A lot has happened since I've written last. Our sweet Millie Kennedy Harvey turned ONE! I can't believe it. I can't believe it in the way that we survived! She is alive, my other children are alive, we are all alive! It wasn't always pretty, but with Gods grace...OH Gods grace we made it through a whole year! It was such a big year. It started with a hard labor, a spinal leak from my epidural, and a blood patch procedure. Next up Millie let us experience colic for the first and last time. Again, Gods grace, people. I mean, I remember walking back and forth from one side of the house to the next rocking and shhhhing, often crying myself in utter despair trying to get my baby to fall asleep or even just not scream. She would not take a bottle for the longest time and when she did, it had to be from her mama. BUT. But it all changed around five or six months. She started to be happy. She started to sleep better. She started being a little more "predictable." And now...now I can't imagine our lives without her. We are all better humans because of Millie. She lights up a room with her smile. She LOVES her sisters fiercely. She is incredibly attached to her Mommy and Daddy. In fact, she still has some pretty big separation anxiety unfortunately. We are working on it. She does pretty well with my mom, but we equate that to my mom being crazy enough to come on a cross country adventure with us spending many hours with Millie. It was worth it though. Right Mom?!?
Millie is walking all over. She has the best bear crawl in the history of ever. She has started going up the stairs. If you're not paying attention, she will be half ways up. We need to figure out a gate situation for the bottom of our stairs. She LOVES being outside just like her sisters. Ah, who am I kidding. Our whole family loves being outside. A couple of nights before Millie's birthday we took away her bottle cold turkey. She has been just fine without it thankfully! She has one tooth and another coming in nicely. She will be eating steak in no time. We love our Millie Pie and are excited to see what the next year brings!
Our happy one year old.
This last weekend our family went camping for the first time this summer. I will say that it was absolutely amazing. The weather was perfect! We so desperately needed this weekend as a family. Ben has had the busiest summer yet. As you may remember, Ben is transitioning out of being a teacher to being in full time ministry with Timberbay. He has been busy raising support for that. He has really loved calling people and reconnecting with people and sharing his passion for what he is going to be doing in the future. Ben has also been busy with teaching drivers ed and FFA. It sounds a little crazy, but I think his schedule will slow down a little bit now with school starting. Anyway, our calendar for the last three months has been almost completely full. This weekend couldn't have come at a better time. We went camping at Baylor Park. The anticipation was thick as we loaded up our truck with all of our camping supplies. Ben and I decided to stay off of our phones all weekend, which felt SO good. It's always a good idea to unplug. Even if it is just for a little bit. The weekend was filled with catching bugs, finding agates, roasting marshmallows and hotdogs, playing at the park, going on hikes, making fires, and a lot of dirt. One part of the weekend that I didn't anticipate was how much I missed my Dad. He LOVED camping. Almost at every moment during the weekend I was thinking about him and how proud he would be of us camping. Oh I wish he could be here to see the joy on my girls' face as they do all the things that he loved to do. It was a bittersweet time for sure. He will always be apart of our camping adventures that is for sure. It was a truly a great weekend.
Well, there we have it. Millie is one, we went camping, and Ben goes back to school tomorrow.
Hiking
Stella may be the pokiest person I know. She is often content doing her own thing and at her own (very slow) pace.
Making a fairy house.
The shell of a cicada.
So much fun this weekend!
Little tiny agates!
Sweet honey pie.
