It's official!

Eight months ago we walked into a hospital NICU room and our hearts filled with love at the sight of a sweet baby girl. And today we walked into a court room and that sweet baby girl officially became Kelly Christine McLeland. What a sweet day for our family.

Miss Kelly girl decided to just sleep through the whole thing! So not really the greatest picture of our family but a picture to mark the day.

 This morning I was talking to Jennifer about what we were going to do today, we were going to get to finalize Kelly's adoption. To be honest it didn't mean much to her. A little while later we were talking about the Christmas story and Mary having baby Jesus. So then we were talking about babies so I again talked about Kelly and adoption. We talked about how Mikayla and Kelly grew in another mom's tummy but then got to come be in our family. I must admit I love the innocence that she has. She just sort of shrugged her shoulders and moved on. To Jennifer her sisters are just that her sisters. She doesn't care how they got to us, she just knows they are our family. From the moment Jennifer saw Kelly, she was "her baby girl". And today Jennifer was excited to have a day to celebrate her baby girl.
Our journey to Kelly was just that, a journey. A year ago at this time we didn't know when or if a baby would be joining our family. We had been waiting over a year. During that year we had a few situations that came up that we knew we weren't even suppose to purpose. We also had a situation that we purposed, had been chosen by a birth-mother and after much, much prayer, we had to say no to parenting a child. It was a rough week trying to sort through that situation but ultimately we needed to be obedient to what God was laying on our hearts. It was one of the hardest choices we have ever had to made. And so the wait continued. But when I saw Kelly for the first time I knew that she was the baby girl we had been waiting for. She was who we had waited so long for, she was suppose to be in our family. It may sound corny and it may sound clique but it is the truth. Kelly was our baby girl. Although the journey was long and at times hard, I am thankful for the journey. I am thankful that God knew at the end of the journey who our baby would be and how much joy she would bring to our family.