Dinner and good friends

On Friday evening, Mike and I got dressed up and headed out to “Under an Ethiopian Sky” – a fundraising gala to benefit Faith Village in Ethiopia. It was a fun night of great food, great entertainment and inspiring speakers.

This is a picture of us with Paul and Anna at the dinner. She’s the one who got the tickets for us and encouraged us to go. I’m thankful she did because we had a great time.

We’ve gotten to know Paul and Anna over the last few months since they also started their adoption journey. Anna and I went to the same high school and Mike and I even went to the same church as Paul and Anna for a few years but didn’t really have a lot to do with each other. We saw each other a few times when our Victoria and their Nicole were newborns. They were born two days apart and we went to the same clinic for our family doctor so we would run into each other there a few times. Then when Victoria and Nicole were in the same class at school, we saw each other more often and chatted here and there. Victoria and Nicole would have play dates once in a while and go to each other’s birthday parties.

Then last December, Anna called me to tell me that Nicole was able to come to Victoria’s birthday party and we began talking about other things. She asked me if we were adopting again because Nicole had come home and said that Victoria was getting another baby – this time a brother. Anna was confused because she didn’t think it was very common to adopt a boy from China but I informed her that we were adopting from Ethiopia this time. We went on talking and she told me that she and Paul had thought about adopting sometime but that’s really as far as it had gone. I told her that she could call or email me anytime if she wanted to discuss it in more detail (adoption being one of my favourite topics of conversation) and if she had any questions. To be honest, I didn’t think much of it because I often have people tell me that they think about adopting but for whatever reason they just don’t. However, I think it was a few days later she called me again and that lead to more phone calls and emails. After much prayer and a few subtle signs from God, she and Paul were on board. They sped through their home study and our files went to Ethiopia within a month of each other and now we’re both waiting to hear about the precious children God has picked out for our families. They’ve requested a girl and we’ve requested a boy and we’re hoping they end up in the same class at school too.

It's been really neat to see how God has brought our two families together. I’m thankful for our friendship and pray that God will continue to bless us both on our adoption journeys and keep our children safe and healthy until they come home to their forever families.

Thank you Secret Pal

We received the final gift from our secret pal. I'm so glad I signed up to be part of the exchange. It's been so much fun to send things out and also to receive a package each month in the mail. This month's gift was a blue onsie and sheep rattle as well as an "Ethiopian Amharic Phrasebook" which I'm sure will be extremely helpful.

Our secret pal also revealed herself this month so instead of saying "Thank you secret pal", I can now say "Thank you Christina!" You've made this exchange so much fun. We appreciate the thoughtfulness that went into each and every gift and can't wait until we get to put all the things to use.




Thank you again Christina. We wish you all the best on your adoption journey!

A girl's best friend

When Victoria and Austin head off to school, you would think Samara has no one to play with. That's not exactly true. She has Teagan. She loves that puppy like you wouldn't believe. She drags him everywhere, praises him when he does something good and wags her finger at him when he's naughty. It's super cute! He's a pretty tolerant dog too - he loves the attention however he can get it. Here's how we found the two of them the other day:





And if Teagan is too tired to play and all else fails, she can always call Grandma.

Quilt #2

Dear Family and Friends,

While we were on our first adoption journey – our journey to Samara – we did a lot of reading and studying about China and Chinese culture and we came across an interesting tradition from the northern part of China. When welcoming and celebrating a new life, family and friends are called to put together a “Bai Jia Bei” or 100 Good Wishes Quilt. The quilt maker invites 100 people to contribute a single square or patch of fabric to be included in the quilt. Often times the squares would come from the fabric of their worn clothing and it is said that the luck, energy, and good wishes of the people who wore these clothes now surrounds the child when he/she is wrapped in the quilt. The quilt is then passed down from generation to generation. We thought this was a great tradition and, as many of you know, we made a Bai Jia Bei for Samara; however, for us it represents the love, support and prayers of our family and friends. It was such a neat project and really amazing to see how many people anticipated Samara’s arrival and loved her even before she was here.

Even though it’s a Chinese tradition, we would really like to do another 100 Good Wishes Quilt for our little one from Ethiopia and so we’re asking for your help to make this possible by contributing a piece of fabric for the quilt.

The squares do not need to be from old clothing but can be scraps or newly purchased material – something that either has special meaning to you or just something you like. We would love to have as many of you as possible contribute a square to our quilt. You do not have to be a “crafty” person to participate. If your children would like to contribute their own squares and blessings/wishes, that’s great too. We know it will be a beautiful treasure and keepsake for our little one.

If you are interested, here’s what we need:

1. One 7” x 7” square of 100% cotton material (washed and ironed before cutting the square to allow for shrinkage). If you are more comfortable sending a larger piece of fabric and leaving it for me to cut to exact size, that’s fine too.

2. Along with your quilt square please include a “wish” which could be a prayer, poem, thoughtful quote, Bible verse, original thought, or whatever you choose on a piece of paper along with your name.

