Remembering Memorial Day

Price has recently taken an EXTREME liking to all things baseball. He was practicing in the backyard on Monday with his oldest brother, Adam. ADORABLE, if I do say so myself!!!

Calming Down

THIS is how Madeleine calms down and gets ready for bed.


I went running tonight after dinner and came home to find "the bigs" waiting for me to kiss them goodnight. I was thrilled, because I really don't like missing that time of night. Hello? The kiss off? Just kidding. Honestly. Anyway, this is what she wanted to show me when I went in to kiss her. That girl is FLEXIBLE...probably cause I was doing yoga (including backbends) until I was about 8 and a half months pregnant.

Carmon Playing Peek A Boo

Tom worked from home yesterday so we could go get "the bigs" out of school and take them to see the shuttle launch in the afternoon. Carmon and I were playing on the floor and Tom caught this:

Surprise Picture of Carmon

I got this email the other day:

"Hi Abby,

Oh, what a coincidence!! today I read your blog and saw everything. and guess what??? I met your daughter March 24th when we visited the orphanage. She was given to you in the lobby by our son's nanny (I saw that in one of your films on your blog), and your daughter's nanny was in the babyroom when we visited Yugan SWI. I actually posted a picture of your daughter tugged in a basket a week ago, just check the pictures and you will find her, we also have a couple of seconds of footage of your daughter in the basket rocking happily :o)

love,
Hanneke from Holland"

WHAT A SWEET TREAT! She saw our daughter not even a week before us. This is the picture she was talking about:




We are in the process of trying to figure out how to get the video. She wasn't able to email it and if she puts it on a DVD in Holland, it won't be readable here in the States b/c their format is different than ours.

In a subsequent email, she wrote this:

"In the very end of the film (appr.12 seconds before the end, you can hear our guide say: "Sunday, she will go" You can't see our guide on the film, but our she was pointing at your daughter when she said that, that's how I know she was adopted on the 29th (right?)"

Cool, huh?

Carmon's Dedication

This is Tom, and there is more to the story about getting Abby and Carmon home, and I have video of their arrival and subsequent greeting by friends and family…but I am on Family Leave this week, and work of any kind – including video editing - seems to be escaping me.

While she was in China, Abby arranged for Carmon to be dedicated at our church (Westwood Church in Orlando) on Easter Sunday. Since Abby got home and into bed Friday morning around 2:30 AM, we spent her last waking hours Friday night getting the video and pictures together – we had picked the song long ago. As usual, our church did an outstanding job with the dedication video and the dedication itself, and I wanted to share it with anyone who wants to watch it. This is as close as I can get with the software I have, I hope you enjoy it.

They're on their way home!

Abby sent me this picture of my girls this evening, showing me what they are wearing so I will recognize them at the airport. Their plane leaves at 11:00 PM Wednesday night (EDT) and they arrive at 12:05 AM Friday. I can not WAIT to have them home!

She's DEFINITELY a Chitty

There are so many ways that Carmon is already showing she's a Chitty:

• She stopped taking a bottle already. Our other 3 also stopped drinking from bottles around 9 or 10 months and started drinking straight from a glass.
• She is a GREAT sleeper, just like Madeleine and her mommy.
• She's satisfied by simple things like Jack is. She is entertained by a single toy for about as long as Jack is entertained by an airplane simulation game on the computer.
• A diaper wipe lasts a long time in her hands...as it does in Price's.
• Her eyes are very happy, just like her daddy's.
• And, like all the Chittys, she loves being outside.

She was made to be "one of us".