Skip to main content

Eliana's Gotcha Day

   This post is just going to be pictures from Eliana's Gotcha Day - 10.7.2019. All photos are credited to my incredibly talented sister, Mandy Keel and Mandy Loves Eric Photography



We wanted to fill the courtroom, and our village showed up

This girl loves her Papa


It's like she knew it was going to be a good day






The judge had each big kid come up, declare "Adoption Granted" and pound the gavel


The incredible judge and our wonderful attorney

Our village


I love this picture, holding my daughter is my nephew who was adopted into our family 7 years ago. It's as if Ellie knows the special bond they now share. 

Ellie and her grandmothers


My parents



Ellie and her grandfathers

Aaron's Dad

Ellie loves Tia Katie

Tia Katie and Uncle Cav


Aaron's parents


Aunt Mandy, Uncle Eric and family








All the grandkids on my side of the family





     A huge thank you to everyone who made the trip to courthouse to witness our happy ending. Thank you to our families who traveled from many states (some just for 24 hours) to be here as our family grew. Thank you to our church family, not only for filling the courtroom, but for helping put out food at the party and for helping to clean up after, and also for being in the trenches with us day in and day out. Our journey would not be possible without you.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Hard Update

        It's been a hard few weeks and this is not easy to write. It was a Tuesday morning when the email came in. I was at work and as I read the words I had to fight back tears so as to not freak out my co-workers. We were told that due to something from two years ago we are not going to be able to adopt from Taiwan or from any other country.         In that moment I think I went through all the stages of grief. I was angry that a misunderstanding from two years ago is keeping us from our dream. I was in denial that this was really happening. It just didn't seem real that something that was proven to not have happened was going to stop us from adopting from the country we desired. I was mourning the loss of a child that I had already fallen in love with. I have heard some say that it is very similar to having a miscarriage, feeling the tremendous loss of someone you never even met.          The last few weeks have been...

How Adoption Became Part of our Story

        This weekend Aaron and I were with friends and our adoption journey was the topic of conversation. We were asked, "tell us your story, how did you come to the decision that adoption is the right choice for your family?"         As I pondered this question, I thought back to my classroom at Andrews Elementary School in Burlington, NC. I started teaching at Andrews not long after Aaron and I started dating and I was teaching a class for children with severe and profound disabilities and each of those students were my babies. How I knew that Aaron was the one for me, was that he loved my babies as much as I did. Teaching in that setting meant that I saw some very sad stories and more than once Aaron would make the comment, "I would take Student A home in a heartbeat." I fell in love with this man all over again because he had a heart for my babies and I knew that he meant it when he said he would take any of those babies into our home. It...

Ellie's first year

     It was one year (and one week) ago that we brought our youngest daughter home from the hospital. We have shared our journey with you through this blog and we last shared  Eliana's story  on her Gotcha Day  back in October. This past week, my memories on social media have been flooded with our first days at home with Ellie and I have been reminiscing on this past year with our baby girl. This has been a year of watching our baby girl fight to get healthy; a year of watching our two big kids thrive in the roles of older siblings to a sister with different needs and abilities; a year of some of the most difficult and scariest moments of our lives; a year of having our love for all of our children multiple beyond our wildest imaginations; a year of celebration and learning to just take each day as it comes. Since I have been all up in my emotions the last few days, I wanted to share some thoughts on this past year here, so that a year from now I can look b...