3. Along with this piece of paper with the wish and your name, include a small square of the fabric (can be about 1” x 1”) that you’re sending for the quilt. This small swatch will help us to identify your fabric within the quilt. The piece of paper can be as simple or as fancy as you’d like to make it and will be kept in a scrapbook for our little one to read. We know that he will love to read the blessings from each of you and find the fabric you’ve contributed within the quilt. If the fabric has special meaning to you, please include that information on the paper as well.

You can either give the fabric and paper to us personally or put it in the mail. If you need our mailing address, let me know via email (link on the side bar) and I'll send it to you.

Your help will make this a wonderful keepsake. Thank you so much.

Love Mike, Karen, Victoria, Austin and Samara Carmody

P.S. If you've never seen a 100 Good Wishes Quilt, click here to see a picture of Samara’s quilt so you have an idea what the finished project will look like.

Four months!

Woo hoo! I'm excited to see our ticker above say that our file has been in Ethiopia for four months now. It's actually gone by really fast - I can hardly believe it. Do I dare say we may be at least halfway there? Hmmm . . . better not go there.

Shrink Art

What better way to spend a rainy afternoon than doing some shrink art? This used to be one of my favourite crafts when I was little (but we called it shrinky dinks) so I was excited to do it with the kids. And they loved it too. I had actually bought these kits quite a long time ago but realized afterwards that it couldn't be done in a gas oven. In the meantime, we got a new oven that's not gas and so we can now do shrink art.

Here they are after they've been coloured all ready to go:

Here they are just before entering the oven:

Watching the shrinking process . . . so exciting!!!

And after they've been shrunk:

Some of the beautiful jewelry that was created:

Pretty Girl

Before . . .

And after . . .



Notice anything???

Ride for MS

Mike participated in the 55 k Ride for MS this past Sunday morning. The weather was cold and wet. I don't think it stopped raining from start to finish. It took a nice hot coffee and a hot shower to finally warm him up. Despite the weather, they had a good time and the ride raised over $264,000.00 for Multiple Sclerosis. Good work everyone!




Mike and his friend J.D. finishing up the ride:



Three soggy, cold and very dedicated fans:

2008 Run for the Cure

I signed up to run in the 2008 CIBC Run for the Cure next month. This was the very first 5k run I did last year and I've been thinking about doing it again this year but wasn't sure if I wanted to or not. As you may recall, last year I ran with this sign on my back:



This year instead of running in honour of Marisa, I will be running in memory of her and I hate that. But I decided that's not a good enough excuse not to do it so instead of dwelling on it, I signed myself up last night. So if you feel so inclined to donate to a great cause by sponsoring me, please click here or click the link on my sidebar. (You have to click on the words under the Run for the Cure logo since I didn't know exactly how to do this).

Thank you in advance for your support.

Say cheese . . .

We all enjoy cheese in our house. We like it on bread, with crackers, in casseroles, on pizza, etc. However, there is one person who loves it more than anyone else . . . Samara.

The other day, she decided to serve herself some cheese. She went into the fridge all by herself, got the cheese out, and started taking bites out of the large brick of cheese! This is usually not the way we eat cheese in our house. We really are a little more polite than this. Here's the damage she did on the cheese. I would've taken a picture of her in the act but I didn't want her to think it was okay. :)

First Day of School

And thus ends another summer vacation . . .

Victoria and Austin are both very excited to be starting a new school year. Victoria is now in grade two and Austin is in kindergarten, which is three full days a week. We actually had to wake Austin up this morning to get him to the bus on time. He picked today of all days to sleep in.

We all walked out to the bus stop together. Samara, however, was NOT impressed when her big brother and sister got on the bus without her. The bottom lip came out and huge tears started rolling down her cheeks. How dare they leave her behind?

Victoria and Austin both had a really good first day of school and they love their new teachers. Austin was exhausted when he got home! It will take him a little while to get used to the full day thing as JK was only two mornings a week last year. But I'm sure it won't take long and he'll be right into the swing of things.

Samara and I also had a good day . It's neat having time just with her. Every child is different when you're just one on one with them so I think it'll be fun.

Here's to another year of school beginning.

This is before Victoria

and Austin got on the bus:

It's done!!!

A huge feeling of relief has come over me. I am FINALLY done Samara's Bai Jia Bei (100 Good Wishes Quilt). We've been home from China for over a year and a half now and it's taken me that long and longer to complete this project. It sat and sat for many months and the only thing I had left to do was the binding. But to be honest, this is the very first quilt I have ever made and I really had no idea what I was doing. So don't look too close - there are a lot of mistakes. But overall, I am happy with how it turned out and sooooo glad it's done! Here it is all finished:

And the craziest part is that I'm going to do another one. That's right, as much work as this one was and as long as it took me to make, it was so worth it. Samara loves it and as she gets older, she'll understand the meaning behind it and she'll know how many people anticipated her arrival and loved her before she was even here. It's been a really neat project and I'm actually excited to do another one.

