Phew!

We are home safe and sound and I will definitely post about our trip once I have a few functioning brain cells. This has been by far one of the hardest things I have ever been through. I have had to deal with Cameron's grieving and attachment but this is a whole nother level of intensity. Gavin is greiving pretty badly but as we found out on our pick up trip his foster mother held him ALL THE TIME!! While I am very greatly for everything she has done for Gavin I really believe in my heart (and this is my personal opinion) that social workers need to really sit down with these families and explain to them the outcome of some of their actions. Gavin was held so much that his muscle tone is not where it should be. He screams this most awful ear piercing scream if you don't pick him up. If we are not in the same room as him he flips. I can't pee without him wanting to be held. While I know that some of it is his learning to attach I know most is from her holding him so much. She actually told us she held him a lot in our meeting. It really doesn't teach him how to self sooth at all. I had to teach this to Cameron and it is not easy. Then on top of that the sleeping with them does not help at all. Both boys slept with their foster families. I know they want to spoil them rotten and make them as happy as they can while they have them but some decisions will effect them for a long time.

Cameron is doing okay but had a very bad night this weekend. We had family, friends and neighbors stopping by on Thursday and Friday and really doting on Gavin. Although I do have to say Darla was very good and aware about doting on Cameron too. Some of my wonderful friends Darla, Angela & Tracy made us meals and gave both boys gifts. Dan's sister, Mollie brought us dinner and my mom stayed for a few days to help out. But Cameron seeing Gavin getting more attention than him really set him off. Saturday night while trying to get him to bed he through the worst fit ever. He was refusing to go to the potty (and BTW he had regressed in the potty training) and just screamed like I have never seen him. I went upstairs to talk to him and holding him. He hit, punched, kicked and screamed the whole time. It hurt me so bad that I just broke down in tears. It made him calm down as he saw mommy was hurting too. It really makes you question your decision as a parent. I know things will get better and everyone will love each other one day but I promised him I would never, ever hurt him and he is hurting so bad from this. I feel so much guilt when I love on Gavin but also knowing he needs it to know I am his forever mommy. I can tell you that adopted children have a much different experience that a biological child. Cameron has already had to deal with abandonment and he is questioning it again in his young life. We are spending one on one time with him and reassuring him every day that is our baby and isn't going anywhere. Just keep us in your thoughts and prayers! If any of you stop by or see us out just don't forget big brother needs love too!!!

Just a small update!

I am beyond exhausted just a short update. We are here, seeing the sights, shopping and enjoying our son for the first day. Our pick-up was great until we got in the cab. He screamed for Omma (mom) for the first 10 minutes in the car and finally fell asleep in Dan's arms. He is a daddy's boy but let me get him to sleep for bed. He is grieving terribly and screams so loudly it could burst your ear drums. He screams so loudly that the only way to calm him down is to go out the of the hotel. Once he is outside he is happy and content. Tomorrow is our last full day here and we are going to do some last minute shopping and hope it doesn't rain so we can go to Seoul Tower. Good night! I will give a more detailed update on our trip tomorrow morning.

Favorite Foto Friday U-pick

I am happy to announce that we are traveling soon to pick up this handsome boy

While this handsome boy

gets to stay and play with this beautiful girl!

(Hannah, I stole this from your blog)

It's been awhile! Update on our 2nd adoption

I know it has been awhile. We are getting very close to going to South Korea to pick up Gavin. We are guesstimating 2 weeks from yesterday. He had his visa physical on the 7th of July and it is usually about 1-1.5 weeks after that you receive travel call. We just have a few small steps to finish. For those of you that have adopted from Guatemala we are pretty much the same place as we would be if we got out of PGN. Cameron doesn't quite understand that we have to travel pretty far to pick him up. He thinks daddy has to go down to the corner and pick him up. My wonderful friend, Hannah is watching him while we are gone. We thought it was best because he would be crazy busy playing with his girlfriend and my future daughter-in-law Sophia. We are so excited to go and explore our son's birth country and see his cute little face. We actually will be taking about 2 days before we actually have our gotcha day to travel and explore. And it will just me & Dan. We won't know what to do. After going through our pick-up trip for Cameron we do have the knowledge of what will happen when we do the actual pick-up. It won't make it any easier emotional wise but we are now prepared. Well, here are new pictures of our baby boy! He is 14 months in these pictures and will be 15 months when we pick him. I can't wait!

Happy 1st Birthday to our baby boy!

For those of you who aren't on Facebook here is a picture of our baby boy. He is 5 months in this picture and we are patiently waiting for an updated one. We have decided to name him Gavin Bak (Beck).  He turns one tomorrow and I am kinda sad to miss his first birthday but there is not much I can do about it. All I can do is pray our wait is short and things go smoothly. Our last update said he weighs 21.5 lbs. He is a bigger baby than Cameron was at that age. We picked up Cameron 12 days after his 1st birthday and he was 18 lbs.

