One year together

So, Todd, Riza and I met Yuly one year ago! As most parents will tell you, in some ways it seems hard to believe that it has already been a year, and in other ways, it seems as if we have been a family for a long time. I attribute that second feeling to God placing the perfect daughter into our home. I can't even begin to describe all of the ways that Yuly is a wonderfully matched in our home.

Here is how we looked one year ago, and how we look now...(see any differences?)






The week leading up to the date was a little rough and some return to some behaviors we hadn't seen in six months. (Although much, much less extreme). That being said, our actual celebration day was great.

We started the day with watching Yuly play Upward Basketball. She has loved this experience and she skips around the court with a huge grin on her face. Afterwards she got to pick where we went to eat. At first she was leaning toward Piggy's, a local BBQ place, but eventually opted for the Colombian restaurant. Grandma Ann and Grandpa Jim were able to be part of the celebration, so that was special. Yuly ordered arepas with eggs (which, interestingly, is what she also had for breakfast at home). However, she also ate off of all of our plates, too. When we got home we had a gift for her--a Bitty Baby. My other three girls have one, and we wanted Yuly to have her own. She was surprised and happy.

It was a great celebration. The following weekend, we celebrated another way. We invited families to come eat at Colombian food at our home. We collected money, new underwear and new shoes for Children's Vision orphanage in Bogotá. Yuly was so funny when I first told her about this. She asked if there were kids without families. When I reminded her that she was (at one time) one of those kids, she then asked why would we want to help them. That was several weeks before the event. The day of the event, she was so excited. Our whole family, including grandparents, pitched in to cook, clean, and serve. Yuly and Riza took orders for drinks and desserts (thanks to Audrey's ingenious order pad).






It was really fun to serve together. In case you are curious, we collected $225, 15 pairs of shoes, and 15 packages of underwear. We served salad, Colombian chicken and rice, rice pudding, and coconut banana cake. We had about 45 people come eat at our home. At the end of the day, we celebrated by going to get ice cream! Yum!