Three Weeks Together

Where to even begin? Three weeks ago today, our daughter was placed in our arms for the very first time. It was a day of profound emotions for all of us. Her most of all. It was a day we had longed and prayed for. A day we had begged for. The morning leading up to meeting her left me a total and complete wreck. My warring emotions nearly left me paralyzed as I swayed back and forth between excitement and fear, relief and sadness. Three weeks ago, I sat in our hotel room on the other side of the planet with tears running down my face, knowing that we were about to begin this incredible journey, and--having done it once before--appreciating more fully all of the joy and the deep, deep heartache that would now be woven into the fabric of our family.

You've heard me say before that adoption is born from loss. No words are more true. Lucy is ours, not because everything in her life was going beautifully, but because this world is terribly broken. She came to out of tragedy. Sometimes, people tell me that she is so lucky to have us. I disagree. She's not lucky.

But we are. We are the ones who get the joy of, not just knowing her, but parenting her. I don't only get to have a relationship with her, I get to have what is arguably THE MOST IMPORTANT relationship with her. I get to be her mother. I get to curate her life. I get to become her inner voice. I get to introduce her to the world, more importantly, I get to introduce her to Jesus Christ. I get to tell her that she is CHOSEN and LOVED by the Creator of all that exists.

And I get to protect her. I get to protect her heart and her story. I get to tell her over and over again how precious and cherished she is.

So there is this struggle for me. What do I share? When we brought Bradley home, the imminent arrival of his baby sister resolved the issue for me. I had almost no time to write, so not much got shared just out of default. I certainly don't have more time now, but I want to make use of the precious little time I do have. That's why I'm sitting on the floor of my room, in the dark, typing this while Lucy naps right next to me. I want to use the time I have to document the incredible miracles God is working in the life of this family I call my own.

Three weeks ago, we were holding a beautiful little girl who was a complete stranger to us. She was terrified. And rightly so. Her nanny handed her to me, and then baby girl did not let go for the remainder of the day. Alternating between crying and staring, she hung on to me. Those first hours and days are are something I will never forget. They will serve as a constant reminder of where we have started and how far the Lord has brought us.

Even today, I watch this silly, smiley girl toddle around my living room, and I am in awe. She loves to laugh and hug her dolls. She loves to snatch books out of my hands. She loves to follow her brother and sister around. And she really loves her dog. The precious child sleeping in my room has covered MILES--literal and figurative--in just three short weeks.

The Lord Almighty has worked a true miracle right before my eyes. This little girl who sobbed at the sight and sound of her dad three weeks ago, now follows him when he leaves the room. Adam spent our first week in China hiding in the bathroom so that she could play and bond with me without being afraid of him. Now, he is lucky to go to the bathroom alone because she is his constant shadow. God has answered our deepest prayer by softening her heart toward us, and it has been astounding to see.

Adoption is not rosy. It is not just adorable pictures and airport celebrations. It is a lifetime of small victories and a daily effort to hand parenting over to God. It is a constant, in-your-face reminder of God's unwavering, unfailing, redemptive love. It is an invitation to watch Him do the impossible in your own home.

With love, 

Baylor 

Nowhere Else to Be

I have always been a fairly confident person, but motherhood has rocked me in all the ways that exist.  Never before in my life have I felt so entirely unsure of the decisions I am making on a daily basis. And really, all I do is make decisions about the tiny people who live in my house. All.Day.Long. To be doing that in a deep pool of uncertainty has been tough on me.

But one decision that I know I need to make is to slow down and just BE THERE with my kids. I come from a family of achievers. We are bottom line, get it done people. You know the saying, “Those who say it can’t be done need to get out of the way of those who are doing it.”? That might be a family mantra. I love to accomplish and then move on. I thrive on change in that way. I love the idea of finishing something and starting something else.

And so motherhood has tripped me up here, too.

There is so much sameness. So much routine. SO MUCH REPETITION. So much.

And it’s good, right? Because that’s what kids need. They need routine and structure and sameness in order to feel safe and secure. Something I DESPERATELY want for both of my children.

But it pulls at me.

This again? That same question again? Home in time for naps again? Playing hide and seek with you hiding in the exact same spot again? Rocking and rocking and rocking and rocking. And then tomorrow....again.

I was having an anxious moment a few weeks ago while trying to get Asher girl down for her nap. It was taking roughly a million years, and I had this moment of overwhelming anxiety thinking, “She needs to fall asleep so I can go.” And then it hit me.

GO DO WHAT?

