Such as life-threatening diseases.

Or a condition that will stay with her the rest of her life.

But, yesterday and today I just felt “down” and I know it is because for the past 6 months my life has revolved around nurturing Sweet Pea and getting her over the humps that come along with drug exposure in the womb.

I remember feeling this way when Little Bug was born, too.

While I do not have any control over what my daughters were exposed to in the womb, I have every bit of control once they are placed in my arms to do every single thing possible to make their time of withdrawal as “smooth” as possible.

The best way I know how to do this is to basically shield my babies from the outside world until their little nervous system has time to heal and they can handle the stimulation of the world beyond our home.

So that is exactly what I do and it takes it’s toll on me because, while I have certainly not been a hermit in our home for the past 6 months, life is drastically different than it was half a year ago.

I am so ready for Sweet Pea to be a “normal” baby that can go and do every day normal activities without overstimulation becoming an issue!

The good news is we are almost there. Her overstimulation issues peaked at the beginning of December when she started freaking out anytime we were with a group of people for Christmas parties. And now, at 6 months old, I know we are nearly at the end of this road and it won’t be long and life can resume to “normal”, once again.

While Rebecca was here, we all went to Olive Garden to celebrate Levi’s finalization. I went armed with all my things to help Sweet Pea if the restaurant atmosphere got to be too much for her: her car seat which acts as a cocoon to shut out the world around her, a big blanket to drape over the car seat to make it dark, her white noise lamb that attaches to the car seat to drown out noise, the miracle blanket and her paci to help her fall asleep which is what she needs if she gets overstimulated.

Olive Garden was the first place Sweet Pea had been to besides church and my parents’ house since probably Christmastime when I decided it wasn’t fair to her to take her places I knew would overstimulate her.

We arrived at the restaurant and Sweet Pea was in the car seat with just the car seat canopy over her (no blanket to fully shut everything out). She sat like that at first and she seemed totally fine so I decided I was going to get her out of her “cocoon” and see how she handled things.

I was watching her like a hawk for her overstimulation signs, but I never saw any and I can’t tell you how good it felt to be at a restaurant with my little family of four and for all four of us to be enjoying our time there!

That’s when I knew we were nearing the end.

A few days later, Little Bug, Sweet Pea and I walked up to the neighborhood park. We have done this several times since Sweet Pea started staying awake longer, but I usually keep Sweet Pea in the stroller so she is shielded from the wind, which she does not like.

One this day, it wasn’t windy at all, so I decided that it was time for Sweet Pea to swing on the baby swing at the park for the first time!

(taken from my phone)

She LOVED it, but I pushed her limits a little too much because as I was swinging with Little Bug on the bigger swing, I saw “the look” on her face. I immediately stopped swinging with Little Bug and jumped off the swing to get Sweet Pea back in the stroller before it was too late.

Fortunately, I made it because I was watching for overstimulation signs, but that told me she isn’t quite completely over all this mess yet and I need to still be aware of how she is taking things in.

But, we are close. The simple fact that she could swing for a time at the neighborhood park makes my heart do flips!

I hope you hear my heart when I say this because I obviously wouldn’t want my life to be any different at all. However, I do find myself sometimes wondering what it would be like to have a “normal newborn” – a newborn NOT exposed to drugs in the womb, a newborn that wouldn’t have to go through withdrawals.

I have no idea what that would be like.

In the same thought, though, I find myself also thanking God that my girls are healthy, because I would rather deal with this than life-threatening diseases any day.

It was so interesting to me to read what I wrote in February because most of my posts centered around acknowledging that God is in control of our second adoption journey and the realization that I just needed to sit back and wait in great expectation for God to do another miracle.

I had no idea of knowing what God was going to start doing on March 8th when my friend Jennifer text me about an adoption situation, wondering if we would be interested.

During the months of waiting to see if we would be matched with this birth mother, the lessons God desired to teach me were all about the fact that GOD was in control of everything and nothing I did or didn’t do would change the outcome.

God had it all under control, even though at the time, there was a lot of waiting involved and a lot of uncertainty on my end.

It just amazes me how God prepares our hearts for what is to come. He planted these seeds in my heart in February knowing in March and until I had Sweet Pea in my arms in August, I would need to hang on knowing that God was in control.

If you have some time, go back and read my posts from February of last year. The words I wrote astound me because I had no idea what God was about to do.

