Happy 2nd Birthday Alealani!!

Today is Alea's 2nd Birthday. I can't believe it!! Time has flown by so incredibly quickly, that I feel I can't even keep up. We've had her home now for exactly 14mos and it feels just like yesterday that we were bringing her home.

Yesterday and today I have spent alot of time thinking about her birth-mother and praying for her. I have many questions and wonder what she is thinking on this day too. More than anything, I would love to tell her that Alea is loved and adored and is healthy and doing great. I want her to know how thankful I am for her sacrifice and that I will always be willing to talk with Alea about her. She gave Alea life and I will be forever grateful. There is a poem out there called Motherbridge of Love that speaks so much about how I feel. Click on the link to see a review of it and see some of the beautiful illustrations in it.

It hit me today that Alea's birthmom was most likely unable to even hold her for a minute due to her premature birth. That broke my heart for both of them. I can't even imagine what that day was like. I know a little of her story to formulate a birth story for Alea. Every year, I tell the boys the story of their birth, and today I was able to pull something together for her. The big difference was that I just cried as I told her. I'm sure that by the time she is able to understand, I'll be able to hold it together better, but oh man was it hard tonight.

We had a wonderful birthday party for her on Friday night with some friends and family and we had a blast. Alea is so in to Elmo and playing with her pretend kitchen these days. She received pretend food to go with her kitchen and we got her the Elmo live doll on an incredible clearance. She was screaming with delight and jumping up and down when we turned that Elmo on. It was hilarious!!!

She is such a delight to us and we can't imagine our lives without her. It truly seems like she has been here with us forever most of the time. At other times it seems like we just got her. I thank God every day for our little sweet sunshine. She's sassy and spirited and fun and loud and smart and funny and loving and so many millions of other little things that would take me forever to tell you. We just love her so much and could squeeze the stuffing out of her! I could eat her up!!

My friend Natalie took some wonderful pictures of Alea's party that she hasn't sent to me yet, but as soon as she does I'll post them here for you all to see. Until then, I'll post a few of my amateur snapshots:O)

Love to you all!
Jenn