Happy Monday dear friends! What an amazing weekend we had! As you probably know by now by the blowing up of my Instagram stories, our adoption is finally FINAL! Ahhhhh! We are so so happy right now. And we are so thankful a lot of our family was able to come in for our special day.
The moment they introduced us for the first time, officially as the Weaver family. OMG, crying all over again. I kept thinking that after almost 2 years I maybe I wouldn’t cry on the day of the finalization. Boy was I wrong. My sister was like, “you were standing there fine and then the tears starting starting rolling down your cheeks so fast”. I am so thankful Yash was there to capture it all. I cannot wait to watch the video from that point of view and to share it with all of you!
I waited exactly 683 days to share our sweet Landon’s face with you but whose counting LOL . So basically I have a million and one pictures I need to catch up on for those 683 days 🙂 Today I want to share 10 of our “firsts” with you!
1. Our First Night Together
November 6, 2017
I remember opening the door for the first time when the CPS case worker brought our sweet Landon home. I thought he was the sweetest boy I had ever seen! My second thought was “did they get his age wrong?” LOL! He was a big 7 month old!
When I put him to bed that night I just stared at him like “we are so meant to be”. It was like he was always there.
2. Our First Target Trip
November 7, 2017
Naturally we were at Target on our second day together 🙂 Of course to buy us matching outfits and also because we found ourselves at the store every day that week since we literally had NOTHING the day we got our placement phone call. You can read more about that whirlwind of a day in this blog post.
And then of course I had to bring him home and do his first photoshoot LOL
3. Our First Family Photo
Omg, this photo makes me so happy! So many of our friends came to see us that weekend and my best friend Rach was like “let me take a family photo of you guys”. I hadn’t even thought about it because I had just been snapping pics of him all week. Thanks Rach!!
4. Our First Thanksgiving
We actually went to his aunts house that year to celebrate Thanksgiving but we decided to cook a full on Thanksgiving feast at our house as well. Even if it was just the 3 of us, we felt like we had to since it was our first Thanksgiving as a family of 3. 🙂
5. Our First Family Visit & Our First Time Ringing In The New Year Together
As soon as our baby boy was brought home to us my Mom, Dad and oldest brother and family booked their tickets to come in as soon as they possibly could and we all got to ring in the New Year together!
6. Our First Airplane Ride
February 2018 – we took our first plane ride together to Atlanta, Georgia to celebrate Brandon and I’s 4 year wedding anniversary. You can see more about that trip here.
7. Our First Professional Family Photos
March 2018
8. Landon’s 1st Birthday Party
March 2018 – Our party theme was Landon’s Candy Shop! You can see all the details about his party here. I’ll have to update that blog post with non-emoji pictures!
9. Our First Trip To Disneyworld
March 2018 – This trip was a continuation of Landon’s birthday celebration and also a first time for Brandon and I to Disneyworld! As you can see Landon was thrilled about the teacups LOL
10. Landon’s First Haircut
April 29, 2018 – his hair is so cute and curly. It was getting so long but we actually had to ask and then wait for approval to get his hair cut.
11. Landon’s First Rodeo
Okay, okay I know I said I was only sharing 10 first moments but when I was rounding up these photos I ran across his cute photos from his 1st rodeo (also Papa & Lola’s first rodeo) so I couldn’t help but share!
Oh man, so many special moments with our sweet boy. It was extremely hard to narrow these moments down to ten eleven! We feel so very blessed to have been chosen to be Landon’s mommy and daddy.
Today I am partnering up with Walmart to share a little more about the first day that baby Weaver came home and also a few baby items that I instantly fell in love with and never even knew I needed!
Earlier this week I shared some info about Walmart’s new baby registry. If you missed that post you can read it here. When you are a new mama there are so many things people tell you that you need to add to your registry. Like so many. Thankfully Walmart’s new baby registry helps you by populating the top things mom’s need for their new babies and then you can add and delete from there. And as you grow into your new role of being a mother, you will learn what works for you and what doesn’t. Today I am sharing 3 baby items that were must haves for me as a new mama!
The First Day That Baby Weaver Came Home
If you have been following along for some time now, you know it was a few months until we got our first call from our adoption agency. You also may remember we got 2 phone calls, 2 Monday’s in a row telling us that we had a possible placement. Just minutes after both of those calls we received a second call letting us know that those children were actually placed with another family.
Heartbreaking? Yes. But looking back, it was all part of the preparation plan and I am not sure there would have been any baby more perfectly matched for us than baby Weaver.
