FFF - Lili's Favorite Activity

Several months ago Lili discovered her new love, "coloring." She will sit in her high chair for an amazingly long period of time just coloring. Recently she's begun asking to cahyer (color) before she has even had breakfast. I've explained that she can color after she eats breakfast, although this has typically resulted in a toddler temper tantrum. What's become even more concerning is that a few times she's eaten just a couple bites of food, handed me her plate and then said "cahyer." Seriously, she's already figured this one out! She's not even 2 yet. I'm in trouble!!!!

It's not just crayons that she enjoys coloring with, she also loves using pens and pencils. We have a cup on our counter full of pens and pencils and she will sit and pull a pen or pencil out of the cup, use it on the paper then set it aside and pull out the next one. After she has used each one she puts them back in the cup and starts all over again. As I watch her do this I find myself wondering what she is going to be when she gets older. What do you think?

Here is my adorable little artist enjoying her artwork.

Check out the grip!!! What great fine motor skills!!!!!The pens she has used are all lined up on the tray and the pens still left to be used are in the cup. By the time she's done the cup will be empty and then she'll begin to put them all back.Examining her masterpiece.

The Next Step

We can be knocked down, but we get right back up and keep on going.

Last week was not a good week. Actually, the end of last week was the not so good part. We made our tough decision and we still know it was the best choice we could make for our family. Several people sent emails and some of you commented. I really appreciate the support. Some asked if we should maybe take a little time to think it over and believe me we considered waiting awhile, but things just weren't that simple. When the announcement was made that there were going to be 5,000 jobs cut, it was also announced that those cuts were going to occur over an 18 month period. This means that for the next 1 1/2 years we would be waiting to see if my husband still had a job or not. That's a long time wait in limbo and by that time we would be redoing all our paperwork anyway. In addition, because none of our paperwork was in Ethiopia yet, that meant we had several thousands of dollars left to pay. When you don't know if you're going to have any income in the future, holding on to that money becomes much more a priority. We need to make sure we have enough to fall back on should Dave lose his job and not be able to find anything quickly. In today's economy, finding another job could be tough.

What we aren't going to do though is let all of this deter us from the goal of adding another child to our family. So, even though Internation Adoption is not an option for us right now, we do have an option that will require virtually no out of pocket expenses and have decided to pursue that option. We will be moving forward with a domestic adoption through the foster-to-adopt program. We're in the beginning stages, completing paperwork, starting classes on Monday, home visits, etc. We know it's going to be at least 3-4 months before we our licensed as a foster care provider in our state, but have absolutely no idea how long it will take after that point. We also don't know if we will do straight foster care with the hope of one day having a foster child that will become eligible for adoption or if we'll stick with straight foster-to-adopt and wait for a child who is already available for adoption. Our classes should help us answer some of those questions. We just know that we want to add another child to our family and give Lili a sibling closer to her age. Going this route also means Lili will have even more in common with her future sibling. After all, Lili was also in a foster home before coming home to us.

You would think that after almost a week of no posts I'd have more to report, but I really don't. After last week's roller coaster ride, it's nice to be on a more sedate ride.

I will try to get some new photos posted tomorrow though, so stay tuned.

Roller Coaster Week

This has been quite the week for us.

Monday I discovered that our physician's letter for our dossier needed to be re-done and notarized by someone else. I spent all week getting that taken care of and yesterday afternoon received a call saying it had been done and were ready for pick up.

Tuesday of course was the Inauguration and our 10 month Lili anniversary.

Wednesday was a fairly uneventful day.

