One Year Ago Today

March 27, 2009
March 27, 2010

One year ago today our lives were changed in the most amazing way as our daughter Haylee Mei was placed in our arms. What an amazing adventure adoption has been! We are so truly blessed and words cannot express my feelings on this day as we celebrate our one year anniversary together. She is so amazing and we are grateful that we've been allowed to add this brilliant girl to our family!!!

To celebrate we went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. (I know it isn't much considering what a momentous occasion this is but we still have four little kids so we can't do anything too crazy.)

A Hole in the Ground

Our little lot now has a giant hole in the ground. Yay! It has begun! We went and checked it out last night and it is starting to feel real. We were surprised to see how far our lot actually went back and a little disappointed to realize that we will have four giant trees on our property. But it will give us a little bit more space. There is quite a drop off but our builder will be installing a retaining wall so that all of our backyard will be useable. Me and Kev are very excited - the kids not so much. They just wanted to head to the park like we'd promised.

Permits are in!

So it is official. Permits were turned in last Friday. Our builder is saying that it will take about two weeks. We are anxious to get started.

Whirlwind 2010

So we've started out 2010 with a bang! We knew that we wanted to try selling our house this year. We outgrew it a couple years ago but Kevin wanted us to wait for a while. And so we waited with the idea that we would try and sell in the spring. Then Kevin's work threw us off a bit when they announced that he could either work from home or move out of state. We knew that it would probably take a few months to sell so we decided to put the house on the market and while we waited we could decide what we wanted to do. We listed it January 13th and had sold it by the 16th! We couldn't believe it! It has been a crazy month. On February 5th we signed paperwork and by the 10th our house of 10 years no longer belonged to us. We've moved into a rental and have decided to build a new house here. We are very excited about this new adventure but sad to leave the home that we've brought all four of our children home to. There are so many memories there and I feel like I just didn't have enough time to process it all. But things are moving smoothly and quickly and so I suppose it was meant to be. We'll try to keep you all updated on our progress! Happy 2010!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Wow! What a great year it has been! We had a lovely time with so many family members visiting but it went by all too quickly. Haylee got in the Christmas spirit fast and loved opening her presents. She is at such a fun age for all of this. So humbling to think back about Christmas time the last few years and how desperately I wanted this child. Feeling so overwhelmed at the emotion of finally having her here and watching her face light up on Christmas day. So happy to see all of my kids together but still a empty place where my sweet Ava belongs. I have great hopes for 2010 and can't wait to see what joy it brings! Happy New Year to you all!

DECEMBER 8 - SHE'S TWO!!!!

Okay one day late but my baby is two! I can't believe it! We had such a fun day and here are some of the highlights.

One Year Ago Today...

we opened our email to find these pictures. We knew then that this was our daughter. I can still remember the excitement and nervousness of that weekend as we tried to find a doctor to review her file. I must have looked at her pictures a million times. I couldn't wait to meet this little girl who had captured my heart so completely.

And this is a picture of our girl from last night. She has exceeded our wildest dreams in every way. She constantly amazes us and delights us. We see more and more of her sweet personality day by day. This has been one of the coolest experiences of my life. We have much to be grateful for this Thanksgiving! We've been home almost nine months now and what a joy she's been!