It's in the details.

Chris' family got together for his Grandpa Mahaffey's birthday extravaganza over the summer.

I was on bed rest with hyperemesis gravidarum, between hospital visits, and had no desire to drive 2 hours and act social; however, we love our Mahaffey family, and it had been a while since we had seen all of them together, and we simply adore Grandpa. With our love for their family, and the persuading words of my mother-in-law, we figured we needed to make an appearance. After all, they had hired a photographer, and planned to do family pictures with the whole crew---it would just be weird of us not to go. Bedrest or not.

We ended up staying for about 2 hours. I threw up four times. And got my picture taken.

Lovely.

For some reason I have never seen those pictures. Today, my father in law sent a shot of our little family via e-mail. Tears stung my eyes. My heart pounded hard. I couldn't stop staring.

I remember that girl.

Her eyes look tired, worn, and beat.

She was sick, sick, sick.

And pregnant!

With her dear sweet baby.

She had no idea what lay ahead...

Me and that boy, we fought a hard fight.

Gave it our all.

It was a really hard battle.

I want to whisper to her, "Don't worry. It will work out." because while she thinks her life is difficult now, she is about to face something so impossible.

And here we are! And look at that picture. We are all together; how it should be! All five of us. My three sons. I love, love, love how Hugh is looking up with his arm stretched. And that glow to the right. And how you can't actually see my four month pregnant belly, yet our Walt is still clearly in this picture.

There are secrets all over this shot. It's our story. The hard. The beautiful.

I love this picture.

Even with the girl: tired, worn, and beat. She is still smiling.