time flies

I can't believe how fast time flies. My baby is not a baby anymore. I wanted to jot down a few of the things she is doing now. Although she is now almost 20 months we have yet to make it to our 18 month check up. Since we have fortunately been healthy for the past few weeks I hated to make an unnecessary trip. Anyway, I'm not sure how much she weighs or how tall she is but I do know what funny things she can do. She has become quite the climber anymore. We went to bounce-u this week for a play date with some other mommies and she had a blast. By the end she was trekking up that slide with very little assistance and would have gone it down by herself had I let her. We are finally starting to add some words to our vocabulary. Up until now she has attempted to repeat very little and we only had a handful of words she used on a regular basis. But after several weeks of speech therapy we are making attempts to repeat just about everything. Our favorite new word(s) are Oh-no. We're still working on pronunciation. Some words sound like they should and others not so much. Still a great sleeper 9 to 9 with a 2 -3 hour nap every afternoon. Still a little on the picky side when it comes to eating. We pretty much stick to our peas, carrots, cheese, and yogurt with variations of those thrown in. Meal time can be very exhausting most days. She still likes to throw food on the floor , no matter how many times we get in trouble. She is getting quite adept with the spoon and fork. Yesterday I allowed her to feed herself her morning yogurt. She was doing quite well so I left the room briefly at which point she thought it would be faster to use her hands I guess. What a mess! This is probably boring to most of you but this is my way of not forgetting all the fun things my munchkin is up too. I know I don't get around to updating this very often but if I'm really just keeping account for myself anyway and for those who relish peeking into the lives of others, have at it.

Adoption Day

Well it's official. Although Annabelle has always been our daughter in our hearts she is now legally Annabelle Grace Calihan. After 18 months, no more social workers or attorneys we can now move forward with our lives. Somehow since the very beginning the Lord has given me a peace about the outcome. Always knowing that she would be ours. For those who don't know the whole story, I'll start from the beginning. After finding out in late summer of 06 that I had severe endometriosis and would need surgery as well as hormone therapy in order to get my body to a normal state, I proposed the idea to Scott of becoming foster parents. I was so ready to be a mommy but to be honest I wasn't sure he would go for it. I was pleasantly surprised when he said yes without any convincing. So I began the process of finding out what to do. In most situations you have to attend group training sessions for several weeks. I knew that would never fly due to Scott's unpredictable work schedule. So we were able to find a social worker who was willing to come train us in our home. That was truly a God thing because I've found out this is pretty rare. So in October we began our training and finished in December. We didn't receive our final approval until a few weeks later which I found very frustrating at the time. Now I know it was the hand of God saving us for one special little girl. Then on January 22nd we were finally approved. That same afternoon she called back with a placement. Now first let me tell you we had said we would take one child between the ages of 9 months and 4 years so when our worker called I was surprised when she told me she had 2 children. A boy 20 months and a newborn baby girl. I told her I had to talk to Scott because this was certainly not what we signed up for. Again I was pleasantly surprised when he left the decision up to me. All I could think was I must be crazy for doing this but I had prayed for months that God would send us just the right child so I took a leap of faith and agreed to take them both. The newborn girl (Annabelle) hadn't been released form the hospital yet but they brought us her brother that very evening. By the time the social worker arrived they had discovered that he was actually a ward of the state of Nebraska. He had been removed from his mothers care there but they had chosen to flee the state with him. Although he was such a sweet little boy and I hated to see him go I know that having the both of them would have been more than I could handle. So the very next day he went back to Nebraska and on the 26th I brought Annabelle home from the hospital. She was 4 weeks premature and weighed only five pounds. She was so tiny, but so beautiful! Those first 3 months are a complete blur of sleepless nights and poopie diapers. There were times when I thought "What did I sign up for?" But we survived as all new mothers do. And then after 5 months of no parental contact the state changed it's goal to adoption. The next step was parental right termination. Now this took forever! Finally in march the TPR went through and today everything was final!!!

We went to the courthouse at 11:30 to briefly meet with the attorney before hand. We had to wait about 45 minutes for the attorney which had been appointed to represent Annabelle. He was tied up in court. When all were present we headed back to the judges chambers where we had a short but sweet proceeding. Mimi and grandpa O'Ryan, cousin Keegan, Uncle Shawn, Aunt Erika, cousins Bryce , Vaughn and Eva were all present as well as my best friend Jessica. The judge had 4 shelves of beanie babies for the kids to pick from and they all got to take one home. A sweet reminder of today. I feel so blessed that God has brought us this wonderful life to care for. So many things could have gone differently but God knew just what He was doing every step of the way.

After 3 days at mimi and grandpa's we headed back to lex and then woke up on the 4th and headed to Louisville. We spent the afternoon cooking out with friends Katherine and Jeremy. Annabelle and their daughter Karis became best friends. We put them down for their nap in the same room and they had a good old fashioned slumber party. They were in there squealing and laughing. After about 45 minutes of no sleep I finally went to get Annabelle . I asked her if she wanted to give Karis a kiss before we let the room and I carried her over to the crib. She leaned down and gave her the sweetest little kiss which Karis also returned. It was sooo sweet. Then she cried when we left the room.

After stuffing ourselves with deliscious food we headed to the airport to pick up Clint and his fiance' Nina who are visiting for the week. Then headed back to Lex. It was a fun eventfilled day.

Well we made our first trip to the zoo this past week. I've been a little scared to try any parks after our Disney fiasco but we had a blast. Annabelle did great. She didn't quite know what to think of all the animals of course but she stayed in her stroller the whole time and didn't throw any major fits, which was quite an accomplishment. We went with cousins Kami and Ally and friends Jen, Rhett and Maggie.

Okay so apparently I'm not very good at keeping up with this thing but not too much has happened since I last wrote. We went on vacation to Gatlinberg for 5 days right after Memorial day with my parents, sister, brother-in-law and nephew. We had as much funas you can have on a vacation with a 16 month old. We went to the dixie stampeed, obergatlinberg and white water rafting. All in all it is always nice to spend time with family.

We've been having fun this summer playing outside in our splash pool. We've had 2 visits from cousin Sammy, Grandma and grandpa.

Recently we're really into climbing. It makes me really nervous but I guess thay have to learn sometime. We also have gone down to 1 nap per day. I was really worried that she would either be cranky after lunch or before bed but she has been doing really well. The only down side is that she hasn't quite caught on that she is only getting one nap and she has only been sleeping 1 to 11/2 hours. Which has been killing me.

Today we went to Boyd's orchard with our play group. We picked strawberries and rasberries. Although we didn't come home with very many because Annabelle was eating them as fast as I could pick them.

getting started

I truly didn't think this is anything I would ever do. I was a decade behind on getting an e-mail account and now I'm starting a blog? Anyway I realized this would be an easy way for me to keep track of all the funny things that occur in my life on a day to day basis as well as look back at how the had of God has moved in our lives. Today's funny story was as I was unloading groceries Annabelle was roaming around the kitchen busying herself. It sounded like she had gotten into the bread drawer but little did I know she had gotten out a package of hamburger buns opened them up and was eating one. I guess she decided she was hungry. I found it rather amusing. These are the cute little stories I want to look back on and remember.