When we find ourselves in a situation where we can’t see the big picture and we don’t have access to all the details, we must remember that God sees it all. He has planned it all. And not only that, He has something good in store, even if it looks like you’ve been deserted in left field.

He is there. Right beside you. And when the right time comes, He will start to reveal the big picture and you too will one day be able to look back on these days of only having just a fraction of the puzzle pieces and you will be able to see the big picture and know that God was in control of every single detail even when it seemed like everything was so uncertain.

It is strange to me that six months have already passed since Sweet Pea’s birth. On the day she turned 6 months old, around noon on that day, I remembered what happened at that exact moment. I believe it was actually a minute until noon and Emily called to tell me Sweet Pea had been born at 7:55am that morning.

The journey that had begun on March 8th – and, really, I guess you could say our official second adoption journey began on December 13, 2010, with Emily’s phone call that Tracy was pregnant – came to a close on August 4th when we jumped in the car and drove the 1.5 hours to go meet our second daughter after the TPR had been signed.

I guess reaching this point – 6 months after our second adoption in 2 years – makes me want to sit back and reflect upon the faithfulness of God through both of our adoptions.

It also takes me way back to September of 2008, the month I saw my first of countless negative pregnancy tests.

Those were my days of having only a fraction of the puzzle pieces. I couldn’t see the big picture which means there were many very hard days as I saw my dream slip away and I was powerless to do anything to change the circumstances I found myself in.

It sounds so cliché, I know, but God was in control. He had a beautiful journey laid out before me.

I am just standing in awe of all this today – and every day.

And thanking God, once again, that His plans were not mine.

10 days old

1 month old

2 months old

3 months old

4 months old

5 months old

6 months old

Happy Half-Birthday, Sweet Pea!

To see her 6 month update, click here.

This is a huge milestone for me as a mother because I always told myself the first 6 months would be the toughest and while I know there will be new challenges along the way, I have definitely fully transitioned from being the mother of one to being the mother of two!

Whereas there was a time I didn’t know how I was going to do this, I now cannot imagine life without my Sweet Pea in it and I am continuously thankful that God saw fit to give me this baby girl twenty-six months after giving me her big sister!

This month was the month of extending wake times and feeding times!!

Eating: About a week and a half after turning 5 months old, Sweet Pea extended her feeding times from every 3 hours to 3.5 – 4 hours apart! She dropped a feeding which means she started eating only five times in a day instead of 6. She ate at 8am, 11:30am, 3:30pm, 7:30pm and 11:30pm. She also started wanting 5 ounces per feed which was very encouraging to see that her stomach could handle that. By the end of this month, Sweet Pea was eating SIX ounce bottles! Even though the GI had suggested we not let her eat more than 4 oz. per feed until after she turned 6 months, Sweet Pea did this on her own (in other words, I didn’t force it on her), so we went with it and Sweet Pea has done fine eating 6 ounces every feed.

Dreamfeed: Sweet Pea still has the 11:30pm dreamfeed every night. No signs of this coming to an end any time soon, except two nights ago she only took about 4oz and ended up spitting up all over her Daddy. The next night we offered a full feed and she took it, so I am not so sure she is ready to drop this quite yet, which is fine. She will eventually drop it when she is ready.

Wake time: A couple days before she turned 5 months old, Sweet Pea started not going to sleep right away for naps or waking up early from naps. This told me she was ready to extended her waketime past one hour! Her new wake time during this month was 1 hour and 15 minutes, but then by 5.5 months old she was ready to extend even further to 1.5 hours! This was also encouraging to see because it means that Sweet Pea is slowly but surely coming to a point where she can handle the stimulation of her world – and since she is up for 1.5 hours now, there is time for a trip to the neighborhood park before the next nap!

Independent Playtime: Sweet Pea has been doing IP for several months now but I have just forgotten to write about it in her monthly updates. Right now, IP time for Sweet Pea consists of playing on her floor mat for about 20 minutes a day. When she starts sitting independently I will start letting her have IP in the pack n play in our bedroom for 30 minutes a day. Sweet Pea typically does IP after her 3:30pm bottle but when she moves to the pack n play she will probably start having IP before her morning nap.

Sweet Pea loves to play with the animals hanging from her floor mat.

