Hannah's birthday party

My girl is 2 years old. I just can't believe it.

We had her birthday party on December 21. We were so happy so many people came to help celebrate our special girl. She had so much fun. :)

Here she is opening up her presents:







Here she is eating with her cousins. It was a Spongebob-themed birthday party. I had special-themed food items. I really used my imagination or tried to :) It was fun.



Her Spongebob cake. :) We had her get dressed down to her birthday suit to have some cake. :)

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Here she is riding her new pedal tractor she got from her Grandma and Papa for her birthday. I have to talk to her about her drinking and driving.

Hannah is 2!

My dearest Hannah Banana,

I can't believe you're 2, baby. People say time just flies but it really does seem like we just took you home and yet here you are turning 2.

I'm in awe of how much you've grown in the last year. You're talking so much now and we can carry on conversations which is amazing to me.

I'm so very proud of you baby girl. I'm told by so many people how polite you are, how you always say "thank you". How you're always so happy and smiling all the time. It makes me so proud.

I love the way your face lights up when I walk into a room and you say "Mommy!". I love when you run up to me, arms open wide, saying "Mommy!" and give me the biggest hug. I love how when you're tired and almost sleeping, you reach over to give me the biggest kiss ever before going to sleep.

I've never felt love like I have with you.

I've watched the glow in your eyes when you're with your daddy, your cousins, grandma and Papa and Claire and Grant. You love them so much and they love you so much. You've brought so much joy to so many people.

I love watching you clog and dance and the way you insist on both Mommy and Daddy clogging with you. You're a ball of energy.

Most of all I love your snuggles. I love the way when you get tired all you want is to snuggle with me. No matter how busy I am or what I'm doing, I make the time to snuggle with you no matter what. Every night and nap, we go to sleep together watching Dora. Those moments are so precious to me, Hannah, and I hope they are precious to you, too. I don't care how much I have to do or how messy the house is, those moments mean more to me than anything because I know one day you may not want to snuggle with me or you won't need me. So I cherish the times you need me now.

I love the way you come running to me when you're hurt and want me to kiss your owie. Mommy's kiss makes everything better. I only wish you didn't have to cry tears at all but wiping your tears and knowing I'm there for you and make you feel better makes me feel so wonderful.

You're my angel, baby. You're my whole life. You've made Daddy and I so amazingly happy. Your smiles and love make every day perfect. Even your busyness and constant go-go-go is amazing....exhausting, but amazing.

I hope you never outgrow the need for Mommy. I know you probably will but I cherish this time so much. Every time you say "Mommy!" and reach out your arms, my heart melts. I feel like the luckiest mom in the world.

And I am.

I love you sweet Hannah Banana. I look forward to so many more sweet birthdays with you.

Happy 2nd birthday, baby girl.

With all my heart,
Mommy

Christmas pics

Here are a couple of my favorite Christmas pictures I've taken so far this year:


This is Hannah and her grandpa at our church's Candelight service last Sunday night. It's my favorite service of the whole year.


This is Hannah playing with the lights when we were decorating the tree.

Precious and priceless memories.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!!

Where have I been?

Let me just say that being a mom, a caregiver and working a full-time job just doesn't leave much time for anything else.

I wanted to give an update though.

Mark has had a rough time of it lately. He caught a virus and it's really affected him for the last couple months. On Thanksgiving morning, he woke up and his eyes were matted shut. He had a case of pinkeye in both eyes. He ended up staying home sick on Thanksgiving while Hannah and I went to my parents' house for dinner. He finally just got out of the house this weekend and started feeling better.

Hannah has been a very busy girl. She also spent some time sick but for the most part she's just a busy almost 2-year-old. Need I say more? :)

I've been busy working, being a mom and being a caregiver to Mark. It doesn't leave much time for anything else. My house constantly looks like a hurricaine hit it. I keep telling myself in a few years I just *might* get around to dusting and vacuuming. Urgh...I don't know how moms do it. It's so hard to keep up.

Other than Mark being sick, we had a good Thanksgiving. :) We have so much to be thankful for.

