An Extra Special 19 Month Day!

Ella is now 19 months old. She is growing so much and never ceases to amaze us! One of her cutest new things is singing bringing home my baby bumblebee. She can say bumblebee and she can do the motions. She is just so stinkin sweet and might I add beautiful.

Her 19 month old day was not just any day. We received our consent papers from Holt to finalize her adoption and she got an extra special package from her sweet foster family in Korea. It was filled with all kinds of special fun things. They also wrote us two letters. One is a thank you not for me and Nat and the other is a letter just for her. These letters were written five months after she came to the US.

Both letters are written in Korean so we needed a little help. We went to Samurai restaurant that is owned by a Korean couple that I mentioned in the last post. They did not hesitate to help. She went and got her husband who sat down with me and read them out loud. I can't help but to be full of emotion for Ella. How truly blessed she is to have a foster family half way around the world that still misses her whole heartedly and prays for her. They thanked us for adopting her and meeting them and would visit if Korea was not so far away. They also said they would have written before now but they didn't know they could keep contact with us through our agency. I will keep the other details just for Ella.

The couple shook Nat's hand and she hugged me thanking me for adopting a korean baby. She also kept saying how smart she is. That's my girl! They said to come in anytime and they would help us.

I think about Ella's sweet foster family everyday. I will forever be grateful that they loved her and took care of her for us until we could get there. Because of Ella they will always be a part of our family.

Here is a few pictures of her with her new gifts!

Do you know what I would have given to see her in a pink tutu while we were waiting!

Happy Birthday Nat!

We celebrated Nat's 35th birthday today. The day before his birthday his mom kept the kiddos and we had a great night out for dinner. We went to Samurai for his favorite sushi. I do not care for sushi so I ordered some bul ko ki off the korean menu. Yummy! Brought back memories from six months ago.

Can you tell the kiddos were more excited about the cake than Nat? He didn't stand a chance on blowing his own candles out. The boys took care of that! Hope they made some good wishes.  Ella just kept looking at the cake saying YUM! BITE! She takes after her mama with her sweet tooth. 

Happy Birthday Nat!

Look Who We Met Today!

Today was a beautiful day and a perfect day for a picnic!

We had an adoption support and awareness family picnic through Joseph's Hope Foundation. I invited my Friend Leah and her family to come. We met through the Holt Korea forum. When we realized we had become caught up in the EP mess while waiting for our babies, we did what any anxious mama would do. We stalked timelines of other families and quickly figured out who all was waiting and in what order from the forum. 

When we were finally submitted for our EP's. Leah was in our batch. We formed our own facebook group of six families all in the same batch so we had support through the wait. Each of us had our own special story of why we were adopting and what we had been through. Each of these women and their children will always hold a special place in my heart. 

Ella loved playing with their daughter Taylor!

We soon figured out we lived really close to each other and we thought we would travel together but we actually passed each other in the air and missed each other by only hours. I was so glad to finally meet this sweet family!

How cute is little Aiden!!!! I am definitely partial to little asian angels but that cute little face and those dimples melt my heart. 

And here are some other beautiful faces from today!

We were pleased with the turn out especially since there were so many other events in BG. If it had not been for ball games we would have had many more able to come. We hope to make this an annual event. We had families who had adopted from China and Korea.  There were other families in process for Ethiopia, Korea, and domestic through the state of Utah.

What a fun time! We are truly blessed to know these families and hope to continue to add more. 

Jesus said, " Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Mark 19:14