Bella's Birth Story Book

As adoptive parents, we've been so lucky to be able to know Bella's birthparents since before she was born, and we've seen them each several times over the years too.  Now that we're pregnant she is beginning to understand more about babies and she's so excited that we'll have a new baby in our home soon.  She gets relationships within families pretty well now too (example: Nana is my mom, I am her mom, Nana is her grandma, etc.) - she gets that.  We've started to teach her more about her own birth story and that families are created in many different ways, sometimes through a new birth and sometimes through adoption and how great each story is!  I was apprehensive about being able to communicate her adoption story well enough for her to get it, and didn't really know where to begin or what would be the best way to help her understand at this developmental stage.  We always knew that we wanted to talk about it with her throughout her whole life so she never questioned where she came from and that she knew from the very beginning that she has always been and will always be completely loved and protected and that God has an incredible plan for her life!

To help get a grasp on what ways work best to share adoption stories with children at this stage I started searching through alot of books for adoptive families.  I found a great book called

"The Whole Life Adoption Book: Realistic Advice for Building a Healthy Adoptive Family" that truly helped us to know that at her age, the best ways to communicate her birth story are through picture books like the ones we've been checking out at the library and also through a life story book that we create.

 

(PS...If you are considering adopting a child as an infant or older, this also seems like a great book to help you consider alot of aspects to talk about during your journey.  It was free for my Kindle through Amazon a couple months ago...but I have no idea if it's still out there.)

 

We found several children's books at the library that we brought home that we're reading together and we also created Bella's Birth Story Book that shares the whole journey from when we started the adoption process, found out we had been chosen to be her parents, met Bella's birthmom and birthdad, the day she was born, and the months that followed, including visits with her birthparents and their families, her visitors once we were home, the day we finalized her adoption at the courthouse and her great life to come!

 

I'm so proud of this book and she LOVES seeing her pictures in a real book and looks at it all the time.  I know this will be a great starting point for this lifelong conversation that we'll share.  Here's a couple pictures from today (we just received the book in the mail from the printers!!).

 

Pictures from different times we've seen her birthfamilies

Looking at pictures from the hospital when she was born.

She loves seeing baby pictures of herself!

 

Bwownies...mmmmm

She did almost all the stirring herself!! They came out delicious....can't wait to eat more after dinner. Yummy!

Baby bump

Some of you are asking for baby bump pictures...here's as close as it's gonna get right now! Almost lost my feet... :)

Parasols and tye-dyes

Just another cute moment....

Doing types for her daddy

There's nothing like a 2 year old taking over your one and only computer to put you on edge......

Trust me mom...

Name 10 things you see wrong with this picture.....ok, at least 2 or 3. :) This is "the wight way" to wear fwip fwops, just in case you didn't know. what a goof!! She always says "trust me mom, trust me" I love it!

Getting crafty

I don't know what it is about fall, but I'm always invigorated to try new projects, learn new skills and get ready for the holidays....even in September.  I'm already crock potting and crocheting, and trying all sorts of new DIY projects. Bells is my partner in crime for any project!  She loves being creative and I love giving her all sorts of ways to express herself.  Here's the past couple of days artwork...I personally am a huge fan of spooky googly eyed punkins.  :)

Picnic at the park

Some of my favorite memories from this summer are the several times we hopped in the car, grabbed dinner somewhere and laid out the picnic blanket for a fun evening in the park.  The weather the past few weeks has been amazing and this night was no different - there was so much activity going on around us - a high school football game we could hear from Sparks stadium, homecoming dance being set up in the pavilion, tons of people making their way to the Fair....but right where we were was a little slice of heaven.  Pizza & gyros, my family and a great memory.

Making our great escape

The Puyallup Fair is a yearly tradition for our family....we always enter vegetables from our garden in the agriculture contest and usually win something!  It also gives us free tickets to get into the fair!  This year we went on two different days, one for just rides and one to see the animals.  Izzy LOVES going on rides!  She didn't want to stop and thank goodness she just barely made the height requirement for most of them because we spent 4 hours watching her live it up!

doing a happy dance after 2 hours of straight rides!

I love the fair at night!

this girl knows how to ride roller coasters....hands up and smiling!

mmmm....a great night capped off with hot scones.  yummy!

Gotta end this post with a Polish chicken.  It really does have a face somewhere under those white feathers.  Dusty agreed that I could get chickens again as long as they were the Polish ones.  I may have to hold him to it!  :)

Cuter by the minute!

I love this girl so much!!!