It was Monday, November 6th. It was my first day back in the office after Hurricane Harvey. Our office building had flooded and it took months for them to rebuild the lower floors that got damaged. As I was getting ready that morning I joked to Brandon “today is the day”. I literally had no idea but I did know that both Monday’s before November 6th we had received a phone call from our adoption agency.
I went to work, caught up with everyone I hadn’t seen for months. Had my normal Monday morning meetings, went to the gym, ate lunch at my desk, all the normal Monday things.
At around 1:30pm my husband called and said “he’s 7 months old, half Asian, half African American”. “If we say yes they are going to bring him over around 6 tonight”. I am laughing thinking about this moment because my husband was so sweet acting like he was asking me what I thought but really had already told the agency yes. I mean duh, I was going to say yes LOL.
My emotions were all over the place!
I screamed with excitement and then frantically started asking my husband all the things. Of course, he didn’t have many of the answers. If you are familiar with the adoption process than you know they don’t give you a lot of information on the first call. Literally all we knew was just what my husband said when I first picked up the phone, “he’s 7 months old, half Asian, half African American”.
As soon as we hung up the phone, I ran to everyone’s desk at work that had been awaiting this moment as much as we were! There were tears of happiness and excitement. My boss came out of his office to see what all the noise was about and I told him the news. Right after he congratulated me he asked what I was still doing in the office. LOL.
I packed up and as I sped home I called my brothers, my sisters and my closest friends. As I pulled into our driveway I quickly realized we literally had NOTHING and I mean NOTHING for our new baby who was just hours away from arriving.
From the beginning of the adoption process, we told our agency we were open to the ages from newborn to 2 years old. Since we had no idea what age child we would be placed with, we didn’t buy anything. I immediately text my girlfriends “omg heading to the store tell me what I need for a 7 month old”. Let me tell you, there were a lot of things being text back that day.
We had not done a registry at that point, just prayers. When our prayers were answered we were definitely ready emotionally but our love wasn’t going to magically make diapers, a crib and a car seat appear LOL so we headed to the store. Still crying, still excited :).
We were talking to one of the employees about a bassinet and a swing. He asked “how much does your baby weight” and me and Brandon looked at each other and laughed…we literally had no idea. “Ummm, he’s a boy and he’s 7 months old”. LOL, that’s all I knew at that point.
Thankfully the employee was super helpful and got us in and out of the store quickly. We headed home and set up everything as quickly as we could.
Around 6pm that night, the door bell rang. Brandon and I just looked at each other. Literally no words but I know what we were both thinking…”he’s here”.
We opened the door and the CPS worker had her hands full with paperwork, a bag and our baby. OUR baby ya’ll.
Within seconds she handed him to me and introduced us. I think baby Weaver and I just stared at each other the whole time Brandon was talking to the CPS worker and signing paper work. The case worker was only there for about 10 minutes and left.
There we were with our baby boy after a whirlwind of a day. O…M.GGGeeee…it was real.
I face timed my Mom and Dad. I hadn’t called them earlier that day because I wanted the moment to be just like this….as soon as my Mom answered the face time call, the screen popped up and it was just on baby Weaver’s face. She asked “is that our baby?” and the rest was history!!
Ahhhh, what a day, what a story and most of all what a blessing!
Since that day, we have been so fortunate to be surrounded by such great friends and family that threw us multiple baby showers. All of my experienced mom friends gifted us things I never knew I needed.
3 Baby Items I Never Knew I Needed
Boudreaux’s Butt Paste – this stuff is literally magic! Any sign of a diaper rash and I put a tiny bit on baby Weaver and it has disappeared the same day!
Nose Friday Snot Sucker – Sounds gross and looks gross too, lol, but really this thing works so great! Way better than the old school thingy that our parents had to use on us!
Cool Mist Humidier – Baby Weaver had major congestion the first few weeks. His pediatrician gave us some cough syrup to help but after a week or so I felt bad just giving him medicine everyday when it didn’t seem like it was helping all that much. I kept reading about how a cool mist humidifier like this one could help ease coughing and congestion. After about a day or two we could already tell it was helping! The cool mist option is a great one because unlike the steam humidifier, there is no chance of a slight burn or anything if your child gets too close to it.
Obviously things like diapers, lavender bath soap, a good stroller were definitely must haves in my book as a new mom but the 3 items above are just random items that I had no idea I needed but now don’t know how I can live without!
In case any of you mama’s are still wondering what items to add to your baby registry, I am linking some other favorites of mine below!
