We Are Home!!

We are home with our girls!! Okay we have actually been home since Sept 7th. But life around here has been kinda busy and crazy and I'm finding it difficult to find time to even check my email! I have managed to put up a few pics on facebook, its much easier there cause you can just upload the whole album! So if you are not my friend on there yet then quick go find me!

Here's the quick update....

The girls are much, much, much cuter and bigger than I ever expected them to be!

When we got them they could not...hold up their heads, turns their heads to the sound of a voice, reach for a toy, bear weight on their legs, or roll over. The good news is that after being home just 2 weeks they can already do all of those things now!

When we got them they were still in a size 3 months and now they are both in a 6-9 month size with it being a smidgie big on ChuChu but Mimi fills them out quite well!

Ethiopia was beautiful and amazing in so many ways that I cant even explain. Even though I was anxious to get home and have my family together it was still hard to leave. Amazing. Beautiful. Life changing.

My older kids are so happy to have their sister home! They are all so cute together it just melts my heart to puddles of mush!

Since being home and becoming a mother to 5 beautiful kids I am quickly learning how my priorities have already changed. Things I took for granted before now have a very different priority level now and I have a new perspective. For example brushing my teeth.....priority. Showering every day....not so much. So I apologize if I have a new aroma, if you are concerned by this then you can take it up with the twins.

Multitasking have grown to a new level. Check facebook pics for further details.

The babies seem to have food hoarding issues. Didn't know that babies can do that did ya! Well I didn't either but I assure you they can! Even after they have fully tummies they are loudly demanding more, more, more! So yesterday I decided to take it to the next level. I gave them cereal. Wasn't planning to until they were 6 month but at 5 months they couldn't get enough milk so I changed my plans, that seems to happen a lot lately by the way. Anyways after their first meal of rice cereal they were quiet! And then they slept! Through the night even! I love cereal!

Okay, that's all the updating I have time for, little sleeping beauties are stirring in their crib so I will have to post more later.....

This video is of when we first held our sweet girls!

Leaving In Two Weeks!

We leave in two weeks! I still cant believe it! We have so much to do to get ready but it is all coming together. We have our tickets and tickets for my sister and parents to come down and take care of kids while we are gone. I am so relieved that my parents will be able to stay for a while when we get home to help out. My dad will be here for about a week and a half and my mom will be here for two weeks. I have been nervous about our transition to our new life as parents of infant twins and as parents to 5 kids so I am really grateful that they can stay and help out.

We have our travel conference call on Monday to go over the details of traveling and I imagine after that things are going to get even crazier around here as we scramble to get ready to go.

I need to schedule doctors appointments for for myself and Tristan for before we leave and one for the girls for when we get home. I am concerned about my sensitive tummy while I am there so I will be trying to get some medications for that and hope it works. I have tried so hard to like Ethiopian food. I really want to like it. The first time I ate it I liked it but unfortunately it has only gone downhill since then. The last time I ate it i couldn't even keep it down. This makes me so sad. We had a little celebration here recently for passing court and I made some Ethiopian food but my tummy was so sensitive to it that I didn't even eat it. Smelling it was enough. What in the world am I going to do in Ethiopia?! I really hope this medication works, I don't want to be rude and not eat the food over there. I'm trying to tell myself that it will be so much better because they will prepare it differently. Oh this is not good. I really do want to like it.

I still have a few things I need to get for the girls before we go but have most of the important stuff already. My baby slings came in the mail yesterday and are so nice, I'm sure that with two babies I will be using the slings often! Oh and we got updated weights for the girls this week! Aislynn is up to 11 pounds and Amari is 13 pounds! They have been growing a lot!


We are still collecting donations for the orphanage and the House of Hope so if you would like to contribute to this please let me know. Also if you would like for us to take pictures of your children at the House of Hope send me an email at douquack@yahoo.com and we will work out the details.


I also need to find time to squeeze in a birthday party for Logan! His birthday is on the 3rd but we will be in Ethiopia then so we need to have a party before we leave!

So much to do! I better start making to do lists so I don't forget things!

Introducing.....

Amari and Aislynn Parsons!!!

Aislynn (ChuChu)

6 weeks old

Amari (Mimi)
6 weeks old

Aislynn on the left, Amari on the right
6 weeks old

Aislynn

about 2 1/2 months old

Aislynn

about 2 1/2 months old

Amari

about 2 1/2 months old

Amari

about 2 1/2 months old

We passed court and became parents again while we were sleeping last night!! We will be on our way to get them by the end of the month!! We are soooooooo excited!!

6 Days!

I cant believe it! Is it really my turn to be doing the countdown for court?! It is!! Yippee!! I am so excited and nervous at the same time. I can hardly sit still. I have been seriously rearranging my house to get ready for them and our guests who will be watching our bio kids while we are gone. I know I have time still to do these things but I cant stop myself. My mind is swirling with things I need to do before our babies come home and I have become a whirlwind preparing for them. Ive swapped 3 bedrooms, rearranged the family and living rooms and so much more that I'm starting to wonder if adoptive moms go through the nesting phase like pregnant moms! I'm outta control! Paul keeps saying just wait, we can do it later but I have this uncontrollable force within me saying it must get done now! He just rolls his eyes. Oh just wait till he gets home and sees that I have transformed even more rooms! Poor guy wont know where anything is. What am I going to do when everything is where I want it to be?!

