Sweet Kate in China

As you know, God put our sweet Kate in an amazing place, where her needs were met, she was loved, she was taught about Jesus, and she was prepared for a FAMILY! That amazing place where she lived was the Philip Hayden Foundation and she lived there for much of her life in China. We were blessed beyond belief to discover that fact about two months after reciving our sweet girl's referral. During our wait for her, we were able to get a ton of info, many pictures, etc. on our beautiful girl. By the time we were united with sweet Kate, we had over 100 pictures of her. That is absolutely amazing for any internationally adopted child. That just doesn't happen. But that's not all... Over the weekend, we received another special gift... a CD of over 200 pictures of our precious Kate. There were some we had seen, but there were a bunch that we had never seen. I remember how finding pictures of Kate affected me while we waited for her. I loved seeing them, yet they made me want to get her right THEN! And even though our sweet girl is with us now, I didn't enjoy these pictures any less. I am so glad we have these to show her at some point... to show her how loved she was even when she was considered an orphan. And although looking at some of the pictures make me sad (like one we have of her with chicken pox) I am so glad to see how HAPPY she looks in most of them! Oh what a smile these pictures bring to my face. I'm sad that we didn't get to experience these stages of her life, but so happy that we have been blessed with ways to see her grow even when we couldn't be there! So enjoy these handful of some of my favorite pictures of our sweet Kate that I haven't already posted!