I hope this list is helpful and I hope you enjoyed hearing a little more about our first day with baby Weaver!
Hey loves! It’s so crazy because I feel like January was moving so slowly and then bam! here we are in the month of April! We have had a lot of things happening over here and although I feel like I chat with you guys daily over social media I haven’t gotten to share many life updates with you in a while so I figured I’d take some time to share with you all today!
Hi friends! This mommy and me t-shirt set has been one of the top selling items from my Instagram this past week so I wanted to share here and also give you a quick adoption update!
Our full outfit details can be found here and I also found a ton of other cute mommy and me sets that I will link below. Ummm, we need all of them! 🙂
So many of you have been so sweet and continuously checking in on us so I wanted to be sure to give you all an update on our expected adoption day as I know we are all excited for it! So long story short, 2 months ago we had the court hearing where they terminated rights of baby Weaver’s birth parents. Although, I hate the way that statement sounds it is actually the outcome we were all praying for. For the 12 months prior to that date we had some scares and there was always a possibility that a blood relative was going to be able to gain custody of our sweet boy. Of course, if we felt that was the safest, most loving environment for him than that’s what we would have wanted but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. From day one we knew he was our son and had faith that God (and the state of Texas 🙂 ) would make it final in no time. So you can imagine our overwhelming tears of joy when the judge said “rights of xxx, xxx, and xxx are terminated. I order that the child not be removed from his current placement.” I was crying, Brandon was squeezing my hand so tight I knew he was crying inside. I started saying thank you and hugging everyone that was standing in front of the judge with us. I’m pretty sure I even hugged the bailiff and an attorney who wasn’t even a part of our case LOL. Â
Aside from the official adoption day, that was the day we had been looking forward to for 12 months. We had hoped it would come sooner but we are just so thankful it came.Â
So what happens now? The next step is paperwork and once all of the paperwork is processed the judge will give us a court date which will be our official adoption day. OMG, I tear up just thinking about it. Although, we had hoped it would before the end of the year, our current judge did not get re-elected so our case is getting pushed to 2019. So with that and some other circumstances we are looking at an official adoption day at the end of March or beginning of April. So bummed you won’t be able to see our sweet boys face until then but I promise I am going to spam you all with all of his life’s pictures once that time comes! 🙂
Thank you all for your sweet prayers and messages. If you are new around here I have part of our adoption story here and here but you can always feel free to email me with any questions, info@roselynweaver.com.Â
Happy Monday loves! I am so sorry I have been slacking on my blog posts lately. Life has been extremely busy. I’m like screaming inside but keeping all smiles on the outside 🙂 which is exactly what inspired me to get this post up today!
As a blogger I post things on social media daily, it’s part of my job. And as part of my brand, I like to keep things positive. That is why when you go to my social media pages you will see 99% of the things I post are all the “happy” things in life. I love sharing positive quotes, pictures and captions to make you smile and most days I am smiling on the outside and inside. But what you don’t always see are life’s not so happy and sometimes even terrifying moments.
From the outside looking in, I know it may look like a blogger is “living the life” but in reality most of us are just living our lives. And that means all the good, bad and the ugly that comes with it. Instagram is just a highlight reel of someone’s life. Instagram is a platform to help us share joy, outfits, recipes, etc. with each other. It doesn’t always show the whole truth.
I’ve seen a few of the bloggers I follow share Instagram vs. Reality posts where they show the hard work and struggle that actually goes into making that one photo perfect. One of my personal favorite Instagram vs. Reality posts are when bloggers share bloopers from their shoots LOL. But today, I’ve decided to share something a little different because personally, my family and I have gone through some scary moments in the past year and although I share bits and pieces about that every now and then I just wanted to give you all a good example of what social media can portray vs. what may really be going on behind the scenes.
Instagram vs. Reality Example One
What do you see? Probably this pretty pink Free People sweater that was trending like crazy last Fall!
What you don’t see: We got a phone call that morning for a Foster to Adopt placement. It was for a baby boy who was 2 months old and had been left at a fire station. They called me right before I walked into a meeting. I immediately said yes, called Brandon and sat down in my meeting. It was only like 5 minutes and I was already so invested in this baby. 10 minutes into my meeting Brandon called and I answered because I thought we was going to tell me details on pick up but he was actually calling me to tell me that the baby had been placed with another family.
Our agency told us that situations like this could happen but nothing prepares you for it. It took EVERYTHING in me not to breakdown crying in that meeting.