Then Thursday came. It started out with Dave leaving for work and then sending me an email telling me that Microsoft had just announced they would be cutting 5,000 employees over the next 18 months. 1,400 of those cuts were happening that day. By the end of the day, Dave still had a job, but also knew that very few Microsoft employees were exempt from potentially losing their job. As a result, we had to make the very emotional decision of discontinuing our adoption from Ethiopia. While the financial aspects of adoption were certainly a huge contributing factor in our decision, we also knew that if he lost his job after receiving a referral and we could not show proof of employment once we arrived in Ethiopia, we would not be able to complete our adoption and bring our child home. So, we contacted our agency and told them we would not be proceeding with the adoption. While Ethiopia is out of the picture at this time, our hearts are still invested in adopting another child. So, we will keep looking at our option and hope to one day add one more Weeks to the family and give Lili a younger sibling to share her life with.

The emotions of yesterday are still fresh, but we are certain that we made the right choice for our family. So today our lives move forward and since today is FFF, what better way to end the week than with pictures of Lili reading a book to Curious George.

Did you notice that George's face is larger than Lili's? Too funny!

I wonder if George can understand what Lili is reading?

Lili loves books!!!!

January 20th is A Day to Remember

What a day this has been!!!!

- President-Elect Barack Obama became President Barack Obama. That was a huge celebration in our house. I can honestly say that I haven't been this excited about a president since Ronald Regan and my excitement over President Regan was as much to do with the fact that it was the first election I ever voted in as it was the man himself. As exciting as that experience was for me, this experience was so much more.

- We had another celebration in our house as well. 10 months ago today, Lili was placed in my arms and has been with us ever since. This celebration tops the President Obama celebration.

- Another celebration occurred this afternoon when I received my FBI clearance in the mail. The 2nd set of prints were a winner and our home study can now be completed and should be on it's way to USCIS shortly. We are that much closer to submitting our dossier and officially be on the waiting list for a baby girl.

I wish I could say that today was all celebration, but we have had another set back in completing our dossier. I discovered that the notary commission on our physician's letters expire 4/2/09. All our documents are notarized and the notary commissions need to be good for at least one year. Of all the documents, this is probably the worst. Not only does the doctor's office only have one notary, but now I have to find a way to get a notary to the doctor's office, when the doctor is available to sign the letters. I have my work cut out for me on this one and will be spending time tomorrow trying to make some headway in solving this problem.

Regardless, this was overall a really good day that I will remember for a very long time.

Solving a Problem

What does Lili do when she wants to play in the snow, but the temperatures are way to cold to go outside?

She plays in the snow through the doggie door.

Lili is a problem solver!!!!

Snow Baby

Two posts in one day!!!! Lately it seems impossible to post every couple of days, but Lili is being entertained right now and I had to get these pictures posted.

It started snowing earlier this afternoon and I wanted to take Lili out to play in the snow. We got quite a bit of snow in November and December, but Lili didn't have any boots. By the time I bought her boots, the snow was melted and we've not had much since. We don't have much now either, but I thought it would be fun to take her out while it was actually snowing. Of course I couldn't take her outside in the snow without taking pictures.

I wanted to get some close up shots and started playing with my camera. I found out that my camera really zooms in for some nice face shots. You can even see the snow falling across her face. Very cool and what a cute subject!!!!

In case you couldn't tell from the pictures, she loved the snow. I think we should invest in a sled for future snow events.

My Little Girl

While waiting for Lili to come home I bought cute little girl clothes, a couple little dolls, basically a lot of pinks and purples invaded our houseb. Now she's home and I've discovered that she really could care less if she's wearing a cute little dress or a pair of sweats. Clothes just don't interest her. In addition to the dolls purchased before she came home, she now has two more dolls in her collection and while she enjoys playing with them from time to time, she also thinks it's funny when she throws them on the floor and mommy reacts with "Oh, poor baby." Now, for the last 3 days she's been carrying around a couple toys that she has seemed to like from the day she came home and yesterday she added another toy to her collection of "favorites.

Oh look, Lili is holding some of her favorite toys.

So, what are those little toys Lili is holding?

Lili, can you lay them on the floor so everyone can see?

Yes folks, my cute little girl is playing with cars and a toy squirt gun. With three boys I think the testosterone hangs in the air. Maybe our Ethiopian princess will be a girly girl, but I'm kind of doubting it at this point :-) Good thing mommy likes to play with cars and squirt guns too!!!

