Adeline's Adoption Story

On February 6th we got a phone call from our adoption case worker that he had received a phone call from Maya's birth mom that she wanted to place her baby with us ... and her water just broke!  We were in shock!  We had known for a couple of months that she was pregnant, but didn't expect or think she would place her baby with us. It was a miraculous surprise! 

We flew out the next day to Detroit, Michigan!  All the while, we were in touch with Maya's birth grandma and birth sister!  They were keeping us posted on how things were going with Maya, and now the new baby girl's, birth mom!

Our adoption agent in Utah was able to help us find an agency in Michigan.  We met with them the next day and that night drove to meet this sweet baby girl for the first time!  We were just going to meet her, but when we pulled in, we got a call from the hospital social worker.  She asked us if we had a car seat, we told her we did and she said the baby was ready to leave the hospital and we could take her with us that night! What a wonderful surprise!  

There she was - this tiny perfect human. 6.7lbs, 17.9" long, full head of hair, calm, and beautiful!

It is quite a miraculous experience to look at her for the first time and the thought enters my mind, "Oh!  There you are!"  As I know I've said before, a recognition of knowing someone you've never met is an incredible experience!

Maya was asleep, so she got to meet her sister Adeline, at the hotel.  BIG sister!  She took right to it!!

We stayed in Mchigan for just under 8 weeks! While there, we were blessed to meet our daughters' birth grandma and birth sister!  What a wonderful experience!  We even got to meet the girls' birth mom, but I will save those pictures for our personal viewing. I don't know if we have her permission to post, so we will keep them as a sacred memento for our family. 

We sure do love being a family of four!  We are so blessed! I mean, just look at these two!

Our Forever Family!

Guess what happened in mid October?!?  Our adoption was finalized!  Most people finalize at a courthouse in front of a judge - but in our family, we finalize via text message! LOL!

Once we got the finalization paperwork in the mail we could start planning our very special day - being sealed together forever in our temple!  (If you don't know much about our temples or about our church you can learn more at mormon.org).  We were sealed in the temple on November 9th.

Best day ever!

Pic from my sister Amy

Pic from my sister Natalie

And we had fun celebrating after too - we all went to my parents' church where Brandon gave Maya a beautiful blessing and we had a luncheon to celebrate the day!

This is Maya's sealing dress she wore to the temple.
And the beautiful shawl made by my Grandma Maya was wrapped in for the blessing.

This is the blessing dress I wore when I was blessed,
Maya wore this blessing dress too!  So special!

Everything was pink, we had a fun 'Make Your Own Party Drink' table, Candy Cabobs,
My sister Amy made adorable cupcakes, and everyone wrote a special note to Maya.

We couldn't have asked for a better day!  Our hearts are so full to have our baby girl forever!  Oh, and I made this little slide-show that we showed at the luncheon too - just another way to celebrate our girl!

12 Weeks Old

Guess who is 3 months old? This little beauty!

Time goes by too fast -- our gorgeous Maya is growing and changing every day!  Here's a bit of our life in instagrams since bringing Maya home!

More recently my sister and her family are here visiting for a few weeks - so Maya has been enjoying a lot of family/cousin time!  These kids sure do love being together!

On Thursday we went to Lagoon!  It was a super hot and super fun day!  Maya loved it!!  Her first ride was the train with Aunt Nan.

We feel so blessed every day to be the parents of our precious girl!

And this smile melts my heart!  She sure loves her mom and dad too ... one happy family!

Time to Celebrate!

Now that we're home and happy it's time to Celebrate!  The celebrating started with showers for our sweet baby Maya!  We had a friend shower, a family shower, a work shower and many presents from excited family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors in between!

top left: special present from Grandma Shelia and Auntie Sky-lar in Missouri
Bottom Right: pick with special blanket from Grandma Great Maxine

Our baby girl got pretty spoiled!

And that's not even all of it!  You wouldn't believe how much my family keeps giving too!

And then came Mother's Day!  I'm so excited to celebrate this special day thanks to our sweet baby girl!

For Mother's day Brandon gave me some gorgeous roses and took me on a hot date the night before!

Last, but not least, my birthday!  All this last year I would always say how I did not want to turn 37 and still not be a mom - well, I got to be a mom just before the big day ... how lucky am I?  It was a pretty special weekend!  Brandon got me some gorgeous roses and took me shopping, and we had a big celebration on Sunday with family!

My sis made my all-time favorite cake - yum!

Homecoming

We were so excited when we got word we could come home - as a family - with our beautiful baby girl Maya!  We got right online and purchased our plane tickets.  Even though we loved our time as our small family unit in Michigan, the time to get home just couldn't come fast enough when we got the word!  We had a layover in Denver and Maya slept the entire time on both flights - what a good girl!

We flew in late Saturday night (actually arrived early Sunday morning).  Then we spent the day Sunday with our family!  It feels so good to watch other's adore our baby girl - one of the best feelings in the world if you ask me! By the way, "Grape" (Grandma Great Maxine) got the first genuine smile!

Her pets love her too - they're very gentle and curious!

Maya is so loved and we are so blessed!

Michigan Visitors

Even though we were far away from home in Michigan to get our baby girl, we did have some visitors!  My sister Amy and her family drove 3 hours from Ohio to see our sweet Maya and they even got a hotel room next to ours and spent the night, and then the next day with us!

My cousin Josh came from Chicago to visit on his way to a baseball game in Detroit!

And, along with the many phone calls from family we also got some Face-time visitors as well!

It sure made the distance seem not so far away when we were ready to get our beautiful girl home!

Lazy Family Sunday

Yes, we're still in Michigan (probably for another week)!  We're having a lazy Sunday today with our little family and it feels so good! I've been getting some much needed laundry done and I love seeing these little girl clothes in our laundry basket!

It's been a week and a few days here in Michigan as our little family of three and we are still in heaven!  We've spent much of our time on the phone/texting with family, snuggling, and a lot of fun in our quiet moments learning how to be mom and dad.  I wonder if I'll ever stop get all teary-eyed looking at our little girl -- especially in those peaceful moments when I glance over to see my pretty amazing husband holding our daughter!  Ours!

It's been nice having all of the extra cuddle time with our little princess!

Maya lost her umbilical cord yesterday (can't bring myself to throw it away just yet)  so she had her first "official" bath last night of actually getting her tiny little body in the water (rather than sponge baths) and she loved it!  She stayed wide-eyed, calm and quiet the whole time!  We caught this sweet pic right after the bath!

Brandon snuck this little pic of her the other night before bed ... I do believe it's perfect!

I caught this one today - she makes this face a lot when she is first waking up.

And ... I quite often can't stop singing the primary song:
I love daddy, he loves me,
We love Maya yes-sir-ee,
She loves us and so you see,
We are a happy family!

Yep!  Happy!  We hope you have yourself a happy Sunday!