one.

Today, nugget turned one...at exactly 8:19 p.m.  

Unreal that this time last year, one of my doctors handed me this rather large baby 

that I couldn't stop staring at while repeatedly telling myself, 

"This is my beautiful baby...a real baby."  

happy first birthday, Mason.

You have changed my self-absorbed focus to a love for simple things.  

Thank you, little boy.  

You are pure sweetness.

love you so, so much.

the bump.

I have plenty to busy myself with today, but I am taking the time to sip some coffee and write you all.  I have wanted to share this post with you sooner than today, but due to grad school (finally observing IN a school) and a walking baby, my free time has been extremely limited.  No complaints though.  This life is good.

Anyway, a year ago, I must have been in a similar boat, because I had these photographs ready to share, and I never got around to posting them...and then, I had a baby, so priorities shifted and photographs of the bump became "old."  People forgot the bump.  The bump was a thing of the past (to some degree).  It was time to see Baby M.

However, as I've looked through photos from this time last year, I can't help but stare at the bump.  I had reached the very uncomfortable part of being with child.  Health issues were getting a little more serious.  My family was on-edge as we anticipated possible emergency type situations.  I was over pregnancy.  Friday, February 10th during an appointment, I looked my doctor in the eye and said, "I'm tired.  I'm ready to have this baby."  

Aside from all of that, I can now look at these photographs and appreciate the bump from a different angle - literally.  I was bored out of my mind at home while on bed rest  and I decided to change into an actual, photo-worthy outfit...shirt (from a black bag, of course - Thank you, Bec), skirt I altered, which explains why it's uneven, and old, cheap boots that I can't seem to part with no matter how hard I try.  I set the self-timer and spent twenty minutes doing my own maternity photo session.

I know I take well-over 1,000 photos a month, and I have tons of "favs," but these photographs mean more to me than I can ever express to anyone.  Taken in the house I was raised in...by a wood-stove that for many years my Daddy has filled with wood he cut with his own hands...in a kitchen where my Momma taught me how to break eggs, do homework at the kitchen table, and wear socks because this kitchen floor is always cold.  In the house that Baby M would learn to explore...with his parents and now, freely on his own.

So much history and a promising future within these photographs.  

They are truly tied to my heart.  

...and this is a personal shout-out to whoever invented the self-timer option on cameras...thank you.  I would never have been this comfortable around anyone else.

-S