Another day to remember

Today is the day that marks a year from our receiving Sarah's official referral. On February 4th last year I was waiting for an oil change and got a call from our adoption agency that they had received our referral. My coordinator told me the basic information over the phone and described her photo to me.

It was a surreal experience trying to envision the face she was describing while sitting in a waiting area at the Dodge dealership! All I can remember is that she said she had these pouty lips.

The next day I received the Fed Ex package here at home in the morning and let it sit all day until the girls were home from school and John came home from work.

His excitement showed in the fact that he couldn't have been more than 5 minutes behind the girls in walking in the door.

We all sat down on the sofa together and opened our envelope to find this face looking back at us. We believe the picture to have been taken in the fall of 2007 when Sarah was about 6 months old. The referral photos are the oldest photos we have of her.

We have been blessed by some pictures from the orphanage that other parents have shared with us. (They sent cameras over to the orphanage before we got there to get pictures of them where they were living before.)

In anticipation of this anniversary, I took some new pictures of Sarah on Sunday when she was in a good mood for a brief period. In looking at these you would never tell she is running a fever over 102. We found out on Tuesday that it is an ear infection, and she is now slowly returning to her happy normal self.

All I can say is, doesn't she look so grown up? It helps that her hair is now getting long enough to tuck behind her ear.

She was quite the little poser for me that day, which is entirely new for me. Sarah has not been very cooperative on many photos so far. I made up for it by taking quite a few. You might notice I even got a little of the smirk!

It seems fitting that today I would get our final piece of US adoption paperwork back in the mail. We now have her reissued Minnesota birth certificates. What a year!