There were SO many times during that wait that it seemed like she would never be with us and now she's been here two years already! Wow, how much more quickly the time has gone on this end of the wait then on the other. In the everydayness of life it's easy to take for granted having her here, but today I am once again reminded of all the miracles it took in the process to get her home with us. It also serves as a time of reflection on where she might be if she were not here with us. Although we will never know for sure, we do know she was in pretty dire straights when she came into the orphanage, so we are pretty safe to assume that if it weren't for the people who lovingly took her into the orphanage, and our family (and families like ours) who was willing to bring her into our family as one of our own, she may not be on this earth today. We are so blessed to have her as part of our family (just as we are blessed to have all of our kids as "ours"). She has grown so much these past two years, in so many ways. I am excited to see what the next year brings.
My prayer is that she continues to grow, God will equip both Greg and I to be the parents she needs us to be in the years to come. No doubt there will be difficulties in some areas through the years, but by His grace we will get through them. Here are a few photos to remind us of how far she has come.
Leaving the US to fly home.
First photo of all the kids together. 
Our first family photo.
Celebrating tonight with cake and candles. KJ thought it was great to have her own special day. Look how much she's grown and changed.
Our wonderful Kids:-)
Here is my mom and my sis's little guy, Reece, snoozing away together. Too cute.
I guess he had a hard time staying awake because here he fell asleep in the middle of his meal..and KJ thought she had to get in the picture too! Yes, it was "hair day" that day.
Here he is showing off his two new teeth...so cute:-) I got to spend a lot of time with him so I really missed him the first few days after our visit was over.
My sister and her husband have spent more than a year redoing their house after it suffered from tornado strength winds in the spring of 2007. They just moved back in a few days before we came, even though it's not totally complete yet. Here is one of the views. It's much nicer than it used to be and I know my sis is enjoying it immensely.
I just had to share these pics of her little guy's room. I think she did a fantastic job on the decorating...it's SO cute.
KR and her my Sis's daughter, Keegan.
My Mom and her two littlest grandsons. They were born just over a month apart.
KR is the oldest of this trio, with my sister's daughter(middle) being the youngest. She had just turned 6 in May while KR will be 8 next month and Jessica (my younger brother's daughter) just turned 7 earlier in August. As you can see Keegan is very tall for her age...and Jessica is probably petite! The three girls played very well together this year. It's nice they are getting more mature and are able to do so well together now. There are a lot less hurt feelings that way.
On the weekend we were in Hulett there was an airshow at the dinky airport. Here are the kids and my grandma waiting for the action to begin. It was a pretty warm day so finding shade was important.
There was a Jelly Belly plane at the show, which was kind of funny.
They handed out jelly beans to the kids and here is my nephew, Rilee, sharing with KJ. He would take a bite of half of it and then give her the other half. She seemed to be okay with that! LOL!
Here are Greg and KJ leaving the airshow. It was surprisingly green there for July so I had to take a picture of the scenery.