And then we had our annual sleepover with the kids at our house on Thanksgiving night and then went Black Friday shopping the next day. It's always a highlight of the year for me. I just love it. It's a lot of work with all the kids but lots of memories are made and that's always so much fun.

Hannah will be 2 on December 20---can you believe it? I've been busy trying to get ready for Christmas and a birthday party. I want to always make sure Hannah gets a wonderful party even though it's so close to Christmas. But having a child with a birthday right next to Christmas gets a little much---but worth it. :)

That's about all that's happening in our neck of the woods. I wish I had more time to blog, sleep and just relax but I don't think that will be happening for awhile. One day....one day. :)

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and have a wonderful Christmas. :)

Two years ago today

It was two years ago today that we received the email that changed our lives forever.

Hannah's birthmother chose us to be Hannah's parents.

I'll never forget it. I had just been at gymnastics practice and came home and checked my email. I had a message from an agency saying "L just picked you guys. Here is the contact info you need."

I remember sitting at the computer just staring. I was so confused.

That morning we had submitted our profile to a situation in which the birthmother was due the next day. We didn't know her name or anything as it was happening so fast. The only other situation I thought it could be was "L" we had asked not to have our profile submitted to because it was $10,000 over budget.

My first thought was we were chosen for the situation we had just submitted our profile to and they just happened to have the same first name.

I told Mark about the coincidence and we both decided to call our consultant to see what she thought about it. I read the email to her and immediately she said "Congratulations, Tammy! It sounds like you guys just matched!"

Then I explained about the "L" situation we had asked not to have our profile submitted to and explained the situation we had just submitted to that morning. She agreed that it would be a wierd situation if they were the same name.

So, I started making phone calls, and emailing....and phone calls...and emailing. I didn't know what was going on. This was at 6 p.m. at night so trying to find someone around wasn't too easy.

I finally did get a hold of someone in the agency and told her my name and explained the email. She was excited to tell me that we were chosen. When I asked her if this was the one due the next day she said, "Uh, no. She isn't due until December 27".

At that point my heart sank. I knew it was the situation we had asked not to submit our profile to. At this time I thought for sure they were going to take our baby away because there was an error. Never in my life would I have thought we wouldn't say yes. I just figured someone would say we couldn't say yes now.

I explained it all and said there had to be a mistake. I started crying. She felt awful about the mistake and then asked we were still interested. I said of course we were if it was still okay. She immediately said yes and that it was our decision. She said she'd email over the birthmother's history, family history, etc. and we could decide and let her know the next day.

Honestly, the minute she said we could still have the baby, there was NO WAY I was going to say no. That was our daughter.

The next 4 weeks were very interesting. Not only were we caught in a battle with the agency (which I won't get into here) because of the error, we also had to come up with $10,000.

I thought there was no way it would happen but I knew there was a reason our profile was submitted in error and this baby girl was our daughter.

I often think back to that time. What if our profile wouldn't have been submitted in error? What if we would've said no for the third time? What if our family and friends wouldn't have come together and gave so generously so we were able to raise $10,000? (Through a fundraiser we raised $9500 and then had a friend offer her house in the city Hannah was born, saving us more money--almost the exact $10,000 we needed--cool, huh? :))

The answer to those questions is always the same: It was never in our control.

God was the one who decided the profile would be submitted.
God had us say yes the third time, not no.
God raised the $10,000 and opened the hearts of so many people.

It was always in His control and not ours. Hannah was meant to be our daughter, always was and always will.

We had to cross so many hurdles to bring her home and yet here she is today with us.

A journey that started 2 years ago today.

We are blessed.

Halloween 2013

Last year on Halloween our poor little Hannah was sick. We only went to 2 places & she threw up at both places. 

So this year we were really hoping to just not have her throw up. She had just been diagnosed with an ear infection a week ago so we were hoping she was better. 

And she was. :) 

We went to her babysitters house. Then we went to her aunt & uncle's & went trick or treating in their neighborhood just a bit. Then Mark was really sick so we went home. Hannah & I went to a couple neighbors. 

