Sunday, July 26, 2009

2nd adoption?

Ok. I haven't seriously expressed this outloud to hardly anyone, but I feel like I need to get it off of my chest because it probably won't happen. I have been getting emails from an organization called Rainbow Kids about waiting children from Asia. Waiting children are children that are older (above 3 years old) that are available for adoption. I received about 6 emails over the last couple of weeks. Most of these children are girls, but there were a couple of boys too. Most of these children are healthy, but some of them are not.

I have been looking at these children feeling like maybe we are being called to adopt again. The disadvantages of course are our age, and the money. We can get around those though if God is truly calling us to adopt. The advantages are that Gracie would have sister or brother of Asian origin, and I've been told that as a transracial adopted child gets older, it helps them feel like they belong. Also, of course, we'd be giving another child a family and a chance to know Jesus as their savior. That's a big one. If, and that's a big if, since DH doesn't even want to consider it right now, we did this we'd be adopting a child that's older than Gracie. That would keep her as the baby of the family. I think that would be a good thing.

The big thing about this is that if we are being called to do this, we need to act on it almost immediately because of DH's age. We're about to age out of the possibility. I gingerly broached the subject with him, and his response was something about going crazy if we did adopt again. So, he's not on board.

I'm praying for discernment on this. I thing I need to let God work on DH's heart. If it's meant to be, then he'll come around. I waver back and forth on whether this is right for us or not, so I'm not even sure. Last time with Grace I was sure. So maybe it's just a dream, flash in the pan thought, or maybe....?

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Our day at Holiday World

A couple of weeks ago we took a trip to Holiday World. Here's some video of Grace on one of the rides at the amusement park there.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Having blood drawn hardly ever goes well for me!

So the topic of my post today is getting blood drawn. Ever since I can remember getting any blood drawn for any reason, at any location all over the country, I've been told that I have small veins that are difficult to find. For years, I endured having someone poke me with needles trying to find that elusive vein that would produce blood. They poked, prodded, and worst of all, fished for the vein by moving the needle around in my arm without removing it. Always, it hurt, and usually I ended up bruised. Not a good experience, but I endured it because I thought there was no other way.

Until...We were living in Fairfax, VA and I had to have blood drawn for some reason I can't even remember. I had to go to a clinic to have the blood drawn, and you can imagine I was not looking forward to being a human pin cushion yet again. So I go in and tell the tech that was to draw my blood, a very nice young man, that I had small veins and that people always had trouble finding a good vein. This guy said something along the lines of "well, we'll take care of that by using a butterfly needle." I'd never heard of or seen a butterfly needle, but was truly impressed by how easily this tiny needle with "wings" went in and quickly found the vein producing the vials of blood that were needed. He told me that whenever I needed to have blood drawn I should always tell them to use a butterfly needle.

That experience was almost 20 years ago, and as you can imagine there have been many times after that where I've had to have blood drawn by many different technicians. Of course, I alwys tell whoever is working on me that I need to have a butterfly needle because of having difficult veins. Here's the part that just gets me everytime I go in to have blood drawn, about 9 times out of 10, the tech doesn't believe me and tries the standard needle. Sometimes I'll hear something about how they know what they are doing, and don't need someone to tell them how to draw blood. Sometimes they'll just ignore me and use the standard needle without saying anything. Today the woman that drew my blood, although being very nice, also did not believe me when I told her about the small veins needing to use a butterfly needle. She plowed on with the big needle in my arm, fishing around for the vein that couldn't be found. After I let out a small yelp when she was digging around, she finally gave up. She asked for the back of my hand on the opposite hand, got out a butterfly needle, and sure enough, first time was able to get blood and fill up the two tubes she needed.

So, what's with these technicians? Is it ego? Is it that they don't like someone else telling then how to do their job? Or is it a challenge for them (at my expense I might add!)? At any rate, I sure wish they'd get over it, and trust that I know what I'm talking about. It's not like I'm a teenager or something that hasn't been around for awhile!!! Argh!

Monday, June 15, 2009

We bought a new car (well sort of)!




