Hope, Faith, Joy, Family: 2014

It has been a long time since I haven't written a post. Not because I haven't wanted to or I don't have anything to share but because time is precious and I have been loving the time with my Payton and when she takes a nap it is the perfect time to do work or catch up on mail or a number of other things.

But today I feel inspired and ready to write a blog. Today is the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter and seriously one of my favorite weekends! A weekend that makes my heart feel sadness, pain, thankfulness, joy, hope, and mostly LOVE!

I love Easter and all that it stands for... I love that God loves me and EVERY person in this world so much that He would suffer and die to express that love! I love that there are traditions that surround this hope and love! I love the spring air, the church services, the constant reminders of Jesus and His love for us!

One of the traditions in my family growing up was to go away for Easter weekend and spend the weekend at a hotel, go shopping on Saturday for Easter outfits, visit a church and then have an Easter brunch before heading home. Well for many reasons we could not do that this year with my family but today we went to the mall to get Easter outfits and to see a movie.

We took Payton to go see Rio 2 and yes we maybe a little crazy as a one year old in the movies can be crazy but she highly enjoyed Rio so we were hopeful. Well it goes without saying that Payton is growing up! We have been seeing many true signs of this lately and hard to believe how big and independent she really is but at the movie she did AWESOME!

She had a little candy treat, sat in a booster seat, laughed, pretended to cry and all the wonderful things that one year olds do at movies but my favorite part was at the end of the movie (movie spoiler coming up, haha)...

The lady friend of the birds knocks over one of the bad guys tractors and throws her hands up in the air and cheered and right on que Payton did the same. Her hands went up and she was smiling and say "yahoo!" Todd being the best dad didn't let his daughter sit there cheering alone and threw his hands up too and cheered with her. In that moment I thought, wow my life is a treasure and I am so thankful that God has made this my family!! I will always think of this Easter with fond memories of Payton and Todd cheering at the movie theatre as we make traditions of our own to celebrate the best gift... God's unfailing love through Jesus' resurrection!!

One year today feels like a million years ago and just yesterday all at the same time!
I have been thinking about what I wanted to write in my blog to mark our first full year as a family and I have so much I want to say and at the same time so little to say. I am still in awe of the fact of how God answered our prayers!

My family is such an answer to prayers and such a gift that I don't take one day for granted with them. When I was thinking about the day we got to bring Payton home and the feeling that morning when I woke up; that I was going to bring home my baby after our time of waiting, I remember thanking God and being sooooo excited to see Payton and count her fingers and toes and get to know her!

Well when I woke up this morning, it was snowing and I rushed into the office to get done what I had to get done. Then a stop at the store before our snow storm and the whole time, I was thinking about how blessed I am to have a home full of love. I was just as excited to go home and hug Payton as the day we got to bring her home one year ago!

I wasn't quite as nervous and I didn't have to sign paper work or anything but today as we counted her toes, she loves to count things, I thought about the first day and how we got home and Todd and I both were like now what? And then God lead us as we needed to go. The now what quickly turned into "what's that?" and now this is our daily life.

Our daily life where we try to show Payton how to have a relationship with God and with others that is full of love and grace. Our daily life where we try to build one another up, support each other, and laughter together. Our daily life where dumping the crayons is just as exciting as picking them up for a one year old who loves to sort. Our daily life where I still stop and think from time to time, how did we get such an amazing gift?

I can't express my love for Payton enough! I can't tell you how much I love being a mother, I can't type enough words or share enough pictures to express how the little things melt my heart. I can't explain to you how long my heart ached to pray with my child at bedtime or to see Todd smile because his daughter says, "Hi dadda," I can't share how much my heart longed to have this child, Payton, in my life and to know that she is the one that was always my daughter. Payton is not just an answer to prayers but a miracle!

I am so thankful to Payton's birth family for choosing to give her to us out of pure love. We are so blessed to have a relationship with her birth family, we have about 3-4 scheduled visits a year with them. I was out shopping the other day with Payton and we were walking down the road to go get coffee and who do we see across the road? Payton's birth grandmother, so we got to have a cup of coffee with her grandparents, it was a nice surprise and I am so thankful that they are so open and we can be open with them and at the same time that they respect us and give us space to parent. We are so thankful to God for the relationship we have with her birth family.

I know that adoption is not for everyone but I am so thankful that after much prayer and research and a miracle from God that we had the privilege to adopt Payton because I know without a doubt in my mind that although she is "not flesh of my own flesh": she is my daughter and we are sooooo thankful to celebrate our first ever family day!!!

Here are some pictures from the first few weeks together to more recently! What a year! What an amazing story God is doing through our lives! We are so thankful to God for our little miracle and blessing!