Birthday and Metcha day!

Two years ago today at about this time, Dale and I were sitting in a room at an orphanage in Razgrad, Bulgaria waiting to meet our sweet little girl. Our journey to that point had been somewhat of an emotional roller coaster, as most adoptions are. I can’t speak for Dale, but I know I had every emotion possible running through my body at this time and was so very nervous to meet her. But I did not need to worry. I have no doubt that God had prepared her for us and she was so ready to meet her mommy and daddy. She came in and the caregiver told her mama and she came right to me and took my outstretched hands and patted them and smiled so sweet My regret is that they would not allow us to video the first meeting. Oh how I wish I could have had that moment preserved on video. It is etched in my mind forever though…Happy Metcha Day Kayti Elizabeth. Daddy and I love you soo, soo much and did from the first minute we saw you. I found the poem below shortly after trip one and changed a few words, but it describes how I felt that day perfectly! We also celebrated your 6th birthday and second birthday at home on October 5 and had a great weekend of parties this past week. She got so many nice gifts from everyone! She totally knew this weekend was all about her birthday! To those of you who were at her family party reading this, thank you for everything and about the drama towards the end, and we love you all! As always, I thought of her birth mother today and thanked her for the greatest blessing we could have ever received! I am sure that a lot of you are wondering where we are in our 2nd adoption process to bring our little boy home. We received USCIS approval on September 16, 2013 and are US agency is putting our dossier together to send soon. Praying it makes it by the last October meeting so we can travel this year on trip one. As for Kayti, most of you see how well she is doing and that she is thriving on her families love! She continues to amaze us every day and continues to make us laugh constantly, and just touches every place in our hearts. We are making progress in all areas. She can now dress herself completely, put her dishes in the sink when done with a meal, put her clothes in the hamper before her bath, bring us her cup when asking for a drink, and she now feeds our one chihuahua every night. She is now starting to recognize people and associate names with them. She recognizes letters and numbers. (NOT to read them, just know that they are either letters or numbers. She will say the alphabet when she sees letters, and start counting numbers when she sees numbers (ie numbers on a clock, watch, my keyless entry on my car, etc). She is starting to recognize her name a little bit now as well. Potty training continues to be a work in progress. I was extremely proud of her on Sunday as it was her birthday party with family, and as excited as she was she said she needed to go potty twice and kept a dry pull-up all day. Other days we get distracted and forget. She also pottys at school most of the time now as well! We will continue to work on it until we get it 100%. She is still going to her pre-school two days a week and loves it. They have been great with her and she loves her teachers! We had a great summer and enjoyed beautiful weather for our fairs and enjoyed our own camper this year so much. This weekend we are having our annual weiner roast and hayride and are looking so forward to that! Thank you all for your continued love and support! Love you all:) Lori, Dale, and Kayti!! How can I understand what I am about to see? The years of waiting arel now just a memory. Your eyes, your skin, your hair, the beauty of your face. I can’t believe that this day we finally embrace. Instantly the pain I felt so deep has now gone. Instantly I now have a child to call my own. Instantly you are my dream come true. Instantly, miraculaously blessed with you. I can hardly believe how beautiful you are. Practically perfection, the most precious one by far. A gift that was tucked away until this day. That we could meet, and I know your okay. Instantly and seemingly in a great big whirl, I have now met my sweet, beautiful little girl. Instantly and suddenly you are my dream come true. Instantly, so instantly I am blessed with you. How do I even begin to thank my Father above? Fow allowing me to know the depth of a mother’s love. Tears I’ve cried before this day don’t matter anymore. I have a joy in my heart I have never felt before. Instantly, a perfect gift bestowed upon me. I will love you until enternity. Instantly to you, I have lost my heart. Instantly I loved you so from the start. I will try my very best to love and care for you. Because that is just what mommies do! Instantly, suddenly you became my world. I love you to the moon and back my sweet baby girl.

