It's Official!

It's New Year's Eve! Wow. What a year it's been! It's been such a joy becoming parents to Raegan and watching her grow! It's amazing that at this time last year we were anxiously awaiting her birth and busily getting ready to become parents. Now our baby is almost 1 year old! It's been a great year! It has been amazing to watch Raegan grow, learn and change.

And we are happy to announce that we just got word today from our lawyer that the adoption is finally final! So Raegan is now legally our daughter! It doesn't really seem too different because being Raegan's parents has always felt so natural but it's nice to know that she is officially our daughter! We will receive the paperwork soon and then we can file to get her birth certificate with our names as her parents. We are happy to be done with all of the paperwork that goes along with an adoption and now we can really focus on just being a family!

We had a great year welcoming Raegan into our family and we are looking forward to see what 2009 brings!

First Christmas

We all enjoyed spending our first Christmas with Raegan. Christmas excitement must be engrained in kids because Raegan is too young to understand the idea of Christmas morning and yet she still woke up bright and early! We thought for sure she would sleep in because we kept her up late on Christmas Eve with church and then dinner with the Welch's but she still woke up bright and early at 5 am! She fell back to sleep for a little while but she was in bed with us by 6:45 in the morning and we were all downstairs by 7!

When we came downstairs the first thing Raegan saw was her new Radio flyer bouncing pony! She was definitely excited to see that and she crawled over to it as soon as she saw it. That was the only present we knew she would like because she we put her on one at Sam's club one day and she loved it! I found one on Craigslist in great condition so that was her one big Christmas present from us.






She wasn't too interested in opening her other presents but once she saw them she liked them too. She got a farmer Buddy and see and say. And she also got a xylaphone which she enjoys playing. We definitely think she is going to be musical because even though all kids seem to like music she dances every time music comes on and she has more rhythm that I do! She also loves every musical insrument we give her so she enjoyed the xylophone too! She also got some Christmas books from us which we will enjoy reading to her as she grows up!

We enjoyed breakfast casserole for breakfast and then it was time for a nap!

When Raegan woke up from her nap she opened her stocking and gave daddy his present, a coffee tumbler with her pictures on it!




And after a while Grandma and Pop Pop came over with more presents! They even brought presents from her cousins for her, a Be Bop Band set, a Cabbage Patch Doll and a ball popper play toy! Raegan especially enjoyed her new wagon from Grandma and Pop Pop and after her afternoon nap we all went for a walk outside!



We enjoyed a nice dinner with my parents and then it was time to retire for the evening! We all had a nice Christmas and we are looking forward to more time with family in the days to come!

The Gift of a Child

I find myself getting more sentimental this Christmas than I have in the past. Every year I tell myself that I want to focus on the true meaning of Christmas and yet every year I seem to fall into the same trap of focusing more on the Christmas traditions of family, food, presents than I do on the reason we celebrate, Jesus. But this year although I have made my fair share of Christmas cookies and bought gifts for everyone, this year I have found that the meaning of Christmas has finally hit home.

I have been reflecting a lot on what happened on that first Christmas this year. I have also been reflecting a lot on what this Christmas means to us. We watched the Nativity Story a couple of nights ago for the first time and it really helped put into perspective what happened that night. I really imagined what Mary must have been going through. I can't even imagine all of the emotions she felt, fear, excitement, joy maybe even embarrassment. I was really struck by the power of what God brought about that night. He chose to use a baby. Why a baby? Why not a big powerful man sent down from heaven. Why didn't He just come down himself and take care of what needed to be done? Why didn't He just come down and wipe out sin and all of the sinners with it? Why? Because that wasn't in His plan. Why else? Because He loved us too much to do that. Why did He use a baby? Well, the other night it hit me. I think that sending a baby was the most powerful thing He could have done.

This year, I have been reflecting on our baby. I have been reflecting on the Chrismas's we have had over the past couple of years. They were painful. As hard as I wanted them not to be they were. I loved being around all of my nephews and nieces on Christmas, I love them all as if they were my own children. But the pain of not having our own child cut deep. Last year over Christmas we were waiting to hear if we were going to be parents. We were waiting while a young 18 year old woman made a decision on who she would choose to be the parents of her baby. That baby is Raegan.

