10 & 11 months

Whew...it's been a while since I've posted anything. I don't imagine I'll post after 1 yr., but if anyone is still interested in following along, "friend" me on Facebook. :) SO...since I last posted we took our first family vacation to Florida. First of many, I'm sure. We spent time with Grandma & Grandpa Cox and Aunt Shanny & Uncle Ron (& dogs!). Emmy did very well on the flights. Although, it was probably due to the fact she had ear tubes put in the week prior. Those have been wonderful. Emmy has been growing so fast & trying new things constantly. Her favorite toys are salad tongs & a big silver bowl. You know...for banging on and making lots of NOISE. :) She likes anything that plays music, some days we chill out in the living room and put the music channel on ("Party Favorites" is her favorite!) and dance. I sure hope she has rhythm when she gets older. She is eating more & more finger foods and almost prefers that to being fed by mom or dad. Em's 1st b'day will be here before we know it and I think we are counting down the days until we don't have to buy formula anymore!!! We are hearing what sound like her first words, but maybe it's still babbling. She is understanding simple phrases like, "where's the dogs?", "where's daddy?", "uh-oh", "Emmy do it". It's so much fun watching her learn. She finally (at 10.5 months) got her first tooth coming in. And in the last 3 weeks, 3 more poked through. A full month of a teething baby is not so much fun. I guess that's why they make Tylenol & Motrin. This first year with Em has just flown by. I hope the next 17 yrs (or 25!) go by just a little slower.

S,T & E

Not quite one yet, but close enough!

Finalization

We have finally, after 9 months of waiting, finalized the adoption of Miss Emmy K!! The judge was not sick and it took all of 10 minutes in the courtroom answering general questions and that was it. There were several families there to finalize and it was great to see them all so happy too. A local group called the "Linas Club" makes blankets for children and the court had some in the courtroom for all the children who were adopted on that day. We got to pick out a Strawberry Shortcake blanket for our little girl. We did get a few pictures, but the computer has died again...if it ever awakens again, I'll post some pics from our court-day.

Love,
S,T&E

9 months (& Happy Easter!)

Emmy K is 9 months old today! Emmy celebrated Easter today with mommy, daddy, Uncle Q, Aunt Jamie, and cousins Jayden & Jarek. We hunted Easter eggs, ate candy, went to the park and had a nice nap in the afternoon. What fun!! Em is still getting icky ear infections, so we are seeing the ENT doc tomorrow to talk about tubes. Poor baby....but I'm sure it'll be much better for her to get them. Emmy is not crawling quite yet, but after seeing how mobile her cousin is, maybe she'll start thinking about it. After WE saw how mobile her cousin is....I'm thinking "hold off a little bit longer!" HA! Emmy continues to babble up a storm, who knows what she is talking about...one of these days I'm sure we'll find out. She is such a joy and such a blessing, we can't remember life without her. See more cute pictures below.

Love,
S,T&E

8 months

Emmy turned 8 months old yesterday, and it was supposed to be marked with the finalization of her adoption. As it is...the one & only judge in our small KY town called in sick. What are the odds, really??! Since she only hears adoption cases once a month, we now have to wait until April.
Em has been doing well the last month. She really jabbers up a storm at us and loves to watch the dogs. We have introduced her to Mickey, Minnie, Donald & Goofy on Mickey's Playhouse Disney and she loves watching them on Saturday morning. It's fun to watch her shake her little body when the music comes on. We have been having some sleeping issues, but we keep trying different things to see what will work in helping her sleep better at night. She's had lots of visitors this month - Granny P from Illinois & G'ma & G'pa C from FL, and Aunt Sheryl have all come to see her (and us!). More friends & family are coming in the next few weeks. Emmy does well with the "new" people and doesn't seem to mind other people besides mom & dad taking care of her. Emmy & Daddy will have a fun weekend together soon so I can go to IL and have a fun girls weekend.
Our computer at home took a nose dive, so more pictures will have to wait.

