Happy Red Thread Day Sweet Pea!

Oh yes, the big day, I remember it like it was yesterday! The day I received the long awaited phone call from my adoption agency telling me that I had been matched with a baby girl in China! My agency had some basic information about my baby girl, she was 17 months old and the woman on the phone told me she was looking at a photo of Kayli and said she was "adorable", and for some reason she kept trying to send me her photo but their computer system wasn't working and the email wasn't coming through, and I was waiting on pins and needles to see the face of my precious chosen child, and it wasn't coming! I made the big announcement, at the end of the school day, to my co-workers that I had been matched with a daughter who was 17 months old, and reportedly was quite the extroverted toddler who enjoyed engaging and entertaining those around her! Sounds a bit like her new mama. How amazing it is, the hand of God! I left school that afternoon, still no picture. I had plans to meet some friends (Susan, Marcia, Deb) to celebrate Marcia's birthday. I shared the big news with them and although our outing was fun, I couldn't wait to get home to see if I had my picture yet...nothing! I went to bed that night, wondering, dreaming, of what my new daughter would look like. I came to work the next morning to find "It's a girl" balloons in my classroom from my wonderful para, Cindy M., who said she thought I needed to start celebrating! She was so right. I was still skeptical. I was waiting for "the other shoe to drop". I didn't trust that this was really real. I was cautiously excited, because I still didn't have the picture to confirm that there was truly a little human being attached to this announcement . But, then... in the middle of the morning, in the middle of my busy day, in the middle of kids coming and going from my room, suddenly, "ding" , there was an email from my adoption agency.  I cautiously clicked on the email and sucked in my breath as I then clicked on the attachment, and there popped up a photo of the most precious face I have ever seen!!! I couldn't stop the tear from rolling down my cheek as I immediately clicked on "file" "print" and said to Cindy "Be right back, I'm going to get my new daughter's picture from the copy machine!" Now, I was a believer! This baby girl in this very photo was chosen to be my daughter!" I took that photo and spent the rest of ,my day carrying it around, showing anyone and everyone that I encountered. I sooooo remember showing this picture to one of my co-workers, Natasha, and she said "Kathy, your new daughter has the most precious face I have ever seen!" I was so choked up, and so spilling over with emotion, I agreed... and let the tears roll again. Such JOY! I didn't know what to do with the emotions that were spilling out of me! I needed to do what Cindy said and start to CELEBRATE!!! So, I did, and still do, every year, on this day, the day that the photo popped up on my computer screen, is the day I celebrate! This is truly the day I became a Mama! This is the day the invisible red thread made that magical connection between me and my sweet pea, and began pulling me to come and get her!

So, on this day of magical days, we took the day off from our hustle bustle world, with no expectations and no obligations, and chose to spend it together, doing whatever two peas in a pod might do when given the gift of a day together, away from the crazy world we live in, for a day!

( Ok, so we didn't start off with the most perfectly "peaceful" day because, well, we are human, and we had some different ideas as to what the "perfect plan" of the day would be, and what that would entail, and what our timeline was, and then our discussions began to take on a less-than-peaceful tone when I realized that the perfectionistic controlling tendency in BOTH of us, was... well... trying to "take control" of our fun, and someone needed to stop it in it's tracks! So, I said to Kayli "Ok, let's try this again, we have the whole day ahead of us, we both want to just enjoy this beautiful day we've been given. Let's see if we can just have some fun together with very few rules governing our day.We agreed to go with the flow, do some fun things, and try not to plan too much. Kayli really wanted to go to a pumpkin patch. My internet search showed that only one place was open this early in the season. They have apple cider donuts. Let's go!

So, we happily drove out to the cider mill, and discovered that the there were yummy donuts waiting for us to purchase for our morning picnic, and a beautiful array of flowers and pumpkins surrounding our picnic spot.

there were apples being turned into cider...

The weather was so nice today, and it was so nice to be sitting outside in this beautiful setting. The one caveat, though, was that the website neglected to say that, Yes, the full, fun, pumpkin patch with hayride, corn maze, etc. was open, but No, not to the general public! It was only open for school field trips. Yes, this would have been nice to know, but we are going with the flow, remember? We had a nice picnic with some super yummy apple cider donuts, and enjoyed the ambiance of this place for what it offered today. Next up, back home for presents and lunch...

I usually give Kayli some type of book on China or China adoption, along with some other trinkets that I put in red boxes. I got her a journal with a pretty red cover, because she loves to fill these up with all kinds of pictures and stories! I bought her a key for her key collection...

 I gave her a panda purse with a $10.00 bill inside...sweeeeet!

I bought some cute mother-daughter necklaces with red hearts...

now it was time for us to hop in the car again and head for the spa! We had decided to go to a local beauty school for pedicures and haircuts. Kayli has never had a pedicure before, so she was quite excited! Here she is melting into the massage chair while watching a movie on the big screen above us. I was melting in my own chair right next to her, savoring every minute of this relaxing time!

here are Kayli's fancy new toenails...

I had Kayli's bangs trimmed while I was getting a full hair cut, so when her beautician finished her bangs, she thought it would be fun to put some curls in Kayli's long locks...

I had a wonderfully long shampoo, head massage, and hair cut that were as relaxing as the pedicure and massage chair!

Since the weather was so amazingly beautiful today, we decided that we would get some take-out food and bring it home to enjoy on our deck. To make it extra special for Kayli, I pulled the pop-up screen out of the shed and placed it around our patio furniture, so we could have a bug-free picnic. Worked like a charm!

the grand finale of the day was a trip to the frozen yogurt store, which had these statues right outside, so Kayli decided to check and see if the story they were reading was a good one, haha...

Happy Red Thread Day Sweet Pea! We really are two peas in a pod!