Thankful

Here we are. Can you believe it? One year later. What is in a year? A lot . . . is all I can say. We have had an enormous amount of ups and downs, but we are here, on the other side with smiles on our faces.

I can tell you that in the last two months, I've seen a lot of emotional growth for Kellan. I'm finding more of these pictures on our camera (the ones with giggly, natural smiles and laughter). I'm seeing more of the contented Kellan. He greets us in the morning from his crib with MOMMY! DADDY! ALL DONE! He knows we are near, he knows he is safe. He also knows that he is a large part of us. Kellan talks about his family non-stop :)

As the one year mark approached, I felt myself thinking about our time in Korea and how difficult it was to sit in the small room at Holt Children's Services, smiling and listening to all of the wonderful things that Kellan did with his foster mom ~ only to take him away from all of it. He went from being very smiley (just as he is now in our pictures) to not wanting to look at us, crying whenever we spoke in front of him, and not eating. And I cried right along with him. I questioned if things would ever turn around. Was this the right thing? Were we selfish to believe that we could do this and this was a wonderful thing for everyone?

And it was the right thing. Nothing will ever be continuously "wonderful", but we are all happy here in the Peterson household. Everyone has their place (and I couldn't imagine it without them) and has hit their stride in figuring out how to expand to the family of four that we are now.

I had some very awesome family and friends, some in real life and others whom I met through this tiny blog that I started 2.5 years ago, that helped me overcome some very difficult times throughout this last year. I cannot thank you enough. Even if it was a simple smile or comment on the blog, a suggestion to help, or an offer to buy me some more Fat Ti*re beer . . . know that I (and everyone else in this family) appreciates every bit of it. We would not be here without the support we were given! I look forward to the next year that we have as a complete family. Where will we be then?