Meeting our Daughter just one year ago...

It's hard to believe that just one year ago we were in Russia this week meeting our daughter for the very first time. I can still easily recall almost every moment of that trip. All of the feelings I felt...the rush of excitement, wonder, awe, fear, total joy, amazement, worry and sadness. All those intense heightened feelings all jumbled up inside mixed in with the unfamiliar language, unique smells, sounds, jet lag, culture shock, cold, snowy weather and trying to soak it all in. I just remember the importance of wanting to soak it all in..to feel it, remember it. To be able to understand it all and to recall it all years later when undoubtly we would be asked for so many details. What an exciting and amazing week that was! How hard it was to say goodbye to that week and temporarily goodbye to a little girl that I had only just met but already loved so much. And now here we are...a year later. So much crammed into this one year. So much our daughter has lived and experienced compared to her first year of living everyday in just 2 rooms. How fast a year goes by!!

My hubby and I celebrated our daughter's first birthday with her last year in the babyhome and and we are still pinching ourselves that she has been home with us this past year. Our lives are so touched and forever changed by this spunky little red head born across the sea so far from our world, our reality. I'm so grateful to her birthparents for giving her a chance at life, for giving her the hope of a family. If I could have the chance to say anything to them it's thank you. What an amazing gift you have given us and what an amazing gift she will one day be to the world. Her future is so bright I have to wear sunglasses!! When I think about that trip last year I can't help but also remember so many other children we encountered there also waiting. All wanting and needing just one thing and really the only thing that matters in this life...someone to love them, to believe in them, to hold them, to cherish them, to kiss them, to tuck them in at night and tell them everything is going to be all right because they matter. The world is truly a better place because of them.

Just one year ago...

So hungry for a cheerio...

So unsure of this man called daddy...

Playful...

Curious and silly..

So darn little and cute...

So scared...

And today...anything but. She is still cute, curious, silly. But she is also sure of herself, happy, content, smart, healthy, full, loved and loveable, hugable, and a very busy, busy, normal 2 year old.