Happy Blogiversary To Me!

Happy Blogiversary to me!



Happy Blogiversary to me!



Happy Bl- aahhhhhg-iversareeeeeee, to meeeee!



Happy Blogiversary to me!



Whew! Are you glad I'm done singing?



Well, I've been aware that this special day was coming for a while and I would, off and on, try to come up with something really fun. You know, like so many of those other popular blogs do, a contest, a giveaway or a truly hilarious post that makes you laugh so hard at work that your co-workers actually pop up like prairie dogs to look over their cubicles. Yeah. One of those.



Sorry to disappoint but I didn't get my head together in time. Still, let's take a short trip in the time machine to just one year ago and see what was going on.



Here's me:

Oh my! Don't ask what was up with my expression. Maybe I was in total dismay over my hair that day, who knows. This was at 27 weeks a' cookin' that there baby. Still wondering if we would be on the pink or blue team with this one in addition to wondering what he/she will look like, what color hair, how big, will this one be late like the others? I was getting more and more annoyed with how much Rob had to travel with work. Ha ha! Get that! I was ANNOYED that Rob had to travel in one to TWO WEEK chunks. Ha! I still can't stop laughing at that! Boy, just goes to show you never know what life is going to bring. As of today, I haven't seen my husband in three months.

And it's at this point that I regret not transferring more pictures over to my new laptop and wonder why I was allowed to copy the above picture off my blog but not the others that I tried. *sigh*. I PROMISE I will come back and post more pics. Ah well, you can always go to last January and see the pics yourself so continuing on.

The day I start this blog Gabe is one month shy (exactly) of turning 4 and had just started to show interest in drawing and coloring for the first time in his life (now I'm raiding the recycle bin for paper to fulfill his drawing needs). He got his first "real boy" hair cut. No, I'm not talking Pinocchio here but a "he's not a baby anymore" cut. Boohoo. Gabe is already "ahead" in school and attending the four year old class at his preschool. He loves school, his teacher and making new friends. For the first time he experiences the hurt of someone saying they don't want to play with him but he also makes a friend who he still enjoys playing with even though they aren't in school together any more.

At this time Zion still didn't have enough hair to warrant a hair cut. She was communicating mostly using sign language and was addicted to Signing Time videos (I can't wait to introduce them again for Gideon). She was just showing the signs that she was going to become my little "Condiment Queen" by eating sour cream by the spoonful one night at dinner and licking the syrup off her plate at breakfast. This has not changed at all, if you want Zion to eat "food" you have to give her a sauce, spread or condiment. She's the kind of kid who uses one fry over and over again to annihilate a pile of ketchup. Zion is always trying to keep up with Gabe and has a fit every time we drop him off at school or AWANA and she doesn't get to stay.

Gideon was, obviously, still warm and cozy and drawing circles (that's what it felt like anyway) inside my belly. Just a few weeks earlier we had seen his profile on ultrasound, he was sucking his thumb. He was adorable then and now.

Rob was traveling back and forth between home and North Carolina and Portland. Being deployed wasn't on his radar at all though at some point he started to question his involvement in the Reserves. He wanted to be doing it for the right reasons.

There was snow last January and we all had colds. Hm, I guess in that way not much is different. Considering the changes that our country is going through right now the time of reflection seems appropriate. What were you doing a year ago? What changes caught you off guard? Which were pleasant surprises? Did you grow as a person? This is the one that I think about the most. Am I better off than I was a year ago and I don't mean financially or materially (is that even a word), but am I more patient? Kind? Forgiving? Generous? Joyful in all circumstances? Can I empathize and strive to understand and love those who are different than I? Have I grown closer to the Lord? Am I spending time in the Word and in prayer? Wow, I've gone all deep on ya. I hope you stuck with me though and enjoyed my little flashback.