Family Day!!!

Ok so I know I said that I would post yesterday but the connection at Great Wolf Lodge was oh. so. slow. We were very blessed to be given this great weekend trip to Great Wolf to spend our very first family day and we really had a blast! (Most people call it Gotcha Day, as in the day we "got you" and while we like that, we really wanted to focus on how God has made our family special. We decided to celebrate on the 17th, the day we came home to Jackson rather than the 13th which was her 'Gotcha Day.' Got all that? Good.) So get ready for a ton of pictures:)

Our room was a Wolf Den suite which meant it had this cute little area for this kids to sleep on bunk beds and there own TV:)





Great Wolf Lodge has an enormous indoor water park which was so fun. These are just some of the pools...I was too busy dodging water spray guns to get pictures of all the slides and things......that and the humidity inside are probably why my photos are all a bit fuzzy now:(


no fear





Jackson went on some much bigger slides but I could not take any pictures because 1 parent had to escort him to the top to make sure he didn't cut in line and the other parent had to rescue him at the bottom all while holding on to Livi and trying to avoid the massive amount of water that fell from the giant bucket every five minutes.

Great Wolf also has this game called MagiQuest where you get special wands and run all over the hotel on different quests and challenges. The bigger kids seemed to love this but we felt it would be too hard for our kids. But the staff just programmed their wands to light up everything they waved it at so we didn't actually have to play the game, we just ran around opening chests, lighting up pictures on the walls, and making animals talk. They absolutely loved it.

"Abra Cadabra I wish for this chest to be full of candy!"





We also explored the Cub Club which had lots of fun games and crafts.







The arcade

Livi was insistent on us trying the Dance game.....we were terrible at it but it was fun:)



I have to say that the one thing I really didn't like about Great Wolf was the food. It was pretty bad and VERY expensive. I mean I wouldn't mind paying that much if it were actually good but nope. So instead we went out on the town for a yummy Italian dinner.






Every night they have bed time stories in front of the big clock tower.

Meeting Violet the mascot. Livi was excited to meet her until we got close but she didn't cry so we are improving since Disney.....although I think Violet's purple crocs really helped.


We had a little cake in our room to celebrate our Family Day!





Our first Family Day!

A year ago today.....

A year ago today we walked through these gates and our lives were changed.....












So much about last summer is a blur, but every moment was worth all the waiting, preparing, and aching to have her home. This summer, this little princess is still just that a total princess. Yep, she has gone from what Almaz (the orphanage director) called the princess of Hannah's Hope to the princess of our family!! I can't even describe her....she is so full of energy and spunk. She is constantly talking and everyone is always amazed at all she has to say! She knows how cute she is and that if mommy isn't around she can get away with anything. She always needs her accessories and wouldn't be caught dead without matching shoes!

We are going out for Ethiopian food tonight to celebrate but our real celebration day will be the 17th since that is the day we came home to Jackson and became a family. So check back to see all the fun we have planned for this weekend!


Oh and here is where I wrote about that day last year on our adoption blog.

Lucy Lane

We have met some amazing people through our adoption of Miss Livi and one of the most amazing moms I have ever met is Kristi Johnson. She is a fabulous mom of 5 with the energy level of no one else on earth. She is truly inspiring with all she does and how she inspires others to adopt. Her daughter Lucy Lane came home from the same orphanage as Livi one year ago (just one month before Livi came home) and she has put together an awesome video of their journey. Hope you enjoy! oh and see if you can spot Olivia in it!

Lucy Lane Gotcha Day - One Year Later from kristi johnson on Vimeo.

Ethiopian Reunion! and Olivia's first..........

Two weeks ago we were able to go down to Austin to meet some wonderful, and hopefully life long friends! Troy and Amber were down in the trenches with us when we were adopting Olivia and they were adopting her buddy Silas. In fact, I was in the middle of emailing Troy when we got "the call!" I don't remember exactly what I was emailing about but I remember in the middle of a sentence typing JULIE JUST CALLED! EMAIL YOU WITH DETAILS LATER! I think that was pretty funny. Actually I think Troy and Amber might of known before Paul! They traveled to get little Silas a couple of weeks before we went to get Liv and we were blessed to finally meet them in person when we drove through Tennessee on our way to Virginia for Thanksgiving. It was great to finally see them again as we emailed almost daily for a year!


We also got to finally meet another great family that traveled a little bit before us. Kim and her family adopted Finn and it was so awesome to finally see all our kids together and not just in pictures through blogland!

cutie finn


handsome silas

We headed to the Austin Children's Museum to have some fun!

seriously that little Finn was so delicious I just wanted to eat him up!!

After the museum we headed to the County Line for some yummy BBQ and amazing views of Austin.

Olivia was in heaven dancing with Kim's son Tucker


Then Silas got a bit jealous and had to show her who her man was.....



Then Daddy chased him clear out of the state! Or maybe he just got on a plane with his parents and went back to Tennessee......

We miss you Silas and Finn!!

EXCITED:)

I just went out to the mailbox and instead of junk mail found a free sample of Similac (uhh thanks for the reminder, jerks! ) and a more happy piece of mail from AGCI (our adoption agency) saying they are refunding a nice 1,000 dollars of our adoption expenses! I am pretty stoked! Gotta love it when you get money you weren't expecting!

On another note.....I am now the proud owner of something that I am not old enough to have in my mind. I'll share it with you tomorrow:)

Sorry I haven't been around this week, but more exciting blogging is coming your way.....haha! It has been a bit crazy this week.

Referral Day!

One year ago we got "the call". I had waited so long to hear our those sweet words from our case worker. "I have a little girl to tell you about." She said that she was a bit older than the other babies but still within our parameters. I didn't care. "She may have a slight delay." My heart sunk but it didn't matter, I knew that this was the child God had chosen for us. As she continued, it was only more and more certain that this was the Lord's hand. Olivia was a little behind, and may have some slight developmental delays. That was ok. Jackson was a little delayed in walking. We were well versed in the ways of ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) and we knew how to handle it....we knew the Lord would see us through. We knew that whatever child they called us with was our baby no matter what.

Thankfully, a few weeks later some friends of ours traveled to get their baby and had great news to report. Olivia was the life of the orphanage! (or the princess of Hannah's Hope Orphanage as Almaz the director likes to say about her!) She no longer showed any signs of delay or not communicating her needs. Knowing her now, I know her little heart was just grieving. She had only been there a week when they called us with her information. She is definitely shy and withdrawn until she feels comfortable, but when she does, look out! I see these same non communication and "delay-like" signs when she is sad or in trouble, but since being home it is less and less. Even her strong will is becoming more compliant. She is such a happy girl even though she tries to test us sometimes. I know that her heart will always hurt, but I also know that the Lord is healing her every day that she is home with her family.

Here are some of the first pictures we got when we got the call!











Two weeks later, these were taken by a friend traveling to get her child:







Hannah's Hope does such an amazing job loving on these precious kids! Here is a photo of her now after being home almost 9 months.