Love Overload

Today is February 13th, 2012.  This date is stamped forever in my memory, in my timeline of life, in my heart.  Today marks 7 years since Jerry asked me to be his girlfriend.  Today marks 2 years since Jerry asked me to be his wife.  Today marks 8 weeks since our beautiful baby girl was born.  Holy wow.  My heart is full.  My life is blessed.  I want to shout out a big praise to God for it all right now.
Life has it's ups and downs, the good and the bad, the lemons and the lemonade.  Thankfully, when it's good, it is OH.SO.GOOD and when it's been bad, it's been just ehh.  Nothing that we couldn't handle.  When I choose to focus on the good, things seem storybook.  We dated for five wonderful years.  He took me back to the same place he asked me to be his girlfriend and he proposed to me.  On a horse and carriage ride, y'all.  (That is kind of storybook!)  We were married on the beach 7.5 months later.  About five months later we were expecting a miracle - a precious little baby.  Here we sit now, full of sweet flippin' joy!  Some days I am exhausted to the core and some days I laugh and think that the only thing missing is a white picket fence. 

I loved our engagement.  It was perfect.  In every sense of the word perfect - it was just that.  This man may not always show affection,  and romance may not play a big part in our relationship, but this man, he did it right.  He swept me off my feet.  He surprised me.  He gave me the perfect engagement.

Our wedding?  Perfect too.  No, really.  It was.  I don't have a single thing to complain about it.  The weather was perfect. We were surrounded by friends and family.  People we love and people who love us.  One of my favorite bands was playing as we set out on our catamaran cruise.  We danced. We laughed.  We made some memories.

I was diagnosed with a tumor a few years back.  See, the lemons do exist.  I was told that it would be difficult to get pregnant.  Well, God had other plans because 5 months later, I felt pukey.  I was tired.  I couldn't fight off a cold.  I fell asleep in the car on the ride home.  I was moody and sensitive (surprise!)  I.was.pregnant!  It was an amazing 9 months.  I loved every bit of being pregnant.  Being pukey was a blessing.  I thanked God as I puked in my bathroom sink. (Sorry, Jer!)  I knew that I had a tiny little baby growing inside of me and that, my friends, was amazing! 

After 42 weeks of what I considered a "perfect pregnancy", we met her.  This tiny little piece of perfection that immediately stared into my eyes and stole my heart.  She is daddy's baby girl and mommy's greatest treasure.

I can't wait to see what the future holds.  I'm not planning on hitting the fast forward button anytime soon though.  I have some sweet, sweet lovin' to savor and enjoy!

Baby Love - The Weeks Go By {27 weeks - 32 weeks}

Our First Anniversary

Let the love flow.  We've had a good year, praise God. A great year, actually.  We celebrated by going to Frankenmuth for the weekend.  We originally planned on going back to Traverse City and staying at the Cherry Tree like we did when we got married.  Plans change.  We roll with it.  Frankenmuth is our special little place and we've never actually been there during a Fall weekend (we go in the winter, during February, when Jer proposed.)  We thought it would be a nice change of scenery...and it was.

We started our day at home.  We exchanged traditional paper gifts, some handmade wall art and a 52 Reasons Why I Love You card set for Jer and a gift certificate for 4d Ultrasound Photos for me, and we guaranteed another year or more of happiness in our marriage by eating a piece of our wedding cake.  What?  Of course eating year old cake guarantees happiness!

We headed out late morning/early afternoon.  Our room was not ready for check-in so early so we spent a couple hours at Birch Run.  We have a baby girl on the way, of course we need to shop.  I bought a dress for the baby shower, Jer got some new jeans, and we searched for the perfect coming home outfit for Baby Nella.  We didn't find that, but Daddy did buy her a dress that he loved and we picked out two new sleepers for her too.  After shopping we went to our hotel, checked in and got ready to head to downtown Frankenmuth.  We just relaxed.  We enjoyed each other.  We walked and talked and laughed and loved.  We're pretty good at that. 

For dinner we decided to venture out a bit.  Neither of us are into the whole "chicken dinner" thing and we weren't feeling the other two restaurants that Birch Run offers.  We realized that there was a Los Quatros Amigos about 20 minutes away.  LQA was one of our home town favorites...before they closed up and turned into a Buffalo Wild Wings.  Being so close to one, we had to go back.  It was delicious!  Even without my usual raspberry margarita.  On our way back we ran into a little road block.  The highway closed due to a detour and we hit a dead end.  However, that dead end was right.in.front of FIREWORKS!  It's our inside joke, and a fact, that Jer always finds us the best viewing spot for fireworks.  Sometimes it is skill, sometimes it is pure luck.  Either way, he never disappoints.  This time was no different.  He pulled over right on the side of the highway and we enjoyed a birds eye view of a local arena's fireworks display.  It was the perfect ending to our evening.

After a good night's rest we were up early (me before him for a change...that's a pregnancy thing for me) and ready to start our day.  We spent the day doing things we've not done together before.  We went to the Animal Wildlife Park and to Huckleberry Railroad for their Halloween trick-or-treating event.  We had a great day filled with more walking, talking, laughing (a lot) and loving.

We had a fun day.  One of my favorite little parts was when Jer and I were looking at stuffed giraffes.  He said "well, we have to get her something!  You know, because she is on this trip too."  He was referring to baby Nella in my tummy.  God, I love that man! 

We did get her something.  We went to Bronner's (something J and I never do) and we bought her her Baby's First Christmas ornament.  I can't  believe we'll have a baby by Christmas!