Welcome!

Joel and I have sensed a calling to international adoption for many years. In May, 2009 God made it abundantly clear that it was time. After much prayer, research and wise counsel we began the process to adopt a daughter from China. God directed us to an incredible agency that was founded by a family with an amazing testimony. This blog is a chronicle of our journey, to inform our friends and family and as a record of events for our daughter to read one day. Join us in the journey... it is sure to be an adventure!

Monday, May 10, 2010

Our Baby Girl's First Birthday



We received Grace's pictures and information on April 24th. Just eight days later, on May 2nd, she had her first birthday...

Of course, we had to celebrate!

We shared a fresh strawberry cake ('cause it's pink and all), and sang Happy Birthday. She also got a couple of presents which we will take with us to China in a few months.

It was a bittersweet celebration. We are so excited to have found her, and to know that we will be together soon. But, it was really hard to know that we were missing this milestone. I have lots of photos of both boys on their first birthdays. I especially love the tradition of getting their own cake to play in. Maybe we will do that with Grace on the 1st anniversary of her Gotcha Day!

Big Brother blew out her candle...

Her gifts: Some clothes, a "teetheable" photo album so that she can start learning the faces of her family, and


Her first baby doll.

This was the first thing I purchased after we decided to pursue the adoption of a daughter. Her name is Magnolia, and she was designed by the adoptive mom of two sweet girls from China. You can learn more HERE. (A portion of the proceeds from these dolls goes to assist children in orphanages around the world. And, I've just discovered that Magnolia has a lot of new friends, too!) Very few Asian dolls are on the market today, especially dolls for young children. Magnolia has been sitting on my desk for 10 months as a daily reminder of the blessings of this journey. I cannot wait to give her to our baby girl.

(By the way, the quilt she is sitting on is Grace's bedding. We will begin preparing her room soon. There will be pictures!)

1 comment:

  1. Amy- I saw your posting on Rumor Queen and wanted to let you know we have almost identical "dates" for our journey. We were LID on 3/19/10, LOI 4/26/10, PA 5/5/10 and LOA ???. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for good news next week. We are also with CCAI and are adopting a girl from Jiangxi province who turned 1 on 5/5/10.

    I've only been a "lurker" on the other forum and couldn't even figure how to leave you a comment over there... but I followed this link to your blog. I'm hoping to set up a blog soon, but feel free to email me at "donnaf@sjgcc.com"

    -Donna Fierbaugh

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