My list.

The Holidays are over, and our 2 week "vacation" from school (for Matt and Hayden) ended with a round of yucky colds for Jack, Lucy and I. It's rainy. It's dark. I'm feeling ho-hum as I recover from my yucky cold.

So, I decided, to give an update in the form of things I'm thankful for right now.

1. Lucy is finally giving us affectionate kisses. It still melts my heart every time I ask for a kiss and she grins and leans in to offer her little lips. That one took about 6 months to get to! I have tears in my eyes now as I type it. We are a kissing kind of family. We kiss our kiddos alot and tell them how much we love them, and they reciprocate. We are just affectionate. I wasn't sure if we just had a non-affectionate kid on our hands, or if we just had to wait it out. For months, we'd ask, and she'd offer her cheek or forehead. IT'S A BREAKTHROUGH, PEOPLE! She IS a kisser!!

2. She's walking! I am terrible, and I don't even have a picture of it. My flip video camera is a peice of @$@#* broken at the moment. But our girls is walking more than crawling, officially. I'm thrilled that she's walking (at 17 months) and I'm so thankful though that we had lots of non walking time with her. It helped feel like we didn't miss quite so much before she was here with us.

3. Lucy has officially been with us for 7 months!! I can't even believe it. She has now been a part of our family longer than the time she was without a family. For some reason, that is a milestone to many of us adoptive parents. I think because we LIVE in family. Our lives REVOLVE around family, and the idea of one of our own living outside of a family, just seems so wrong. It is wrong and unjust. Kids should have a family. Somehow, knowing she's been WITH one, longer than she was WITHOUT one, seems to have some impact in healing that deficit.

4. Life is just starting to finally feel like a normal family again. It's good. At our Mom's group at church on Thursday, I was able to leave her in the nursery (which was a progression that took time, but I think we're successful now more than we aren't). When I picked her up at the end, and was holding her, another mom said, "Your daughter smells delicious!"...she does, it's the hair products, I admit. But, the point is, it just flowed right out her mouth. MY DAUGHTER. It felt normal and almost made me cry. I love being known by this group of women. They know our story. They KNOW she's my DAUGHTER.  Usually when we're out and about, you can tell by the looks on others faces, that they are wondering. Wondering how our family is made up....is she our daughter? Are we babysitting? Does she have a different dad? Does she have a different mom? The look of wonder is on thier faces, and some are dumb enough to ask. But, my amazing friends, KNOW. We are just the Keslers. We are a regular family to them :)

5. I love that every morning, Lucy wakes up happy. She plays and talks to herself in her bed for about 20 minutes before I come in to get her. When I come in, I say, "Good Morning, Lovey!" And she is SO excited and happy to see me. It makes my day, right then. She jumps up and scrambles to get to me. I love it.

pretty sure I've already posted this one, but I just love it. Man, that was good hair day!

I could post about the challenges we still face, but for today, I'm just enjoying the blessings of our life, trying to soak up the good. It. Is. GOOD. We are beyond blessed.