On Saturday we went and picked up our 2002 Rav4, my new commuter car. It's really cute, and all 5 of us will fit in it if need be. We got a really good deal, and the insurance isn't too bad. Can't beat that!

Monday, June 1, 2009

2nd Annual Hands of Hope picnic

Well, as the title indicates, we had our 2nd picnic for the Hands of Hope Adoption and Orphan Care ministry on Sunday afternoon. I was a fun time. The weather was beautiful! We couldn't have asked for a better day. The kids all had fun, even my moody 15 year old daughter. Of course, that was because we told her she could bring a friend.

It was a small crowd, but everyone got along well and seemed to enjoy themselves. We had a few new families, and some that had adopted domestically, as we've expanded our ministry to include domestic adoptions.

I took both my camera and my Flip, but of course, I forgot to get them out, and hence no photos or video of the day. I thought afterwards that we should've had a group photo each year, but alas, I didn't think about that until long after the picnic was over.

I was not on the planning committee and wasn't last year either, but I think next year I'll suggest a few changes. Like the group photo I mentioned, and maybe some kids games to keep things going. DH suggested an icebreaker game to get everyone talking to everyone else. There did seem to be little groups of people that knew each other that stuck together. So we'll see. 'til next year.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

My week of TLO is coming to an end!

This past week has been great to have off of work! I could really get used to being a stay at home mom, except of course that the pay isn't very good :(!

This week I've been able to get laundry done, clean house, play with Grace, run the older girls around to their activities, AND workout at the Y almost every day!! Those are quite the accomplishments for me, and way more than I can do during the week when I'm working.

Sadly, tomorrow is my last day on TLO. Of course, I'll still be off work for the weekend and the holiday on Monday, but then it's back to reality on Tuesday.

I still have a couple of things to finish that I set as goals for the week. One is finishing up Grace's curtain for her bedroom. The other is cleaning out DD2's closet to make room for things in our room that don't really belong there. I still have tomorrow to get that done, so it should be another busy day.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Photos of Grace with her cousin





Here are some great photos of Gracie with her cousin having a tea party. He is just a month younger than Grace, and they are great friends!

Photos from DD2's Intermediate School Musical Production of "Alice In Wonderland"





In April, DD2 was also in the school musical "Alice in Wonderland". I didn't get to take too many photos of the play, but did get a couple of her. She played the part the sassy daisy in the garden. She did a grat job. I was very proud of her!

Some Photos from Easter






I know I didn't post any photos from Easter at the time, and I've finally had time to download photos off of our camera. So here they are.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Okay. I know I'm deliquent in posting

Yes, it's been awhile since I've posted anything on my blog. Sorry, but with 3 kids, a husband, a job, a house, and all the things that goes along with my life, I just haven't had time.

Work is stressful. I don't dare to think that it was ever calm down anymore. I think that's just the wa it's going to be. I've accepted that, but along with that, have decided that instead of focusing all my energy on work there are other things that are more important in life. So I'm pulling back on the overtime I had been putting in since January. Now I'm trying to stick to about 40 hours a week (which actually is 8 hours of unpaid overtime for me, since I only get paid for 32 hours a week!).

Lots of things have been going on. I don't have time to post about them now. If you want to see little snippets of my life, and I know you, you can consider requesting me as a friend on Facebook. I'm much more adept at taking 5 minutes to keep up with sharing what's going on instead of writing on the blog. I'm not abandoning the blog (at least not yet), but you probably won't see me posting as much as I used to.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Playdoh and Strawberries











Okay. I know that those two things don't normally go together. And they really don't in this case either except that that's what I have photos of. Grace playing with Playdoh, and Grace eating strawberries. I took the Playdoh photos, DD2 took the strawberry eating photos.

Not too much to say about it, other than Grace enjoyed both!

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Putting up our Easter Tree






The other day my niece, who has 3 daughters, sent a Smilebox of 2 of her girls (the smallest one is a tiny baby) putting strings on plastic eggs and hanging them on a tree in their front yard. Her daughters are young, 3 and 1. It was so darn cute, that I decided that I should see about getting our Easter tree up.