Sleep: Extending her feeding times from 3 hours to 3.5 to 4 hours naturally made her drop her 4th nap! So this month, Sweet Pea took only three naps a day: morning, afternoon and evening. Nap length was about 2 to 2.5 hours. Bedtime was at 8:30pm. Nighttime sleep was good but there were some wake ups between the hours of 4-6am for the paci. I have noticed a pattern of her waking in the night for the paci about every other night. For now, I am not doing anything to “fix" it.

Sweet Pea still sleeps with all her “tummy trouble props”: reclined sleeper, swaddle, paci, white noise. My plan to break her of all these props is to do it when she tells me she is ready. When she shows signs of not wanting to be swaddled, I will unwrap one arm and then the other. My motto is always “Don’t fix something that isn’t broken.”

Diapers and Clothes: Even though I still had a lot of size 1 and size 1-2 diapers, I had to go ahead and move Sweet Pea up to Size 2’s because she started leaking. At night, she wears two size 2 diapers and that keeps her from leaking overnight. She now wears mostly size 6 month clothing (especially onesies). She can still fit into her 3-6 month outfits, but 3 month onesies are too tight.

Weaning from meds: This month we started weaning her from Gripe Water after her GI appointment on the 17th. We started by only putting half a dosage in each bottle to see how she would handle that. I had to do some figuring to determine if her interrupted naps were due to needing to extend wake time or because her stomach was upset from the lack of Gripe Water. Fortunately, I determined her naps were short because she needed to extend wake time and not because she had an upset tummy! I still give her mylecon before every nap.

GI Appointment: She had a very refreshing check up with the GI on January 17th! We don’t have to come back unless there is a problem and when she is 7 months old we can start the weaning process for the zantac! When I explained that Sweet Pea was eating over 4 ounces and she had increased her feeds on her own with no pushing or even a little encouragement from me, they said it was absolutely fine for her to eat over 4 ounces a feed.

Overstimulation: Sweet Pea still cannot handle being passed around in a group of people. She also will get overstimulated if you interact too much with her face-to-face, especially if the setting is with a group of people. If she gets overstimulated she will pucker her lip and if she doesn’t get back to a “safe place” (her mommy’s arms!) she will start to cry.

Favorite Toy: The jumper is by far Sweet Pea’s favorite toy. I could watch her play in there all day. She learned to make herself bounce up and down and it is just the cutest thing! She could probably sit in that for her entire wake time if I let her.

Another toy she has recently discovered and really enjoys is the excersaucer! She bounces up and down in there too and loves to look at all the toys surrounding her. I don’t leave her in this more than 10 minutes because of overstimulation. Look at that concentration!

Sweet Pea also enjoys spending her time gnawing on her fingers.

Teething: Sweet Pea has been gnawing on her fingers basically since she discovered her hands, so I have never really attributed all the gnawing to teething. However, Sweet Pea has started to get her first tooth! It is on the lower gum. I can feel it trying to poke through!

Personality: If Little Bug is the raging sea, Sweet Pea is the peaceful stream. It is interesting how you can already see glimpses into a baby’s personality before they are even 6 months old. Sweet Pea is so calm, laid back, quiet, mellow and just plain ‘ol sweet. There is something about her smile that just melts your heart every time she looks at you. She rarely cries. I could probably almost say she never cries, but when she gets overstimulated, she cries. But that is about it! I imagine when she gets a bit older and has more preferences she will use her voice more, but for now, you wouldn’t know she is in the room unless she is in a talkative mood!

Talking: Sweet Pea is quiet but when she has something to say, she says it! Her babbling is adorable and something she normally does around bedtime.

Sibling Interaction: Sweet Pea loves to watch her sister. Whatever sister is doing is fascinating!

Milestones: Sweet Pea rolled over from tummy to back on January 7th! She doesn’t consistently roll yet, but she has rolled several more times since that first time.

Schedule (5 months old): She basically had two schedules this month because her wake times changed so frequently. From 5 months to 5.5 months, this is what she did: 8am eat, 9:15-11:30am nap, 11:30am eat, 12:45-3:00pm nap, 3pm eat, 4:15-6:30pm nap, 7pm eat, 8pm bath, 8:30 bed.

