Birthdays and Disneyland!

We decided to go big this year and celebrate both girl's birthdays at the happiest place on earth!  

In February, we celebrated Addy's FIRST birthday!

In April, we celebrated Maya's FIFTH birthday!

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!

Disneyland - again!!

We went to Disneyland again a couple of weeks ago!  We feel so darn lucky to have gone a few times this year!

We went during Halloweentime - so awesome to see everything decorated!
We also went to Mickey's Halloween Party and Trick-or-Treating, such fun!

Happiest family at the Happiest Place on Earth!

Maya loved all of the rides in Cars Land

Our little beauty

Maya loves seeing all of the Disney Characters!

Maya's most favorite character this time was Chewbacca!

We couldn't believe Maya was tall enough to ride some of the
'big-kid rides' like Splash Mountain!  And, although her face may
say otherwise, she loved it and kept asking to go again!

Another favorite Disney Character of  Maya's right now is Baily
from 'Finding Dory'.  She was all about the Baily stuffed animal!
And it's not a Disney trip without a yummy churro!

 We don't know when our next Disney trip will be, but we sure have lived it up so far this year!

Summer! Summer!

Our favorite time of the year!  Let's do this!  

Our little backyard oasis at home!

With so many splash pads around, Maya is practically living in her swim suit!

Fun at the park!

Our new furry friends at Grandma and Grandpa's house!  

Best thing so far was swimming lessons! Of course Maya (our little fish) loved it!
She did so well, and couldn't wait for the day they got to jump off the diving board!

May Yay!

May was so exciting!  We had a fun end of year preschool party!  And we celebrated my (Rachael's) 40th birthday!!

Grandma and Grandpa came to the end of year preschool party too!

Brandon took us for a hotel stay in Salt Lake for my birthday!
Look at that view from our hotel - beautiful Temple Square. 

My favorite birthday gift - Brandon took me to Alex and Ani to pick out some bracelets.
I picked Maya and Brandon's birth stones- to always have them with me. 

May Yay!

May was so exciting!  We had a fun end of year preschool party!  And we celebrated my (Rachael's) 40th birthday!!

Grandma and Grandpa came to the end of year preschool party too!

Brandon took us for a hotel stay in Salt Lake for my birthday!
Look at that view from our hotel - beautiful Temple Square. 

My favorite birthday gift - Brandon took me to Alex and Ani to pick out some bracelets.
I picked Maya and Brandon's birth stones- to always have them with me. 

3 Years Old!!!

Guess who had a birthday in April ?!?  How is this girl 3 Years Old already!  We are so grateful for the amazing blessing of adoption and the incredibly difficult decision her sweet birth mom made to place Maya into our family!  Maya, we love you so much!  Maya is a fun, sassy, happy, smart, grateful, helpful, strong, independent, outgoing, and thoughtful little girl! How lucky we are to be her parents!

We had a little birthday party for May with family a couple of days early, because Brandon and I made plans for a last minute surprise!

She sure loved the decorations and loved being the star of the day!

Maya was pretty specific about her cake, she wanted a Bubble Guppy Cake!
The difficult part of that was finding a bakery that made that specific cake, I couldn't
find one anywhere nearby!  So, I ordered some fun Bubble Guppy candles online and a
local bakery made a fun beachy/underwater cake, we added the candles, and it
looked great!  Maya was so excited about it!

Opening Presents!

Look who got a strider-bike!  She loved it and picked up on the idea of how to
ride it pretty quickly -- what a girl!

And on for the big surprise ... Brandon and I decided a few days before her birthday to take a last minute trip to, of course, Disneyland!  No better place to celebrate the BIG THREE than at the Happiest Place on Earth, right?

One Happy Faimly!

We always decorate the house for birthdays, and being away is certainly
no exception!  We brought decorations to keep our fun family tradition
alive at the hotel!  She loved waking up to decorations and presents!

Birthday Breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen!

Swimming at the hotel pool!

We didn't get to see the Sound-sational parade back in February so we made
sure to get a spot to enjoy it this time!

Ready to ride Winnie the Pooh!

Happy Birthday big 3 year old!