"Everything to Me" by Mark Schultz

We love our's birthmom so very much because she gave him life!!

grab some tissues and watch this when you can
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhqJYOYcnAU


Here are the lyrics to this beautiful song:


I must have felt your tears
When they took me from your arms
I'm sure I must have heard you say goodbye
Lonely and afraid had you made a big mistake
Could an ocean even hold the tears you cried

But you had dreams for me
You wanted the best for me
And you made the only choice you could that night

[Chorus]
You gave life to me
A brand new world to see
Like playing baseball in the yard with dad at night
Mom reading Goodnight Moon
And praying in my room
So if you worry if your choice was right
You gave me up but you gave everything to me

And if I saw you on the street
Would you know that it was me
And would your eyes be blue or green like mine
Would we share a warm embrace
Would you know me in your heart
Or would you smile and let me walk on by
Knowing you had dreams for me
You wanted the best for me
And I hope that you'd be proud of who I am

[Chorus]
You gave life to me
A chance to find my dreams
And a chance to fall in love
You should have seen her shining face
On our wedding day
Oh is this the dream you had in mind
When you gave me up
You gave everything to me

And when I see you there
Watching from heaven's gates
Into your arms
I'm gonna run
And when you look in my eyes
You can see my whole life
See who I was
And who I've become

Adoption, The Emotional Roller

For those of you who have been here, you know the ups and downs that one faces when trying to adopt. You hear nothing for so long and then all of a sudden there are multiple possibilities and then..... POOF...... they are gone. It is so very frustrating to have the fate of your family in someone else's hands. Don't get me wrong, we know there are people out there who have been waiting to adopt for way longer than we have but, it doesn't make us hurt any less.

Someone said to me tonight that it will happen as soon as we stop waiting for it to happen. Geeze, I hope that's not true because then it will never happen. We are waiting for our adoption phone to ring. We are checking our adoption e-mail account. Adopting is something we think about everyday. We are not letting it consume our lives but it is a huge part of it.

For anyone who wants a child, who longs to have a baby to love and cherish unconditionally and whole heatedly, the waiting for your child is rough, regardless of how he/she comes to you, through birth or through adoption. We have been down both roads and neither one was smooth sailing but, we wouldn't change it for the world and we know we will feel the same when we hold our new baby in our arms.

We were blessed with Aidan.

And we were blessed once again with Tyler.

Easter - yes, I know it was 2 weeks ago :-)

We had a great time coloring eggs. Thankfully we did it a couple of days before Easter, just enough time for the dye to wear off.

We had Easter at our house this year. It was unbelievably hot, most of the kids changed out of their Easter outfits pretty quickly. The kids looked for the 120 eggs, don't know what I was thinking doing that many. I'm sure we'll still be finding some in the upcoming weeks, hope their not the ones with the chocolate.

here's to Pez, jelly beans & chocolate before  7:30 am - hey, it's once a year!

Aidan's take on being a baby...

Aidan was looking at his baby book, as he often does.
Aidan: "It was very hard being a baby"
Me: "Why?"
Aidan: "I had to grow a belly button, that was hard and coming our of a belly really hurt a lot"

boy, i almost forgot how hard it was being a baby

Ty started soccer

Finally, at 2 1/2 Tyler is old enough to play soccer. Today, probably one of the coldest days in April (brrrrrrr) Tyler had his first soccer practice and he LOVED IT!! He didn't want to stretch before practice, and who could blame him, he'd been up since 6:30 and did quite a bit of "stretching" already.

Tyler got a bit off track playing with Brian and Aidan

Birthmother Panel

Last night I had the pleasure of having dinner with a birthmom and then having her come and speak to our adoption group. "M" is an amazing woman. She was open and honest with us and we, as adoptive parents, appreciate that so much. I truly believe that speaking with birthfamilies  makes us not only better adoptive parents but better people in general. I am still in awe of the strength some people have, M is no exception. It has been some time since she placed her child and she still is confident that she did the right thing and I am so happy for her for that.
I was a bit surprised when I had mentioned that what she did for her child's adoptive parents, allowing them to be a part of the process, go to sonograms and be at the birth etc..., was such a gift to them. Birth families have the right to have the adoptive family involved as little or as much as they want. But, the adoptive family would probably never have had a chance to experience that aspect of pregnancy had it not been for M. I know that this was a gift because our son's birthmom allowed us to be part of her pregnancy as well and that was priceless for us. She did not have to but she chose to and we were so honored to have such a big role in her pregnancy.

To all birth families: we will not pretend to know what you have to go through or how you feel. But, what we want you to know is that because of you, and you alone, we are parents, we are a family and we are forever grateful for the sacrifice and selfless decision you have made.

It's been a while

We just got back from Disney earlier this week and it was awesome. We have always loved going but it was a different experience taking the boys. We weren't sure how Ty was going to react to the characters since he was scared of Elmo outside of a store handing out fliers one day (maybe it had something to do with the fact that Elmo's head was on crooked!). We had nothing to worry about, both of the boys were so excited it was better than we could have even imagined.

We only told them we were going the night before we left. Thank God because Aidan couldn't fall asleep, he was too excited and was up half the night.

Our second day there we spent 12 hours at The Magical Kingdom and the boys did not stop for a second. We took an obscene amount of pictures that I have to go through - should only take about 3 days! I'll post some soon.

Tyler's speech kicked into full gear on this trip and he talked the entire time!!! Wow - talk about the flood gates opening up.

Now that we are back I hope to be able to post more often. Hopefully with some much needed improvements. Although, one of the most amazing people I know has a blog that is just unreal. I don't know how she does it. I always wonder how many hours are in her day - lol. I will probably not reach the level she is at but I sure will try.

here are a few pics..

Ty is just a bit excited for the magic carpet ride.