I am so hopeful that we pass court on our first try, I know that there is a chance we may not but these girls are sooo tiny that they really need to be home. It is so hard to know that they are over there and are so little and that there is nothing I can do to help them grow until they get home.

And............. School starts for the other kids in just 2 short weeks and I am not ready! I have been to busy rearranging! Must. Stop. Moving. Furniture. Oy. So much to do.

Court Date!

This morning I got a wonderful phone call from our adoption consultant saying that we had been assigned a court date! If all goes well the twins will be legally ours on August 3rd! There is a chance that we may not pass through court on our first try but we are hopeful that our process will go smoothly. We do not have to wait for abandonment papers or any thing like that as our girls are orphans and the orphanage that they are from has a reputation of passing through court quickly but still there is a chance we wont pass on our first try. We have a tentative visa appointment -based on us passing court- of Sept 3rd! This is on Logan's birthday so we may be celebrating it early this year! Sharron chatted with me for a bit about how wonderful our babies are and told me that she had a chance to hold them, rock them, kiss on them and it just warmed my heart! She says they are still very tiny but they are growing and are just so sweet! It sounds like they will still be wearing a size 0-3 months when they come home, those sweet lil things! She shared with me a little bit more about their story and it was so amazing because a few months back I had dreamt the story that she was relaying to me today and it just really confirmed to me that these girls were meant to be in this family. Their story is tragic but they are amazing, they must be little fighters! I just cant wait to get them home!

Referral Story!!

I cant believe our day has finally arrived!! We have waited soooo long for these girls! Our original age request was for a baby 12 months or younger and a toddler 3 years old or younger, both girls. At that time our agency had been receiving referrals in that age request so it didn't feel like it was too specific then but as time went on (2 years since we started our adoption) we began to think about increasing our age request. Last month we decided to go ahead and change our request to be any two girls under 6 1/2 years old. Policies that state that there must be at least one year between our youngest biological child and our adoptive child and since Logan is now 7 1/2 the oldest we could go for the adoption would be 6 1/2. We were excited about increasing the age request and really felt that we would be receiving our referral soon! I even began thinking about selling off some of the baby stuff that I had been collecting over the years!

Soooo then, last Friday I had an appointment at the doctors office and was sitting in the waiting room when my phone rang. I didn't recognise the number but answered it anyways. It was Sharron and she said she wanted to see how we were doing with the new home study for the new age request and so I assumed it was just another lets get paperwork straightened out phone call and didn't let myself get excited. Then she said those words...I also have something else I want to talk to you about, I'm going to get Paul on the line OK? And that's where I started loosing it! I knew what was going on and tears just started coming! When she said that she had a referral for us I thought she was going to tell us that she had a 6 year old and 4 year old, still very excited I listened and the first thing she said was that they were twins! By now I'm practically jumping up and down in the lobby of the doctors office crying and saying TWINS!! Only my voice was very tiny cause I was so excited that that's all that could come out! Then she told us that they were just 6 weeks old and I just could not believe it! Teeny tiny little twin girls! So completely amazing! The rest of the appointment I cried at everyone I saw and every person in that doctors office knew that we were blessed with twins! They rushed me through my appointment ( I have a rotator cuff issue I guess) and I was finally able to leave and called Paul on the way out the door. I told him he must get home so we can look at their pictures together cause I was just dying to see them, and he says....I'm already printing them out! Yep! He had already looked at them! He was too excited to wait for his wife apparently and looked at them at his office! I tried to be mad at him for a second but in the end we had a referral for tiny twin babies! Now way you can be mad at a time like this! So I rushed home, forgot to turn off the emergency brake until I got to the gas station, I was just so excited! Paul's sister was at the house with our kids and Paul had already called her so she was waiting with the camera when I got home. I told the kids, they were sooo happy! Well Logan wasn't sooo happy, he was suddenly realizing that he wasn't going to be the baby anymore! He is much happier about it now but it took him a little bit of encouragement to know that momma and daddy were still going to love him and he would always be our baby!

So now we wait for a court date and just cant wait to go get them! I'm just dying to kiss on those little faces!

Here is me right when I got home before I told the kids!

I sat them down on the couch and told them that I had some big news for them and asked them to guess what it was!

Lindsay said "I know I know I know! Sharron called you!"


Yes she did!

We got our referral!!!

And they are twins!!!!

Teeny tiny twins!!!!!!!

Looking at the pics our our girlies!

Laughing at their nick-names!

They are so cute!!

I cant believe it! They are amazing!!!

Daddy is finally home!

What an amazing day! I never thought we would get such little girls! And twins!! It is a good thing I didn't actually start selling any of the baby stuff I have been collecting! How exciting that I actually get to use it!!