She loved it. It was fun this year as she was running to houses with her bucket & watching all the kids. 

I've waited years for this & it was fun to watch.   

Hannah & Mommy. Love this picture. 

Hannah is such a ham

Love this picture too. So dear to my heart

Hannah and her daddy

One of my greatest joys as Hannah's mom has been watching the bond between her and her daddy grow.

She has turned into quite the daddy's girl. When she eats, she only wants Daddy to sit down at her table and eat with her, not Mommy. I try my hardest to do it but she won't let me.

Someone warned me that she would be a mommy's girl until she was about 2 when things will switch and she'll be a daddy's girl. I was hoping they would be wrong but nope. :) She still wants me. You know, for the diaper changes and middle of the night stuff, and when she's sick....you know, all the "not so pleasant" stuff. :) But in all honesty, she's a daddy's girl.

It sure makes me smile.

And I couldn't ask for a better daddy than Mark. It's true he can't do a whole lot of things a "normal" dad can but what he does do, he gives 100%. He can be having severe nerve pain in his feet and yet he'll still let Hannah bounce on them and jump on them.

And when he's having pain or has fallen and Hannah is scared, the first thing he says is "Don't worry, sweetie! Daddy's here and Daddy's okay!". That little girl is his main priority always.

I'm so happy she has a dad who loves her as much as he does and does so much for her.

Eating at Hannah's table.

Bouncing on Daddy

Hannah 22 months

In the last 2 months, I think I've seen more changes in her vocabulary than ever before. This age is so much fun. It's amazing the things that come out of her mouth and the things she learns. :)

Last month, she started saying "See you!" when she said bye to people. She started saying "blankie" for blanket, saying "up" and "down" to get people to sit down or stand up, saying "draw" to draw. I know there are more as it seems like there is something new every day.

She will sit and watch Spongebob or Dora for about 15 minutes now and her attention span is getting longer. While she still loves Spongebob, she's getting more into Dora and will watch other shows too and not just Spongebob.

In this past month, she started finally calling Mark Daddy. For the longest time, everyone has been Mommy, except her Papa who she has always called Papa. :) Mark was pretty excited when she officially started saying Daddy all the time now. Just in the past couple weeks she started saying her name ("Nana") and started calling her grandma "Ga-ma".

She is always thinking of others and always melts my heart. If she wants to lay down with pillow and blankie, she always has to ask me to get a "bow" (pillow) and a blankie for Mommy too. It's so sweet. She always thinks of others and she makes me so proud.

She gives amazing hugs and kisses. Sometimes if she wants something, I'll tell her she has to give hugs and kisses and she sure does. :) And of course I give in...anything for a hug and a kiss.

She's so polite. With everything she says "thank you!". I still have to remind her to say "please" but I know that will come in time. I'm so proud that she says "thank you" so much and a lot of times even when older kids don't say it. One thing we've all learned is that you have to say "you're welcome!" or she will continue to say "thank you!" until you do. :)

Any insect that flies is a "bee", even if it's just a fly. This turned out to be a not so good thing. When we were sitting in a restaurant, a fly came flying over her and she immediately said "Bee!". The girl sitting behind us started immediately freaking out, yelling, "Where's the bee? Where's the bee?". Everyone was staring at us as I'm trying to calm this poor little girl and trying to explain to her that there was indeed no bee and just a fly. Quite the embarrassing moment and I know there will be plenty more of those.

She started clogging and we got the CD and DVD with her songs on it and it is so much fun to see her clogging to it. She just loves clogging! It's hard to believe she's old enough to be in a class like that and yet there she is. :) She's had 1 clogging show and she just stood there and let everyone look at her and see how cute she is, not doing any of her routines. I know she'll get better in time. She was cute. Pictures will come soon if blogger will let me publish them.

Hannah, every month and really every day you continue to amaze me. You bring so much joy, smiles and laughter to this house. You are such an amazing, beautiful, thoughtful girl and I couldn't be more proud to be your mommy. Thank you for being the sweet girl you are. I love you so much!