Instagram vs. Reality Example Two- literally only one week later
What do you see? Maybe a super fun travel pic and a happy care bears tee? You possibly read the first sentence of my caption talking about how it was my birthday.
What you don’t see: We got a second phone call for an adoption placement this day. This time they called Brandon. We were in Colorado for my birthday, I was relaxing at the hotel because Brandon went to go visit a customer that afternoon. He called me and said “the agency called. There are 2 little girls, sisters, under 2 that needed to be placed”. We told the agency we could hop on the next flight home and they said as long as we could get there by 6pm then we were good to go. I never packed up a hotel room so fast in my life! Brandon met me in the lobby and we didn’t even check out we were rushing out of there so fast! Brandon was flying to the airport as I was looking up flights back to Houston. There was literally one leaving in 30 minutes so we decided that I would rush to get on that one and Brandon would take the next one so he could check in our bags. We pulled up to the airport and Brandon’s phone rings…another family from a different agency was available to pick the girls up asap so…yup you guessed it. We didn’t get placed that day. It was definitely another sad moment but maybe the week prior had prepared me a little bit because I didn’t cry that time. And then when we turned back around to go back to the hotel Brandon and I laughed because we realized we never checked out and said to eachother “well I guess that worked out” lol
Instagram vs. Reality Example Three
Ahhhh!!! We were finally placed with our sweet baby boy. He had been in daycare for one whole week when I took this photo. And with daycare came a full on stomach virus. He got it. I got. I actually had blog campaign due the very next week so I couldn’t cancel this photoshoot with Yash.
So what you don’t see? I had to pull over twice on the way to this photoshoot so I could throw up. So gross I know. But again, Instagram vs. Reality my friends.
Instagram vs Reality Example Four
What do you see? A sweet photo of us on our anniversary trip with our sweet baby Weaver. Maybe you think “yay, they finally got placed with their son!”
What you don’t see: 4 days prior during one of our casual, routine CPS visits they notify us that a blood relative wanted custody and verbatim she said “once she passes the background check it could happen quickly”. Just like that. So matter of fact. “Once she passes”, basically our whole lives would have been turned upside down.
I looked back to my Instagram to see if one picture that week showed an emotion of sadness that would have even given the hint that we had a rough week that week. Nope, not one photo. That’s the “beauty” of social media.
Instagram vs Reality Example Five
What do you see? A smiling gal at a popular Houston restaurant? I was actually having lunch with my team that day.
What you don’t see: Actually I myself didn’t even see it coming. Right after lunch that day Brandon called me on my way back to the office. He had gone to court for the both of us that day. Since the court hearings were basically a day long event we took turns on who would attend.
Anyway, Brandon called to tell me that another relative showed up to court that day. He wanted to put forth a “family friend” to take custody of baby Weaver. This family member had never met baby Weaver nor had the “family friend” but according to CPS a family member will always take precedence over a non relative adoption.
Sh#t.
Excuse my language here but honestly that was the first word that came to mind. I can’t really describe it any other way.
Without getting into the details, that person clearly did not check out nor did the other family member I mentioned earlier but in all scenarios we went hours, days, weeks, honestly it wasn’t until last week (almost 10 months later you guys!!) that all of my fears were diminished of losing our son. If you have talked to me in the past ten months I probably told you “everything was good and that we weren’t worried”. Well, I’m sorry that I partially lied to you. Yes, everything was good. It is good. But with all of these surprises and unknown we were still really scared on what could have happened. As you may know, we received some really good news last week.
We (thank the good Lord) are in a position that we have been praying about. Thank you Jesus. But before I steer this blog post into another direction my point today is that life isn’t always as it seems on social media.
Some might ask “why would I even choose to post that day if I was really having a bad day?”. Well, because in most cases I signed a contract with a company agreeing that I would post my review that day. Clearly not knowing what life could throw at us that day.
Life is…truly like a box of chocolates 🙂
The comparison game is so real and I’ve heard people say that they stop following bloggers that they originally loved following because it started to make them feel bad about themselves. That breaks my heart but I totally get it. If you ever start to feel like that just try and remember that Instagram is just a highlight reel and that everyone has their own struggles even if it doesn’t seem like it because of a perfectly staged photo.
I know I’m struggling like everyday over here, haha. These are just 5 examples but trust me I could share like 100 more.
If you ever need a laugh or just want to vent I’m here girl, info@roselynweaver.com.
Love you all so, so much!
“Everyday may not be perfect but a perfect moment can be found in everyday.”
Dang..that was good. Did I just make that up?? 🙂
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