Happy New Year!!!!

Wishing all my friends and family in blogland a very Happy New Year!!!!!

Adoption Update

Although much of my life revolves around Lili, some of my time is spent working on the dossier for our Ethiopia adoption and there is certainly regular discussion about bringing our future Ethiopian princess home. So, for those who would like an adoption update, here it is.

I've made great progress on our dossier and the only thing "I" have left to complete is the collection of our dossier photos.

We felt things were moving along nicely especially after our social worker came over to complete our home study update. We hit a snag when she contacted me to let me know that DCFS wanted us to get another set of fingerprints to send to the FBI. These had to be rolled prints which required a trip to a local police department. Our social worker put the fingerprint cards and instructions in the mail on December 10th and I anticipated getting them no later than the 12th. I picked up the mail everyday and when they weren't there on the 13th, I became concerned. Since I was scheduled to have surgery on my finger on the 17th, we had to have our prints done no later than the 16th otherwise we had to wait until the bandages came off and stitches removed which would delay things another week. Our social worker called me to say that the cards had been returned to her by the post office. She sent them to our physical address and after 13 years of having our mail delivered to our PO Box regardless of how it's addressed, they have decided to send mail back if it doesn't include our PO Box. I could go on a tirade about the delivery of our mail in our little town of about 1300, but I'll save that for another time. Since I really needed to get those cards I asked her to leave them at the front desk and drove the 35 miles to pick them up. On the 16th we headed into one of the local police departments and got another set of fingerprints done and by that afternoon they were in the mail on the way to the FBI. Between Lili's adoption and this adoption we have been fingerprinted a total of six times now.

Until we get our FBI clearance, our home study is on hold. We hope to have our clearance back sometime next week, although it could take another couple of weeks. Once we have our FBI clearance our social worker will add that information to the home study report, the report will be notarized and a copy sent to USCIS and a copy will be sent to us for our dossier. Then we wait for USCIS to send us our 171H giving us authorization to complete our adoption from Ethiopia. When we receive the 171H, we will have all our dossier documents notarized and I will drive to Springfield to have everything notary authenticated. Three copies of all documents will be made and everything will be ready to send off to the agency for review and then to the Ethiopian Consulate for authentication. Once the final authentication is complete it will be sent to Ethiopia and we will officially be on the wait list for a baby girl. Our agency still has a wait time of 2-4 months for referrals, although the referral of baby girls are at the longer end of the wait time. At this point we don't anticipate having a referral until July and if that happens we will probably not make it through court before the Ethiopian courts close, which they do annually in August and September. The one thing I've learned is that no matter how well I try to plan out an adoption, I have virtually no control over what happens. While I really wanted to have our referral in the spring and be picking up this summer, the more likely scenario is a referral in July or maybe not until August or September with pick up late 2009 or possibly early 2010.

The other topic of conversation has been baby names. Many families choose to keep the name given to their child(ren) by their birth families. Others completely change their child(ren)'s name completely. We took the middle of the road approach with Lili and will do the same with our Ethiopian princess. We will choose a new first name and keep her given first name as her middle name. This way our girls will have a name given to them by their birth family and their forever family. We have discussed names off and on for a few months now and have had a lot of trouble agreeing on a name. Not surprising since we were unable to agree on names in the past as well. One other thing to note is that we really wanted to find an Ethiopian name that we could agree on which made the choice even more challenging. However, we finally found a name that we both like. Are you ready?

Drum roll please ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Naomi

The meaning of a name is very important in Ethiopia and I found out that Naomi means "pleasant one" or "above all beauty."

I think I've covered everything regarding adoption #2. I'll continue to post updates as things start happening again.

Christmas in Review

The Christmas of 2008 will be a memorable one for the Weeks' family.

This was Lili's first Christmas at home. She didn't quite understand the purpose of ripping paper off packages and seemed to be much more interested in watching everyone else rip paper off their packages. That evening, my sister-in-law and her daughter came over for dinner and a gift exchange. Lili decided that unwrapping gifts was fun after all and tore right into her gifts.

It was very hard deciding what to get Lili this year. Not because she is difficult to buy for, but it was hard not buying everything I thought she'd enjoy. Okay, everything I thought I'd enjoy :-) Between Santa and other family, she made a haul this year and has very much enjoyed having new toys to play with.

Lili's first Christmas was fun for all of us, but it was especially enjoyable watching the boys enjoy her first Christmas home. One of the gifts Lili received was a doll that cries, laughs, says momma, makes drinking sounds when giving her a bottle and then burps. Lili wasn't overly interested in the doll, but Josh wanted the doll out of the box so he could try it out. Ben started out taking pictures Christmas morning because he wanted to make sure we got plenty of pictures for Lili's first Christmas. I ended up with the camera and we did get some good photos. The boys also enjoyed their gifts, but were really into watching Lili as she took in all the activity of Christmas morning.

