We have been so excited to ring out the New Years, not because last year wasn’t great (it was the best!) but because it meant getting to celebrate Toans birthday for the first time! Toan had two birthdays pass while we were in the process of adopting him and as each one passed I got more and more excited for the time when he would be here celebrating with us.
With this New Years marking the end of another decade, I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on where life has taken me in the last ten years. Ten years ago I was a college student still trying to figure out life, going through some changes that felt major at the time, and writing letters to Brandon who was off serving a two year mission in India. I knew even then that I wanted to adopt, it was always in my heart. Later that year Brandon came home and we got married, we added Sawyer, Rhett, and Ford over the next four years, and then made it through Brandon’s deployment. Just weeks after him coming home from the Middle East I felt like it was time for us to adopt and started seriously looking at countries other than the one we originally planned to adopt from (we weren’t old enough to adopt from China yet which was our original plan. In fact, I’m still not old enough haha). Two years later we brought sweet Toan home and here we are today, happier than ever. I’m so incredibly grateful for God and his guidance and oversight because if I had gone off my own plans that I had in 2009, I would be in a very different place right now and missing out on a lot of amazing things, like celebrating a 4th birthday with one very special little boy. Happy New Years and Happy Birthday to our sweet boy.
Paige Cassandra Flamm says
Oh I just love Toan and I don’t even know him! He just seems so sweet! So happy he’s part of your sweet family!