Oh My! That's My Girl!!!

Recently I received a gift beyond measure!  A picture of Hannah taken 5 weeks before I met her while she was still living in DaoXian SWI!!!  That's my sweet baby girl on the left!

As you can imagine, seeing this picture immediately turned me into a puddle of mush and the tears flowed! 

This picture was a gift for so many reasons!

• It was unexpected that 3 1/2 years after we became a family I would ever receive another picture of the time in Hannah's life before we became a family
• There are 2 other babies in the picture.  I wonder who the sweet baby girl on the right is?  Were they friends?  Were their cribs next to one another?  Where does she live now?  Has she found her own forever family?  I was blessed to receive 2 cameras of pictures when I met Hannah but all of those pictures are of her alone.  What a blessing to see another baby with her!!
• I love that the picture shows the cribs tucked together next to one another.  Hannah loves to sleep touching me and it warms my heart to think that she had the opportunity to reach out and touch another in her sleep
• The SWI is so clean.  
• I can't see what she's wearing but based on the layers on the other sweet baby I can only imagine that my precious Hannah was bundled warmly too.  Also, all the blankets in the cribs helps me believe that she was warm as she slept at night.

I will say that earlier in the day before I received the picture above I was reading the blog of a fellow mom whose DD was also in DaoXian at the same time Hannah was there and I originally thought I might see Hannah in one of her pictures.  It was difficult when I realized it wasn't her but it was a blessing in that it led me to contact this mom and she in turn sent me the picture above of Hannah!! I don't think any adoptive mom ever stops scouring the web for glimpses of their baby before they met them and pieces of the puzzle that we can fill in for them.

This is the original picture I saw on her blog.

While it is not my sweet XiaoFen in the background, it is her nanny (to have a picture of her is a gift in itself) and in the forefront is her friend Emma who was adopted by friends in our travel group.  Hannah and Emma are still friends now and it's a gift to receive these pictures of them when they were together in DaoXian! 

This is a picture Hannah and Emma taken recently

I cannot express to you what that one picture did to my heart.  Is was such a blessing and I will be forever grateful for it!!!

As my Grandma says, 'Each new day holds some lovely secret just waiting to unfold.'  What an amazing secret and blessing the picture was!  God is so good!!!

A Treasured Book of Memories

A couple of months ago Polar Mama shared a website that turns blogs into books.  This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time so took a peek at the website she recommended.  The site is Blog2Print and with their help I was easily able to turn our 2010 blog into a book!  

It was fast and easy to do and with a couple of hours of tweaking it was ready to go.  I use this blog to capture much of our day to day life so being able to capture it in printed form is a gift that will keep on giving.

Each book comes with a dedication page

and the ability to download any/all of your blog posts.  I chose to have this book contain all posts from Jan 1 to Dec 31, 2010.  I’ll make another one of these books for 2011 early next year.

I am thrilled with the finished product and it is a treasure that Hannah and I will enjoy for years to come.  It is 340 pages of fun, love, growth and precious, precious memories!!