Building a family!

So, we arrive in Omaha on Monday night.  We decorate our room and prepare for Christmas!  We meet Jo!  We meet Vivi!

Life is wonderful, let'd go home!

Not quite.  God had plans for us.  I knew he would because I had asked him for "an entire situation"!  He had been preparing my heart for several months and now was the time!

So, I can't remember much of December 22 and 23rd, spent time with Vivi.  Eric and I would switch going to feed her, playing with JJ and seeing Jo.  Taking pictures.  Jo and I went into to see Vivi.  I was so excited to capture that moment. One day I will share that picture with Vivi, and the story.

There were many moments of keeping emotions in check.  I wanted to hug these people and cry and thank them and show my extreme excitement but I also had to keep my calm and remember that my joy was also their pain and loss.  I knew I wanted to assure them all, that this was not the END.  I wanted to create a beginning.  I wanted to get to know them, and be a part of their family and welcome them into ours.  It was so  easy because Jo was so sweet and her sister Lori and Don were welcoming to us.  There was adoption paperwork and issues that were getting worked out, all the while we were in the hospital.  Things needed to be signed, people told.... and it was getting hard on Jo.

I took so many pictures, I was printing them at Walgreen's and creating little albums for them all.  Eric and I were taking care of JJ, discovering new places to eat, getting back to our hotel to still ready ourselves for Christmas.