From 5.5 months to 6 months, this was her schedule:

8am eat

9:30am-11:30am nap

11:30am eat

1:00pm-3:30pm nap

3:30pm eat

5:00pm-6:30pm nap

7:30pm eat

8:00pm bath

8:30pm bedtime

11:30pm eat

Summary: This was a good month for Sweet Pea. She really did make some excellent progress in overcoming these stomach issues and she also extended her schedule out some and dropped a feeding, which was nice for everyone! It is fun to have her awake more and she is such a joy to our entire family.

Happy 6 Months, Sweet Pea!!

They say going from 1 to 2 kids is quite challenging. Having two kids two years apart has been very tricky at times but over the past 6 months, I’ve come up with a Top 10 List of things that have made life less hectic for me along the way. Thought I would share them here…

1. Have a playpen with toys/books set up for the older child to play in. Ours is set up in our bedroom. This is an absolute necessity for me because of the fact that Little Bug is the type of child that even at the age of 2.5 years old I have to keep a constant eye on her and if things go quiet for more than one minute I know she is up to something. So, if I need a few minutes to take care of the baby without having to worry about watching Little Bug, the playpen is a life-saver.

2. Let cleaning your house go. Especially in those first 2-3 months. Once the craziness of the newborn phase is over, you can slowly work back to keeping up with cleaning. Before Sweet Pea, I would spend about 30 minutes a day on cleaning. That way I didn’t have it all pile up on me and it was easy to tackle one task a day for half an hour. I let all that go when Sweet Pea was born. Weeks would go by without cleaning. If you are a neat-freak like me, you just have to learn that it is okay for the bathroom to be dirty and for dust to be on the furniture. I’ve just recently gotten back into my 30 minutes/day of cleaning to stay on top of things, most weeks. There is more to life than a clean house so…let it go!! My house won’t ever be as clean as it was before kids because 1) kids make messes and 2) it is more important to spend time with my girls than to have a model home!

3. Learn to laugh at the chaos instead of cry. Those first 8-12ish weeks were super crazy for me! Many moments I just had to stop and choose to laugh…or else it was cry and laughing is way more fun and relaxing! I would also think in those moments, “My girls won’t be this little for long. Before I know it they are going to be all grown up and I will miss these crazy baby days!” It is called being content with life how it is at that very moment. It goes a long way for relieving stress in those crazy moments (which will be VERY frequent during the first 2-3 months!).

4. Stay home more. This may not work for everyone, but for me, it does. Sometimes, it is just easier to stay at home and not go anywhere because going somewhere involves packing everyone up (bottles, diapers, paci, burp clothes, wipes, etc.) and having to manage everyone’s needs while out and about. Just not worth it much to me when you have two small children! That being said…I am not a hermit by any means now. Miss Social Butterfly would not have that! We do get out of the house! However, those random trips to PetSmart to have an “inside zoo” experience when it is 90 degrees outside don’t happen in the stage of life we are in now! It is just not worth the effort. It is much easier to just put them in the stroller and go for a walk around the block between Sweet Pea’s feeds! Once again, though, those impromptu PetSmart trips will come back…one day. And pretty soon, it is going to be easier and worth it again to pack everyone up and head out for an adventure beyond our home/neighborhood. (Side Note: Another huge reason for our staying home so much has been because of Sweet Pea’s overstimulation issues. It is easier to control her environment in my own house and keep her from getting overstimulated than it is for me to control her environment outside of our house. Hopefully, these overstimulation days are coming to an end soon though.)

5. When we do go somewhere and I am leaving without the help of my husband because he is at work, I always pack the car before putting the girls in the car. Usually, we are leaving after naptime so while both are tucked away in their cribs, I put diaper bags and anything else that needs to go with us in the car. If we are leaving after Little Bug does IP then I pack the car while Little Bug is playing in her room and Sweet Pea is sleeping. Then, when it is time to go, all I have to do is snap Little Bug’s car seat into the base and buckle Little Bug in and we are good to go!

6. Put both children on a schedule. Again, this may not work for everyone, but for me, I couldn’t imagine NOT having my girls on a schedule! Babywise is a lifesaver for my family. Babywise makes the smooth days that run like clockwork the norm and the crazy, chaotic days something that happens every once in a while when someone is having an ‘off’ day. Babywise makes life simpler because I know when the baby needs to eat and sleep – there are no guessing games. I have found in my babysitting/nanny/parenting experience that children thrive off routine and scheduling and I have seen this be true in the lives of both of my daughters.