Love,
S,T & E

7 Months!

Emmy is 7 months old today! Time is sure flying by these days. Since 6 mo. we have explored lots of new foods and gotten over yet another ear infection. So far she will eat anything we give her, but her favorites seem to be sweet potatoes, green beans & bananas. We have learned that her body just does not react well to carrots & pears. We'll have the allergist check on those next time we go, I guess! Developmentally she is doing good - right on track. She has rolled only a few times, but the doctor says that bigger babies have a harder time rolling (especially ones with broad shoulders like our little Em). He was not at all concerned about it, and said a greater indicator of development was sitting on her own. She gets better at that every day. We now feel comfortable setting her on the floor and letting her play by herself. Of course, we are always within view to keep an eye on our two 4-legged creatures!! She has started mimicking what we are doing with our mouths - whether it be spitting, sticking her tongue out or making a "pop" sound with her lips and her favorite game right now is "peek-a-boo". Emmy is easily distracted from whatever she is doing when the dogs walk by. She loves to look at them and I'm sure she's thinking, "man, I want to crawl all over them and pull their ears and that tail!".
Emmy continues to be a good natured baby, despite her ability to squeal at the top of her lungs. :) We think she is going to be quite the talker when she is older. She is constantly babbling, "hiiii da da da da...."...we're working on "not da da ... MA MA MA". She'll get there.... :)
Truman and I are doing well. Very, very thankful we are both still working despite the poor ecomony. We have been very blessed!
I have posted more pics below!

Love,
S,T&E

Who put this goofy hat on me??

Can I tell you a secret??

Talking to the Venus-dog!

Playing with her favorite ABC toy!

Pretty in Pink!

6 MONTHS!

OK, so I'm a day late in the 6 month update, but who really noticed, right? Emmy has found her feet & toes and loves to take hold of them any time she is on her back. We are still working on the rolling over, but she has started to sit up for a few minutes on her own. Once she reaches for something though, over she goes :) We have found some ticklish armpits on our little one. It's so funny when we occassionally get a giggle out of her. Emmy continues to be a good eater - she has now mastered cereal and we have moved on to Sweet Potatoes with no allergic reaction. Next is carrots. mmm..mmm...good stuff.

Normally when the 3 of us are out somewhere and people comment on Emmy, they will say she looks more like Truman. Little do they know, right? :) Anyway, it doesn't bother us at all. But the other day we got an original, honest comment. Someone said, "Is this your little girl?". We said, "Yes" and he says, "Well, she doesn't look anything like either of you". It cracked us up! Nope, she doesn't :)
I have posted a few pictures below of our last month with Emmy. She's growing like a weed and we love it!
Love,
S,T & E

I'm 6 months old today!!
Chewing on daddy's hat (yes, imagine the germs!!) But all that slobber is from Emmy!!
Emmy & Venus - check out the wild hair!! When we first put her in this exersaucer, we had to put a towel in front of her to keep her up. Not anymore!!

Christmas fun!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year! It was great fun to get up with our little one on Christmas morning and see what Santa had brought for her :) We went to Christmas Eve services and Emmy enjoyed listening to all the music. She woke us up bright & early Christmas morning around 6am (not for presents, but to EAT!). After all the presents were unwrapped and the dogs were fed, we hopped in the car for our 6 hr. drive to Indiana to spend the rest of the weekend with Truman's family. Em was held by everyone, and was a real tropper about it all. We even kept her out past her bedtime Saturday night for Grandpa Butch's retirement party. She was out like a light as soon as we left the party! This Christmas is the first of many memorable ones I'm sure. Hope you all had a great Christmas & have a Happy New Year! Enjoy the few pictures below.
Love,
S,T & E

