a girls weekend.

my aunts from chicago are here. and its been great. justin is out of town for the weekend. so its just the girls. and ava is loving it. more attention for her. on monday night when justin was at yl club and ava was asleep. i decided to work on something i have been putting off for months. i am not sure why but i have. when ava was born i was given a calender for her to document different milestones for each month of her first year of life. i did a real good job from january to july. july 20th to be specific. but then it stopped. because our life stopped right about then. or just shifted focus for a bit. so when i opened the calender and saw the blank pages. august. september. october. november. my heart sank. and i wept. hard. i just hated that i felt like i had missed those months with ava. i didn't. i know that. but i hated that i could not remember the exact day she crawled. or when she first waved. or the day she said "dada" for the first time. but i pulled it together and just started writing. trying to remember everything. when it happened (ish) and i am okay with that. and thankfully i really did not miss anything. because i am with her everyday. and that is a gift in itself. i just hate how quickly you forget the little things. and man i love this little girl. and i swore i would not forget anything. and i would nurse her until she was one. and i would make her homemade baby food. but life happened. the way it does sometimes. things go differently then you planned. or things happen that you never would plan in a million years. but that's life. things change. they do not go the way we thought. but in that...in our fear and despair...we are surprised. and God moves through it all. and everything is different. but its good. not all of it. but some of it. justin and i were talking last night over dinner. and because we were connecting and i wanted to keep talking i unknowingly gave ava more graham crackers than any person. let alone an eleven month old should eat. but he said...."babe. we never thought we would spend half of our daughters first year of life going to chemo every other thursday. and thinking about death. and experiencing what we have. but in the middle of it all we now know how much God loves us. how he is for us. even in all the darkness and pain. he is so for us." and its true. 

the ryder family of three has officially decorated the river house for christmas. our stockings are hung. the tree is up. its fake and its too small for the room. but we will be purchasing a new larger tree at an after christmas sale. but until next year our little tree will work. and i love it. ava found an ornament in the pile of decor and it was a bell and she rang that thing. and she loved it! so we are ready for the season. and this season we are grateful for many things. but mainly that my cancer is shrinking. and that i am not bald...yet. and for ava. and that i love my husband more than i ever thought possible. really. 

and we have a little family adventure coming up...