May 17th 2011, A year of full circle!

Last year at on May 17th I was celebrating our oldest child Max's 8th birthday. We were also anxiously awaiting the news of our 4th child. We had been waiting almost 12 months for a referral. Then, what do you know? Our beautiful baby girl popped into our lives on the waiting children page of our agency.

So, one year later and much more faithful and obedient to God, I can tell you that was an amazing day!!!

I was so confused! I thought we were just waiting on our call, but God had bigger plans. I can't imagine our lives without Khari, and I can't imagine it starting with her any other way. Max one year later has become a much more caring and accepting person. He absolutely adores Khari and she adores him! 9 years ago I could hardly imagine how my life was going to change when our first baby boy was born. If you had told me then how many blessings God would bestow on my family, I would never have believed you! She has given balance, character, patience, survival, more love than I could have imagined and spirit to our family. So to Max and Khari, happy one year later! I am so overwhelmed with blessings constantly because you two are in my life!

Guess who has their toes in the sand?

Khari is enjoying our spring break trip to the beach! Check out our 1st class sand eater!

Khari's story featured!!!

I finally spilled the whole story right onto my computer screen, in honor of possibly helping someone else on the journey to decide to adopt a waiting child or special needs child. If you follow the link you can read the whole thing for yourself! What a blessing to be involved in something like this! There are many inspiring stories of other families who have decided to adopt waiting children as well. Maybe you could be one of those people as well someday? 

Blessings! 

http://teamchase4andcounting.blogspot.com/2011/02/adopting-waiting-child-kharis-story.html

Happy Birthday to Khari!!!!

It snuck up on us, like all things seem to do these days with 4 children. Our little baby has officially moved from infant to toddler. I can't lie, I was not very happy receiving all of the "junk mail" from all of the formula companies proclaiming that the infant year was gone! So funny, because I remember when we were waiting to meet her, thinking about how eager I was to see her grow and to think about watching her learn new things and how it would go. But now I have realized that was dumb! It doesn't matter how long it takes her to roll, crawl, walk, because that means she is getting older. Yuck! It is always bitter sweet to me to watch one of my children become one year older, but now, I have two girls who mark their journey around the sun just three days apart. Khari celebrates her birthday on the 13th and Emma celebrates on the 16th. Talk about a crazy week!  We initially were told Khari was born in March, but when in Ethiopia for our visa appointment, we found out that she was actually a February baby. When we told Emma, she was sooooo excited. She said,"Oh, we can have birthday parties together!"  Needless to say, I insisted that we celebrate independently for the first year. First birthday parties are milestone birthdays in my brain. What a milestone we have to celebrate with Khari. Wow, I can't imagine how big of a first year she has had. My brain tries to wrap around that idea, and it just won't work!  Any how, we celebrated big time! While in Ethiopia I bought 18 gifts to give Khari on each of her birthdays while she is a "child".  For her first birthday I picked a small zebra. In my brain I was thinking, she should be able to hold this on her birthday. HA!!!! Not only did she hold that zebra! She chewed it, banged it, pushed it crawling across the floor, and threw it. We no longer have the small delicate bundle we brought home 6 short months ago! Needless to say the zebra is now living on top of her dresser in her room!!!  She has exceeded any expectations I could have ever placed on her.

Our group at the restaurant! 

       Now, where I was going with this zebra, I rather quickly spawned a plan for a zebra celebration. First, her outfit, then the cake. Oh what fun! She enjoyed herself! Not only did we have tons of family on hand to celebrate, but our wonderful travel companions to ET came to help us celebrate the big day! What  a blessing! So Saturday night we went to this great new Ethiopian restaurant in Knoxville and ran into our other buddy from Ethiopia! Then Sunday we ate cake and opened LOTS of presents!!!

So, can't wait to see what comes next in this chaotic thing we call life! Praises to God as the blessings are continuously flowing in our direction!
We felt so blessed to have the Freking family join us on Khari's birthday seeing as the two girls were together long before either one of our families could get there! I hope and pray that they will be able to keep that bond as they grow!

The girls enjoying all of Khari's loot! 

Not so sure about putting my hands in this cake!

WE HAVE A CRAWLER!!!!!

Guess who took their first actual crawl tonight??? Khari !!! So many emotions! If you didn't meet Khari when we did, you wouldn't understand why this is such an accomplishment for an 11 month old! But, knowing this little lady was 3 pounds at 8 weeks old and in an orphanage for the first 6 1/2 months of her life, just maybe you could fathom why we are so very proud of our little girl! Thinking back 5 short months ago when we brought her home, she couldn't even see well enough to grab a toy, much less actually get enough strength in her hands to grasp it! Wow, she has come so far, in such a short time, look out for her world!!  Check out this video!!!

A brand new year!!!!

