Sweet Hughes: Happiest One Year

About a week old

My Gosh. Where do I even start? Like a good acceptance speech let it be known if it wasn't already so.

For my daughter's life I am so thankful. Lord let me never take her or the fact that I get to be her mother for granted. This child is everything to us. She is the most precious gift ever given and sometimes I look at her and still can't believe she is me and John. She is ours. All this to show just a glance at the appreciation we have after our first year of parenting and loving sweet Ellie Josephine. It has taken a year of experiencing and reflecting to see how big a little baby's life can be. How they impact others without even knowing it and how they make you melt a little without even knowing it. Oh Ellie. I just pray for and wonder on the great impact you will continue to have during the years to come.

Ok enough of the words that will make me cry if I keep going. Instead, I'm thinking more of those phrases you always seem to hear and inadvertently end up asking others on their child's first birthdays...

"The year just flew by!"

Welllll, I wouldn't say that exactly. It felt like a year in a very positive way. Babies grow so quickly and change so much that it takes a year for all that to happen! In another way I feel like Ellie has been with John and I all along.

"Are you sad she's already a year?"

Yes and no. Yes because despite the fact that I swore I wouldn't get emotional and didn't think I would either, I started to tear up on her birthday when I read aloud the note I wrote to her in the book John and I gave her. I also got teary eyed reading it (the book) to her on her birthday. I'm happy she's one, I'm happy that she's happy and is so fortunate to have family come from all over to celebrate with her. It's weird to think of her as a "one year old" and not the "two month old" or "ten month old". It will take getting used to but I think she'll be a great toddler...easy-ish baby so easy-ish toddler? Ha! We'll see. It would be much sadder to have never experienced the joy. I can't wait to see what the joy is in store to come!

In the meantime, here are some beautiful portraits taken of Ellie a couple of weeks before her birthday. Her first professional pictures and mom's ol' iphone pictures ; ) Hey they all turned out decent but I'm glad we splurged a little for these. You are only 1 once. Also, click here for Ellie's birth story if you missed it.