Guatemala 900

I've met many blog friends during our adoption journey. One story that I have followed with much heartache is Yesenia's family who have struggled 3 years to bring their little girl home from Guatemala. They received their referral a month after we received ours. As you know we just passed our 2 year anniversary of having Ana home with us. They however have had to endure setback after setback in their journey with no clear end in sight. Sadly they are not alone. This is from our agency:

"Some of you may be aware that there are still approximately 500 adoptions, which were grandfathered under the new law, which have been obstructed by the Guatemalan authorities for various reasons. Hundreds of U.S. families are still hoping to be united with the children they started adopting - in most cases, more than 3 years ago. Some don't know where their children are. Some are supporting their child and hoping that child will come home. This is a travesty of justice on the part of both the Guatemalan and U.S. governments.

The Guatemala900 organization, www.guatemala900.org , has scheduled a Congressional Briefing on Thursday, May 6, between 10-12 A.M. They will be marching from the Holiday Inn Capital Hill to the Hart building for the briefing. The adoptive families and their advocates will be attending the briefing, the details are on the Guatemala900 website. BE AN ADVOCATE to encourage Congressional intercession with our Department of State, so that this becomes a matter of the highest priority for them to resolve. Please contact your congressional reps and ask them to attend this briefing. Please contact any families in the DC area to see if they can join the march and briefing. Please, if you are an agency near DC, please attend and show your support to US adoptive families and their children who are caught in this painful situation."

My friends and family were so supportive when we were waiting for Ana to come home. I'm hoping you might be able to help out other families bring their precious children home. There is a petition that will be presented that is directed to the US and Guatemalan First Ladies asking for their support that this will be the LAST Mother's Day waiting mothers will be without their children.

My heart just aches for these families.
I can't imagine the pain and worry they are enduring.
I can't look at my own sweet Guatemalan princess without tearing up.
We are so blessed to have her here safe with us!

Won't you please click here to sign the petition?

Thanks for your help!

Cooper Fast Forward...

So, after Ian was born I really got into photography.

When he was about 2 months old I took a set of photographs that I really loved and from that point on I decided I was not going to take him to a studio and pay outlandish prices, and hope and pray he would be having a good enough moment to get some good shots.

I decided that I would do them.

And that's what I did.
Every month.
And I was happy.

Along came Ana and though I had the best of intentions and did mostly okay, with a few delays here and there in timing. The difference with her was that I didn't print out oodles of copies every month and hand them out to everyone willing to take one.

I handed out her 1 year photos,

But mostly, they sit here on my computer.
But I'm still happy.
I can look at them whenever I want to after all.

So onto Cooper.
He's quite possibly my last baby.
I want to hold onto every memory even more so.

I've been doing okay.
Well, except that I missed the 1 month and 4 month ones.
Oops.

It's just so hard to find the time;
enough time to set up the backdrop,
to take the pictures,
and take DOWN the backdrop all in one day.
It didn't matter so much with Ian if things were still set up the next day.

But with Ms. Mischief in the house, it most certainly matters!
In a "we would probably end up in the ER with head trauma" sort of way.

Anyways, what I haven't been so good about is sharing with you all.
So I thought I'd catch you up on how much our Coop has changed over the last 5 months.

So here you go, a Cooper Fast Forward:

There you go.
5 months already.
Time really flies.

But I say that a lot, don't I?

2 Years Ago Tonight...

This cutie became a U.S. citizen.

We were so happy to finally have her HOME...



It's hard to remember her at that age!
She has changed in so very many ways!

Sleepy Stories

Between having a 4 month old who alternates between sleeping 7-8 hours in his own bed to spending vast amounts of time in between mummy and daddy; a 2 1/2 year old who has just graduated to a toddler bed; and an 8 year old who still climbs into mummy and daddy's bed every single night, there's a lot of chatter in this house about sleep. I've started a couple different posts about different stories and have decided to pool them together into one post.

This first one is from February 8th:
Okay, it's 5:20 am and Cooper has slept through the night, and is still sleeping! Why then, have I been up all night? Well, he's got me freaked out, that's why! Besides the sleeping so long thing which was enough to keep me up, he's insisting on pulling the blankets over his head over and over again. So I've been up for hours just listening to him breathing. We did have a big day yesterday, traveling to Worcester, MA to visit with a college friend and go to an indoor zoo event. He was awake most of the day so I shouldn't be that surprised, but he fell asleep in the car around 6:15, and I had to wake him at 8:15 because he continued to sleep in his seat when we got home. He slept through me changing his diaper, then nursed, but never opened his eyes. I put him down at about 9pm and here we are at just about 5:30. As I've been typing he's starting to finally stir, and is working hard to fill his diaper.

So, fast forward to 8 am...I totally expected him to wake up STARVING; after all, it had been 9 hours since his last feeding! But this is what I was greeted with when I peered over the bed side:

I laughed out loud when I saw the grin on his face, he is so funny!

