Adoption Friends

On Sunday afternoon we went to a bbq at the home of another family adopting from Ethiopia. There were five families there all together - two couldn't make it. We had such a great time! They have a beautiful home with lots of room for the kids to run and play. It's such a blessing to hang out with other families that have adopted or are adopting - specifically from Ethiopia (one family has adopted from both China and Ethiopia). It's fun to get to know each other and share the joys and concerns, the ups and downs of international adoption. Here are a few of the many pictures we took at the bbq.

A cake with the names of the children referred to our families over the past few months. What a neat idea!


I had no idea Victoria was such a cat lover. Those who know me, know she did NOT get that from her mother (right Aunt Christy??)!

A little visitor

This morning we had a visitor at our place. We found him wandering around under our van in the driveway. He just stared at us as we took some pictures and then wandered out into the garden. After a while he had enough and walked across the street into the neighbour's backyard. A few hours later we saw him again walking down the street to the end of our court. Although he's kinda creepy and not the cutest looking baby I've ever seen, I did feel kinda sorry for him as he was clearly lost. He was so tired and looked as though he could hardly keep his eyes open. I hope he ended up finding his mama so he could finally get some rest (and not come back to our place again!)

Family Outing

Last Friday evening we got an email from a friend saying she had five tickets for a Blue Jay game for the following day and they were unable to go - does anyone want them? After briefly discussing it with Mike, we decided to take them (thanks Marg!!!). When we told the kids where we were going the next morning, they were beyond excited. We were actually going to see a real live baseball game in Toronto! At this point I have to admit I was having second thoughts about taking three small children to such an event. But it ended up being a lot of fun. The kids were very interested in the game and asked all kinds of questions. They really wanted to understand what was going on so they could cheer when appropriate; however, the Jays ended up losing 10 - 0 so there wasn't a whole lot of cheering going on. Regardless of the score, we had a great time and it was a very fun family outing.

Remember me???

So I guess it’s been a while since I’ve posted eh? Wow . . . over a month. Where does the time go? There’s nothing specific taking up my time, just a whole lot of everyday living.

• Since we passed court on May 20, I’ve been “nesting”. Organizing, sorting, chucking, donating, cleaning, reorganizing, etc. I’ve gone through a lot of clothes for Denver, sorted them all by size and am trying to predict what size he’ll be wearing. On our last update pictures, he was wearing a 12 month sleeper that we sent along in a care package. It fits him pretty good already and wasn’t even six months old when the pictures were taken! I’ve gone through Victoria, Austin and Samara’s clothes. I’ve even gone through mine and Mike’s clothes and got rid of a lot of stuff that we never wear anymore. I’m feeling lighter!
  
  
• I’ve also been doing a bit of packing. Putting things together that will be useful for travel. I want to be somewhat prepared when we get the call to go ahead and bring him home. (Can you really be totally prepared for something like that?!?!?)
  
  
• We went to get our needles. Ok, when I say “we”, I mean Samara. The three of us went to the travel medicine clinic so we could get what we needed and as it turned out, Mike and I didn’t need anything because we were all set from when we traveled to China 2.5 years ago. Poor Samara though. We had been telling her that all three of us would be getting “poked” and then it turns out she was the only one that needed not one, but two needles. She was so brave though . . . cried a little until the nurse gave her a candy necklace. Candy works every time!
  
  
• I’ve been running again . . . mostly on my own (or with our dog Teagan) but trying to get back into the swing of getting up early to run at 5:30 am with the great bunch of girls that I used to run with a few months ago. I miss them when I don’t run with them and I’m much more motivated when I run with a group. I just don’t have the same conversations with Teagan!
  
  
• I’ve been doing a lot of typing. For those of you that don’t know, I work part-time doing medical transcription from home. I’ve been doing it for over seven years and I’ve been blessed to be able to stay home with my kids and still earn a bit of cash. However, it’s been taking over lately and I’ve been very overwhelmed with it all. So, I’ve had to cut back and let three of the doctors know that as of the end of June, I won’t be transcribing their notes anymore. It was really hard for me to let go of them but I know it’s best for me and my family . . . especially after Denver comes home.
  
  
• I was in BC for a week at the end of May/beginning of June. My sister-in-law had her third chemo treatment and so I was able to help out with the kids and whatever else needed to be done. It was so good to be there and visit and catch up and just see how they’re all doing . . . which happens to be quite well despite their circumstances. Thanks for letting me come and visit guys. Keep up the fight Christel – you’re a trooper and a huge inspiration!
  
