a single level home (really hate moving) or I'm going to have to just conquer the real reason why these stairs bother me so much.

I need to lose weight, and that's that.

So, I was talking to my daughter about my knees hurting and how carrying around a lot of weight is bad on your bones and your joints. I told her that I was going to get skinnier and I wouldn't have so many aches and pains and I would have more energy to play with her.

Well, she had a meltdown! 

She got really upset at the thoughts of having a "skinny mommy." 

It was so cute and I'm so glad I caught it on video.

Check it out....

Daddy, Daughter Date and Home Depot Craft

I saw online that Home Depot was offering a great craft for their monthly Kid's Workshops (first Saturday of every month) and I practically begged my husband to take the little one to go make it for me.

Well...and I thought it would be fun for them (of course).

And it was!

My husband took G to Chik-Fil-A for her favorite breakfast...chicken minis.

...and then to Home Depot to make my awesome craft. A super cute Thanksgiving turkey napkin holder. He said that he was really impressed with Home Depot and their kid's workshop program. It was PACKED OUT and they were out of the little orange Home Depot aprons, so my husband didn't let her paint much, but they accommodated everyone and had enough crafts and tools for all the kids. 

Don't you just love those little hammers? 

 Isn't she cute? She looks just like me! :)

I totally love it and hope to use it on my Thanksgiving table FOREVER!

And it wouldn't be a Daddy, daughter date in this family if it didn't involve some sort of music. 

So they made a quick stop at Guitar Center. She LOVES pink!

Looks like fun to me.

But not as fun as sleeping in and having a leisurely Saturday morning at home, ALONE..

That's what this mom thinks is fun. ;)

Halloween Fun 2012!

This post is a few weeks late, but my baby girl is just too cute not to share! :)

Little G fell in love with a sweet little bunny costume at the Halloween store. She said it was a "Snuffy" costume. Snuff is her very favorite stuffed animal that she carries around everywhere. She spotted Snuff at a yard sale and just had to have her. The name Snuffy came right away and has stuck for 2 years now. 

Snuff is a cutie!

And so is G...

The costume is a one piece dress with a fluffy, pink polka dot ballerina skirt. It also came with ruffly pink leg warmers and of course, bunny ears. I painted a pink nose and pink circles on her cheeks to up the cuteness factor. 

Our Halloween started on Saturday at our church's Trunk or Treat event. The parking lot was PACKED with decorated cars, all handing out lots of candy! We only went through half of the line of "trunks" and still got two buckets full of candy.

Tailgate Trunk or Treat Quest Community Church

And Halloween night, we visited a few houses around the neighborhood and had so much fun.

Knocking on your neighbors' doors and getting free candy? One of the few great pleasures in life! haha!

10 Things I Love About My Daughter

Here are 10 of my favorite things about my baby girl! It's hard to narrow it down to just 10, because there's easily A MILLION things I love about my daughter, but here are some of the ones that stand out in my mind.

10. I love how her little toddler feet sound as she's running and stomping through the house. It's a "joyful noise" for sure!

9. I love her face...everything about it.



8. I love when she wants me to hold her. Now, after a full day of this, around 8 or 9pm, it starts getting old. But when she runs up and asks, "Hold you, hold you?!" It melts my heart, even if I do hear it a hundred times a day!



7. I love her tooshie. It's arguably one of the fattest baby bums I've ever seen and oh so squeezable! She definitely did not get this from me! But her little dimpled tooshie is sooooo flippin' cute!

6. I love her little turned up nose. It was such a surprise to see that nose when she came out, because it didn't look like anyone in my family. But it was a pleasant surprise because it is adorable!



5. I love it when sometimes she comes up to me unexpectedly, pats me on the shoulder or touches my face and says, "Don't worry mommy." She's only 2, so the fact that she's so intuitive amazes me. Because when she does that, it has often been something I needed to hear!

