Happy Birthday Sari!!!

It's hard to believe, but my baby is 3 today. She is such a blessing to us, and I wanted to share a little about her.
Sari was a bit unexpected. Not unplanned. Not unwanted. Just beyond what we thought possible. We used fertility drugs to conceive our first two children. Then, I had my appendix removed, and within a month I was pregnant-no drugs necessary. Weird huh?
So after TJ was born, my husband felt called to go to seminary, and we began the "discernment process" necessary in the Episcopal church. Becoming an Episcopal priest basically requires you to go back to school full time to get your Masters in Divinity. For 3 years. Did I mention I was a stay at home mom, and he was the breadwinner? But we trusted God to provide for our needs, and so we moved forward. What we didn't think was prudent was for us to purposefully, actively try to get pregnant with another child when we would basically be living on the kindness and generosity of others for the next 3 years. (Silly us for not just TRUSTING GOD to work all that out or for thinking we had any hand in family planning to begin with.)

The rest of that story is for another day, but needless to say my husband did not become a priest, and we are not even Episcopalian anymore. God truly had His hand on that one, as the Episcopal church went way off the scripturally sound deep-end just after that, and thankfully we had not uprooted our lives for nothing. BUT...

We had pretty much resigned ourselves to having 3 children. After all, our first 3 kids were 2 years apart, and that spacing was totally blown. And TJ was the easiest "baby" in the world, and he was so independent at 2 1/2 that we had really gotten good at things being easy-even going to Sea World for the day. So it seemed that we were to be a 3 child family.


But...

I just never felt "complete". Friends would get pregnant, and I would find myself jealous. I longed for one more child, and really felt a "hole" in our family.

But...it seemed like another child just wasn't to be.


AND THEN...

Well, one night God changed the plan. Or really, He enacted HIS plan. His timing is perfect, and that night I KNEW I was pregnant. I KNEW it was a girl, and I KNEW what her name would be, even though it was never a name we had considered any other time we had been pregnant.

And Sari is the result of that night :-).



She is amazing. She has been a wonderful baby since the moment she was born (at home, but that's another story too). Not to be corny, but Sari completes us. She brings out the best in her oldest brother, and they share an amazing bond. She is the little sister Mimi always wanted. She is the play mate TJ prefers most. She's the one we all compete to spend time with and love on. Her daddy loves nothing more than falling asleep with her, and I love that she is the biggest cuddler, and she loves to cuddle with me. I can't imagine our lives without her.

I wanted really good pictures to post, but my husband is camping with TJ in 35 degree weather, and so I can't ask him where to find the pictures on my new computer (they are not in the photo program). The pictures at the top of the post are from the Science Center a few weeks ago.

Happy Birthday Sari!