  
• The kids are out of school for the summer already. Again, where has the time gone? Victoria finished grade two and Austin finished kindergarten. I can’t believe they’ll both be in school full-time next year! So here we are trying to get used to being all together all the time with no specific routine. I bought the kids some workbooks so they can work on math, reading, writing, etc. during the summer. We work on it for at least an hour every morning (during the week) and they actually love it. In the afternoon, the kids always have an hour of “quiet time”. That means they are each in their own rooms either reading or doing something quiet on their own. We all need this time. It’s good for them to take a break from each other and it’s good for me to have this quietness too. And then of course there’s a whole lot of playing in between too.
  
  
• We plan to do some play dates and visits with friends at parks or splash pads/wading pools too. My sister-in-law and I have decided to “switch kids” for a full day once a week. That means one week I get the girls and she gets the boys and the next week, it’s the opposite. She has a daughter Breanna that’s Victoria’s age, a son Zachary that’s Austin’s age and a daughter Cassandra that’s Samara’s age. So it works out really well and they play quite nice together. We’re hoping it will be a good change for the kids (and their mamas!).
  
  
• We’re getting together with a bunch of adoptive families (adopting or adopted from Ethiopia) next weekend. We’ve gotten together with the women and small children before but this time it will be our husbands and all the kids too. Can’t wait! Since we saw each other last time, two more families have gotten referrals and hopefully there will be more in the near future.
  
  
• It’s a very exciting time coming up for my friend Catherine. She’s probably about a month (at the most) away from seeing her daughter Hannah’s face for the very first time. After waiting over 39!!!! months, she should be receiving a referral from China in the month of July. I can’t wait! She’s been such an amazingly patient mama and such an example in the adoption community. Did I mention that she’s waited for 39 months??!?!?!?!?
  
  

So that’s it. I didn’t mean to be this long winded but I guess that’s what happens when you don’t post on your blog for so many weeks. I will try to do some more posts to catch up in the next little while. If you have a blog that I usually follow, I am still reading and following along . . . just not commenting all the time. I hope all is well with everyone.

Our family of six

These flowers were left on our doorstep last week when we passed court and Denver officially became our son.

I didn't know at first who they were from until I listened to the phone message explaining that the flowers represent our family. Two big ones for mom and dad and four little ones for Victoria, Austin, Samara and Denver.

Thanks Aunt Christy!!!

Field Day 2009

Friday was field day for the kids at school. This year Austin got to participate as well since he's in kindergarten and both him and Victoria were very excited about it. They both did very well and we were proud of their accomplishments. Here are some pictures from the day:

Victoria doing running long jump:

Victoria doing standing long jump:




Austin doing standing long jump:


Austin doing running long jump:

Samara practicing her dashes and standing long jump with Grandma. You have to wait a few more years to officially participate in field day Samara!


These next pictures are taken by Mike. He set the camera to click a picture every second or every few seconds or however it does that. (Can you tell I'm not a photographer?) This is Austin doing the 50 meter dash. I love how intense he looks. He's already a fast little runner and won both times he ran.

Mother's Day 2009

(Better late than never!)

I always love receiving creations that the kids have made at school or on their own. It’s so fun to see what they come up with and the love that goes into each card or gift. This year was no different. Here's something from Austin.

He had to fill in some information about me - he even got a few right. :) But to set the record straight, my favourite store is NOT Wal-Mart., my favourite TV show is NOT the news, I am NOT 11 feet tall and even though I clean the house, I am NOT a cleaner. His answers did make me smile though and I love the thought that went into this.

This is a recipe book that the kids in kindergarten put together for their moms. Every child had to tell the teacher a recipe that their mom makes. Austin chose Kraft Dinner. LOL!! The poor kid could eat that every week but unfortunately I'm not a big fan of it so I rarely make it (probably why he missed a few ingredients). This book also made me smile.

Here's a card from Victoria. It says "My love for you" and then every time you flip the top up, the giraffe's neck gets longer and longer and it says "grows and grows, etc." Really cute! I like how she signed it "Love your daughter Victoria". I guess that's just in case I thought it was the from the other Victoria that might make me such a card. :)

This is another beautiful picture from Victoria.

And here's a pendant I also got. It says Mother in three different languages - Chinese, Amharic (Ethiopian) and English. It's also my favourite colour (orange) and I LOVE it!!!