5 Months

Has it really been a whole month since I last posted?? AND...has it really been 5 months since we've been parents???!!! Where does the time go? This last month has been full of growing, learning and healing. Growing because our little girl was 17lbs at her last check up and in the 90th percentile of other babies her age. She quickly grew out of her 3/6 month clothes and is now comfortably wearing straight 6 months and soon will be in 6/9 mo. clothes I'm sure. Good thing she has a closet full of clothes all the way to 18 months!!! When I say this month was one of healing, I mean that I think we have finally gotten the breathing & eczema under control. Poor thing has to have breathing treatments daily, but they really seem to be helping. We saw the allergist and she has a few allergies -- and a slight reaction to the dogs. As much as we want them to be best buddies and play together, that's just not in the cards right now for Emmy. We have been keeping them out of her room and away from her as much as possible. Right now, they are really getting the shaft, but we try to give them lots of love at night after Emmy is asleep. They are good dogs and aren't really showing any jealousy signs. For that we are thankful! Emmy is learning that her "squeals, cries & general noisiness" will get mom & dad's attention. :) Hmmmm...I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing?? She is quite the stinker sometimes when she cries, but then we walk in the room and she's all smiles. Yeah, we're wrapped....what can we say?? She is starting to hold objects and put them directly into her mouth. Her favorite "chew toys" are her fingers or whatever blanket she happens to be holding. She has been drooling so much, I'm surprised we haven't seen teeth yet. Maybe by our 6 month update??? Since she has been feeling better, and showing all other signs that she's ready, we have been feeding her some cereal. Yay!! She enjoys it in the evenings and kicks her feet in excitement when it's time for the next bite!
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family in Illinois! Emmy got plenty of attention and showed off her "talking" skills to anyone who would listen :) We are busy getting ready for Christmas and look forward to sharing our Christmas day with our daughter this year, as well as traveling to Indiana to spend the holidays with Truman's family.

Not quite 5 months old here. This was in the car on our way home from IL

Go 'Cats!!

4 Months!!

Baby Emmy is 4 months old today!! This month has been full of learning & development for her. Remember that I wrote in her 3 month blog that she was sick? Well, it never quite went away. We had been following the doctor's advice, but she never really got better. It all escalated last Friday when the daycare called to say she was so congested that she was having trouble breathing. I quickly left work and made a dr.'s appt. for that afternoon. Three hours, 2 chest X-rays, 2 breathing treatments and numerous pokes & prods from the doctor later....we leave the office with FIVE prescriptions! Poor thing had ear infections in both ears (in our defense...she NEVER had a fever, she didn't give us any signs that her ears were bothering her), had some liquid steriods for her congestion, an inhaler for the wheezing, topical steriod for the dry skin, suggestions to switch her formula to a hypoallergenic brand, suggestions to use Eucerin & Aquaphor more often than we currently do, referral to a Pediatric Allergist and instructions to bathe her only twice a week. OH! And the kicker - no solid foods until 6 months. Dang - I was looking forward to starting cereal tonight, but we will do what's best for her!! Let me just say....ALL of this combined has done wonders for our little girl!!! She was always a pretty good baby....but now - she is even more so.
Her dry skin (especially on her face) has cleared up, Her congestion cleared up so fast that she was back to sleeping on her back by Saturday night, and she is even more chatty than usual. The one side effect is that she is not eating as much as she once was. But, that could be a result of some of her meds.
Other than being sick, she has really started to grab at toys dangling in front of her. She enjoys having a blanket or bib to pull at and hold while she's eating. She has been kicking & pulling her feet up more, but not grabbing at her feet yet. She still does NOT like to be on her tummy much, but her head control is great. She can sit up pretty well with the assistance of the boppy. She is growing, growing, growing every day. We are all looking forward to spending some time with Truman's sister & her family this weekend. Then it will be time to travel to IL for Thanksgiving!!
Five months will be here before we know it!!


Until then...

Love,
S,T & E

Dossier Documents

Hey, what do you know - we got our original Ukraine dossier documents returned to us. It only took 4 months! Now if we can just recoup some of the money we lost....