I am now getting Gavin's room together. He is getting a whole new room but it is Cameron's old room so it has been very hard to change it. I had that room painted with furniture in place when we started trying to get pregnant over 5 years ago. I shut that door many times in sadness not knowing when a baby would be filling that room. Then when we got Cameron's referral I filled it with clothes, toys and all the extras only to shut the door again because he just wasn't coming home any time soon. I can so see that room when he first came home and I just loved sitting next to his crib while he slept balling my eyes out. He took his first steps in that room, fell asleep playing with his toys for the first time and slept at home for the first time in that room. I know Gavin will love his room when it is finished and I am so happy to know there will be another baby in that room. I just hope I never have to shut that door!

For those that haven't figured it out yet!

We are going to be a family of four! Dan, Cameron & I are adopting a baby boy from South Korea. We accepted his referral while we were in Florida on our vacation. Our agency has a photolisting on their website and we asked to look at his medical information back in November. Another family also requested his information and wanted to go forward with his adoption. If more than one family wants to move forward our agency makes families go to committee to decide which is a best fit for the child. We did this once last year and just couldn't handle doing it again so we decided to pass. A couple of days before we left for Florida I received an e-mail asking if we wanted to see his information again because the previous family fell threw. We had been debating on going with China or South Korea (and was completing a homestudy for China) and knew that was our sign. We looked over his medical information and decided he was meant to be a part of our family.

He will be one next month and will hopefully be home this summer. South Korea is SO much different than Guatemala. No court, no dossier. It all goes through USCIS and the Korean government. We just got our homestudy completed and are waiting on our acceptance paperwork from our agency. Once we sign that I can post pictures of him. He is so adorable and Cameron is ready to teach him bad things! I am so excited to get his room together and see Cameron finally have a partner in crime!

The rest of our crazy trip!

The rest of trip consisted of resting, eating, playing and more resting. One day we went to Blue Springs Park. This is where the manatees hang out while the weather is changing. There were over 300 of them and we could really see them close up. It is amazing to see how big they are close up and learn about how they are injured by boat propellors.

Friday night we hung out at Downtown Disney. We bought Cirque du Soleil tickets for Dan's mom for her Christmas, Mother's Day and Birthday gift. The show is called La Nouba and it is the 2nd time I have seen it. Sad to say this is the 7th time I have been to a Cirque show. I am addicted. While we were at the show Dan, his dad and Cameron walked around downtown. The place has tripled since we were down there almost 4 years ago. Unfortunately it was crazy packed so I didn't get to adventure anywhere other than the show. I did make Dan drive me down to the big Disney store so I could get the Mickey sprinkles for cookies. I could have stayed in there all night. And guess what I find some and bought 2 bottles of them.

Saturday we went to the driving range and watched Cameron hit some golf balls. He did really good until he starting throwing fits because he thinks he is Tiger Woods and doesn't need any help. He had fun watching Daddy hit them far. Overall it was a good trip but we were worn out with Cameron's sleep habits and full on tantrums. Being in a strange place tends to do that to him. And now we have to repair the windshield due to flying rocks.

Just think...Next year there will be two boys in that backseat!

Cameron's 3rd Birthday at Disney

(Sorry so much time in between posts but soon you will find out why.)

Cameron turned 3 on Feb. 15th and man what a crazy day it was. Dan's parents live about an hour from Disney so we go every year. I had shirts made for Cameron & I to wear. We went to Animal Kingdom for the first time and it was a little different than we had hoped. We had scheduled breakfast with the characters so we had to leave extra early. Of course Cameron had to have a huge tantrum right before we were paged for our table. He has become a little shy so he was kinda scared of Micky, Daisy & Goofy. The breakfast buffet they had was AMAZING! They had anything & everything you could think of. They brought Cameron a HUGE cupcake after we ate and Mommy loved seeing the Mickey sprinkles. Needless to say I had to have them.

This park doesn't have too many rides for Cameron but we were pretty busy all day and enjoyed every minute of his excitement. We all loved the Jungle Safari and got to see baby giraffes which are all over our house. He was actually falling asleep in the stroller and when I asked him if he wanted to go see Tigger, Pooh & Eeyore he jumped out the stroller. He was jumping up & down and so excited to see them all. This was also his first time seeing the parade. He is usually sleeping during it but I made sure to keep him awake. The only thing that scared him was the 4D Bug Show. I forgot how much he doesn't like them and they wouldn't let us out. We loved seeing his eyes light up every time!!! He was very excited to get a new pin and holder for all his other ones. He crashed in the car soon after getting his chicken nuggets for dinner.

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Finally pictures from our trip!

