Officially ours

Last week we celebrated Jonathan's adoption! We ate breakfast at Le Peep, went to the courthouse with friends and family, and then ate and played at the Amazing Pizza Machine in the afternoon. It was an awesome day. By the time we got home that night, I was a bleary-eyed mess from crying thinking about how much of a blessing J is to us. Becoming parents has been a long time coming for us. If you know a bit about our story, you know our road to parenthood has been long and winding. Infertility, a failed adoption, a move east I regretted for a year...all led us to Jonathan. There were some soul-crushing moments in the past seven years, but one glance at our intelligent, hilarious, brave, and compassionate curly haired son makes all those pains feel like they were worth something. There were many times I pleaded with God to give us a child, questioned God for our struggles to conceive, and yelled at him for bringing us suffering. I wanted badly to run away from Him, to throw my faith away. Luckily, my husband's faith and friends' faith compelled me to keep clinging to God. Throughout our process I kept Romans 8:28 in mind: " And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Now that we're on the other side of this, I can see what God was doing throughout each of those painful moments. He was grooming us to be J's parents...J's resilience just amazes me. When he's old enough to understand his life story, I'm sure he will feel some anger and resentment, but I hope he can use Romans 8:28 to help him make sense of his life. 

Here's a few of my favorite photos from his life with us...there are so many I could post. If you have an extra five hours to kill, c'mon over and I'll bore you to tears by having you look at every picture we've took of him. To those of you who stuck with us when we retreated from relationships after we discovered we could not have kids, and those who offered us support through prayer, food and wine, and other more healthy distractions--thank you. 

His first solo visit at our house

Helping Nate mow the lawn was one of his favorite activities this summer when he visited

This was from  his "graduation" day when he moved from his first foster placement to our home; we had a "graduation" party with his first foster family. 

His first soccer game

Eating a cupcake on Nate's birthday

Our first Christmas...don't know what the frown was all about!

At Nathan and Abbi's wedding dancing the night away with his cousin

Giggling at Pappy on his adoption day

Hot stuff sitting in the judge's chair

Cousins 

Our first official family photo

My favorite from the adoption day....