I have literally nowhere else to be.

My job is to be her mom. To give her all the love and time I have so that she feels safe and cared for.

When I have played eight thousand rounds of hide and seek with Bradley hiding behind his bedroom door every single time and he wants to go for round eight thousand and one... WHY NOT? Sure it’s exhausting to me, but he is loving it. Cracking up laughing every time I find him like it’s the best thing we have ever done together.

And so in this way. the Lord is using motherhood to humble me, to cause me to self sacrifice, to put someone else’s needs and wants above my own. And it is time well spent. So often I hear other moms say something along the lines of, “What is the point of it all?” or “I feel like I’m not accomplishing anything.” And I am the first to admit that I have had these same thoughts; I’m right there with you. The transition out of the classroom and into full time mommy land left me dealing with a serious crisis of self. So when I start to feel that way, I try to remind myself that what I am doing right now is providing my kids with a rock solid foundation from which they can build an extraordinary life. My kids need to know that I not just in their corner, but that I am going to stay there for as long as it takes. That kind of security builds self-confidence.

Now, I am not saying that I never make time for myself. You will find us at the YMCA every single day, with the kids in the child watch and me pretending I’m Shakira in Zumba or training for the Tour de France in spin class. That’s so important. I can’t be a good mom or a good wife or a good anything if I don’t take care of me, too.

But what I am realizing is that being a mom is seriously hard. It requires a lot of self-sacrifice that no one ever sees. And that can be a real blow to the old ego.

So, I am hoping to work on shifting my perspective to be able to see all that God is doing in the life of my family through this decision to stay home with my kids full time. I want my kids to see Jesus in me and know that He is the reason our family is the way it is. I want to point my kids to the Gospel every single day so that they can see how completely dependent on Christ we all must be. I want them to know the Lord from childhood, for there to not be a day they can remember without Jesus. It’s a tall order, and I know I will need the grace of Jesus Christ to come anywhere close to filling it.

With love,
Baylor

New Year, New Goals, Lots of New

Oh my stars. The end of the year completely got away from me. I have so many things I want to share just swirling around in my head, and I always have the very best intentions to sit down and write, but I am just so darn tired. No more! In 2016, my goal is to write at least once a week. You’ll notice we made it all the way to Thursday before I sat down to write this week, so perhaps my goal is a bit lofty, but I’m going for it.

I’m working on a post about Bradley’s first Christmas home (it was awesome, by the way), but I want to focus on the year ahead today.

So much has changed since January 2015. Last year, we were still riding the high form receiving our referral phone call and hearing that we were FINALLY parents. We were working through final paperwork and starting to dream about meeting our boy. It was a time full of joyous anticipation and aching longing to have him home.

January of this year comes with its own brand new set of circumstances and emotions. Being Bradley’s mom has rocked my world. I love him so deeply, and at least once a day I find myself staring at him in COMPLETE AND UTTER DISBELIEF. He is here. He lives in my house. Within all of that, I have been stretched to the very limits of my being. God is using this boy to refine me in ways I did not know existed. Parenting a child from a hard place has been more difficult, draining, rewarding (basically more everything) than I ever imagined possible.

And then we have little Miss Asher joining us in less than three months time. Ummm...what? That reality is dawning fast and hard. Her life has humbled me beyond words. God has gifted us beyond what we could have imagined, in a way that we were so certain would never happen for us. That I get to carry her into this world... Well, that is something for which I do not have words. We are so excited to meet and know this little girl. At the same time, as I watch Bradley grow and change and weave into our family, I find myself wondering what will happen when she is born. It scares me. I want to be a good mom to both of them, and I am painfully aware of how not equipped I am for that.

In those moments, God reminds me that my lack of ability is precisely why I find myself in this situation. Where I am weak, He is strong. It is my prayer and hope that God will be glorified through my weakness and inabilities. That His strength and goodness will be magnified. Adam and I always say that we want our life to point back to Christ, and I am excited to see how God helps us do this in the next chapter.

In a rather vulnerable conversation with some dear friends of mine this week, I shared some of my struggles with being a new mom, places I feel like I fall short time and again. And one of my VERY wise friends shared a thought that has been bouncing around in my brain since she said it. God knew I would fall short and fail in all of these different ways, and He gave me Bradley anyway. He made me Bradley’s mom anyway. What an incredible thought. I just love that. It helps me to know that I can rest and find my strength in Christ, my identity in Christ.

So that is my big prayer heading into 2016. That I would return to the Lord in a fresh way. That I would go to Him first in all things.

