Can It Be -- Four Years?

I can't even believe it's been four years since the arrival of Skyla Rose changed our lives completely. Thinking of her turning four has brought back for me a lot of the emotions and memories of that time in our lives! Wow. We were in the midst of construction on our addition when we decided that surely if we started trying to get pregnant in the spring, by the time the baby arrived nine months later the house would be done and we would be ready. We had visions of decorating the nursery together and doing all kinds of things to get ready for the baby... We spent Memorial Day weekend that year with my grampa and uncle, doing the World War 2 Memorial dedication stuff, and then on Memorial Day, after they left to go home, we took a pregnancy test and found out the amazing news. We were both so excited and a little overwhelmed! Over the next nine months Kevin plugged away on coordinating all the details of the house, we got our dog Josey, and we looked ahead anxiously to February 6th. As the date got closer we started to realize that the house was not going to be completely done by the time the baby came. So the focus started to be getting the house in shape to be able to move in and have the baby! Kevin worked night & day, before & after work to get things done, and with the help of our families and friends we moved in to the addition just a couple of weeks before my due date, but still with a ton of finish work to do. Super Bowl Sunday, Feb 6 came and I was starting to feel like this baby was never going to come, sitting in the living room with my mom just waiting while Kevin raced against the clock to finih one project after another. That Sunday he did the last BIG project of laying the wood floors in our new family room, coming to bed at 2am... and I woke him up at 5:00 ready to go have the baby. In our hospital pictures after Sky was born, Kevin looks more tired than I do!

At the hospital, we were met by our friend Lucille, who was able to be our dedicated labor & delivery nurse. She was amazing and once I got my epidural we had a quiet day of anticipation waiting for the baby. We didn't know what we were having, but we were convinced it was a boy! My mom and Kevin's parents waited outside in the family lobby for news (my dad was arriving that night on an already-planned business trip). And at 4:08 pm we heard the words "It's a girl!" and our lives have never been the same - truly.

I have so many special memories of those first days and weeks with our first baby girl. Driving home from the hospital wondering how we were allowed to leave by ourselves with this baby... seeing our families hold her for the first times... watching my dad whisper quiet love to her... never regretting for one single second that I stopped working to be at home... snuggling in bed just the three of us... going for walks with my baby girl in the spring.

And now she's four... How did that happen? But every year and every stage of her life has been both a blessing and an adventure. She has started to blossom into a sweet little girl and I am daily struck by the responsibility we have to help mold her into the woman God wants her to become. Wow!

I'll post pictures of her little princess birthday party later today - have to weed through about 100 pictures first! :-)