2 posts in one month already?

So it's been a busy few weeks around here....
Got to hang out with this darling girl... I don't know how I got so lucky that I can have friends like her. Ready for our next visit. And to see Con and Jon, too.
Had a bachlorette weekend in Charleston for Katie's wedding next month. Ate lots of way too fabulous food. Yum.
Mike got really really fever/chills/achy sick from working outside in our nonsensical 100+ degree heat for the past month or so...
Gave up on watering. Things are just going to have to be brown and unhappy.
Getting ready for our next month or so of wedding madness.

And....
Also....
Eating a lot of ice cream.
Taking a lot of naps.
Not fitting into any of my regular clothes.
Peeing in a lot of cups.
Smiling from ear to ear for the past couple of weeks.
All because of this little being:





Yup.
That's our baby.
14 weeks today.
Erika's been about to have a nervous breakdown for the past 8 weeks or so since I told her... I think she's ready to skywrite it on my behalf.
It's been a long, long journey to this point, though.
I was going to post last week after my dr's appointment, but as we were leaving, I saw a girl in one of the back rooms, in the chair I recall too well, wrapped in a blue blanket. I told myself, maybe she's just nauseous. But I remembered why they put me there-- so I wouldn't have to go back and sit in the waiting room with all the women who were still pregnant.
And that moment made me really pause.
Be more thankful, more reflective than I was even the hour before I saw her.
I know everything happens for a reason.
I know that I prayed to get through those first eight weeks. Scared to death at every twinge, spot, and change.
I know that I cried my eyes out harder than I ever would've expected at the six week appointment when I saw the teeeeeeeny tiny beginnings of a baby and heard for the first time that woosh of a heartbeat I'd been waiting to hear for so long.
I laugh when I get sick, I laugh at the beginnings of stretch marks and the zits on my face and the fact that my belly is already oh so grateful for maternity pants-- because we fought for this. And we love this baby so much it hurts already.

I've had so much support through all of you through everything.
Thank you.
From all of us.
(including Max, who keeps thinking I'm bringing home a new puppy when I ask if he wants a baby brother or sister, but other than that, is thoroughly enjoying daily post-work naptime and ice cream licks)
xoxoxox,
g

four.

Four years.
I told Mike on our way to the Ben Folds concert Tuesday that I couldn't believe we'd been married four years... which made him laugh hysterically at me.... but what I meant was that-- it's gone so fast.

So much has happened.
So much has changed.
So, so much is still yet to be.
We've settled into our life together... and yet every day, I feel like there's still more to learn, more to love about Mike.
He's a good one.
I love you, babe.