I was also spoiled with flowers and a beautiful plant. Thanks Mike, Victoria, Austin and Samara. I love you guys!

We have four kids!!!!

This morning we received the phone call to inform us of a positive court outcome. This was our second court date as the judge needed clarification on some paperwork last week when it was scheduled. We are officially the proud parents of Denver Jacob Baheran Carmody!!! We are so relieved that this part of the wait is over.

We can’t thank you enough for all of your prayers and support. I can’t believe how many people told us that they were praying in the middle of the night. I thought I was the only crazy one not sleeping!

Anyway, we’re ecstatic to be on to the next step which is more waiting. More paperwork needs to be done and it will still be another three to four months before we can travel to bring him home. So keep on praying – specifically that everything gets done in a timely manner, that God continues to watch over Denver and keeps him healthy and safe and that we all continue to have patience.

Exhausted

This whole ordeal has tuckered Samara right out! She's still not feeling 100% but definitely getting better. She never naps anymore so this is a rare thing to see - she obviously needs it.

Oh what a day . . .

. . . one we don’t want to repeat – ever!

Today started out like any other day. Got up, had breakfast, Victoria and Austin caught the bus for school and all was well. Until the phone rang. The secretary at the school where Victoria and Austin go (who happens to be my mom) called to say that Austin had scraped up his face pretty bad. He was running on the pavement and tripped over something. Apparently it didn’t need stitches but there was one sad boy that needed to come home. Since Mike was just on his way out the door, he offered to go get him and bring him home. The poor little guy. Here he is later in the day (when it was ok to take some pics).


And to top it all off, he was so disappointed that he was going to miss his class trip to the greenhouse this afternoon. So we made arrangements that Mike would come home to stay with Samara (who wasn’t feeling 100%) and I would go with Austin (who by this time was feeling better) to the greenhouse. So that’s what we did. Since it was the end of the day when we got back to school after the class trip, I also took Victoria home so she didn’t have to go on the bus. When I pulled into the driveway, the man that lives next door came over and I could tell something was wrong from the look on his face. He didn’t waste any time in telling me that Mike had gone via ambulance to the hospital with Samara. He explained that they thought she maybe had a seizure and I’m not sure what else he said because by this point I was already running into the house to call my mom so she could come watch the kids for me. It just so happened that she didn’t have to work tonight (even though she usually does on Monday nights) so she came as fast as she could (it felt like hours). I headed to the hospital, which is thankfully only five minutes from our house, and met Mike and Samara there. She was already a lot better by that point besides being a little dopey and out of it. The doctor was there explaining everything to Mike and then also to me. So without going into a lot of details about what happened, I’ll just say that Samara had a febrile seizure which can happen from a high fever. She’s fine now and we’re all home safe and sound but it was definitely a huge scare. Definitely the worst scare of Mike’s life. He handled it all so well though and I’m so thankful he was there. Looking back at it now, we can see that God was watching over the whole situation. There are so many things that happened that were totally from God. For example, the neighbour across the street is a firefighter and he just happened to come home at the exact time when Mike needed him. He came over and helped out and even took over the 9-1-1 call. I think it was very comforting and reassuring for Mike to have him there. And the fact that my mom was available to watch Victoria and Austin so I could scoot over to the hospital. And of course the fact that everything turned out okay and Samara is and will be fine. Thank you Lord for watching over our family today and providing for us once again.

Kissin' Cousins

Samara and her cousin Cassandra are only six months apart in age. Up until this point though, they've really been too young to interact and actually play together. But now all of a sudden it seems like they know how to play together and they love each other like crazy! We often hear Samara talk about "me friend" which is what she refers to Cassandra as. It's pretty cute because whenever they see each other now, there are many hugs and kisses and they act as if they haven't seen each other for years. They're quite the little trouble makers when they're together too. For example, they know how to quietly put on their shoes and sneak outside at Grandma's house when we think they're playing nicely in the playroom downstairs. It's enough to give everyone quite the heart attack! (right Grandma??) It should be interesting when they go to school too because they will actually be in the same class. Victoria, Austin and Denver also have cousins from the same family that are only months younger than them but their birthdays happen to fall in different years (since ours are December babies). So look out teachers when Samara and Cassandra end up at school . . . in the same class!

Here are some pictures from when they were playing at Grandma's house together on Friday. Grandma and her grandgirls.