I continue to read about other families Ukraine adoption experiences, and I thank God everyday for sending us our Emmy. We got cabin fever in Missouri for 2 weeks, I cannot even imagine spending 8 weeks (or more) in Ukraine. In the end it's about finding your children and that is what most of these families are doing. I'm just very thankful that we found our daughter (or did she find us?) :) when we did. She is such a joy and she makes all the stress of the day go away when she smiles at us. She is learning and growing each day; it's an incredible feeling to be a part of that.

Happy Friday!!
Love,
S,T & E

Trick or Treat!!

Emmy's first Halloween was so much fun! We borrowed the costume from a friend and I'm so glad we did. I wasn't going to dress her up this year, but we got some super cute pictures of her. The past few weeks have been wonderful. My mom came to visit and we went to the pumpkin patch and got Em's 3 month pictures taken. This weekend Truman's parents came and Emmy got to spend Halloween with them and helping mom & dad pass out Halloween candy to all the neighborhood kids. Emmy also got to meet some of daddy's friends from "across the pond" who came in town for a wedding we all went to on Saturday night. Grandma & Grandpa got to watch Emmy while we were gone and they say she was a perfect angel. Hmmm....why isn't she like that with us???!! LOL! Em has really started to grab at toys or her blanket and put them directly in her mouth. Today Truman got her to give a little giggle. I think it was the cutest thing I've ever heard!! She is still eating well and sleeping very good at night - although with the time change today that may throw her off just a bit. Ten more days until we can officially try to feed her cereal. I'm hoping that goes ok. Some babies just aren't ready for cereal until 6 months. But, she is downing her bottles so I think she needs a little more to fill her belly.
I'll leave you with a few pictures from the weekend....
Love to all,
S,T & E

Adoption Music Video

Two very special people sent us a music video. It's definitely worth watching if adoption has ever touched your lives. I have added the link on the right sidebar of the blog under "Adoption Articles". Have the kleenex's ready....:) And let me know what you think.

3 months!!

Our 3 month old Kentucky girl!!

Update

Well, I see it's been awhile since we updated you on our baby girl. She will be 3 months old on Sunday and I think it's been the quickest 3 months of our lives!! Since I last updated we have spent our first weekend apart from Emmy so we could go to Bourbon Fest in Bardstown, KY. Thank you so much to my good friends, Rachel & Melissa, for coming to spend the weekend with Em. I only wish I could have spent more time with them. But, I'm quickly learning that when you have a baby, it's not about YOU anymore. It's about THEM! We have also completed our "post-placement" requirement for the state of KY. Whoohoo! All that's left to do on that front is to get a court date in our county and finalize. All that should happen before 2008 is over. We also visited the doctor twice. Once for a cold that she got from her mama(poor girl was so congested and coughing!) and 3 days later for her first round of shots. Em weighed in at 13 lbs, 10 oz and 23-3/4" long - that puts her in the 70th percentile according to the doctors charts. She hollered during the shots, but calmed down pretty easy and fell asleep on the car ride home. She is still trying to get over the cold, so in the meantime she continues to sleep in the carseat at night to help with the congestion. Speaking of sleeping.....this baby is a gem at night. Since 8 weeks old (give or take a night or 2 for whatever reason), she has been sleeping through the night. I give all the credit to following the "Babywise" philosophy. It's a feed/wake/sleep pattern that you start from Day 1 and it has worked wonders for us (and for several friends!). There have been no other huge issues for her other than the yucky dry skin. That is why her face is so red in the picture. It gets so dry, she starts rubbing her face against her hands or against our shoulders or in the crook of our elbow if we are holding her. Finally we wised up and started putting on vaseline-type stuff and it has cleared up pretty good. But, going into colder weather will probably not help the dry skin. We'll just keep her slathered up each night!
Truman and I seem to be adjusting quite well. I can now say, "what did we do with our time before she came along??". Sometimes it's so cool just to sit and watch her and try to get her to smile at us. (which comes REALLY easy in the morning!!) She is quite the talker and happy to chat back & forth to us most of the time. The teachers at her daycare love her. One even said the other day that she came in early to hold her because she didn't get to the previous day. Awwww.....it's good to hear those kinds of things.
The dogs are still doing good with Emmy. I catch her watching them every once in a while, so I know they will all be good friends. They greet her just like they greet us when we come home -- with kisses! She doesn't seem to mind one or 2 kisses. :) Tonight we are off to an event at the distillery. She has so many admirers there, so I know we'll enjoy ourselves. Then next weekend Grandma Peggy is coming to visit & we'll get some 3 mo. pictures done. I'll try to do a better job at updating this blog a little more often. Thanks for reading...

