Merry Christmas!!!

We wanted to say Merry Christmas to everyone! Tabitha knew that today was Christmas, we believe. She's been sleeping through the night, but last night she woke up 3 times!!! The last time, 4:30 am, Tim said that she was wide awake standing up in her crib!!! He gave her some of her bottle and told her that Santa wasn't quite finished and she had to go back to sleep. SO, finally we got up at 7:30 am. She seemed to enjoy the present giving and getting to unwrap the packages...or maybe it was just the pretty bows and paper that got her attention! At any rate, here are photos.

Look! A bow, isn't it pretty!

I just love these little blocks.

Oh Boy! My very own lion!!

OK, I'll sit for yet another picture, but this is the last one!

Ralph, you're the greatest, thanks for not using these teeth on me.

Maybe this will help me walk.

The tree before anyone got up, namely, Miss Tabitha.

I just love this one.

Ahhh, you think that all of these are for me???

Saucer dancing

Miss Tabitha really loves her exer-saucer. We recently noticed that she tries to dance with music. Here is a video clip of her dancing with the Christmas dog. You'll need to mute the music on the slide show for the full effect.

Life at home

I know, I've been really slow about posting, but honestly I don't get much time to be on the computer. Unless Tim is home from work, my day is spent taking care of Miss Tabitha. Here are some pictures of life at home.

Tabitha loves bath time!

Isn't she just adorable, she loves her saucer!



Boy eating is a lot of work!

Christmas Decorations

OK for those of you that we've met, you know by now that my dear husband loves Christmas. To say that our house resembles the Griswald house at Christmas is actually a compliment. He has gotten into decorating the yard at Christmas time for years. People drive by the house after Thanksgiving in hopes that the decorations will be up and lit. This year they had to wait until we got back from Guatemala before the lights went on. Mind you, he had all of the decorations up before we left, they just had to wait until we got home to see them lit up. Actually he started putting the decorations up right after Halloween. I've put some pictures together in a slide show of the decorations. They don't do it justice though. Hope that you enjoy the show!

Santa

We went to the park near our house this evening. They have a Christmas light display and we wanted to see it. When we got there, we discovered that they were also having fun activities for the family such as hayrides, horse drawn carriage rides, a pony for the kids to sit on, and a fire for roasting marshmallows. We also discovered that Santa was there! It sure beat going to the mall and staying in line for an hour to see Santa. Tabitha wasn't too sure about Santa, she looked at him with concern, "who is this guy wearing red, with a beard, glasses, and a hat?" They did manage to get a half way decent picture though. She's not smiling, but then again, she's not screaming---which she did start to do before we left. It was Tabitha's first picture with Santa!

Time passing quickly!

Wow, it's hard to believe that we have been home 10 days already! Time is flying by so quickly! Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, but our days are just so jammed packed with things. Tabitha is adjusting to being home pretty well. She still fights sleep and throws a fit when it is time to go to bed, but once she is down, she pretty much sleeps through the night. We went to Nashville, TN this past weekend so Tabitha could meet her older sister, Amy. It's a 7 hour drive from Columbia to Nashville. Considering how much Tabitha hates to be confined, she actually did pretty good during the trip. We had a few "crabbing" moments, but all and all it wasn't bad. Tabitha loved her big sister Amy, and vice versa. Not bad considering a few years ago, Amy wouldn't have wanted to touch a baby let alone hold and feed one! Tabitha is hard to resist though, those big brown eyes and that smile of hers is enough to melt anyone! We celebrated Christmas early with Amy and her husband Ivan. It was a good time for all! Here's a photo that we took when we were at the Cracker Barrell. Tabitha had decided she was going to eat lemons! Enjoy!

We're Home!!!!

We arrived home at around 12:05 a.m. Actually our flight arrived Atlanta around 6 p.m., but after arriving and going through customs and immigration--which was relatively easy--we had to send our luggage from the international terminal to the main terminal. Well one piece of our luggage got separated from the rest, so we had to wait an hour for it to come. Then we had to wait for the shuttle to take us to the Holiday Inn to pick up our car. Atlanta is about a 3 hour drive to Columbia.
Tabitha cried quite a bit on the drive home. She did not like the car seat! First of all, she was very tired and really wanted to sleep; well, she doesn't like to sleep on her back. She also does not like to be restrained. Of course that is exactly what a car seat does--restrains her. She just wanted us to take her out of that seat and hold her! She couldn't understand why we wouldn't either! But she did finally nod off and slept a good part of the ride home.
The dogs scared her when she first met them. You have to understand that for the past 3 years, the dogs have been our babies. They couldn't understand why they couldn't jump up in our laps while we were holding the baby. Poor Ralph, he wants to like her, but he's not sure "what" she is. He kept sniffing her and running into her room to sniff her through the crib. We finally had to close the door to her room. She slept pretty good, whimpered a few times during the night, but didn't have a wailing fit for the most part. She didn't keep me awake, Ralph did! He kept whining and sniffing at her room's door. I sure hope that he gets use to her soon!
I'll try to post as many pictures of our trip as I can. Please keep checking back frequently as I'm sure I'll have plenty of updates and pictures to see. Also, look at our previous posts that were done while we were in Guatemala. I have FINALLY added the pictures that belong with those posts, I've even included a few more new posts!

Embassy Day!

Today was Embassy Day! You know, it was actually kind of painless. I was nervous or something, I couldn't sleep very well last night, neither could Tim. Good news is Tabitha slept all night long! Tim woke up this morning and said he kind of felt like a kid on Christmas morning; you know you wake up hoping that it is morning and Santa has come with presents, but it's only 3 a.m. and there's no way that it is time to get up. The whole thing went pretty smoothly, except stupid me went off and left the little pictures that you need for the visa lying on the desk. Fortunately the photo place is across the street from the Embassy. Tim walked down there and had new pictures made. Tabitha was great, she even took a little nap while we were there. The whole process at the Embassy is ridiculous! They give everyone an 8 a.m. appointment and there are tons of people there waiting to get in. They start letting people inside at about 8:15, then you or your fascilitator submit all of your forms at one window. You go to another window and pay your $380. Then you sit and wait, and wait, and wait. They issue 30 appointments a day. Our number was 30. Then they start calling people to go to window 10. You go in this little room and a man is sitting behind a window. You give him your passports, he looks at them, he asks a few questions and then tells you whether or not he approves your I-600. He then tells you to wait until you are called for your exit visa interview. Once you are called to the window for the visa exit interview, they have you hold up the baby so they can see that the baby is the same baby on the passport, the parent(s) raise their right hand and swear that they have answered the questions on the form correctly. This person also asked some questions about whether or not you visited, who your agency was, if you hired outside help besides the agency, and then the main petitioner on the forms, Tim in our case signs a few forms, the person says what kind of visa you will be getting. Ours is called an IR3 because we visited, which means the moment that Tabitha is on American soil, she is considered a citizen! We will do a readoption process of course because we want her name to legally be Tabitha Alice Lourdes Taylor; right now her passport just says Lourdes Taylor.
It is just starting to sink in that she is ours! I looked at Tim this afternoon and said with tears in my eyes, "she's really ours, we don't have to give her back!" I think that it won't truly sink in until we are back in South Carolina!
Tomorrow we get her visa, and then we fly home on Wednesday! Look out South Carolina, here we come!