No Greater Love

On this Valentine's Day, I am so thankful for the most precious little love in my life, Aubree.  We are so thankful to God that He saw fit for Derrick and I to be blessed with our sweet daughter.  We love you so much, Aubree!  She brings us so much joy and laughter and truly gets more fun every day.  Pretty much since Aubree's birth, we have tried to enjoy each day and the blessings in it and try not to worry about the future.  We just have to trust in God to take care of the things that are out of our control and know that He has a plan for our family, even if we do not know all of the details of that plan yet.  Also, on this day celebrating love, I am most thankful for the love God has for me and all of us.  He gave us the greatest gift of all when He sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sins.  Honestly, having hope in Jesus as our Savior and for far greater things when this life is over helps us deal with the hard things that come along with Aubree's diagnosis. 

Aubree is now 9 1/2 months old and is starting to pull up and will take a step or two while holding on. She loves standing and will reach for our hands so that she can push herself up.  She is making progress toward crawling, but still strongly dislikes tummy time from all of the pain it caused her when she had terrible reflux.  She also has great balance when sitting.  Aubree is a hard worker and has made so much progress in regaining her skills after surgery.  She has now regained the skills she had before surgery and is working on new skills now.  Go Aubree! 

Also, not just on Valentine's Day, I am so very thankful for my husband Derrick.  He is the very best Daddy in the world to Aubree, and she lights up every day when he comes home from work and reaches for him.  She thinks he is the funniest person on the planet and he always gets so many giggles out of Aubree.  Not only is he so great playing with Aubree, he is also such a big help.  Raising a child, especially a child with special needs and tons of medical equipment to juggle and maintain, is not for the weary.  It gives new meaning to the word teamwork, and I couldn't imagine having anyone better on Team Aubree than her sweet Daddy.  I love you babe! 

Sorry for the picture overload, this baby is just seriously cute!  Below are some pictures taken by me and my sister Amber of Aubree for Valentine's Day.  Amber was going to take pictures of her students for Valentine's Day with this cute background she made and let Aubree be the test model for it.  I love how they turned out!  Aubree has also been spoiled by having Aunt Amber come stay with us for awhile while Amber's roommate was under the weather.  We have all enjoyed getting to spend extra time with her!