23 Months!

I can't believe we have waited this long for our Kaelin! If someone would have told me last Christmas that we would not have her by this Christmas I would have said they were out of their mind! Well here we are a year later and no Kaelin. But you know, I'm not that sad. I have my 5 beautiful, sweet, amazing kids and a great husband and I love tht we are all together home and it's Christmas! God has chosen the perfect little girl for us and it is just not time for her to be here yet. We have a really good feeling that she has been born and now we just pray that God will fill her little heart with peace and keep her warm and fed until we can come get her and love her forever. Next Christmas is going to be unforgettable!

Ta Dah!

Kaelin's room is almost done! I am so excited that Kaelin's room is finally coming together. After 5 trips to the paint store and 3 different carpet stores her room is almost finished! I chose fernwood green for the walls and cinderella pink for the ceiling. The carpet is the softest shag and feels so good under bare feet! All we have left to do is order the roman shades for the windows and finish the seat cusion for the window seat! The bedding is Pink Daisy Garden from PBKids and the crib is a Babi Italia Eastwood in dark cherry from Babies R Us. Instead of buying the dresser that went with the crib I decided to use the dresser I used for all five of my kids! I love that I am using it for Kaelin too! All I did was paint it white replace the old hardware with the cutest ladybug knobs I got at Target.com. I also scattered the prettiest little fairies around the walls, they are precious! The chandelier is also from Target! The best part is my sweet adorable husband, who I love beyond words, is getting me the Pottery Barn Kids Dream Glider in the light pink cotton twill for Christmas! It takes about 6 to 8 weeks to come in so it will be a while before I can post pictures of the room completely finished. The pictures above are just a sneak preview!

Referrals thru December 14, 2005!

Today our agency received referrals for 15 families! Even though CCAA only did 6 days worth, it is still an encouraging step in the right direction. At this rate, we should see our referral for Kaelin in May. Who knows, maybe right around Mother's Day! Of course, any sooner would be even better! Congratulations to all you lucky families!

Newest Members of the Family!

Meet Hannah and Fiona! Hannah is my daughter, Sarah's, new foster dog, and Fiona is my son, Adam's, newly adopted kitty. Hannah is a two-year old Basset Hound who was found abandoned on the streets of Memphis last month. Sarah is a volunteer for an animal rescue league there and took Hannah in until she can find her a loving home. Hannah has been through a lot as she was abandoned soon after delivering a litter of puppies. Even considering the trauma of losing her puppies and being homeless, Sarah says that Hannah is an absolute sweetheart! Although Hannah was a bit emotionally traumatized when Sarah first took her in, she is now doing well and seems to be recovering nicely. Sarah is bringing Hannah home with her for Christmas and we all can't wait to meet her! I hope Sarah can find a home for Hannah, soon. I am such a sucker for animals, hmmmmmm. Gary is already rolling his eyes and saying Good Grief!

Fiona is a lovely brown and black tabby cat. She had been hanging around Gary's company's warehouse and sleeping in a high-lo for several days when Adam decided to adopt her. Needless to say, she has been at my house most of the time and loves her new family! She is so affectionate and gets along very well with our cat Tigger and our dog Storm! She actually chases Storm (our 75 lb English Setter)! It is too funny!

Since we have been logged in at CCAA our family has taken in two dogs and three cats! Now, if we could just add one Chinese baby girl to the mix, our family will be complete!

My Sweet Girls!

Leave it to my two sweet wonderful girls to know just how to cheer me up! I got a big surprise package from The Land of Nod a few days ago! Inside was the cutest toy! A lady bug ride on toy for Kaelin! I absolutely love it and I have actually had my eye on it in the Land of Nod catalogue for some time now. They had no idea that I wanted it! I guess they know me too well! I can't wait to see Kaelin riding it around the house! How cute that will be!

Marie and Sarah, you are the best daughters a mom could ever have, and I love you both all the way around the world and back a million billion times!

A Poem

Dedicated to my beautiful mom

Tears

Let yourself cry

Tears are the balm of the soul

Tears are cleansing

Tears are healing

Tears are renewing

Crying rids the body of toxins and the soul of illusions

Sometimes we see clearly only through the blur of tears

They wash away the layers of self sufficiency and pretension to reveal the core of us

That is pure spirit ~ resilient and immortal

author unknown

Referrals are on their way!