I can't help but think about the power of babies. God sent His own son in the most important and powerful act in history. Jesus was born in a manger, surrounded by animals. He was born so that He could die, for us. He gave us the most wonderful gift that first Christmas. The only gift we will ever need. A gift we are free to share with other people. That day in that manger He gave us Life.

For Josh and I, God chose to give us another gift. He gave us Raegan through a young woman named Chelsea. She gave us her daugther. We could never ask for a more wonderful gift.

Raegan has brought us so much joy, light and laughter. Her life has taught me so much about life. And God used her to teach me so much about trust, patience and peace. I trust God in a new way now. By that I mean, I truly trust Him. After what He did in my life by turning the darkest storm of infertility into the greatest gift, the adoption of Raegan, I have no choice but to trust Him with everything else.

This year we will exchange gifts. I am excited for Raegan to see her new toys tomorrow. But what I look forward to even more is being able to share with Raegan what Christmas means. Being able to share with her how much she is loved by us, but more importantly by God. Toys and gifts are fun. But God has already given us the only gift we ever need, all we need to do is receive it.

We are so thankful for the gift of Raegan. We are so thankful that her birthmom decided to choose us as her parents. I think about Chelsea this Christmas and hope that she is doing well. I think about last Christmas and about how much our life has changed in a year.

We praise God for His gifts. In God's first gift to me He gave me life. And in His holy and precious second gift to me he gave me a daughter who has changed my life.

We wish everyone a blessed Christmas. May you too experience the true joy and meaning of Christmas!

Photo Shoots

Below is a link to an album of winter pictures of Raegan. Some were taken by me and some were taken by my dad. We took them to get a picture for our Christmas cards but there are so many good shots of her that I thought I would share all of them!

Raegan's Christmas Picture Photo Shoots

"I love big people food!"

From December 2008

Raegan has officially decided to call it quits on the baby food and move on to the "good stuff". Ever since we got back from our trip to Tennessee Raegan has been turning her nose up at pureed baby food and gets excited at the sight of "real food" being put in front of her. And I must say she is very adventurous. So far I don't have trouble getting her to eat anything. Over the past couple of weeks she has eaten chicken and dumplings,scrambled eggs, french toast, waffles, pancakes carrots, broccoli, black beans, avocado, cheese, crackers, goldfish, mandarin oranges, peaches. She even had Lebanese food ( pita, rice, and Lebanese sausage) when we went out to lunch to the Lebanese Taverna with Desi and Christian the other week. She has tried it all and seems to like everything we give her. She especially likes to drink Kefir ( which is kind of like a yogurt smoothie) when I water it down a little bit and put it in her sippy cup ( she jumps when she sees it coming). So it looks like she is going to be a very healthy girl! She is making her dietitian mommy proud eating balanced meals already! Let's hope she keeps it up!

Raegan has also become proficient at playing peek a boo, clapping, doing "so big", pointing, and she still loves to dance, dance! She is so much fun! She is definitely a drama queen ( i haven't figured out if that's a good thing or a bad thing quite yet) And she is constantly keeping us laughing and well entertained!

From December 2008

From December 2008

From December 2008

Road Trip

From Tennessee Trip- National Embyro Adoption Center and stop in Blacksburg

We just go back last night from our long road trip to Tennessee. We left sunday to go down to Knoxville, TN for an appointment with the National Embryo Donation Center there. We have decided to try embryo adoption for our second adoption. So we drove down for our appointment and we are happy to say that everything went well and we can now move forward with the process. We will begin the matching process and soon we will be matched with a donor couple. Then we will be given an appointment either in march or may to go back down to have the embryos implanted via IVF. And everything goes well, Raegan will have a sibling 9 months later. If the first implanation doesn't work then we can try 2 more times. The doctor said he didn't have any reason to believe that this wouldn't work for us. So we are excited that everything went well and excited to see what God has in store for us and our family. We are praying that this works because we really want Raegan to have siblings and we feel embyro adoption is not only a neat opportunity but it is affordable for us whereas another domestic adoption is kind of out of the question because of how much it costs. But we are trusting in God and know that He has a perfect plan for us and our family.