Several years ago my mother gave us a small Easter tree with little wooden ornaments that you hang on the tree limbs. It's a table top tree. We used to put it up every year, but then as the two older girls got older, it didn't seem to be a high priority. Last year, you may recall, I wasn't even home for Easter as I was with my father because he was very ill.

So this year, I decided to ressurect the tradition of putting up the tree. Grace thought it was pretty cool, although she did the same thing that the other two girls used to do when they hung the ornaments on the tree - hung them all on the same branch! I took a few photos to mark the occasiion. You can see that Grace got a little tired of me asking her to smile, because she gave me this cheesy goofy smile in some of the photos!

But she's still adorable, if I do say so myself. DD1, DD2 and DH weren't home, so they missed out on the activities.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Happy Birthday to Me, a little belated

My birthday was on March 1, but because we were on our way to El Salvador that day it was decided that the celebration wouuld be postponed until sometime later. That amount of time was ambiguous, and truthfully I figured that it would just be forgotten. However, leave it to my sweet DH to not forget how important birthdays are to me! Last night he declared that we were going to celebrate my birthday, and asked me where I wanted to go. Well, a few years ago just after some friends of ours' daughter died, I had wanted to take them out to help celebrate my birthday as sort of diversion. We all went to Benihana's, and although I'm not sure if it was really a diversion for the family we were with (what really could be in such a sad situation?!), we had a good time watching our food being cooked at our table, trying to eat with chopsticks, and experiencing something different.

So I decided that we should go to Benihana's again, this time as a family of 5 instead of 4. So off we went. DH was thoughtful and called ahead for a reservation, so we didn't have to wait at all when we got there. We were seated with another family of 4, that appeared to be mom, dad, 1 teenage daughter, and one 8 or 9 year old daughter. They were not very talkative, and actually I thought they didn't seem very happy. At any rate, we didn't interact too much. I was more interested in Grace's reaction to the whole grilling at the table thing. She surprisingly liked the soup, and ate the entire bowl! That was good, because that's about all she ate, with the exeception of my complimentary birthday bowl of chocolate ice cream that she ate at the end of the meal.

So how did she react? Well, really not too much at all. She was interested in watching our chef (I guess that's what you'd call him?), but not overly intersted. I thought she would get excited watching him cook, flipping the spices and trying to entertain the table guests. She wasn't too impressed. Mostly she just ate her soup. The other girls liked it though, and all of us tried sushi. My first time, along with DD1 and DD2's first. DH had had it before. I can't say that I hated it. It was more of a feeling of "why would I order this as it's nothing special" feeling. I think DD1 felt the same way I did. DD2 didn't like it, and even took the salmon off to finish up the one roll she had.

DD1 and DH ended up eating most of the shrimp and steak, and both said they were stuffed. I ate a little shrimp and steak, but mostly chicken. I really liked the fried rice, and the salad. I think although it wasn't the best birthday I've ever had, it was a nice time. We bought an about to be expired mini birthday cake at Miejer to top off the evening, but alas, we didn't even slice it. Everyone was too full, and it was too late by the time got home. So another birthday celebration behind me. The good thing about birthdays is that there'll be another one next year!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

San Salvador Men's prison

One of the most inspiring things that we did while we were in El Salvador was visit a men's prison and share in their worship service with them. We were late arriving, so the inmates were already singing. It was quite moving to watch these men who may be imprisoned for 20 years, worship with such passion. The service was run by prisoners too, so the pastor and the musicians were also prisoners.

In watching and participating in this service, I realized that although these men are imprisoned, they really understand the message of hope and freedom that Jesus brings for all of us. Not just for the priviledged few here in the USA, but for all of his children.

Here's some of that service.

San Salvador Special needs school visit

While we were in San Salvador, we visited a special needs school. I can't remember the name of the school, but it was quite a pleasant place. Evidently it used to be a women's prison, and was converted to this school in the 1970's.

All the children were very well behaved, and seemed happy. The special needs of the children that we saw were pretty mild. It is a public school, but I guess the children travel from all over to go to school here.

One of the classes that we visited was for the 16 to 21 year olds. They were learning how to make enchilladas which were deep fried dough. They were also making little paper bags to be able hold the enchilladas to be able to sell them. Here's a video of that class.



