God's Country and Smiles

What an exciting entry; two great things to talk about!
Last week Will, Quint and I trekked out to Mississippi (God's Country as my husband calls it) to surprise mom and dad for their 30th wedding anniversary... What a great visit. I know God is omniscient, but for me there are a few places and times I can really feel God's presence and mom and dad's place in Mississippi has always been one of them... and still is. Before we arrived in Mississippi, I would be remiss if I did not mention the great visit we had at Ft. Benning with Austin and Jessica Miller, and Ryan and Christiana Fisher. We all fellowshipped and had dinner together and then Will was able to catch up with his old buddies and life long friends from West Point, Ranger school and OBC days.
While I had mastitis, it was still a wonderful time in MS and I was so grateful to mom for helping me through that painful ordeal. It was so refreshing to pull up on Saturday and greet dad at the door (who knew about the surprise, but not the surprise Anniversary Party Ashley had coordinated), but what was really fun was how we surprised mom. We decided to give Quint to dad, and had dad walk in and exclaimed, "hey, look what I found!" I proceeded to tear up a bit (secretly... darn hormones) when mom breathed, "is that Quint?!" and rushed over to cuddle him.Quint loves his Marmie and retuned the cuddle. What followed was a very joyful family reunion, a meeting of the cousins, (new) aunts and uncles and... a square dance? Yep, there's always something going on at the MacKenzie Castle and we happened upon the weekend that dad was hosting a square dance for his international student ministry. Needless to say it was my first square dance and Will and I were able to enjoy it, as mom was only too happy to babysit Quint for us. He had a great time reading and snuggling with his Marmie.
For the next couple days we just relaxed, nursed infants and infections, visited with family and just plain enjoyed each other's company. It was so fun to watch Annalee and Quint "play" together. While they weren't able to interact and entertain each other yet, it was still fun to put them next to one another and watch them bob their heads at eachother. Annalee reached out to him a couple of times and Quint just kind of had involuntary muscle spasms in her general direction. Hey, if that was fun for us to watch, I can't imagine how much better it is going to get! I was always very close to my cousins growing up, so nurturing Quint and Annalee's cousin bond is a high priority! Some of my favorite memories, stories and experiences are when all of the cousins got together on family holidays... I mean when else could you ruin a set of tools looking for treasure in rocks and put dog poop in your grandmothers bed and live to tell the tale?
Monday was the big day, and what a day it was! Ashley managed to pull off a huge surprise anniversary party for mom and dad, and they didn't have a clue. I think Bill and Crystal were the only people in Oxford that didn't know about this, which is quite a feat! Congratulations Ush on a job well done. She was even gracious enough to allow Will and I in on the plans. We took them out for an anniversary dinner so that she could set up the surprise. Then she let Will give the toast while she presented their gift, which was an amazing book filled with letters, toasts and words of thanks from many of the people who's lives they have touched and brought to Christ. I don't know how many different countries were represented or how many dozens of letters there were, but it was impressive and almost overwhelming to read, but not surprising considering the who Mom and Dad are!
Then, on Tuesday, I thought it would be a great idea to have a photo shoot with Quint and his cousin Annalee. While I stand by my idea and maintain that it was a good one, Quint would beg to differ with me. I foolishly thought I could move him from a sound sleep into several different contorsions for pictures while he remained asleep... WHAT WAS I THINKING?! He woke up as soon as I put him on the piano (first picture set). He then proceeded to poop and pee everywhere. And I mean everywhere. In my hand, on the hard wood floor, on my shirt, shorts, piano, sheet. Thank goodness we had such a wonderful and gracious photographer and friend who helped clean it up and let us take our time. Natalie Hamm, you are an even  more amazing person than you are artist and photographer! Thank you. Below are the pictures that resulted from this photo-shoot, so you can be the judge of whether this was a good idea or not :). You can't even tell the little guy was crying thanks to Natalie's expertise. Well, except for a few at the end when he had completely had it... but even those are adorable with his little cousin. I am not soliciting, but if you want to see more amazing photo's like these, go to nataliehamm.com, she does an AMAZING job!

Precious little bottom.

Love.

Moments after these were taken is when he pooped all over me.

Right in my hand and down my clothes.  

I love him so much!

Sniff sniff.

Yipes! I'm exposed!

Precious Boy

Such Kissable Cheeks! 

I love you!

Happy Easter, From Quint.

Hi Quint! Hi Annalee!

Annalee says, "What is going on here?"

Quint says, "I have no idea, but this is terrible and I want to go back to sleep!"

Annalee says, "Quint, it's okay, pictures are okay. We

will be friends forever and I will comfort you by patting your head"

Bye Annalee! We can't wait to see you again :)

The second part of the title and this entry, "Smiles," is yep, you guessed, that first smile. What a precious, very special moment for us new parents; a moment I was so grateful to share this with Will! The thing is, Quint had been smiling for a couple days, but they were always followed by some sort of gas expulsion. I never really felt like they were "at me." But, yesterday morning, April 26 2011, Quint undoubtedly smiled at Will and has been smiling at both of us intermittently ever since. What happened was Quint had had a bit of a rough early morning, which is kind of unusual for him. So daddy took him and swaddled him real tight and held him in his arms and kind of jiggled him a bit. Then, miraculously, he stopped crying, looked at Will and smiled. I was at the computer I think, but Will called me over and he did it again. His little mouth opened a bit at first, revealing that toothless gummy mouth, and then the corners of his mouth stretched from side to side in an unmistakeable smile... followed by the flailing of his hands. What a great day. I will try and post a picture of those precious smiles as soon as I can capture one! Unfortunately when he smiles we both still get pretty caught up in the moment and neither of us is really even thinking of grabbing the camera lest we miss one moment of these little early smiles! Long entry, but thanks for reading!