Happy New Year!

Halli was so excited about the new year. There were fireworks going off and we didn't have any. So Halli made her own, feathers. She grabbed handfuls of feathers and through them up in the air. Also as you can see, Hope is trying to sleep through all of this.

We have so much to be thankful for this year. We have a house, jobs and TWO wonderful, beautiful, crack me up girls. Who would of thought we would be a family of four? We are so thankful that God has chosen us to be the parents of these two precious girls. I can only imagine what is in store for them as they grow up. They are a blessing.

I look forward to next year and seeing what God has in store for us. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hope found her thumb! Yea, no pacifer for this girl!

Picture Tag

My friend Jena tagged me in picture tag. With the holidays I have not had time to respond. I promise I will do it this week. Also with my camera being stolen, I lost my pictures for this month. I am trying not to be too upset about losing Hope's first Christmas, Halli's birthday party and several hundreds of other pictures.

Good lesson to remeber to down load and save. Just like when your teacher always told you to keep hitting that save button while working on your term paper. :)

The Dog house

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twivg7GkYts

Saw this and it cracked me up. I know Andy would never give me a gift that would send him to the doghouse. :) Hope everyone had a nice Christmas!

Gingerbread House

One of Christmas traditions is to build a gingerbread house. Halli really enjoys this.

Her favorite part is eating all the candy. We'll see how long the candy stays on.

SNOW!!!

I only had a minute this morning to upload some pictures. Halli loves to try and eat snow. She was sooooo excited that it snowed. I'm sure she will be playing in it all day.

We tried to make snowballs, but the snow was to dry. We'll see how it is today. We are supposed to get more snow Wednesday and Thursday and also on Sunday. Maybe we'll have a white Christmas if the snow stays for awhile.

Update

Some are wondering how our visit went with Hope's birthmom. I think it went well. We did spend some time with her. She and her best friend joined us at the Children's Museum one day. Hope slept most of the time. When Hope finally did wake up I did let Corina feed her and hold her. Hope prefers to be with mom, so Corina only held her for a little while. That evening we picked her up and took her out for dinner.

The next day I had asked Corina to come with us to get Hope's picture taken. That went well. We were at the mall for a few hours. Anything we do with Hope takes awhile. She is a really slow eater. Hopes pictures turned out well. Hope didn't want her picture taken and only wanted to eat.

Another day I picked up Corina and she came back to the house. I had my doubts about brining her to the house. I didn't want to be judged or have her think she made the wrong decision. Anyway, I did bring her back. She went grocery shopping with us and to Hope's 2 month check-up. I do have to say that our doctor was great! He showed Corina how well Hope is doing and didn't exclude her at all. After that, we went back to the house and she stayed for dinner.

I think we may have saw one or two more times. I know she did come back to the house another day. I told her that I wanted to make sure that she saw Hope as much as she needed too. I spent a lot of time with her. For two quiet people, it was at times hard to make conversation.

Over all, I think our visit went well. There were times I didn't want to share Hope. But I know it is good for Hope to spend that time with Corina. As a mom, I have to do what is best for my child. My friends and family can not believe that we would spend that much time with Hope's birthmother. Not everyone understands what an open adoption is and the benifits of an open adoption. Clearly open adoption is not for everyone. I know before we adopted Halli we were not wanting an open adoption at all!!!! Over the years I think our views and opinion have changed. I also know that while Hope grows up we will have to set some more boundaries with Corina and those boundaries will probably change has Hope gets older. Life happens. What may be good one year, may not be good the next. You never know. The only thing I do know. Is that I will need to be doing lots of praying and listening to my heavenly Father!

Please feel free to ask any me any questions. I'm always happy to talk about adoption. :) I'll try to add pictures later. Hope is growing fast!

Halli and the Prayer Chain

Halli has been sick the last few days. We found out yesterday that she has a bladder infection. She is not handling it well at all. Well, I got a call today from Grandma to come pick up Halli. On the way home she asked me if I could call her other Grandma and have a prayer chain.

She wanted Grandma to call Auntie Heather, Auntie Heather to call Auntie Chelsea and Auntie Chelsea to call Auntie Krystal. I made the call and Grandma said she would take care of it. My sweet Halli fully believes in the power of prayer. She wanted her Aunties to be praying for her!

Tonight Hal said that she isn't hurting as much as she was. Maybe the medicine has started working or it's the prayer chain! :)

Friend's Blog

Organized Chaos: Read and Do It... PLEASE!

Please take a look and vote. Thank you.

caterpillar

When I was on leave I took the girls to the park. They have a butterfly garden and Halli was so excited to find a caterpillar. We actually found two, but the first one had died already. Halli did give it a proper burial in some sand she found. She even put a flower on top. The other caterpillar we found ended up coming home with us.
Halli named the caterpillar "Corina". She was with us for a few weeks. We finally told Halli that the caterpillar needed to be outside. After many, many tears Hal let the caterpillar go outside. This girl loves her animals and bugs!

Miss Corina

Well, Hope's birthmom is coming for a visit this week. It is much sooner than we had planned. She will be staying with her best friend's mom. She is here also for a visit. Corina's best friend is staying in Portland for awhile. So, since Corina is visiting her best friend, she of course wants to see us.

