This Blog

When we started our journey to Lily, I began this blog for several reasons.

Off to school - such a big girl already!

1.  To keep straight our own progress through the adoption process

2.  To keep family and friends updated on the latest

3.  As a record for Lily when she is old enough to ask one day 

4.  As a place for me to jot things down to remember one day as everyone has told me I won't remember all the little things

Reading and her Daddy.  That's one happy, happy little girl!

My goal when I began the blog was to chronicle Lily's first year with us.  There were times when I was able to blog often and times when I couldn't.  I tried to include all sorts of milestones and memories for all of us.

Well, we've reached the end of our first year together.  A year that has literally flown by (although some days were long!) and Lily has just adapted so well.  We have our one year home visit scheduled for next month with our agency and it's hard to believe a year ago, we were in China!

Our Girls

So, this will be my last post.

For the 10-12 people who enjoy reading it, I'm sorry to say you won't be able to enjoy my awesome writing (ha, ha).  Of course the blog will still be there so you could always go back and reread things (which I do often!).

Sadly, you probably will miss the pictures of Lily Grace Wilson.  I plan on sending out a dropbox link every now and then so you can still enjoy pictures if you wish.  Just let me know and I'll add your email to our list.  

What am I going to do now with some free time?

Well, I'm working on Lily's first Gotcha Book - a digital photo album book which chronicles her first year with us.  I'm up to March right now and my plan was to have that finished last week - oops, didn't make it!  Once I finish this first one, I plan on creating another one for this second year and updating at the end of each month while the events are still more current.  Then, each year on her Gotcha Day, she'll receive a book from us.  I also have plans to create a movie about our trip to China.

An early Happy Valentine's Day to you all

Thank you all for your love, interest and support for the three of us.  China made us three and we are definitely loving every minute of it!

Vacation Time - Part 2

Vacation pics, part two...

I didn't want to overload the previous post with so many vacation pictures but, I have more to share with you today!

Lily is so very good on the airplane.  Give her some snack and an iPad and she's good!

Just hanging out and waiting for Mommy and Daddy to get ready to go play

Our new view of Key Largo from our room

All ready for the pool.  A few days before we got to Key Largo, there was quite a bit of windy weather that came through and did some damage to the resort beach.  They were working on repairing some of it this day so we had to opt to spend the day at the pool instead of the beach.  

Don't feel too bad for us though, because this was our view for the day:

I am a beach girl at heart, but this wasn't a bad day either!

Lily thought it was pretty good too

Playing with Mommy

Hanging out with Daddy

Our "rest" area for the day when we weren't playing in the pool

With pool side lunch delievered - yummy!

Chicken wings and fries?  Yes ma'am, a girl could get use to this!

Happy little girl and a very happy Mommy

By evening, they were finished working on the beach so we went out to watch the sunset and get in a little time to play in the sand.

Love this!

Sometimes you just have to lay down in the sand to totally enjoy it

I could do this every day

Three chairs for watching the sunset?  Yes, please!!

The end of another great day

At the end of the day, Lily was a little tired when we went to bed!

A short little movie - you can hear the wind still blowing at the beginning and see her hat blow off.  That was the only windy day and the rest of the weather was perfect.

Vacation Time!

To celebrate our Gotcha Day, the three of us headed to the Florida Keys for some sunshine and fun!

I can NEVER get tired of this view - the smell of the beach, the sounds and the feel of the sand on my feet is my happy place!  I think Lily takes after me too as far as this goes!

I'll let our pictures tell the story of our few days in paradise:

Waiting on the elevator

Playing at the desk in the room

Outside restaurant for lunch one day

Beautiful!!  This was the view from our room in Miami.  We then drove to Key Largo for a couple of days.

Ahhh, playing in the sand with Daddy enjoying the view too!

Lily thought it was pretty funny to have her legs buried in the sand.

A family selfie

Loved having the trees down on the beach - made it very pretty and relaxing!

To be continued...

Gotcha Day!

Today we celebrate Lily's Gotcha Day - the day we became a forever family of three!

We all have so much to be thankful for as this day changed all of us forever.

Michael and I are so blessed that Lily made us a Daddy and Mommy.  We are very proud to call her our daughter.

A Little Cold

Lily has been suffering from a little cold this past week so not a lot has been happening around here.  I think we may have gone through 3 boxes of kleenex just within the past few days! 

 I think we are about to turn the corner and that makes for a happy Lily and Mommy!

So I've said before that Lily doesn't "nap", but she will fall asleep in the afternoon for a bit if we are out and about.  I did drive around a couple of days just so she would get a little nap.  A quick stop for some coffee and we both enjoyed our afternoon rides.

With her giraffe this day

Even on a walk she took a quick snooze

 On the way home from school one day

We enjoyed stickers one day for some fun

When you don't feel great, sometimes a yummy snack will help.

Like I said, she's about to turn the corner to feeling better so we did get in a few pictures while we were outside yesterday.

Here's hoping to a "tissue free" week!