While there were definitely some good things that happened on Christmas, it wasn't without some drama as well. We picked Ryan up on Christmas Eve so he could spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with us. However, as Ryan has gotten older, he has had more and more trouble adjusting to changes in his life. Not that being here is a big change for him, but it is a change none-the-less. The visit was going well until bedtime. In our attempts to get him settled down for the night and into bed, he became more and more agitated which caused him to stress more and more. While Santa was waiting to come down the chimney with care to leave our gifts under the tree, Ryan was still wide awake and refusing to go to sleep. Since he cannot be left unsupervised, at least one person had to be up with him until he fell asleep. Dave said he would stay up with Ryan, so I put Lili to bed and went to get some sleep. At 3:30 a.m. Christmas morning, Dave came upstairs limping and asked me to go sit with Ryan. Yes, Ryan was still awake and Dave had somehow twisted his knee and was in pain and very tired. Ryan still could not fall to sleep and since he believes that all gifts are to be opened once they appear, Santa was unable to put any gifts under the tree. Lili woke up at 5:00 a.m., so we sat in the family room with Ryan watching t.v. and waiting for him to fall asleep. At 7:00 a.m. Dave came downstairs, still limping and in quite a bit of pain. Ryan was still awake and Santa still wasn't able to put the gifts under the tree. At 7:30 Dave decided that Santa just needed to leave the gifts and we should go ahead and open them, so Santa's elves (Josh and Ben) helped out by placing all the gifts under the tree while I got Lili dressed. When we came back downstairs there were gifts piled under and around the Christmas tree and Ryan was still awake. I took Lili into the living room and her response was "Ohhhh." So and exhausted mom and dad had gathered the children, both young and old and our Christmas morning was underway by 8:00 a.m. Ryan was still awake, but not a very happy camper. He did cheer up after opening a few gifts.

Ryan eventually fell asleep, but not until mid afternoon on Christmas and because he had been up for over 30 hours straight, his body retaliated and he ended up having a couple seizures before sleep ensued. Ryan has given us many learning experiences over his 28 years of life and the latest is that we can't disrupt his schedule by bringing him back home for an overnight visit. It's just too overwhelming, especially for him.

As far as Dave's knee goes, we seriously considered a trip to the emergency room, but as the day progressed and he stayed off his feet, his knee got better. Each day it's continued to improve and as of today he's barely limping.

Although there were certainly some highs and lows, overall, we had a nice Christmas and now have some great memories of the Weeks' Family Christmas of 2008. Here are some of those memories captured digitally.

Lili amongst all the gifts.

Ryan showing Lili how it's done.
Lili trying out her new play kitchen from Santa. Mommy and daddy have tasted all kinds of good food she's cooked for us :-)
The new baby was hungry. Her mommy is taking wonderful care of her. Ryan watching our new chef in action.
Lili wasn't too interested in opening her gifts on Christmas morning, but she had it figured out and was ready to tear into her gifts when Aunt Susan and her cousin Maya came over.To help meet Ryan's sensory needs, we still buy him kid's toys. Here is Maya testing out some of Ryan's gifts. The orange part of the gun spins, has lights and makes sounds.
Brotherly love! As you can see, Ryan is getting really tired by this point and doesn't make it long after this picture was taken.
Ben loves Timberland boots and shoes. Santa surprised him with a brand new pair for Christmas and he was "thrilled." You can't have a kitchen without a grocery cart for buying kitchen supplies. Here is Lili trying out her new grocery cart and taking her other new baby on a shopping trip.
Making sure she has everything she needs.Lili found another use for one of the bowls from her kitchen set. A hat for mommy's Pipka santa.

Merry Christmas

I wish I could say that I'm right on top of everything this year in the same way I've been in years past, but the truth is, I'm not. The moons just didn't align in the right way this year :-) As a result, I will be out and about today trying to pull things together. It will get done though and this will be an awesome Christmas. Not only is Lili here this year, but all our boys will be here and that hasn't happened for a few years. Hopefully next year we'll have our Ethiopian Princess home as well.

Because time is limited today, I must keep this short, so let me just say "Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Happy Hanukkah, Melkam Yelidet Beaal, and Poket Kristmet."

Milestone Day

I realized this afternoon that 9 months ago today, Lili was placed in our arms forever. It has been an amazing ride.

Word Count

Several people have asked me about Lili's speech abilities lately. Since this blog has pretty much taken the place of a baby book, I thought it would be a good time to list all the words Lili is currently saying, along with the pronunciation of those words.

Dad - Dada

Mom - Mama

Liliana - Nawnaw

Ben - Bi or Ba

Dog - Gog

Jada - Ada

Lexie - Ieie

Apple - pul pul

Cup - Cu

Bye - Dye

Ball - Baw

Juice - Jeese

Cheese - Cheese

Chicken - Kicken

Water - Wa-er

Book - Bo

Baby - Baby

Elmo - Momo

Banana - Nana

Yes - Yeah, yeah, yeah (She never says it just once)

More - Mowa

This - Dis

Night Night - Nyny

Guitar - Gar

No - No

Duck - Dut

Fish - Tish

Hi - Hi

Hello - Hey-o

Color - Co-yer

Chalk - Calk

Nice - Ny

Lili is also very active and climbing seems to be one of her favorite activities.