Journey of a Lifetime 2

I think most of you already know, but for any one who missed it we have signed commitment papers and are in the process of adopting a little boy from BG. So Kayti will be getting a little brother. We are so very excited to be taking this leap of faith again. Of course, we couldn't do it without all of your support:) You all were so amazing over the course of our journey to Kayti and I know you will be there for us again! Of course, we are also using the same agencies as well. We are grateful for them and everything they do:) Thanks Carol and co and Angela and FNA staff! You go above and beyond so many times and we could not be more excited to be working together again. We are going to be doing a little fundraising and I am excited about a couple of fundraisers I have lined up. I am posting a link to donate to our RR FSP account which is already growing. Kayti is excited about having a baby brother, but I don't think she really understands what it means right now. She just likes to look at his picture. She is doing so well. Growing and learning every day. We could not possibly love her any more:)) I want to take a second to encourage every one of my friends who is on this roller coaster ride called adoption that in the end, it is ALL so worth every ounce of pain and every penny you spend. Nothing could be more rewarding in the end and the proof is in the fact we are going through it again:).  I hope everyone will be as supportive this adoption as they were with Kayti. I will give a more detailed update on Kayti soon as we have our 3rd of 4 post placements coming up in August. I can't believe we have been home 14 months on Friday! Where has the time gone?? Blessings to all:) If you all are able here is the link to our FSP that you can donate to help us bring our boy home! Thanks in advance!
http://reecesrainbow.org/61350/sponsorbuchanan

HOME ONE YEAR!!!

 

 

I don't know how many of you even follow our family blog anymore and I have considered taking it down, but I remember how much I enjoyed my fellow adoptive families blogs when we were waiting. It is hard to find any spare time to write though. On May 7, we celebrated a quiet Gotcha Day with a nice dinner at home. And then as of last Sunday May 12, Mother's Day, we have been home with Kayti for one year. It seems as if time has flown by. I remember writing in my journal shortly after we got home Can't wait to see what changes being home one year will make. And now we are there!  I remember every detail of our Gotcha trip and have relived it in my mind a lot this past week, remembering what we were doing on each day. It has been a week of reflection. For those of you who haven't kept up on Facebook, Kayti started preschool and the Edinboro IU5 at Saegertown elementary school in April. She goes 2 days a week for 2.5 hours a day. She loves it and it is helping her a lot already. She has made some new friends and is learning to play with the other kids. It is very repetitive and that is exactly what she needs. She is learning more words and phrases all the time. One of the biggest things she did this past week was tell the teacher that she had to go potty and did. This is major because she still does not like being changed by strangers and she hates public toilets. She still loves Mickey Mouse and knows the words to the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme. She loves to sing any song and the other day at church, she started singing Jesus Loves Me and I didn't even know she knew the words, although I do sing it to her and she got a stuffed bunny for Easter that sings it.  She also still loves Dora, Bubble Guppies, SpongeBob, Elmo, Doc McStuffins, and Sofia the first. She can tell you who each one is if you show her a picture of one. I am so thankful and grateful every day for this sweet girl. She is such a blessing. She has grown almost 7 inches and gained about 14 pounds in this past year. She is a good little eater and loves fruits and vegetables which makes me happy. We are looking forward to summer after a very LONG winter. We just got Kayti a new bicycle and a trampoline, so those should be lots of fun. We are looking forward to Memorial Day this weekend and then my birthday and the Bulgarian Reunion. We still want to go back for another one and there MAY be an announcement about that coming up soon. I don't want to say anything more yet  because I don't want to jinx anything. I will leave you all in suspense for now!! Here are some before and after photos just to show what love can do!



Our First Holidays Christmas as a family!

I have been so busy with Thanksgiving and Christmas that I haven't had time to update our blog in a while. I can't believe we have had Kayti for 7 months (almost 8 months on January 7). It has gone by so fast. It's the same amount of time we waited between trips which at the time seemed like an eternity. Kayti had her first big family holiday on Thanksgiving. She enjoyed it a lot and we had a wonderful day. We also drug her out of bed at 4:30 AM on Black Friday to go shopping with us. She was a little trooper and never fussed a bit. We are still wanting to go back for another one and this whole Russian adoption ban makes me want to get started sooner. Kayti is learning more English every day. She can say small sentences now such as sit down and pat the seat, drink milk, drink juice, drink water, ouch when hurt, do you have to go potty (when SHE has to go potty), love you too, don't do that, one more time, and now when you ask her what's your name she will say I Kayti. We are catching on more every day. I have been looking forward to Christmas for quite some time. I kept telling her about Santa of course and that we celebrate Christmas because it is Jesus birthday. We went to see Santa at the mall, and she was very happy to see him. I am not sure if she has seen a Santa before at the orphanage, but she sure was excited about it. Then we had our annual Christmas party at church and Santa came to that too. As soon as she saw him her face lit up and he said who wants to come and sit on my lap and she jumped off and was the first in line! So glad she is not afraid of him. In

Long overdue update.