We also visited the music room while we were there. It was pretty pitiful the musical instruments that they had, and showed the need for these children. Here's a video I took while we watched the teacher teach the children.

St. Vincente de Paul Orphanage

We also visited another orphanage that was state owned, but run by sisters from the order of St. Vincent de Paul. This was a very large orphanage compared to the other two that we visited. There were 300 children living here, ages ranging from birth to 12 years old. I guess when the children reached 12, they were sent to other homes specifically for their age. The sister that took us on a tour said that the children get up at 4:30 a.m. everday to start their day!!!

When we first got there, there was a group of 5 and 6 year old girls outside playing. When they saw us, they ran up and started singing and hanging all over some of our group. Here's a video that shows them singing and shows some of the orphanage.



We also got to see where they same little girls slept, along with the 5 year old little boys. Here's a video of that room

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Getting caught up

I know I didn't post like I wanted to while we were in El Salvador. We are back home now, as of late Friday evening. I have a little bit more time, and a lot more bandwidth to download photos and video. So I'll pick up posting on our 3rd day. We visited a home for pregnant teenagers that was supported mostly by Pro Life. There were 7 girls living at the home, and each one had babies. The youngest girl was 11 years old, and had an 18 month old baby!! It was really heartbreaking to see the girls in such a situation where the fathers of the babies were uncles, brothers, fathers, and grandfathers of these girls!!! Most of the girls go back to their homes with their babies when they are ready. The perpetrator has been removed because he is in prison for incest. So the home is safe for the girls. I don't know how long most of the girls stay, but it was refreshing to hear that the girls are not put out of the home just because of having their babies, hitting a certain age, or a certain time period they've been in the home. The director of the home, Geraldine, was very nice and really loves the children. The girls were not overly friendly, but they seemed better off than they would've been without the home. Here's some video that I shot while I was there. The two Salvadorian women in the video were volunteers that were there to train the girls in cosmotology. They own their own salons and come in to help out on their own time. We brought the girls little cosmetic bags filled with personal items, so that what they are opening and looking at in this video.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

2nd Day Out

I know I am a day behind, but with everything that we're doing each day it's hard to post. So this post is about Tuesday.

We left for Si, a La Vida in the morning. It is a home teenage girls that are pregnant. It is a pro life home. We met with director, who was very nice and really cared for the girls and the babies. Her name was Magdelena. It was somewhat of a sad place because the girls were all there because of sad reasons. For instance, the youngest girl was 11 years old, and had a baby that was 18 months old!!! The home, though, was a safe place for the girls and their babies. The babies were beautiful.

Our next stop was Mi Casa orphanage. It is a small orphanage that is really two homes, one for boys and one for girls. It is in the center of the city. The director and his wife run the home. They are a Christian couple that are providing a home setting for the children. We had a wonderful time playing with and interacting with these children. I even played volleyball with a few of them in the backyard!

Next was lunch with the director of Exodo. We were supposed to meet with an official in the government that handles taking applications for adoption to court for finalization, but she was unable to meet with us. We had a very nice, but filling!, lunch with Iris. We were able to ask more questions about Exodo and learn more about the orphanage.

Our last stop for the day was St. Vincente de Paul orphanage. It is a state owned orphanage that is run by nuns. It is VERY large, and well structured. We were very impressed with how this orphanage ran like a well oiled machine. We were able to meet with the 4 and 5 year old girls when we first got on the property. What a blessing that was! These little girls were so cute!!! They even sang impromptu songs for us!

I can't upload any photos because of lack of disk space, so I guess that will have to wait until I get home.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

First Day Out







Sorry I didn't post sooner, but I was just too tired to post anything yesterday. Then we had an early start this morning. So I couldn't post until now.

Yesterday we visited an orphanage call Exodo. It is made up of 4 homes. Each home has house parents and a cook. Two of the homes are for boys and two for girls. Right now they have 47 children living there. They take children as young as 2. The children can stay until they are adults, and have training and can support themselves. It really is a wonderful place, and it's obvious the children are well loved and cared for.