So stay tuned for details of how you can contribute to the next quilt!

The mom quiz

I got the idea of this quiz from Janet's blog. I thought it was really cute and wondered what my kids would say about me. So here it is:

Austin's Answers:

1. What is something your mom always says to you?

"I love you"

2. What makes mom happy?

"when I listen to her”

3. What makes mom sad?

"when I don’t listen"

4. How does your mom make you laugh?

"when she does funny things to me like making funny faces"

5. What was your mom like as a child?

"she had long hair and stuff"

6. How old is your mom?

"I don’t know . . . 15?"

7. How tall is your mom?

"very tall"

8. What is her favorite thing to do?

"typing"

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?

"I can’t do that one cause I don’t know . . . I’m not there"

10. What is your mom really good at?

"10 pin bowling"

11. What is your mom not very good at?

"she can’t set up the Wii"

12. What does your mom do for her job?

"typing"

13. What is your mom's favorite food?

"her soup"

14. What makes you proud of your mom?

"that she’s my mom "

15. What do you and your mom do together?

"play"

16. How are you and your mom different?

"I have a green shirt and you have a blue shirt"

17. How do you know your mom loves you?

"cause she tells me all the time"


Victoria's Answers:

1. What is something your mom always says to you?

"I love you"

2. What makes mom happy?

"when I draw a picture”

3. What makes mom sad?

"when someone she knows dies"

4. How does your mom make you laugh?

"when she tickles me"

5. What was your mom like as a child?

"smaller"

6. How old is your mom?

"33?"

7. How tall is your mom?

"6 feet tall?"

8. What is her favorite thing to do?

"make her soup"

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?

"type"

10. What is your mom really good at?

"tucking me into bed"

11. What is your mom not very good at?

"drawing"

12. What does your mom do for her job?

"type"

13. What is your mom's favorite food?

"her soup"

14. What makes you proud of your mom?

"when she gets me juice"

15. What do you and your mom do together?

"play"

16. How are you and your mom different?

"I have blonde hair and she has brown"

17. How do you know your mom loves you?

"because she’s lovalish" (that's a word she made up a long time ago and we use it more often now)

Some of these answers made me laugh. They were both alone when they did the quiz so it's funny that some of their answers are the same. Like the soup one. That is not my favourite food . . . I think it may be Victoria's favourite and we were just talking about it this morning so I think that's where that answer came from. And for those of you who don't know me, I'm not "really tall". I'm fairly average at about 5' 6" tall . . . not 6 feet. Oh and in case you were wondering, I'm not 15 years old either. :)

Thanks for the idea Janet.

Thank you secret pal!

This is the gift I received from my secret pal this month. What a great idea. It will be neat to have an imprint of our little boy's footprint to save forever so in years to come we can show him how little he really was.

Thank you secret pal for another thoughtful gift!

Introducing . . .

. . . the newest member of our family - Teagan!

(No, we didn't get our referral in case that's what you thought!)

We picked up our new puppy Teagan on Monday and he's doing very well.

He's a cockapoo which makes him very loving, great with children, low-shedding, extremely smart, easy to train, obedient, good natured, healthy, very playful, etc. . . . a good match for our family. We picked him up on Monday morning and he's been fitting in nicely. He's a little sad at night when he has to go in his crate - that's when he misses his mama and siblings the most. But during the day, the kids have been keeping him busy with lots of playing. He's been really good with doing his "business" outside and hasn't even had one accident in the house. We've been taking him in the van whenever we go out for a minute (even to Tim Hortons) so that he gets used to riding in a vehicle and so far he doesn't seem to mind too much.

Victoria, Austin and especially Samara are still getting used to him when he's in a playful puppy mood but it's getting better and they are learning what to do when he jumps and gets a little too hyper. Here are Victoria and Austin on the first day home - Teagan just wanted to sleep all day and still does quite a bit of that . . . can you blame him?

This next picture is hilarious. Austin is just colouring away and Teagan decides to curl up on his legs. Looks like a nice cozy spot. Any time the kids sit on the floor too, he'll come and snuggle right up with them. So cute!

Welcome Home and Happy Birthday

My mom has been away for three weeks visiting my brother and family out west. She was flying into Toronto airport on Wednesday and we went to pick her up. Our kids LOVE the airport. They think it's so fun to go to wait for someone and then welcome them home. We used to go more often when Mike travelled a lot for work. My niece also joined us as she was staying at our place for the day. Plus my sister met us at the airport with her three kids. So there were 7 kids and 3 adults waiting welcome my mom home. The best part was that it was also her birthday. So we had brought some ballooons and my sister's kids had flowers for Grandma. Here are some shots of waiting for Grandma to come through the gates.

When my mom did finally come through the gates we broke into a nice, loud rendition of "Happy Birthday" and I think she was a little bit embarassed . . . which was the point. :) Everyone was looking at us (her) and a few stewardesses also stopped and clapped for my mom. Here she is trying to walk right past us and pretend she didn't know us.

Nice to see you again Mom. Love ya!