Tenley Rhyann, One year |

My baby turns one year old today. As I type this I look at the clock to see that it is 12:01 a.m. Everyone is in bed sleeping, I am sitting here looking through pictures that take me back to one year ago. That special time when we welcomed our 3rd baby girl.

I feel my eyes fill with tears. Happy ones, of course. There is just something so wonderful and fleeting about those first days, weeks, of having a new baby. Oh, it’s hard. The healing, the hormones, the night-time feedings, the changes in day-to-day life as we adapt to having a baby to care for 24-7. But, it is also beautiful and wonderful and truly a blessing. Hearing “It’s a girl!” at the time of birth (we didn’t find out the gender of any of our girls - and I LOVE that moment of finding out when they are born!), seeing them for the first time, feeling the weight of their little body as they are placed in my arms, the soft baby skin, those first cries, the way they look at you…oh, yes…it is beautiful.

As I sit here tonight, I go back and remember these firsts, these feelings, these special times. And I wonder, how did it all go by so fast?! How did my Tenley go from a tiny little baby in my arms to an adorable climb-on-the-dishwasher-every-time-it-opens little girl?!

It goes by fast… and having a ‘good’ baby seems to make it go by even faster! (Tenley has been a very good baby…but I have experienced the ‘cry-all-the-time’ baby too!)

I have come to love the pictures taken at the hospital with each of our girls…even the ones of me looking awful! (my hubs is very good at grabbing the camera and snapping pictures…) Here are a few of Tenley as a newborn, and then in the past few weeks.

She weighed in at a healthy 9 pounds, 6 ounces when she was born