Changes

Remember this?

And this?
And this?
How about this?
And this?
And this?

The habit that used to define our daughter . . . is gone! It's been over a month now and she hasn't had her fingers in her mouth - not even once. And it happened just like that - she quit cold turkey. One day she was sucking her fingers and the next day she wasn't.

The dentist will probably be happy but let me tell you, it was a little brutal at first around here. Samara is the kind of girl that can wake up a few times at night (and other nights we don't hear her at all). But she was in the habit of putting her fingers in her mouth and putting herself back to sleep. It was great. But once the self-soothing was gone, we would have to go into her room to get her back to sleep. It was a rough couple of weeks but it's getting easier now. She's starting to put herself back to sleep without the fingers. And I think we're starting to get used to the new look - you know, the one without the fingers attached to the face.

I don't know what the reason is. We tried to figure it out - sore throat, bad taste on her fingers, sore in her mouth, on her tongue etc, etc. etc. And we actually thought the habit would come back after the issue was resolved (ie: healed sore throat). But that doesn't seem to be the case. I guess the good thing is that we won't have to try to break her of it when she gets a little older.

Here's the new look:

Still pretty cute eh???

Thank you Secret Pal!

About a month ago, I was invited to join a secret pal gift exchange for families adopting from Ethiopia. I was so excited because when we were in the process of adopting Samara, I always heard and read about people having secret pals and it looked like so much fun. I never knew how to get involved in one and was secretly jealous of everyone else who had a secret pal. So now I have one! Here’s how it works. There’s someone who organizes the whole thing (thank you Sandi!) and when you agree to join the exchange, you give your mailing address and a bit of info about yourself and your family. Then she lets everyone know who their secret pal is. Every month there’s a different theme and you have to buy and send a gift to your secret pal relating to that theme. It’s so fun. It goes for six months (April – September) and then in October we find out who our secret pal is.

Two days ago, when I was down and out with the flu, I went to check for mail and there was an envelope addressed to me. It was from my secret pal! Perfect timing to brighten my day. In the envelope was a book called “E is for Ethiopia”. It’s a great rhyming kids book that goes through the Alphabet and for every letter, it discusses something in the Ethiopian culture. What a great way to help our little one learn more about the country he was born in.

Thank you secret pal!

Blogger Friends

When I first started this blog (well, actually Mike started the blog and hasn't posted on it since!), I had no idea how many people I would meet. It's been really neat to meet people who have all been on different journeys but all end up on the path to adoption. I have been able to meet some of them at the Waiting Mommies Dinners every other month. This past Saturday Catherine, who I met through our blog, came over to spend the day with us. When she finally arrived (I knew we were kindred spirits when she got lost and had to call twice before arriving - I get lost all the time too!), we had a great day together. The kids were so excited to have Miss Catherine come over (especially when she brought them a fun game) and Austin even held her hand when we were crossing the road to go for a walk (for those of you who know Austin . . . that's huge!) Thanks again for coming Catherine. I hope it wasn't too crazy with three loud monkeys running around and being hyper. I'm sure you slept good that night. :) I can't wait until it's me coming to visit you and your little monkey Hannah!

Here's a picture of Catherine (well, actually Catherine's back) doing a puzzle with Austin and Samara. Notice the outstreched leg to make sure Samara didn't steal anymore of Austin's puzzle pieces. :)

Over the past few weeks I had the pleasure of meeting some more bloggers. Lori and one of her sons came over for coffee one morning. Lori and I actually met through a few mutual friends and we ended up having the same social worker for our homestudy. We have emailed back and forth for probably a year or so and finally met in person. Her and her husband adopted two precious boys last summer and have recently found out they are expecting twins! Yay!

Then on another evening we had Mike and Tammy over for a visit. Tammy and I have met on several occasions. We always drive to the Waiting Mommies Dinners together and often end up getting lost because we're talking too much. Actually the last two times we made it there with no detours. Anyway, I had never met her husband Mike so it was nice to get together with the four of us. The plan was to show them some of our video from China but we sat in the livingroom talking and talking and talking . . . by the time we looked at the clock, it was after midnight! So needless to say, we had a great time visiting with them too.

So as you can see, this blog has been so much more than a tool to keep family and friends informed and updated on our adoption journey.

You know you're an adoptive parent if:

1. The fact that there are 143 million children without a parent to kiss them goodnight has made you lose sleep.

2. You realize DNA has nothing to do with love and family.

3. You can't watch Adoption Stories on TLC without sobbing.

4. The fact that, if 7% of Christians adopted 1 child there would be no orphans in the world, is convicting to you.

5. You spend free time surfing blogs about families who have experienced the blessing of adoption.

6. It drives you crazy when people ask you about adopted child's "real" parents.

7. You have ever been "pregnant" with your adoptive child longer than it takes an elephant to give birth. (2 years!)

8. You had no idea how you would afford to adopt but stepped out in faith anyway, knowing where God calls you He will provide.