4. I love that she concentrates and can remember things so well. Just from playing with some of her little learning toys and from us talking about them from time to time, she could say and recognize all her letters and numbers by 20 months old. It was incredible! And from Dora and Kai Lan, she can say many words in Spanish and Chinese. We usually don't figure out what she's saying unless we happen to catch it on one of the shows. For example, she was always saying this word that sounded something like, "chee-cho" and we never knew what in the world she was saying. Until one day we were watching "Ni Hao Kai Lan" and they were talking about balloons and calling them, "chee-cho" (or the Chinese version of chee-cho). My husband and I looked at each other and said, "Ah, that's chee-cho...it means BALLOON!" We were amazed because she usually knows exactly what she's talking about, it's mom and dad that take a while to catch on! LOL

3. She is so funny and a performer. She sings, she dances, she twirls around, she likes to kid around and laugh. Being around her is uplifting!



2. She loves to lay in my arms like a baby, all wrapped up in her favorite "soff blayket" (that is actually MY pink Snuggie that's she's adopted as her own) and snuggle in quiet as a mouse (because babies don't talk!). I don't want her to get big! :(

1. And lastly...I love that I'm her favorite person. I don't know how long this will last. I hope I have endless years, but for now, I'm soaking in every minute of it! Sure, the literal hanging onto my legs when I try to walk because she wants to go everywhere I go, the crying when I leave the house without her, constantly wanting to be in my lap, wanting my undivided attention at all times can wear on me...and does. But I also know that this is a time to be cherished. I don't even want to think about the day when she doesn't want mommy as much but I know it will happen before I know it. So, for now, I'm going to enjoy being her favorite, because she's my favorite too.

Cow-Ween!

Blogging and computer time in general has just been no fun the past few weeks. The screen I'm working off of is in black and white and only nine inches (or less), so needless to say, it's been quite a challenge. And this one ordeal has brought me to the realization that I need glasses...ugh! So yeah...fun to be had by all! (needless to say, it's fixed now, hence the post! LOL)

With that being said, Halloween or "Cow-Ween" as my daughter says WAS pretty fun! She dressed up as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and was just precious. My mother actually made the dress a few years ago for my niece, so we just reused it for G (the second Halloween we've done this!). She had the perfect long light brown hair to be put in little pigtails and I had a small wooden basket that she calls a "picnic" and red glittery shoes (with blue socks) to finish it off. She was adorable! I'm terrible for not taking more pics, but the batteries in my camera were dead, so oh well.

Here are a few that we did capture! Hope your "Cow-Ween" was just as fun!

This was Sunday, "Cow-ween" day.
We were invited to sing at a Living Water Church in Williamson, WV and
asked Bobby's sister to come help out with G.
She did a pretty awesome job as you can see! ha! Love ya Charis!!!

Our First Visit to the "Puh-kin Patch"

On Saturday we decided to take baby G to a beautiful farm here in Lexington called Boyd Orchards. I was thinking it was going to be a nice crisp fall evening, but boy was I wrong! It was HOT! By the time we leftwere all dusty, sweaty and filthy! But the fresh, cold apple cider from the gift shop that we drank straight from the carton, hit the spot! ha!

AUTUMN IS MY FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR!

White After Labor Day

I know it's not proper to dress in white after Labor Day, but little G didn't have any other dress clothes clean for church this morning, so you gotta do what you gotta do.

Someone gave us this dress with some little white ruffly bloomers and she hadn't worn them yet, so I decided to put it on her and I'm so glad I did.

She was just precious. Her dress was so short, she looked like Darla from the "Little Rascals" show or like a little Shirley Temple. She was just a doll!

It's so fun having a little girl!

Awww....

When things are crazy or when I'm feeling a little down.
What always perks me up?

My two loves!

Sure, they are essentially the cause for a majority of the craziness (ha!), but they are by far the best things in my life and I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world!

Bubbly Beauty

Not much to say here...just wanted to post this darling pic that we took of baby G! Isn't she a little bathing beauty?