Merry Christmas from our gift to yours

A Sweet Wait

So since I haven't blogged in a good few weeks, here is what the Kown family has been up to... enjoying the Holidays while we wait and wait and wait for our next step to Mamie. But it has been a really sweet wait. And I know that all of these pictures next year will include Mamie!  Now all I want for Christmas... or New Years... or heck, even Elliott's Birthday in January... is our LOA!

Thanksgiving with my family- the first picture ever with all of the cousins looking at the camera and NO ONE is crying!

Thanksgiving with Charles' family. And yes everyone is wearing pilgrim hats. Enough said.

You would think Elliott didn't really enjoy it, but nope. He loved Santa. He just doesn't love pictures. Will make for a good mug shot though.

Maxwell's precious Christmas program at school. He was Joseph, or as my niece calls him, Jophus. Makes me laugh every time.

A cute family photo where Elliott is smiling! Rarely happens.

Elliottisms

Before I forget all of these things, can I tell you how funny our almost 3 year old is? I mean he is really funny. He tells all kinds of CRAZY stories. And he is so convincing, I sometimes catch myself wondering how I missed "that". He especially LOVES stories about fish and sharks. Often times biting people. Like grandparents, parents, or siblings. Hilarious.

Here are some of my favorite "Elliottisms"
- When something is sharp it "sharps" him
- When something tastes bad he says it's "tasty"
- He constantly wants us to sing songs to him that we have no clue what they are, such as "the round song"?
- He always remembers when friends come over and which chair they sit in. I often sit in "John's chair" or "Asher's chair"
- He is so proud to show me his artwork from school. And everyday when I pick him up, he gets in the car, whips out his artwork and says "Ta Da!"
- We pray the armor of God over our family each morning on the way to school. I get us started and he continues it the whole way through. Beginning with "The helmet of Salivation" and ending with "Good job Belly Boo Boo!" (which very clearly I have said more than once when he finishes, ha!)
-  He insists on wearing rocket pajamas or clothing EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. Dirty or clean. Doesn't matter. And would wear them to school as well if I would let him. We now have quite a collection of rocket clothing.
- And in his sweet voice, he asks me almost everyday if today is the day we go to China to get his sister. Each day is one day closer!

I love this little character and can't wait to see what special plans God has for him!

Wish We Could Fit

Here it is... our care package to Mamie. I wish we could fit inside the box ourselves! The wait to her seems kind of pretend. We have her picture and know what we are waiting on, which is amazing of course. But it's still so far away, it's kind of like a picture of this little girl who is really cute with chubby cheeks. But soon enough she will be our little chubby cheeked girl and we will know her inside out... all in due time!
So in the meantime we sent her (and her nannies) a care package. We took the boys to Build A Bear and they picked out a pretty rockin' outfit for the bear, and we recorded our voices inside the bear. Then we made this pretty cool photo album that is a board book. And a few other little lovies and things. The rest is for the nannies and a toy for the orphanage. And lastly 2 disposable cameras that we have high hopes for additional pictures of Mamie taken by the nannies and then given to us when we get there! Or should I say praying for desperately... may be more like it.
Praying it makes it there, and that she gets to see it all before we come! It would be great for her to have at least seen our pictures!

Our Story To Mamie

So as you all know we missed getting a match from the list the month of September. But God truly used that time to teach me TONS. About trust, His love and trust again. I woke up the following Monday morning, October 3 and had an email from our social worker the night before at 10pm that said "are you up? call me!" Well in the adoption world that only means one thing... we have a file to look at! So I wait as long as I possibly can and we finally connect at 9:00am. She tells me she has a file for me, but the little girl's needs are more severe than we originally stated we wanted. Did I want to look at it? YES! But I will say, once she told me her need, I very calmly thought, I'm not sure this is our daughter, but I will gladly look at it.
We look at her file and see she is almost 14 months old and so precious! But her need is that her left leg is shorter than her right. We spent the next 2 days talking to 6 doctors and multiple physical therapists who all give us the same diagnosis. She has what's called PFFD, which means she has a short femur, and more than likely will have surgery and possible a prosthic leg from the knee down. I never paniced, just calmly felt like this was more than I could handle. Charles however, was pretty much on board from the get go. Talk about a role reversal in our family! I was actually so confident and peaceful, I asked Charles Monday night AND Tuesday morning if he wanted me to go on and turn down the file. UM, NO... was his reply. "We have until 7:00 tonight, let's keep praying!" So pray we did.
Each and every doctor and PT we spoke with gave us the exact same answer. This is an excellent file, she is so healthy and a limb difference isn't a big deal! She will live a fully functional life and will be no different than any other child! I kept thinking, "yeah, maybe for your family. But let's be honest, this is tough". And we actually had 1 person tell us how cool it was for God to place this little girl in Birmingham, one of the best cities in the country for orthopedics & prosthetics, & Lakeshore Rehabilitation Center. EEK!
Well by lunchtime on Tuesday I needed some serious help. God had taken me from "NO WAY", to "MAYBE?".  So Charles and I prayed and I BEGGED God for a physical sign. Is this our daughter? I'm talking a knock on the front door or a letter in the mailbox.
As the day progresses, Charles and I both had 2 seperate people advise us to look at this file as if it was a yes unless God made it a no. So by 2:30, that we did. But I'm still begging God for a sign. Finally I remember that Charles had gotten some information from Lakeshore earlier in the day and I should look through that.
So I open up their magazine and get to page 6. Where there is a picture of an older lady and in BIG, BOLD LETTERS IN ALL CAPS is the name MAMIE. Mamie. So God, I guess you heard me? We have had the name Mamie picked out since before we had Maxwell. It's both of our great-grandmother's names. What an amazing confirmation that this is our daughter. That this adventure may not always be easy... or fun. But God had this little girl picked out for our family before our time. And with this kind of confirmation, we know she is ours. And through Him there is nothing we can't handle.

