Growing Snowflowers

Made for each other...






We've been having a few discussions lately, about family. One thing we are very certain of is that we are made for each other. We want our children to grow up feeling loved, we let each other know that we love each other multiple times a day, many times with words, but also in actions and by treating each other with dignity and respect.

I posted these photos, both of us are around 5-6 years old, we didn't know then that our paths would cross, although Mike assures me that even if we lived in separate countries we would have somehow been drawn together.

Our daughter come from the East. It's easy to spot, she has dark straight hair and deep brown almond eyes, her skin glows a soft shade of tan that we could only wish for. Our family was born a different way than many, it is our destiny. When we were little I'm pretty sure we never imagined that our family would consist of three nationalities, I guess I never knew that it was possible.




I wrote this post in response to a seemingly innocent yet callous remark I heard recently. The reason I am even commenting on it was that it was made in front of my intelligent and intuitive beautiful child. It was not directed at our situation, but was part of a conversation about a couple considering adoption. "why, can't the have kids of their own?"...um, it seems innocent, but take a minute and read it again..."can't they have kids of their OWN?"

A family is made up of individual personalities, each of us brought together by either biology or destiny. We think we are the lucky ones because our family is made by destiny. Piper is OUR daughter, she is a child that belongs to a family, she had a sad beginning, one that is mirrored hundreds of thousands of times across the globe, we acknowledge that, we embrace her losses as our own and will continue to honor and respect her loss in the years to come. But, Piper is OUR daughter, we are HER family, and a comment like that made in front of a child is sad. Though I was initially a little miffed, I am now just sad for the person who said it...because these people have adoption in their families, and they sadly did not take a moment to reflect on their own words, and the power that it may have on small ears.

People have said that blood is thicker than water, but we believe love is thicker than both, teaching us that LOVE is truly what defines you. We don't need to see that our children have the same hair color or turned up nose, we see proof in the way our child pronounces her words with a slight New Zealand lilt, or laughs without reservation like her father, these are the ways you know that you are a family.

These are the ways WE know WE are a FAMILY.