Birthday Girl

Yesterday was a special day in our family.  We got to celebrate this little girl:

Luciana is now three!  This is the first birthday that we've been able to celebrate Luciana's birthday as our daughter.

Greg & I were licensed as foster parents in June of 2010 and in August of that year, I received a phone call from social services indicating that they had a 15-day old infant girl who needed a home.  I asked a lot of questions of the social workers and wrote all her answers in the margins of a piece of junk mail that happened to be sitting on the dining room table.  After hanging up with the social worker, I called Greg and told him everything that she had told me (which, frankly, wasn't a lot of information).  

Greg came home from work immediately and discussed it.  We decided to go and pick up the babe.  We went into the basement to retrieve the infant seat, buckled it into the car and left the house to go pick up a baby.  It was a rather surreal experience.  

We arrived at the office and two workers brought out a newborn baby girl.  We sat in a conference room for quite some time, holding her and asking more questions.  

We drove her home where quite a crowd of friends & neighbors has assembled to welcome her.  And she was held and kissed by her sisters.

We were foster parents for Luciana for almost 2-1/2 years before we were able to adopt her. There were many times during this period when we thought we'd lose her for one reason or another.  But on December 6, 2012, we were able to finally adopt her into our family and we are so thankful.

We love you, kid.