And here…we…go…

March has (mostly) been full of beautiful weather! We've loved being outside with our little bit. 

This hat! I die.

T is for Taco! Thanks Auntie Nat!

Celebrating Nonna's birthday at Top Golf.

Check out that form! I know nothing about golf, but I'm sure it's great.

Aiden and I joined the Coopers for their last St. Patty's Parade at their Juniper party condo!

BB and Baby Chicky!

Jude is such a big boy!

Besties!

Adam and I had a fun little date night at Gunshow!

Check out this dessert plating… Fancy pants. (And delish.)

Moving and shaking these days. (Can you find the baby?)

I went to get her medicine and came back to find her like THIS. Flipped over on her own. I could have died (after I took a picture, of course). No more unsupervised changing table parties for AG.

Warm days call for nakey naps!

She finally fits in shopping carts, and she couldn't be more thrilled.

Poor Ruthie. Such a good sport.

Andddd now she's under the couch. Kbye!

Bananaaaaaaa.

Look at this sleeping angel with her little booty up in the air.

I had to post all these pictures, because they sum her up these days. These were all taken within maybe thirty seconds. She never stops!

Look at that FACE! (Where is my baby, and who is this grown up?)

Celebrating Daddy's favorite holiday!

All dressed up for the Easter bunny!

Happy Birthday to Adam!

Birthday breakfast! (Aiden is way too into her picture, obvi.)

(Shout out to this "box" cake. It's really just everything pre-portioned out for you. Pretty amazing.)

 Uncle Mitch!

Her first highchair experience at a restaurant. I'll use the word "chaotic".

Seriously, Ruthie is such a good sport.

DUTCH MONKEY DOUGHNUTS. That is all.

Dom came to play!

So did Gigi!

Adam met up with some guys from church at Doughnut Dollies, so he took us the next day, Yummmmy!

Sweet little love!

Lassiter Baseball 2006 State Champs 10 Year Reunion! (That's a mouthful.) Fun times.

How are we old enough for this?

Aiden and I visited Mamabear! Always fun to see them together.

And we'll finish this post off with a picture of my little lady's first picnic! She was kind enough to invite me.

Aiden: Seven Months

At this point, is it even worth prefacing these monthly updates with my disbelief at how old she is? HOW DO I HAVE A 7 MONTH OLD?? I'm way too young for this.

I remember Meagan telling me she didn't realize how hard it was having a newborn until she looked back and thought "Wow, that was hard." It's so true! You just kind of take it day-by-day in the beginning, but now I look back and think "How did we do that?!" She's just so much fun these days, and we're loving her crazy little personality that's starting to shine through!

Seven months, oh golly.

• She's still a good little sleeper in her crib! Except that she gets up every 3-4 hours to eat. We had a couple nights where she would do a stretch from 7pm - 2am, but that was a short-lived tease.
• She can sure get around, considering she's not crawling or scooting, yet. But we've noticed she's really starting to get frustrated that she can't go wherever she pleases. (Soon enough, little one!)
• She's sitting up! (game changer)
• Now that she's discovered this whole new world of sitting up, she loves to play with toys. She especially loves to pick toys up and throw them. (Yay.)
• I'm pretty sure she could spend an entire afternoon inspecting tags. She loves them. As soon as she finds them on a toy, she's hypnotized for a solid 5-10 minutes.
• She loves to be pulled up from sitting down to standing up. You can tell she feels like such a big girl and is so proud of herself.
• I love her cute little voice when she "talks".
• She loves touching Adam's beard and eating my face. Except it's starting to hurt, because she can really chomp down these days.
• She has two more teeth! Her two top toofers came through on March 18. The poor thing had a terrible time teething, which makes me feel even worse about her first teething experience. We didn't even know her first two had come through until the doctor told us. Poor thing was teething and dealing with Kawasaki at the same time.
• She hates baby food, but loves real food. (Such a foodie!) Her current faves are sweet potato and banana.
• She loves watching videos of herself. She also loves watching videos, period. 
• With this beautiful weather, we've really been able to take advantage of her love of the outdoors. It's so convenient that we have a park one block over - she gets to swing multiple times a week.
• All attention has to be on her. She's perfectly content playing on the floor... as long as you give her your undivided attention.

