Callie's first real snow

On Jan 31st we got about 3 inches of snow and sleet. I say that it was Callie's first "real" snow b/c it snowed in KS when Callie was three days old. It was just flurries though, and she definitely would not remember them! It was pretty funny though. Chris was running around Kansas in shorts trying to get our luggage. . .and it was freezing!

Callie loved crawling around in the snow. She was all smiles! :) Here's a few favorite pics:

Going to be better. . . promise!

I have been horrible about keeping up with this blog. . . which is really sad because it would be a great way to record the adventures of Callie O'Malley!

Right now I am a little worried about my little angel. She has been napping for 3 hours. That makes about 5 hours of napping today, in addition to her 11 hours of sleep last night. I know the girl likes to sleep, but this is getting ridiculous!

Callie is growing and changing so fast. "Mama" and "Dada" are regular parts of her vocabulary, calling us by name and saying "mama" to indicate that she wants something. She is a realy good crawler and cruiser. She also walks with her walker. I think she will soon be walking, but I am in no rush. . . she is so super cute crawling around and I want to hold on to the baby stage a little longer! She can climb the entire flight of stairs by herself. She is teething on everything, including her crib and my den furniture. She has 6 teeth so far, but two more are trying to come in.

For now, I am off to check on the sleeping little darlin'. I'll write more soon. . . promise!

Dear Callie,

I have been so slack about blogging, and I feel bad about it. I should be using this blog as a way to record my thoughts and feelings about my sweet Callie.

Callie, you are 4 months and 5 days old. You have developed such a sweet personality. You smile every time you see me or your daddy. You hardly ever cry. You really only fuss when you are hungry. Yesterday you discovered your ability to squeal a VERY high-pitched squeal. You have been practicing ever since. I need ear plugs:)

I can't believe how fast you are growing. Daddy weighed you and we think you are about 14 lbs. You started so small and now you are thriving so much. I almost wish you would thrive a little less :) because I want this time to last forever.

You have done everything earlier than would be expected. You easily hold your head up and can sit up using your hands. You can roll over both ways. You smile, laugh, squeal, and coo all the time. You easily hold your toys and have become obsessed with putting everything in your mouth.

You are a dream come true and your dad and I could not love you more.

Love, Mommy

5 weeks and 1 day

Wow! I have not had time to post lately, although even when I do have time I am a very slack blogger. . . Oh well.

We have Callie home and she is wonderful. She is 5 weeks and 1 day old today. She is adorable and sweet, loving to be held 24-7. I think she may have smiled her first real, full-face smile today. She is a good eater, and is up to 9 lbs. She is also a good sleeper, but unfortunately most of that sleeping happens during the day. We are working hard on switching around the day/night confusion.

We have had two baby showers so we are starting to get the things we need. And I am bound and determined to get her room put together soon. We hope to get the crib and bedding this week, with chair molding and paint soon to follow. We have a home visit next week so I would love it if the room actually looked a little like a nursery!

Well, now for the good stuff. . . pictures! I am including her first pic in the hospital, our first family pic, her first portrait, bath time, and her first Easter gift.

Two months, five days

The last two days have been crazy. On Tuesday I was at work, and got back from teaching to see that I had a call from Kansas. I try to call them back, but they are at lunch. So I spend the next 40 minutes clock watching. All the while I am wondering, could someone have picked us? Could we have a baby in a few months? I finally get up with the social worker an hour later. The big news. . . they have a baby girl for us! And she was born yesterday!!! Total complete shock! I call my mom, my sister, my husband (who is unreachable b/c he is teaching). I am completely not earning my paycheck at work b/c this baby is all I am thinking about. I cannot believe they have a baby for us and she is already born. I can't believe it has only been two months and five days, and we have a baby!!

The agency sent us the social history, the medical and pictures. And, OMG, she is soooo cute! Only 5 lbs and 13 oz. A mere 17 1/2 inches long. We look over all the information, we call a doctor to review the medical and we very quickly made our decision. This feels right. This feels like we have found our baby. She has fallen into our lap and everything has just worked out. It is meant to be.

Of course, there's no time to bask in the glow. We have NOTHING for a baby! I didn't want to jinx us by buying stuff. I couldn't bring myself to decorate a room in case we had another adoption fall through. So my mom and sister went to the store and started frantically buying the necessities for our trip to Kansas. I got on the phone/computer to book a flight, room, car, get health insurance, work out being off work. Phew! I think we have everything we need to go get our baby girl in the morning. Poor thing will come home to an undecorated room. She doesn't even have a crib. I promise to fix her up the room she deserves as soon as I get home.

We should have baby girl by lunchtime tomorrow. When she is officially ours, I will post pics. Hopefully at that time we will also have a name for her. We are still trying to narrow it down. Wish us luck!

Not good at waiting

So it is becoming very apparent that I suck at waiting. I am exercising self control and not calling the agency all the time. Actually, I have only called them once, and they said that the scrapbook looked awesome, someone had already looked at it, and she liked it the best. Still, said person is no where near the point of choosing adoptive parents. So we wait, and wait some more. And after 4 1/2 years of waiting, I grow impatient. And I was not a patient person to begin with!

It probably does not help that EVERYONE at work is preggers. I am so envious of their luxury of being able to plan. I am so unsure when or even if a baby will be in our future. There is no due date and no ultrasound to tell me boy or girl. I would love to start buying clothes and decorating the nursery, but I both don't want to jinx myself, and I have no idea when baby boy or girl will be here. So I look at names and dream. And I look at nursery stuff and dream. Hopefully one day. . .

Tonight as I was looking at some blogs, I realized that I really should just be thankful for what I have (ha, ha--after I just griped for two paragraphs). But in all seriousness, I came across several adoption blogs where the little angels are sick with cancer or heart problems. I feel for these families and pray their babies get all better. Some have prayer requests so I will link those to my blog in the near future.

No pictures to post today. I haven't really taken any since Christmas. My cutest subjects, nieces and nephews, haven't been around lately. Hopefully in the next post. :)

A new start

As you may have noticed, I have removed a lot of the Vietnam information from our page. That is because our adoption, like so many others, fell through on Sept. 1. We were devastated, and lost a lot of time, money and emotional investment. I guess you could say that I have been going through a grieving process, and I don't know that I will ever feel truly okay about losing out on my chance for a Vietnamese princess. Still, life must go on, and Chris and I still want to start a family. Our next step was to pursue adoption in Taiwan. I was ready to mail off the money when the US gov't did something else to ruin our chance of a VN adoption (I won't go into it here, but I am disgraced by some of the people who work for the US government). Anyway, we felt like we could not take a chance on international adoption again. I wish we could, and I respect those who are persevering, but it's not for us. So we decided to go with domestic adoption. I know that this process has its own list of risks, but we are going to give it a try, and hope it works out. I guess today is the beginning of the new adoption. After spending months on the adoption scrapbook, today I mailed the scrapbook, application and fee. The agency already has our updated homestudy. So now I guess the waiting begins. Hopefully soon we will welcome sweet Caroline into our home and heart. . . or maybe sweet Logan!

On another topic, Christmas was wonderful, happy and blessed. . . and busy, tiring and loud!:) Here are some pics of the little ones (nieces and nephews):