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! :)

Fun in the snow

We headed out in the winter wonderland this afternoon for a time of tobogganing. The weather was actually beautiful. Cold enough for there to be snow but warm enough not to freeze. We found a hill fairly close by our house which was perfect. It was just long enough to be fun but not too long that it was hard to walk back up. Victoria zipped right down no problem. Austin was a bit more hesitant and went with Daddy each time. Samara went down a few times with me but wasn't so sure about the whole tobogganing thing. I would basically have to get all settled in on the saucer and then scoop her up at the last minute so she didn't have time to get away. She always had a smile on her face at the bottom so I think she liked it. However, I think she really enjoyed standing at the top of the hill watching Victoria, Austin and Daddy zip down on the saucers. She would point at them and squeal in delight and then start clapping and shouting "yay!" when they got to the bottom. It was really cute.

Cute Pics

Look Mom - I dressed myself!

Lunar Eclipse

For those of you who missed it last night . . . what a show! The moon was so beautiful!

Here's how Wikipedia describes a lunar eclipse: "A lunar eclipse occurs whenever the moon passes through some portion of the Earth’s shadow. This can occur only when the Sun, Earth and Moon are aligned exactly, or very closely so, with the Earth in the middle. Hence, the Moon is always full the night of a lunar eclipse". (a much better description that I could have given).

Here are some of the pictures that Mike took last night during the eclipse:

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

A big sister in the making . . .

Samara's favourite thing to do is to imitate Victoria and Austin and most of the time it's really cute. Victoria often plays with her dolls, dressing them and changing their diapers (we have some small diapers left over from baby days), feeding them, etc. Today I witnessed Samara changing one of the teddy bear's diapers. Here are the pictures.





Notice the wet wipes and the diaper beside her? How cute is that??? She's going to be a great helper for mommy when she becomes a big sister!

Travel Group Gathering

We had our first annual Gotcha Day anniversary party yesterday. Hard to believe it's been a year since these little peanuts were placed in our arms. Most of them aren't peanuts anymore! They've changed so much and there's no sign of baby-ness in any of them.

We ended up renting a school gym for the occasion and it worked out so well. It was a great turn out and fun was had by all. The kids ran, jumped, kicked balls, threw balls, tumbled, turned, danced and had a great old time! I think the adults had just as much fun watching them. We're thinking about booking the gym already now for next year . . . each year as the kids get older, they'll need more room to run and play and it's a great place to get together.

Check out these cutie patooties!
A great cake to mark the occasion.
(Thanks Charlie and Juanita!)

Happy Gotcha Day!