What a Difference a Year Makes...

On December 4th of last year, Christopher and I were about to sit down and eat dinner, and I was complaining about fact that my jeans were getting waaaay too tight, and I mentioned that I wasn't feeling well.  Finally, after hearing enough about it, Christopher said, "Annie, would you please just take a pregnancy test?!" I was in a horrible mood, so I stomped off to go prove to him that I was NOT, in fact, pregnant.  (The thought had crossed my mind that same week, and the test I took earlier in the week confirmed what I believed to be true.  I wasn't pregnant.)  The test I took that night told me the same thing... I thought!  I said to Christopher, "SEE! I told you I wasn't pregnant!" He took one look at the test, and got that "Annie-sit-down-I-have-something-to-tell-you" look on his face and said, "YES YOU ARE! Two lines means you ARE!" Apparently, I am the "one-in-four" women who cannot read a pregnancy test.  Off the mountain we went to buy more tests- lots more tests, actually! I think we were playing by the "best 3 out of 5" rule.  We hid from familiar faces in the pharmacy as we bought the tests, and we drove home in almost silence.  When we got home, we did better than 3 out of 5.  We were 5 for 5- and this time, to avoid any further confusion, we went for the ones that simply said "Pregnant" or "Not Pregnant."  Each test read "pregnant." We were going to have a baby.

That night, it snowed, and when we woke up, the ground, our cars and our house were covered in white.  I was so happy. Christopher was too.  Having a baby was NOT in our plans so soon in our marriage, but we couldn't help from being as joyful as we were fearful about the whole ordeal.  We went outside to play in the snow with Tucker, and before we went back in to thaw out our freezing hands, we wrote messages to our baby on the way...

We told our parents that day, except for Christopher's dad (who was out of town at the time- we told him a couple of days later), and they all celebrated with us.  I can still remember exactly how I felt that day, and it was absolutely (in keeping with the season) MERRY.  I personally think it was written all over our faces:

A year later, we are completely in love with our daughter, who this time last year, was about the size of a grain of rice. :) She is such a miracle, and I don't use that term loosely. Now she is much bigger than a grain of rice... see for yourself!