From Febrary 17th:
Ana has graduated to a toddler bed, or as she calls it, her big girl bed. She's doing pretty good and as I type it's her fourth night in it. We have a gate on her room so she can't get out and wander if she awakes during the night, which apparently she does because each time we go to get her after nap (which doesn't involve sleep anymore by the way) or in the morning she is wearing different clothes than she was put to bed in. Yesterday morning, I go in to check on her in the morning and she sits up quickly in her bed and says, "Oh, hi mummy! I waked up! I put my dess on!" (dess is clothes). Her "dess" of choice was a shirt, tights, and FOUR pairs of underpants! I got a total giggle when I helped her on the potty and counted layer after layer of underpant; it was too funny!

Ana sleeping in her big girl bed for the first time!

Okay, here's the new stuff:

A little more about Ana's big girl bed escapades - Ana has since started to not want to nap during the day, it's far more interesting to empty her drawers and paw through the bucket of out-grown clothes in her closet, putting on multiple layers of shirts, pants and/or dresses. I'm hoping to do a separate post just on her post-nap styling, but you all know my track record, so don't hold your breath! Another problem we have encountered is that the gate we had been securing her doorway with she figured out how to maneuver out of. One morning last week we woke up and she wasn't in her room...PANIC! She had gone downstairs and had emptied an entire loaf of bread onto the bathroom floor and was playing with it. I can't think about the incident without getting sick to my stomach with the possibilities that could have arisen from her being downstairs by herself (she has taken to trying to go outside to play all by herself on multiple occasions). I'm so thankful that loaf of bread held her interest for some unknown reason!

Lastly, lately our bed has been a gathering place for all members of the family. I have come to the conclusion that we desperately need a king size bed! Anyways, after climbing out of bed one morning a couple weeks ago, I got a real kick out of this sight:

I call it "Small, Medium, and Large".

Oh, I guess there is one last sleep story to share. It's pretty involved, and I'm going to save it for another post. I'll just say that we discovered recently that Ian is a sleep walker...and it was in a very scary way that we made this discovery! More to come....

Ana-versary

Recovering from the stomach bug can do a lot to you, but I can't believe it let yesterday slip by without a mention. Two years ago yesterday, Ana was placed in our arms forever. I simply cannot believe it has been two years already! It seems like only yesterday we were sitting in that crowded hotel lobby holding an 8 month old Ana, in disbelief that she was finally coming home with us. Not hearing a word the hogar director was saying to us, only admiring chubby cheeks and crazy dark sticky up hair that covered her sweet head. Two years later, and she has brought so much joy and laughter to our house. I can't imagine our lives without her!

Happy Ana-versary Liliana Michele!
We love you so, so much!


Oh, and thanks to Debbie over at World of Weeks from whom I stole the term "Ana-versary" from. They will be celebrating their own "Lilianaversary" in just over a week, which also happens to be while they are in Ethiopia picking up their newest addition, sweet Naomi. Congratulations guys, and have a safe trip, we'll be thinking about you and can't wait to see pictures of Lili with her new baby sister!

Hello 2010!

I cannot believe it's January already! (Okay, so I started this the beginning of January and am now finishing it near the end, so I guess I should say I cannot believe January's almost over already!) I did so little blogging last year, and I'm hoping to change that this year. There's so much that I just didn't blog about, so there's lots of catching up to do! The problem is, I have no idea where to begin! I guess I'll start with just a basic update, then go back and cover the events of last year that I missed. Here we go, onto an update on the kids:

The Beaner

I still find it very hard to accept that he is 8 years old already. I won't lie, age 8 has been met with some challenges; I don't think they are unusual for his age, but they are frustrating nonetheless! You know, back talk, testing, not listening, and a good share of potty mouth! No, I don't mean swearing, he definitely knows better than that. I mean, some days it seems like every other word out of his mouth has to do with boogers, butts, or armpits, and is most often followed by fits of uncontrollable laughter; he just doesn't know when to stop! Anyways, it has been trying. This is not to say we don't have our good days when he is sweet to his sister and plays with her for hours; or gets a real kick out of how much Cooper's eyes follow him around the room and how he gets the biggest smiles out of him when he gets down on his level and talks to him. All in all, he really is a good kid and I think we are just going through a testing phase at the moment. He does well in school, and is respectful to all other adults so I guess I have to be thankful he keeps the difficult behavior at home! His teacher tells us that he is great at school, and that he is one of the kids in the class that she goes to if she needs helpers, so that makes me proud! Anyways, his current interests are reading (even if his favorite is the Captain Underpants series), art (he's started to do some really great drawings!), and using his various building toys (legos, train tracks, dominoes, marble tracks, lincoln logs) to build large intertwining structures; he will spend hours working on them while listening to music on cable's "kidz only" music station. He's still taking piano lessons, and seems to enjoy it most of the time. We also gave him as a Christmas gift, a few karate classes to try it out, so we'll be doing that in the near future. We're hoping it can teach him some self control!