Favorite Foto Friday Time

I like to try and take some new pictures of Lili for FFF and really wanted to get some good pictures of her today. My sister-in-law found a cute little dress from Guatemala at a thrift store and I put it on her today. She looks so adorable in her little dress that I had to get some pictures. Here are the shots I got :-)

Lili preparing to turn and run from the camera.

Now, Lili running toward the camera.Lili running past the camera.

Got one. (Please excuse the dishes in the background. We had just finished supper. I'll get to those in a little while.)

Missed again.

And again. I think she gets pleasure out of me missing good camera shots.

Got one!!!

We'll call this one a tie. Mommy - 1 Lili - 1.

Got another one.

I'm sure you all noticed the spot around the neck of the dress. Lili was eating watermelon at supper. Need I say more.

Photo shoots at our house are exhausting. I think I'll clean the kitchen and call it a night!!!!

Another Delay

I was so excited when the mail arrived today because we had 2 envelopes from the FBI. Our FBI clearances had arrived. YEAH!!!! I opened the first envelope and there was Dave's clearance. I opened the second envelope and there was my fingerprint card, along with a blank fingerprint card, a form stating I needed to submit another set of prints and a form stating why they needed another set of prints. Basically, they were unable to read my prints as submitted. So much for my excitement.

What does this mean? At this point it means I have to go get another set of rolled prints and wait another 3-4 weeks for the results of those prints to be returned to me. If they are able to read them this time, our home study can be completed. If they are still unable to read them, I'm not quite sure what it means.

I have to keep telling myself that in the big picture, this is a very little thing, but we just seem to have delay after delay this time and that is a frustration.

Because I like my posts to at least have a happy ending, I will share a funny story with you.

The day after Thanksgiving, Dave decided to hit an after Thanksgiving sale to buy an XBox. Being a Microsoft employee, he could have easily purchased the system through the company store, but one of the local stores had the great deal of free games and a huge mark down on Guitar Hero, with two guitars when you purchased an XBox game system. The XBox was a big hit with everyone during Thanksgiving weekend and continues to be a big hit in our house, especially when Guitar Hero is being played. Lili enjoys watching others play Guitar Hero and will either get Curious George or Elmo and start dancing with them or lately will go get her little Leap Frog guitar and pretend she's playing along. It's very cute.

One day, Ben decided he wanted to try out the basketball game that came with the system, but when he opened the game case, it was empty. He checked the skateboarding game case and it was empty too. We know we had the games when we bought the system, because others had played the games, but now they were gone. We looked for the games, but didn't find them and couldn't figure out where they had possibly gone. So, a couple days ago I caught Lili pulling CD cases from the t.v. stand and pulling the CDs out. I removed her from the area and started picking up CDs when I noticed some CDs sticking out from under the XBox, which sits on the DVD player. I raised the XBox to find several more CDs and became hopeful that I would also find the missing games. As I pulled the last of the CDs out, I became discouraged again that the games were not there but decided to pull the XBox out further just in case. There, stuffed as far back as possible under the XBox were the missing games. Lili had taken them out of the case and stashed them. Apparently it's time to find a new place for the CDs and games :-)

I'll close my post with some recent pictures of Lili playing Guitar Hero.

Daddy plays a real guitar and when he's done playing, he will sometimes set the his guitar propped up against the wall. Lili has apparently been watching and wants her guitar to be just like daddy's guitar. Here is where she put it.
Too cute!!!

2008 - What a Year!!!!

I've been trying to post about 2008 for the last several days and hopefully I'll get it finished this time and posted.


2008 will certainly be one of the most memorable for us. The highlight of course was bringing Lili home, but there were some great memories made before she came home and since she's been home and I thought it would be appropriate to share some of those memories with all my blog friends and family.