Climbing from the chair onto the end table to standing was successful, but apparently not quite challenging enough. She pulled a Rubbermaid container of egg noodles out of the cupboard and carefully climbed up on them. It took some really good balance. I think I have a gymnast on my hands.

Winter???

Winter doesn't officially arrive until Sunday, but we've had nothing but snow and ice since Thanksgiving weekend. What's up with that?!!!! Since we are apparently living in a winter wonderland, I decided to show everyone the results of last night's ice storm.

Our Weeping Peach tree looks like she's really weeping from the weight this morning.It's going to take me forever to scrap my windshield. Maybe I'll just stay home today.

Ice everywhere!!

We have snow in the forecast this weekend and again Tuesday or Wednesday. I must admit that I enjoy having a white Christmas, which doesn't always happen here in Central Illinois. After Christmas though, I'm ready for spring.

Have a great weekend!

Surgery and Weather

I had surgery on my finger yesterday to remove a cyst that had formed due to a can lid injury about 10 months ago. Everything went well, however, I wasn't expecting as much pain as I'm experiencing. The pain isn't horrible, but I'm glad that they gave me Tylenol 3. The bigger challenge is that I'm right handed and don't have the use of my right index finger right now. Obviously it's not enough to keep me from posting, but I'm certainly not typing as quickly as usual.

The other big news is the weather that's headed our way. Apparently, we're in store for a major ice storm. Sounds like it will be a great night for hot chocolate by the fireplace :-)

FFF on Friday

I know it's difficult to believe, but I'm actually posting pictures on FFF. Miracles really do happen!!!!

Lili makes some really silly faces. Here are just a few.

We have had this toy guitar called "One Man Jam" for several years. It was quite the hit at Thanksgiving this year and Lili decided it was time to try it out herself today.

It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Things in the Weeks' house have been busy as of late. Our basement project seems as if it will never end and the truth is, it probably won't be completed until sometime this spring. We need to purchase some new pieces of trim which will need to be stained and varnished. It's too cold here to do the staining and varnishing right now, so it will have to wait until the weather warms up. In the meantime, we've got the walls finished and the sump pump back in working order. The office has now been moved to the basement, but I still have tons of cleaning, filing and organizing to get done before it's going to be completely usable. My little helper isn't much of a helper, but she sure enjoys being involved in the process :-)

Next week I'm going in for some minor surgery. Several months ago I cut my right index finger on a can lid and yes, it was a very avoidable injury. I treated it myself, but it probably needed professional medical attention. It appears that the injury most likely caused some trauma to the tendon in that finger and as a result fluid has build up and I now have a cyst that continues to get bigger. As it grows it is becoming more painful and is causing some finger mobility problems. Nothing major at this point, but it needs to be removed. Next Wednesday I go in to have the cyst removed. The surgeon said it's a simple procedure and I shouldn't have any problems afterwards. However, I will have dressing on that finger for a couple days and stitches for week which will limit mobility even more for a while. As a result I am now on a mission to finish all my Christmas shopping this week so I can have all the gifts wrapped pre-surgery. Of course there are always gift bags if I don't reach my goal, but I prefer a wrapped gift if possible.

It's time for me to get back to my office organization project. I'll try to post some new pictures next post.

Thanksgiving Frenzy Is Over

What a great Thanksgiving weekend full of fun and food. We had family visiting from Texas, New York and California, so things were a bit hectic. Lili did great with so many people here. She met some of her cousins for the first time and she was a hit. Now life is getting back to normal and I'm trying to decide when I want to begin my Christmas shopping. I know, I should have it done by now, but between Thanksgiving and trying to pull our dossier together, Christmas has now really been on my radar until now. Santa isn't doing such a great job this year, but will pull it together soon.

Speaking of our dossier, things are coming along nicely. I have two documents that have already been authenticated and another sent out yesterday. We had a little problem with our police clearance letters that I thought was taken care of, but I still don't have the notarized letters back. If I don't get them by the end of the week, I'll be calling them again.

Our social worker is obviously working on our updated home study as she emailed me yesterday reminding me that she needs the forms she left with us during our visit. I have a couple items to add to one form and another form that needs notarized. They'll both be completed and in the mail by the end of the week.

We are also going to Naperville on Saturday for our fingerprint appointment. I'll sure be glad to have all of this done and our names added to the wait list. It appears that could easily happen sometime next month which is exciting.

I'm sure most of you would like to see some new pictures so I'll stop chatting and get to posting pictures.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

My turn!

Lili with her cousin Maya.
Lili showing off a dress her Aunt Susan bought for her. She's stylin'.