We will be going to the Children's Museum one day and I have asked her to come with me to get Hope's picture taken another day. We may think of other things to do. I still haven't decided if I want her to come to the house. I'm not exactly sure of the reason behind my hesitation.

So, please keep us in your prayers the next couple of weeks. I'm sure there will be all kinds of emotions going on while she is here.

Halli

Halli looked at me today and said, "Mom, I'm going to give Jesus a ride in my heart!" She then took off running across the living room. You never know what she's going to say or do. :)

November

A reminder that November is National Adoption Month. Because of adoption our family has been blessed twice. Last night Halli looked at me and said, "I have two moms. Barbara is my first mom and you are my second. Hope has two moms too. Corina and you." Because of these two women and the sacrife they made, I can be called mom. I will always be grateful to them.

I love my girls!

Smiles

I was finally able to catch some of Hope's smiles on film. She's been smiling since she was 3 weeks old, but she wouldn't do it very often. Yesterday she decided to give me smiles all day. And now that she has had a good sleep and been fed, she is giving me lots of smiles today. It's good to be the mom. :)

Happy Birthday Grandma Hurley! For my mom's birthday I took the girls down for a visit. Little did I know that I would be too tired to drive back home and had to spend the night. And of course that night Hope decided she didn't want to sleep, so the drive home was still bad. Oh well. The kids decorated cupcakes for Grandma and had soooo much fun.



Look! I can eat my whole hand. Silly Jacob!

Want a frosting kiss?

Halli's cupcake

Jacob's cupcake

Halli, our photographer

Halli decided that since mom takes a lot of pictures, she can too. She used my camera and went around the house taking pictures of everything she likes. There are far too many to post. But here are a few.

Yes, I am tired. :)

Bath Time

I was giving Hope a bath and Halli asked if she could help. I was very surprised! She washed her all up and rinsed her off. There are times when she does want to be a big sister and help out. But for the most part Hal just wants to wait till Hope is older and doesn't cry so much.

Our days

I'm hoping to post pictures soon. Things have been really busy. I think I had forgotten how the lack of sleep and constant crying can affect you. Right now Hope is sleeping. She likes to sleep between 1:30pm and 4:30pm. Then she will want to be awake for the evening. Last night she was awake from 4:30 till about 10:30. She also likes to be awake in the morning for a long period of time.

Also we are having a hard time with formula. She has tried four different kinds. Right now we are back to soy formula. I am sooooo tired of spit up. I think I'm going to have to go to Target and buy about 10 t-shirts!

Well, Hope is now waking up and it is about time to feed her again. I will try and get pictures up this week.

Comments

Hello everyone that visit's our little blog! I would love to hear your comments about our family. Please post anytime. I love my family and hope you enjoy looking at our photos just as much as I do.
~Carey :)

P.S. - Hope is now 10lbs 12oz!!!!!!!

More pics

My Girls

I took the girls shopping today. They got their pictures taken and we stopped and had a snack. I guess it was a bit too much for them. They both fell asleep on the way home and then slept for at least another hour. I did enjoy the peace and quiet.

I love sleeping children. :)

Guess she was bored with getting her picture taken.

Halli and Papa Hurley playing around. Halli loves having her grandparents come over. It's so nice that my dad will play with her. She loves it when he wrestles with her. This picture he was showing her what he used to do to me when I was her age. Halli loved it!!!

Grandma Hurley enjoying some cuddles with Hope. Who wouldn't enjoy cuddles with Hope?

What a cute picture. Halli called me downstairs to let me know that she read two bible stories to Hope and also a book on animals. She also lined up all of Hopes toys around her. Halli called me down to take her picture with Hope. There are the moments that Hal does like her sister. :)

Hope's First 2 Weeks

Here are some pictures of Hope.

Sleep?

Ok, I think I forgot how much sleep you really don't get anymore with a newborn. Hope sleeps wonderful during the day, but the night is a different story. She really loves sleeping with mom. So does Halli. I'm praying that things change soon. If Halli could start sleeping through the night again, that would be wonderful!

Hope is having some other problems that are making night time hard. Let just say, she got some prune juice today. She got a warm bath the other night that helped matters. But a warm bath last night did not help. So we're praying for a nice diaper surprise today. She really is a sweetie.

I will try and get some pictures up soon. Hope is two weeks old today. Time is going by fast.

Prayer

Can you all please pray for our sweet birthmother. She sent me an e-mail tonight that broke my heart. She is having a difficult time. She knows that she chose what was best for Hope, but her heart still aches for her daughter. She is such a sweet young lady and we do love her dearly. I wish I could be in Alaska and give her another big hug. The last hug I gave her I will treasure till we meet again.
Thank you

We're Home!

We got back early Friday morning. My family and Andy's parents where waiting for us at the airport. They all came back to the house for breakfast. Thank goodness my family had spent the night at our house and got it cleaned up and bought food. My sister said you could tell that we left in a hurry.

Halli was so happy to be home. She missed her box. She got in her box and fell asleep. She didn't care that there was a house full of people. Later she woke up, ate, and went back to sleep in the box.

Hope had a good night. She likes to be awake from 1:00am till 5:00am. We're are working on getting that changed! Other than that, she is a very good baby.

Here are some pictures. Please stop by for a visit!