I WON!!

Check out my WINNER write up.

(Actually, I did most of the writing, so I feel almost like a guest blogger or something special like that...)

My FAVORITE blog, the r house, was giving away a headband that is SUPER CUTE from January Jill.

(I told ya'll to enter the contest...  if you didn't, you missed out - and if you're not reading the r house everyday...  you're REALLY missing out!  It is one of the best, most uplifting and funniest blogs out there.)

All of January Jill's styles are cute and fun!  I really strongly urge you to check it out and support them by buying more headbands!  I know you'll like something that you see there.

So I wrote a novel last night as an email to Lindsey (from the r house), and she posted some of it on her blog as the winner post.  I didn't really realize how much I had written until after I sent it.

Sorry Lindsey.

I am notoriously long-winded...  just ask anyone that's known me longer than a few months!

Anyway...  I am WAY excited about this headband!  I already have several outfits planned out in my head that include it.

Mrs R, as she's called in a lot of online/adoption circles, is a mom of two boys that came to her and her wonderful husband through adoption.  She and her hubby SPOIL their son's birth moms.  More than that, though, they are all really good friends.

That's how every adoption should be, in my opinion.  Every adoptive couple should be friends - or even better, family - with their birth parents.

The "R" Family is so inspirational and so strong!  They have been through so much and have come out stronger, wiser, and better.  I love them!

(Part of me REALLY wishes that I lived in Utah so I could be friends with Lindsey and we could actually hang out together...  Just one more reason to live in Utah...  *sigh*)

Lindsey is the one that inspired me to talk to my birth daughter, Leah's parents and ask them how they would feel about opening up our adoption a little bit.  It's not really for the contact with my birth daughter, (even though I would LOVE that more than words can describe...) it's for the relationship that I can have with her mom.  I have felt, from the moment I read their adoption profile, that Marie (Leah's mom), I have felt that she was like my long-lost big sister.

I have felt for a long time that I have a kindred spirit out there that is like (or maybe even was supposed to be) a big sister, and I have been dying to find her my whole life.  When I met Marie for the first time, I felt that I had found her.  I felt that she and I had known each other before this life and we maybe even were friends.

Even if that isn't quite the case, I still feel connected to her in a way that I can only compare to one other person in this life - my sister.

I am so anxious and so excited and so un-sure about my letter to Marie and her husband Jeff...  But I know that I will get through this!  :)

She is HUGE in the adoption community!  She called me an adoption community celebrity, but I think of her as an adoption community celebrity.  Honestly, talking with her when I won the headband, and also about a bracelet I'm thinking about ordering (if I can get the other siblings on board) for my mother-in-law for Mother's Day... 

I'm feeling a little star-struck.  :)

Every time I wear it, I will remember Mrs R of The R House and all of her wonderful advice, thoughts, and her amazing testimony of adoption and of the gospel!

Thank you so much, Lindsey!