Gratitude...

Thanks for visiting our little photo blog!  We want to express our deepest thanks to our families, friends and all who have helped us through our adoption process.  Thanks for the prayers, support, food, and the joyous way you have welcomed Harper to the family.  We are incredibly blessed by all of you!  We ask for your continued prayers as we complete the post placement process, and especially for Harper's birth mom, who is simply the most amazingly brave and loving woman we have ever met.  She has given us the ultimate gift, and we are humbled and very happy to become parents to this little girl.  We believe fully that it was God's plan all along to bring us together at this time, and for Harper to come into the world with such abundant love.  Thank you!


Ben and Emily

Home to Minnesota at 4 days old...

Hotel snuggles...

Getting ready for her 1st car ride to the hotel

1st bath without nurses present!

Queen of our king

Baby Lady arrives...

                        Harper Grace Roosa is born at 11:13 am.  7lbs, 1 oz., 19 inches long.

                                First bath, I was nervous.

                                         I think she's well on her way to being a Daddy's girl.

Best Valentine's Day ever

Sunrise over Utah's Wasatch Mountains on Valentine's morning...we took it as a sign of good things to come. What a beautiful day to be born. Ben got up to capture some photos of the sunrise, we had breakfast together in the hotel toasting to Harper's birthday and then headed to the hospital to wait. We had dinner with Harper's birth mom the evening before, it was a truly wonderful experience. We are so thankful to have a great connection with her and she expressed a desire for both of us to be present for Harper's birth. Ben even cut the cord. What a miracle!

A bit about our story...

We have actively been in the adoption process since July of 2010, however, its been something we've talked about, prayed for and researched for a couple of years. We have purposely and enthusiastically chosen adoption to build our family and have felt God calling us to this for awhile. We were working with an agency in Minnesota called Crossroads, which sent our adoption profiles out to several agencies nationwide. Our profiles went out in early December of 2010 and we were anticipating a long wait! On January 31st we learned we had been chosen as adoptive parents by a birth mom in Utah through a great agency called Heart to Heart. The birth mom wasn't from Utah, but was staying there in agency housing until the birth of the baby. She was to be induced on Valentine's Day and was having a girl. We were ecstatic and had limited time to prepare--also we were apart when we got the news as Ben was working in Virginia for Extreme Home Makeover. It was a challenging time to be separated. Two weeks later we were off to Salt Lake City for the birth of our daughter! We did not travel light, Harper had a bigger suitcase packed than Ben. We also had to answer some interesting questions at the airport as to why we had a car seat but no baby. My favorite was a Delta employee asking "Did you guys forget someone?", to which I responded by looking at Ben wide eyed and exclaiming "Crap!!!" before laughing and explaining.

Welcoming Harper to the world...

Hi- we wanted to set up a forum for our loved ones to see pictures of our precious girl Harper.  At some point in time we hope to post our adoption story, however, that seems ambitious right now with a newborn!  We hope you enjoy the pictures.


Ben and Emily