Our baby girl is five months old!

Time is flying by and it is hard to believe that Grace is getting so big. If I could only stop time.... Well if I could, it would be to get a full nights sleep! Little Miss keeps waking up around 4am, every morning. She fusses for a while, I give her the binky, she fusses and "talks" some more, then goes back to sleep. I know she can sleep the night through, she has done so, many times. She is teasing me, she has all the control. She has given me a taste of the good life (sleeping all night) and decided to take it back. That little stinker.

We keep trying rice cereal, she just smiles and spits it back out.

I took these pictures out in our front yard today. The weather was beautiful. We know that there are not many of these days left, so we took full advantage of it!

Some of the things she can do are:

Smile back at you, when you smile
Roll over from tummy to back (only when you are not looking)
Grab her feet. Just tonight she managed to get a toe in her mouth.
Laugh
Yell
Talk
Grab at toys with both hands
Put her binky in her mouth about 70% of the time. She hasn't figured out that you have to let go though.

This past Saturday was Tasha's high school Homecoming. Tasha and her boyfriend decided to go at the last minute. She had worked at our local skating rink from 10am until 4pm. After that, she ran across the street to get her nails done. I couldn't believe that she was ready to go by 7:30! I curled her hair and painted her toenails. Cameron, her boyfriend of seven months brought her flowers. They let me take a couple of pictures and they headed out the door.

Our girl cleans up well, don't ya think?

Well, it is over. Court was earlier today and after a two hour hearing, parental rights were terminated. We were told that there is a 30 day period that the birthparents can appeal this desicion. It is very unlikely that they would appeal. Noone has heard from them since June.

I felt so many unexpected and different emotions while sitting in that court room today. At first I was excited to finally be at this point and then anxious (what if the Judge does not terminate). At one point, I thought I would have to leave the courtroom, because I felt like I could throw up. The biggest emotion that I felt was, saddness. Saddness for Grace, saddness for these birthparents who chose drugs over their baby. They did not even try. They already lost their rights to her three older siblings, did they feel that much despair? I wondered what they were doing during this trial. They were probably numbing their feelings with more drugs. I cannot even try to comprehend what that must feel like.

We are one more step closer to our dream coming true. But, in order for that to happen, their dream had to die. I have no doubt that they love their children. Many people will say that what they did, was best for Grace. Some people will say that they deserved to lose this baby. I don't think that their dream growing up was to become drug addicts and have children, only to have them taken away and then be stripped of the right to parent.

I gave Grace a lot of extra hugs and love tonight. I am glad that she has no idea what has happened. I need to go to sleep, I am emotionally drained. I am sorry that this entry is so gloomy. I am feeling guilty for being happy.

Just look at those big blue eyes!

We made it offical tonight, we finally came up with Grace's full name.

Here's a little background on how names came to be in the Smedley Home.

Amber and Nathan have two middle names. They were four and two when we adopted them and pretty attached to their names. We wanted to contribute to their names and decided to give them a second name.

When we made that decision, we also decided that any other children that come to be a part of our family, would also have two middle names. We knew that we wanted Olivia Grace, but Rod and I could not agree on her second middle name. It has been driving me crazy and I am sure that I was driving Rod crazy talking about it.

Last week, our adoption worker came to our home to start filling out our adoption paperwork. One of the questions was her name. Of course she has to have her complete name before turning in the papers. I gave Rod a deadline of Sunday night. We have been tossing names around for the entire weekend. I gave him the ones that I liked and we talked about the name having alot of meaning behind it. Rod made the FINAL decision tonight.

Drum roll please......

Olivia Grace Mariann Smedley

Mariann comes from our moms. Mary is my mom's first name. Ruth Ann is Rod's mom. Hence Mariann. We love it and I think it fits just right. My mom even cried when I told her.

Little Miss was there as well, to cheer on her big sister and brother. She was a hit on the sideline with the other parents. While we were waiting for Nathan's game to start, we put Grace in a baby swing at the park. She did so-so, I think she will enjoy it more in a few more months, when she is sitting up better.

Soccer season has started

And what a beautiful day it turned out to be! Just look at those mountains in the background, Colorado is perfect!

Amber played well and as hard as the boys on her team. There are a few girls on her team, that are, well....wimpy. It is a bad sign when a girl shows up to play soccer with a skirt on! Her team, the Hot Tamale's, lost. That is okay, because they did not even have a practice yet.

Nathan LOVES soccer! When it was his turn to be the goalie, he had a hard time standing in front of the goal and paying attention. Nathan made the first goal for his team, the Red Eagles. Rod and I missed it, we were "arguing" about who needed to get up and take pictures. Nate's team lost as well. The kids are on different teams, even though they are both wearing red jersey's.

Guess who has found her toes?!

Yes, Little Miss Grace has found her piggies. On the 26th of September, she will be five months old. This is the stage that I love, all the learning and exploring that they do. Yesterday she grabbed her pacifier and eventually got it in her mouth. Unfortunatly, she doesn't know how to let go and takes it back out. That makes her frustrated, then she begins to cry.

On August 31st, Grace rolled over from her tummy to her back. She did it once and the only person who saw, was me. She hasn't done it since and I think the rest of my family thinks I made it up. I swear, she really did roll over!

This is us after 12 years of marriage. If you count the two years and 10 months that we dated before getting married, we have been together for 15 years.

Wow, 15 years! That sounds like alot, but yet, at times, the years have flown by. Rod has decided to show his maturing age and grow a beard and mustache. In the 15 years that we have been together, this is the first time he has done this. At first, the kids were not so sure of this new style. Daddy was pretty poky and prickly.

I would say that we have gotten used to this new style. Rod's beard has grown out and is pretty soft. I also have a new way of getting his attention quickly.... just give a little tug...it works everytime. We took this picture after the fashion show of Friday.

Tasha had her senior pictures taken the last weekend in August. We went to Clinique to have her makeup done, she had her nails redone as well. The photographer and her had so much fun. Tasha was in heaven! These are a couple of pictures that I snapped. We were at the Garden of the Gods.

Last night we went to a fundraiser for the agency that we are foster-parents at. A few weeks ago, the kids got to pick out outfits and acceceries and last night they put on a fashion show for the donors.

The kids love it and this was the 4th year that Amber and Nathan have been it in. Tasha had fun strutting her stuff down the runway. They had a lot of fun, but it makes for a very long night.

I wanted a place where I could post pictures and give updates about our family. This seemed like the ideal way to do it, since I am not that web savvy!