There is a LOT coming our way to test me in this. And that does make me nervous. But I am ready to see the Lord move yet again in my life and in my heart. I used to joke that if we ever completed our adoption from Ethiopia, I couldn’t imagine what would occupy my mind all day, every day. I guess now I know.

With love,
Baylor

Photo Catch Up

It’s been so tough to have time to sit down and write lately. Our little Bradley Bear has become so BUSY. He is into every little thing, and it’s so fun to watch him explore and learn how things work. He is growing like crazy, and it is taking basically all of my energy to keep up with him.

 We’ve been getting our Christmas shopping done. 

 Putting up our Christmas tree. 

 Getting all kinds of new teeth! 

 Looking adorable while sleeping. 

 Spending LOTS of time at the library. 

 Exploring the McWane Center

 He loooooves the water! 

 And all the fishies! 

 And he’s been getting lots of time in with his daddy. 

 Family photos! 

 And leaving his mom with zero personal space whenever possible. 

 Someone has grown SEVEN INCHES in height since coming home! 

Probably because he loves to eat. A lot. 

And our most exciting news is that Bradley Bear started WALKING last week! 

Little Asher is doing well, too. She is moving around all the time, which is awesome and quite reassuring. All doctor appointments have gone well, and we are getting ready to meet our sweet girl in just three months. Yikes! 

There is a lot I have to write about, and I’m hoping to have some time leading up to Christmas to get it down. For now, though, all of t these cute pictures will have to suffice! 

With love, 

Baylor 

Bradley’s First Thanksgiving

I LOVE Thanksgiving. I love being with family. I love being reminded of all that I have to be thankful for in this life. I love eating. And I especially love that it was two days after last Thanksgiving that we got our referral call and saw Bradley’s sweet face for the first time. It’s a good day. Our Thanksgiving this year looked a little different than we had originally planned. We were supposed to spend the holiday with Adam’s mom down on their family farm, but my sweet MIL came down with the flu. We asked my doctor about the risks of exposure, and he responded by telling me that the three groups of people most susceptible to the flu are the elderly (not us!), pregnant women (check) and small children (check). So he recommended that we stay home, and while we were so sad to miss out on time with family, we were still able to enjoy our first Thanksgiving with Bradley home here in Birmingham.

We started our day out by taking Bradley and Daisy girl to a park near our home. Little Man is SO close to walking, so we took his push toy to help him get in some extra practice.

 We walked all over the place, played on the swings, went down some slides. It was all going so well until another family drove up on a golf cart. All B wanted was to ride in it, and the morning ended with a back-arching fit because we would not play with someone else’s vehicle. 

Oh, the inhumanity of it all! 

 So because we were not planning on being home for Turkey Day, my meal preparations consisted of nothing. Thankfully, Adam’s wonderful boss and her sweet family invited us into their home to celebrate the holiday. It was a wonderful evening full of good food and great company. 

Adam and I have so very much to be thankful for this year. One year ago today, we did not even know that Bradley existed, and now he is so much a part of our family that I cannot imagine being without him. The Lord has done great things. 

And then today we braved the Black Friday crowds for the first time ever. Well, technically it was the second time. A few years ago, Adam and I went to Wal-Mart to try to find a TV. It was pure insanity, and we did not get what we were looking for, but I did see a woman wearing a sweatshirt that was a map of the Mason-Dixon line. I thought that was a nice touch.

  Anyway, two crazy hours in the mall earned us a family dinner at Chick-Fil-A. Bradley and Adam had quite the time in the play area. 

These boys. I love them. 

I hope your Thanksgiving Day was beautiful and that you were able to bask in the love of your family while reflecting on all the Lord has blessed you with! 

With love, 

Baylor 

A Love That Grows

I'm constantly amazed by how much the Lord is teaching me and revealing to me as I make this transition into motherhood. He is changing me and molding me, yet again, into a completely new person. In one of my recent posts, I talked about how some of that has been painful and less than pretty. A lot of sin has been brought to the surface during this very sanctifying experience.

But there is this new phenomenon I have been seeing take place over the last two weeks.

When you are going through the adoption process and attending countless classes, conferences and online seminars, you are warned time and again that it is not always "love at first sight" with adoption. That for some families, it takes time to get to a place where you truly feel like a family. God was very gracious to us in that we both fell head over heels with Bradley the moment we saw him. Then that love was confirmed when we finally got our feet on Ethiopian soil to meet him.

