Life is a special journey.

Carter is turning 5 months on Saturday.  What a life changing 5 months its been.  I am amazed at all the changes and growth that he has made in this short time.  The first smile and laugh where he actually recognized something making him happy was enough to melt my heart completely.  I think it's amazing to see this new life discovering the world.  I think it makes me rediscover the world through his eyes.  I see those simple things that bring great laughter and awe to him and have completely been inspired to re evaluate what life really is about. Those little moments are the moments that are so dear.  I love sitting back while he is playing on his mat and watching him grab his toes and be amused by them for the longest time.  Right after toes have lost their interest, luckily he rediscovers mommy's nose--how fun is mommy's nose!  :)  He is definitely into a learning/observing phase and it's so neat to watch him take in the world around him. He is a very smart boy already.   He purposely looks at toys or objects and grabs them.  You can see the wheels turning in his head as he observes them.  He has a mission for what he wants to do with them- whether it's put it in his mouth (which is what he wants to do with most things) or shake it around and around!  I look at him and can't believe he is as big and strong as he is already.  He stands (with minimal support from us-other than balance) but his strength is shocking.  He sits in his highchair and entertains himself, or smiles and talks while I sing (errr...screech) as we prepare dinner.  He loves to roll now.  I can't lay him on his back without him rolling.  :) 

Discovering colors and textures

I've recently been following a girls blog who a couple weeks ago lost her very healthy, happy 4 month old daughter completely unexpectedly. She was only a few weeks younger than Carter.  I've been heartbroken for her and have been lifting her in prayer very often.  I will say that though I've treasured every moment that I've spent with Carter, her story has done something to me and if it's possible, I feel like I soak those moments up even more.  It's an experience that I could not fathom.  But luckily, I have my sweet baby boy who I can look into his eyes and watch his whole face light up with a big, beautiful smile!  I can hold him in my arms and make his world ok!  I can tickle his neck and listen to his adorable laugh.  These are all things that I want to permanently imprint in my mind.  I never want to forget a moment with him.  I pray that she has those memories to bring her peace and joy when she looks back at her daughter's life.  I hope she knows that she and her daughter have touched the lives of so many- even those who do not know her.
Having Carter has changed me, and reading her story has changed me.  I love the exact moment I"m in. 

Those silly toes! :)

This stage of life is so amazing.  Not only is watching my son grow so touching.  But seeing my husband (my soul mate ) as a dad and husband  is truly undescribable too.  He is the most loving father.  We don't argue or get frusterated about not having help with Carter from the other, it's more like we argue over who gets to hold and play and comfort him. :)  I think that's a great problem to have.  He is so supportive.  He is consumed by our little guy.  Watching them has brought tears to my eyes before.  They love eachother so much. The amazing thing though, is I feel like he and I actually cherish eachother more and find ways to show it.  You would think having a new baby would leave little time for eachother (and it does, it has to be made) but Zach has made that time seem so easy and natural.  I said the little things are what life is about and what I focus on the most:  well, Zach is a "little things" kind of guy.  He got up and made me breakfast in bed because I wasn't feeling well, even though he had to be up early for work.  We have made a point to still have dates together.  Some are alone and some are taking Carter with us to sit out on a patio somewhere and chat.  This is something that I always want to keep as a priority.  I never want to lose the "us" in our journey.  And amazingly, I think we're stronger than ever.  We have an extension of us that we get to discuss and we learn more about eachother as we mill over parenting ideas and situations we are in and could find ourselves in.  Life is such an amazing journey.

Daddy with Carter on the Polar Express at Christmas time

Heavy winded beginning....