She is a MANIAC and we are obsessed with her! We're pretty nervous for her to start moving, because we know she's not going to stop! Oh, Aiden Grace. We love you so.

Garden of Gethsemane

We were at the Bakers for dinner on Sunday and Dave mentioned that Easter Sunday is the biggest day of the year for churches. Bigger than Christmas Eve or Christmas. I thought back to when we were dragged to church when I was a kid (which was very rare), and then immediately remembered that it was never on Easter. I vividly remember feeling bad for everyone who had to go to Church instead of getting up to hunt for Easter eggs and eat a ton of candy. The true meaning of Easter, duh!

We've been going through the book of Luke for over a year and our pastor, David, has timed it perfectly with Easter. This past week we went through Jesus being mocked, being questioned by the Council, being questioned by Pilate and Herod, and finally - Pilate's decision to cave to the Council's wishes and crucify Him (Luke 22:63 - 23:25). I was on the edge of my seat. I wanted to hear the end of the story! Then I realized "Uh, you have a Bible. Read it yourself." For some reason, I haven't. I kind of want it to be a surprise. I'm seeing the Easter story - easily one of the most important stories of Christianity - for the first time as a Christian myself. It's truly breathtaking. (Maybe I should point out that I know the obvious parts of the story. He's crucified, buried and then rises to Heaven. As I typed that out I realized I clearly don't really even know much of the obvious stuff. Is that even right?)

Over the past year, I've been able to see Jesus in a different light. I'm a big visual person, and I love that David uses visuals every once in awhile at church to really get his point across.

This is a good representation of how I always pictured Jesus. Totally chill, just a scrawny hippie going around talking about peace and stuff. (I actually laughed when I found this picture. I Googled "peaceful Jesus" and this was one of the first to come up. Still laughing.)

In reality, He is so much more. Jesus was and is a warrior ready to fight for us. To go to war for us. Us. Isn't that insane? The same God who spoke the universe into creation fights for US.

At the same time, He also loves us more than we will ever comprehend. He wants us to trust Him, to give 100% of ourselves to Him. To literally take a leap of faith and give him full control.

But I've still always had this vision of him marching into Jerusalem all self-righteous with his chest puffed out, ready to die a martyr on the cross. I didn't understand why people were sad on Good Friday. This is literally what Jesus was put on earth to do, and he knew it from day one. It was all part of the plan. It wasn't a surprise to Him. He dies for our sins (whatever that really means). He goes up to Heaven. Ta da.

Then we went through the Garden of Gethsemane a couple weeks back in church. I was moved to tears. It speaks about how Jesus went into the garden and spoke to God (his dad), saying "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done." They describe Jesus as crying, sweating blood, terrified of the wrath of God he is about to endure. FOR US. It's easy to forget that He was human. He knew what he was about to face, He knew this was his mission... but He was still scared. He didn't want to do it. But he knew it was the only way. It was the only way to save the hearts of all of God's children. Of you and me. The one who never sinned was betrayed, tortured, beaten and died at the cross to save our sinful hearts.

I still haven't finished the story of Easter on my own. I'm am so eager for Sunday. I am so excited to hear the story of Jesus' Resurrection for the first time as a Christian. Sunday is coming, and I cannot wait.

(Side note: I love the way Aiden's bible spells it out. It was a great way for me to digest it. If you're interested in Jesus and/or Christianity, I 100% recommend the Jesus Storybook Bible. It's for kids, but I love reading it because it sums up the big stories of the Bible into easy, short reads. And each story points back to how it relates to Jesus. It's the best, and I steal it from her room to read myself.)