The kids all really liked the Flip, so I took lots of videos of them with it, and they were able to see me play it back right away. It was really fun, but I sure wish I could speak Spanish! It has been so frustrating to not be able to speak to the children beyond hola and adios!!!

Here are a few photos from our visit.

Monday, March 2, 2009

San Salvador Itinerary

For those of you interested. Here's our very flexible itinerary while we are here in El Salvador (BTW, the weather is beautiful here. It's sunny and about 70 degrees right now!):

Sunday- We will be at the airport to pick you up. Return to hotel (about 45 min. from airport)

Monday - ( Breakfast buffet is 6:00-10:30-eat at your leisure). We will meet about 9:30am for an Orientation and time of spiritual preparation to begin the week.

Lunch- We will go to a local mall for lunch (this will give you an idea of where we could eat with a team)

After lunch we will begin the visits to projects and this will continue through Tuesday and Wednesday. Projects that we have planned are:

Visit to Exodo Orphange - this will include a presentation by the Director (sharing vision, goals of the home, structure, etc...time in the individual houses with children and their house parents...I have already spoken to her about the possibility of doing a sort of VBS or children's outreach..she would be very excited about that! The children would love for you to visit their school...where your group in the future (should you decide to take this step) could make a presentation in the school (perhaps drama, mimes, music, puppets...this is a public school, which we hopefully will visit during your time here.

Visit to Orphange San Vicente De Paul - Our team did a project there this week. The children are beautiful and adoptions are available from their home. They currently have a nursery with approximate 30 babies waiting and about 250 other children. Our project this week further confirmed my thoughts that this home probably would not be a good project for a long term commitment...other than visits, perhaps presentations by teams with drama etc and of course the adoption piece would be something worthy of exploration.

Visit to the School where the orphans from Exodo attend exploring options for a future team.

Visit to a small home for girls who are expecting and are all victims of incest. This is the project where you are bringing the cosmetic bags for gifts. This ministry connects us with another organization that makes babies available for adoption. We will need to go together to visit this project...not sure all that's involved or how Grace might connect.

Visit to a worship service inside the prison (Mariona/5,000 inmates) - I think this is an awesome experience and will war m your hearts. While this is not a project connected with orphanges..I would recommend this visit because of the spiritual impact it will have on each of the team. It's truly incredible!

We also have some tour/sightseeing opportunities. Mick is going on one of the tours today with 4 others on our team so he will have a first hand report of all the details.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

We're in San Salvador!

After two days of travel, we are now in San Salvador. We arrived at around 8:45, and got to the hotel around 10:30. The hotel is very nice, and the people that met at the airport were great!! No photos tonight because it's too late, but hopefully I'll take some tomorrow and post them later in the evening.

We talked to each of the girls today too, and they are doing well. So all we need to do is get DH over his sinus infection!!!

Thursday, February 26, 2009

We're headed to El Salvador tomorrow!

So the day has come. We are leaving for Chicago tomorrow, and then on Saturday to Houston, and on Sunday to El Salvador. We are going to El Salvador as part of our Hands of Hope ministry. Our intent is to visit 3 orphananges while we are there. We are looking for the right fit with our ministry to see about partnering with one of the orphanages to support it.

Our ultimate goal is to have a strong connection with the orphanage, where we financially support it, have mission trips there to work on projects, form a bond with the children there, and of course to have an impact on the children of the orphanage by sprirtually supporting them and the staff. It's a lofty goal, but one we feel God is calling us to. I'm excited to go, but a little worried about our daughters, in particular DD2 being homesick. I think she'll be fine, but she is worried about it too. And Gracie is staying with her aunt and uncle. I don't want her to feel abandoned. I want her to know that we're coming back in a week, so we're planning on calling her as often as possible.

I pray that the Lord will protect all of us while we travel, and lead us to the right orphanage and partnership to be able to make a difference in these children's lives.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Play Date






Gracie gets plenty of playtime other children when she goes to daycare two days a week, and to the local YMCA with her daddy while he works there a few hours a week, but I really want her to be able to have girl friends that look like her, and have a similar background as her. So I've been trying to set up play dates with a couple of little girls that are also adopted from China. So far I haven't been too effective at doing so. The last two playdates I set up had to be cancelled because of illness, either mine, theirs or the other mommies.

