Time flies when you are having fun!

WOW I can hardly believe that Abigail is three months and three weeks old! The time has just flown by. We have been very busy and that is why I have neglected the blog. But I wanted to give an update while I had a minute (she's taking a nap). Abigail is so active! She is 15lbs and 1oz! Healthy girl :) She is 23 inches long. She can roll from front to back and is working on rolling from back to front. She has it about half way! She loves to be social (just like her mommy :)) She talks all the time and someday we hope to understand what she is saying! She is the happiest baby we have ever met and loves to look at peoples faces. She is laughing now which we have to say brings tears to our eyes. She is such a joy and we are continually amazed that we have been chosen to be her parents. 

We have had lots of changes over the last three months. Right after returning from Texas we found out that Katie had to return to work :( Abigail was 14 days old at that point... So we started working on a plan to have Katie be able to stay home. A big thank you to Katie's Mom Margi for moving in with us for 6 weeks to help out and to Hart's for helping with child care as well. We ended up being able to have Abigail go to Little Luke's at Katie's work for a little over a month while we worked on our plan. We prayed and prayed for a solution to this as we felt so strongly about having Katie stay home with Abigail. Out of the blue Brent was offered a promotion at his work!!!! This came with a pay raise that is just enough to allow for Katie to stay home. Both of us were so shocked and grateful. Thank the Lord for this huge answer to prayer. Brent has been busy getting used to his new position at work and this has come with a lot of stress! Katie is so grateful for all his hard work and is getting used to her new role in life. This too is stressful but in a much different way. Katie is loving her new role and so excited about being able to care for her family in this way. 

So other exciting things have happened over the last three months. Katie finally walked in graduation!!! She graduated with honors and was surrounded with the List side of the family. Well all of them but David's kids (we missed having them join us, but we did get to Skype with them!). The Hart's had to make a trip to California on graduation day because Matt and Lisa had their BABY! They had a little girl Bellamy Jean. She is just precious. We have not been able to make the trip down to California to meet her but we will be going down next month to meet her :) Katie got to celebrate her first Mother's Day and this month Brent will get to celebrate Father's Day for the first time. These holidays used to bring so much sadness for us but now we get to CELEBRATE!!!! What fun! So enough type lets get to the pictures :)

 

Home again home again jiggedy jigg

I am so far behind on this but I will try to get everyone up to speed. We made it home safe! We finally got clearance to come home Thursday February 24, 2011. We waited to come home a bit because we had the opportunity to meet Abigail's birth mother. Because this meeting is so precious and private I will not be posting pictures or say much about her. I will say that she is someone I am proud to have a part of my family and I feel good about Abigail having a relationship with her someday if she chooses. We feel that God was all over this the whole time!
On Saturday February 26, 2011 we started our journey home. We flew from Texas to Washington and had an overnight layover. Then got up the next morning and did it all over again! We felt so nervous taking her on a plane being so young! But she is a trooper and handled it all beautifully. She slept the first leg of 4 hours and then the second of 2 hours. We felt very blessed from on the first flight. One of the flight attendants was so kind and gave us a DVD player to help the flight go by faster! THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! This really did help. 

We arrived home to a clean and decorated home. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Hart for taking the time to do all of that for us. They also watched ALL the animals for us.
I am not sure there has ever been a child that was so anticipated or loved. We got home Sunday February 27, 2011 and we had a very warm welcome. The Hart grandparents came to the airport and tears were shared by all. I remember landing and thinking WOW we made it! She is really OURS! I just was so overcome with emotion. We have waited so long to this little one that each leg of our journey has brought us to this point. As we drove home I just was in awe of how amazing God is and how he never for a second forgot about us.

Well since getting home we have had a few surprises. The first was that I found out I had to return to work on Thursday March 3, 2011. This was a HUGE and disappointing shock. We had planned to have me stay home for 12 weeks and then found out that because I have not been at my job long enough that I was not eligible for ANY time off. So I went back to work :( But we have managed to have it all covered. She is with family all the time and that is what is important. I just have a little trouble concentrating at times.

The other surprise we had was the List family :). Some of the List women made it over for the baby shower. Grandma List, Elizabeth, and Natalie made it over to Idaho for the shower.  We also had some of the Hart family with us too. Drew and Maja made it over for the shower as well.

Oh the baby shower. I have to say that this was so wonderful! I am not sure I can put in words how meaningful this event was. When I walked in and saw all the people, decorations, and gift I was overcome with joyful tears. I NEVER thought I would get the chance to have a baby shower. I have been to some over the years and not to others because it was just too hard. But oh my goodness how meaningful and precious this was to me. It was so fun to see some of my family and friends meet Abigail for the first time. Everyone was so pleased and she was so good during the shower. She got a little fussy toward the end but she was just hungry. So we fed her and got on with it. We are so blessed to have such a supportive system of friends and family. I am just in awe of how much this little one has touched the people in our lives. She is really something special. If you have not had the opportunity to meet her please do. Here are some pictures from the party :)

Thank you to Sharron B. for hosting our shower!