My Little Cowgirl

Miss Emma got all dressed up for the county fair tonight.  (Yes, we totally live in the Midwest! :)  My little cowgirl had a blast.

She ate horribly bad for her super yummy fair food, watched baby chicks hatch, and petted just about every farm animal you can imagine.  

She'll be begging to barrel race in no time.

Of course, we brought our favorite cowboy with us.

Such a fun night!  Even this California girl had a good time.  (Okay, so I did get some weird looks when I asked what a "truck pull" was...)

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It was a V.E.R.Y. good day in adoptionland.  This friend found out that she will be traveling to meet her little girl in less than two weeks!  She is going to the country in Eastern Europe that we hope to adopt from, so she has been riding the same roller coaster we have over the past couple of months.  (Her little girl is seven, so she is adoptable under the new law.)  And, after a long and bumpy journey, this friend found out that she officially has two beautiful daughters in Ethiopia.  I am so blessed by all the adoptive mamas I have met in blogworld.  Jeremy teases me about calling all of you my friends, but you are.  I would have all of you over for sweet tea (or Diet Coke) and a long chat in a second!

Wait.  There's more good news.  The U.S. Department of State posted a notice about the country we are adopting from on their website.  It says, "Please note that the ****** government is in the process of updating the definition of special needs, a process which by law should be completed by October 11, 2011."   Official word that our country is working to expand "The List".  YAY!  (Click here if you're like me and get thrills from reading official governmental notices about adoption in far-off countries.)

Happy Monday, bloggy friends!

Sunlight through Clouds

This is going to be a really quick update because I have a date to watch The Bourne Supremacy with my husband and my sis.  Love that trilogy!  Just wanted to let you know that we got some encouraging adoption news this weekend.

First, I heard from another adoptive mom - you can check out her awesome blog here - that the country we're hoping to adopt from has decided to allow the SDA to continue processing adoptions after July 11 since the new adoption entity has not yet been established.  These adoptions will have to fit within the guidelines of the new law (children over four or children who have one of the special needs on "The List"), so it doesn't directly help us at this point.  (It does help my friend who is adopting a beautiful seven-year-old girl with HIV).  However, I am very thankful that adoptions will continue in some form.  I know many families who are waiting to adopt older children or children with needs on the list who will now be able to travel soon.

The other piece of good news came directly from Nina.  I just received an email from her that said...

I got news that the SDA got their right to continue their work (for what period of time I don't know yet), I will know more tomorrow, also there was a big broadcast on adoption and widening of the list of sick children on TV - the directors of the orphanages signed a petition to the President to widen it, I can see some sunlight through clouds :-)))  Will write as soon as I know anything.


Yay for some sunlight through clouds! :)  Please keep praying that the doors will open for more children with special needs to find their forever families.  Thanks for sharing this journey with us!

My Birthday Girl

Here's the beautiful girl who joined our family three years ago today.  

Happy birthday, Emma Kiersten!  You are loved more than you know.

In honor of Em's birthday, I thought I would post her adoption story.  For Emma's first Christmas, Jeremy and I gave her a photo book called Tell Me Again About When I Was Born.  (Yes, I totally stole the idea from Jamie Lee Curtis' Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born.  I read Jamie Lee's story just before Emma was born.  We bought a hardcover copy for Emma, but I also wanted her to have a book that told her own story.)  Here's the story about when our precious three-year-old girl was born...

Daddy, Mommy, tell me again about when I was born.  Tell me again how you had waited and waited and waited for a baby, and how you could barely sleep after you heard that I was coming on July 7.  Tell me about how your friends and family were so excited to meet me that they bought all kinds of presents and some of them even helped get a special room ready for me.

Tell me again how Grandma and Grandpa came over and helped load up the car with two gigantic suitcases; a bunch of snacks; a green tent; six bottles of Mountain Dew for Daddy; lots of teeny-tiny baby clothes; almost a million diapers; and my stuffed teddy, Owen.

Tell me again how you crossed a big river, drove over tall mountains, and stopped to spend the night in our green tent at a campground in Georgia.

Tell me again how you wanted to jump up and down when you finally got to Florida because you knew that was where you would meet me.  Tell about how it seemed to take forever and ever to get to the city where you would stay while I was born.

Tell me again how I didn't grow inside of your tummy, Mommy.  Tell me about how I was growing inside of my birth mommy Ashley's tummy.  Tell me about how she really loved me and took good care of me while I was growing inside of her, but she wasn't old enough to be my mommy so she chose you and Daddy to be my parents.