In order to move forward in this blog, I must first move back.  I feel blessed looking back at my life and really cherish the experiences I have had, the people I have known, and the life I have been given.  So many things have shaped me including the amazing relationships I have with my family.  WOW!  Am I ever lucky to have the parents who have loved me, my sister who is my best friend, and my little brother who I know I will continue growing a closer relationship with as we grow.  :)  Not to mention my wonderful inlaws who have made me a part of their family from the beginning.  I think one of my most memorable experiences I have was living in Vlissingen, The Netherlands during college for a semester.  I moved over with one other American, who happened to be one of my very best friends, Selia and we jumped right in to the European culture- we had to since we were the only 2 Americans in our program.  I sure wish I knew what blogging was then to recount those memories.  Needless to say we spent about 5 months traveling all over Europe with our European friends since our professors aknowledged that we were there to travel rather then learn (although the Europeans studying there didn't seem to receive the same leeway as we did?).  In our time there we traveled to London, Belgium, all over the Netherlands including Amsterdam multiple times as it was a short train ride away, Dublin, Kilarney, and Cork Ireland, Spain: including Hendaye, San Sebastian, Zaragossa, and Barcelona, France:  Paris, Nice, Bordeaux, St. Emilion, Monoco  Italy: Milan, Pisa, Florence, Venice, Rome, Cinque Terra, Germany: Munich for Oktoberfest, Koln, and Austria: Vienna.  Needless to say we learned more about culture, language, and interacting with others at international dinner parties more than academics.  It was the time of our lives!!!  I still am in touch with many of my international friends and have made some very special friendships through it.  I thought that was the best life could get....but throw in the mix of all that falling in love with the man who is truly my soul mate.  It sounds funny that our relationship was actually established while I lived in Europe and he lived in Texas.  Through endless emails and phone conversations we fell head over heels in love, both knowing we saw eachother in our forever!  He proposed to me and truly made me the luckiest, happiest girl in the world (The love story is a whole other blog)  :)!  I knew we would have a wonderful life together as we connect on so many levels.  I knew immediately I wanted a family with him. He would make the most amazing dad! Zach and I found that traveling and diving were two passions that we both have and love doing together.  We took advantage of that and have traveled the world.  We've been to China, Japan, Bora Bora, Thailand, Venice, London, Prague, Dublin, Puerto Vallarta, The Bahamas, and traveled stateside as well.  That brings us near to the present.  We were going on a trip to Argentina last February and got caught in a snow storm (which Dallas rarely has) and therefore ended up spending 4 days in The Keys since we missed our flight to South America.  It was there we found out our most amazing, life changing news....we were pregnant!!  That feeling was surreal.  So much emotion overcame the both of us:  EXCITEMENT, shock, disbelief, JOY!  We were going to be parents.  We had a wonderful pregnancy all the way through.  Minor problems at the end with blood pressure which put me on bed rest and led to scheduling an induction at 38 weeks.  Thank God though that Carter decided to come on his own the night before the induction.  I was thrilled because I really wanted to do the process naturally without any epidural (I'm terrified of the needle and the chance of things going wrong with it).  We got to the hospital at 5 cm dilated at midnight and were immediately checked in. At 7:00 I asked my nurse how much longer---I needed to hear something positive, because I'll tell ya, that pain for 7 hours is intense and I truly needed an end point to work towards.  She said I bet we can have the baby delivered in an hour.  I accepted it as a challenge!!  :)  Through pushing, I would watch the clock and ask how close we were...well, I made it...just 6 min. late.  It was 8:06 when our baby boy was born!!!  WOW!  Breathtaking.  Thinking of the moment even now makes me flushed with love for him.  I am in awe of this amazing gift God gave us.  Zach and I kissed eachother and our eyes filled with tears.  We did this!  Every day we still think to ourselves, wow!  Here is this beautiful baby boy who has turned our world upside down in every way and we love it more than we could have even expected. Traveling use to be the focus of our discussion and our future planning, and has changed to parenting and our future planning and dreaming of Carter's life.  We still plan to travel but now that is not the key priority as it has been in the past.  Keeping our relationship strong and loving and transfering that to Carter is our priority. He has become our whole world and he has even made Zach and I love eachother more (which I didn't think was possible).  :)  Every day is something new and wonderful with him.  He is so big already.  He is already sitting (mostly on his own), smiling, laughing, talking (baby sounds), and his latest and greatest feat is rolling over confidently from front to back.  He's been working on it and I'd say has perfected it now.  He loves having his feet in the air and touching his cute little toes---who wouldn't?  ;)  I am blessed to be staying home with him now and enjoying watching him think, learn, and grow.  I love this little guy more than life.