2nd Anniversary

These last couple of weeks we have been experiencing exceptional weather.  Today was no different, other than a little cooler than it has been lately, it was nonetheless a perfect fall afternoon.  The kids and I spent some time outside playing in the leaves.  I would rake the leaves into a pile and they were run through them scattering the leaves far and wide, and the farther and wider the better!  As they would destroy one pile I would be reforming another, just in time for the kids to set their sights on the next one.

It was as I was watching/participating in this fine fall frolic I was reminded of what this last week marked for our family, in particular for our little lady.  It was two years ago this past Thursday that we brought Mary Alice home from Hope Hospital.  I have to admit that Ben and I were not the two remember this date.  We have been so wrapped up in normal life that this special anniversary went past without an acknowledgement.  It is funny how forefront that whole ordeal was at the time and how it has almost faded into the back ground, a mere two years later.  I barely notice the scars, I have gotten used the constant bruising, even the giving of meds twice a day doesn't faze me.  

If I remember correctly, there were times during the hospital stay that I thought the nagging fear of the condition would hang with us forever.  But really they haven't.  Now don't get me wrong, we think about her condition a lot, but not in the frequency with which I anticipated.  I don't look at her and see a congenital heart defect, I see my girl...my energetic, outgoing, large locomotive-loving, reading fiend, Barney watching "I do it myself" baby girl, who loves to talk with anyone that will listen (animate or inanimate) and that includes her Jesus.  Listening to her pray makes my heart so warm, even if it is just thanking Jesus for red sheets on her big girl bed!  I say thank you Jesus for the ability and opportunity to play in the leaves with our Mary Alice, thank you for the joy you have placed in her heart and overflows so often to those she comes in contact with, her mom included!

 (Here she wanted to be a "sad little girl," no real reason for it, she just likes to practice emotion faces!  So this is "sad face.")

These two years have not been long enough to forget the blessing that her life is or the strength that the Lord has given her and us.  These things we will NEVER forget, her smile reminds us daily!!