Love,
S,T & E

2 MONTHS!

In her new Bumbo seat!

Our baby girl is two months old today! She is still a little unstable in the seat, but her head control gets better each day. We'll put her in the seat a few minutes each day until she can sit on her own. Em is doing well in daycare -- all the teachers love her of course!! Mommy is doing good going back to work (except for coming down with a cold - which we are trying to keep from the baby, but we are pretty sure she's going to catch the crud too!) Daddy is also doing good at work and we are all getting used to our new normal. Bourbon Festival is coming up this weekend and Aunt Raq & Aunt MO are coming to stay with Miss Emmy. We look forward to a weekend away (and maybe some sleeping in!!), but I know we'll miss our little girl. She'll be in awesome hands though and we know she'll be spoiled rotten when we come back on Sunday.

As far as working with the agency that closed it's doors on us....we are working on getting some money back from their insurance company. Who knows if it will work, but we have to try. It blows our mind that they can keep our money and the money of all the other families they were "working" with. We did have our first Post Placement Visit with the new agency last week. Everything was great with that, and we will have one more visit in a couple more weeks at our home. All they are looking for is to make sure Emmy has a room/bed. Yep - got that one covered!!

Every day is still an adjustment, but we still look at our daughter in awe sometimes and know that she was meant to be ours!

Love,
S,T&E

Our new normal

Today was my second day back to work and Em's 2nd day at daycare. All the teachers love her (of course!) and say that she's such a good baby. I am enjoying being back at work and getting back into what will be my new routine. We are all still making adjustments, but it seems to get better each day. Each day we are learning more about parenting and more about our beautiful daughter. Thanks to all our friends & family who have given us such great advice!!

Since the last blog, we have traveled to IL, IN & MO. Em is quite the pro at riding in the car, sleeping in the car, feeding in the car.....actually she is a pretty good traveling companion. We stop for her to eat, we get to stretch our legs, then she promptly returns to uninterrupted slumber. (at least that's how it goes most of the time, she does cry & fuss on occassion) :) Our families threw us incredible Dr. Seuss showers and they helped us fill Em's closet with so many cute clotes from 3 mo - 18 mo!!! As well as give us many much needed baby items. Our latest roadtrip was to Missouri to attend court. That was a huge milestone as we are now legal guardians of our little girl!!! There were several other families there at the same time for the same reason and it was nice to chat with them for a while about their experiences.

She will be 2 mo. on Friday so she still isn't doing a whole lot of "fun" stuff, but we have gotten some really cute smiles. (whether it's gas or hiccups coming on, I don't care - she still has a cute smile!) She continues to be a good eater and boy she knows how to let us know when she's hungry!!! Em is also starting to sleep longer at night and we have been blessed with the timing of it all!! Just as I'm ready to go back to work, she started sleeping until about 5:30-6am (with no waking up from about 9:30-10pm!). Perfect timing! She also really enjoys bath time and getting outside in her stroller for walks and she has truly found her thumb!! (sorry for the next part Aunt Patti...) She loves to suck (LOUDLY!) on her hand and her thumb. We have tried repeatedly trading the thumb for the paci, but to no avail. So, we let her go and let her do her thing. If it's thumbsucking or fussing...I'm all for the thumbsucking. Gotta maintain your sanity somehow, right??

Below are a few pictures of our little darlin'!

Love,
S,T&E


She's smiling because she's excited for "school"!!

The dogs adore Miss Em!

One Month!

