Letter To Me

If I could go back and have a conversation with the girl that I was in college and our first year of marriage, I would have a few things I’d love to tell her.  But then again, I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprises that life would soon bring her:)

 

Dear Amanda,

You’re a freshman in college this year. Your roommate and friend, Laura, just showed you a new way to get back home to Statesboro by going straight through Newnan and following highway 16.  This route allows you to avoid the interstates in Atlanta and the horrible traffic. You don’t know this now, but you are driving right past your future husband’s family business where he will be working when you catch his eye,  fall in love, and marry him. Further more, you are driving right past the house that you and Daniel will make a home and raise your son, Thomas Lanier Smith, in.  Also, this house is across the street from your soon-to-be extended family, who will have a place of their very own in your heart as soon as you meet them. You don’t know this yet, because you are no where near ready. These next few years you will spend in college growing and maturing as a woman and Jesus Believer will be critical to building the strong foundation on which your marriage will stand.  You will be so blessed when you meet Daniel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Amanda,

You are a sophomore in college now. You should enjoy skipping History to go to the gym and making Scotty take notes for you. There will be a day rather soon in your future when your gym membership package will include a “nursery fee” and you will not be able to make it to the 9:30a.m. class because you will be home  caring for your new baby. You should enjoy your freedom of being able to work out with Scotty, Cassie, Joanna, and Jenny  for two hours a day if you want to while you can. Spend some more time in the sauna, sweating and relaxing. You will not be able to do this once you become pregnant, and you will be in too big of a hurry to pick Thomas up from the gym nursery after a forty-five minute aerobics class to go sit in the sauna.

 

Soon enough, you will consider pushing the stroller around the farm for thirty minutes your work out for the day, and you will be exhausted after it because you will have been up at least once, maybe twice, during the night nursing your  precious child. And you will be so blessed to have the opportunity to do so.

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Amanda,

You are a Junior in college now. You are well into your business classes and are always studying all night for tests because you are too distracted hanging out with your roommates during the day to study.  You are making almost, if not all, “A’s” in hopes that all of this hard work in school will pay off with some great job when you graduate.  You don’t know this yet, but you will hardly even use that Marketing Degree that you achieved, with honors, in the “real world work force”.  However, you will use those business skills when you try to sell your first home while the economy’s in a recession and when you start learning how to use coupons and recognize all of the “marketing gimmicks”  the manufacturers are using to manipulate you into spending unnecessary money!  You will need every penny that you have to buy diapers and wipes.

 

Also, enjoy your trendy little church dresses. Actually, just enjoy knowing what the current styles and trends are! There will soon be a day where you find yourself wearing a black knit top from Target, some khaki pants with a maternity waist band (11 weeks after your child is born), and some black Liz Claiborne ballet-style shoes because your heels are crusty and your toe nails are unpainted. You also will have to wake up at 6:30a.m. in order to actually make it to church on time. However, you will spend your morning cuddled up in the chair with your sleeping infant, whose belly is full of milk and whose heart is full of trust and love for you. You will be blessed.

 

 

 

Dear Amanda,

You are now a Senior in college. You have met your future husband, and life outside of him no longer exists:) You and Daniel are keeping the roads hot between Newnan and Carrollton.  You should enjoy this year because you are getting the best of both worlds: being in love and spending time with your Romeo but still living with four wonderful college girls at the blvd where there is always plenty of  talk about the latest diets, late night runs to the Marathon, and endless television watching of Grey’s and Army Wives…not to mention the shared experience of facebook stalking:)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Amanda,

You are now a newlywed. You are Daniel love to eat out during the week and spend the Summer weekends at the lake and beach. You should really enjoy your hot summer days laying around at the beach with Heather and Kelby. It won’t be but a few summer’s away when you’ll be chasing a little boy around the beach in your tankini and trying to keep him from drowning in the ocean! When you’re not digging for crabs or building sand castles, you’ll be re-applying the SPF 100 on your red-headed, fair skinned little boy:)

 

 

Dear Amanda,

You are now expecting your first child! Enjoy the winter of 2009/2010 where you and D are in bed every night by 8:00p.m. just so you can watch a few  Law and Order re-runs before you doze off by 9:30p.m.! And tell Daniel not to worry, your pregnancy hormones WILL go away, and you WILL allow him to turn the heat on next winter:)

 

 

Dear Amanda,

You are now a mother to a newborn!  Thomas will grow and develop faster than you can blink!  He will be playing outside with Lady and riding the 4-wheeler all by himself before you know it!  Enjoy this time when it’s only you and him. It won’t be this way forever. So take a million pictures, and when you’re done taking those, take a million more!  Don’t wish a minute of it away for time with Thomas is too precious to be wasted!!

 

We Love Spring!!

