My Husband's New Toy

Well, here is the new vehicle we got after our car was totalled in an accident. My husband finally feels like a real man! Thank God we were able to work something out!

Our Adoption Story

Kelly's Korner is doing a show us your adoption day, and I had to share our story. These pictures are a few of our beautiful girl. They are in the wrong order but you get the drift!

Our family in 2010

My beautiful Miracle

She has always loved her brother. They are best friends.

Her first visit to our house. She was a daddy's girl right away!

Josh and I were married in August of 2006. I had already informed him that I wanted to adopt when we were older, and he agreed. I started my job at The Meyer Center for Special Children soon after our marriage and loved everything about it. The buses would load through my room at the end of the day and I always noticed this cute, skinny, little bit of nothing who had the most precious smile in the world. One day, I finally asked about her. "What is her diagnosis? She is so cute." Her teacher quickly replied that she had a small developmental delay due to drug exposure at birth. "Do you want to adopt her?" she asked me flippantly.





I rushed home from school that day with a thought in my head. I called Josh and told him that we had to adopt this little girl. He only half believed me but agreed anyway. He loves kids too and what was the harm in making the wife happy? He thought it would never happen.





I called the local DSS office right away. I asked around and got lots of information about LaMiracle and how the adoption process would work. I was in love and knew that that little girl would be coming to live with us someday. Josh and I sat down and talked about it very seriously. We knew we were young and recently married, but we could go through the process and see how far we made it. Neither of us felt we would get approved, but we knew we wanted to try. Before anything, Josh wanted to come by and at least meet her.





He was waiting for me in the lobby when a therapist came in from outside with a little girl she had been doing physical therapy with. The little girl saw Josh and ran to give him the biggest hug. The little girl was Miracle. Josh was a goner! He remembers that hug to this day!



We were about half way through the process, and everything was looking pretty positive. We had a few last inspections to get through, but we started to get pretty excited. I found out I was pregnant in Feb. of 2007. We were excited but worried that this might effect DSS' decision of whether or not to let us adopt our girl? We were not worried though. It was looking like we would get Miracle (if approved) around June or July and the baby was not due until the end of October.



In May we found out that the bedroom windows in our rental house were too small. We put the adoption process on a "quick" hold so that we could buy a house. We knew it might not be the smartest thing to do financially at the time, but we needed a place if we wanted LaMiracle.



At this point the adoption process really started to drag on. We had to get all new inspections for the new house. Some of our home study had to be redone. I was getting more and more pregnant.



I went into labor with our son on October 14th 2007. He was born on the 15th. We were instantly in love but continued our plan to get LaMiracle.



She was placed with us on November 2, 2007. She was scared to death of our pets, but she loved her new room. She adjusted so well. I think she new we loved her. We ended up taking a trip to MI for a funeral only 2 wks after her placement. I was so worried for her little heart. She would be meeting a ton of family and would be so overwhelmed. NOPE. "Hi, I'm Miracle." she proudly introduced herself. She was already a part of our family and could not be shaken.



The actually adoption day was in June of 2008. I had the worst case of strep throat ever. Aunt Melanie and Aunt Christy ended up having to keep the kids the night before and meet us at the courthouse. I was on pins and needles but everything went fine. We went home that day knowing that she would be our little girl forever.

The memories with her will already last forever. I will never forget the day she realized that her skin was brown and ours was white or the day she asked in older lady in McDonald's what color she was... I love her attitude toward life and the sweet way she looks at things. She is our girl!

Bad Day

The result of someone not paying attention...

Friday, January 21st ended up being quite a day. It went fine until we were on our way home from school/daycare. I was stopped on highway 135 waiting to take a left hand turn when we were rear ended by a car going 55mph. My car is in rough shape and had to be towed away. It could have been much worse but the damage underneath is pretty severe. The frame is definitely bent so it will be interesting to see what the insurance adjuster says. The boy who hit me was only 19, and I my heart went out to him as he expressed regret over not paying attention. I would not wish that on any mom's heart...and I can't ever imagine having to get that kind of call from my son once he starts driving. My worst nightmare is having my kids get in a car accident. This worst nightmare happened yesterday. They were both scared and holding the backs of their heads once I got out of the car and to them. I called 911 and my husband immediately and comforted them as much as possible. Thank God for the sweet ladies who stopped to comfort me and wait with me until the police arrived. Most of all, Thank God that my children are OK. I'm pretty sore. I have never been this sore from an accident so I'm sure my kids are hurting too. They both deny any pain which is good, but I will be contacting the chiropractor on Monday morning to get them checked out for any whip lash. Hopefully we can get a rental car!

On a brighter note, my husband had an interview this morning with a restoration company in Greenville. It would be a much closer commute and would be a MUCH better company for him to work for. He thinks the interview went really well so we are crossing our fingers and waiting to hear back about it sometime this week.

With both of these situations, we just have to wait for answers. Everyone who knows me knows that I don't wait well. This should be an interesting week for sure! Nothing beats my family being safe though...so I have no complaints!

SNOW SNOW SNOW

We have been a little busy here at the Splan household....can you guess what we have been doing?:) The pictures below may give you a little hint...

My husband has enjoyed getting to snowboard in our front yard!

The kids enjoyed getting all bundled up to play in the snow!

We all had fun 'sledding' down the driveway on daddy's snowboard!

The kids smiled for lots of 'fun in the snow' pictures!

Daddy made the kids a fun snow igloo to play in! It is still standing in our mostly melted backyard and the kids have had a blast playing in it!

Yes, that right. Our wonderful surprise of the week was lots of snow! In the south, this can only mean....SNOW DAYS! or a SNOW WEEK is more like it!

It's been a lot of fun until yesterday when JJ started coughing. He has been miserable with a cold of some sort. Hopefully he gets feeling better soon! The snow days came at a perfect time for us because one of our cars is currently out of order. This was going to make my getting to work this week very tricky. My 'pretty good at playing mechanic' husband is out getting a part that will hopefully fix the problem before Monday! If not...well, we will have to cross that bridge when we get to it:/

I hope you all had a wonderful week too! There is really nothing better than some extra family time...we had a lot of fun but are ready to get back to our regular routine on Monday hopefully!

Happy New Year!

Wow! Christmas flew by and so did the welcoming of the new year! Looking back through last year, I cannot believe some of the stuff we made it through. I assure you that it was only by God's grace, but we made it through and that is what counts. We are hoping for a good 2011. I'm sure it will have its ups and downs and I am glad that we cannot see the future to know what they will be. God is good. I need to remember to take things one day at a time. It is so hard to do that when your a 'grown up'. We are supposed to plan ahead and be prepared and all that jazz....and yet we are supposed see every day as its own day without worrying about the others. Those concepts are hard to put into practice. The planning and preparing often turn into worrying and anxiety which makes trying to take one day at a time nearly impossible. As a Christan, however, I am determined that God can help me do this. I choose this to be my new years resolution. I think this is close to the same resolution I made last year but that's OK. It's a perfect resolution for the start of every new year!

Enjoy the moments before they become the past and you look back wishing that you had enjoyed them more!

I have a BUNCH of pictures to post from our wonderful Christmas. These will be coming soon! In the meantime, I really need to get cleaning my house and preparing to head back to work tomorrow! I hope you all had wonderful holidays and are looking forward to the start of a fresh new year as much as I am! The count down is already on for spring break! Only about 16 more weeks....ha ha!