7. Take time for yourself. I think so many times mothers feel guilty if they even want time away from their children! Find a time for you to do something apart from your children. For me, it is Saturday mornings. Dave gets up with the girls and lets me sleep in. It is good for children to have that one-on-one time with their Daddy. Little Bug loves Saturday mornings with her Daddy. He makes her a special French toast breakfast and they play together until it is time to come wake me up.

8. Get yourself ready to leave the house before the kids wake up. This is SUCH a time saver! After Sweet Pea’s birth I was late to everything. And I do mean everything. Late. I hate being late. If I am planning to leave the house with the girls in the early morning (before Little Bug has her IP time) I have found the easiest way to ensure we leave on time is for me to set my alarm half an hour or so before the girls are up and get myself ready during that time. When they wake up, I am ahead of the game and it is so much easier to feed and dress two little girls when I am already ready to walk out the door!

9. Plan ahead. Organization goes a LONG way when you have two small kids. If we are leaving to go somewhere I pack diaper bags, gets sippies and bottles prepared, lay out clothes, etc., the night before. I also have an “emergency diaper bag” in my car that has essentials for both girls should I forget to put something in their normal diaper bag/backpack. All that being said, there are still times where I forget things and am kicking myself! Just recently we packed everything and everyone up to go somewhere and we got there and realized Sweet Pea’s formula was still sitting in our refrigerator at home! Talk about frustrating!! Dave went back to get it and instead of being totally mad at myself I allowed myself to be human and forget something and went on with the day. Planning ahead and being organized does certainly eliminate most of those incidences though!

10. Right after Sweet Pea’s birth I had two baskets full of supplies for her. One was in our living room and the other was in our bedroom. I did this mainly for convenience-sake. Instead of having to go to her bedroom for every diaper change and every time she needed a new bib (which was very frequent!), I had diapers, bibs, burp clothes, wipes and onesies right there for me to use. Once I set up those baskets I felt more organized at home with things!

Ok, I know that is 10, but I just thought of another hugely helpful tip: Operate 15 minutes ahead of normal time. If we have to leave the house by 10am, I tell myself we have to leave by 9:45am. That extra 15 minutes allows for the poopy diaper I have to change right as we are ready to leave the house or to run back in the house to grab something I forgot. Once I get in the car and we are finally ready to go after taking care of all the unexpected things that you can just expect WILL happen with two small kiddos, I look at the clock and we are pulling out right on time…thanks to those extra 15 minutes!!

That’s my top 10 11.

Also, remember…time. There is certainly an adjustment period as bringing another child into the family changes everything. But, with time, things level out and life just falls into a new normal.

We are definitely there now and it feels great!!

Friday and Saturday, we enjoyed hanging out together in between their visits to see Levi’s birth family. They were able to meet Levi’s birth mother for the very first time! Rebecca so beautifully wrote about meeting Ashley here.

One night (as Rebecca and I were up way too late!) we started reminiscing about last March when we first learned about each other.

It was quite a funny conversation!

Saturday night Rebecca’s family took my family out to Olive Garden to celebrate Levi’s adoption and as a thank you to my parents for opening their home to them while Levi was in the NICU. (As a side note, Sweet Pea did awesome! No overstimulation. I was even able to take her out of her cocoon [her car seat] and let her sit on my lap. She was smiling away! This was so encouraging to me!)

Sunday was church and then soon after lunchtime they hit the road to go back home.

The weekend flew by (as we knew it would) but we are so grateful that Levi is now officially and forever an Adams and we are thankful for the time we got to spend together!

My parents bought tickets for Little Bug and me!

We got there a little early and had a hot dog lunch.

Then the show began and this picture shows how intently Little Bug watched (even if it is a little blurry).

We saw tigers

the flying trapeze

clown acts

elephants

and a crazy 8-motorcycles in a ball act!

At intermission Little Bug wanted to ride the

escalator!

Here we are standing in front of the WAY over-priced circus trinkets for kids! I seriously couldn’t believe some of the prices for that stuff. Ridiculous.

I enjoyed an outing with my big girl. Dave stayed home with Sweet Pea. The circus is NOT the place for little Sweet Pea at this time in her life. I kept imagining her there and I probably would have been crying right along with her! I was so glad she was home safe and sound with her Daddy.

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for treating us to a day at the circus!

officially

became

an

Adams

yesterday!

