Happy birthday, Kaiya...Kaiya, it's your birthday!

Well, today our little sweet pea turns ONE!!! Happy, happy, happy birthday, Kaiya-bear! I woke up this morning with the biggest smile on my face, thinking that exactly one year ago this morning, at 4:50 a.m., our angel filled up our lives with the most beautiful, special, welcomed, long-awaited presence! I can hardly express the emotions that I feel when I think back to that day. But those thoughts and feelings and memories are tucked away in a very huge and special place in my heart that I will never, ever forget. It was the day I became a mother. It was the day that Kaiya became apart of our family. It was the BEST day! It seems UNREAL that a year has gone by, and yet, here we are! Soooo much has happened in one short year! Maybe that is why it went by in an absolute flash! From the days of Kaiya falling asleep on our chests and hearing her little snoring and cooing next to us in her bassinett, everything so new for ALL of us, to going to court and then to the temple to make it all official and eternal, to watching this tiny little person learn and experience and explore her curiosity through sights and sounds and crawling and tasting and sometimes hurting. It seems she has encountered a life-time worth of experiences in such a short time, and there is still soooo much for her to be apart of! Just like the day she was born, I am revisiting so many of my thoughts about her life. What will she look like as she grows older (especially seeing how much she has changed in one short year)? What will she do with ALL that amazing potential she holds within her? Will I ever really be able to convey to her how special she is to us and to her Heavenly Father? I want her to know that more than anything! How will she hurt, both physically and emotionally? And will we be able to help her through those difficult times the way she needs us to? What will her adoption story mean to her? Will it be hard for her? I hope we can always talk openly about it together and that she will be able to comprehend what a beautiful and blessed thing it is for all of us! What lies in store for her next year of life? Walking, talking, lots of playing, making friends, knowing family, and even more love from mom and dad -- that's how I envision the next year! I love thinking about the possibilities ahead in year two and throughout her whole life! I am anxious to see it all unfold!

It is such a special and happy day for our Ya-ya and I am excited to celebrate together as a family! I wrote Kaiya a 5 page (or so...) letter and will include some little excerpts from that. Most of it is special just for her, but some of it can be shared to express some of the many emotions that I am feeling for our little baby girl today!

"Baby girl, one year ago today, our lives changed. Changed in ways we never, ever knew would be possible! Changed in the most wonderful ways, changed in the very best ways!! Our lives changed because you took your very first breath and came into our lives! The very second your spirit entered into mortality, the very air around us, the light in the room, the power of your spirit completely changed us! I remember the feelings I felt as you spent your first few minutes of life with us. I had wondered how quickly I would feel bonded to you. I worried that I wouldn’t feel an immediate connection to you because I had not carried you in my own belly. But let me tell you of the most precious gift that Heavenly Father gave to me in those first few short moments of your life. I have never felt anything like it in my entire life. The minute you made your entrance into the world, my heart literally felt as if it would beat right out of my chest. I burst into sobs, uncontrollable sobs, because I was so overwhelmed with the most intense and most immediate feelings of love I had ever experienced. I was so incredibly overcome with love. I felt as if I would burst with how much I loved you and adored you and wanted you to be in my arms. And in those first few short minutes of your life, as I watched the nurses whisk you around, measuring you, cleaning you up, I knew in my heart that you had been sent to me and that you truly were my daughter, in every way. ""I knew that Heavenly Father had provided miracle upon miracle to make sure that you would get here to us, so that you could be apart of our eternal family. Our very first daughter! One of my greatest wishes for you, as you grow up, is that you will always grow up with a strong sense of that immediate and intense love that I felt for you the day you were born, that love that has only grown and multiplied in the last year, and will continue to grow each and every day. I wish for you to know the feelings I carry every single day in my heart for you, and I promise to not only write you letters to express how I feel for you, but to also tell you every day how much I love you. I never, ever want you to doubt that love. "

"Kaiya, baby, I look at you each and every day. I watch you, I smile as you move from one experience to the next. I watch your curiosity, your determination, your love of life and it inspires me! You have changed soooo much in just one short year! I can hardly believe it when I see you crawling so quickly to find the next adventure! I have a hard time letting you go explore because if I’m completely honest, all I really want to do is hold you in my arms safe and sound!" "But I know that your curiosity and your desire to learn and experience the world around you are crucial to your development. So I let you go. But when you peek your little head up over the side of the couch, with your enormous grin, I can’t stop myself from picking you up and giving you as many smooches and cuddles as I can squeeze in!" There is so much more I could say, but the most important thing is that I say these things to Kaiya! So, on that note, we wish you the happiest of days on this, your first birthday. We hope you smile a lot today and in the days to come. We hope you feel loved today and in the days to come. And we hope you always know what a special part of our family you are and always will be! Thank you for your precious presence in our lives! Happy 1st Birthday, sweet Kaiya!

Here are some pictures from our own little family celebration tonight. Kaiya LOVED the cake and had zero hesitation getting down and dirty! Her presents, well, she didn't seem to be quite as interested. As we expected! But it was all so fun! (Sorry for picture overload -- there are gonna be quite a few!)