March 24th, 2010 - Gotcha Day

This is Mikenna's Gotcha Day. One year ago, Paul and I laid eyes on our 5th daughter for the first time. Wow! Time has flown bye! We thought it would be fun to celebrate Mikenna's Gotcha Day with friends and family. We had an open house for her and 45 friends and family showed up to help celebrate Mikenna's special day. For those of you that are wondering what a Gotcha Day is and why we would celebrate it, let me explain. For kids that are adopted(either domestically or internationally), often times the families do not receive their children on the day they were born. So, Gotcha Day is the day that the child is joined with their forever family. Mikenna was a bit overwhelmed at first by all the people and I'm not sure she understood why everyone was here but she warmed up after awhile and had fun with all the kids that came. I had our dining room table covered with her clothes and shoes that she came to us wearing that first day, of course the green soccer ball that she carried throughout China, all the things we bought in China, her pictures while in China and since being home, and a lot of books about China or adoption. We also had all our pictures scrolling on the T.V. for people to see our pictures of the beautiful country where Mikenna was born. It was quite an evening of sharing our journey with friends and family. Happy Gotcha Day to all our adoptive family that traveled with us to China!