9. You have ever taken an airplane ride halfway around the world with a child you just met.

10. You believe God's heart is for adoption.

11. You realize that welcoming a child into your heart and family is one of the most important legacies you could ever leave on this earth.

12. You know what the word "Dossier" means, and you can actually pronounce it!

13. You have welcomed a social worker into the most private parts of your life.

14. You shudder when people say your child is so lucky that you adopted them, knowing full well you are the blessed one to have him or her in your life.

Author Unknown

I got this list from this blog as I was going from blog to blog to blog one day . . . not sure how I even ended up there but I loved the post.

Butterflies

On Monday we took the kids to the Niagara Parks Butterfly Conservatory. We've been going to see the butterflies ever since Victoria was a baby and the kids love it everytime . . . well, with the exception of Austin. If you look back about a year ago to this post, you'll see that when we went to Wings of Paradise in Cambridge, ON, Austin was not a big fan of the butterflies. In fact, he was paranoid of them. He did a lot better this year, being a little hesitant at first but by the end he loved it . . . until he picked up a butterfly on the ground that he thought was dead. He was going to place it on a rock so no one would step on it. When it started trying to fly away, he was freaked right out! Poor guy. But besides that, it was a good outing and we even did a drive by the Niagara Falls so the kids could get a peek at them too (it was too cold to get out of the van).


Here are a few pictures from our outing:

I love the reflection on this first one.

Before you go into the actual part where the butterflies are, there's a short educational movie to watch. This is the point where Austin is saying, "Mom! There aren't going to be any of those creepy caterpillar thingy's in with the butterflies are there?!?!?"


Victoria was trying so hard to get a butterfly to land on her arm. And Samara was . . . . well . . . you know . . . sucking those fingers! (what else is new!)



Family picture . . . hey wait, someone's missing! (Notice the fingers are out of the mouth)

Aaaah, that's better . . . family picture. (Notice the fingers are back in the mouth)


This is my favourite butterfly picture that Mike took. The flower and butterfly are so clear and focused with the rest of the background being blurry. I actually set it as the background picture on my desktop.

Easter Pictures

Another attempt at getting a picture of the kids together:

The Easter egg hunt:

Adoption Update

This past November 2007, we shared with you the news that the Carmody family is expanding again. We had begun the process of adopting through Ethiopia. A lot of you have been asking about how things are going and where we're at in the process so this is a bit of an update. Since November, we have been in the paper chasing stage. Medicals, police checks, fingerprints, reference letters, etc. all needed to be redone. Our adoption practitioner came over a few times to gather information to write an update on our previous homestudy. We are happy to say that the documents have been gathered and the report has been written. On Tuesday morning we drove to Cambridge to drop our entire dossier off to our adoption agency (Imagine Adoption). We were able to meet with our case worker to discuss the process and have a lot of our questions answered. Some parts of the process are very different than the process to adopt from China so it's another learning experience. We can officially say we are onto the next step though. On Wednesday, after our case worker reviewed our file, it was sent to the Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services for approval. This part of the process can take as long as 8 - 10 weeks but we've got our fingers crossed that it will go faster since ours is just an updated homestudy because we've adopted before.

In case you're interested, here are the steps we need to take and the expected time frame:

• Approval from Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services - 8 - 10 weeks
  
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs (legalized) and Ethiopian Embassy (authenticated) - 2 - 4 weeks
  
• Dossier to Ethiopia - approx. 1 week
  
• Referral time (for an infant boy under 12 months old) - 3 - 5 months
  
• Time between Referral and Travel (court date, permanent resident visa, etc.) - up to 6 months

We would like to ask you to continue to pray for us. There's not a whole lot more for us to do at this point with respect to paperwork so now we just wait. That's the hardest part and so if you could specifically pray for patience for us, that would be greatly appreciated. Also pray for the five of us as we prepare our hearts and our home for another little one. And pray for our baby in Ethiopia that he may remain healthy and strong and that he's well taken care of during this time when he can't yet be home with his forever family.

Thank you. Your thoughts and prayers are greatly appreciated.

Mike and Karen,
Victoria, Austin and Samara

A few birthday pics

Thank you for all the beautiful birthday wishes you sent our way today. Here are a few pictures from our day:

Happy Birthday Samara!

Happy Birthday precious one! We hope you have a great day and a fun year being two years old. We can't believe how fast this past year has gone. It seems like just yesterday we were celebrating your first birthday . . . not long after coming home from China.

We love you tons and tons and are so blessed to have such a silly and fun little girl in our family. You have added so much joy and laughter to our lives and we praise God for you.

Happy Birthday two year old!

(Our thoughts and prayers are with Samara's birth mom - this must be a difficult time for her)

All ready for school

Here are some cute pictures of Samara writing in her journal. She likes to jot down her thoughts every once in a while. :) Notice the concentration. But even more interesting . . . notice how she holds the pencil. Is she advanced or what?? (perhaps I'm a little biased) By the way, don't tell Victoria she was using her pencil and paper.

Here's what happens after a long morning of some serious playing (ok, and maybe a few too many late nights for mommy). Unfortunately we got caught! :)