One year ago....

I realized today that it has been a year since I have slept through the night.
A year since I have been able to go to the bathroom alone.
A year that my living room as looked like a playroom!
A year of no alone time.
A year of Barney and Elmo.
Its also been a year of the best kisses, the best hugs, and the best love ever!

A year ago today we stood in the Jenfeng Hotel in Nanchang, China and waited for our dream to finally come true! At @ 5:30pm China time that dream became a reality. I was handed a very scared baby girl and we fell in love instantly!


It took awhile but I finally handed her over to her daddy and he also was in love!


Jaden took it all in for 30 minutes and then realized that she was stuck with us and all hell broke lose! We took her back to the room where she cried and cried until she finally passed out.

She woke up and cried some more until she threw up. Then she got her first bath! I will admit that the first 2-3 three days were hard for us. I know they were hard for her. I questioned if we were doing the right thing. I was unable to leave the room because it was so bad. Rusty did the trip to wal-mart alone, but that was ok because I needed to be with my baby. When we did have to go out for paperwork she screamed.

She was not sick at all, just sad and scared. We found out later that she had left the person who had always cared for her, her foster mother the day she was brought to us. She was grieving for her foster mother. With alot of love and patience she started coming around and pretty soon we were greeted with half grins!


We found out she loved the water!

And she loved her food!


We also got our first clues that she was going to be a momma's girl, and that was fine with me.


But she would also give daddy some of her precious time.

We spent a wonderful two weeks getting to know our daughter and seeing China.

We will forever be thankful to China and to God for the wonderful gift we were given! Jaden was our dream come true and we love her more each day. She has made this the best year of our life and it will only get better with her here!


I put Jaden's Gotcha day outfit on today thinking it would be too small. It fits her perfect! I guess it was alittle big a year ago!!!