Charlie

We have so loved our first month with our little man. He is such a sweetheart, such a calm and easy baby. We love you little Charlie and we have loved every second of this sleepless and joy-filled first month with you.

Shower Love

In every season of life, God has blessed me with friends who are kind, thoughtful, funny, smart, generous, loving, encouraging, and generally more wonderful than I deserve.  These include my sweet childhood-through-adulthood friends, girls who went to Spring Hill or Oakland Heights, girls I was very lucky to have grown up beside.  Because of these special people in my life, I grew up so happy- giggling about boys together, going to church camps together and learning about the life-changing love of God, playing in volleyball tournaments together, eating in the cafeteria together, going on mission trips around the world together, graduating together, getting in trouble in class together for laughing too much, getting in trouble in cheerleading practice together for laughing too much, and getting in trouble in track practice for laughing too much.

Really, just an uncommonly lovely group of girls.

And then, in college, I was able to grow close with a few amazing women with whom I shared the excitement of freshman year, the wonder and humility in knowing how we are loved by God, the mystery of what our lives would hold, and more getting in trouble for laughing. I leaned on these precious friends so much during this time, as we tried to understand God's plans for our lives, what we should major in, who we would marry, who we are and what we truly believed. I carry these sweet/poignant/funny/silly moments close to my heart.

And then, after college, having married my very best friend, I was lucky to grow close to a circle of friends with whom I have gotten to have so many new and fun experiences- weddings, going on vacations with our husbands, skiing, trying out fun restaurants, buying our apartments or houses or cars, getting our first "adult" jobs, starting our careers, celebrating graduation from graduate schools, and now starting to think about growing our little families. I am also lucky to be able to work with a few precious women who are so thoughtful, who help get me through the difficult work weeks, who have been such supportive and kind friends. It is due in large part to these girls that I can honestly say I love my job.

All of this to say that I feel like my life has been wrapped up in so much love from these special friends, and most recently, was able to celebrate our little Charlie with most of these people. It has been such a meaningful time for me, and again, I have been reminded how generous and lovely these friends are, and how loving they are to me. A most heartfelt thank you to those who have prayed, sent sweet cards, given adorable gifts, spent time planning/driving to/hosting showers, and done so much to share in the excitement of one of the most wonderful times of my life. Mitchell and I cannot say enough how much it means to us.

Below are a few pics of these times- of course not everyone that I have described is in these few pictures, but you lovely friends know who you are.

Thank you all for making this exciting time so very special for us.

Merry Christmas To All

Merry Christmas, dear family and friends, from the three of us!

28 weeks and growing, growing, growing!

Have a Holly Jolly Birthday

Happy 24th Birthday to my baby sister!

Sweet Hollybug, I love you so much. I am so proud to be known as your sister. You have grown from this adorable, cute, sweet little girl into a beautiful, thoughtful, generous, and funny woman.

You have always been the sweetest little sister. I remember sharing the same room when we were younger and staying up late, giggling and talking long after we were supposed to be asleep. I would always wake up with you sleeping diagonally across the bed- clearly over the middle line! It was the funniest position to sleep in, and I would have to move your legs back over to your own side. Sometimes I did this by kicking them, but you were asleep.

Big sister holding you. Look at all your hair!

You ready to start your Christmas baking

You are usually less messy of an eater these days

I don't remember a time in my life before you were there. I was only almost three when you were born, and all of my childhood memories include you, living them with me. I remember our house on Joshua Tree, playing with you in the backyard in our pink playhouse, riding bikes with you, driving our beloved pink Barbie car around with you. I had no idea how very very lucky I was to have you as my little playmate, my fellow teacher, or mom, or princess, or whatever we wanted to play. I remember sitting in the living room before bedtime with our hair in curlers, watching America's Funniest Home Videos with Mom and Dad and laughing so hard.

Making Dad laugh

I remember how excited we were when Trip was born and we had a little brother to play with. We would try to dress him up in dresses but that didn't last very long. He preferred his shorts and cowboy boots, even early on. I remember how happy we were to get our first kitten, Puffy, and how we would fight over who got to take a picture with her. We would spend our summers with our neighborhood friends, playing in little plastic pools or running through sprinklers. One of your favorite things to do, though, was to play in the mud. You would make mud pies for hours on end, with your cute little blonde braid- such a mix of girly and tomboy, just like Maddi.

So sweet

Six Flags-ing it up! Fanny pack!

Great stance

Going for a bow theme :)

As we got older, we spent more and more time with friends, and less time with just the two of us. No friend could ever have replaced you, though. You were and always will be closer than any friend, more like the same person than different people. I think I will always feel a mixture of protective of you and encouraged by you. Encouraged to be more gentle, more loving, more selfless, more brave. Encouraged to live a life of grace.

