It is official!!!

The next exciting thing that happened to us in October came totally unexpected. In the adoption process there are several milestones that you look forward to because each one means you are closer and closer to being done with the process. One of those milestones is the court date for finalization. We were planning on this taking place sometime in November possible the Beginning of December. For emotional survival purposes you put this stuff out of mind knowing that you have hired a great lawyer to take care of it so you don't have to worry about it. Well my phone rang one afternoon and it was the lawyers office calling to tell me that all the paper work had gone through and they were able to get a court date scheduled for us. At this point I thought wow that was fast! Then my next thought was so when in November is it going to be? Dove(lady from lawyers office) then proceeded to tell me that the date was October 13th! I thought for sure that I heard wrong so I repeated it back to her and she confirmed it. Wow!!! That was fast!!! That was only a week away!!! I ran out to Jon in tears to let him know. We immediately started talking about sealing dates(more to come on that) and calling family to let them know. On October 13th we got our little family dressed up and went before Judge Gary D. DeMeyer where after some questions were asked we signed and he signed that papers that make Abi ours legally! I know some of you are thinking she has always been yours, and yes she has and we have felt that way about her way before she was born but there is something about having in on paper. For those who have not adopted it may be hard to understand but for my many friends out there who have gone through the emotional roller coaster of this process you can understand my excitement of having it final!

With Baylee's adoption when we finalized our lawyer asked the judge if we could have a picture with her so we did, and I wanted that with Abi as well. It is nice to see the people who have been part of the process, anyway our lawyer was not able to be in court with us and sent someone else who has never done and adoption so I knew he would not be asking this for us. The judge was very intimidating at first and I thought "oh no we will not get a picture" but I got brave and at the very end asked and he was more then willing to take one and I am so glad he was! Now we can show Abi who helped make it happen when we tell her her story.

The Big 4!!!

The month of October has been a very exciting and busy month. It started out with a bang! Baylee turned 4 on the first of the month! I can't believe she is 4 already, she has grown so much. I was watching some video of when we first got her and can't believe how little she was. She is a little girl filled with personality. I love it even though at times it can be very difficult to deal with. Right now she is always busy dancing and playing with whatever friend her mind can come up with. You never know what little friend will be joining us that day because it is constantly changing. She likes to change her name as well and makes Jon and I call her by the name she chooses. Most of the time it is Genivive(hope I spelled that right but don't think so) off of the 12 dancing princesses. She loves her little sister and can't get enough of her so she is constantly waking Abi up from her naps to play with her. She is really into ice cream cones lately so we decided to give her an ice cream party. I made an ice cream pinata, and we had ice cream sundaes with lots of different toppings to choose from. It turned out great. I think she loved that fact that she got stuff for her birthday so now I hear "I get that for my birthday mom" everytime we go to the store. If she wants something she tells me to get it for her birthday.




The pinata broke off the string so we played pinata baseball. Clara was the one to break open the pinata! She is a great little baseball player.

I am so thankful for this sweet very opinionated child. She has been a real challenge but so worth it. Yes we go head to head about almost everything but there is nothing better then when she crawls up next to me and wants to cuddle or wants to help me in the kitchen or read her a book. She knows what she wants and knows how to get it yet she loves to give and gets excited when others are happy. I love how excited she gets when her daddy comes home and how she asks him for a strawberry lemonade every night even though she never drinks them. I love to listen to her sing "I love to see the temple" and get every word right. I love everything about her and am so thankful that I get to be her mom. Not a day goes by that I don't look and her and am amazed at how much I love her. I never knew that you could love someone so stinking much! I am excited to see what new adventures come our way this next year with Baylee!!