Nine pumpkins

Visiting Mamaw and Pappaw!

Tinker Bell and Peter Pan!

Halloween 2007

What a day! I had parent/teacher conferences in the morning and arrived home after noon. While the kids napped, I carved 9 pumpkins. Yes, 9 pumpkins and my hands were disgusting and sore afterwards! I also baked pumpkin cookies and Halloween cookies before my duo woke up.

After getting dressed in costumes, Cody and Carleigh had to trick or treat our neighbor. Then, we went to my mom's house to trick or treat and also visited her neighbors. We headed for our church's Harvest Party where the kids played Bible games and received candy for playing. The kids had a blast and professional pictures were taken for a fundraiser. It was work getting both to look at the camera at the same time, but we did get a few shots.

After the party, we went out to dinner with my sister who helped me with the kids during trick or treating and the Harvest party since Matt works second shift. It was quite a long day for my two and will sleep good tonight! Cody has his Fall party at his preschool tomorrow, so we will be getting more candy! We have 3 buckets full of candy.

In one week...

Carleigh will be "officially" ours! She has always been ours, but in the eyes of the courts, it will make it official. We have to be at the courthouse at 9am. We don't know the order of who is going first, but we think it will be official by 10am. It seems unreal because we have been fostering for 4 years now. Four years of monthly and sometimes weekly social worker visits, birthfamily visits, appointments, meetings, etc. It will be sooo different not having anyone come out to our home anymore, other than Early Intervention for Carleigh (and even that will be ending when she turns 3 in March!) We had to re-certify in September, so our foster license is good for another 2 years. We might just keep it for awhile since we had to work so hard (and take lots of classes) to get it. Are we going to take another placement? Probably not unless Cody and Carleigh's birthmother has another baby. We would really like 3 children, but am just trusting in God and His plan as to how he or she will come into our family.

Always into something!

Carleigh is definitely into the "terrible two" stage! She throws temper tantrums when she doesn't get her way and always ignores when I say "no." Well, today she really tested my patience. I wasn't home for 10 minutes when she struck again...I normally put my purse in the kitchen when I get home, but was preoccupied when I first got home. While I was reading my mail, Carleigh quietly stole my purse and took it into Cody's room. Thinking that it was WAY too quiet in there (which means T-R-O-U-B-L-E), I found Carleigh with my wallet with all my credit cards, library cards, driver's license, etc. all over the floor. Then I found Cody with lipgloss ALL over his face and pants. Of course I wanted to take a picture but had to quickly get all my cards up before they were lost in the maze of toys.

Then, not even 5 MINUTES later, she was quiet again in Cody's room. Well, she took off all her clothes: blouse, pants, and DIAPER! Yes DIAPER! And she was running around naked! (It was cute though!) She has been doing it at night and now this was the second time today (once for Matt this morning). I fear I have a little exhibitionist on my hands. And I think we are getting ready to board the train....Potty train! Carleigh is showing alot of signs that she is ready so, we might start potty training this weekend. Oh boy!

If I leave the room for a minute, she will find something to get into. I could leave Cody alone for 20 minutes and everything would be fine, but not Miss Carleigh, no sirree...she would have the room destroyed before the 20 minutes was up.

Oh the joys of toddlerhood!

Fall Festivals

What a fun and full day we had yesterday! First, we went to our agency's Fall Festival at Izaac Walton. Cody and Carleigh had a blast playing games, eating hot dogs, and winning prizes. We have a budding artist in our family! Carleigh won the coloring contest for the toddler age! She did ALL the coloring! Mommy just gave her the appropriate colored crayons. (Matt thought I did the coloring! Yeah right!) The Izaac Walton members took us on the Haunted Woods hayride, but without the darkness or scary people around. We got to see all the scary scenes and it was really neat.

After a short nap, we went with Matt's family to a friend's church for their fall festival. Cody and Carleigh played more games, got candy from a pinata, and jumped in a bouncy house with a big slide. This was their first time in a bouncy house and they both LOVED it! I am thinking about getting them an inflatable jumpolene for Christmas or their birthday. Carleigh is very aware of getting candy now (uh-oh!) and was clinging to her bag of candy and didn't want me to hold it! I guess she thought I was going to eat it!!

Everyone had a lot of fun, but I was one tired and happy momma at the end of the day! I wish I had just a little of their never-ending energy!

Playing games

Bouncy House fun!

The slide!

Fall Fun at Brown's Farm

Cody's preschool met at Brown's Farm in Ross for field trip. Cody and Carleigh helped build a scarecrow, play in the hay, complete a hay maze, go on a hayride through a pumpkin patch and corn maze, walk through a special corn maze for families, find the perfect pumpkin in the pumpkin patch, and play in wooden playhouses. Everyone had a blast and I got to meet his teacher for the first time.

Finding pumpkins in the pumpkin patch

Carleigh loved picking up pumpkins and Cody also liked running around in the pumpkin patch!

All dolled up!

Yesterday, I decided to endure a small tantrum when I fixed her hair, but she kept it up all evening during church! I plan on fixing her hair like this for her Halloween costume (now I need to find a pale green pony tail holder like this one) which is.....drum roll please....Tinkerbell!! And guess who is dressing as Peter Pan? You guessed right....the Codeman!

Tomorrow we are going to Cody's preschool field trip to Brown's farm. It should be a fun time and then we are going to another Harvest party for all of our agency's children on Saturday. We will be partied out by Sunday!