We enjoyed our road trip and Raegan did really well. We drove straignt down to Tennessee on sunday and Josh's parents came along to help watch Raegan during our appointment. We all took turns entertaining Raegan in the car but after about 9 hours she was done! We came back monday and decided to cut the trip in half and stay overnight in Blacksburg, VA ( my favorite place!). I got to see my friend and old VT roommate Meredith and meet her for breakfast at Gillies, my favorite breakfast restaurant. And then we all walked over to campus for a little while. It was a typical winter day in Blacksburg, dreary and cold, but it was still nice to be there. I got to show Raegan the campus ( and told her to pick out her dorm ;). And I got a chance to visit the memorial for the shooting victims. I hadn't been down to Tech since that happened so I was glad to be able to see the memorial and reflect again on those lives that were lost.

After a short visit to campus, we all jumped back in the car and headed back home. We had a good trip and we are so proud of Raegan for how well she did on a very long car ride. And we are excited about the results of our trip and look forward to going back down to Tennessee in the new year for our embryo adoption!

I am having trouble getting pictures to upload but I will add them as soon as I figure out the problem ( or more like as soon as I ask Josh to figure out the problem :)

Update: I have learned how to link to a Picasa album ( thanks Josh). Click here to view our album from our road trip!

Tennessee Trip- National Embyro Adoption Center and stop in Blacksburg

10 Months and Sniffles

Raegan turned 10 months old today! It's hard to believe in just 2 more months she will be 1 year old! Where has the year gone?! I have found myself getting a little sentimental with the holidays here. It reminds me of last year when we were going through the adoption process, anxious to hear if and when we were going to be blessed with a baby. This time last year was a very emotional time of waiting and wondering. This year we are so blessed to have Raegan in our lives. She is such a beautiful, precious gift to us. We love every moment we get to share with her. We are excited about sharing her first Christmas with her in a couple of weeks. We are also excited because we are in the process of going through our second adoption. We go next Monday for a consultation in Tennessee with the National Embryo Adoption Center to see if we are candidates to participate in their embryo adoption program. If everything goes well on Monday then we will make plans to go though embryo adoption via IVF transplant sometime next year. We are putting this in God's hands just like we trusted Him with Raegan. We are excited to grow our family again through the miracle of adoption. We will keep everyone posted of how our trip and consultation goes.

I have attached some pictures of Raegan eating chicken soup that I made tonight. We all came down with a cold so we had chicken soup for dinner. Raegan seemed to really enjoy it. She kept coming back for more and licking her lips.!

Thankful

We just got back from a few days in Baltimore celebrating Thanksgiving with the Auer family. Raegan enjoyed her first Thanksgiving and especially enjoyed getting to visit with all of her Auer cousins. Raegan even learned a new "trick" while we were gone. She can now do "so big" and then she claps afterwards. We had a delicious dinner at Uncle Dave's house. And after eating dinner on Thanksgiving everyone played American Idol on Playstation. Raegan enjoyed dancing while everyone sang. She loves dancing and everyone enjoyed watching her moves! We had a great time visiting with everyone. We have so much to be thankful for. We are especially thankful this year for the blessing of having Raegan with us!

9 Months!

This past sunday Raegan turned 9 months old! Hard to believe! Soon we will be celebrating her 1st birthday! My baby is growing so fast. Time does fly when you are having fun and we are definitely having fun. Raegan is such a joy in our lives. Her smile alone warms my heart. It is so much fun to watch her grow and change. She is now a full fleged crawler. She is also pulling herself on furniture and in her crib. Now when she doesn't want to sleep she stands up in her crib and shakes the rails. It didn't take her long to figure that trick out. The other day she even stood up without holding on. She loves to crawl around and go after power cords. So needless to say I am being kept busy chasing her and keeping her from going after things she shouldn't have. But it's all a lot of fun. She is also enjoying playing with Kona now that she can scoot around. She likes to put Kona's toys in front of her and have Kona play with her. Kona is doing a really good job of being gentle and Raegan laughs hysterically when Kona plays with her. They are becoming best buds! She now says dadadad and mamama. But the mamama is usually when she is whining and needs something. Someone told me that's how they came up with name for moms. But I love taking care of her and I think God gives mom's an extra dose of patience. We went to the doctors yesterday and she is 22.5 pounds ( 95th %), 28 inches ( 80th %). So she is still a big girl but starting to slow down the pace slightly. She got 3 shots and then had to have her finger pricked for hemoglobin test. She was not a happy girl by the time we left, but the doctor says she continues to be doing great. And the doctor commented on how perceptive she is for her age. We always knew she was a smarty pants so this didn't surprise us.