We are THRILLED about life to come! The joys and the challenges. And what's really fun to watch, is that honestly, until she is home, we have no clue what is ahead! It could be so minor and it could be pretty major. But Mamie is our precious daughter and I'm pretty certain a perfect fit to our family :)

Instructions for Private Blog

I had no idea how many friends read our blog! Of course I want you all to be able to follow us! All you have to do is comment or email me your email address and I will automatically add you in. You don't need a password.

Our story to Mamie coming soon :)

BTW blog going private this week...

Now that we have more info on Mamie and the rest of the kiddos, we have decided to make the blog private. Let me know if you want to access it and I will gladly add you to the list!

Ta Da!

In the words of Elliott "Ta Da! Here she is!" We have no idea her ages in these pictures, but love that they are clearly from 3 different stages in her short little life :)

Mamie "no middle name yet" Kown

All In A Weeks Time

September 26 was No Match Monday...So I went a few days throwing myself a pity party. Questioning how much I truly trust God in this process. Not understanding why we started our adoption process soooo long ago and still didn't have our daughter. Watching friends get their daughters, and here I still sat. Pity party of 1, right here. And a friend sent me a devotional that rocked my world. Do I really trust God? Do I truly believe his plans are way better and way bigger than mine? Do I believe he REALLY has my best interest at heart? After a few days of praying and seeking, I decided... YES, I do believe this. Is it easy? NO. Is it the way I would do it? NO. But thank goodness I'm not God. So I let go of my control and moved along my sort of merry way. October 24,a good guess for the day of the next China list , already circled on my calendar. (now this process was not nearly as easy as it reads mind you.)

AND THEN...

Monday morning, October 3, I woke up to an email from 10:00 pm (way past my bedtime) the night before that read... "Are you up? Call me!" from our social worker. My heart started going a mile a minute while I debated if 6:30 am was too early to call her? I managed to wait until 8:30 then called. And I hear the precious words "We have a file for you to look at. Would you like to look?" Um... YES PLEASE! Now the next 2 days of this process I will have to tell over time because it's a whole whole whole lot of God and a whole little of me. But to wrap this up for now, at 5:30pm on Tuesday October 4, we accepted this referral as our daughter! Pictures to come hopefully next week.

Drumroll please....

MAMIE KOWN
AUGUST 6, 2010
GUIPING CITY, GUANGXI PROVENCE, CHINA
Praying for her to become a part of our family in Spring 2012

And let me tell you... God is faithful!

Not This Time...

Well no match for us this month. I'm most definitely sad, but am learning more each day how to fully trust in God's timing and faithfulness. No one ever said this journey was easy! So we are now 10 months and counting... but when we get our little girl's picture, I feel certain it will be worth the wait :) And with this wait, she is going to be pretty stinking fabulous!

LID!

We are officially logged into China's system as of today... And the monthly referral list comes out tonight...Deep breath! ...so guess who won't be sleeping tonight? Praying for a match and that it would be our daughter. Not gonna lie, if it doesn't happen I will most definitely be disappointed. But trusting God's timing all the same!

Happy Anniversary and DTC!

Wednesday was Happy 8th Anniversary to us! It was so very romantic ;) I'm on a very particular diet, so there was no dining out; and a very close friend was getting married in Nashville, so we spent our anniversary in separate cars driving to Nashville for the wedding weekend! But we will celebrate in a few weeks, when Charles has recovered from his jaw surgery (this upcoming Thursday) and my diet is over... but celebration or no, we had a WONDERFUL weekend in Nashville by ourselves, celebrating the wedding of some very dear friends. That's the second best way to spend an anniversary.