I have been long overdue to update this blog. I have not written an update since right after Kayti's birthday in October. She has come so far in almost 8 months. We have our second post placement set up for this week so it can get to Bulgaria by the end of March. Can not believe it has been that long already. It will soon be a year. In a way it's like she has always been with us. I can't image life without her now. God totally knew that he was doing when he put us together! She is so much fun! I had to get her medical report from our Dr for this post placement and found out she has grown 5 inches and gained almost 13 pounds! Wow. Amazing what food and love can do! When we came home 24 month pants fell off. Now she is in a 4T. They still sometimes have to be tucked, because she is still thin, but they are right on lengthwise. The holidays kept us very busy, starting with Kayti's first Thanksgiving. She enjoyed every minute! We also drug her out of bed at 4:30 am on Black Friday to go Christmas shopping with us! I know bad mama, right:) She was very good and we had a nice day. Then mom and I decided to take her to see Santa one Saturday in early December. She LOVED him and could not wait to sit on his lap.  Quite a diffrence from Lianna who we could not even bribe to sit on his lap. She would only wave at him from a safe distance. But Kayti was excited about him! It was almost as if she knew who he was. I find this almost impossible though, because I can not really believe they had Santa visit her small orphanage. Then a week or so later, we had our annual Christmas party/dinner at church and Santa came there too, and guess who was the first in line? Yep, my girl! She was excited around Christmas with all the lights, but I know she had no idea what was coming. We went a little overboard with the presents, but we were as excited (or probably more) than she was! We had her picture taken at Wal-Mart portrait studios around this time. What a disaster. They turned out nice, in the end but suffienct to say I wont use them again! We had our Christmas with Grammy, Papa, Uncle Mike, and Aunt Lianna. She was a little overwhelmed with all the presents and wanted to rip into them. We gave her one and she opened it and started singing Happy Birthday...(as in her mind I guess the last time she got presents was her birthday). So we went with it and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus. She loved all of her presents and had a wonderful night. The next day was Christmas eve and we went to our candlelight service at church. I was worried she would be to excited to sleep, but honestly in 7 almost 8 months, I have never had her fall asleep faster than Christmas Eve. We woke her up about 7 so we could get things opened and start preparing for our family dinner. She was excited about everything and played with each and everything she got. Our first Christmas as a family could not have gone better!  Unfortunately 3 days fter Christmas, Mama, Daddy, and Kayti got very sick with bronchitis. We had first fever and we all had on and off fevers for 3-4 days. 3 rounds of antibiotics later for each of us and we were finally better. She had a fever of 102.9 which made us quite nervous, but Childrens Motrin brought it down fairly quickly. Dr. Stabile saw her twice for this. What a nasty bug! We are trying to plan a trip to Disneyworld the last week of October if all goes as planned. We have an appt with our IEU to get Kayti evaluated and get some help catching her up. She really is doing amazing, and come so far from the extremely thin, timid, quiet little girl we picked up in May. Her personality develops more all the time. She is so funny and has a wonderful sense of humor. She loves to laugh. She has started to talk in small sentences, such as do you have to go potty (which means SHE does), apple/orange juce please, dont do that, ouch when something hurts, thank you, please, love you too, say I Kayti when asked her name and I 5 when asked how old she is. The other day we were driving home and she says Did you see that? I said did I see what and she said it again, but I know she saw something she wanted me to see, and just didnt know how to say what it was. She also will go to the potty on her own occasionally which is real progress. She loves to have stories read to her every night. We are working on learing our abcs and how to write our name. She is getting closer on the abcs, but writing her name not so much. Oh, she now likes noodles and they are almost one of her favorite foods now. She also loves all fruits and vegetables including cucumbers, carrots, brocolli, tomatoes, peppers, etc. This mommy is very glad of that. I will leave you with some pictures and promise to update sooner!