Our little girl is one month old today! How time flies!! I'll start you off with a cute 1-month old picture...
She has been a wonderful addition to our family! For the most part, she is a very content baby - except for when she is hungry. She doesn't really do much yet, but we are expecting things to "pick up" soon! Probably right as I'm going back to work she will start to get "fun". :) Daddy likes to read her Dr. Seuss books and Mommy likes to take her for walks on these not-so-hot days.

On our Ukraine adoption front....all I can say is God had a hand in our adoption of Emmy. Just last week we get an email from the agency saying they are closing their doors. Gee...wonder where our money went that we paid to have our dossier registered???!! Not to the facilitator, that's for sure! No wonder we have been getting the runaround from them. We are "exploring our options" as far as what to do with this. Suggestions??? :)

Love,
S,T & E

Adjusting

We have been home for a few days and seem to be adjusting well. Truman went back to work today, so this is my first full day alone with Em. We'll have a good day, I'm sure! :) Our day is about to start with her first trip to the pediatrician here. I'm anxious to see how she's grown in these last 3 weeks. The dogs are taking to our new family addition famously. We thought our older dog would be more of the protector of Emmy, but it turns out our younger lab is the mothering one. Go figure! I did get some CUTE pics of them together that I posted below. Gotta get the little one up and dressed! TTFN!!

Home Sweeeeeeet Home!

We arrived home as a family last night around 9:30pm. It feels so good to be home & back with the doggies! The dogs were so excited to see us; they looked so much bigger to us!! They were also very curious about this new little person who is taking over their room. They are showing their love by showering her with kisses on her feet, hands & nose. She doesn't seem to mind so that is a good sign!! She'll be crawling & pulling tails & ears in no time at all. Our lab, Venus, loves to sit on the bed next to the rocking chair and watch us feed Emmy. One of these days we'll get a picture of that and post it.

So, a little backstory on how this came about....Towards the end of May, one of Susan's aunts sent an email asking if we were interested in a possible domestic adoption. YES, YES, YES!! We tried not to get our hopes up too much because we didn't have all the details at first. After ongoing communication with the birth mother, we quickly realized that this was in fact the path she wanted to go. We quickly set forth getting lawyers in KY & MO, a social worker in MO and getting our homestudy updated. Yes, we had to use our current international agency for that, but it turned out OK. They also required us to take another online parenting education "class". What a crock - because we had already taken the same "class" for the international program. Oh well - water under the bridge now.....We traveled to St. Louis over 4th of July to meet the birth mother and everything went so well. It's like God hand-picked us for each other. Everything with this process went so smoothly, we couldn't have planned it better. We got the call early on 7/12 that she was in labor and we quickly finished some things up at home and headed out. (Keep in mind that she was originally due on 7/21, but was planning on inducing on 7/16). Somewhere in IL we get the call that E.K.C. was born and we were overjoyed!!!! We were able to visit birth mom & baby in the hospital and then b.m. brought E.K.C. to us at my aunt's house on 7/14 -- four days before my b'day. What a gift!!!! We have wanted this for so very long and it's still unreal that we have our little girl!!!

I hope we are able to keep up with this blog and keep you all posted on how our little girl is doing. Next up for us, adoption wise, is to terminate our contract for Ukraine and then do two post placements for E.K.C and finalize this adoption in 3 months. OH - and we will have to travel back to MO for a court hearing in a month or so. Stay tuned in, I know we'll have a lot in store for us over the next few years!!

Love to all,
S, T & E

Can we go home yet??

Nope, we are not home yet. Seems we are getting conflicting information from our lawyers, their assitant, and our social worker. Much like with international adoption, a judge has to make the adoption "legal" and assign us parental rights. We thought that was done last week and now we are finding out that maybe it hasn't been done by the judge?? Hopefully we can get some answers today. We have our home state attny working on it as we speak.
Em continues to be a good baby! But she is ready to get home to her two doggies - as are her mommy & daddy!!! We'll leave you with a couple cute pics!

Love,
S, T & E