As you can see she's getting less and less cooperative with these monthly pictures and is starting to get an attitude about having them done. :)

Hannah and her big brother, Chad

I'm having a serious issue with blogger. Maybe it's just me but it's not letting me load up all the pictures I want. It seems to not like certain pictures even though they were all taken the same way and at the same time.

Not sure what it is but having a serious hate relationship with blogger right now. :(

Recently Hannah's big brother, Chad, came home to visit. He lives in North Dakota and is about 8 hours away. We don't get to see him very often. :( It doesn't sound like he'll be home for Christmas or Thanksgiving either.

He was recently home and stopped in to see us. Hannah warmed up to him right away. Chad even colored with her (which of course I have a picture of but won't download :(). Hannah cried so hard when he walked out the door. It was so sweet. She sure loves her big brother.

Here she is with Chad. I wish he lived closer but grateful for the times we do get to see him.

Hannah's first Wisconsin Badgers game and clogging

I am so far behind on blogging things I really want to blog about.

The first one is Hannah's first Wisconsin Badgers game back on Labor day weekend.

Yes, Labor Day weekend.

This was actually our first game ever for Mark, me and Hannah. My brother has season tickets and I've always wanted to go. We were so excited to be able to go.

Hannah did wonderful considering how hot it was and that we forgot her milk...and this girl LOVES her milk. And there wasn't anywhere in the whole stadium that sold milk. Really? A Wisconsin Badgers game with no milk?

Here she is with Daddy at the game:



Then starting in September we enrolled her in the Tiny Tots class in clogging. Her babysitters are in clogging and Hannah has loved seeing them do it and has enjoyed doing it herself. So we enrolled her in it.

Here she is in her first class:




Here she is stretching with her babysitters. It was so much fun to watch her.

More catchup soon! :)

Happy fall!

Love this smile!

In my daughter's eyes

Wow...I can't believe it's been so long since I blogged. I think this is the longest I've ever gone.

I really don't have much of an excuse other than I've been busy working full-time, being a mother to a very busy toddler and being a wife to a husband who has been sick and been in the ER on top of both Hannah and I being sick.

Okay, so maybe I have a bit of an excuse.

Hannah is really growing up. I can't believe how much she has changed just in the last few weeks. Her pediatrician has said she's not 1 going on 2, it's like she's 2 going on 3. She's quite the independent, strong-willed little girl.

I've been thinking so much about her lately. I definitely have had my moments when I get so overwhelmed with everything. Sometimes I find it a success if I make it through a whole day. Sometimes I just go into survivor mode and call it good. There are times I have no idea how I'm going to survive taking care of a little girl and a sick husband. It's so much more than I can bear.

When Hannah first came into our lives, my friend introduced a song to me that she said reminded her of me. When I first listened to it I was immediately in tears. It fit so well. Since then, I listen to it all the time and every time it brings me to tears...every single time.

Because I know Hannah is a special girl sent from God to rescue me. There are times I get so overwhelmed, so stressed, so sad...and then I have my girl come up to me, arms open wide, gives me a hug and I know my life couldn't be better.

I don't know where I would be without her. She makes life so tough sometimes and yet I don't know what I would do without her. My life would be so focused on Mark and his aliments and if I lost him, I'd be alone. With Hannah, I know I'll never be alone. She was sent to rescue me, to help me get through the tough times.

My little girl, my hero.

Here are the lyrics to the song. The song that has touched my heart in so many ways.


"In My Daughter's Eyes"


In my daughter's eyes I am a hero
I am strong and wise and I know no fear
But the truth is plain to see
She was sent to rescue me
I see who I wanna be
In my daughter's eyes

In my daughter's eyes everyone is equal
Darkness turns to light and the
world is at peace
This miracle God gave to me gives me
strength when I am weak
I find reason to believe
In my daughter's eyes

And when she wraps her hand
around my finger
Oh it puts a smile in my heart
Everything becomes a little clearer
I realize what life is all about

It's hangin' on when your heart
has had enough
It's giving more when you feel like giving up
I've seen the light
It's in my daugter's eyes

In my daughter's eyes I can see the future
A reflection of who I am and what will be
Though she'll grow and someday leave
Maybe raise a family
When I'm gone I hope you see how happy
she made me
For I'll be there
In my daughter's eyes

Random pics with my girl

Sometimes random pics are the best. 