Well, it's that time again! Our agency is expecting to receive referrals for families logged in through December 8th, '05 this week. Why does it seem that every month referrals come, we still have about a 6 month wait? I think, this time, we can honestly say, "6 more months!" If CCAA stays consistent in doing 1 week's worth of LID's per month, then it will take them at least 6 more months to make it to our LID of January 23, '06.

Dec 9-16 in Dec

Dec 17-24 in Jan

Dec 25-31 in Feb

Jan 1-7 in Mar

Jan 8- 15 in Apr

Jan 16-23 in May (US!)

Although, 6 months seems like an eternity, it is actually just enough time to finish Kaelin's bedroom, install a new kitchen floor, clean and organize our house top to bottom, baby-proof everything, and buy everything on my packing list! Yikes! All of the sudden I'm feeling fairly panicked, here!

Congratulations to all of the families getting their referrals this month! Especially to our friends, Cheri and Shane, who are going to see their daughter, Hope's, sweet little face this week! We are so excited for you!

Happy Birthday! Sarah!

Today is our babygirl's birthday! I woke up this morning thinking how could this be? How in the heck is our little girl 22 already?! Sarah, better known as "Bunny" (nickname given to her when she was a week old by her big brother, Adam) was such a beautiful baby when she was born! She actually looked Asian! She had (and still does) gorgeous dark brown (almost black) shiny hair, big brown eyes! What a beauty! Sarah has brought so much joy to our lives and is such an exceptional daughter! I wish she could be home on her birthday, but she is in Memphis working hard on her Master's degree in Dietetics. We miss her so much and can't wait to see her on Thanksgiving. WE LOVE YOU, BUNNY!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

21!

Yep, we've been logged in at CCAA for 21 looong months! Now that CCAA is finally working on December of '05, maybe we'll see some real progress this month with referrals. There is a rumor over on RQ that CCAA has matched through the 10th! I'm not even going to get excited about this one! But I am crossing everything I can possibly cross that this is the case! There is also a thread over on RQ that talks about January '06 already being matched. If this is true, then how sad is it that our dossier could have a photo of our daughter attached to it and it is just sitting on somebody's desk collecting dust! Even more disturbing is to think that whether we've been matched or not, our daughter could possibly be sitting in a crib (with no mattress) cold, hungry, or wet with no one to tend to her! While we are here just dying to hold her, feed her, comfort her, play with her, keep her warm, and most importantly, LOVE her! I try not to think about that so much as we pray every day for the opposite: That she is being well cared for in her SWI or, even better, in a loving foster care home. Every night we pray that her guardian angel will whisper in her little ear, "Mama and baba are coming, just hold on a little longer."

It's Been a While....

I love this picture of my mom and dad (taken last year)! I know it's been a while since my last post, but my focus has been on my mom this last month. She is now out of the hospital and in a nursing home. I go there every day to see her and make sure she is getting what she needs. Even though, she appears to be getting good care, it is still such a depressing and sobering place. Nothing makes you think about your own mortality like a visit to a nursing home. It is so hard to see my mom in this condition. This is not the mom I once knew. I wish her doctors and nurses could have known her before she became this way! I wish they could know what a wonderful, intelligent, and talented woman she was/is! At least she is still so beautiful ! So many times her nurses comment on what a beautiful woman she is! The good thing is that she still recognizes her family and we are so thankful for that! But, she has lost her ability to walk or even sit up, and only stays awake for short periods. One thing she has not lost is her ability to hear! Yesterday, I said something funny to her nurse and mom laughed right out loud! We thought she was asleep! That brought such joy to my heart! No one really knows, except God, how much time my mom has, but she sure is fighting to hang on and we are so glad for that!

On another note, I turned 46 last week! It really didn't even phase me, either. I don't feel any different than when I turned 40! Except that my feet have been hurting when I get out of bed in the morning! Maybe I just need new tennies, I hope! Age is just a number, anyway, right?