The last time I updated, I said that we probably wouldn’t learn our travel dates until the last minute. That is exactly what happened. We found out for sure that we could leave late in the day Thursday November 30. I spent all of Friday packing like a crazy person. On Saturday we dropped the kids off at my parents’ house, and we left first thing Sunday morning. Jonathan and Hallie came with us, and we had a great trip down.

They were such a funny pair!

We took two days to drive down to her home state, and finally got settled into our AirBnB on Monday evening. On Tuesday, we finally got to meet our new daughter. We are naming her Evie Amanda, and I will try to write a post later explaining our reason for that name. We spent Wednesday and Thursday at the BnB getting to know Evie and beginning the process of bonding and attaching. Then we drove back home on Friday and Saturday. The whole week feels like a whirlwind to us, and we can barely believe that it is over and she is now part of our family.

Her developmental delays are very significant and it will take us a while to figure out all of her complicated needs. But she is a beautiful, sweet, happy little girl, and we are crazy about her. The kids all fight over who gets to help take care of her, and the all try to make her smile as often as possible. Josiah told us he thinks she has the cutest little smile in the world.

She loves objects with soft texture, and she will chew on anything she can get her hands on.

She is a tiny seven-year-old. Victoria thinks it is awesome that they can share clothes, and she always wants me to dress them like “twins”

Things are busy here as we adjust to our new daughter, but we are very thankful for her.