Adoption Day...YAY

Yesterday we finally got to finalize our adoption!! It was perfect in every way and most definitely worth the wait! Remember when I said that Justin was not the only one who got to enjoy the court date for his bday?? Well, Sunday was my birthday... So, it was a perfect birthday gift for me, as well! How could this have worked out any more perfectly? We had 10 family members that showed up with us to celebrate this amazing day! Here is a picture of them minus one that was video taping...

This truly was one of the best days of my life! Court was supposed to begin at 9am, but the Judge was tied up in a murder trial in a different county, so another Judge was going to come, but he got tied up...SO, about an hour and a half later, our Judge showed up and we were so blessed to get this Judge. He was awesome in every way. We said that simply getting this Judge was well worth the wait. He asked our whole family to stand up and swear in with us. He told us to bring Gracie right on up there with him so he could hold her! He was GREAT!!! He kept telling us just how blessed we were to have as much support as we had. As we were walking out he said, "Mr. Nichols, could you turn around here for a second... Just so that y'all know, I have never done an adoption with as many family members as y'all have had. You, your wife and tht sweet baby girl are truly blessed with an amazing family!" We were so very happy!!

These pictures are after we were done. Gracie's faces are just so darn cute...

How blessed are we??? Our daughter is finally ours FOREVER... she has always been ours, though!

Meet our sweet Gracie Ann

Yep... Our adoption is now final!!! Details and more pics to come!!!!

Crawling Madness...

Little Miss is now on the move!! She is a fully mobile little girl now! She has been getting around on her own for several weeks now, but just not going forward on her hands and knees...Well, that all changed Wednesday night. I saw her crawl forward about 4 or 5 steps, then Thursday morning before I took her to my sister's, she crawled about 10 steps or so. By the time I picked her up Thursday evening, she was a full blown crawler. I just love watching her do this. It is so sweet. My little (or I should say big) 9 lb baby is now a 23 lb mover. Gosh, how she has grown. I can honestly say that I have loved every second of being a mommy. I truly think that God knew that I didn't have any patience, so he made having a child a trial for me. Now, since it took me such a long and hard time to get her, I don't really get frustrated or aggravated. I have all of the patience in the world with her, which I normally do not have. I now know why Justin and I had to go through all of the hardships of trying to conceive a child...It was just so that when we got blessed with OURS, we wouldn't ever take for granted what we have. Everything that we went through was a blessing in disguise!!!

Valentine's with my Valentines...

Happy Valentine's day to you all!! :) We have had a wonderful Valentine's Day! I have got to spend the entire day at home with my little sweet pea! We ran alot of errands and had quite a few visitors! Our first visitor was Little Miss' Pop and he brought her 2 balloons. She loved them, but loved the string that they were on so much more! Her second visitor was her Granny and Pa and they brought her a balloon, as well! :) Third, Gram came to visit and brought her a little bunny that flops his ears and sings. She loves this thing. She got a dog for Christmas that flops his ears while singing too, and she has always loved when they get to floppin'! :) Fourth, her Mimi came and brought her a bear and a card! Last but not least, her Hee-Hee and Carson came for a visit and brought her 7 balloons. She has had a busy day, but she has loved every minute of her 1st Valentine's day!! :)

My baby girl gave me the very best Valentine's day gift of all... She is now giving kisses!! I thought all day that she was trying to, but tonight, all I have to say is, "Give Momma kisses" and she will come at me with mouth WIDE open! Haha! I JUST LOVE IT! She is so sweet and just makes me melt! Here is a little pictiure of her clapping her hands. If she does something that she thinks was something special, she will start clapping like crazy! If she is sitting there and I say, "YAAAAYYYY!!!", she will look at me and start clapping like crazy. BLESS...

Hope you all had a great Valentine's Day! I am fixing to settle in with my 2 Valentines and tune into The Bachelor... :)

Adoption is Great

Wanna know what we have been up to?? Well, we have had sickness, sickness and a little more sickness going on, we have had SNOW, Birthdays and so much more happening. I honestly just forget to get on my blog to update or anything. I will be getting back in the routine of things soon, though.

My wonderful husband, Justin, had his 26th Birthday on Tuesday, February 8th. I got up super early that morning and I cooked him a big breakfast with fried eggs, fried apples & biscuits and gravy. YUMMMM, it was so good! :) He had a great birthday this year, partly because he is a Dad and his life just simply has a new meaning to it, BUT MOSTLY BECAUSE..............

WE GOT OUR COURT DATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, we really know when we will FINALIZE our adoption and everything will finally be DONE. I will then be able to post my beautiful girl's face on here!! YAAAAAYYYYYY!!! Now, I am not going to go into detail just yet, but remember this for future reference... JUSTIN IS NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO WILL GET TO HAVE A WONDERFUL BIRTHDAY BECAUSE OF THIS COURT DATE!!! ;) We are so very blessed in our life and we are so grateful. We couldn't birth a child to be any more perfect or any more "our child" as she is. She is our little miracle!

Another little dab of exciting news that we have going on right now... Our adoption agency has support groups every month for all adoptive families, whether you are just thinking about adoption, a waiting family, just adopted or you are raising a family through adoption already. We always try to make these meetings when we can just so that we can keep some "adoption" related things around for Little Miss as she grows up. They always do a different thing monthly to cover and talk about with the families. The one's that we have been to have all been very informative and reassuring that ADOPTION IS SO GREAT while also covering the downside of adoption. Anyways, for the February support group, they are going to have a family that has adopted, to discuss their adoption journey through the country that they adopted from. Guess who they have asked to cover the Domestic Adoptions??? Your's Truly!! Justin and I will be doing the Domestic adooption. :) There will also be families to cover Korea, Russia, Ukraine and China. We are very excited to get to do this and feel very fortunate to have the ability to speak out about it. Not to mention, we...or I...am just a tad nervous, as well! :) Oh well... it will be so awesome to be able to share every detail about our journey to people that are exactly where we were just a short 7 months ago. WOW... our life has changed so very much in the last 7 months!

Life is Good!!!!! :)