Celebrating Adoption Day

This is a few days late, but we celebrated the 5th year of little Emma's adoption this week. Typically we take her out to eat to the place of her choosing for her special day but we had to put it off a few days this year due to home projects, ball games and t-ball practice. We were finally able to go out and celebrate today though and her choice of restaurants was the 'Goose Creek Diner', which made me smile. You would think a child would pick something like McD's, or Chuck E' Cheese but not our little Emma bug.

It's so hard to believe it's been 5 years already. Today has been my first opportunity to go back and look through some of the photos from our trip. The digital camera we had back then didn't do well with inside shots but still, looking through these just transported me back to the other side of the world ... what a trip it was and what a blessing Emma is. Adoption is truly a miracle and I can't imagine for an instance of Emma not being our daughter.

It's amazing how much she has grown and matured but yet even going back and re-reading her referral and updated documents I couldn't help but smile at some of the descriptions of her personality and how profoundly true they are.

This was taken on the day we first met Emma, what's commonly called "Gotcha Day". All the little girls were dressed in the same little outfits, all of them had fuzzy little heads. Emma was fighting an upper respiratory problem and her little nose was running like crazy. We were told that the girls had all come in by bus and that it was a little over a 6 hour drive and they were all worn out. She was asleep in my arms in no time!

This one was taken the following day, the day your adoption is finalized. Not sure why, but we didn't have a family picture taken that day. We were so enthralled with our new little dumpling that I guess it just slipped our minds. My friend Teresa, who was also there adopting a daughter, bought our girls matching dresses for adoption day & we didn't even get a picture of the girls together. That's what baby excitement will do for you I suppose.

The first few days, Emma would just sit wherever you put her. Ryan and I would try to get her to crawl to us but she wouldn't, she would just sit there with her little back as straight as could be. She loved the little puff type cereal we were feeding her but even that wouldn't motivate her to move so we started putting it in various places and then we would turn around to do something else only to find her sitting in the same place, yet eating the cereal. We got the biggest laugh out of her. We finally did catch her scooting to get it, but then she'd scoot right back to where we'd put her. Needless to say, the stillness didn't last for long.

This was the day she came out of her shell!!! Brian was in another room finishing up paperwork. Ryan and I sat down in the floor with her and would motion for her to stand up. She did! We were sitting about 4 feet apart. She would first run to me, fall into my arms and just laugh and laugh then turn around and head for Ryan. At some point Brian called to ask a question and he couldn't believe the noise that was going on. She was having a grand ol' time and it pretty much hasn't stopped since!

Going out for ice cream, can you say yummy!

She also had this odd little quirk where she was always putting her feet on the table. We have several shots similar to this. Not quite sure where she learned this habit, but it was pretty darn hard to break.

And of course I can't post about her adoption day without again including the link to the video of her 'gotcha day'. What a blessed and happy time for our family! Thanks for allowing this little trip down memory lane :-)

http://hunterhappenings.blogspot.com/2008/05/3-year-anniversary-of-emmas-gotcha-day.html

Happy 5 years Emma Lian, we love you!!!!