Happy Anniversary

One year ago today my greatest,  most unattainable dream finally came true.  It was a long, so very long, hard, roller coaster of a ride to get there. Years of expensive infertility treatments,  years of just waiting to see if it would happen then as my husband says "boy ya sign a few papers and they just hand you a kid".  Of course it wasn't quite that easy but that's basically what happened. To read about the day we brought Sweet Pea home click here. 

 

Obviously, I haven't been blogging as much.  Sweet Pea keeps me pretty busy.  Let me see if I can catch you up.  A few days before Christmas, our little Sweet Pea turned 1!  I got to make decorations and party favors and a smash cake...and it was awesome.  It was so nice to be able to celebrate with our family.  She was shown so much love and so spoiled!!

 

 

 

Then we celebrated Christmas and I finally had a chance to put out the plate of cookies for Santa...and I cried.  Something so simple but meant so much to me.

 

We got to spend Christmas morning watching her open the TON of presents and she had a blast.  It took forever because how do you explain to a one year old that you can't play with the toy you just opened because you have to open these other packages? Again, we loved every moment.  We had waited a looooooong time to be able to experience that and we just soaked it in.

 

So that brings us to *checks calendar*...holy cow we're in April already.  If you remember, we were only supposed to have her for 6-9 months.  Here we are, a year later.  I wish I had more of an update but not a whole lot has changed.  We still anticipate that she will return to her family which we both dread and look forward to.  We want for there to be reunification if that proves to be in her best interest.  We are so very grateful for this year that we've had where we were able to parent her.  It was so very hard in the beginning since she was so sick.  I would like to say it's easier now that she's healthy but now she's so active and just in to everything ;)  She's so much fun.  Her little personality is starting to show.  She talks up a storm.  She loves books and our cat Max.  She was recently evaluated by the Step Ahead program and at 15 months she tested at 17-18 months in all categories with the exception of her "expressive communication" aka her vocabulary, where she tested at 23 months.  We are so proud of her and the progress she's made.  Sometimes she's too smart for her own good but we love watching her blossom into such a beautiful, intelligent girl.  She's the light of our lives.  We love her so very much and are so very grateful for this last year that we got to spend with her.