I can't believe...

...that it's been a whole year since this picture was taken.

And these...

My baby girl turned 1 last week...how is that possible?
She was # 7...you'd think that after that many you'd be a little less awed by all the different baby stages, but I've found the opposite to be true. It's blink and you've missed it and I've learned to treasure and enjoy my babies a little more each time.

I will be honest and admit that when I first discovered I was pregnant with her I wondered how this was all going to work out.
We were in the middle of the adoption. Were we supposed to continue the process? Our dossier was ready to go and we anticipated bringing home the girls (our first referral) within months.
I get horribly sick the first 4 1/2 months and life as we know it pretty much comes to a standstill. I knew I wouldn't be able to travel and was wondering how we would manage once our children were home and I would be preparing for child-birth or recovering from it. It was hard to see how everything was going to work together.

I thought it was bad timing but God knew better.

What a comfort it ended up being knowing that we would soon be welcoming a new baby to our family when the referral of the girls fell through last August and we were grieving over the loss of them.
Our adoption ended up taking so much longer than we had ever thought it would and what a blessing it was to have this baby to love and hold while we waited. We rejoiced greatly when Mikayla was born!

From day one she has been smothered with love and attention from all her older siblings.
The boys fight every morning and try to beat each other on who gets her first. At night they sneak her into bed with them and I have to untangle her sweaty little body out from among them before I head to bed.
I'll put her in her swing or chair and look up 2 seconds later to find her gone.
I was surprised that Mikayla started walking last month...I can't believe that she actually had enough floor time to figure it out.

Another thing that was so amazing was how God led us to Kidus and Biruk through her.
We wouldn't have been open to adopting 2 boys if we hadn't had another girl since we really wanted at least one more female in the family and a sister for Bella.

Mikayla was about 4 months old I saw on our agency's yahoo group that they were needing to find a family right away for some paper-ready 2 1/2 yr old twin boys.
My heart jumped when I saw that, but at the same time I felt it was probably a long shot to ask Jerry about them since he, even more than I, had his heart set on little girls. Our homestudy and fingerprints for immigration were set to expire in a few months and I felt it would be a miracle if we could get through court before then.
I prayed about it and finally thought it wouldn't hurt to ask. If God meant for the boys to be ours then He would move my husband's heart... I would feel at peace with whatever decision Jerry made.
Jerry prayed about it long and hard and in the end said yes.
We were absolutely amazed when we had a court date by the next week.
We ended up not passing that date (or the next one, or the next one, or the next one etc...) but it was still confirming to receive a court date so quickly; God was sealing the deal before we had time to question what in the world we were doing.

Kidus and Biruk were meant to be ours and God still gave us our little girl too; we praise Him for all of them!

These were taken by Mikayla's older brothers...

I won't blame her if she beats them up someday.

Pretty baby

The Birthday party

Pizza nose

We moved the party into her sick brother' s bedroom so he wouldn't miss out.

Mmm...who knew something organic and gluten-free could be so good?
(yeah...mommy ate 4!)

Happy 1st birthday, my sweet little girl!