Babies Make Four: December 2013

*Fair warning - this is an epic post with an abnormal amount of photos at the end. It is truly difficult to narrow down (literally) thousands of photos to just a handful to recap our year!*

Wow, where did this year go? I can't believe that we're staring down 2014, getting ready to begin another exciting adventure. It seems that as I get older, the New Years approach at a rapid speed and I think "Didn't we just do this?" As a child, the years seemed to creep on by. A year would last forever, but now it passes with the blink of an eye.

How do you encompass everything that's happened this year? Of course, the major thing in our lives that seems to eclipse all else is the birth of Luke. What a high point, one that is almost unobtainable to capture again. The happiness that he has brought to us is hard to match and while his birth made this the best year ever, many sad and not so happy events took place, too. The unexpected death of my grandfather and the surgeries/hospital stays that touched almost every one of our family members make this one of the tougher years. And if you would have asked me in June, I would have expected that Luke's first Christmas would be in a different house with a better neighborhood. That plan didn't quite go our way either. Our little house still sits at the corner of "nice families" and "crazy" with a for sale sign out front. I don't know why, but I think maybe it's not our time to move quite yet. So we'll see if Luke's 2nd Christmas is still at this home or in a new location.

New year's always make me a little morose. The unknown of what lies ahead and another year passing, I try to focus on the happy moments of the year but the sadness lies not too far from the surface. It's hard to believe that 365 days ago, we knew that a lot of changes would come this year, but didn't quite know all of them. I am so very thankful that our baby was born healthy, not all families were able to say that. I'm so very thankful that our families are healthy at the end of this year, while that wasn't always the case throughout the year. I'm so thankful that Dillon and I have been able to share the last 10 years of our lives, growing from wildly in love (pretty much obsessed with each other) teenagers, to two adults, still wildly in love (ok, maybe a different, better love than when we were 17) adults who are figuring out this parenting thing one day at a time. And I'm thankful that we have found a church to call home. My list of thankfulness could go on for pages at a time, but while in the midst of hard times this year we have seen some of the best days of our lives.

So, here's wishing all of you a very happy new year to come and may you find blessings in each day whether they are the best or worst days.

Luke and I around the same time last year... I didn't have any New Year's photos, so this is about as good as it gets for a first of the year shot.

At our first baby shower in February

Signing Luke's thumbprint tree, I was already HUGE pregnant

7 Months pregnant... these photos were when I started the blog!

Yowzah

A few days after I started my blog, my grandfather passed away. We got together with my aunt before the funeral.

At our 2nd shower hosted by Dillon's family. It's so funny to look at all the little gifts we got that Luke's already outgrown. :)

In March... when we cooked all of our food to freeze. We ate all of those meals!

The Sunday before I had Luke, our walk in the park.

This was also the day we caught our house on fire... I think I remember writing about the "great pork chops" we had grilled (which led to our fire). I also remember talking about how I was kind of sad that could be the last weekend, just Dillon and I. It ended up being our last solo weekend!