Happy 1st Birthday Z!!

3/13/13

Today is our little Zeri's first birthday. We wish we were there to celebrate with him!
We started the day out by praying for Zeri. Olivia wanted to wear her Halloween costume, so in all of our morning pictures she looks like a pirate.:)

We took this picture right after we finished praying for Zeri. 

 I started the day off feeling a bit sad about not being with Zeri on his big day. A few people sent me text messages this morning and those quickly brightened my day. Throughout the day we received sweet text messages, phone calls, and e-mails from friends and family wishing our little boy a Happy 1st Birthday. One of my teacher friends bought me a huge Mtn. Dew to celebrate his birthday.:)


Right before my students were dismissed, my Principal brought in a huge bundle of balloons. I opened the card and it said, "Happy 1st Birthday baby boy! Even though your friends and family can't celebrate WITH you this year, we are celebrating FOR you. Smile Mommy and Daddy, he'll be there soon! Love, your friends." I still don't know who sent these balloons, but they definitely made my day.

Olivia proudly holding Zer's birthday balloons.

Yesterday, we received 5 pictures of Zeri's birthday party in Ethiopia. They actually had a 1st b-day party for him! They took a picture of the cake and then we received 4 pictures of Zeri at his celebration. They are something we will treasure forever! We sent our case worker an e-mail a few weeks ago asking her if the nannies could take his picture on his birthday and she said yes. We knew they would take a picture of him, but we didn't know that we would receive 5! What a blessing!

Today I opened up my e-mail and we received another 5 new pictures of our sweet Zeri!! This never happens! Our case worker said it was a "Surprise picture day!" It was so wonderful to see his sweet little face looking at me. These pictures were exactly what this mama needed on my son's first birthday. I needed to see that he was doing okay and he is. He looks healthy! He was even standing up in one of his pictures-praise God! We weren't sure that he was standing up yet and we can tell that he can do it. Oh, how I wish I could share his pictures with you. We aren't allowed to share his pictures until after our first court date. He has the most precious, sparkling brown eyes and the most kissable lips!:)

Tonight we made a cake for Zeri and then sang Happy Birthday to him. Olivia decided that she wanted to wear her Tiana dress in these pictures. I am just happy she isn't wearing her pirate costume for all of his 1st b-day pictures. :)

We ended the day with another prayer time for Zeri. God is in control. Thank you God for blessing us with this sweet boy! We know that before he was born you determined that Zeri was our boy! We just thank you for allowing us to be his parents and taking us on this journey. Zeri-we love you so much! We can't wait to love on you forever!!

Today I am also celebrating because the Board of Education approved my 1/2 year Parental Leave. I am going to take off the entire first semester of the school year next year! I get to be with Olivia and Zeri from August-January! Yay!! I.CAN.NOT.WAIT! This will be an extremely important time for Zeri. We want to do everything that we can to help Zeri form the proper attachment to us and we believe that this time off will benefit our entire family.

**Please keep praying for the March 19 court date. Please pray that it goes smoothly and they assign us our court date that day. Pray that our court date is 2-3 weeks out and not 2 months out.