Then we got home and the reality of parenting a child from a very hard place set in. It was so much harder than I ever imagined possible. I loved Bradley so much, and I knew that he was my son. But he didn't know that. To him, I was just a lady who had taken him away from all he had ever known. I had to FIGHT SO HARD for his heart. Day by day, minute by minute showing him that I love him, that he is mine. And that those are good things.

And rarely was that love returned. The first several weeks home were mostly trying to get him to stop crying. I have hesitated and wavered back and forth about sharing a lot about this period of our family's life because it is so personal, and it is part of our son's story. But I do feel a sense of obligation to be honest about what adoption really looks like after the airport and behind the pictures. So I am going to use broad strokes here.

Bradley was scared. Everything in his little life had changed. Every single thing. How terrifying for a baby. So every moment of my day was spent teaching him that this is a safe place, that he is loved, that he will always have enough to eat, that he doesn't need to be afraid, that he can stop crying. Please stop crying.

I loved this boy so much, but life did NOT look like I wanted it to.

The Lord sent His Spirit into our home and carried us through those first weeks.

But over the last few weeks I have noticed a shift. It was very subtle at first, but now I am seeing it more and more clearly.

Bradley loves us back.

We have crossed the shaky bridge from being a source of food and cleanliness to being people he truly loves and wants to be with. I see it in the way he reacts when I walk in a room or when Adam comes home from work. He smiles and giggles, lets out a squeal of delight and reaches for us without screaming. When playing, he will randomly crawl into my lap just to give me a hug and then go right back to what he was doing.

He sees us as his mom and dad. He has learned what those words mean, and, more importantly, he has applied them to us. I could collapse on the floor and weep for this. My son sees me they way I have always seen him. The Lord has grown his love for us, and truthfully, He has grown our love for Bradley, too. Each day we feel more and more like a family.

Don't get me wrong. There are still a LOT of hard days. There is still a TON of crying. But the undertone is different. He wants to be consoled, and he wants me to be the one to do that. He wants to play with us, not just sit in our laps or be held.

He is learning what it means to be a family, and it is the most beautiful thing in the world.

Our God is a God of miracles. Truly.

With love,
Baylor

Boy or Girl??

The reality of being pregnant and carrying another life into this world is finally starting to settle in and around me. It's funny. When we first found out that we were going to have another baby, and a biological one at that, the overwhelming emotion I felt was fear. We had just brought Bradley home from Ethiopia (like days before), and things were not going super smoothly. I felt like we were barely treading water as we figured out what parenting meant and how to best meet the needs of our son, for whom every single detail of life was new and, likely, scary. So when we found out that another little one would be joining us in just eight short months, I was terrified. I didn't think I could do it. (Ahem, I still have my doubts, but God is BIG.)

But as the weeks have passed and I have had more time to really wrap my head around what God is doing in our lives, I have become so incredibly thankful for this beautiful gift and have begun (ever so slightly) to feel like with God's strong arm for help, I can do this. 

And this past week, we got to experience the most incredible thing. I have thought and whole-heartedly believed for years that I would get phone calls to tell me that I was having another baby. And there is nothing quite like that in the entire world. Having your phone ring and being told that you are a mom and that there is this precious and beautiful child waiting for YOU. I still cry when I look at our referral day photos from last year. This week, though, we got to do something that I did not think we would ever do. We got to sit in a doctor's office and watch our baby wiggle on an ultrasound screen. We got to see our child before birth. I just didn't think that was in the cards for us. 

It was a humbling and breathtaking thing. To see this life the Lord has given us, this life I get to carry and help grow. I just didn't think...I just didn't believe we would get to do that. 

But we saw a strong heart and healthy bones. A cute little nose and long, long legs. 

And the big news is... 

We have a daughter. 

Crazy, insane words to type. I am so wholly and completely overwhelmed by God's work in our life. He has given us the family I have dreamed of. A beautiful boy from Ethiopia who made me a mom and fills my heart. And a sweet little girl who is the most wonderful of surprises. 

Before the technician began the ultrasound, she asked us what we thought we were having. Adam has always said girl, and I have always said human. We were both right. :) She started out scanning different organs to check development and then finally got to determining gender. I was not doing a whole lot of breathing. And then she said, "It looks like dad is right. You're having a girl." 

And I started sobbing. A daughter. I have a daughter. Oh, my heart. 

The Lord's faithfulness is abundant and in such stark contrast to my wavering and shifting. Again and again He demonstrates His love and mercy; both run deep. And I am so humbled to serve One so gracious, One who stoops to pursue me and my heart, One who tests me and then reminds me of His own goodness. 

