New blog!

In light of the arrival of our son, we've decided to end this blog. We've appreciated everyone's support and words of encouragement through our second adoption journey. Kit will be continuing on with a new blog: WonderfullyUnanticipated.blogspot.com. Hope you'll follow along!

Our New Addition!!

We're happy to announce that we are now a family of FOUR!  Our son was born on March 14 and came home March 15.  Tommy is so excited to have a little brother!!  We are so grateful for our son's birth parents and plan to continue an ongoing relationship with them.  Thank you to everyone for your support and encouragement through our second adoption journey!

Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all those who celebrate!

Every year, the women on both sides of our family get together and bake Christmas cookies.  The little ones help us decorate!

We love picking out the perfect Christmas tree!  We have an artificial tree to light up our front window, but we always choose a real one for our family room that we decorate with special family ornaments.  Each year, we purchase an ornament that represents another year of togetherness.

What an awesome Christmas holiday we spent this year with family and friends!  On Christmas Eve, we attended mass at Mike's Mom's Church, where she performed the holiday service.  Mom always adds a very personal touch to her sermons and she had a very nice message for the congregation about hope and faith.  Afterwards, we all went over to Kit's parents' home for a yummy dinner!

Enjoying the snow!

View of the backyard rink.

Our wishes came true and we had a white Christmas this year!  The weather has been much warmer this December than most years, but Mother Nature cooperated.  We had lots of snow and even some ice forming on the backyard rink!

Christmas Day, we had both our families at our house for a full day of celebration!  Tommy was so excited for Christmas this year and was excited to receive his gifts from Santa!  This year, Tommy's birth parents and birth sister joined us for part of the day, which was really nice.  We are so fortunate to have them close by and to be with them during events both large and small.

Thoughts and prayers

Our thoughts and prayers are with all those whose lives have been affected by the terrible and senseless shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  It has been a time of grieving, but also a time of honoring the bravery and selflessness that can emerge out of tragedy. 

We will not forget...

 

     

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of our favorite holidays.  Who doesn't love turkey and stuffing and potatoes and pies?!  Ha!  We have celebrated Thanksgiving together with our families ever since the days we were first dating in high school.  Even when we were living in different parts of the country, we always made a point to come home for the holiday... it's great that we now live where our parents and siblings are only minutes away!  While we see family on a very regular basis, Thanksgiving is always such a special day to be together and to share our gratitude for one another and the blessings in our lives.  And did we mention turkey?!   

 

We have started to get excited for the upcoming winter!  Mike has been making preparations to build our first backyard ice rink.  We bought Tommy his first pair of skates and he's already been out practicing on the local rinks.  Kit has already started to organize the Christmas decorations and make plans for Christmas Day.  The last five years or so, we have hosted both families at our home for the Christmas holiday.  We love having lots of people in the house!

 

Kit made an Advent Calendar to count down the days in December until Christmas.

 

Annual Family Ornament

 

We are excited to have another little one in our home... to share all these fun family moments!  We also look forward to welcoming another birth family into our lives.  We are always grateful for the wonderful individuals that made it possible for us to be a family... our son's birth family.  As you can see from our Blog, we see A and M (and now Baby A too!)  regularly, but we also make sure, especially around the holidays, to be together and celebrate family.

 

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Thanks again for visiting and learning more about us! 
 

 

National Adoption Awareness Month

November is National Adoption Awareness Month.  It's a time to celebrate families, build awareness about adoption, and become involved in various adoption related activities.  National Adoption Awareness Month is a time to bring added attention to the experiences of those children in foster care, in the hopes they will soon be connected with their forever families.

 

We are always very open with our son about his adoption story, but we take special time during this month to sit down and look at a life book we made for him (his birth parents have a copy too!) about our journey with his birth parents prior to his birth... our first meeting with them, pictures of him in utero, wishes they had for him.  We are so grateful for our son's birth parents and their continued involvment in our lives. 

Here are some links related to National Adoption Awareness Month:

President Obama's Proclamation

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption
Ideas for daily activities for the month
Adoption.com

 

 

 

 

Bring out the vote!

Love or hate the results of the elections, we are fortunate to live in a country that allows its citizens the right to vote!  Last night, we voted as a family and introduced our son to his first presidential election!