So I was pretty excited when we actually were able to have a play date with Miss D. Miss D is 19 months old, and has been home with her mommy and daddy for a little less than a year. Their age difference right now makes it a little bit more difficult for them to play together, but I think that in another 6 months or so, that won't be a problem at all. And even with the difference in their ages right now, they had a good time drawing and playing on Gracie's slide. for the hour and a half they were together.

I hope to get a playdate with Miss J set up too, and wouldn't it be cool if Miss G (Grac), Miss J, and Miss D all ended up being friends together??!!

Oh, these photos are courtesy of Miss D's momma.

Friday, February 20, 2009

I'm sick again!

Ok. I figured it was just a matter of time before I caught the latest round of a bug that's running through our family, but darn it, I'm TIRED of all of being sick!!!

On Wednesday, DH was feeling poorly, running a fever, stuffed up nose, the whole bit. He's now to the point of having sinus infection, which for him is typical. And though a sinus infection is not fun, it does mean that he's probably going to get better within a few days or so. Unfortunately, though, I started feeling like I was getting a cold on Wednesday. I didn't feel bad, just like I was getting a cold.

I bought some homeopathic medicine called ColdCalm, thinking that maybe I could catch this thing in the bud before it turned into a full blown cold. Well, yesterday I started feeling really bad. I took the last of my ColdCalm last night, and today I feel even worse. So if the ColdCalm worked, then I can't imagine what I would've felt like had I not taken it. My head is totally stuffed up! I can't breathe, and I feel like doo doo.

I have to say that I'm thankful that if I have to be sick that I'm glad it's now instead of the week of I'm laid off (which is next week), or the week we'll be in El Salvador. So hopefully I'll start feeling better in the next day or so. I'll write more about the trip to El Salvador later, but for now I just want to feel better!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Then again, maybe not

A couple of posts ago I told you all that Gracie was potty trained completely.Well, I'm retracting that slightly. She is still mostly potty trained, but something that's been happening the last couple of nights make me think that maybe she has a reason for waking up at night.

For the last couple of nights, she has been waking up wet. Wet to where I've had to change her pants, her pj's and her cribsheet. So last night we decided to put a diaper on her just in case. Like I mentioned before we don't have pullups, so diapers were the next best thing. I put them on her, and voila! she slept through the entire night! Not once did she wake up crying, calling out for mommy. So we all got a good night's rest. Ohm and she was dry this morning.

So here's my theory: Having the diaper on is her security. She doesn't feel the need to wake up and call out. She can "hold it" until morning. Of course, after just one night doesn't prove my theory, but we'll try the diaper again tonight and see if it makes a difference again. Let's hope so!!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

She's going thru something!

Poor Grace. She is clingy when I'm home to the point of throwing a fit if anyone else tries to hold her or sit with her. She wants to be held alot! Although it's nice to be loved, it's hard to get anything done with a 2 year old hanging on me! Someday I guess I'll look back on these days and miss them because she actually wanted to be around me, but right now it's hard to think of anything but wanting a little bit of me time.

The other thing that she's doing is waking up at night maybe 2 or 3 time screaming. Usually she's fine if I go in and comfort her a little bit or give her a drink of water, but boy it's hard to function when you get woken up so many times a night.

Lastly, she seems to be going through a screaming phase whenever she wants something or doesn't get what she wants. I don't know if she picked this up from daycare, or if she's frustrated that she can't express herself or what. But it sure does put stress on the eardrums.

Anyway,I'm wondering what this stage is all about. Is she going through a normal insecurity phase, or is she feeling insecure for some other reason related to being adopted? I don't know, and probably never will, but I pray that we can all get good rest soon!

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Potty Training Graduate!

I believe I can say without a doubt that Gracie is now totally potty trained! We are done with diapers and into big girl undies without many problems at all! I am so happy to be done with diapers. They are expensive, they are stinky when soiled, and they contribute to the landfill problems.

