No more training wheels!

Today was a big day for Eli. He learned to ride his bike without any training wheels! For those of you who know my son you know that he is the cautious one. For those of you who don't know him, he is the one that watches everybody else first to see if they get hurt and then will decide if something is worth trying or not. He is also a perfectionist and likes to do things "right" the first time and is easily frustrated when he has trouble. Not really a good combination of characteristics when he is trying to learn something new.

So with all that in mind, this past winter we told Eli that the training wheels would be coming off in the spring. He was willing to try the bike a few weeks ago and just could not get it that first day. We decided to take the pedals off of his old toddler bike and make it into a "balance bike". He used that for about a week but wasn't enjoying it because he could not get it to go fast enough; so the bikes just stayed in the shed for about three weeks. Today we were outside playing and I told him we were going to practice on his bike. After a minute of him moaning and groaning about it he got on the bike, I gave him a little push and he just took off!

















He still needs help getting the bike started and he needs to learn to use the brakes instead of just putting his feet down, but all in all a great start. When he was all done riding he looked at me and said, "Mommy are you proud of me because I am proud of me!" I think he smiled the rest of the afternoon. And yes, I am a very proud Mommy.

A Fun few Days

This has been a busy week. On Sunday the kids sang with the children's choir at church for Palm Sunday. They have been going early to church to practice for the past month and I am so glad that they decided they wanted to be a part of it. It was very cute and they did a great job.

After church we went to an Easter Egg hunt. The owner of where Damen works lives in a private community that hosts the Easter Egg hunt every year to raise money for a local charity. Last year they raised $6000 for a child in town that had cancer. Everyone has a great time and the only thing they ask for is a donation to the charity. I think there was about 2000 eggs on the ground and a couple of hundred kids. The kids had a great time and a lot of money was raised.

Only Eli (yes, I decided to use their real names) would sit with the Easter Bunny. Nevaeh had fallen asleep in the car on the way there and was not in a great mood when we arrived. She would not go anywhere near the bunny.

This is not a great picture, but if you look very closely you can kind of see the eggs scattered all over the ground behind the fence. Okay, you can't really see them, but, trust me, there were eggs absolutly everywhere. I think it took less than three minutes for all the eggs to be picked up.

Today we went to Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory with some good friends of ours. The kids waited so patiently for butterflies to land on them.

Finally, their patience paid off.

We have had a great couple of days and tomorrow we are going to visit some friends that we have not seen in a few months. We are really hoping that our corrected paperwork comes in this week but I am trying to to remember that things will happen when they happen and to just enjoy my time with the kids now.

New Pictures and an Update

New pictures of Merveille! I love the first one. So far it is the only picture we have of him kind of smiling. :)

I am not sure what they are feeding him, but he seems to be enjoying it and from the looks of his pudgy cheeks he can really eat!

Adoption update: We have been waiting for the last two documents from the court and the other day we received them. We have been waiting for those two things for just over four months. The great thing about that is that as of now is he ours. The problem is that there was an error on the paperwork that needs to be fixed in order to file the papers in the United States. Hopefully we will have the corrected papers back very soon. When we file the papers with USCIS we have to send in a form called the I600. A few months ago it was taking about one month to get a clearance letter back from them and now it is taking between 2.5 and 3 months. So, it will still be a few more months until Merveille is home with us, but in the eyes of the DRC Merveille is now my son. That's right, I am officially a mother of three. I have one daughter and now I have TWO sons . I love saying that :) Now I just have to get Merveille home and in my arms.

New Pics :)

We received two new pictures of Merveille. Yay!!

We received a report that he is doing well, he is healthy, and chubby :) I cannot wait until he comes home!

Waiting is hard...

I hate waiting. There, I've said it. This has been a hard week for me. A few months ago we really thought that Merveille would be coming home right about now. We still have no idea when he will be home. Last week we received one piece of paperwork that we need, but we are still waiting for two more very important things from the courts. We can get those papers tomorrow or three months from now. Nobody knows when they will come. After we get those, then we have to file the I600 in the US. That takes 6-8 weeks to be processed. Finally after all of that waiting, we will have an idea of when Merveille can come home. I hate waiting....

Our case worker is wonderful and keeps us up to date with everything, but she has no way of knowing when this paperwork will come in either. We are at the mercy of a court system that is nothing like ours and that does not seem to be sympathetic to all of the children and families that are waiting to be united. I hate waiting...

I think part of the problem I had this week was that we had told a lot of people we thought he would be coming home in March. Sometimes I just need to put the adoption out of my mind for a little while but everytime I go somewhere someone asks if he is home yet. The other day Damen had people stopping by his work to ask if Merveille had come home. These people did not have appointments and they went out of their way, just to check if our son was home. I really appreciate everyone's thoughtfulnes, I really do, but having to keep saying we have no idea when our baby will be home is getting really hard. I hate waiting....

This month will mark seven months since we first received Merveille's referral and picture. He will be 14 months old this month. That means we have known about him for half of his life already, but have not been able to touch him yet. A couple of my friends are pregnant and it is so hard to be completely happy for them. I am jealous. I'm not jealous that they are pregnant, but that they know how much longer it will be until they get to kiss their baby.
I hate waiting...

Princess's "Family Day"

Today is the anniversary of the day we first met Princess, or her "Family Day" as we call it since that is the day that we became a family. Three years ago Damen, Young Jedi, and I traveled to Ethiopia to meet Princess. She was 17 months old, the size of a 6 month old, and the bravest person I had met. The nanny at the orphanage put her in my arms and told her I was "Mama". She cried and fought as hard as she could to get out of my arms. I was not mama to her (yet), I was a stranger. She had known her mother's love for a full year before coming to the orphanage. For the whole week that we were in Ethiopia she cried whenever we walked into her nursery room. She did not want me, and although that was understandable, it was hard (very hard!). She was being asked to trust us and believe that this new mama would always be there for her. The first few months that she was home with us was hard. She did not want to be here. She had lost everything she had ever known, language, culture, food, smells, people she knew. Little by little she opened her heart and began to trust us. Her body would relax when I picked her up, instead of stiffen. She began to accept our hugs and kisses, and then started to return them. I had become "Mama" to her :)

First Post

Okay, so I am totally new to the blogging world, but figured I would give it a shot. I guess we will start with the basics. I am Catt and my husband and I have two kids. Young Jedi is 5 years old and Princess is 4 years old (names are changed if you haven't guessed LOL). They were both adopted from Ethiopia. We are in the process of adopting a 1 year old named Merveille from the Democratic Republic of Congo. We started the process April of 2010 and had our referral of Merveille on August 17 2010. We hope to have him home in the next few months.
Young Jedi is in afternoon kindergarten and Princess chose to homeschool for preschool this year. She tried traditional preschool but after two months she asked us to homeschool. She's learning a lot and I am having fun teaching her. Life is busy, but we are enjoying it all.