Chloe's One!

Happy Birthday to our beautiful Chloe girl! I'm finding it difficult to believe that a whole year has gone by since she was born! With the exception of the sleepless nights, everything else seemed to go by so incredibly fast and I just hope I didn't miss out on the opportunity to take it all in.

It's been so fun to watch Chloe grow from a sweet little 7 lb baby into the rambunctious (that's putting it lightly) little thing she is...I don't know if there's a word for what she is...not quite toddler, but physically far ahead of the typical 1 year old. ;)

She is such a precious gift from God, and when I think back on our journey to her, I see the ways in which God used our circumstances to teach us so much about Him, His love for us, and more than anything, His faithfulness.

I'm not sure if I've shared this before, but choosing Faith as Chloe's middle name meant a lot to us, but it wasn't until shortly after she was born that I realized the meaning of both of our girls names. Bella (which means beautiful) Grace...Beautiful Grace. We had no idea of the grace God was pouring out on us when I got pregnant with Bella. In fact, we really didn't realize it until several years later when we were told just how remarkable it was that we conceived her so easily. God's beautiful grace evident in our life through our sweet Bella. Chloe Faith. Chloe means "blooming"...Blooming Faith. When I realized this, it honestly took my breath away. The journey to Chloe, couldn't be more perfectly described than "blooming faith". The truth is, that there there were times where is was incredibly hard to have faith, but through it all, in the midst of our doubts, God remained faithful and in the end we can now see that the lesson through it all was "faith". The years leading up to Chloe contain some of the darkest times I've personally had, but in the end, I would change any of them for a moment. Beautiful Grace and Blooming Faith...the two most precious gifts we will ever be given in our life. Both in our children and through God's amazing love for us!

Okay, enough of the mushy stuff for now. I hope to finish up a slide show here in the next week that chronicles Chloe's first year of life. I want to finish it with her birthday party, so it will have to wait until we celebrate next week.

Happy Birthday Chloe! We love you and can't wait to see how you grow this year!

P.S. -- Chloe seems to have contracted some kind of nasty virus. Her fever started to go down yesterday afternoon and she developed a rash all over her body. Her doctor said it's a typical viral rash and usually the rash marks the last part of the virus. She did spike a fever again around 11:00 last night and still has the rash, but seems to be getting a little better.