Happy Friday, everyone! Here is another #FridayIntroductions post about the last human member of the family. (You can read the first two here and here.)

My beautiful baby girl! Who is…

SO BIG!

My sweet “baby” Reese was born in January of 2017. She has been such a huge blessing and joy to our family. I thank God every day that He has given me the opportunity to be her mother.

Here she is at just a few weeks old.

To be honest, mothering wasn’t the easiest through the newborn stage for me. Reese was a great baby- she slept well and was certainly not a fussy baby. But the adjustment was a bit difficult for me. However, after a couple of months, this mama found her groove, and life with this kiddo has been awesome ever since. And I’m not kidding. This child is the best.

Now that she’s over a year old, we are having so much fun watching her personality blossom. She has a great sense of humor, and she loves the dogs!

Reese is a very much her daddy’s daughter. She not only looks like him, but she acts like him! That is a mostly good thing, although the strong will and unrelenting determination to tackle big challenges can be tiring some days.  She is such a social butterfly and loves getting out of the house and being with people. She’s often the crankiest when she is at home with me all day long. I’m too boring, I guess. She’s also in the midst of a very curious stage, and she is into EVERYTHING. My kitchen cupboards are usually emptied, along with my bookshelves and game cupboard. It’s a fun stage, but it’s certainly a messy stage.

She has also recently begun climbing. And she is way too proud of her accomplishments!

This kiddo keeps me on my toes, but she has made my life so much more fun than it ever was before. (And my idea of “fun” includes catching her upside down mid-tumble when she decides to try walking down stairs like an adult and breaking her fall when she tries to stand on the seat of her riding toy)

It’s also a humbling stage, since she has begun mimicking things she sees me do. It’s such an eye-opening experience to have a miniature human copying your habits. It certainly is teaching me to be more thoughtful about the things I say and do. If I want to raise a gentle, gracious, and godly child, then I better be a gentle, gracious, and godly example.

It truly is amazing what God teaches you through children. He has taught me so much about pure, simple JOY. Life is so much simpler and happier through the eyes of a child. By experiencing such intense love for my child, I have begun to better understand His love for me, and that is a powerful thing. He has also taught me quite a bit about surrender. As a mama, I want nothing more than to keep my baby safe. But there is so much that is outside of my control. That’s when I need to surrender my child and her needs to God, because I recognize my own inability to be “perfect” and protect her from everything.

This post has turned out much more sentimental than I intended. 🙂 Suffice it to say that I love my daughter, and I think she is the most fun kiddo around!

Enjoy your weekend!