More pictures of Charlotte!!

A most amazing gift....

What one thing (other than a travel call) can set adoptive parents hearts a flutter more than anything else? What one gift is better than Christmas and our birthdays combined?

That one amazing gift arrived in the mail today....a care package from Yeong Eun's (aka Charlotte's) foster family!! This small connection to our daughter who is a half a world a way took this from an ordinary Monday to an extraordinary Monday. It had 10 pictures of Charlotte, 2 dresses, 3 shirts, 2 pairs of pants and hair bows for Ellie. It also had a photo CD that was blank. We don't know if the foster family intended to send us some picture on the CD but didn't or if they meant for us to fill it with pictures for them. It is obvious that Charlotte's foster family is very generous and loving.

We only had two pictures of Charlotte before today. Her referral photo (taken at 5 months) and an updated photo taken at 7 months. It was just amazing to see more of her. She looks SO much like Ellie. She appears very happy and well loved. It looks like she is standing and cruising. We are missing so much. The wait continues to be painful but this wonderful surprise makes the wait just a little more bearable.

I will post some of the pictures. We only have original photos so excuse the quality of these pictures of pictures. I will get the originals scanned in soon.

Oh my gosh, isn't she beautiful? Hurry home sweet girl and be well and safe until you are in our arms.

Gabe's Imagination...

Gabe makes us laugh every day. He is very inquisitive and quite the problem solver. He certainly takes after his Dad. He is VERY much a boy and everything he does is focused on weapons, dinosaurs, Star Wars and ninjas. Every night when we put Gabe to bed he wants us to lay in bed and snuggle with him after we turn out the lights. This is a snippet of the conversation we had two nights ago while snuggling:

Gabe: "After you leave and I am in my room alone, someone comes and knocks on my door. I think it is bad guys so I never answer the door. Dad says it is probably God knocking on my door."

This may have something to do with the fact that Phil has been showing him the Star Wars movies or perhaps the fact that he and Abby are always dressing in black after school so they can play ninja! In any event I told him that no bad guys were going to get past his Momma so he was safe in his room. Oh, how we love our little boy.

It takes a lot of little nuts...

It has been much too long since I have updated this blog. I have no excuse other than to say life with 3 kids is busy! Much has happened since I last posted....most importantly we are in the adoption process again! We are going to be a family of 6! As I often tell the children....it takes a lot of little nuts to make one jar of peanut butter. We are so excited to be adding another little nut to our jar!

On November 9, 2010 we received a call from our agency telling us that Ellie has a sister in Korea who had been placed for adoption. They wanted to know if we were willing to adopt her. It didn't take us long to say YES and the madness began again. We rushed through home study paper work and criminal background checks. We were finally able to send our acceptance to Korea on January 28, 2011. Now the hard part begins...we WAIT. When we adopted Ellie in 2009 we waited about 3 months between sending our acceptance to Korea and traveling to get her. Our adoption agency now tells us we may have to wait up to 11 months to travel to bring our daughter home.

We have decided to name our new daughter Charlotte Yeong Eun. Yeong Eun is her Korean name. We plan to call her Charlie (everyone at our house has a nickname) but we can't decide how to spell it (Charli, Charlie, Charley, Charlee). Oh well, it seems we have lots of time to debate the spelling issue. Charlotte was born on June 10, 2010 ( a summer birthday just like the rest of the kids). She is 8 1/2 months old. Not seeing her for another 10 months and missing all of her babyhood seems unbearable to us. Today I shopped for things to send to Korea for Charlotte. I loved buying the little girl clothes but it also made me sad knowing I am not the one who will dress her in those clothes. If you have the time and the inclination please pray that she can come home to her family soon.

Otherwise life at the Germann house is good. The children are growing, learning, laughing and loving....and we are loving every minute of it. I won't say we don't get tired or that we don't have our struggles but generally our life is amazing. We are so blessed by the tiny humans who live in our house. Every day they amaze us with their intelligence and imaginations. They make us laugh and they love us and each other. What more could we ask for really?

I am vowing to be better about documenting our lives here. I am not great at keeping up baby books and the adventures of the Germann family should be recorded somewhere for posterity.

Happy Family Day!

One year ago today we stepped off the plane in Rochester and officially became a family of five! Where has the last year gone? We are so happy that Ellie came to be part of our family and we can't even imagine life without her. Every day it is so clear that she was meant to be part of this family. Phil likes to say that out of the three children Ellie's personality is most like mine. We are both strong opinionated women! Unfortunately I am in the middle of a big trial so our celebration in honor of today was small. We did get an ice cream cake because Ellie LOVES ice cream. Abby thought the kids should celebrate by dressing up in their hanboks so we did that and took pictures.

This photo was taken in our living room after we arrived home from Korea on April 29, 2009. Poor Ellie is jet lagged and a little overwhelmed by her new family.

What a difference a year makes! This photo was taken in our living room after dinner on April 29, 2010. No longer overwhelmed by the big kids, Ellie fits right in a loves every minute she spends with her brother and sister.

Deep Thoughts Friday to Two Wheel Sunday...

Another weekend come and gone so fast. I have long advocated that a four day work week and three day weekend would be more equitable but so far no one is listening to me. When I run for president perhaps I will put that in my platform!