Meeting up with a blogger friend

I love meeting up with blogger friends. It's always nice to put a face to the people you've read about for years.

I was so forunate to not only meet Megan once, but twice. :)

In 2009, we traveled to Michigan for an embryo transfer. Megan and her family traveled 3 hours to meet us. It was so wonderful to finally meet them. We had been talking through the internet for a few years by then. She had a son who was just a few months old.

This summer I was so excited when she told me they were going to be in our neck of the woods for a week! We'd be able to see each other again! So much had happened since we saw each other. We had our Hannah and she had her little girl. They are only a few months apart.

We stayed at a hotel near their farmhouse they rented for a night so we could spend a couple days with them.

Hannah swimming

Hannah helping Daddy back to the room

While we were waiting for Megan and her family, we had some time to kill so we went to a nearby park. Hannah wanted Daddy to swing with her. :)

Here is Megan and I with our miracle girls.

I loved seeing Megan and her family so much. I miss them terribly. I really wished they lived closer. I'm so glad we were able to see each other again.

Hannah's different upbringing

When we were going through the home study in preparation to adopt, I remember our social worker bringing quite a few times how hard it was going to be with raising a baby and Mark's health issues. She talked to me privately about it, too. I ensured her I truly understood and although I knew it would be tough, I had a lot of support and I felt I would be okay.

Looking back, I feel guilty as a mom that I didn't realize how hard it was going to be on Hannah.

It wasn't for the first year. I don't think she understood. But it really hit me shortly after her first birthday when I had to take her dad into the ER for chest pain. I watched her struggling so hard to get to her daddy when he was in the bed. I watched her try so hard to give him Goldfish crackers when they were trying to poke him and get blood. She didn't want me. She only wanted her daddy.

He was only in the hospital overnight so they could rule out a heart attack. For the next couple days when he was home she only wanted Daddy and she snuggled with him.

It really hit me then that she would have a different upbringing.

She's watched her dad in many situations including low sugar reactions, falling, screaming in pain, etc.

She's also helped Mommy feed Daddy sherbet to get his sugar back up, screamed in horror when her daddy falls, and rubbed his shoulder and gave him kisses while he's screaming in pain.

I've had many conversations with her pediatrician, a child therapist and also a sleep specialist on the best way to handle it. I admit, I wasn't prepared. The whole time I was thinking about how hard it would be on me. I never realized it would be so hard on Hannah so early. Sure, I knew as time went on it would be hard but never realized how much she would catch on at such an early age.

They've all told me I'm doing the right thing and raising her right. I don't hide anything from her. As far as I know, she knows her daddy is sick. She knows he has good days and bad days. What breaks my heart is how much it has affected her. When Mark isn't doing well or having a few bad days, often she'll have nightmares and is up every couple hours. She is more snuggly and wants to be held more. She seems more afraid.

All this is completely normal for her with everything she's going through according to what I've been told. I reassure her everything is okay, we love her very much and we're always there for her.

It doesn't make me feel much better though. As a mom, you never want to see your children hurting.

What breaks my heart the most is that she doesn't have a "normal" upbringing. She doesn't have a healthy mom and dad. She's witnessed more in her little life than a lot of even our families. Oh, how I wish she didn't have to be so "different".

But one thing she will always know is how much her daddy does for her. He may not be able to do everything a "normal" dad can, but he gives 100%. He's always there for her no matter what. She may have a different upbringing but she is loved more than she could ever imagine. We give our heart and soul and do whatever we can to make her life as happy and stress-free as possible.

No matter what I think I'll always feel guilty and sorry for her, wishing things were different.

