Flashback July: The Sealing and Blessing

I know this is a post that a lot of you have been waiting to see, and I finally got a few minutes to put it together. This day in July is now added to the list of one of the best days of my life. Any opportunity to enter into the temple with my whole family to have a sacred ordinance performed in order to ensure the opportunity for us to be together forever will always stand out in my mind. I am grateful for the blessing of adoption and more importantly the blessing of the temple that creates bonds in our family that are the same as if our daughters had been born to us. All of our children are ours eternally because of the priesthood of God and the presence of temples on the earth today. I can't describe how beautiful it is to be able to take all of your young children into the sacred halls of the temple. I am grateful that because of adoption we have been able to do that twice, and I hope many more times in the future.

Olivia Lucille was sealed to us in the Salt Lake Temple.

We were very grateful to all of our parents for making the sacrafice to be present that day.

Thanks also to Summer and Logan for coming out also to share our special day with us.

And now, our children...

We get to have these three with us forever!

And the star of the day, Olivia!

Ooops! Baby fell over!

Jenna falls over, too!

After the sealing we traveled to Uncle Tracy and Aunt Carol's house for Olivia's blessing (many thanks to Uncle Tracy and Aunt Carol for sharing their home with us). We were very grateful for the opportunity to have Olivia's birthparents attend the blessing that day. I know I have expressed it before, but my heart is overwhelmed with gratitude right now for the decision that Olivia's birthparents made to allow Olivia to have these opportunities in her life. Many of our children may arrive in our home and family through this not-so-traditional route, but I will forever be grateful for the blessing of having my heart touched by their first parents because I have been there to personally witness their incredible love and sacrifice as they chose adoption for their children. To B and D (Jenna's birthparents) and J and S (Olivia's birthparents) thank you forever.

All of the pictures taken after the blessing involved Olivia's birthparents, so I will keep them for our family to reflect upon and enjoy privately.