So we are doing good. We are expecting her adoption to be final soon so we are excited about that! And we have an appointment coming up in December for a consultation with an embryo adoption agency to inquire about starting our next adoption. We'll keep everyone posted on that front!

I have attached some pictures. A couple from halloween when Raegan dressed up again like a chicken and we went to a Trunk or Treat event at our friends church. The other pictures are just some recent pictures of our big girl!

Surprise!

Raegan and I have been pretty busy the last couple of weeks. We have been planning a surprise birthday party for daddy! And it worked! On saturday I told Josh that I was having a jewelry party and sent him out for the day to the air and space museum. While he was gone I, with some help from my mom and sister in law quickly decorated the house, prepared food and invited in the guests. When Josh got home from the museum we were all waiting for him and he was very surprised. His birthday was actaully Oct 7th so it completely through him off by having the party 3 weeks after his birthday. We had a nice time celebrating Josh's birthday with family and friends! Happy 30th Birthday Josh (daddy)! We all love you very much!

Waiting for daddy to come home!

Surprise!

"why is everyone yelling at daddy?"

Lots of food!

Big Day!!!

Raegan had a very busy but exciting day today. Josh took off work and we all drove down to Richmond to see Sarah Palin at a rally at the Richmond International Speedway. It was a long day but Raegan did great waiting in line and playing in the grass as we waited for the rally to begin. We got to hear Sarah Palin speak ( and hear Hank Williams Jr. sing). And then afterwards we got to meet Sarah Palin. I got to talk to her while she was signing autographs and then when I was holding Raegan she asked if she could hold her. So Sarah took Raegan and we got some great pictures of her with the govenor ( and hopefully future Vice President). It was so neat to be at a rally and especially to get to meet Govenor Sarah Palin. She is a very friendly, sincere and down to earth person ( I think you will be able to tell this from the pictures of her with Raegan).

Lost Posts

This is my third attempt to create this post. I have somehow managed to lose the prior 2 posts. So hopefully this one will stay.

Anyway. This past weekend we got to go out as a family and enjoy the beautiful fall weather. We went to an apple orchard with our neighbors on saturday to pick our own apples! Now it's time to make apple sauce, apple crisp, apple pie! I love the fall!

This weekend we also put Raegan in a chicken costume. I bought a costume on clearance a while back and came across it while cleaning Raegan's closet. She was the cutest chicken I have ever seen! She even flapped her "wings" and made some chicken noises. It was at one time going to be her halloween costume but I think I am going to make her a different one. But I posted some pics for all to see!

Raegan turned 8 months this last thursday! She is growing so fast! She is now doing the army crawl and trying to get into everything! She is enjoying walking around the kitchen in her walker and Kona is enjoying the fact that Raegan's percentage of cheerios that fall on the floor is much greater than those that reach her mouth!

Lip Smacking

I think Raegan is finally adjusted to being home from the beach. She didn't really sleep very good the first week we were back for some reason but she is back to sleeping good. And I think at first she was wondering where all of her friends were ( she really enjoyed having her cousins around for a week!). But we are getting back into the swing of things and getting ready for autumn weather! Raegan's newest trick is smacking her lips. I am not sure where she learned this but it is very funny. We'll try to get it on video so everyone can see! Other than that not much is new with us.

I also wanted to let everyone who reads this blog know that I created another blog. It's a political blog which may be surprising to some. Most people who know me, know that I was never really into politicis. But something changed several months ago for several reasons but for one reason in particular. I have become very interessted in this election and have become quite passionate about it. This year it is about much more than just an election, it has huge ramifications for some issues that I feel very strongly especially adoption and abortion. Please consider checking my blog out if you are interested in my views or maybe feel like you don't know enough this year about the election and would like to know more. I can tell you if you are listening to mainstream media for your information, you are not getting the whole picture. I am not trying to sway anyone to vote a certain way. Everyone is entitiled to their opinion. But I felt like I needed a way to allow my voice and my concerns be heard. Whatever you do, I just urge you to please know not just who you are voting for but what you are voting for.

