An Afternoon at the Farm

On Saturday afternoon we drove out to London to get together with Dave, Jayne, Jaiden and Justin. Justin is one of the little boys that lived at the same orphanage as Samara in China so we travelled with Dave and Jayne in February and got to know them quite well. We decided to meet in London which was about halfway from both of our homes. We met at a place called O'Shea's Farm - what a great place! We were pretty much the only ones there and the kids had so much fun together. There was so much to do for them. Here are some of the pictures (most of them taken by Jayne as we forgot to recharge the battery in our camera and it died almost as soon as we got there).

A cute pumpkin and cucumber:

Another cute pumpkin:
Victoria and Jaiden:
A cute shot of Samara: All five kids on top of the hay pyramid - Austin, Victoria, Jaiden, Justin and Samara:
A huge sandbox:
Tractor races:

Samara and Justin - can you believe how much they've both grown?!?!

In case you've forgotten, here's a picture of Justin and Samara on their first date - Valentine's Day at Pizza in Beijing - February 14, 2007. I can't believe how fast the time has gone and how grown up they both look now.

"Just let me touch your nose Samara!"

First successful ponytails!

Ok, I'm used to kids with thicker hair. I've tried and tried to put ponytails in Samara's hair but it just hasn't happened . . . until today. How cute is this???

She somehow looks older too don't you think?

Catching up . . .

Ok, once again it's been a looooong time since I've updated this blog. I know so many of you are just sitting on the edge of your seat waiting to see what's going to happen next in the Carmody household . . . ya right! So, let me see . . . what's been happening over the last few weeks. Well, on the Monday of the Canada Day long weekend we made a trip to a somewhat local zoo (The Brantford Twin Valley Zoo). It was a nice change from the Toronto Zoo - obviously not as big and overwhelming but also a lot cheaper. The kids had a great time. Here are a few pictures from the day:

Last weekend I got to go to another "Waiting Mommies Dinner" in Toronto. What is the Waiting Mommies group? It's a great group of ladies from the Greater Toronto Area who are all somewhere in the adoption process. Some are still in the paper chase stage, some are waiting, waiting, waiting and a few of us are home already with our little ones. A bloggy friend of mine, Catherine (the Great) organizes these dinners and it's such a great outing. We all get it. There's no trying to explain the process, the frustration of the wait, the anticipation, etc. We all understand what each other is going through and it's great to support one another. Why am I still in the group? Well, I'm a mommy and I'm waiting . . . for all my friends to have their little ones in their arms. I hope that I can somehow be of support and encouragement to these great ladies who are only a step or two behind us in the process. Anyway, here is a picture of all of us at the dinner:


As you can see in the picture, we're all holding a little knit teddy bear. Paula's mom made them all for us. What a lot of knitting - and so thoughtful! Thank you so much Paula's mom! Here are a few pictures of Samara with her bear. They're kind of blurry because it's really hard to get her to sit still for a picture these days but as you can see, she loves the bear!




Here are two more cute pictures of Samara in one of her Sunday dresses. What a cutie eh? As you can see, she still loves those stacking cups. For those of you reading this that are still waiting to travel to China or elsewhere, put stacking cups on your packing list. They don't take up a lot of room and they were Samara's favourite toy in China and they still are now.