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We're Home
February 1, 2010
| June 9, 2010
| March 30,
2011
Wednesday,
March 30th, 2011
LIFE IS GOOD!!!
Next month, Mia will have been with us half of her life! Woohoo!
I know I have said it before, but I will say it again…in some
ways, I can’t believe it has only been 15 months since we have
had her and in other ways it seems like we have had her forever!
I know everyone says you will get the child meant for your
family and I have to say it is so true!!! Mia is smart,
adorable, determined, funny, and loves to tease. Hmmm…wonder
where she gets that from? She has totally found her place in our
family.
We have been so busy since our last update! I have so much to
catch everyone up on! First, we had a wonderful summer. Mia
loves to swim and is quite a little fish. She was in her aunt
Kate’s wedding this summer and did as well as can be expected
for a child under 2 in a wedding :). We also took our first
family trip and went to Niagara Falls for a few days. We had a
nice time just spending time together.
Also, Mia turned 2 in August. We had a small celebration with
just the 5 of us. We went out to eat at a place she loves called
The Journey. Ok, we love it too and then she opened presents at
our house. Mia didn’t know what to do with the presents. We had
to show her how to open them, she was so cute and appreciative
for everything she received. She loved wearing her birthday
princess tutu from her Gogo (grandma).
Mia loved Halloween! She was a ladybug. An adorable one I might
add. She loved going house to house to get candy. The problem
was she wanted to sit on each house’s porch steps and then eat
the piece of candy that she just received. As you can imagine,
this wasn’t a good idea for a couple of reasons. First, it was
slowing down her 10 year old sister that had plans of really
raking in the loot this year and second, she was probably going
to end up sicker than a dog if I allowed this. So I had to be
firm and put my foot down which then led to multiple tantrums
throughout the neighborhood… Hmmm…can we say fun times? Did I
tell you she looked adorable before we left for the night??? Oh,
but she did do an excellent job using her manners with people
giving out candy…I heard a lot of please and thank you’s!
Mia also started the fall with a new sense of independence. She
will finally go to childcare so I can workout! In fact, not only
will she just go, she likes it! We are still balancing her
childcare for workdays between Nathan and I. One of her grandmas
will watch her on Fridays.
On to Christmas, we had a wonderful Christmas! Mia loved the
Christmas tree and did an excellent job not destroying it. She
was really sad when it was time for the Christmas tree to come
down and continues to ask “when will the Christmas tree come
back.” I am really kicking myself though because we do not have
any pictures of her from Christmas morning. I know it is
terrible! I held her while she opened her presents and her dad
videotaped…we didn’t think to get a picture.
Mia started off the New Year deciding that diapers where for
babies and decided to potty train herself. Really, she has been
my easiest child to potty train. I was planning on waiting until
spring or even this coming summer when it warmed up a bit to
potty train her, but she had other plans. She found some Elmo
panties in her drawer and decided that was it, she was going to
wear those instead of diapers. I hope she uses that same
determination with her grades when she gets to school :).
We just returned home from a cruise to the Bahamas. It was so
fun to watch Mia experience the ship, ocean, and sand. She loved
the aquarium too. She keeps telling me she wants to go back next
week. I wish! I keep trying to explain to her we might be able
to go back next year, but we can’t next week. She has just
started grasping the concept of next week and she doesn’t
understand next year yet.
Mia has decided she is ready to go to school and we have
enrolled her in preschool for the fall. She will go two mornings
a week and I hope she loves it. She also has been hounding me
about “Mia’s cheer practice” in case you haven’t noticed she
wants to do everything Lexi does. Luckily, I have found a
tumbling program for her to start in May. It can’t come soon
enough, she has already asked me about it three times just
today!
Regarding Mia’s health…as you know she was on the shared list,
which is a special needs list. Her special need was cerebral
palsy. I know this special need can be a very scary special need
and all I can tell you is about my child. She had some weakness
on her left side when we received her and a lot of core
weakness. The back of her head was very flat. We don’t think she
had cerebral palsy, but maybe it was more of a developmental
delay. We can tell you that she has made remarkable progress.
She doesn’t qualify for physical therapy, occupational therapy,
or speech therapy. This girl is on target for everything after
being home 15 months. We tried to prepare ourselves for the
worse and had faith that God would not give us anything we
couldn’t handle. After being home and balancing 3 kids and 2
careers, I see why Mia’s health has been so good. It has been a
challenge just to manage everything and I honestly don’t know
how I could have handled even more responsibility. We have been
so blessed! We praise God for all the blessings he has given us!
I am super behind on my blog, but if you want to follow us, you
can find our blog
here. Starting next week, I
resolve to do a better job of maintaining it :)!
Thank you to all of you that have followed our journey, sent us
emails of support, and sent up prayers on our behalf as we
completed our family. International adoption is not for the weak
and is currently a long and difficult process. However, it is so
worth it! We are reminded of it everyday when we see her smile!
We wish all of those currently in the process the best!
The Hansons |
Stopping to smell the flowers at Kate's wedding
Mia turns 2 today!
Mia and her girls on the swing!
Mia and Lexi on Halloween
Feeling the sand under my feet and hands!
Mama's girl
The aquarium
Playing in the ocean with Daddy |
Life is good!
This is my home!
Mia at the Atlantis
Niagara Falls stop at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville
Website by
myadoptionwebsite.com
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