Friday Favorites!

Hi friends!! Happy Friday!!

I hope it's been a great week for you!! 

It's been a full week and today and tomorrow we are having a garage sale!!

AND we are celebrating Marshall's FIRST Birthday tomorrow!!

How in the world it has been one whole year since I had him- I really don't understand!?!?

While this year has moved at lightening speed- and we went through our fair share of trials- it has been SO amazing. 

Marshall is the most PRECIOUS baby you will ever meet and the joy he has brought to our family is indescribable!!

After we had James, Aaron and I were pretty sure that our family was complete with 4 awesome kids. But....God put it on our hearts to pray and think about adding another baby. While my pregnancies are not complicated by any means- they are far from easy due to me having extremely severe varicose veins. We were honestly a little scared to say "yes" to having a 5th baby- but we both knew in our hearts that we were meant to have another baby.

And then we had this absolutely perfect, precious baby boy. And he came into this world in a completely UNEXPECTED way. After having four "regular" deliveries, Marshall was born via a C-Section at the VERY last minute. After my water broke, my doctor found out that Marshall had become breech. If you can believe it- he was head down earlier that morning- but somehow flipped. 

We had to move very fast to get him delivered since I was basically ready to have him. 

Low and behold- he ended up being 11 pounds 2 oz and 23 inches long- the biggest baby my doctor had ever delivered in her 20 + year career!!

He was an extremely difficult delivery due to his size and orientation of how he was laying in my uterus. I ended up losing over 2 liters of blood during his delivery and my recovery was VERY difficult the first 72 hours after I had him.

I am sharing this because- despite EVERY single thing going completely different than how I planned on it going- it was such a lesson to me that I am NOT in control. 

And that was such a beautiful and hard thing to come to grips with as a started out my journey as a mommy to 5 kiddos!

I can honestly tell you I have enjoyed EVERY SINGLE moment of Marshall's first year. 

I LOOOVVEEE babies and really cherished all of my babies- but knowing that this is our last baby- has made me literally soak in every bit of Marshall being a baby. 

Marshall has the most joyful, calm, precious demeanor and he is just SO SO special. 

Everyone in our family is truly obsessed with him and he has just brought so much light and joy to our lives. 

We always joke since our other 4 kids are SO crazy, God knew he needed to give us an angel if we were brave enough to have a 5th baby. HA!

While it is a little emotional for me to think about this being the last "first" birthday we are going to celebrate in our house (until my kiddos start having babies!!), I am mostly just SO excited to watch Marshall grow and develop and to see what type of little person he is going to become. I am BEYOND grateful we have a healthy, thriving baby boy. 

So- here's to saying "YES" to something that is scary. Here's to going through hard stuff and still being JOYFUL and GRATEFUL in the midst of it. Marshall has been tangible evidence of God's grace and mercy for me and I am eternally thankful for that.

Hope you don't mind I didn't a little something different this morning than the traditional "Friday Favorites" post...just really wanted to share my heart with all of you!

Hope you have the BEST day and a WONDERFUL weekend!!

I am off to get my garage sale on! HA!

I am linking up with Andrea and Erika for their Friday Favorites Link Up!

 I am also linking up with April for Five on Friday!

 Joining Karli for her, Oh Hey Friday Link Up! too!

And lastly, linking up with Katie, Tif, Della & Caitlin for High Five for Friday!