Tell me again how Daddy wanted to stop for Taco Bell on the way to the hospital, but it was closed.  And how Mommy was being grumpy because she was worried about being late.

Tell me again how you weren't late at all.  Tell me about how you sat in the waiting room with your tummies all tied up in knots and about how my birth grandma came to tell you that it was almost time.  Tell about how you were talking with Cheryl (Ashley's grandma) when I was born.  Tell me how I came at exactly 1:37 p.m. and weighted 6 lbs, 15 oz. and was 19 1/4 inches long.

Tell me again how you walked to the nursery window to see me.  Tell me about how you thought I was beautiful and perfect and amazing.  Tell me how you cried because I was yours.

Tell me again about my nurse, Gina.  Tell me about how she gave me my very first bath and my very first diaper change and about how I didn't like either of them very much at all.

Tell me again how Mommy got to hold me in the nursery when I was still brand new and how Daddy was jealous because he had to wait until the next day to hold his baby girl.

Tell me again about all the people who came to visit me while I was in the hospital: Ashley's brother and sister, Jeffrey and Destiny; my birth grandma; and even Ashley's grandma and step-grandpa!  Tell me about how excited they were to meet me and how excited they were to meet you since you were going to be my mommy and daddy.

Tell me again how you got to take me home from the hospital when I was three days old.  Tell me how Ashley dressed me in the special dress you had picked out for me and how it was white with heart buttons down the back.

Tell me again how carefully you put me in my car seat.  Tell me how Owen sat next to me and how he was bigger than I was.  Tell me about how you kept looking over your shoulder all the way home to make sure I was safe.

Tell me again how you took me home to our special friends.  Tell me about how they let us stay at their house in Florida and helped take care of me.  Tell me about my buddies - Courson and Porter - and how much fun I had with them!

Tell me again how you loved me already, even though I was still fresh from Jesus.  Tell me how you cuddled with me and played with me and woke up in the middle of the night to give me my bottle.  Tell me about how your cell phone bill was so expensive because you had to call practically everyone to say that I was going to be your baby forever and ever.

Tell me again how we went the the airport to pick up Grandpa.  Tell me how he gave me my bottle and how he thought I was so tiny and how we became great buddies right away.

Tell me again how we stayed in Florida for almost forever and how I got to do all kinds of things that most babies don't - like going out to eat every day and taking walks on the beach.

Tell me again how we finally got to come home.  Tell me how we drove all night because you were so excited to bring me home forever.  Tell me again how I was so excited to be home that I stayed awake almost all night long.

Daddy, Mommy, tell me again about the way we became a family.  Tell me again about when I was born.

One of Those Mommy Moments

Yup...I totally wore these two flip-flops today.  In public.  One black Teva.  One brown Rainbow.  Lovely.  


The best part is that I noticed after leaving the house.  After driving to the movie theater.  After meeting two friends from church and seeing one of our elders.  After the movie was two-thirds over and Em asked to go potty.  While in the bathroom, I finally looked down at my feet and noticed that I was unwittingly making quite the fashion statement.


I guess in the rush to get ready, coordinate cars and the car seat with Jeremy, and make sure that my child kept her shoes on long enough to make it out the door with something on her feet, I wasn't paying much attention to which shoes I grabbed out of the closet.  It was one of those mommy moments.  There have been quite a few of those moments since the day (three years ago today!) that Jeremy and I arrived in Florida to attend Emma's birth.


Moments like the one where I find myself really needing a Kleenex at the same second that Miss Emma is really needing a Kleenex.  So, I wipe her nose on one side and then blow mine on the other.  Great solution.


Moments like the one where I notice a gooey, half-chewed Cheerio stuck to the front of Em's shirt just as we're arriving somewhere important with no trash can in sight.  You've eaten regurgitated Cheerios before too, right?


Moments like the one where Emma begs and begs for a quarter for the gumball machine.  When she finally puts the quarter in, the little blue gumball spins slowly around and around the inside of the gumball machine, pops out the tiny swinging door, and rolls across the floor of the grocery store until I stop it with my sweaty flip-flop.  I brush it off and hand it to Emma.  (After all, it was only on the floor for like 1.2 seconds so the Five-Second Rule totally applies.)  She puts the little blue gumball in to her mouth and realizes it is actually a gigantic blue gumball.  She tries and tries to chew but only succeeds in slobbering a lot and breaking off a tiny corner.  She pulls it out of her mouth and looks up at me.  "Here, Mommy, help me."  Needless to say, I end up with a lot of blue spit all over my hands and a germy, half-chewed gumball in my mouth.  Yum.


