To Mom (+ Gotcha Day Photos)

Dear Mom,

I arise and call you blessed today! Yes, it's 1130pm, but it's still Mother's Day, isn't it?

I praise God for giving me a mom who loves Jesus, loves my daddy, and loves us three kids. Thank you for your humility and the countless quiet, passionate prayers for each of us and our families.

You are creative and resourceful and I was always so proud as a child of all the ways you invented to make our school projects, our clothing, and our ideas even better.

Thank you for sacrificing your comfort and happiness for our sakes.

Mostly, though, I am so glad you are my friend. More and more I am aware of how patiently and with what interest you listen to me go on about my days and my struggles and such. It's you I call first! Thank you for listening, for teaching me to be a better listener.

To you and dad both - the biggest Thank You for parenting AH during those hard, uncertain 20 months. We cannot be grateful enough. You protected her and nurtured her, prepared her for this life, with us.

I love you, mom! You are beautiful!
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Mom, AH, and dad, the day of the adoption

I want to say again how deeply meaningful it was for BB to hack my blog like he did, and also what a great joy your comments have been, sweet friends! Thank you so very much! I eat up every word! 

Here are more photos from Gotcha Day.

AH and BB in front of the courthouse. It was beautiful that day, despite nasty weather when we arrived Back Home.

BB and our attorney: A rather humorous and unexpected situation occurred when the court hit us with $200 worth of fees for the day's services. And the courthouse doesn't take plastic. Not one of us had a checkbook or much cash. Between BB, my dad, and the attorney, we scraped together the cash, paid the fee and then adopted AH. Ha!

 

The judge was very kind and happy for us. The courtroom was small and empty, aside from those in the photo, plus the judge's assistant. Quiet, quick, simple, done. Thanks be to God!

Special celebratory meal afterward. Her daddy ordered her the huge raspberry lemonade on the sly - a fun surprise.

One more pre-adoption photo as we dropped CJ off at my friend's house. Thanks for taking photos, L! And for keeping Baby, too, of course!

We were rather silly, waiting for the courtroom to become available. Here, she was pretending to be a newborn baby, being adopted.

That's L and me. We both had little ones on our hips, but BB zoomed way in and got this nice shot.