Beautiful, one of all time faves of you

It warms my heart to see the beautiful little family you have now. I see the way your husband looks at you, with such a loving expression, and it makes me so happy that you two are so in love with each other. I see your two precious, precious little girls playing together and it reminds me so much of you and me. It makes me happy to think that they have a lifetime of sisterhood ahead of them, and all that it brings- all of the laughter, the shared secrets, the shared clothes, the shared jokes, the shared memories, the shared smiles, and the feeling that someone really, truly, actually totally understands.

Cake, anyone?

Loving on your little one

You are a wonderful mom, wife, sister, and daughter. And you would never see it, but you are just lovely.

I love you dearly, forever, and I will always be here for you. 

Happy 24th, Holly Holly Christine!

Happy 19

Happy 19th Birthday Trip! At each birthday of yours, I always have the same thought- "How is he already __ years old?!" I think I will always see you as my baby brother, maybe around 10 or 12 years old. Maybe all older sisters do. But you are now (and have been for a while) a young man that I could not be more proud of.

I remember the night you were born, before we went to the hospital, Holly and I were running around the front yard telling our friends that our baby brother was almost here. We may not have been as excited when we first found out you were a boy (I remember something about us both bursting into tears, haha), but we were as excited as can be that night. I remember getting to hold you at the hospital for the first time and in the pictures I can see that you were exactly as I remember- perfect, sweet, and already so handsome. Holly and I would race home from school every day and one of the first things we said to Mom was "Is Trip awake!" Most of the time you were taking a nap, but we always asked because we couldn't wait to wake you up so we could play with you.Even as a little kid, you always had the cutest mischievous smile. You have always loved being outside and playing with axes, machetes, BB guns-- Mom and Dad clearly had a more independent style of parenting with you than with me or Holly. :) One of my favorite stories is you cutting one of Dad's seatbelts in his car with scissors. I guess you just decided you didn't want to wear a seatbelt and would take care of it yourself. Of course, you also had your share of blame for things you didn't do-- "I don't know who did it, but it wasn't my baseball bat!" are some of the sweetest words an older sister, with a penchant for pushing friends in a rolling chair into walls for fun, can hear.
As you have grown up, I have caught glimpses of the young man you are becoming and, still, glimpses of the playful little boy I knew. In high school you developed a passion for cross-country and track and immediately superseded any athletic ability I had ever been able to cultivate in myself. You worked so hard, getting up early before school to run several miles- as you and I are about the same level of "morning person" (which is zero, maybe negative), I know how disciplined you must have been to commit the way you did. You won so many awards, and though I was always proud to hear of your latest, I was and still am most proud of you for the dedication you had. Although talent like yours is rare, talent itself doesn't require much from a person- but you didn't possess just talent, you also showed a great ability to work very hard. Never forget these lessons and what they taught you about yourself and your ability to do what at first seems impossible.I wish so many things for you- that you will be happy, that you will find a fulfilling career, that you will marry someone who is loving and thoughtful, but most of all, baby brother, the most important things of all, is your relationship with a God who loves and cares for you. I pray that through your college and adult years, you will come to experience more and more the abundant joy of walking beside Him, that you might believe that He is better- better than all that you have, better than your dreams or goals, better than life and breath itself. He is better.

And of course, remember that your big sister loves you.

I am so proud of you. Happy 19th Birthday, Trip!

Baby Blue

We were THRILLED to find out that we are having a sweet baby BOY! We are so very excited.

18 And Some Change

We are 18 weeks and 4 days today! I've started to feel our little one moving and kicking around. I can't wait until Mitchell can feel it with me. I keep running over to him as soon as I feel something and place his hand on my (ever growing) belly but it's way too early.

Our next ultrasound appointment will be so exciting- we find out the gender! I can't wait to hear what I think I already know- that it's a boy :) Really, we are just thankful that so far everything is going well and that Baby Young looks healthy- boy or girl. But can you imagine anything cuter than a little boy that is just like Mitchell?

It still feel so surreal that we are having a baby that we haven't even gotten serious about names yet. Every once in a while one of us will say, "What do you think about so-and-so?" And the other one will say, "It's ok." And that's really kind of it. I never realized how hard it is picking out names- you don't want anything too common, or too weird, or too cutesy, or too formal... "Figgy" is the only one that's stuck so far. (We started calling him/her "Figgy" several weeks ago when we saw that he/she was about the size of a fig at that point in pregnancy.) We should probably stop soon, or you may receive a birth announcement for Baby Figgy Young.