I'm sure I'm not the only one who's had these (right?).  The "I Can't Believe I ate/smelled/talked about/looked at/touched/tasted/changed That Moments".  They're part of being a mommy.  And, they're 100% worth it.  They're worth it because - as much as it feels like it sometimes - they aren't the only kind of mommy moments.  Just when you think you've turned into a walking mass of spit-up who will never again go the bathroom alone, you have one of the other kind of mommy moments.  The amazing, incredible, I-will-remember-this-for-a-lifetime moments.


Moments like the one where Emma climbs into my lap, takes my face in both of her chubby palms, and says, "I love you soooo much."


Moments like the one where Emma spontaneously starts praying in her car seat.  Jeremy and I hear her say, "Jesus, get my brother and sister.  I have lots of toys in my playroom; I will share them."


Moments like the one where I wake up to find Emma climbing into my bed to cuddle.  She leans over close to my face and gives me her version of an Eskimo kiss.  She rubs her nose against mine and tries to kiss my lips at the same time.  Slobbery wet sweetness.


I am thankful for every moment of being a mommy - Eskimo Kiss moments and mismatched flip-flop moments.  I wouldn't trade any of it for the days when I took long, hot showers (without an audience) and had time to look at my shoes before heading out the door.  Being a mommy isn't always fun.  It isn't always easy.  But when I hold my squirmy girl and feel her arms, hot from the playing in the sun, tight around my neck...when I see kindness beginning to take root in her little heart...when I watch her smile with pride because of something I have played a little part in helping her learn, I am reminded that my job is important.  I have an irreplaceable spot in my daughter's heart that is worth all the times she tells me, "Mommy, I peed in my shoes."  I wouldn't trade being a mommy for anything.


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Keep reading for a quick adoption update...I just got an email from Nina saying that we are officially registered as potential adoptive parents in our country.  This is good news because it means that all of our paperwork was done correctly, and we don't have to get anything redone (or make any more trips to the state capital...for now, at least).   The SDA is scheduled to close next Monday, July 11.  I've heard that the longest the closure can last (by law) is three months, so the new adoption entity should be up and running sometime between next week (I wish!) and October 11.  There have not yet been any changes to the special needs list; please keep praying that more special needs are added and that God would clearly speak to our hearts if we need to consider a change in direction.  Thanks.

Happy 4th of July!!!

If you had asked me as a seven or eight year old what my favorite holiday was, I would have told you the 4th of July.  No question.  I loved the sizzling July weather in Northern California; it wasn't unusual for the thermometer to hit 105 on a hot July day.  I loved the fireworks we bought in the next county since you couldn't buy anything - not even sparklers - where we lived.  (It still amazes me that I can now walk down the street and buy fireworks that put our Picolo Petes and spinning pagodas completely to shame.)  Most of all, I loved our little town's traditional 4th of July parade.


Going to the parade is my favorite childhood July 4th memory.  We would get up early and walk the mile and a half downtown.  We didn't stake out spots the night before, but we always managed to squeeze in somewhere along the edge of the sidewalk.  I'm sure the parade wasn't incredibly long, but in my memory it lasts all morning.  There were plenty of treats and candy tossed out to us eager kids waiting along the road.  The parade always ended with men in uniform shooting blanks high into the sky.  When the blanks hit the ground, we would dart between their legs to grab the empty cartridges.  I still remember walking home with those treasured red tubes clutched in my hands.


Another one of my favorite 4th of July memories comes from college.  The summer after my sophomore year, I got the best job ever.  I was a nanny for a family with three kids.  (Here's a shout out to Kelly, Lucy, and Joe who are not kids anymore.  I love you guys!)  I spent the summer swimming, going to the park, and dressing up to star in ridiculous home videos...and got paid for it.  Best.  Job.  Ever.  


The family I worked for owned two cabins - one at Lake Tahoe and one at Donner Lake.  Over the 4th of July, they let me take their kids (and their Suburban) up to the Donner cabin for a week.  (Did I tell you this was the best job, or what?)  Somehow we found out about an amazing spot to watch the fireworks.  In the mountains high above Donner Lake, there is an abandoned railroad track.  We discovered a place where we could hike along the railroad track to a wooden train tunnel.  We watched the fireworks over Donner Lake from the top of the train tunnel, high above the lake and the fireworks.  The air below us and the shimmering lake water filled with bursts of color.  Amazing.


Today was another 4th of July filled with memories.  My parents and my sister are all here from California, and - thanks to some awesome friends from church - we spent the afternoon out on the lake.  

Emma was so excited to take her first boat ride.