La Princesa Liliana:

What can I say about our little 2 1/2 year old ball of fire? She has about a million personalities, I swear. One moment she can be so very sweet to you, and the next she is literally growling at you! Look at the above picture, she refused to smile for the camera, the picture oozes her attitude! She's pure drama for sure, and we are never short on giggles when she's around. Her current loves are tutu's, and other dress ups which her Mimi has made sure she has a steady supply of, but she'll get down on the ground and push cars around with the boys any time. She'll get down and dirty in the mud, and the next minute be whining that she needs a wipe to wash up. She is often seen trucking around the house in a tutu and mismatched rain boots toting around 3 or 4 bags filled with random stuff. She is intensely independent, and has for at least 6 months now completely dressed herself from shirt to tights and shoes (seriously, I remember still putting Ian's shoes on when he was 4!). Remember when she used to wear shoes around the house on her hands? Well the obsession has not passed and we can't be out of bed for more than 10 minutes before the feet have to be dressed. She is a major trouble seeker and will wait until I'm busy feeding Cooper to find something to get into. Her favorite is when I leave the gate open so she can get into the bathroom (did I mention she can open doors now?); and the gate is no longer enough to keep her from going upstairs, she slips through the railings on the side of the staircase. I'm telling you, she's a total monkey! She loves going through tubs of wipes at a time changing her baby's diapers, she's gotten into my makeup and completely painted her body from the waist down with lipstick, and we've had several incidents where she decides to change her own poopy diapers (most of the time during nap time, arrrgh!). She definitely keeps us on our toes! But at the end of the day, she's a real sweetheart. She loves her brothers so completely, constantly tackling Ian for hugs and will get down and speak sweetly to Cooper and tell him "It okay Coopa" when he's crying. She is full of "I luvs you"s for mummy, daddy and her brothers and she always keeps us smiling!

Coopie Monster

What can I say about this gushy squishy fellow? I'm smitten for sure. He is the most laid back child I have ever encountered; he really only cries when he's hungry or needs a diaper change. I remember having to carry Ian around everywhere, having to walk him around to keep him entertained (maybe it's that he has constant entertainment with his brother and sister, we're never short on activity in this house!). At night I remember having to rock Ian back to sleep after each feeding; Cooper pretty much eats and goes right back to sleep, it's crazy and I'm so spoiled! For the past week or so, he's been going to bed around 8 or 9, waking between 1 and 3 for a feeding then going back to sleep until 4-6 usually not actually getting up for the day until around 6 or 7, it's amazing (yes I'm knocking on wood)! The only problem we've been having at night is that after that first feeding he really doesn't want to go back into the cradle, he'd much rather cuddle with me in bed; but I have to admit, that's really not a problem for me! Anyways, he's just a sweetie and I wish I could keep him this way forever. But you know how it goes....they grow; and boy is he growing! I had him at the doctors a few weeks ago and he was already approaching 13 pounds! The picture above was taken at about 6 weeks and he's now 3 months old (I just took more pictures, but they are still on the camera), I can hardly believe three months have gone by already! He's a big smiler, I heard his giggle a couple weeks ago, he's started to reach for things and grab onto them, and has started to discover just how fascinating it is to have hands, often spending lots of time just staring at them. We only got a week with Ana when she was this age, and it's so nice to experience it again!

As for Greg and I, we're just flying by the seat of our pants trying to keep up with this crew. We feel like the luckiest parents on earth to have these three as our own. I would have never imagined when we started dating in high school that this is where we would be 18 years later (isn't that crazy?!). It's been an interesting road to get here, but in the end I would change nothing. Everything that we've been through has contributed to where we are, and who we have become. I feel so truly blessed.

The Pictures

Just before stepping into the flattering hospital wear, my last picture in maternity clothes:

Moments after his birth, the cheeks kill me!

His first picture with mummy and daddy:

Just outside the operating room:



Ian holding Cooper. The black and red sweatshirt is the day of his birth.

Our three kids!



Love how his face smushes in this one:

Just a couple with mummy and daddy. The one of Greg is the day he returned home from Children's Hospital with Ana; he was exhausted!

A couple of my favorites of Cooper that my mum took:

That's all for now. I took some shots at home of Cooper, and I'll get those up next, I just have to fiddle with them a bit more first.

It's been pretty crazy around here. We're all quarantined for Thanksgiving this year. Ana came down with what they thought was H1N1 this weekend and was in the ER with a 106 fever. They called the next day and thought it might be pneumonia. Anyways, to make a long story short, Greg was sick, Ian has been out all week from school with a very mild case, and poor baby Cooper started with it last night. I'm the only relatively healthy one at the moment (knock on wood!). Everyone seems to be dealing with it okay, even with Ana's past breathing issues, she hasn't had any problems this time around. She was never tested, so we're not sure what has invaded our home so Thanksgiving dinner with Mimi, Bumpa, Tim and Uncle Shawne has had to be postponed unfortunately. We're planning on a small meal and an easy day tomorrow. Life is never boring here, that's for sure!