This Time Last Year...

We were receiving our referral from our agency. I posted this:

We got a REFERRAL!!!!! Friday started out like any other day. I emailed our coordinator in the morning and a few minutes later we got the 'nothing new' email that I dread getting. I had put the adoption out of my mind (as if that's possible) and was working hard when the receptionist at work started buzzing my office looking for me. Thank goodness she kept on looking for me because I was in the backroom. When she told me I had a phone call from CHI I just assumed another document was needed. We went through our normal pleasantrys and then she says "I have some news for you," and that was it. I was bouncing in my chair and squeaking and some of the ladies I work with ran in and all I could do was shake my head "YES" and they knew. It was an amazing feeling. I had to call Troy who was driving home from work and he was so excited I was worried he would run off the road. I called my mom and Troy called his and then his mom called me and it was wonderful.We spent the weekend shopping and cleaning out his bedroom, sorting thorugh all the clothes my sister in law has passed to us (thank you!) and looking at bedding and just anything we could put our hands on we looked at!! We should hear travel dates tomorrow or Wednesday!! I can't go wait to meet our little man. My hands are still shaking and I can't get anything done and I'm all over the place, but you know what? I think I'm allowed!!God is so good!

I still can't believe we were looking at his picture, telling our family and getting ready for the trip(s) of a lifetime one year ago. My how time flies!!

In other news Daniel and I went to his Valentine party at school and had a great time. He made a showbox and it was filled full of cards and candy. He also made me a heart flower arrngement and a flower pot with candy in it. He was so sweet when the teachers helped him give them to me. I couldn't help but take a photo!!

Big Cousin, Trip to the Local Park, Sentences and Tagged

This is going to be an all in one post!


Last Friday night I hosted game night at our house for my side of the family. Both of my sisters came, my mother, my two neices, one of the boyfriends, and of course Daniel was here as was the infamous Baby Eli and my grand niece Karmen! We had a house full! We played lots of Boggle and cooked dinner and had a great time. I took this photo as Daniel has expressed a real interest in holding Eli recently. We tried it once before using a pillow, but Daniel didn't seem very thrilled about it. However, this time, he loved holding his little cousin!


Aren't they adorable!!

Then this past Sunday Troy, Daniel and I headed to our local park to feed the ducks and have some play time. Funny how I was just posting about our lazy winter days and then we have some oddly warm weather. Of course last night and tonight we have had 60 mph wind gusts which always make for a pleasant driving experience to and from work! At the park we fed the ducks, walked acrosse the big bridge over the water and because Papa was around got to play in the big boy section of the playground while Mommy had multiple heart attacks!! It was a great day!

Lately Daniel has started putting together more and more sentences. It seemed to almost happen overnight. I am thrilled, but let me tell you...that boy can babble up a storm. I love every minute of it! Some of his newest phrases are "I'll be right back", finger in the air to show the one minute sign; then the other day while I was putting on my shoes, he came over, pulled the tongue of the shoe up and shook his head up and down and said "all set Mommy"; and lastly (my personal favorite) we were rocking two nights ago and he starts fingering my necklace. I asked him if he liked it and he replies "way cool Mommy". Obviously I need to update my vocabulary!

Finally, I have been tagged several time lately from several different people on a couple of different topics.

The first:

I was tagged by Chris and Danica and then by Jill, who by the way adopted the cutest little girl from Ethiopia, lives down the road from us, used the same agency we did and we went to high school together! The rules were:

1. Open the 4th picture folder on your computer.2. Choose the 4th picture and post it on your blog.3. Explain the picture.4. Tag 4 people to do the same

Well, our laptop blew up that had all our pictures neatly in folders and thankfully I had stored most of them on disk, but for the purpose of this, I am using the 4th picture from the 4th folder of our office computer. Ironically it's one of a series I took (not the best one as I posted the best one in a previous post) in which Jill recognized the background and realized we really did know each other and then contacted me! The folder was entitled Stuff (I'm so creative) and the photo was Stuff004! Without further ado...

I am not going to tag anyone else since it has been a while since my tag.

I was also tagged by someone else to do a book tag, but I can't remember, so I apologize for not doing that one.

Wow - I think I'm all caught up now. I'm exhausted!!

Lazy Winter Days

First of all, thank you so much for all your comments and prayers on my last post. We received our next appointments and they aren't until April 15th, so I am thankful for the break. April 15th is our one year anniversary of our positive court decision to adopt Daniel! We consider it our "Family Day" even though we weren't able to pick Daniel up until the following morning. We joked that Daniel spent his first night away from home! Spending the day in the hospital wasn't exactly what I had in mind for that day, but that's alright!!

So, lately we've had some nasty weather and I haven't been feeling the greatest and Daniel has been a little bored. So here is a post from him.

Hey everyone...it's been really boring around here, so I wanted to show you what I do to pass the time.

First I check on the dogs. I can't believe they are being good...for the moment. Mommy rushed for the camera just to prove that the dogs really do use the dog beds and not the chair, the bed, etc. I laughed because we all know where they really sleep...

Next, I had mommy build me a fortess. She sets it up real nice next to the table and then gives me a juice box and a neat pad thing I can write on and then erase what I just wrote. I keep trying to write on myself, but nothing happens. What's up with that?!

I've figured out that if you take a riding toy and set a ball on top the seat and then sit on the ball that your feet barely touch the floor. Hence the riding toy has now become a motorcylce. Mommy laughs everytime I zoom by and yell "motorcycle"!

Playdoh is really cool too. The Octopus is a little hard to do so Mommy sits and reads and helps me push the hat down to make disgusting turtles and other weird creatures. I always yell "eeewwww" when the stuff squishes out.

Lastly, I take good long naps. Can't you tell by my hairdo. Mommy said she was leaving it that way all day and that I must have slept so good on one side then flipped over for the rest of my nap. I still can't figure out what's so funny!!

I love lazy winter days!