She even got to drive.  When our friend Tom picked her up to the steering wheel, she said something like, "I'm used to driving cars."  You know, because we let her drive our car all the time. :)

Here's my girl looking patriotic.  (Okay, so the pink butterfly towel doesn't exactly go with the theme, but we tried.)

Last year, Emma was scared of the fireworks.  This year, not so much.  Tia lit sparkler after sparkler for her in the front yard.  I think she would have stayed out there all night.  She kept waving them around and saying, "Happy 4th of July!"

Happy 4th of July to all of you!  I hope your day was filled with family, friends, and memories that will last a lifetime.

I Heart Camping

I love camping.  Love, love, love sleeping in our little green tent under the star-studded sky.  Love eating marshmallows cooked to gooey brown perfection on the end of a sharpened stick.  Even love that lingering campfire smell that hangs in the air while I unpack.  (One of my roommates and I actually joked about creating a campfire-scented cologne for guys.  Eau de Campfire.  Think it would sell? :)


I have camped with my family for as long as I can remember, and camping trips with our kids are something Jeremy and I have both looked forward to for a long time.  We started taking Emma camping when she was three months old.  (Although, I have to confess that I chickened out on spending the night that trip when the weather forecast called for overnight temps below freezing.  Yes, it was a total new mom freak out moment.)  Emma's first four camping adventures haven't gone so well, but I'm determined.


This week, my sister and two friends took our three girls (all under three) for an overnight camping trip to a nearby state park.  I went camping with the same two friends last summer.  That trip was more than a little bit disastrous.  In the end, one crying baby had to go home at ten o'clock at night.  One toddler kept the campsite (and the very pregnant mama in her tent) awake screaming until after midnight.  And we had to call poison control after someone's child was discovered with a bottle of Advil gelcaps dumped in her lap.  Oops.


Anyways, I'm determined (and my friends are pretty good sports, too).  So Wednesday afternoon we packed our fam van and headed to the state park.  We picked a quiet (well, seemingly quiet) spot located in the primitive section of the campground.  (We sacrificed flush toilets for a $6 site and a spot where the girls could ride their bikes without much traffic.)  Our girls had a blast playing.

Emma doesn't look like she's having a blast in this picture, but that's just because Hailey's smiling and the two of them have conspired to never smile at the same time while anyone in the vicinity is holding a camera.

There's just something incredibly fun about bikes and camping.  Emma got her princess bike as an early birthday present from Jeremy's parents, and she LOVES it.  She got pretty good at whizzing around our campsite and only needed one Elmo bandaid to make a full recovery from her crashes.

All in all, the day went really well.  You can't beat friends, S'mores, and...

And even though my daughter spent more time doing this...

than sleeping, that was okay, too.  The biggest disappointment of the trip actually had nothing to do with the girls.  It was the fact that our quiet and secluded spot turned into a really loud and really bright spot about two o'clock in the morning.  The campers across from us decided to have a super. loud. fight.  Eventually they left and the cops came.  Raya and Hailey slept right through it, but Emma had a little party in our tent from about 3:00 until 5:00 a.m.  (I'm still holding my breath hoping that she didn't learn any new vocabulary words.)  It was not a fun night.

Thankfully, we woke up to a beautiful day and managed to muster enough energy for a picnic at the lake before heading home.  The girls were a little tired and crabby, but we escaped without any meltdowns.

Tia and Emma even got in a good water fight.

Scraped knees.  Middle-of-the-night potty runs.  A van crammed with supplies for a one-night trip.  It's all worth it.  I still heart camping.  (And I totally heart my mom and dad for all the times they took my brother, sister, and me camping.  I'm learning that camping as a parent takes a whole lot of effort.)  

Hopefully I'll be lucky enough to smell campfire smoke on my clothes again soon.

A Summer Night at the Park

My sister, Jessica, flew in from California this morning.  (Yes, the rest of my family still lives a half-an-hour from the Pacific Ocean and the mountains; I'm the only one who's trying to convince herself that the dunes are a halfway decent substitute for both.)  Jess is staying until the middle of July, and we are really looking forward to our time with her  It was gorgeous out tonight, so we headed to the park to play for a while before bedtime.

Can you tell that Em is a little excited to have her tia here?

Lovin' the swings!

Checking to make sure that Tia's not swinging higher than she is.

Getting a little push...

Emma's favorite piece of playground equipment is the old-school metal slide.  She flies off the end (when she's not hanging onto the sides for dear life).  I love it.

Emma's turned into a total monkey lately.  She climbs everything - including the railing in the church foyer.  (Yes, the pastor's kid is the barefoot one hanging from the church's furniture. :)

Time with family makes us smile!