I'm so proud of Gracie. She has practically potty trained herself. Both of the other girls were well over 3 before they 'got' the whole potty thing. Gracie got it within a couple of weeks, and with another few weeks has been essentially accident free!!

She skipped right over pullups too. We never even bought a one. I did buy her 3 pair of training pants and two plastic coated training pants. She never used the plastic coated ones, and has now moved up to big girl panties or "nonnies" as she calls them.

Of course, there are some downsides to being diaper free. First is that we check out every potty at every store. Second is that when she says she has to potty, you can't really doubt that she does. You have to take her seriously, which when you're travelling in the car can be somewhat inconvenient. For the most part though, I'm just glad to be done with them!

Good job Gracie!!

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Isn't she lovely?



I wanted to post this sooner, but didn't get the photo scanned in. My dad, on the other hand, came through and scanned the copy that I gave him (Thanks Dad!). So I can now post the photos of Gracie from the 2 year old portraits that we had taken before Christmas.

I was so surprised when I saw these at how grown up Gracie looks. She, of course is absolutely gorgeous, and I knew that, but she doesn't look like a baby at all. I guess I hadn't noticed how much Gracie has grown in the past year until I saw these photos. I know that she's supposed to grow up, change and mature, but she's changing so fast! I guess because we missed the first 10 months of her life, it seems even faster.

Anyway, here's my beautiful little girl at two.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Now Gracie is better, and I'm sick!

After 6 days of running a fever, sneezing and coughing all over mommmy and daddy, Gracie is better. Her fever finally broke on Thursday and went back to normal for good. She was left with a cough, but that hasn't bothered her too much. I did give her Delsym one night so she could sleep, but after that she didn't really need anything else.

She stayed home from daycare all week last week. So today she is back at daycare. There's so much that has happened related to having her home sick for the week. First off, she has become Velcro baby permanently attached to mommy. She ONLY wanted mommy to do everthing for her, and as much as I love her, it has been hard. She still wants only mommy, so it's still hard. We're trying to work on letting others do things for her, but in the meantime she just really wants mommy! The other thing that has happened is related to her only wanting mommy. Remember that all week, she'd been sick, and all week, I was the one doing things for her because that's what she wanted. So I got LOTS of coughs and sneezes right in my face! I tried to get her to cover her mouth and nose when she sneezed and and coughed. Sometimes she remembered, and sometimes she didn't. It was those times that she exposed me to whatever she had, and now of course, I have a version of what she had too!

Thankfully, I have not had the fever, but I do have a stuffy nose and a bad cough. Basically feel like doodoo, and DH has it too!

Unfortunately, this was not a good weekend to be sick. We had a houseful of family in town for DD2's birthday party. Fortunately I didn't feel really bad until most of the weekend was over. Yesterday it hit full force!

The weekend was fun, although I wasn't able to spend as much time with family yesterday as I wanted to. We started out with a quick trip to the grocery store to get the necessary supplies for the party. My sister-in-law and DD1 went with me. DD2 wanted hotdogs for luch on Saturday, birthday cake, and chili for dinner. She also wanted "a few birthday decorations", so that was part of what we got too. I rushed home, just as the guests started to arrive, and with the help of my sister, fixed the hot dogs, baked and decorated the cake and got the party started.

We had to cut back on the extent of the celebration this year because of the economy, but it was still fun. After the girls and family members had hot dogs all the women headed to the mall to shop. We gave each of the girls $10 to spend, and off they went. I have to admit that it was somewhat of a challenge for them to find something for a mere $10, but these girls are super shoppers! We were at the mall for 3 hours! Even Gracie went with us. She snoozed on the way there, and the way back, but besides that she was awake enjoying all the shopping fun right along with all the other girls.

After we were all tired out, we headed back home to chili that was lovingly prepared by DH. I have to give him credit for the great chili dinner with all the fixins' because I was just too tired to much of anything except eat. He handled it all from cooking, setting up, and cleaning up. He's the best husband ever!

Unfortunately, DD2's friends were not able to spend the night, but we still had a full house of family and had a great time. DD1 had her friend spend the night.They spent most of the time in her bedroom, but that's to be expected. DD2 played with her cousins, and the rest of us sat around and caught up. It was my oldest brother, his wife, my youngest brother and his wife, one of my sisters, my twin nieces, my nephew and my father. It was fun to catch up and share memories of time past.

