Four weeks home!!!

Wow! Anna and I have been home for four weeks today! The time has just flown by and it really doesn’t seem like it has been that long. I cannot describe to you just how well she has fit into our family. You would never know that this little girl had her whole world turned upside, moved half way across the world and joined a new family of her own in the last two months. If you didn’t know we had adopted her, you would swear I gave birth to her myself!! Anna is such a joy and has made our whole family so happy and proud and we love her to pieces.  Even the boys are giddy over her! My oldest son Spenser totes her all around the house on his shoulders all the time and acts like a big ol’ kid himself playing with her. Mason adores his little sister and Ashlyn is coming around! I think there will be a good chance that these two will be best buds before it is all over with. There is still a little jealousy between Ashlyn and Anna but it is nothing like we imagined because Ashlyn is typically one jealous girl! She does still hide the toys in the bathroom from Anna but she used to do that to the dog too, so don’t take it too personal Anna, LOL.


Anna is so happy and that beautiful smile of hers tells it all. She will just be sitting there and look up at you with the biggest most beautiful smile….makes me just want to eat her up!!! Anna is so easy to love.  She isn’t hard to please, but when she gets upset ….look out! She breaks out into a crippled walk where she bends her body to the side and walks around like she is crippled. The tears start falling BUT you do not hear a cry. It’s pretty sad and breaks my heart to watch her do this without a noise from her mouth. When she is upset she will go through all of the motions except the sound cannot/ will not come out. I don’t know if she never cried when she was upset in the orphanage because she knew no one would come or if she got in trouble for crying. I can’t quite figure this out. But when she gets hurt, like the million times she has fallen and hit her head (this makes me nervous) she SCREAMS and cries like a baby! How weird!?! She can’t cry out when she is upset but she does cry when she gets hurt. Crazy!

My sweet friends at work gave a me a surprise “big girl shower” yesterday for Anna. I am so blessed to have the friends and family (and strangers) that care so much about us and have helped us bring sweet Anna home and love her so much now that she is home.  Anna received lot’s of pretty clothes, shoes, baby dolls, a purse, toys, candy and money! Ashlyn got several gifts too. It was like Christmas last night when I got home with all of the bags of gifts!! Both girls dug into the bags and had a blast looking at all of the goodies!

We are so thankful for all of you that have helped us make this beautiful, sweet child our daughter! She really is a treasure and God couldn’t have hand picked a better daughter for our family than our sweet Anna!  I look at her beautiful face and need to pinch myself to make sure I am not dreaming......

Thank you God for this beautiful, precious gift!

I would like to post a comparison of Anna's picture last summer as an orphan and then photos of Anna this summer, an orphan NO MORE!!!  What a difference love makes!!!  We love you Anna!!!