We tried leaving at 6:00 am on Friday but because of the lovely roof rack we were an hour late. Poor Dan had to fix it in 10 degree weather. Of course, we have great luck! Cameron did pretty good most of the ride but had a big tantrum b/c he was hungry and tired. Those are no fun while in the car driving 70+ mph. He feel asleep while eating his chicken nuggets. The first few days we took it easy. Of course, Cameron went from getting up at 9:30 to getting up at 8:00. Pappaw is a very loud talker and tends to wake up the house in the morning. We did a little playing at the playground, took rides in the golf cart and did a little cake baking. I made Cameron a cake on Sunday to celebrate his 3rd birthday. We got some figurines to add to his cake. (Hannah, they work with his playset you got him.) He is deeply in love with Toy Story as you can see. He was more than excited to get his Buzz Lightyear from Mommy & Daddy. He also got a sleeping bag and some new shoes before we left for Florida. He was a little embarassed by us singing to him.

Yeah it was that cold when we left!

Can you see the chicken nugget in his hand?!

Playing at the playground.

Bubba's cake. Hey it did the job!

Making his wish.

Mammaw & Pappaw (Dan's parents)

Us!

Oh Buzz how I love you!

Happy 3rd Birthday to my sweet baby boy!

We made it!

We are home from our trip to Florida and trying to get back on schedule. Cameron had a great 3rd birthday trip to Disney. I will post pictures as soon as I have a minute to download them and get them sorted out. It was a very stressful, exhausting vacation with a 3 year old. Cameron starts having reflections of things that happened when we picked him up from Guatemala. February and March seem to be pretty bad months. On top of that he is being a typical 3 year old. He had a tantrum every single day sometimes more than one. The threes may do me in!

Stay tuned for pictures from our trip and our BIG news!!!

Our baby boy turns 3!

Cameron is two days old in this picture. He was so bright eyed and silly even at that young age. He will be three on Monday and I can't believe what a little man he has become. He is such a smart ass but he can be just so sweet at the same time. He loves bossing mommy & daddy around all the time. We weren't quite ready to be able to pick him up for his first birthday but 12 days later we finally held our baby boy. When you miss that first birthday it just makes every one of them after so special. This year we are spending it at Disney's Animal Kingdom. He gets to eat breakfast with Mickey and the gang and just have fun being a kid. If you ever get a chance please take your child just one time to Disney. It is the most amazing thing to watch your child experience it. I cry every time (this is Cameron's 3rd time) I see him light up with excitement. Experiencing life through a child's eyes is the most amazing gift God has ever given me. Please pray for his birth mother and foster mother as I am sure their hearts are heavy as they think of our baby boy! They are both such amazing women for what they did for our son!

Favorite Foto Friday...Kiss-Kiss

I know you all already saw Hannah's post that was so cute thanks to good 'ole fantabulous me. Haha! Cameron insisted on getting Me-Me & Monkey Baby the lip suckers and I just couldn't say no. He enjoyed it so much he wanted to make sure the love of his life enjoyed them too! Oh how we love that familia!

Here's my lip smacking baby!

Wordless Wednesday!

FFF U-Pick Favorite February Foto

Like Hannah it is hard to just pick one. This last month or so Cameron's personality has just blown up. And I mean literally. The 3's may kill me! This child has such a mind of his own & always has but add that to the terrible 3's and let's just say Mommy has grown some grey hairs.

 

Since it's been cold out and I don't like going outside unless it is above 30 degrees we have been doing a lot of crafts. Cameron is really getting into painting and doing stickers.

I was sick last weekend so Dan took Cameron to the train museum. He is really getting into watching them.

But we did go play in the snow. He loved having me pull him around in the sled.

And even went to see Pappaw T. (my dad) do a basketball shooting clinic at Miami for the local YMCA kids. Cameron was a little jealous. He made sure they knew it was his Pappaw.

Cameron enjoyed a fun sucker!

But I think Cameron's favorite was seeing Sophia. These are so crazy & fun to watch. It is so awesome to see how much they have grown up and how much fun they have together!

FFF-Closeups

I am really loving taking pictures of Cameron lately. He loves to finally show me his big smile and yell cheese really loud! He loves being silly when we take pictures. The closer we are getting to his third birthday (next month) the more personality he is showing. And believe me this kid is bossy and stubborn but is also so sweet!

FFF-Favorite Holiday Picture

With Daddy before the Farrell Family Christmas.

And his hot mama!! Haha!

Posing with Daddy & the personalized bat we got him!

Opening Pappaw T.'s gifts. He couldn't get the tape off!

Opening his Handy Manny bike from Nana!

What is better than M&Ms!

I actually have a couple ones that I just love. Cameron was very into opening gifts this year. He was still careful about ripping the paper off but it was so fun watching him. Once I cried experiencing it through my baby's eyes. And it was even better since we had to wake him at 10:00 to open gifts!

Just a little update!!

Ruthanne passed court! I can't wait to see how her trip to Ethiopia goes.