But when I see that smile and hugs and kisses she gives me and her dad, I know she's not only going to be okay, she'll grow up a loving, happy, compassionate girl and I couldn't be more proud.

Pictures with last post

For some reason blogger isn't letting me post pics with the post. :( Here are the pics that were supposed to go with the last post.

Here is Hannah helping me clean up her pee-pee. :)

Here is Hannah at one of my mom and dad's toy shows in their trailer pointing out all the tractors.

20 months

20 months

Hi everyone!!

Once again, Mommy has been super busy so she has asked me to update her blog with what I've been dong the last couple months.

I have to say I am a busy girl. It's really hard for Mommy and Daddy to keep up with me.

I love running. We have a big backyard and Mommy and I will sometimes just run out there in circles. I love it so much and I think Mommy can tell that by the huge smile on my face. What's really fun is when she brings our puppy with us out here. It's so much fun to chase the puppy.

I also love bunnies. My cousin has a few bunnies at my Grandma and Papa's farm. I always have to go out and see them when I go to their farm.

Speaking of Papa, he's my buddy. I really look up to him and love spending time with him. I know he works in fields and drives tractors so whenever I see a tractor or field I immediately think we're going to see Papa and I start saying "Papa!".

I can say tractor now and I point and get excited when I see one. It might get a bit annoying when I'm at one of my Grandma and Papa's toy shows with their trailer where there are a lot of tractors. All I do is point and say "Tractor!" to everyone. I'm trying to increase their sales by pointing them out to customers so they can buy them.

What's kinda funny is I call everyone Mommy, even my daddy. I know my daddy is daddy but to me, Mommy is a safe person I feel safe with and I can go to so everyone I love is "Mommy". Maybe when I go to college I'll stop calling my daddy Mommy but we'll see.

I still love watching Spongebob. It's what I watch with Mommy before falling asleep at night. Give me my sippy, blankie, Spongebob and Mommy and I'm ready for night-night.

Another new thing I'm doing is starting to recognize when I go pee-pee. I'll sometimes sit on my potty when Mommy sits on her big potty. I've never gone pee-pee on it but I sit on it. Sometimes when I go pee-pee, I pull on my diaper to try to get it off. I love naked time after my bath but sometimes I'm naked too long and go pee-pee. I know it's an uh-oh. I'm a good girl though and I go up to Mommy and say "Uh-oh!" and run to where the cleaning supplies are. Mommy has it locked so I can't get in there but when she gets it out, she lets me help her wipe up my pee-pee.

I've learned to say "Thank you!" on my own. I can tell it really makes my mommy and daddy so proud. When people give me things I usually always say thank you. I've also learn to blow kisses and pray. I'm still learning to keep my eyes shut while I pray but I know I'll get there.

As far as sleeping, I don't really like to talk about it to be honest. I'm not too bad though. I'm usually only up 2-3 times in a night and it's usually because I just miss Mommy.

That's pretty much my last 2 months in a nutshell. I'm learning more and more and talking more. Life is going by pretty fast for us.

Until we talk again, I hope you all have fun and enjoy the sunshine and all your toys. Toys sure are fun.

Love,

Hannah

P.S. I'm having trouble uploading the pictures I wanted to with this post. I'm so sorry! I'll have Mommy work on that for another post.

Me & my girl

More random cuteness

I was cleaning out our cooler and had turned to the sink to wash the cover. When I turned back around I saw this. :)

I think I take too many pictures of Hannah with my phone. I caught her taking her phone, putting it to her face and saying "Cheese!"

One of my favorite pictures of Mark and Hannah ever. This is Hannah and Daddy praying before "dinner"

She just loves her puppy :)

Hannah will be doing a guest post in the next couple days. :)

Random cuteness

Hannah's pouty face

After her bath

Getting her teeth brushed. She hates it so bad. Somehow she thinks closing her eyes & putting her hands on her face makes it so Mommy won't brush her teeth. 

Not one of her happier moments. 

Hannah's first pigtails. They lasted about 30 seconds before she ripped then out. 