Sunday was pretty laid back. I stayed home while DH, DD1 and her friend went to church. My dad, my two brothers, and my sister went to a college basketball game, while my youngest sister-in-law, her kids and I had luch at home. It was just about then that I started feeling very poorly, and decided not to make the trip to visit my nieces, nephews and their children at my oldest sister-in-laws house. So I stayed home while DD2, my youngest sister-in-law and her kids headed out. Gracie and I took a nap. Everyone came back briefly to our house before heading home. And all was quiet at the house again.

I have a short video that I took when we sang happy birthday to DD2, but that's it. I didn't take anymore photos or video. I'll post the video a little later.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Gracie is sick!

Poor baby. She has been running a fever for the last 2 1/2 days, basically since Friday afternoon. Motrin has been controlling it well, but after 6 hours the fever keeps coming back. The highest we've read is 103 degrees, and she's coughing quite a bit. I decided last night that if she wasn't beeling better that I would call the doctor's office today. I called this morning at around 9, and the nurse told me that usually they say that if a fever is present for 3 days that they have the child come in. I asked what the biggest thing they worry about, and she said pneumonia. I don't think she has pneumonia, but tomorrow I'm going to have DH take her in. That is, unless she wakes up fever free, which at this point I don't think is the case. As a matter of fact, it's 10:30 p.m. and she's coughing right now.

I really just think it's a cold, but to be safe most likely she'll be in the doctor's office tomorrow!

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Happy Birthday to You!

Today my baby turns 12 years old! DD2 is 12, can you believe it?! She's so excited about turning 12, that she can hardly stand it. I'm not sure why she is so excited, but maybe it's because she's one step closer to being able to get a cell phone. She is supposed to be able to get a cell phone when she turns 13, like her big sister, but she's working mighty hard to get mom and dad to give and get her one early. I told her that there were several reasons she wasn't going to get one, not the least of which is that she doesn't need one. So maybe that's why.

She had a pretty quiet birthday. We had a fairly big snow here today, and it's VERY cold, so I left work early to make sure I could get home okay. By the time I got home around 4:30, the girls and DH had left for DD1's and DD2's dance classes. So I was home alone. I decided to surprise DD2 by baking her a birthday cake. I had stopped at Dunham Sports to buy her some pre-wrap. For those of you that aren't in the know (like I as up until a week ago or so), pre-wrap is what all the 6th grade girls are using as headbands!

So she came home at 8:30 or so, and was very surprised to see a birthday cake on table just waiting for her to blowout the lighted candles. I asked DD1 to take video, which she did, but you'll see that she's not the most creative videographer there is, and it's pretty lame. But it does show the cake and DD2 well, so I guess that's what's important, I mean that we capture the moment.



The cake was very good. You can see from the video that Gracie was pretty excited to help her sister out with the task of blowing the candles out.

DD2's birthday party is the 23rd, so tonight was just a small celebration to show her how much she's loved, which she is hugely loved! Birthdays are special, and I love to make the girls feel special on their own birthday. This was my way of showing her that.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Skipping Christmas

Okay. I started this big long post about our Christmas and New Year celebrations. When it became clear that I wasn't going to finish it anytime soon, I decided to skip over it for now and come back to it. Otherwise I will probably never blog again, because it's just too overwhelming.

So the really BIG news over the holidays is that Gracie is now fully potty trained! No more diapers. Yeah!!!! She did all this on her own with just a tad bit of coaxing from us by giving her M&Ms when she was successful. She is doing so well, in fact, that last week we went out and bought her big girl panties. Not training pants, but big girl panties. She calls them her "nonenies" meaning undies. Too cute.

Anyway, that's one of the last remnants of babyhood. All that's left now is for her to move out of a crib into a big girl bed. We're not there yet, and I'm not in any hurry at all to get her there.

It's very nice that we no longer have the expense of formula, baby bottles, baby food, diapers and wipes, but they all seemed to disappear so quickly. She's growing up so fast!