Best Buds

Cody and Carleigh are such a pair! I think the best sound is hearing them laugh at each other. When one gets the other going, you can hear the laughter rolling for several minutes. Tonight, I captured this shot of the two looking at a book together! They can be so sweet to each other, well...some of the time!!

Update on Carleigh's case: We meet with our adoption attorney tomorrow. We only have to meet with her once since she had our information and I just had to update the new info over the phone on Monday. After tomorrow, the last step will be Adoption Day! Am I dreaming???

One step closer...

Today was our official adoptive placement at 9:30am. Our adoption worker came out today because of Matt and my opposite schedules. Things are becoming ever closer to finalizing. The next step will be calling our attorney on Monday to get the paperwork ready to file. One good thing about recertifying for our foster care license is that the fingerprints we had taken in August will apply for our adoption and we will not have to get fingerprinted again down at Probate Court! Hurray! This also saves us $40!

Adoption Day will be around 9am, so everyone who wants to come to the court hearing can celebrate her adoption with us with a brunch following court. In lieu of a party, I will be creating a slideshow that I am going to hopefully link from the blog as well as send to family and friends via email.

I am just amazed at how 2007 has been the BIG year for our family. Both of our children's adoptions are finalized this year. Praise the Lord!

Tonight, Matt and I are going on a date (first time since our anniversary in June). We are going out to dinner and going with some couples to a corn maze. Matt's parents will be babysitting for us. Tomorrow, I am going to the Sauerkraut Festival in Waynesville with a bunch of women.

Looking good!

Today we had a visit with Carleigh's GAL (Guardian Ad Lideum) for the final time. While she was visiting, I got the call from our adoption worker that we got our subsidy approved and she will be coming out on Thursday to give us all the paperwork on Carleigh's file. Then.....Saturday will be the adoptive placement. For those of you who don't know about adoption, this is the last step before finalization! On Saturday, Carleigh will no longer we a foster care placement, but an adoptive placement. We then call our lawyer on Monday to meet and file for adoption. So, if the lawyer is available...we will be finalizing on National Adoption Day on Saturday, November 3rd!! Wooohoo! I still am in shock that it will ALL be over. All the social worker viists, all the lawyer visits, all the foster care classes, all the requirements. We will no longer have someone coming out to our home twice a month and after 4 YEARS of weekly and monthly visits, that is a HUGE deal!

We are planning on having everyone go out for lunch or dinner (depending on the time) after the finalization. Due to lack of time, we will not be having a party, although I am planning a photo slideshow that I will be emailing family and friends as a tribute to Carleigh's life so far.

I cannot wait to hear the judge proclaim our daughter's new name....Carleigh Elizabeth Schmidt!!

Fall Fun!

Today, we went with Matt' parents, sister and kids, and my mom to Barn-n-Bunk for our annual ritual of getting pumpkins for the fall season. This year, both kids are walking well and really got into it! Carleigh was saying "pumpkin! pumpkin!" And Cody can say pumpkin also. Both kept picking up pumpkins and then putting them down...small pumpkins of course! We had lunch there and watched their cousins play in the inflatable climbers for a short bit. We are having very unusually hot weather here and it was expected to reach 90 today. Yuck! I am ready for the cool, fall temps! It is rumored that the highs will be in the low 70s, upper 60s at the end of the week and I cannot wait!

Finding the perfect pumpkin!

The Latest

Carleigh: Carleigh is attending a fall play group through the Early Intervention program that she is in. Matt reports that she is having a blast, making cute crafts, and making new friends. It is so good for her to be around other kids her age AND who has struggles as well. I am just amazed at her progress. If you didn't know her, you wouldn't think she has EVER had any delays. Her physical skills are where she should be, fine motor skills need just a little work and her speech is progressing.

This is my mom's second week of watching the kids in the afternoon. When Carleigh saw me coming in today, she ran to Mamaw's purse, gave it to her and then said, "Thank you!" What a hoot! Mom just laughed! I guess she was telling her bye!! She also was waving bye before she even got off the couch! She is also singing lots of songs now. But most importantly, she is learning the motions to all the songs. She can do all the movements to the Wiggles songs and the B-I-B-L-E. When she turns three, I am putting her in dance...I think it is truly her gift.

Cody: He is having a blast in preschool. He is learning new songs and exploring his
classroom during center time. Tonight, we had to put a special item in a bag and it will be sent to his class for his classmates to guess what it is. We had to write 3 clues. We chose Cody's "Elmo Knows Your Name" because Cody LOVES Elmo and he can actually tell his classmates the name of the item. We are also going to a special Fall event at a farm with his preschool in a couple of weeks. I plan on taking my first personal day of the school year in order to go and also to meet his preschool teacher for the first time. The whole family can attend so we are all planning on having a fun time at the fall event.

Cody is also waiting for his new glasses to arrive. He broke his old pair and the stems of the glasses were bothering him around the ear, so the new ones will hopefully be better and we are hoping and praying he keeps the second pair on as he really needs to wear his glasses. He is also identifying lots of new animals like monkey and chicken. He is really talking more and wanting to tell us what is going on in his world. He just makes me smile every day!

Matt's job was crazy last week...he worked over 40 hours in 4 days, but this week it is slowing down some and he is home around 9pm which is great because he can help me with baths and bedtime! It is taking time to adjust but this week is better than last week.