Thanksgiving this year brought an even greater abundance of love and gratitude to our Heavenly Father for His hand over our sweet baby girl and our family in the three weeks following her surgery. 21 days without a bottle or a paci...lots of holding, walking, crying together.... however He saw us through every night into every morning. Thankful doesn't even begin to cover how blessed we feel to have these two in our lives.
I realized how dark and painful my daughter's life must have felt during this post-op period. She NEEDED us to be there for her, to be STRONG for her. She DEPENDED on us loving her through this time. She COULDN'T get through it without us there with her every moment of the day and night. That was the VERY dependence and need I had recently found myself relying on.
How fitting that post-op day 22 fell on Thanksgiving Day. We celebrated a wonderful Thanksgiving lunch with Grandad, Mimi, and Mamaw was able to come stay for a couple days again...it was so wonderful having this time with family together.
We also decided we would celebrate Julianna's 1/2 birthday. She hit her 6-month mile mark while in the hospital, and we knew we wanted to wait until she could actually have her paci and bottle again before we celebrated.
A few table decorations, some ribbon, cut-up fruit, a 1/2 strawberry cake from Litton's, mason jars with striped straws and family is all you need. Plus, I couldn't resist the pink and gold combo!!!
So blessed and thankful for Grandad and Mimi and how much they have stepped in to help us throughout this time. They are truly angels on earth, and we are BLESSED to live less than a mile from them. Something not many daughter-in-laws would be excited about, but I am so so grateful. They get to see their grandchildren every single day, and have very special time with them. They come in a pinch, and bring food and meals and cookies, and they never ever ever complain. Tuck and Julianna LOVE LOVE LOVE their grandad and mimi, and we do too...
...and we LOVE LOVE LOVE Mamaw... she doesn't get as much time with them, but the time she IS here, it's non-stop Mamaw cuddles and snuggles, and books to read, cars to race, movies to watch, snacks to share, and giggles and hugs all day long. We love you Mamaw and are so thankful you were free to spend this time celebrating Thanksgiving and this little one's half-birthday with us.
Wives, mama's of littles, don't take for granted when your husband puts his arm around you. Some of my most cherished moments and most vulnerable moments are when I'm in his arms. I'm so thankful for you Todd Mills, and for these two beautiful blessings God has given us. So thankful for His amazing grace, that saved a wretch like me...
Sweet Julianna... we gave her a brand new "mr giraffe" paci. She must have still been tender in her mouth, because she put the paci in her mouth but for only a split second before it came right back out. I didn't even think about how different a paci would feel in her mouth, against her new healing palate. Nevertheless, she held on to him for quite some time that evening....and ps-- do you seeeeeee those little cheeks on our baby girl!!!???!?!?
Watching her thrive and grow and fill out even more just showed me every single day how much she was struggling in her first 6 months of life... it breaks my heart at the same time, but goodness, we aren't suppose to look back or behind us, because that's never the direction we are heading. So we keep our eyes forward and look ahead with excitement and completely giddiness for what God has in store next for our family.
12.4.16. Seven months of pure joy. This girl is loving life and loving everyone she meets along the way. We call her our joyful Julianna because she truly just exudes such joy in everything she does...
We even made a trip to Western Carolina University to help our sweet Nephew James celebrate his big #5 birthday!!!! I can't believe he is 5!!! The weekend he was born followed the week we miscarried our first baby, and I won't ever forget the JOY I had in my heart for my brother and sister in law as they welcomed him into their arms. Another picture of God's amazing grace, and how He both takes away but He GIVES and it always seems to be in abundance.
James has espcially amazing birthday parties because his daddy (my younger brother, Evan) is the head strength and conditioning coach at WCU, so we almost always get to have his little party at the field house, and Uncle Evan leads aaaaaallll of the cousins through linemen drills and races...
Little Tuck, hooked up to the sled and ready for take-off...
We are pretty blessed in the fact that our family is still very very close, and when there is a birthday, we ALL get together to party and play. I love watching these cousins grow up together. We don't see each other every day, but its often enough that we all have a deep deep love for one another and a complete BLAST catching up and playing together and tackling...
It always seems that every time we are with family, we just top off our hearts fullness again and again. The space of time in between can seem challenging and difficult at times, but it always makes it more special when we are together.
Happy 5th Birthday, James!! We love you and your family so much!
Julianna got to see her surgeon today for her cleft palate repair follow-up, along with about 8 other specialists to check her hearing, her speech development, her nutritional development, etc etc etc... We spent about two hours at Children's and even got to see the NEW Tower...its absolutely beautiful!! But even better than that...her ear tubes are intact, open and her hearing screen was normal. Her speech development is right on track. She is gaining weight beautifully, which we knew because she eats like a BOSS, and most of all, her new palate is absolutely perfect!!!
We celebrated with her team of specialists and with her surgeon Dr Mark Ray, who took the time and thoughtfulness to expedite the discharge process and escort us out himself!! We are just in awe of God's wonderful blessings over our family and espcially over our sweet baby girl...who by the way, has fallen back in love with mr giraffe. She tried her best to stay awake for all of the fun, but clearly couldn't hold those big brown eyes open any longer. And what a JOY it is to see her so peacfully sleeping... We will certainly continue to celebrate every single day the joyful Julianna that she is.
Now. These women. I have yet to get through sharing about them without tears pouring. They have been the most out of this world amazing small group. They will never know how special they are to me. They welcomed me into their group with open arms, and the very first night I met them I poured my heart out all over them. They too, were my saving grace during my darkest of dark days and I will never ever ever forget the impact each one of them have had and still have on my life. They are authentic. They are REAL. They are so loving, so giving, and they are humble. They make me want to be better every single day.
In fact, we've each made big moves towards exiting the social media presence, and I (of course) have struggled the most with giving up that tie to the world. Somehow I kept getting sucked back into this never-ending vortex of connecting with feeds and stories, people I've never even met, and shared moments and intimate words which really none of them connected to my own life in any way at all.
A couple of weeks ago I reached out to and reconnected with a very dear friend of mine, who has faithfully remained off social media for an entire year. Even her last blog post dates back to October 2016, and she said it best then...
"...it's all left me desiring nothing more but to slip farther into the arms of obscurity. I've learned in today's world that obscurity, if we dare let it, equals intimacy."
"He fell asleep last night, his hand wrapped around the inside of my elbow. In the past I would have posted it to Instagram so that the world would know we are in love. I worried for a brief second that my absence from social media has left others believing it's because something awful has happened. It's just the opposite. We somehow have found ourselves even deeper in love as of late and all I want to do is be with him undistracted."
"When I logged off social media I expected to feel disconnected, forgotten, and left out. What I did not expect is arriving at the day where I said out loud that logging off was easily the best decision I've made all year. I couldn't see how odd it all was until I climbed out of the water and saw it from afar."
...what more can I say, but thank you to my sweet friend for being bold. Thank you to my small group for leading by example. I'm on my way. =)
"As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend."
Proverbs 27:17
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