Happy 1st Birthday Crawford!!!
morning of 11/4/2008
morning of 11/4/2009
crawford, my sweet sweet baby boy! you are a year old today. exactly a year ago was one of the happiest days of my life. the immediate love i felt for you remains indescribable and the joy surrounding your entrance into the world and our family will forever be etched in my memory.
seriously, i cannot believe how much you have changed. you started out resembling me but now you are billy's mini-me for sure. there is a picture of your daddy as a 20 month old in our living room and several people, his immediate family included, initially thought it was you. simply amazing. the noodle legs, peachy buns and lovely soft dark hair are long gone.
you are now a blonde haired little chunky monkey with an irresistible smile that lights up your whole face. you are so squeezable with thick, roly-poly thighs and a big round belly.
crawford, you are mostly such a happy guy with just the best little personality. you laugh and smile easily and often. you love when we "chase" you or play peek-a-boo. you are laid back enough to endure long times spent in shopping carts and strollers and content enough to play by yourself for what i consider to be a long time. sleep, that has never been a battle for you like it is for bailey. it's incredibly nice how flexible you can be with your naps and how easily i can transport you to your crib when you fall asleep in the car. you prefer to go to sleep on your own and often push your daddy or i away when we try to rock you at night. after experiencing things with your beautiful big sister, i recognize this as a gift. although you don't really say a lot of actual words, my son, you talk a lot. and you wouldn't be a part of this family if you weren't loud. your favorite toy of all time is any kind of phone, real or just a toy. actually anything that has buttons will do. but you pretend to talk on a phone all the time. there doesn't even have to be anything at all in that sweet little dimpled hand of yours and there it is, up by your ear as you gab and gab away.
i thought it wasn't possible for me to love you any more. but i was very wrong. you used to feel incredibly light and airy in my arms. now, you are so solid and it just feels right when i hold you. all day long, there you are, on my hip, with your hand either grabbing onto my shirt or my hair. thank you for helping me to really understand why some women cut their hair short when they become a mom.
you were so weak and dehydrated and, as your mommy and sole source of food at the time, i am so sorry. i know that my motherly instinct that something still wasn't right, despite the assurance the doctor and the scales tried to give me, played a huge earthly role in recognizing the problem before things really took a turn for the worse and i am grateful for that gift. as scared as i was for you, i distinctly remember my unusual calmness, relying on the thought that the god who loves you and made incredible you is 100% in control and that he would not give me more than i could handle. i clung to this, prayed often and thanked god as i watched you transform into a thick, healthy, happy baby boy. in my mind, you are a miracle for so many reasons.
crawford, i love you much more than i could even begin to describe.
you have brought an incredible amount of joy into our family and i cannot wait to see what another year brings! thank you god for our son and yours!!


like i mentioned earlier, we have been having community group playdates every other monday. and i LOVE so much about it!! sure, it's sometimes hectic and i'm not a fan of hectic but it's always refreshing. i love spending time with these amazing women (courtney, dayna, chrissy and laura) and watching all of our kids play so well together. which i know will not always be the case but it is beautiful right now.
we pretty much let the big kids play in the other room while we watch over the little ones and chat. bailey makes sure none of the boys misbehaves and we trust her to tell us if they do. it's her spiritual gift. she's really good at it. oh, and by the way, out of ten kids, there are only three girls. bailey (4), lillie (getting close to 2) and georgia (1). bailey couldn't be more pleased, she loved playing with boys, especially if it involves telling them what to do :) 
sweet little zack is the youngest of the bunch! he was born about 3 months ago and is one of the prettiest babies i have seen.




poor
which, although kinda hot for
as much as i would have loved to see this happy face with the ears on, i realized it wasn't going to happen and let it go. how very
we stopped at our neighbors house first incredibly early. at about 5:00 p.m.

of course, bailey was pumped about seeing her friends, but i don't know if i have ever seen
when we arrived, it was a little toasty inside, so we took
little miss
all of the kids right before we headed out. not one of my group pictures turned out all that great but that's just not a realistic expectation. from left to right:
and they all had SO MUCH FUN!!!! they eagerly ran to each house and crowded the door, yelling "trick or treat" before the door even opened. it was a mad rush to the door every time and us parents took turns making sure everyone backed up, said thank you and didn't fall. the whole thing was adorable and i loved just walking around with friends enjoying this experience with our kids.


to our surprise, most of dallas just so happened to be at the arboretum as well. apparently, it was the first nice sunny monday we have had in weeks and everyone had the same idea. bailey enjoyed all of the fall pumpkin decorations and the little barnyard animals they had.

and then i let crawford crawl in the muddy grass. i know, i surprised my very own self. i'm so ready for this kid to walk so we can enjoy places like this more often!!
it turned out to be such a fun trip to the arboretum. i will always have fond memories of that place, meeting up with friends and enjoying god's beauty together.










when i found out that my second child was going to be a boy, i was beyond excited for so many reasons. one of them being that my wonderful sister in law
they started out being really sweet together! i was super impressed. this was the first time i felt like they could really interact with each other.
you can see that 
my sweet bailey girl hugging on duke 