Blessed...

I am blessed.

Blessed to have a wonderful husband.

A beautiful, lovingly quiet daughter.

And a family that even at their worst moments, that I couldn't imagine being any different and any more loving then they are.They have a special love, a love that others may not see, but I know it's there. A love that shines is more challenging moments.

I sat here thinking tonight about how so many take for granted what they can not truly see in others. The parts of those others that they always expect to be there.

I was thinking about all the precious moments that I have with Evalyn that Caleb may never see or may have never had to this point. I have a memory of us sitting in our hand-me-down Lazy Boy- that has many years before us on it, but it is still just as comfortable- and I was reading a book my grandmother got for Evalyn on their trip to Kauai last year for the Kaohi family reunion called Popoki, it's a beautiful story- and just a few pages short of the end of the book, I looked down to see Evalyn fast asleep. A first and a last since then, and it still makes me so proud to be her mother. 

She is such a tame child. So curious is every aspect. She wants to know everything. She is slowly learning to talk, but has just about mastered walking. I talk to family who haven't seen her in a while and they can't believe how much she has grown.

I am so bewildered that this time last year I was, unknowingly, two weeks away from giving birth to this beautiful being. It is amazing how time has flown. I think this time last year I was sitting on the floor wasting time waiting for Caleb to get off work, while I meticulously tried to spend my hours perfecting a chipboard baby book that my mother and I had picked up from a little shop in Little Nashville. Which I covered in pink paper and prepared for this little ones arrival. 

Some days I think that she knows just how special she is. And she looks up to the skies, and thanks God and the angels for sending her here.
While I do just the same.


In the Shutterfly book I made her, the last words say "This is just the beginning."

I do believe it is just the beginning of a beautiful story that she has to tell us.