In January I took another trip to Guatemala to see Lili (courtesy of my wonderful hubby). We had hoped that December would find us out of PGN with an approval, but instead we were out of PGN with a previo and had to wait at least 8 more weeks to get through the PGN process. Being able to go back to Guatemala was a wonderful treat.
February was the month of our PGN approval. Soon we would be on our way back to Guatemala to pick Lili up and bring her home. Our friends Josh and Nicole also travelled to Guatemala to pick up their little guy, Sergio. They were nice enough to take some gifts to give to Lili's foster family and brought us back some new photos of our little princess.


March was an especially wonderful month. We left home on March 19th and on March 20th Lili was placed in our arms forever. We spent time with her foster family travelling around Guatemala. On March 25th we went to the Embassy for our appointment, picked up her paperwork on the 26th and were back on U.S. soil on the 27th. While we were so happy and relieved to finally have her, seeing the pain her foster family was going through and saying good-bye to them was painful for all of us. The one thing we are confident in, is that we will see them again.


April was a month of adjustment and Lili turned 1. We also hosted an open house for friends and family to come meet Lili.


April showers brought May flowers and Lili was blossoming as well. We saw great signs of good attachment and bonding with us as well as her brothers and grandpa. She still needed quite a bit of time around new people before she would warm up, but watching her seek us out in those uncomfortable situations was a really good thing.


In June we began the process for adoption #2 by choosing an agency and mailing off the application and fee. We decided to adopt another baby girl, but since Guatemala was no longer and option, we decided to adopt from Ethiopia. There were two other big events in June. #1 was Lili's first haircut. It was not a great experience for her, but a necessary experience none-the-less. #2 was Lili's decision to finally walk without assistance.

In July we took a trip to St. Louis to meet some other families who have children from Guatemala. We spent some time together in the hotel, but our big outing was a trip to the St. Louis Zoo. The big news in July was our decision to switch agencies. We had chosen a larger agency initially, but when we found out that an agency I had been in contact with over the past year + had an Ethiopia program, switching was a no-brainer.

August brought some exciting news for us when Dave was informed that his work division had won an award and he was one of the employees from the division chosen to go on a trip to Hawaii. One of my dream vacations would become reality and we could hardly wait.

September was the month we completed Lili's readoption and legally changed her name from Ana Maria to Liliana Maria. It was also the month that we had the remnants of back to back hurricanes move through our area. The second caused a lot of flooding in the area and we ended up with 20 inches of water in our basement.

In October we loaded up the van and headed to Myrtle Beach for Guatoberfest. We were so excited about seeing some of our east coast friends and making new friends in the process. Myrtle Beach was rainy the majority of the weekend, but a good time was had by all.

November was a busy month. On November 2nd we boarded the plane headed for Hawaii. We had a lengthy layover in LA which allowed us time to visit with my sister, her hubby and one of their daughters. That evening we landed on the Island of Kauai for a 4 day vacation of sun and fun. We made some wonderful memories as a family, enjoyed time with friends and made a new friend when we met one of the employees from the hotel who was also adopted from Guatemala as a toddler. Of course there was also our historic presidential election which thrilled us beyond words. We were finally able to begin our home study update this month as well as Lili's last post-placement review. Of course Thanksgiving was also a major event in our house when family from Texas, New York and here in Illinois gathered for a few days of family fun and food. My sister and her family also came for a visit from California, so there was a lot of activity for a few days. Lili handled all the activity beautifully.

Where did the year go. December seemed to come and go so quickly. We went to Naperville for our USCIS fingerprints. We continued to wait on our updated home study and then found out we had to get another set of fingerprints done before our social worker could completed our home study. I had some surgery on my finger and the highlight was our first Christmas with Lili. Although Christmas Eve had it's ups and downs, it was so nice having Lili home and watching her enjoy her first Christmas with her family.

Although this post barely covered the surface of everything that happened in our lives in 2008, I think I covered many highlights of the past year.

Overall, we had a wonderful 2008 and are anxious to see what 2009 brings.