Daddy - daughter time

Lily has spent the last 2 days home with Corey as our sitter had her wisdom teeth removed.

Corey has been learning some lessons on how hard it is to keep up with the house and a 6 month old at the same time. Here is what happened after he ran into the laundry room to start a load of clothes:



Apparently the computer was a lot more interesting than the bottle she was working on.

6 Months

My dear, sweet little nugget. You are 6 months old. Your daddy and I are still blissful, loving every minute with you. You are so silly and fun, you keep us constantly entertained. We really can't remember what we did before we had you around. We don't want to even think about that.

Every single minute of every day we remember how lucky we are that your birthmom decided to make us your parents. There are not words to describe how grateful we are. We are also truly grateful to have your birth family in our lives so that they can share in our love for you.

Things we want to remember about you at 6 months old:

-A few weeks ago, you started pulling yourself up to standing while holding onto our fingers. You do this ALL the time. You look so proud when you do it.
-You are very good at sitting up on your own and hardly even wobble anymore.
-You are getting more interactive with other kids. It is fun to see you play with your cousins and friends.
-You give big, open-mouthed kisses.
-You love when I hop like a frog and say "ribbit". You find it absolutely hilarious.
-You love it when I sing songs to you, especially the ABC song and Baa Baa Black Sheep. You smile really big when we sing.
-You are sleeping through the night again after a short stint of getting up 2 times per night.
-You have not quite grasped the leg action of crawling but you rotate around and around on your tummy and kick your little legs in unison trying to move forward.
-You are a good eater. You have eaten cereal and tried avocado (which made you gag).
-You are such a big girl. You look like a giant compared to many other kids your age. You are tall and very solid. Everyone says you surprise them at how heavy you are when they actually pick you up. I always joke that your legs are filled with concrete.

You are very, very loved,

Love,

Mommy.

The s'more family sticks together

The 3rd annual Halloween Party was a success. The costumes just seem to get better every year.

Procrastination

What I should be doing: cleaning the house and getting ready for our Halloween party this weekend.

What I'm doing instead: uploading these...

New hen house

The coop Corey worked so hard to build this spring has started to fall apart. This was no fault of Corey's, it was the design. The boards were just not substantial enough to support moving it all the time. The time had come to make a better abode for the winter. Corey (with the help of his friend, Jeremy) built this coop over the last few weeks. It even has a layer of insulation all the way around it to keep the hens toasty warm in the winter. Lucky chickens indeed.



Lily loves watching the chickens scratch and look for tasty little bugs.



We also hung up Lily's new swing today. A hand-me-down from our friends Jeremy and Jennifer.



And since it is fall and the colors are so pretty, I had to take a few more portraits of the girl wearing a special sweater given to her by her great-aunt Sandy.

Adoption friends

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know what our adoption support group means to us. Our group is not formal, it is just a group of friends who live in the same area and found each other through our adoption agency. We are 6 couples strong and we sure have been through a lot together. I have cried with these people in my weakest moments and celebrated with them in our happiest. We can't imagine going through all of this without our them. They have been there, suffered through the same trials and tribulations, and they just understand.

As I have said before, we want nothing more than for all of us to have our babies. I am happy to report that our little group of 6 couples has quite a bit going on these days. One couple happily have their baby (Henry), two couples are matched with potential birthmothers, and another couple is pursuing other (non-adoption) avenues to parenthood.

The one couple in our little group that is still ready and waiting to meet a potential birthmother is Jim and Nissy. I actually met Nissy at a doctor's office way before our adoption group came along. We became fast friends in the waiting room and shared contact info. We kept in touch and low and behold, here we are in the same little group of adoption folks. Jim and Nissy are wonderful, warm, fun people and their baby will be SO loved and cherished.

I would like to take the time to also mention one other couple that is patiently waiting to complete their family. Julie and Daniel are from Wisconsin and we met them through our agency at a weekend workshop. This couple has a little boy who desperately wants to big a big brother. We are hoping that very soon, his wish comes true.

If you know of someone interested in making an adoption plan for their child, please let them know about these 2 wonderful families who have so much love to give.

Sucking face

Today Lily learned to give kisses. It is so funny, she uses lots of tongue and there is quite a bit of suction involved, but she's getting the hang of it.

This is what happens...

...when it's daddy's turn to feed her.




