A Place to Land

Jimi

           

"See I never had any trouble falling"

It's now the first week in December and Aubree is almost a year old. Back in July, Mark signed the papers to terminate his parental rights to Aubree and Melissa started working on the adoption process for me to adopt her. Aubree has grown so much and she is getting into everything now that she started crawling. She is starting to pull herself up on everything and we're waiting for her to take her first steps. 

Last weekend was our last show of the year. We wanted to take a month off from touring to be home and spend time with our families. Karen and I have been house hunting for about a month now. Now that Aubree is getting bigger and almost walking, we decided that it was time to find a bigger space for her to run around in. Karen has her heart set on this house in Franklin. It has a nice backyard and is the perfect size for us now. It's a four bedroom two and a half bathroom house. It isn't exactly in the country, but sort of in a secluded subdivision. It's a really nice area.

Melissa finally called Karen about the court date to finalize Aubree's adoption and I couldn't be more excited to officially be her father. We have a meeting at the courthouse tomorrow morning at 9:30. We haven't told anyone about me adopting Aubree because we're going to surprise everyone with a Christmas card with their presents. 

Karen just put Aubree to bed. I'm sitting out in the living room and she came out and sat next to me on the couch. She curled up next to me and I wrapped my arm around her shoulder.

"Are you ready for tomorrow?" she asked.

"I've never been more ready for anything" I said and smiled at her.

"I love you so much and I don't know what I would do if I didn't have you in my life. Because of you, I don't have to raise Aubree by myself. She gets to have a mommy and a daddy" she said and looked up at me.

"She deserves to have a mommy and a daddy" I said and she nodded. I leaned down and kissed her.

"I love you too" I added in response to her previous 'I love you'

We stayed on the couch for a little while wrapped up in each other's arms. Around 10:00, we decided to go to bed.

Karen crawled over to my side when she was done getting ready for bed. She rested her head on my chest. This is one of my favorite things she does. My favorite thing at night is being able to hold her. I wrapped my right arm around her back and rested my left hand on top of her arm around my stomach. I kissed her forehead.

"I love you" I whispered.

"I love you too" she replied with her eyes closed. A few minutes later, we were both asleep.

Aubree was up bright and early at 6:30 the next morning. Karen crawled out of bed and went to go get her. We've been bringing Aubree in our room every morning and having a little cuddle time. A few minutes later, Karen walked in with Aubree on her hip. She laid her on the bed and she crawled over by me. I picked her up and rolled on my back. I held her above me and she laughed and flapped her arms. Karen crawled back in bed with us. She propped herself up on her side with her elbow holding her up. I laid Aubree between us. Aubree crawled back over to Karen and tried to crawl over her.

"Where do you think you're going baby girl?" Karen asked and pulled her back to the middle of the bed.

We laid in bed for about a half an hour, then Aubree started to get fussy because she was hungry.

"Alright baby girl, let's get you some breakfast" Karen said and crawled out of bed. She grabbed Aubree and carried her on her hip out to the kitchen.