5 Year Gotcha Day Anniversary !!!

My life was good!

I managed, despite some nasty weather, to find happiness wherever I looked.

And I've had a lot of fun and laughs along the way....

but there was always something missing.

I've been blessed with the ability to do just about anything I set my mind to (except speak French very well....ahem......let me not get waylaid but plunge ahead). But of all the things I've loved being able to do - nothing compared to being a mother.

And after many years

it finally happened.

Five years ago, I finally became a mother and Danny and I the parents to an adorable baby girl from Hunan, China. The girls from Hunan are nicknamed "spicy girls" and that's what we got.

One gorgeous, hot, spicy, spectacular, loving

daughter.

Happy Gotcha Day sweet Dahlia!

We love you with all our heart.

I had to make the trip alone (along with some special friends) and this is a few days before Gotcha day in Shanghai at the Yu Gardens. (Interestingly, the Yu Gardens are the sister garden to the Chinese Garden here at the Montreal Botanical Gardens. Kinda like that connection!

My friend Helen and I both took pictures of eachother and the empty cribs in our rooms the evening before we were receive the babies. We were just nervous Nellys the whole time.
I prayed over this crib - that my little one would know how much she was loved.
And here she is - next morning.

Same crib - filled with a little love thing. All soft and sweet (and scared and confused). She stuck to my cheek for about 2 hours after our first moments together. My little love.



Here I'm trying to get her to laugh so I can send Daddy a happy picture at home.

She was just a butter ball really.

Below is one of my favourite pictures. Here we are with Helen and Angelo and their daughter (Dahlia's BFF) Angel, from the same place. Poor Angelo really had two wives (without the

benefits) during this trip. I'll be forever grateful to them both for making that solo trip so much easier for me. Danny and I were both heartborken when his doctors told him he couldn't fly for a 6 month period and I'll never really know how hard that was for him to know I was there, meeting our daughter while he was home alone. It was difficult for me to be alone but it must have been unbearable for him. Dahlia's and Daddy's gotcha moment was at the airport in Montreal - 2 weeks later.

And this is 5 years later (this past August) at the same spot but with Danny this time and our two newest ones.

My beautiful Dahlia!

The little girl who made me a Mommy five years ago.

I'm so proud to call you my daughter,

my first born daughter.

And I love you so much - to the ends of the universe

and back, my love!