So here it is a brand new year and I haven't updated at all!!! Sorry, I have four children now and if you could see my house, you would know why my blog hasn't been updated!!!!
           So here is our progress with Miss. Khari Bug, two weeks ago she started rolling from her back to her belly finally! She was almost 11 months old and was stuck on her back like a bug! All of our great friends at therapy said that it would come, but being the human being I am, I doubted. I would officially like to apologize to all of those amazing professionals! So now she can sit up all by herself! What a big girl!!! Here are some pictures of our progress!

You know I won't stay here long, right!

Watch me roll!

Made it to my hands and knees, all by myself!!! 

Push and walk my hands back, this is hard work!

So I made it onto my bottom!

Time to celebrate

 Wow! That is all I can say! People just do not understand. The baby we brought home 4 1/2 months ago could barely focus and track with her eyes. She was so weak she had to lean her head back and "stack it" on her spine to hold it up. She was terrified of people and could not stand very much visual, sensory stimulation or movement. I was very nervous, and worried. We put our faith in God and we knew he had a plan for Khari! We weren't really sure how much of the plan we were going to like, but we were trusting. So now we are rejoicing like never before. She is becoming a huge socialite, she loves people and entertaining people. She even went to bible class for the first time tonight! She tested out of speech therapy and they said her verbal skills were on target for an 11 month old and the girl is eating like a pig! We are feeling oh so blessed to have her in our lives. She is an amazing testimony to life! She is our little miracle and I like to think that somewhere her Enat (Ethiopian name for Mother) is looking down and is so happy to see how well she is doing! I hope that maybe by the time I update my blog next, she may even be thinking about moving! (Although I may try to update about her first Christmas!)Our whole family has just become so much more close and blessed all because of this tiny peanut !

 Oh, by the way, she has 4 terribly cute little teeth now! I will leave you with a sweet picture of  the Ethiopian Princess herself!

So much to say, so little time to say it in!

So if anyone out there reads this blog I would love to let you know that we are home! We have been home 8 weeks today and wow how different 8 weeks can seem. In some ways it seems like forever ago, but in others it feels like only moments ago. Khari is doing wonderful. I am learning first hand all of those wonderful adoption parenting skills that our agency tried to prepare us for. First of all having 3 biological children prior to becoming an adoptive parent, I think I expected things to be just like it was the first 3 go rounds. What an eye opener that has been!!!! The love I have felt for her since day one has been the same, but parenting is so different. She didn't have the privilege to hear my voice for 9 months, or even be placed in our arms soon after birth. So there is a lot of new stuff for her to take in!
            Bonding is going wonderfully, but trying to remember the loss and change that even an infant has undergone is unconceivable until you have been in this situation. I have to tell my self daily, she was born in a third world country, we know nothing, and I mean nothing about her birth relatives. She was most likely premature and then sent to live in an orphanage.  3 pounds at 8 weeks old, surviving, in Ethiopia is enough to make your head spin. Wow, she made it!!!!! What a miracle!! So we hit the ground running!!
I mean really running, I am bringing home a baby girl that has never known the love of a mother or father, brother or sister. She has not had the physical or mental stimulation that a premature baby needs. So to say the least, I feel like, it is my duty to give her all of my time and energy to give her the best possible outcome in the long run, since she missed so much in the beginning of her life.
  What a gift! Two people that I have never met, or will ever be blessed enough to know or meet have given our family such a tremendous gift. But in doing so, she lost so much. Will I ever be enough to fill that void? Will our family do her birth family justice in the way we raise her and teach her to grow and thrive.  I now have some mighty big shoes to fill, but the good news is we have God. He is teaching me everyday the love that she needs and we all need. I have learned that walking by faith is really the way he wants us to serve. It is soooooo hard, but soooooo worth it!!!

So Max, Emma and Samuel are smitten with Khari. They could not have imagined a baby any better than her. So my prayers were answered that they would be able to accept her as their sister and adjust smoothly.

  I am amazed daily by how much she has grown in size and strength since coming home. She is now bearing weight on her legs when held and in her exersaucer. She is playing with toys, grabbing and chewing on them. She is starting to sit on her own. She enjoyed sharing her first halloween with her brothers and sister!  We are starting therapy, most likely occupational and physical. At first I thought she would need speech for her eating skills on solid foods. Now, I think she is doing great with solids and we won't have to worry with speech!! Hooray!!  We have a long, long way to go, but we will get there!!!! So happy to have her finally united with us and to be able to share her love for us and our love for her on a daily basis!

So I better go get some sleep before it is time to wake up and start the craziness of parenting four children all over again tomorrow! It is crazy, but so worth it!








So on the last note, Khari has now been completely inducted into the McQuilkin Family, because she has been placed inside a humongous pumpkin. This is a time honored tradition in our family. So daddy was sweet enough to carve Africa on her pumpkin with a heart in her homeland Ethiopia for his Ethiopian princess on her 1st halloween!!!

Blessings to you!!