Yesterday was Bella's second year birthday! I flew in the night before from a great trip to the Rosalynn Carter Institute and was quite excited about being here on her real birthday. We started the day with family pancakes, made by Mike, and then lots of playing. After naptime, we went to enjoy some ice cream.
And then went to get her birthday present - a play table that converts to an easel!
Y'all know she loves her coloring! All in all, it was a fun day of just us three. Today after church, we made our way to the pumpkin patch. This is what part of the day looked like. Us trying to keep her in our reach and Bella looking mischievously away at where she could run. Awww, the joys of a toddler. 
Yes, she tried to pick up the big ones and finally found the smaller ones she could handle.
She was not sure what she thought of all the animals at first!
Then, she thought it was funny when the goat tried to eat out of her hand. 
Then, she thought the goat was trying to bite her.
Then, she wanted far away from the goats.
Then, she put both hands on her face.
And, lastly she ran to her daddy outside of the gate. Oh well...
The rest of the blog is a little letter written to our birthday gal!
Dear Sweet Bella,
Somewhere in the midst of going through life you turned two. I distinctively remember when you came into this world. We did not have that "movie moment of overwhelming love" at that time. While we had lots of love, we also had lots of "oh my goodness" moments. But, throughout the last two years we have experienced many moments of overwhelming love and joy - more than we can tell you. Since you probably won't remember this period in your life, I wanted to give you a glimpse of what happened.
I want you to know that you say what you're thankful for at mealtime. Before every meal, we hold hands and tell eachother what we are thankful for. Even though we can't understand what you say, you usually will say something, then bow your head to pray and say Amen. I want you to know that we absolutely love these times of thankfulness. But I think there is someone in Heaven who loves to hear what you're truly saying more than we do.
And then went to get her birthday present - a play table that converts to an easel!
Y'all know she loves her coloring! All in all, it was a fun day of just us three. Today after church, we made our way to the pumpkin patch. This is what part of the day looked like. Us trying to keep her in our reach and Bella looking mischievously away at where she could run. Awww, the joys of a toddler. 
Yes, she tried to pick up the big ones and finally found the smaller ones she could handle.
She was not sure what she thought of all the animals at first! 
Then, she thought it was funny when the goat tried to eat out of her hand. 
Then, she thought the goat was trying to bite her.
Then, she wanted far away from the goats.
Then, she put both hands on her face.
And, lastly she ran to her daddy outside of the gate. Oh well...
The rest of the blog is a little letter written to our birthday gal!
Dear Sweet Bella,
Somewhere in the midst of going through life you turned two. I distinctively remember when you came into this world. We did not have that "movie moment of overwhelming love" at that time. While we had lots of love, we also had lots of "oh my goodness" moments. But, throughout the last two years we have experienced many moments of overwhelming love and joy - more than we can tell you. Since you probably won't remember this period in your life, I wanted to give you a glimpse of what happened.
I want you to know that your daddy is singing you to sleep as I write this - Grace, Grace God's Grace, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, and The Wonderful Cross. One of his favorite times is singing hymns to you at night time. And when you fall asleep on him, he literally melts. He'll come into the living room where I am and be completely at peace and enamored because of you. I want to remember that your daddy sang over you with sheer joy and love and contentment. And, you were the cause of these emotions.
I want you to know that you love the outside and act like it's a huge discovery every time you hear a dog bark or a bird sing or the ice cream truck go by. "What's that?" you say every single time!
I want you to know that last night I rocked you to sleep. Well, I thought you were asleep and you started playing with my face with your hand. Then, you started chuckling and put your little head up. We were basically nose to nose at this point when you pointed out my nose, eyes and ears. Then you gave me a huge hug. And I melted. I want to you to remember that your hugs and sweet heart and spirit are a joy for me to watch develop and a blessing for me to experience.
I want you to know that your daddy and I love to watch you play. I want you to know that you could do nothing more than dancing your little sumo-wrestler/honky tonk dance and we both look at eachother to say, "She is so cute". I want you to remember we say it multiple times a day.
I want you to know that you have helped us experience love and grace and peace in a way we didn't think existed. You truly do have a sweet spirit, displayed by your hugs (when we don't ask for them), a game of pick-a-boo after bathtime, and you wanting kisses before we leave the house. I want you to know that one of favorite things for you to do is climb up on the couch, stand up between us, put your arms around both of our heads, and pull us to you for one big family hug.
I want you to know that we will support whatever you want to do in life. We can only dream and imagine what God has in store for you when you're 8 or 14 or 29. And, we will be here supporting and loving you along the way.
I want you to know that we think you are absolutely beautiful. There are many times, even when you have your crazy "I just woke up" hair when we audibly tell eachother how pretty we think you are. And, you didn't do anything to provoke this. You were simply you. I want to remember that for nothing more than being you, you are beautiful.
I want you to know that you say what you're thankful for at mealtime. Before every meal, we hold hands and tell eachother what we are thankful for. Even though we can't understand what you say, you usually will say something, then bow your head to pray and say Amen. I want you to know that we absolutely love these times of thankfulness. But I think there is someone in Heaven who loves to hear what you're truly saying more than we do.And lastly and, arguably, most importantly, I want you to know that your mom and dad pray for you. We pray for you to just simply have fun in life. To experience what life here on earth has to offer in joy and fun! We also pray that you would grow and be rooted and grounded in love, you would experience what the true love of the Father is, the height, breadth, depth, and length of that love, and that we would be able to show you little glimpses of that. We pray that you would know the One who is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ask of imagine. We do pray all of this. But most of the time we have simple prayers of thanksgiving to God for giving us you, Bella. I want you to remember we prayed for you and thanked God for you. You were the cause of these prayers of thanksgiving.
We love you and happy second year birthday! Thank you for those movie moments of overhwhelming love.
Daddy and Mommy
