Happy New Year!

This month has been full of excitement! Addie is growing and changing all the time. She's been smiling so much and it is the sweetest thing in the world. We are just falling more in love with our girl every day. Christmas was such a wonderful time (as I talked about in the last post) and well, we didn't exactly make it to midnight this year, but had a delightful New Years day! We really enjoyed Daddy being home more over the holidays too. We had some great quality family time. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year! :)

As I reflect back on 2012, there are so many amazing things that happened. We went through a lot of changes that's for sure. We took a little vacation to Branson, I ran my first half marathon and we transitioned from two incomes to one. But most importantly we welcomed our daughter into the world.  I got to experience being pregnant (which was great for the most part, those last few weeks were pretty tough though). But it truly has been absolutely incredible becoming a parent. I absolutely love it! Well, good-bye 2012, you will definitely be a year to remember!

So, here we are 2013, with new goals and new hopes for the new year. We always include family goals and this year since our family has changed, our goals look different. We'd like to read through the Jesus Story Book Bible with Addie, have family prayer time, have three family nights per month and three date nights every month as well. Matt and I would also like to read through the Bible this year (we tried to do this last year and well, I made it to October). We got a little distracted with Miss Addison. Matt and I are both working on getting into shape, so we've made some changes to our diet and we're trying to exercise more. We both have other personal goals as well. Hopefully we can keep these goals and look back at this year with the satisfaction of meeting our goals.

It's always exciting to me to start a new year. It's so full of hope and anticipation. It's like starting a new journal (which I'd like to do). You get brand new, blank pages and you don't know what could be written in those pages yet. One thing I HAVE to always keep in mind is that I can't do it alone. I must first rely on Jesus to help me meet those goals and to follow His way in meeting them. I also need accountability. I'm relying on Matt for that for sure. We're both going to keep each other accountable as we strive together to meet our goals. But most importantly, I hope we focus on what really matters. I hope ultimately, we honor Jesus in what we do, we love others the way that He does and we just find our satisfaction in Him alone. So, I'm excited to see what the Lord has for us this year. 2013, here we go. May it be another wonderful year!

                         beautiful blue eyes

                            happy girl

                     Daddy and his girl

Addison's First Christmas

Christmas was once again such a sweet time for our family. This year however, it was even sweeter with Miss Addison. We are so blessed to be in Baton Rouge with both families. It was a busy day for us, that's for sure, but it was so wonderful to see everybody.


What an awesome way to celebrate our Savior's birth, by being with those we love & being reminded of God's love for us. I am so grateful for the incredible gift we received when God sent Jesus, His son into this world. Jesus came as a precious baby, lived on this earth, taught us how to love & serve, and then he made the ultimate sacrifice for our sin on that cross. My debt is paid & I am free! Thank you Jesus!

Here are some pictures that captured our day! Sorry about the crazy picture arrangement (someone's going to have to show me how to arrange them the normal way, I can't seem to get it).

 

     

First 2 Months

Addie's already two months old. Where has the time gone? I'd really like to post more often, but since I haven't I'll have to do some catching up. Being new parents has definitely had it's ups and downs. I absolutely love being a mommy! It's something I've dreamed about being for a long time. I never imagined it would be this wonderful. It's so challenging, but so worth it. These sleepless nights,  hundreds of diapers, and so many tears are shaping me into the mother God has designed me to be. Being a mom is one of the most selfless things I've ever done. And this is only the beginning! Addie is just so precious. She's already changed so much these first two months. It's amazing! She's alert more, has the funniest faces, gives us smiles, and she's even making sweet sounds (coos, I believe). It's so much fun watching her do new things. Here are a few pictures from her first two months!

                                   Addie with her grandparents

                                            First LSU game

  Going for a ride in the car

                                     Sweet sleeper

                          Bath time wasn't fun at first

                                Daddy's Birthday

                                       

                       Meeting Maggie & Maverick

                           Tummy Time

                                First Thanksgiving

Our Girl is Here!

Addison Grace Dearman arrived on October 3rd at 5:46 am, weighing 7 lbs., 7 oz. and 20 inches long. Here's a little perspective of what labor and delivery were like. I started having contractions Tuesday night, October 2nd around 7:15. The contractions weren't hurting too bad, I honestly thought they were just Braxton Hicks contractions. We went to dinner with a few youth leaders at T.J. Ribs that night. After dinner I felt like the contractions were starting to get worse. When we got home, I just tried to relax, take a bath, and I lied down for a little while. Well, the contractions didn't go away, they began to get worse. So around 10:00, I started timing them. Every 5 minutes for an hour...okay, time to go to the hospital! So we loaded up the car, headed over to Woman's and went to Assessment.

Assessment was probably the worst part of the whole experience. Having to be in a room, without Matt, while they looked at your contractions and waiting to see if I really was in labor, let's just say, I was ready to get out of there. Well, it was finally go time. They took us up to the Labor and Delivery room. At this point, I was ready for the epidural! So around midnight, we were in the room, had the epidural and just waited. My mom, Matt's parents, and Lyle were there with us, just waiting with us. We had the best nurses taking care of us and honestly, this time really did go by pretty quickly. I couldn't feel anything- I totally recommend epidurals by the way. Well, it was time to push, so they started getting everything ready, the family went to wait in the waiting room, and the moment was here. I'm not going into too many details, because who really wants to know all that. But the moment I saw Addie Grace for the first time was the most wonderful moment I've experienced. I was so overwhelmed with joy and excitement, words just can't describe what a beautiful miracle it is to see your child for the first time. It took a while to clean her up but we finally got to hold her! The family came to see her and then we moved to the Mother/Baby Suite. Once again, we had the best nurses! Seriously, I hope everyone who has a baby at Woman's is as spoiled as we were! The first few days were so crazy. It consisted of us figuring everything out, seeing friends, the nurses coming to check on you a lot, ordering food from the cafeteria (not too bad by the way), and mostly just enjoying this amazing new blessing in our lives!