Kyleigh

One of my favorites!

At 12:16pm on October 31, 2002, my life was forever changed.

Kyleigh Nicole Byers was announced to a room full of family screaming "it's a girl!" (yes, I'm old fashioned and didn't want to know the sex :-)

Our life was pretty crazy back then. I had just graduated college that May and was still working at good ol' TGI Friday's (because no one wants to hire the pregnant chick) and of course, Bobby was working at Lowes. We had just bought a house and had no money and no idea really what we were doing or what we were up against. What we did know was that we loved each other more than anything and we now were the proud parents of a beautiful little baby girl.

Yeah, you've all heard the stories about how kids change your lives forever, to some, this is enough to make them run the other direction screaming, but it's all about perception I was just telling someone this week. For me, it could have been scary not ever having been around babies before and not having a clue what I was doing, having just bought a house and not having a job, having a husband that has to work a lot with his job.....but it wasn't that way. It brought me a sense of peace and freedom. The adult freedoms I lost were nothing compared to the mental freedom I gained. Kyleigh's life is the turning point in mine. She brought me and my dad back together, she opened up old wounds that needed to be healed between my mother (still working on that), she showed me a side of my husband I would have never seen otherwise. She made all of the bitterness I carried with me until that day...weighing me down, controlling every move I made, burn away. I am amazed at how much she did in that one day, without a word said.

I simply cannot explain the love I have for her in words.

Kyleigh is her own personality....always asking questions and will not be satisfied until she gets a good one (because I said so does NOT work with this child!). She's shy and introverted. She contemplates everything, she is always looking at things from different angles. Kyleigh is stubborn, and not just because she is 6. She's always been this way, wanting to have her own adventure and learn things for herself. Kyleigh is very loving, but doesn't always show it as freely as others. In the most unexpected moments it happens (in the car the other day she told me she liked watching the clouds. I thought it was sweet and asked her why. Her response, "because my Granny lives up there and I wanted to see her". Uh, tear.)

I hope that I will be able to give back to her everything she has given to me and I hope that I can live my life the way she has taught me to: give unconditional love, forgive because accidents happen, contemplate how things work and why, always be good to nature, make mistakes because that is how we learn and be stubborn and stand your ground...sometimes we are right!

Dressing up as High School Musical's biggest fan

Big Sister! (yes, Reece picked out her own costume this year :-)