Seriously. It is so pretty outside. And warm. And the sun is shining. And the birds are singing. And Daniel’s wheat is growing (hallelujah!). And the tomatoes, squash, cantaloupe and watermelons have been planted. And Thomas and I love strolling. And it helps with the cellulite. And the muffin top. And the various other body parts that like to swing and sway on their own now when I walk. And these are the same body parts that I never imagined would be swinging and swaying. I didn’t even know they could swing and sway.  But that’s another story for another day.

 

Oh, mercy!

 

So, Daniel and I have been taking full advantage of this beautiful season. We had such a rainy and very pregnant winter that we both grew a little restless and have a new appreciation for fresh air and sunny days. We decided that it was time to pick back up the habit of weekly Date Nights. Oh, how I love them! There’s nothing like spending time with the one.  You know the one I’m talking about. The one whose toothbrush sits next to yours. The one who wishes you the biggest happy birthday every year. The one who takes the baby from your tired arms and gently says, “Go take a nap, Honey”.  The one you get excited about sharing the Texas Tunion with at Long Horn. The one who calls you when he sees rain and wind coming on the weather radar because he knows it scares you. The one who sends you e-mails in the morning full of appreciation and admiration for you because you’re the mother of his child. The one who doesn’t make you bait your own hook. The one who lovingly gets mad at you for texting and driving. (No, not me! Never!) The one who makes sure you know he notices when you’ve lost two pounds (major brownie points!). The one who falls in love with your mutt from the Carroll County pound.  You know him. And I love him.

 

Sorry, where was I?….

 

Oh, yeah. Date nights. The last one we attempted without Thomas was short lived, to say the least. One evening recently Thomas spent a couple of hours with his Mama T and Papa Joe, who politely told us he was  screaming in our ears but we don’t want to ruin y’alls date night by making y’all come home a “little fussy” when we called to check on him. Thomas’s most fussy times tend to be in the evening, so I had a hunch that we better head back. I actually had a hunch this would happen before we even planned the date night, so we didn’t go far to begin with. There’s nothing like a quiet date night on the lake fishing with no burps cloths anywhere in sight.

I packed some sandwiches and fruit, and we had a picnic on the boat on the lake. And on days where Thomas takes three hour naps, this is what you get. Pictures of food from my kitchen. I was bored, ok?! Daniel loves peanut butter and honey sandwiches. I packed an extra one just in case our friend, Christopher, was there fishing, too.

P.S.-Love this yogurt! Go try some! I find it in the “health foods” section at Kroger.  It’s yum, yum, yummy!

Loading the boat

Daniel’s drink of choice.

The Lake

      

This is my fish. That I caught. All by myself. While taking all of these pictures. How many did D catch you ask?? Zero! He is trying to convince me to hold my fish in this picture. He knows better.

 

   

And there were snacks, of course.

 

So, we concluded that for this particular season with Thomas, it is best if we try not to leave him in the evenings. He can get really cranky when he’s tired, and if you ever find yourself around him when he’s cranky, you understand. He is pitiful! He just wants his Momma. Bless him! Daniel and I will have a lot of opportunities for a lot of alone time and date nights in the future. But for right now, we are just taking a deep breath and reminding ourselves that “this too, shall pass”.  And in the mean time, we are living and enjoying every precious moment we have with our son.  As Billy Dean says, “Let them be little, ‘cause they’re only that way for a while. Give them hope. Give them praise. Give them love every day. Let them cry. Let them giggle. Let them sleep in the middle. Oh, but let them be little”.

 

 

 

On a different note, remember her??

My brother-in-law, Andrew, laughed at one of my recent posts and told me that I needed to put this sign:

on the inside of the gate so that all of the animals in the yard could be warned of Lady. So what if she’s killed two newborn baby kittens, two lizards, a chipmunk, a squirrel, and two birds since we moved into this house this past November!?  You’ve got to admit, she’s good!

 

Well, after she kills these animals, she likes to play with them.

 

And roll in them.

 

And I caught her on camera doing it the other day!

 

With the lizard that she is still carrying around the yard today.

 

Make note that today’s date is May 2 and the date from the day she killed the lizard is April 21.

 

You do the math.

 

Yeah, she’s nasty, but whatever keeps her entertained and gets her energy out works for us! 

 

Admiring her kill…

Crunch….crunch…crunch…

Licking her lips…

Looking for other things to hunt down….as always….

The third red head in our family:)

 

So, you might want to think twice before you let this loving little Lady lick all over your face with her adoring kisses!

 

One last thing, do you know why I love my husband so much? Because he calls me and says things like, “Come outside, I have a surprise for you!" I love animals, especially the ones straight off the farm or from the woods that he finds! And I love when he brings them home for me.  We usually don’t attempt to keep them and make them pets (Shocking, I know). We just admire them for a short while and then let them be on their merry little way. This was our most recent temporary pet. He was scared when Daniel brought him home (Rightfully so! Remember Lady from above!) so he was hiding in his little shell. We left him outside and I checked on him periodically. Then, like anything else that has brains, it got out of our yard before Lady found it!

This is the front of my house. These bushes are beautiful, aren’t they!? We are about to cut them all down! Did that just make you cringe??