Happy Birthday To Such a Special Child

Right now as my children are getting ready to wake up and start their day and I begin to write my blog post, my sweet China baby is laying her head down to sleep after a day of celebrating her birthday. I pray her day was special for her because she has a mommy and daddy on the other side of the globe praying daily for her. I pray her day was special because this sweet girl has made a HUGE mark on our hearts already and we love her as if she were born from my womb. I pray she got to spend her day giggling with her friends and eating the cake we bought for her and opening the gifts we sent. I pray these small things will help her to see, and know, and feel so loved and wanted, because she is.
I also pray for her parents...two people Josh and I pray for daily. The laws of China make keeping children very hard. We may never know the reason behind Nina's story, but as a mother, I can't even begin to imagine having to make that choice. I pray one day she and Nina's father have the opportunity to learn about God, so one day she can hold her sweet baby again.
Our family went to dinner to celebrate and remember our sweet girl. We also bought a balloon and wrote messages to her...

Elli ended the evening with, "So mommy then the balloon has to fly past the playground to get over to China?" How small our world around us seems. :)

Not a day goes by that my heart doesn't ache for this process to be over so my girl can be home with her family and she can know the love of a mommies arms, the attention of an amazing father and the laughter and secrets shared with her brothers and sisters....and today, today it aches just a little bit more...

Happy Birthday Sweet girl! Hope your day is filled with lots of fun! And praying your day more than any other day was special!

Love you all!

PS Here birthday DATE is actually the 20th (well the orphanage day they gave her anyway) I'm getting a day ahead of myself-no surprise there)