Here's my blog address : www.thepoliticalquestion.blogspot.com

And since this is my blog, I am allowed to endorse a candidate. So here goes, McCain/Palin 08!

Beach Baby

Our family just returned from our annual beach trip. For the past 3 years Josh and I have gone to Ocean Isle Beach for vacation with my parents, my brothers family and his wife's parents. It has always been a fun and relaxing time but this year it was especially fun because this year we got to take our daughter with us! I remember last year enjoying our time at the beach with our niece and nephew but feeling a little depressed knowing that it could be a long time before we had our own child on a beach trip with us. But as we all know God decided to bless us tremendoulsy and surpass what we thought our timeline would be and this year we were blessed to take our 7 month old baby girl to the beach with us!

We all had a great time at the beach. Raegan really enjoyed visiting with her cousins on the trip. It will be fun to see her grow up with her cousins. Raegan really enjoyed swimming in the pool at the beach house and even though we didn't go to the beach very often on this trip ( it was rougher than normal on the beach due to the hurricanes) she seemed to enjoy looking at the waves. We had a birthday party for big cousin Jack, watched as the kids played "dress up", took lots of pictures and enjoyed our time as a family!

While we were away Raegan also perfected some new "talents". She now clearly waves "hi" and "bye", blows raspberries, feeds herself cheerios and has 3 clear words in her arsenal, "hi", "da da" and "woof". We all enjoyed watching as Raegan showed off her talents for all of us!

We had a great time on vacation. And while we were sad to see such a great week come to an end, it was also good to return home and see Kona ( Raegan was especially excited about this). It's sad that vacation won't come for another year and summer is officially over, but we are looking forward to the fall, the holidays and seeing what else this year brings us. I have attached a link to a slideshow of beach pictures below ( i am working on figuring out how to add the slideshow directly to my blog but haven't quite gotten there yet!)

http://picasaweb.google.com/jen.smith.RD/BeachTripBlogAlbum#

Trying to stand, trying to drive, trying on clothes...just being cute

Raegan has been trying lots of new things lately. She still isn't quite crawling but she is getting close. She has figured out how to move herself around in circles, not quite conventional crawling but it works for now. She also loves to stand up and Josh got some good pictures of her standing up with the help of our ottoman. Our neighbors also lent us a walker for Raegan to try that is shaped like a car. She hasn't quite figured out how to move herself yet but she does love playing with the horn! And of late Raegan also enjoys trying on clothes by herself. We put her on our bed sometimes when we are getting ready to go out somewhere so we can watch her closely and last sunday I looked over and Raegan was trying on the skirt i had out but decided not to wear. Yesterday she covered herself with baby clothes that I was sorting out on our bed. And when I went over to her to acknowledge what she had done she laughed hysterically. I think she is beginning to figure out that we think everything she does is cute ( and she's right!). The biggest change for her has been her new sleeping arrangements! She was using a swaddler blanket up until a few nights ago. We had tried many times to not swaddle her at night and everytime we did she would wake up several times. We had to get a bigger swaddler and it was a little too big so she was able to get her arms and legs out by the end of the night but she still needed to use the swaddle. But the other night we decided not to use one and to just put a blanket over her legs and to our pleasant surprise it worked! She doesn't kick off the blanket and she gets very excited when we put the blanket on her! It is nice that she finally done using the swaddler but it is sad in the same sense, just another way in which our little baby is growing up! Anyway, below our some recent pictures.

First Photo Shoot

Raegan had her first professional pictures taken today when we were up visiting with Grandma and Pop Pop. We have given Raegan plenty of practice with smiling for the camera for the past 6 months so we thought it was time to have some portraits done. And Raegan did great. She was all smiles and we got some great shots of her! The photographers were commenting on how good she did and how happy she was during the picture taking. She is a very, very happy baby! They were running a photo contest which she automatically gets entered in so we'll see if she wins us a trip to Disney World. It would be nice to win the trip but as far as I am concerned we have already "won" just by being blessed with Raegan! I have posted the pictures for you to see!