Our Baby Girl Is Four

Four years ago this very morning, I was anxious and excited to finally meet the precious, surprise gift, that God had placed in our lives.  From the get go she was a surprise, an unexpected, but very much wanted gift from the Lord.  I remember being so shocked to find out we were pregnant, then more shocked at the 20 week ultrasound when they told us we were having a girl.  Still, not fully believing them, I took the same smocked day gown that I'd brought each of the boys home in just in case they were wrong.  (I didn't want to have to have my Mom go home and rummage through the mountain of tote boxes looking for the smocked white and blue Kissy Kissy outfit, so I tucked it in with my overnight bag---hoping and praying that the Doctors were correct, that she was in fact, a girl, and they were right!

After having done this three times already, I still worried that I would somehow mistake what my body was saying and be that woman who goes multiple times up to the hospital with false alarms, so I would wait until I knew that I knew---you know what I mean?  So finally I decided to get up and shower and get dressed but upon standing, there was the gush!  My water had broken.  We hurried to the hospital and things progressed rapidly.   I think I was gowned up and in a bed about 5:00am and by 7:00 we had a baby girl.  Here is my blog post from when she was born.

Since then, she has continued to be a wonderful surprise in our life.  We got the opportunity to trust God even more two months later when her congenital heart defect presented itself.  That was the most shocking and surprising situations that we have experienced as parents so far.  I'm so grateful for Children's Hospital and the team of nurses and doctors there, who loved on us and treated her with such care.  You can click on the links I've attached to see several of my blog posts during that critical and scary period of our lives.

Here are some of my favorite baby pictures.

You were and still are wrapped around your Daddy's little finger!

So, whenever I talk to people about Ava Jane, I say she has been a surprise all the way around!  We were surprised to be pregnant, surprised to be having a girl and surprised and shocked out of our minds to find out she needed heart surgery.  But as the years have flown by, I realize that I get (pleasantly) surprised at the day to day moments when I see her clip clopping around in my high heels, or wanting to have a makeup bag like me, or when she wants to help cook, or have her toes and fingernails painted.  I get all sappy when I see her playing with my jewelry and wanting to wear my bracelets.  She is a girly girl and I am so thankful she likes to wear big bows and lots of ruffles, and this is one thing I am not surprised by, that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE dressing this sweet girl in the most adorable things.  Ava Jane brings me such delight.  I.truly.delight in her.  I love to go into her room in the mornings and see her messy hair all over the place from wrestling in her sleep.  Picking her up and cuddling her in the chair is one of my most favorite things to do on slower paced mornings.  This baby girl has been a delight from day one and I could not imagine my world without her.   I cannot believe that our baby girl is such a big girl now, not even a toddler anymore, but more of a preschooler.   She has my whole heart and I'm so thankful we get to claim her as ours!  Happy Birthday sweet girl!  Daddy and I love you more then you will ever know!