{"id":10,"date":"2004-09-28T15:35:58","date_gmt":"2004-09-28T20:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/?p=10"},"modified":"2004-09-28T15:35:58","modified_gmt":"2004-09-28T20:35:58","slug":"Amazing Love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/?p=10","title":{"rendered":"Amazing Love"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"\/photos\/family\/dedication-wknd\/2340-akt-blanket-smile.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/dedication-wknd\/2340-akt-blanket-smile-sm.jpg\" height=150 width=200 border=1 hspace=5 vspace=5 align=left><\/a><br \/>\nEverytime I think back to how we were so surprised to find out Analise was on the way, I can&#8217;t help but stand in awe.  Married just 3 months, our plans were for kids in a couple years after we&#8217;d had some time to enjoy being &#8220;just the two of us&#8221;.  Even as the pregnancy continued and a baby became more and more real, it was still impossible to know what our lives would be like when she arrived.  I wondered if I would know how to be a mom.  I worried that we&#8217;d miss out on all the things we could do together without a little one to think about. I tried &#8211; unsuccessfully &#8211; to imagine what our lives would be like.  We were really excited, but there was so much uncertainty.  <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been 3 short months since Analise burst into our world, after months of anticipation.  I can&#8217;t imagine our lives without her.  Being a mother came naturally, and I love it.  Brian&#8217;s an amazing father &#8211; Analise could watch him all day, and she&#8217;ll just break out into a grin when she sees him.  Sure, it&#8217;s harder to do things with a baby.  But it&#8217;s no less fun.  Seeing how she grows and changes every day makes it hard to get anything else done:)  And her smile&#8230; when she&#8217;s smiling at you, there&#8217;s no room for thoughts of &#8220;what might have been&#8221;.  God knew &#8211; far better than we did &#8211; that our lives needed Analise.  We needed to be stretched, and to learn to give, and to see that it&#8217;s always possible to love more.  And as for the future, there&#8217;s nothing more exciting than the thought of seeing who she&#8217;s going to be and having her to share in everything else that lies ahead of us.<\/p>\n<p><font size=3><b>WE ARE SO BLESSED!<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/photos\/family\/apod\/prettyinpink.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/apod\/prettyinpink-sm.jpg\" height=150 width=200 border=1 hspace=5 vspace=5 align=right><\/a><br \/>\nOk, enough sentiment:)  At the top left is a picture of my lovely daughter from this past weekend.  Though she&#8217;s full of smiles, it&#8217;s so rare for the camera to catch one!  To the right, a second smile from last week.  She&#8217;s EXTRA smilely lately because she&#8217;s got her TOES to play with!  (By the way &#8211; if you&#8217;d like to see a bigger picture, click on the image, and you&#8217;ll find a printable picture.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everytime I think back to how we were so surprised to find out Analise was on the way, I can&#8217;t help but stand in awe. Married just 3 months, our plans were for kids in a couple years after we&#8217;d had some time to enjoy being &#8220;just the two of us&#8221;. Even as the pregnancy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkzLf-a","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}