For the last month or so, Lily has not been her usual sleep-through-the-night self. She's been waking up fairly often and she's been hungry. A few weeks ago, we tried giving her some cereal to see if it helped her last through the night. Turns out, she just wasn't ready. She wasn't into it and I didn't want to push her. We decided to try again earlier this week. She has definitely got it down now! She's like a baby bird, mouth agape. Only problem is she wants to grab the spoon and put it in her mouth herself.

Remembering

I'm sitting here on my lunch break and suddenly remembering the first day we saw Lily. What a flood of emotions it was! The trip short drive from the airport to the hospital seemed excruciatingly long. Then, we wanted to stop by and pick up flowers for Lily's birth mother. That was an experience in it's self. We wanted them to be just right. Not too difficult for her to carry home, but still beautiful.

I've written before about the amazing first few moments of meeting our daughter, her birth mom and Christina. I'm not sure if I ever mentioned the phone calls home. None of our family knew we had a potential adoption situation. They had no clue we were in California. After we met Lily's birth family and things felt so "right" and we knew it was for real and forever, we called our parents.

Before the calls, we had quickly snapped some photos of our new little family and Corey ran across the street from the hospital to find wifi and upload them into an email. He titled the email "Best catch yet". You see, in the days immediately preceding Lily's arrival, Corey had been fishing daily and sending photos of the lunkers to both of our families. Seeing fish photos was nothing new to them. So we figured an email with a title like that would not give anything away. The email simply had the photos, Lily's full name, height and weight. Nothing more.

When we called each of our family members, we immediately fired off the email. Luckily, they were home. When Corey called his mom and asked her to check her email, it took her awhile to open the right one. After she did, she just started to cry. We couldn't really hear anything through all the crying. When we called my parents and asked them to check their email, they kept asking why. I said because Corey had a really good catch and I wanted them to check it out. My dad kept insisting that he had seen the photos already (he was thinking of the fish photos) and so he wouldn't go with my mom to the computer to look. I kept insisting that they probably hadn't seen this one and reluctantly my dad joined my mom to check their email. When it finally popped up, my mom casually said "I don't get it. Who's baby is that?". I said "Mom, she's our baby.". She then half screamed, half cried at the top of her lungs "WHAT?????.....WHAT?????.....WHAT????? It took her a long while to calm down enough to talk rationally. Let me tell you, there were lots of happy tears that day. I called my brother and guess what he did? He half screamed, half cried at the top of his lungs "WHAT?!!!!!....WHAT?!!!!!.....WHAT?!!!!". No doubt, he is my mother's son.

Later that day, I called my friends. I distinctly remember calling Lexi and Laura. Lexi asked "What's up". I said "Well, for one, I'm a mom...". She cried and cried and said a bunch of stuff I couldn't understand, garbled through all the tears. We cried and cried and celebrated from opposite sides of the country. When I called Laura, she cut me off and said "Hey, can I call you back?" I said sure and we hung up. She called back a few minutes later and I told her the news. She was driving and had to pull over because she was crying so hard that she couldn't see the road. Her daughter was in the back seat and she started crying because her mom was screaming and crying. Laura had to keep telling her "They are happy tears, sweetie!!!".

What fun memories these are. I can't imagine it happening any other way :)

Funny dogs

Lily thinks it is hilarious when the dogs jump around and bark for their dinner. Anyone who has been to our house knows that our dogs are not underfed by any means, but that doesn't stop them from acting like starved little mongrels every mealtime.

Measuring up

Lily continues to grow, grow, grow. Her Mamaw and Papaw made her this cute measuring board to keep track of her changing stature. It is not as easy as it seems to hold the wiggle worm up to it to get an accurate measurement.





She is currently 25.5 inches (as close as we can tell without sedating her).

It's the weekend.... sweeeeet!

It has been another long week and we are all happy for the weekend. I decided to make some celebratory cookies. Chewy Cranberry Oatmeal - my faves.



I have no idea how they are disappearing so fast.



Also, LIl got attacked by a frog. True story.



Maybe he was just taking her shirt literally?

Fun weekend

My mom's side of the family was here this weekend for a little reunion. One aunt and uncle came in from Oregon and my other aunt and uncle came from Kentucky. It was great seeing everyone, as it had been far too long.





Lily enjoyed meeting and spending time with her great-aunts.



My brother stuck herbs in his nose. He has done this for as long as I can remember. Weirdness runs in the family.



Oh, and my niece might be a mouse. At least she eats like one.


After everyone left, Corey, Lil and my dad watched the football game.


And just 'cause I like it, here is a photo of my man. I love that her is a cat person.

Market

This is from a few weeks back at the farmer's market. I found it on Corey's phone. Hope I have not posted it before.