But we also got a pretty excellent gift, we found out Thursday we are DTC! For you non-adoption folks, that means Dossier To China! We are now waiting to be logged in to China's system and will soon see the precious face of our little girl! We would love for you to join us in prayer over the next few weeks, that God would have all things running smoothly with paperwork, timing, etc... and that we would see her face sooner rather than later!

Last Day of Summer... First Day Of School

Maxwell had been begging all summer to see the dinosaur exhibit at the Space Center all summer. And as many times as we went to Nashville this summer, we never stopped! Well the exhibit ended on Labor Day, soooo... the day before school started, I loaded up the boys and off the 3 of us went. And we arrived to be the only people there, at 10:00 am on a random Tuesday after all real school had started.  It was great! And I must say, the dinosaur "museum" as Maxwell called it, didn't disappoint! Yes, only a few dinosaurs, but Sue the T-Rex is the most important of all dinosaurs, as any good paleontologist (or mom of a paleontologist) knows... so we were in luck because it was all about Sue! And all in all, we had a great little day trip to wrap up our summer :)

Sue the T-Rex!

Digging for bones

And they had fossils you could take home! And since we were THE LAST people to visit this exhibit, we got to take home TONS of TINY fossil pieces (that Charles and I think could be gerbil bones? ha!)

If you can't tell, a portion of Elliott's face is in there ;)

First morning of 5K and 2K for the boys!

Maxwell and Mrs. Harris

Elliott and Mrs. Poss... and yes he wasn't all that happy day 1. He is much happier now!

Inching Closer

I will post something fun like pictures soon, I promise! But this summer I have been horrible about taking pictures. Today was my niece and nephews birthday party, so maybe my sister took some?

Anyways, we are inching closer and closer to seeing our daughter's face for the first time. We received our I 800 A approval (which basically says we are fit to adopt in the US). Now that has to be mailed around the country for one million people in every possible city to approve ;) Not really, it just seems like it! Then once that's done in a few weeks, off our Dossier goes to China, where we will be "logged in" and waiting to be matched with our daughter. Yippee!! Praying for the speediest paperwork ever.

Second Sendoff

For those of you that love a good adoption blog, more importantly a family bringing their child home... then check this out!
carringtonfamilyof6.blogspot.com

We have officially sent off the second of the Red Thread Moms to bring that precious little girl home! This will make kiddo number 5 for the Carringtons. So they would appreciate your prayers in many....many ways :) Can't wait to meet baby Avery!

Happy 5th Birthday to Maxwell

I know we say this all the time, but really... where does the time go?
5 years ago today I was laying on the couch, 38 weeks pregnant, sweating the summer away, and bang. My water broke and 7 hours laters, at 5:10 pm, little baby Charles Maxwell Kown, Jr. arrived. And we have laughed ever since that "coming early and quickly" is his personality. Two steps ahead at all times and full throttle. But what I love about Maxwell is that he has grown into the most precious 5 year old. Very sensitive and caring. Always looking out for others. He just loves people. And he loves Jesus, which we love. I think he may be a preacher. Or a paleontologist. He also really loves dinosaurs. So happy birthday to my sweet little boy (who thankfully has one more year before he hits "big school")

2 weeks old

1st birthday (we have much better pictures but they are missing on my computer somewhere-

glad i have them in a book already!)

2nd Birthday

3rd Birthday

4th Birthday

Last week at the beach (haven't had his 5th birthday party yet!)

My Most Favorite Place On Earth

When I married Charles, I discovered this lovely secret called Kiawah Island, South Carolina. Their family had grown up going there, and now we go as a big family. It's seriously the most fabulous place on earth. It's so quiet, no hotels-only houses, and you can ride bikes everywhere! WE LOVE IT! So enjoy our family beach trip in pictures.

Eating lunch on our back porch

One of the few times we put on real clothes and go out to dinner

Our "picture perfect" spot :)

The family with Charles' brother Robert- on Charles' favorite golf course

I'm pretty sure this will be our Christmas card, so don't look too closely!

Maxwell & his BecBec

 

Chuch with his 2 boys

I had a grand idea for the boys to paint pictures for our playroom while there-

and they turned out pretty cute!

Painting the masterpiece

Happy birthday Maxwell & Robert! 29 isn't too old for a T-Rex cake right?

You can imagine this didn't last long- we took home 2 sopping wet boys from head to toe

Doesn't he look 8 years old? Geesh!