Each week by the time Friday night rolls around we are TIRED. We plan to either eat leftovers or if there aren't enough left-overs, we get take-out because we are TIRED. We have also made Friday night family movie night because we are TIRED. I think you get the picture. This Friday our dinner conversation turned much too deep for tired parents. First, Gabe started telling us in his most dramatic Gabe voice that "when there were dinosaurs all the people were DEAD!" Smarter parents would have ignored that comment and continued to munch on left-overs, we however, are not that smart. So we proceeded to tell Gabe that people weren't around yet during the time of the dinosaurs. Then Abby says, "I am confused about something that is confusing, how does that work with Adam and Eve?" Thus began our discussion of evolutionsim versus creationism. We told her that not all the stories in the Bible literally happened the way they were written. She then became quite concerned and said, "Christmas, now that's real right?" Did I mention that we were really TIRED?!?! Friday's are for Chinese take out and animated movies not deep thoughts. Next Gabe wanted to know what a vampire is? Can I say we were pretty glad to plop them in front of a movie for a while. We had rented the movie of the musical Cats. They really seemed to enjoy it.

Saturday was a normal busy day. Groceries to buy and errands to run. Phil got some more wiring done in the basement and Abby and I planted a tree. The tree had shown up on the doorstep on Friday night...I had forgotten that I had ordered it from a mail order garden store last year - Oops. We spent the afternoon playing with some friends and having dinner together.

Sunday began with Mass and Gabe's end of the year Sunday school program. This is actually a very sad day for us as we will again have to have all 3 kids in Mass until next fall. The end of the year music program is children ages 3 to 5 doing some strange combination of sign languange and hand jive to Christian music. The kids do not know the songs and only sort of the hand gestures. Some kids stand there like deer in the headlights, some are grumpy and non-participatory and others look as if the were born for hand jive sign language. Gabe tried hard and he made up for the hand gestures he didn't know with enthusiasm. When all else failed he just lifted up his shirt!

On Sunday evening we had a bit of a breakthrough. So far, one of my greatest failings as a parent has been the fact that Abby didn't know how to ride a bike without training wheels. If you have been to our house you know that we don't have a great practice space with a gravel driveway and no sidewalk but excuses aside, teaching bike riding is one of those foremost parental responsibilities and prior to today we were failing miserably. Even the mention of bike riding today brought Abby to tears. She wanted her training wheels put back on her bike! Phil took her to the church parking lot and they practiced. Before I got there 45 minutes later she was riding like a pro. She did of course run into a Mercedees in the parking lot (leaving a small scratch) luckily the owner wasn't too angry. She also ran over her brother and his bike once but this is a small price to pay for being able to ride on TWO WHEELS! Abby did have one bad spill at the end of the night but I think she will still be willing to get back in the sadle. We got ice cream from Dairy Queen to celebrate!

Abby very proud that she can ride on TWO wheels!

Riding like a pro!

Checking Gabe out for injuries after Abby ran him over. It takes real talent to hit the only other bike rider in an empty parking lot.

Gabe enjoying riding himself even after Abby ran him over.

Ellie, was not so much into the biking.

Where have you been...

I am sure you are all wondering where we have been since September since that is the last post I made to this blog. I did of course have the best of intentions of keeping up with this blog however due to circumstances beyond my control I have been unable to update our blog. It truly is a harrowing tale. Read on if you have a strong stomach.

Phil and I were taken hostage by three ruthless outlaws. Though they possessed no traditional weapons, they used their cute antics and adorable faces to lure us into their lair. Once inside their lair, the three outlaws managed to suck out all of our time and energy so that at the end of each day we are too weak to even contact the outside world for help. I am only able to send this message now with the aid of diet coke mixed with an energy drink.

The eldest and ring leader of the outlaw gang has kept us running with gymnastics, homework, science fair projects, piano lessons and more. Clearly she subscribes to the theory that exhausted parents tell no tales. She has been enjoying the first grade and is doing very well in school. She does enjoy playing with the younger members of the gang, however, her leadership skills still leave a little to be desired and we have to be vigilant to make sure she doesn't lead the younger members over a cliff or down the white rabbit's hole.

The second in command of the outlaw gang has more of a tendency toward violence and wields weapons of every kind; light sabers, swords and various shooters. He keeps our minds weak by constantly asking, WHY? He loves his school and is already learning Spanish. He is very sponge like and sucks up and regurgitates copious amounts of information every day. His constant jabbering makes our ears tired and keeps us off guard.

The final member of the gang is the most demanding. She keeps us close to her by putting herself in peril every 5 to 10 minutes. She is fearless and careless, a dangerous combination even for an outlaw. She hasn't broken any bones yet but that is not for a lack of trying. She is very opinionated and has enough words to share those opinions freely. She appears to love the other outlaws and keeps them wrapped tightly around her little finger by playing the "I'm so cute card."

I am including some recent pictures of the outlaws so you know who to suspect if anything happens to us. If you see these outlaws in your neighborhood do not make eye contact. If they get the opportunity to smile at you or say anything it will already be too late for you. You will be sucked in and drained of all energy and coherent thought. For now know that we are ALIVE, captive and tired but alive. I will try to write again soon.

The intimidating stares of the oldest two outlaws used to keep us submissive and quiet.

An example of the "I'm so cute tactic" used to tug at our heartstrings and keep us from attempting an escape.