One Year Ago

It's hard to believe that last year at this time Justin and I were in Ethiopia meeting our daughter for the first time. We first saw her, held her, and kissed her sweet face on December 17, 2010.  From the pictures we had seen and the stories we heard, we were truly expecting to meet a shy and scared little girl that day. I was prepared to wait patiently for her to warm up to us, but instead I was met with a hug and a kiss from the happiest child I had ever seen. 

 This is the first picture taken of me with my girl. Her laughter was so breathtaking.

 I was filled with joy and I had no doubt the Lord chose this little one for our family. She reminded me so much of our Jaxon. I knew from the start they would be double trouble. :)

I will never forget the amazing day we had with her.

 It only took about 3 seconds for her to have her daddy wrapped around her little finger.

 Her smiles have been bringing us joy ever since that day.

 One year ago tomorrow a judge declared that she was our daughter forever. What a year it has been. In some ways I can't believe it has already been a year, and at the same time it seems like she has been in our family forever.

 A bonus on our trip was getting to know this sweet family and their new son, Eli.

This picture was taken as we were telling her goodbye before we left to come back to America. The pictures show that I was holding myself together, but inside I felt like I would explode. Oh, that was so hard! I am so thankful for this year with our daughter.

What's New With the Bufkins?

I am so behind on blogging. My camera broke before Thanksgiving and I like to post pictures when I blog, so I just haven't blogged. I decided to steal pics off of people's facebook pages and do a quick recap. 

 We had a great Thanksgiving. We really have so many things to be thankful for. On of those things is that our little girl was home for her first Thanksgiving.

 She is just too precious!! When we asked her what we thankful for she said, "Mommy, Daddy, Sawyer, Jaxon." I am so thankful that she won't spend another holiday without a family. She also said she was thankful for pizza and ice cream. That's my girl.

 My sweet oldest child had a solo in the church Christmas musical, a rap solo. I will have to figure out how to post the video here, because it was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. He loved every second of it.

We spent Thanksgiving break with Justin's family. We went to the Christmas parade in downtown Fort Worth. Fun was had by all!

We are enjoying our December, but we are as busy as ever. Two Decembers ago we were frantically trying to finish our dossier so that we could get on the wait list for our daughter in Ethiopia. Last year we were getting ready to fly to Ethiopia to meet our precious Mia Grace for the first time. This year, praise the Lord, she is home!!

Justin will be starting a new job as Director of Productions for the Louisiana Baptist Convention in January. So, our family will be moving to Alexandria, LA a few days after Christmas. I'm so proud of Justin and happy for this new opportunity for our family. Of course, we are sad to say goodbye to our friends here.