With deep love, 

Baylor 

And Then God Did This

It is with such a humbled, cautious and even conflicted heart that I approach this post. My stomach is in knots for so many reasons. One of which is that I am about to share a piece of my life that has remained somewhat in the shadows until now. I'm sure you've caught the hints and implications here and there, but I have never shared the entire story outright. This is also a post that changes things. Big things. So I am going to ask you to read all the way through to the end of (what I have a feeling will be) a very long post. I am also publishing two posts today, and I would humbly ask that you read them both.

In April of 2012, Adam and I started the long, long process to bring Bradley home. We were so excited to be adopting, and we could not wait to see what the Lord would do in our lives. For about 15 months prior, we had been trying to have a biological child. Clearly, we were unsuccessful. We had always known that we wanted both biological and adopted children. We saw our family as this beautiful blend of what we imagined the family of God to look like. Our initial thought was that we would have biological children first and then adopt when we were a little older (and more mature, you know). As the months and eventually more than a year passed, we began to sense that God was telling us to adopt first. So we began our adoption from Ethiopia. And I'll be honest, it was hard to know that we would have to wait so much longer to become parents, but the more we got into the adoption process, the more I fell in LOVE with the idea of adopting first. That we would be made parents first through the adoption of our son, that I will always be able to look at Bradley and tell him that he is the one who walked me into motherhood...what a gift.

A few months after we started the process, it dawned on us that it might be a good idea to go to the doctor and make sure there was not something medically wrong (cancer, cysts, etc.) that was keeping us from being able to have biological children. I'll keep the details for Adam and myself, but after a few rounds of testing by a specialist, we were told that without serious medical intervention we would not be able to have biological children.

It was June 6, 2012. A day that is forever etched into my memory. I can tell you what I was wearing, exactly where my car was parked, exactly what the doctor said.

We were heartbroken. We wanted both. Were we asking too much?

I felt so lost and completely adrift. What happened? What did we do wrong? Where was God?

That same year, almost every single one of my friends was pregnant.

And then adoptions in Ethiopia began to slow down dramatically. It seemed like we would never be able to be parents.

Again, I began to sense the Lord asking me something. He was asking me to let go of biological children. To let go of the privilege of being able to carry a child into the world. To let go of what I thought my life would and should look like. He was asking me to trust His sovereignty over my desires.

I refused for a long time. I couldn't let go. The tighter I gripped, the more it hurt. Until God finally did the impossible. He changed my heart. He broke me down and rebuilt me into a woman who would follow Him to the ends of the earth. It was a long journey. Years in the making, but God did it.

The rest of 2012 went by. And we inched up the waiting list in 2013 until everything stopped for six months. You know the story from here.

November 29, 2014. One of the happiest days of my life so far. We saw Bradley's precious face for the very first time. Our lives changed. We had a son. A beautiful boy.

It took us eight more months to get him home, and it was a fight. A brutal battle.

He came home the day before his first birthday. We celebrated with friends and family. Kissed him a million times and hunkered down in our home to bond with our son. It was overwhelming in every single way. The jet lag. The new tiny person in our house. Not being able to leave our house. Bradley working through the loss of everything he knew. Him having to attach to Adam, the first man he had ever been around. For the first week, he pretty much only wanted to be held by me while I was standing up. Then he stopped napping during the day. I was beyond my limits. Jesus was carrying me.

Parenthood was looking soooooo much different than what I had envisioned. And I felt like I just COULD NOT get back on the right time zone. I began to grow a new appreciation of the battle the Lord fights for our hearts. He has to make us love Him. And we were having to do the same with Bradley. We had to make him love us and see us as his parents. It is (and I think always will be) the hardest thing I have ever done. And I am so deeply honored to get to do it. To have the chance to fight for this boy's heart. I would do it a thousand times.

And I finally understood why the Lord had said no to biological children for all these years. So much heartache had ultimately led to one of the greatest journeys I could imagine. In those moments of clarity, I was able to see why God ordered my life the way He did, and I was so thankful to be a mom who had the privilege of adopting, so thankful that we were able to give this beautiful boy our complete and undivided attention, so thankful that the Lord had not given up on me when I so adamantly refused His path for my life.

And now it makes even more sense. Because, unbeknownst to me, God was working something beautiful that I just couldn't see.

Ten days after walking off the plane with my boy, I found myself standing in our bathroom holding a positive pregnancy test.

