A Year In Review

As the big "One" inches ever closer, I felt like it was time to bring you a year in review. In case you haven't been paying attention, we have tons of pictures of the boy. Since he's been in our life (that's March 27 for those of you who may not be as astute as some of our other bloggers) we have taken many pictures. Since we've had Reed (that's 5 months) we have taken about 6,000 pictures of him. Is that overkill? Different from many international adoptions, we have photos from almost all 6 of his months without us.

February - 7 Days Old



It was around 1:30 in the afternoon on March 27 and I had just returned from my friend Debbie's office where I had reported to her that we have not heard anything about our referral. As soon as I entered into my office, my phone was ringing off the hook. Abbey was on the other end and as soon as I picked up she said, "did you see the email?" I quickly pulled up my email.

I saw "Congratulations" and I started saying, "I'm on my way, I'm on my way." We had decided that our first look at the baby would be together. I raced home and as soon as I got home we pulled up the email and saw the picture above. Those of you who know me can easily assume that I was crying! We were so excited to see our son and he was our son from that very beginning.

March - 1 Month Old



Also on that email, was this picture of Reed at 1 month. He had already changed so much. We could hardly believe how fast he was growing and we had just seen him 5 seconds ago!

May - 3 Months Old


After we had the referral it was every man for himself when the updates came, it was every man for himself! Abbey and I had started trying to figure out when we would get updates and I am sure that we both checked emails about 1 thousand times on those days!

May 2007 was a very happy Mother's Day for Abbey! She was thrilled to have pictures of her son for Mother's Day. We were started to get really antsy in May because our first hearing was on June 5.

June - 4 Months Old


Like Abbey, Father's Day was especially neat for me because I knew who my baby boy was. Although I had never held him I loved him in a way only a Dad can love his son. I know people who have had infertility and end up pregnant with their "Miracle baby." Well, I believe that Reed is our miracle baby, because ONLY a MIRACLE from God could have brought us together with him.

July - 5 Months Old


We were THRILLEd beyond belief when this update came through. First of all, the outfit he is wearing is one that we bought him for his first Easter. Even though he was not in our arms on Easter, we wanted him to have a cute outfit. We had a double surprise because the picture also had the Build a Bear that we had sent Reed.

August - 6 Months Old


We had really hoped that this would be our last update before we got our son, and we were blessed when we found out at the end of August that our final ruling had come through and Reed was officially ours.

September - 7 Months Old


This photo was shortly after we had returned home from Taiwan. We were madly in love with this boy by this point!

October - 8 Months Old


This is still probably one of my all time favorites of the Reedster. I just can't believe how cute he was in that monkey suit. It was a random photo too. We just decided to take it as we were leaving Mia's house.

November - 9 Months Old


GQ - Enough said.

December - 10 Months Old


This was taken at Poppy and Enna's. I think that Christmas was about overwhelming for the whole family! It was so much fun to have a baby at Christmas. Next year, I bet he actually cares that he has presents!

January - 11 Months Old


So, there you have the first 11 months of Reed. Of course, there will be major picture taking on Saturday at the birthday party.

Which one is your favorite? Is it one that I chose for this blog, or is there one on your screensaver (Yes, people besides me have Reed screensavers, don' t they Kay Kay?), that you really love?