♥ MEETING M! ♥

Ooooooooooooooh MY!

How we have anticipated THIS day! LONGED for THIS day.... 

Since we started our adoption process in November of 2009.

....Worked through SO much paperwork, homestudies, etc... and felt a little closer to seeing her sweet face when we got on the waitlist in May 2010.

THEN... FINALLY after a YEAR of dreaming of her, praying for her, MISSING her... we see her BEAUTIFUL face in May of 2011!!! ♥

TODAY! JULY 9th, 2011!! We get to see her (FOR REAL), hold her (if she'll let us :), love her, stare at her, cuddle her, laugh with her, cry with her... TODAY!!!!!

I don't think either one of us slept much the night before, in fact I'm pretty sure we didn't... We woke up, got ready, had the breakfast buffet and waited for Wass to arrive at 9:30!!!

...in the back of our minds (thanks to SO many AWESOME families that shared pictures of our little girl and told us a little about her personality and temperament - and knowing and understanding her age and EVERYTHING she has been through in her short little life) we knew our little M had grown SO close and attached and bonded SO well with her AMAZING Special Mothers that care for her beautifully EVERYDAY at Hannah's Hope!  We anticipated little M to be hesitant to show us affection or to reach out - we figured she would be very cautious and apprehensive and a little scared of us... after all we ARE complete strangers to her... She has not been thinking about us, dreaming about us or staring at our picture for the last couple months. :)

....WASS picked us up at the Riviera... and the drive to HH seemed to take FOREVER... 

We arrived.

Got out of the van.

Went through those GATES I've only seen in pictures 100's of times.

Took a BIG deep breath.

Wass grabbed my camera and video camera.

♥ WE SEE HER!!!!! ♥

At THIS moment - everything else around me was a blurrrr... all I could SEE was OUR little girl!!!

She is GORGEOUS!

She is petite...

She is tall...

Her eyes sparkle

she has BIG beautiful lips

she was 5 teeth with a lil gap in the middle

and OH MY those curls...

SHE is our DAUGHTER!!

OH WE LOVE HER!!!

She was a little teary and fussy... So, we sat down with her and her special Momma's in the courtyard for a little bit... and then we decided we would try and pick her up and LOVE on her! :) ...She whined a little bit... but then warmed up to the idea of hanging out with us! :) We were THRILLED!!!  We walked over to the older kids side to have a little time with JUST her...

...We had SUCH a great time together! We were glad that she let us dote on her, cuddle with her.... be CLOSE to her! :)

She ABSOLUTELY loved the Banana Gerber snacks (thank you Chantel) - she wouldn't even take her hand out of the container... ha ha! :) SO CUTE!  Erik played Hide and Go Seek with her and she LAUGHED!

BEST LAUGH I've EVER HEARD!

She has such a BEAUTIFUL SMILE!

It melted my HEART!!!

Loooook at the LOVE Daddy got!!! 

THIS day was AMAZING!!! It was everything and MORE that I could have hoped for! 

♥ I LOVE HER!!! ♥

...The time we had together seemed to fly by, and the next thing I knew one of her Special Mothers came and told me it was time for her to take her nap. I TOTALLY did not complain. We just had about an hour or so of TOTAL BLISS with our BABY GIRL! I know they have a schedule they keep all these babies on and we completely respect it...  We handed our little LOVE BUG over and stayed on the older kids side and played with all of them!! THEY ARE GREAT! I think at one point Erik had about 5 of them on him, laughing and being silly... IT WAS FUN!

Wass told us and the other 3 families that it was time to go... and he dropped us back off at the Riviera.

Thank you Dear Jesus for our little girl, thank you for Hannah's Hope and her VERY Special Mothers who have been taking care of her so well. Oh Lord please continue to look out for her in our absence.  We feel SO incredibly blessed that you chose US to be her Mommy and Daddy!!! We cannot wait to start taking care of her and to bring her home, introduce her to her sisters and just give her all the LOVE she deserves!

Psalm 68:6  "God sets the lonely in families"

Praising God for THIS day, THIS little girl, our little girl!! We are in LOVE and REALLY ready to bring her HOME!!! :)