Dear Hannah –

You will be one tomorrow! I can’t even put into words the JOY that you have brought to our family over the last 12 months – it brings joyful tears to my eyes because you have been a huge gift and blessing to our family –  a blessing that we don’t deserve but God in his love gave us anyway.

After you were born, we took some time off of homeschool. The first few months of your life we had so many visitors! The Jakstadts, the Smalls, and the Baaremans all took turns coming to stay with us for the first 6-8 weeks of your life. This was really helpful because it gave your big siblings something to do while we spent the majority of our time home with you. I remember taking you when you were only a few weeks old to the North Augusta Colonial Times event and feeding you in this old chapel because it was the only place with shade, privacy, and a chair! I also took you at only a few weeks old to one of Bridget’s soccer games at the Y. From the beginning you were a pretty easy baby. We could take you almost anywhere and you were happy and would sleep in your car seat. Eventually your sleep schedule got a little out of whack and you would stay up super late. I can’t remember exactly when but I didn’t want to make you “cry-it-out” like your siblings. I rocked and nursed you to sleep because I now knew how quickly the baby stage would go. I also decided that I wanted you to be a “paci-baby” so you wouldn’t suck your thumb. This resulted in a LOT of work putting your pacifier in over and over in the middle of the night when you were too little to put it back in your mouth on your own. But by around 4 months you had figured out how to put it back in your mouth by yourself and sleep became a little easier. Also, somewhere along the line, I decided you needed to be able to put yourself to sleep – probably around 6 months. So prior to 6 months you really needed me to put you to sleep or you would scream and cry a lot. There was one time that I went to book club and Daddy took you to Grandma and Grandpa’s house with a bottle but you would NOT go to sleep without me. You screamed and cried no matter what they did so he had to drive you home – luckily by the time he made it home you had fallen asleep in the car.

Another thing I remember from your early baby days (probably around 1-3 months) is that you SCREAMED in your carseat! This had never happened with any other babies. I tried everything from putting a mirror by your seat, to a light up toy to even buying a bigger carseat. Lucy would have to re-insert your paci at many red lights during that time and driving anywhere was very nerve-wracking! Luckily you grew out of that stage – but it did seem to last a while.

From the beginning your siblings have LOVED you so much. They loved holding you and watching you on your play mat when you were tiny – and now that you are walking and playing, they love playing with you and seeing all the funny and cute things you do.

The summer you were born, we took it pretty easy. We didn’t go to the beach since we thought it wouldn’t be much fun with a tiny baby. We went to the pool at the Y here and there and I would actually somehow climb down the ladder with you in my arms! 😮 My parents brought their boat here and let us keep it for a few weeks, and I would leave you with Grandma and pump while on the boat. The summer was filled with birthday parties for your 3 siblings and other friends, swim lessons, going to the zoo, visitors, and church activities. We even bought a van that first summer and had a scary metal object ruin our wheel while on the way to dance camp for Lucy at church. Everyone was fine, but the new (to-us) van had to get fixed very soon after we had purchased it! We took a few trips to Atlanta, and in late September we went to Destin with the Baareman family! We took some photos on the beach to celebrate the Baaremans renewing of vows for their 40th anniversary.

Once school started in the fall, we opted for a slower pace. I didn’t tutor but we still did Classical Conversations. For the first half of the year you would take naps either in your stroller or in the baby carrier during class, towards the end of the school year you were crawling everywhere – even under the table which was pretty distracting to the kids so I decided to sign you up for the nursery class – even though I was sad not to get undivided time to hold you – which is pretty hard to come by with 3 other kids! You started crawling around 6 months, and started to take some steps by 10 months and were really walking by 11 months. After you learned to walk there was no going back, you never have really crawled since and now at 12 months, you are able to walk all over the yard, up and down hills, up and down our driveway, and recently have started crawling up and down stairs! I even found you one time on top of the kid sized table – you had climbed up the chair, then up to the top of the table! So those chairs are now hidden in my closet.

With your siblings, I had learned how fast the baby stage went, and I knew how distracted I was with homeschool and other home tasks, so I tried my very best to soak in the “baby moments” I had with you. I would rock and feed you to sleep – which did take more time but I enjoyed every minute of quiet time I had with you. I would opt to take you to church with me so I could just hold you and have you play on a mat in front of me. Home school has definitely been more to juggle now with you in the picture, but I’ve been amazed that we have stayed on track somehow! Basically it has meant stretching out the length of our school days. We do a little bit at breakfast, then I try to do at least math with the girls or read the Bible story while you are awake. Then when you took your morning nap, we would do our subject of the day (either History of Science), then I could listen to the girls read with you in my lap, and during your afternoon nap (while Josiah was also in his room) we would do Phonics, Reading, Spelling, and any tests. Now, at 12 months, you have mostly transitioned to one long nap from about 1:00-4:00.

In March of 2020, this crazy thing called Covid-19 happened and for about 8 weeks, most of the nation had to mainly stay at home to keep from spreading the sickness. All of our activities got cancelled, all homeschool stuff, all church stuff, all sports stuff, etc. It was a little scary especially as we figured out day by day if daddy’s patient’s would be able to keep coming to see him. We praise God that daddy was able to keep his job and life for us (as already homeschooling) stay pretty much the same except that we couldn’t go to the park or really run errands. We spent most of our time at home and enjoyed the extra family time we had. This did affect your first birthday though 🙁 – On  your birthday, we bought lots of decorations (we even got a small helium tank to blow up som birthday balloons for you!), Grandma and Grandpa came over to celebrate with us, and we did a Zoom call with the Atlanta family so they could see you eat your first birthday cake! It was a from-scratch funfetti cake with chocolate frosting and you loved it! I forgot to make you a small smash cake, so you just smashed a giant cake slice. We also had a pinata in the garage (it rained the entire day….) shaped like the number 1. Another funny story is that we couldn’t find a place to get food on your birthday! We were going to get Chinese, but every Chinese restaurant we called was closed. We finally decided to just go to Zaxby’s but the drive-through line was wrapped around the building! Daddy had to wait almost 30 minutes to get food and we were super starving but we finally all enjoyed your birthday dinner – it was definitely a unique time to have a birthday!

We love you so much Hannah! You are our little adventurous and very sweet girl and we know God has wonderful plans for your life.