On this day in 1991...

... a beautiful baby girl was born!

She grew into a beautiful young woman, and today she is 19 years old.

Happy Birthday, our dear Emily!

A Major Award!

In the land of Blog, sometimes people will start a game or list where you are supposed to then "tag" or pass the game on to some fellow bloggers. Recently, my blog friend Steffany tagged me with an award for being either a sweet friend or sunshine... not sure which because she sort of joined two awards she had received together... but anyway, I was touched and thrilled to be chosen by someone whose blog I read regularly and who I would love to meet in person one day. Her blog is "...and they lived happily ever after", and you can find the link on my blog list in the sidebar on the left.

Here is my problem: not only am I not good at choosing people to pass these things on to, I don't know how to make the little linky thing where you have someone's name or whatever and it links to their blog. Okay, I am a computer loser. Anyone who wants to enlighten me, feel free! And Steffany, thanks again for kind words!

Water of life

Our home life has finally settled down enough that we could attend to some matters that aren't the ones that merely get us through one day. One of the more important things was done on Saturday... Candace and Sarah were baptized at Mass. We probably should have done this months ago, but we were so immersed in the adjustment issues that it kept getting pushed aside. Then we needed to find a time when Emily could be home from college. Happily, it is now done, with Kenneth and Emily serving as Godparents.

Candace was quite a ham during the procedings, while Sarah was apprehensive (and also sleepy... I had to wake her up to go to the font for the actual baptism.)

Go Bluejays!

Anna's high school cheer squad got first place in their division, Sideline C, at the Nebraska State Cheer competition! Anna is the one tumbling at the beginning.

Let the Games begin!

We saw something like this:

Which inspired this:

Oh, the spirit of Olympic competition.

Who says junk food can't be educational?

Look what Candace found on her fruit roll-up!

Despite the pained expression on her face, she was actually pretty excited by this find. :)

Sometimes, but not very often...

... I don't really have much to say. But I wanted to update my blog, so here are some cute photos to share.

Playing in today's fresh snowfall. Finally, wet snow that packs... the girls made a "snow castle", which you can see on the left near their feet if you look closely.

Sarah painting. She loves to draw and make all kinds of art projects.

Candace playing a Dora the Explorer game at my extremely messy computer desk.

Going too fast

If you have older children, you know what I'm talking about. You start thinking about something cute or funny or poignant that one of your kids said or did once when they were little, and now they are in middle school or high school or college and good grief, where did all the time go?

Or maybe you have little newly adopted five year old twins, and you realize they've been home for almost eight months... eight months!... and you can hardly remember what life was like before they were part of the family, and they are already so eager to be six and can't keep talking about how great it will be to be six and be BIG! In the fall, kindergarten will start and they will be at school all day and Mommy will be missing huge chunks of their day.

Oh gosh, slow down. Just slow down. Stay little for awhile; for Mommy.

Hair skills

I love the twins' curly hair. It is so soft and springy and just beautiful. I would love to leave it free every day. Alas, it becomes quite a matted mess after a few hours of rolling around on floors and furniture and sitting in their carseats... so most days we put it up. I've been trying to learn some different styles, but the girls aren't very nice about sitting for hours while I practice. However, I thought the one I did last night came out well. We did rolling twists with some fancy diagonal parts in the front and I put the pigtails in three little twists each.

The finished hairdo

Twists from the top

The side

The back

I finished it off this morning with some little ballies around the pigtails. It stayed in pretty well overnight, too. I had to redo some of the pigtail twists, but it was easy! It's not as elaborate as the styles on one of my favorite blogs, Happy Girl Hair, but it is pretty good for a beginner. :)

History... and the lack thereof

We had a rough night this evening at bedtime. Candace began to be very agitated out of the blue, and then began to cry about missing her family in Ethiopia. This was then followed by her loud and tearful insistence that if Daddy and Mommy hadn't wanted more kids, then she wouldn't have been separated from her great aunt in Ethiopia.

I tried really hard not to take it personally, but inside, I did. This is something that gnaws at me. I'm also angry. Angry and frustrated that the agency who placed the twins with us provided so little background. Angry that we suspect some of what we were told might not be completely true. Disheartened to hear many stories from many others who experienced some degree of deception during their adoptions with the same placement agency. So sad that my lack of knowledge hampers my ability to help my dear little one cope.

But always so, so in love with my little daughters.

My husband and I are committed to find out as much as we can. We have some missionary friends in Ethiopia who are going to try to help.

I also think that maybe two weeks in between therapy visits was too ambitious of a stretch at this point.

On a lighter note, because Emily says I'm going to lose my blog's fan base if I don't post pictures, here is a random cute photo:

A happy day for a friend!

I am so happy to share that my blog friend, Celeste, is a new mama today! Her sweet little girls, Helina and El Shaday, were at the orphanage in Addis Ababa with Candace and Sarah, and today they passed court. Celeste received the referral for her daughters a couple of weeks after we got ours... she has been waiting over a year for this day!

You can read about Celeste and her beautiful daughters here: http://lessycurls.blogspot.com/

Making progress

I am almost scared to talk about it, as if by discussing it, something fragile will be accidentally broken into little pieces and scattered about for me to pick up...

but...

... things are getting better. Easier. Dare I say quieter or calmer? Thank you, wonderful therapist Cathy, for helping Candace deal with her "mad brain" and her sadness. We are having fewer and fewer meltdowns, and they are much easier to redirect. Candace is more free with her affection toward all of us, but especially me. She actually came to me for comfort after hurting herself the other day.

Last week we were literally trapped in our somewhat rural house after a big snowstorm with subzero high temperatures swept through the area. Tom was in California, but all five kids and I were enjoying some forced togetherness Tuesday through Friday, as the plows hadn't made it out our way. The twins behaved so well! And miracle of miracles, they went to bed with no problem every single night last week. Every night!

I know that there is still a lot of progress to be made by all of us, but I think I am glimpsing the family Tom and I were hoping for. We so needed to see some progress...thank you, God, for the preview.

Happy New Year, 2010

We rang in the New Year with a trip to Disney World. I am happy to report that it went surprisingly well, despite a trying 3+ hour drive in bad weather to the airport in Kansas City, and the ridiculously large holiday crowds at the park. It was a little chilly while we were there, but a lot warmer than the subzero temperatures we came home to!

Kids on Main Street

Sarah and Candace with Snow White... Candace's favorite princess!

Tom, Anna and the twins swimming on one of the warmer days.

Meeting Mickey and Minnie

The stockings are hung...

in hope that dear Santa will soon be here!

Gathering as a family....

Remember the real reason for the season!

Merry Christmas

Our day in court

Today the twins were officially re-adopted according to the laws of the state of Nebraska. Their names are now legally Candace Selam Spears and Sarah Fikir Spears, and they are United States citizens. This is the end of the road for the tedious international adoption process.

In the court room of the Saunders County Courthouse

Sarah and Candace posing with the judge up on the bench. They also enjoyed playing with the microphones at the lawyers' tables when the judge was out of the room.