One year ago today I thought my day would be just like any other normal work day.  I got to work around 8am and noticed an email from Sue, or adoption agency director.  Seeing emails from her always made my heart jump into my throat because it meant something was happening.  Good or Bad.

That morning it just happened to be the email that would change our lives forever.  It was the first pictures of our little girl.  I often had her email me at work because that was the quickest way to respond but the photos she had sent were too big for our server.  I frantically called our IT department pleading for them to release the photos so I could see.  Unfortunately, they were processed in a first come first serve basis.

I emailed Sue and asked her if she could send them to my hotmail account, which is linked to my phone.  I waited and waited for my phone to download the photos...but of course they were too big to view on my phone.  Finally I just explained to my co-workers that I needed to run home quickly for just a second to get the email.  Luckily, I only live a mile from work!

I sat on the floor in the living room and fired up my laptop and opened the email pictures.  My heart was beating so fast!  As soon as I saw her face I literally felt like time had stopped.  I called Tommy at work - he normally doesn't answer at work because his phone doesn't work in the school but miraculously he answered.  I was so speechless I think he thought something was wrong because I was crying.  I told him I had gotten pictures of our daughter!

She was amazing at only 6 weeks old.  I had no idea at the time how old she was because we hadn't received her medical report.  All I knew is that she was perfect and she was ours.  Such a great moment that I will never forget.

She came dressed in boy clothes :)

Then she got a cute pink sleeper!

The Great Toy Purge

A few weekends ago I finally decided that our toy situation was getting out of control.  We don't even really buy toys.  We get hand-me-down toys, toys from Goodwill, toys for birthday and christmas, etc.  I decided I had had enough!  I piled all the toys in the whole house (including 3 bins full of toys from the basement, two toy bins from upstairs, 2 toys bins from the living room and 1 football filled with toys from Micah's bedroom) into the living room and let them play for about an hour with everything.

They definitely had a blast playing with stuff they hadn't even seen in probably a year!  After play time I explained to Micah that there were kids who didn't have any toys, kids without parents to buy them toys and kids with parents who couldn't afford toys and that we should donate some of his toys to these kids.  He understood as much as a 4 year old could and I will admit that after a few minutes of putting toys in the "give away" bin he started to get upset.  I reassured him that he could keep two full bins of toys and that he could pick whatever he wanted for those two bins.

The bin of toys he kept

The toys we are giving away!

We left two small bins of toys for Sanai in her room.  We always seem to migrate in there because the rug is so soft and comfy! ha ha

Although there are tons of great organizations, Goodwill is the only thing I know of in our town.  I really would've liked to "spread the wealth" to other organizations but I didn't want to keep the stuff in my garage until we made our next trip to Murfreesboro.  So Micah and I took the toys to Goodwill and he helped me unload them, all the while talking about how these toys are for kids that don't have toys.  He get's it!! 

Celebrating 5 years!

We had an amazing anniversary weekend!  Tommy already had a coaches clinic scheduled in Pigeon Forge but it was one that wives were invited to which was neat.  So many of the speakers made me realize, once again, what an awesome man I married!

We weren't able to leave until around 7pm on Friday night because we had to take the kids to my brother in law and sister in laws house.  But we were pretty excited to get the weekend started.

If you've never been to Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg it's a neat area.  It has lots of neat stuff to do. 

Titanic Museum

Wonder Works upside down building

Saturday morning we had a few sessions of the clinic and then we headed to do some shopping.  It felt pretty strange to not have either kid to worry about.  Sanai has figured out how to undo the velcro on her shoes so daycare asked us to buy her some tying shoes.  This normally wouldnt be a problem accept that her feet are only a size 2!  It's pretty difficult to find a cute shoe that doesn't have velcro and doesn't have a soft bottom.  We finally just bought her a pair of pink chucks.  SO CUTE!

We had a lot of fun going into the stores and being goofy. 

Gettin ready for our rap video

We bought a couple things and then headed back to the hotel where we got cleaned up and headed to dinner and a movie.

I tried a million times to get a good picture of him clicking his heels in the hallway but I could never get it.  We laughed so hard. 

Although we were so sad to be leaving, we were excited to see our kiddos.  Tommy was also super excited about stealing all this bacon from the hotel breakfast buffet.  ha ha

 

 

Looking forward to many more years with my best friend!!

 



smooshed noses :)