Gotcha Day

In the adoption world, there is such a thing as “Gotcha Day”- the day you finally “got” your child forever and for good. Today is that day!

We’re so thankful that the Lord chose them for us and us for them.

Now:

One year ago: 

2 Years Old!

As you’ve probably noticed, I haven’t been on our blog in months… partly because I haven’t carved out the time for updates and partly because I knew that when I logged in again, I’d have to spend a good 5-10 minutes cleaning up all of the spam comments. How do those get there and is there a way to avoid it?!

Anyway, in honor of the boys 2^nd birthday, I thought I’d do a quick post. Their birthday was July 19 and we celebrated in style with singing and candles and waffles for breakfast and a train ride to a train restaurant at night. The following day we had a friend party and then a family party. Over the past few days the boys have spontaneously been singing, “Happy Day You” and I think it’s safe to say that they love birthdays!

We’re nearing our one-year-home mark and I’ve had a few people ask recently how it feels. I think the first thing that comes to mind is “normal”. It really does feel like the boys have been in our family forever and sometimes I have to remind myself that they didn’t get here through conventional means. We watched our adoption video recently and I was struck by how surreal it all seemed… that we actually had to go pick them up from an orphanage and they haven’t been with us from the beginning. They’re just our sons, not our adopted sons… if that makes sense.

Here are some pictures from their birthday celebrations.

Birthday morning... matching jammies and the perfect "cheese" smiles. 

And a birthday kiss... I wonder how long this will last?! They kiss each other every night before bed and I think we may be on borrowed time with this tradition. I'm going to stretch it for as long as possible though! 

Reading on the couch together. Really, I don't put them like this- they choose to sit this close to each other. In honor of their birthday, I dressed them as twins, which I normally don't do. 

Getting ready to ride "inside the cho0-choo" as the boys would say. They loved it! We did a whole 3 minute ride to a nearby town to eat at Two Toots, a train themed restaurant. 

Friends from our small group at church joined us for the party. We had Chic-Fil-A and water slides and sand toys. A simple and perfect little party for our two boys.