I called my doctor the next day and was told that they would not see me until eight weeks. Quickly, I explained our situation (told we could not have children + one year old home from Ethiopia for 11 days now) and they said they could pencil me in. Four days later, fifteen days after Bradley got home, I was listening to the heartbeat of my second child.

Shock is an inadequate word. But it is the only one I can think of right now. I was stunned into silence. It couldn't be right. We had been told by multiple doctors that this would not happen for us. This wasn't even on our radar. It wasn't even something I prayed for anymore. God had helped me surrender this to Him. My husband was in the other bathroom bathing our one year old who had been home less than two weeks. We weren't ready.

This is where my heart twists. Having a biological child is undoubtedly something I want. Even though I gave this piece of me back to the Lord, I still thought about how amazing it would be to carry a child. I am so thankful that the Lord has gifted our family in this way.

But I know that this is something that doesn't happen often. And for years I have been on the receiving end of this news from people I know in real life and people I follow online. So I know the sting that accompanies seeing another person's prayers answered while yours seem to hang above your head. For that reason, it is with the sincerest heart that I tell you I'm sorry. I don't doubt that this is God's will for my life, and so I know I can trust that it is good. But I am deeply sorry if I have added to your hurt in any way. Please know that my heart beats for you in this, that I know what you are feeling and I honor it. Please know that I have struggled with guilt over sharing this because I hate knowing that it could add to your pain. And please know that this happening in our lives is not an indication of extraordinary faithfulness that has earned me anything. I have struggled deeply, been shaken to the core of who I am.

All I can say is that the only thing that has gotten me through the last 4.5 years on the road to parenthood is Jesus. I had to decide that the Lord was wholly and completely trustworthy, no matter the circumstance. I remember meeting with our pastor's wife in late summer 2012. I was despondent. Their story started out so similarly to ours. They could not have biological children, and after years of trying, they adopted a little boy. Soon after they got home, she found out she was pregnant. I remember sitting across from her knowing that this would not be the case for us. And she told me, "My story is not your story. I don't know how your story will end, but I know you can trust God with it." She was right. I had to believe that whatever God had for me, biological and adopted children, only adopted children or no children, whatever it was, I had to believe that it was for my good and God's glory. I know that is a really easy thing to say, and I need you know it took me literal years to get there. But I also need you to know that God can do this kind of work in your heart.

So we are celebrating this new life the Lord has entrusted to us (and still recovering from the shock). And we are trying to walk forward in faith, trusting again that the Lord is sovereign and good. Baby Knott #2 will join our family at the end of March, and we are so excited (and a bit nervous) about what the future holds for our family. I hope and pray that we can live to the calling God has for us.

I want to ask you one more thing. I mentioned at the beginning of this post that I am publishing two pieces today. Please read the next one right away. It's about pregnancy and adoption, and this is something that is so dear to my heart. Please take a moment to click HERE and read it before you do anything else.

With deep love,
Baylor

Almost Two Months Home Photo Dump

So, I have been a major slacker in posting pictures of my sweet boy. I'm about to make up for it today. These go in chronological order from the week we came home till now. It's amazing to me to see how much Bradley has changed so quickly.

 First week home. 

Look how tiny he is! 

 Loves his kiddie pool. 

 First time in the stander. 

It lasted about 45 seconds. 

 Getting bigger every day! 

 Starting to crawl everywhere. 

 Building up those arm muscles. 

 Figuring out all these new toys. 

 And wondering why I'm taking so many pictures. 

 Smiling more.

 Getting chubby legs 

 And more teeth! 

 Not so happy when mom is slow with the spoon. 

 Belly! 

 One month home and off on our first trip! 

 He's a pro at flying. 

 Family fun at the beach

 Hanging with dad.

 Out to dinner 

 Beach nap.

 Silly boy. 

 Loving the pool. 

 He has a good daddy. 

 And a crazy family. 

 Back home with Daisy girl. 

 I don't even know. 

 Seriously. I don't know. 

And with his bestie, Millie! 

You can follow them on IG: #bradandmillie

 He looks so big! 

 Standing up

 Trying to figure out his carrier. 

 Cheesy grins. 

 Getting better with Daisy. 

 First trip to the Y splash pad! 

Epic success. 

 And his first Auburn game. 

With Millie, of course. 

 And then he was done with pictures. 

 Suited up! 

 War Eagle! 

 And then he learned to do this. 

So that's our life in photos! 

Love, 

Baylor