To see Rebecca’s post about this special day, click here!

wears me out.

I find myself longing for the day when she is just a teeny bit older and then I stop myself because I know I am going to blink and she is going to be school-age.

I also find myself wishing I could bottle her up and keep her as a 2.5 year old forever.

She provides everyone who knows her with endless entertainment.

I think the best way to record what my Little Bug is up to at just over 2.5 years old is to do a bullet post, so here we go:

• Little Bug is simply hilarious. She makes us laugh every.single.day. She is such a jokester and has been since she first started talking.

• Little Bug still makes a royal mess when she eats. Seriously. This is something I am totally over and will be so glad when she is past this stage. There is a mess everywhere when she eats – on the table, her hands, her whole face, her booster seat. I have tried everything to help her eat a little neater to no avail. It’s just something I’ve let go, telling myself she won’t (hopefully) still be a messy eater when she hits school-age.
• I still have to watch Little Bug like a hawk because she is just a magnet for trouble. She can (and will) make a mess in 2.5 seconds flat or get into something if am not right there to stop her.

• During the day, when Little Bug is awake and not in her room doing Independent Play, she is right with me doing whatever I do. Which is both good and “bad”. It’s good because I love spending time with my girl and I am tremendously blessed that I get to stay home with her every day. It’s “bad” because sometimes I just wish she would for once just go off and play with something on her own so I could do something without her under foot! I cannot set her up at the table to color or do Play-doh by herself while I go do something for 20 minutes or so. Why? Because she won’t have it. She will not sit and entertain herself. OR…she would do things she is not supposed to do with the crayons/play-doh. Remember the bullet about constant supervision necessary?!

• She LOVES dancing with her Daddy which is the most precious thing ever!
• Little Bug loves to sing. She can’t understand why the Christmas music is off the radio now. She will tell me, “I want to listen to Christmas Music.” while we are driving in the car and I have to tell her that the radio isn’t playing much anymore because Christmas is over.
• When we tell Little Bug we can’t do something she is wanting to do she will say, “But that’s otay, we can still…”. It’s the cutest thing because when she says that she is usually trying to stall bedtime by saying she need to do this and that.

• She loves to be the center of attention when surrounded by family. She was twirling the other day in front of a group of family and she would stop to make sure everyone was watching her and then go back to twirling.
• Saturday mornings Little Bug and her daddy get up and make French toast together!

• Little Bug always asks her Daddy to share a smoothie with her after dinner. They go to this spot in the living room and share their smoothie.

• She still loves to read books. She has gotten to where if you pause while reading she will finish the sentence in many of her books! Her Grandpa Roy is actually the one who started doing this with her. He reads a story book to her and it amazed us what she had memorized from that book. Words that are not normally in a 2-year-olds vocabulary.

• She still has 4 milk times a day. I love it because that is the only time she will sit and cuddle.
• She sleeps 11ish hours at night and takes a 2 hour afternoon nap.
• I would say she is probably around 30lbs now since she was 28lbs at her 2 year check up.
• I love the way she puts her little feet on the chair while she eats.

• There is never a dull moment when Little Bug is around. It is hard to imagine her being anywhere but with us!

• The biggest news with Little Bug is that she is completely daytime potty trained!! She was ready and she trained in less than a day (on January 16)! She has had two accidents, but only two accidents in 11 days is pretty good!

It is sometimes hard to remember a day when this girl wasn’t a part of my life. It is hard to believe she has been my daughter for almost three years.

I was 24 years old, a third year teacher to 4th grade students. In fact, I had just gotten home from teaching all day when I met Dave who was standing in the kitchen talking to my mother.

He was 21 years old! Yes, just 21 years old! In his last year of college.

At first I view him as such…the kid my kid brother roomed with. (At that time, Dave was my brother’s roommate and he had been invited to dinner that night.)

We met, ate a spaghetti dinner and I am not really sure when I started seeing him with different eyes. I am sure I could go back and look at my journals, but it was probably around February or March.

And I was sure that he kept coming to Thursday night dinners because of 1) the food and 2) my Pup. But as it turns out, he was a teeny bit interested in his roommate’s older sister and by June we were dating.

A week after we crossed the line of “just being friends” we knew we were to get married. And so 11 months after that, we did.

I’m grateful God chose Dave to walk this life with me

.