My baby is ONE!!  This little girl has brought so much happiness to our corner of the world and we had so much fun celebrating this past weekend. Happy birthday Emmersyn!

But guys, how is this possible? I blinked and this first year is gone. I am a mess of emotions about it. I am happy that she is healthy, strong and full of personality. I am sad that she is growing so fast that I barely remember what it felt like to hold her on my chest while she slept. I am eager to watch her explore her surroundings and cheer on each milestone… like first words, and first steps. But scared that I’ll forget how she looked while crawling wildly across the floor to get to me. I love putting new outfits on her and seeing how cute she looks- but that just means I have heaps of clothes that she can’t wear anymore (and that I now have to spend hours washing, sorting and boxing up.) I am ecstatic that she (mostly) sleeps through the night but honestly, I enjoyed the night time snuggles. I miss breastfeeding but think it’s adorable that she can feed herself tiny fistfuls of food. She is starting to smell more and more like a kid and only has that sweet baby scent after a bath.

If you’ve been with me a while now, you know I LOVE babies! I am one of those sick people that could do the pregnancy and newborn stage over and over. I just really love that part of motherhood. But, Emmersyn is my last baby. We have two beautiful and healthy baby girls. We are good. Our family is complete.

And as wonderful as it was to welcome another daughter to our family, I feel obligated to be totally transparent… This was not an easy year for me personally. I dealt with so many changes all at once and it wreaked havoc on my emotions. Unfortunately, I think this is why I feel like it went faster than it should have. I repeatedly begged time to slow down. I tried my best to stay present. Made promises to myself that I would stop turning my attention to unnecessary tasks.

There were moments though that I thought I’d never get through and would selfishly wish away time. Like Emmy’s awful phase of not sleeping. Or the 26 day road trip we decided to go on when she was 3 months old that required us to stop every few hours for feedings in random rest stops (I should probably write about that experience someday). And me struggling with mom guilt and having to walk away from a job I was deeply attached to for the last 6 years. Oh and also me struggling with my new identity as a stay at home mom so badly that I decided to launch my photography business right in the middle of the craziest season of my life. Yeah. Lots of change.

As I write this on day 366 of Emmy’s little life, I know this next year will bring even more change… And I’m totally okay with that. Because all of those days ahead will also bring the moments that will be worth remembering and looking back on. The stories I’ll get to collect and tell her when she’s older. The pictures and videos documenting all of the amazing things she did.

Time may take us (somewhat unwillingly) further from those early days of becoming a family of 4 but it is also a gift. It means I get to be with my daughter. I get to laugh more. And yeah, I miss all the baby stuff and I probably always will, but I really like Emmy’s personality. She’s a neat kid and I am excited to see who she becomes.

My favorite things about Emmy Jo:

• She is the sweetest baby and never runs out of snuggles or open mouthed kisses!
• She is a bit shy around people and will put her head on my shoulder covering her eyes until she’s ready to have a look at you.
• Her eyes are sparkly and big and always seem to be smiling.
• She is very curious and loves to be a part of the action.
• Her disposition is mostly calm… until Lydia gets too wild and then she lets her know how she feels by squealing at her!
• I love her sounds! She is very vocal and talks all the time.
• She has the funniest little rat tail that always gets tangled when she sleeps and I love to run my fingers through it to smooth it out while she drinks her bottle (I used to do it when she was nursing and I found it soothing)
• I love the way she puts herself to sleep while rubbing her face in her ‘night-night’ stuffy and sucks on the corners of it… and because of that, I love the smell of said ‘night-night’ because it is 100% her.
• She loves to be held and will just sit in my lap for long periods of time… this is probably the number 1 thing I love about her… I mean what mom doesn’t want to snuggle with her babies?