Sitting on her new potty--chilling & talking on the phone 

Hannah with her cousin, Peyton

Giving Daddy a kiss

Our County fair

This was Hannah's second year at our County fair although last year she was only 7 months old and obviously wasn't able to enjoy it. Plus I had thrown my back out so I wasn't there much at all either.

But this year she had so much fun. :)

My nephew brought a bunny to show at the fair for the first time. Hannah loved the bunny. Her new love is bunnies. It is so cute. She would wake up every morning of the fair wanting to go see the bunnies. Even now she occasionally will wake up wanting to go see the bunnies.

No, we have no plans of getting any bunnies in the near future. :)

Here are some pictures of her at the fair:



On the merry-go-round


Seeing the bunnies. Here she is saying "Bunny!"


Petting a bunny


The cutest bunny at the fair

Why I have a garage sale

We have a garage sale every year the end of July. We live near our County fair so we have one that weekend. We’ve done it for about 10 years now.


I get questioned why we have one. It’s so much work for the little money you make. It can’t be worth it.

It is a lot of work for the money we make. But, the worth? Well, the sales have brought me my daughter so to me it’s worth everything.

When we first started doing the sales, we were raising money for infertility treatments. That lasted for years until we started raising money for adoption. Now we still owe about $30,000 in Hannah’s adoption loan so the money we raise from the sales goes towards that.

Had we not done the sales every year we wouldn’t have had the funds to do the infertility treatments and certainly not the adoption. In a sense the sales brought our daughter home.

So, yes, it is definitely worth it.

Not only that, we get people who come every year. Some of whom know what we have done the sales for and know our story. Two years ago in 2011 we did a huge sale. We called it the Wondra Adoption Event where we had a ton of stuff including a bake sale and lots of people donated items to sell at the sale and also extra funds for our adoption. That December our Hannah was born. The next year in 2012 when I advertised the sale, I included in the ad “Come meet our daughter you helped bring home last year”. I can’t tell you how many people came just to meet Hannah. I got so many hugs from people I didn’t even know that year and so many people were so happy for us. People told us they were wondering how it was going and were praying for us. People we had never even met but just happened to start coming to a garage sale.

Yep, definitely worth it.

I’ve once been criticized that family time is more important than “nickels and dimes”. Well, like I said those “nickels and dimes” brought us our daughter. We’ve spent over $115,000 between infertility treatments and adoption to bring Hannah home. There are a lot of people who don’t have to spend a dime to conceive a child but we certainly weren’t one of them. Had we not struggled with infertility, our house would be paid off, our car would be paid off and Hannah would have a nice college fund all set up. We’d be set.

As it turns out, that’s not the way God planned it. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me at all…it does. But, when I look at the big picture, I wouldn’t trade the friends and support we’ve had through the years for anything in the world. If this is the struggle God chose us to have, we’re pretty fortunate.

And I have to mention that setting up for the garage sale, Hannah has been with me every time she was home. Granted she wasn’t much help and most of the time I spent cleaning up the pile of clothes she decided looked better on the floor than the table. But she was right by my side. I just took advantage of the days she was with my mom to really do the hard, fast work to get ready. I didn’t burn the midnight oil and work on it when Hannah was asleep. Our routine is that at night I lie down and snuggle with her when she goes to sleep and she never goes to sleep without me. No matter how much work I had to do and how stressed I was, I never gave up that time and never left her even when she was asleep.

Hannah ALWAYS comes first. My family time ALWAYS comes first.

And during the garage sale, Hannah was right there by my side. She was our little greeter and loved being outside playing with us. With the exception of naptime when she snuggled with her daddy, she was by me the whole time.

Every time I put a sticker on something or priced something, I thought of our journey. I thought of Hannah. I thought of all the people who have supported us. All the people who have donated stuff for the sale to help with our adoption costs. Every article of clothing I put out, I thought of Hannah. I want us to get caught up with our loan so I can start saving up more for her college and these garage sales help with that.

I do it for her. Everything is for her.

Hannah is the reason I do the sales every year and it’s worth every, single second.