My baby...

"Children are the anchors that hold a mother to life." ~ Sophocles

I don't remember ever having a favorite sound before in my life. Favorite smells, yes, I love the smell of chocolate chip cookies baking, or cinnamon rolls, or pretty much any yummy baked goody. Favorite sights, yep I've got those too, the lights on top of South Mountain letting me know that I'm almost home, my wonderful husband in uniform on the day they returned from deployment last year. My son has brought me a new favorite...a favorite sound, the sound of his laughter. We were in Discount Tire today (the Subaru needs a new tire which they of course didn't have and have to order), and my baby just laughed and laughed and laughed while we waited in line and played with him. Laughing, it seems so simple, but the sound of laughter from my baby boy does something to me that is seriously physical, a kind of internal happiness that I never even imagined was possible before I became a parent. That leads me to what I think is probably the actual point of this entry...

This year has been full of wonderful things for me. Bobby was baptised, Punk was born, Bobby was ordained to the Priesthood, Punk and I were able to spend quite a bit of time with our family in Phoenix (that means that Bobby was gone, but we are pretty good at dealing with Bobby being gone), Bobby was able to bless Punk and will be able to perform all of the most important ordinances for Punk and all of our future children and we are preparing to go to the temple sometime next year to be sealed together as a family. My family is amazing to me, being a wife and a mother is so much more than I ever dreamed it could be and it takes more of me than I knew I had to give, and yet it invigorates me and fulfills me in a way that amazes me everyday.

I highly recommend the experience of motherhood, it changed me, made me better and made me want to be better everyday.