Catching up

It's been a while since I've updated the blog with actual writing, so I thought I'd take the time to do that today, and also add a bunch of long overdue photos.

I can definitely see now why they make cameras with WiFi connections on them, because almost all of the quick updates I do are from my phone, and it takes longer for me to get photos downloaded to our computer and then uploaded to the blog.

We've been busy with many things over the past month or so since I've actually written a post. 

I fell behind blogging in March getting ready for D's adoption day and other things we had going on. We had icky weather the day before the court hearing so we weren't even sure what would happen if they cancelled court that day. 

However, the weather cleared and the we had the hearing; D officially and legally became a part of our family on March 11th. Almost all of our immediate family were able to join, us, and all made it home fine after driving on some not so nice roads.

D was awake and happy before the proceedings and serious
during the proceedings. He doesn't usually wake up that
early in the morning, so he did really well for having been
woken up our of a sound sleep to make it to our court hearing.

We celebrated with handing out chocolate cupcakes with white frosting with sprinkles and going out to eat at IHOP afterwards.

We took a belated 10th wedding anniversary trip to Paris - it was nice to get away and have a special vacation. We didn't go to place we'd been to before, but picked some new places to visit. We were in town for the V-E Day celebration; evidently the Polish president was in town too. We really enjoyed the military museum and barely scratched the surface there.

There are still plenty of places to see there and other day trips to do also. We probably won't be back there any time soon as we have other countries we'd like to visit. For our next big trip, we plan to go to Scandinavia -- maybe with D coming with! That will definitely be an adventure!!

Fontainebleau Palace

Tuileries Garden

We celebrated our first Mother's and Father's days as parents this year. We were home for Mother's Day and visited Chris' dad and step-mom for Father's Day. It's been hard to believe how quickly time flies when you have a little one around. We were thinking about D's birth parents on those days and hoping that they were doing OK.

We've snuck in two trips to North Dakota - once for a cousin's confirmation and for another cousin's high school graduation. It was fun to hang out with everyone, just too bad the trips had to be so short!

D was 10 months old in June and he was 29 lbs, 9 oz and 30.5 inches tall.

Chris has had his usual work traveling and volleyball tournaments to go to for the past few months. D and I went with to a volleyball tournament a few weekends ago. Evidently D and I were talking to Hugh McCutcheon and we didn't even realize who we were talking to, which Chris and the other coach thought funny. :)

10 months

We also had our annual trip to see the Saint Louis Cardinals play the Texas Rangers with my family. It was D's first time at a ball game. We had an hour rain delay and the Cardinals lost, but D did really well and it was mostly a nice weekend getaway. It was also Grandma Nea's birthday, so D got his first taste of angel food cake - he seemed to like that a lot better than the chocolate cake he's had before, so maybe I know what his 1st birthday cake will be. :)

Through all of the usual daily stuff, we've been in the process of buying an acreage. It's actually one I mentioned back in April... yes, April. We first saw it on April 7th, and put our first bid in on April 13th. We wrote an offer that was accepted on June 4th. We listed our house on the market June 12th and have had a few people look at it.

10 months

We thought stuff was going well with purchasing the new house, but the home inspection had a few issues come up that we weren't anticipating, so we're still not sure if we're able to come to an agreement on purchasing it. We'd hoped to have all of this figured out by now. :(  Thankfully our house hasn't sold yet, so we're not homeless! There are still not a lot out there for houses we're interested in, so who knows what will happen.

Mother's Day

Father's Day

I can definitely say it's a little harder to baby-proof a house when I want to have stuff looking nice for showing it to potential buyers. I will be glad when this process is over and we've found our new home and sold our old one (even if we don't get the house we're currently in negotiations on).

I've enjoyed living close to family and having good neighbors, so leaving to go to a new house further away (20 minutes, so not really that far away), is something I'm not looking forward to adjusting to, but we are ready to be done with the ups and downs of looking at, buying and selling houses!

D has been really busy and a few pictures below show that. He's investigating things and it's fun to see his looks when he's trying to figure something out or has discovered something new...

Eating is such hard work.

Photoshop fun...

Helping me with laundry... it would have been nice to unload
the folded laundry basket upstairs in our bedrooms instead
of in the basement. ;)

He's supposed to be on the other side of the
Exersaucer -- he crawled through -- little stinker!

Window washer -- the window was so wet from spit,
it was running down the front door

Window washer -- notice the wet shirt from drooling/spitting

Fun with Aunt Cara at the Cardinals game

 

Long update

It's been crazy this past month and I've not done much updating on the blog. Here are a few pictures and updates from our past month or so.

In mid-December, we borrowed an ExerSaucer from some friends and D has really loved playing in that -- he really gets it moving and moves it quite a bit from where it originally started. He's pretty close to needing the seat to be moved up one click.

On January 11th, when I picked up D from daycare, he'd learned how to blow raspberries...which, was really fun at feeding time when he decided to show us his new skill while being fed squash or some other pureed food! Thankfully  he quickly grew out of this. It was really hard to keep a straight face and not laugh at him, which of course just encouraged him to spit more! He was having such fun blowing raspberries and feeling the food in his mouth. :)

We had our 3rd and final Christmas celebration this weekend.

D turned 23 weeks old on January 14th. He is such a character and definitely keeps us laughing at his antics. 

After much drooling and chewing on everything in site, at 5 1/2 months, both of D's bottom teeth poked through on January 16th. He's pretty laid back, and was just eating a little less than normal when these teeth finally came through. He's back to eating normal, and not drooling as much, so no more teeth in sight yet... I've tried to get a picture, but he's a little maniac, so no such luck yet.

I'd been seeing what D did with a sippy cup for a few days, and on January 18th, he did actually drink 1 1/2 ounces out of one... however, he's not done much with one since, and pushes it away. 

D also got a new outfit for Christmas that went with his 'costume' from daycare, so we retook his picture with his costume on for the full effect. :)

We had our last post-placement visit with our social worker on the 24th. So now, it's for her to get her report in and up to us to finish our monthly reporting and then get a court date to finalize D's adoption. Hopefully that will happen soon!

Chris and D had their first overnight without me this past weekend. Chris said that D learned how to play peek-a-boo with him this weekend. He's also discovered his toes and has fun hanging onto his feet.

Every year, we have a girls shopping weekend, and so I left Friday night for the trip. The girls found out that I'd never had a bachelorette party, and surprised me by throwing me one 10 1/2 years after the fact. Thank you girls for the surprise and the weekend. It was a lot of fun! :)

We did have quite the time on Sunday though coming back from our weekend. Three of us rode together and came back in the ice storm that hit the Midwest  We drove very slowly and arrived 'home' after about 6 hours, for a normal 4 hour trip. We made three stops and averaged about 40 miles per hour. However, when we got to the driver's house, our other two cars were iced in, so Chris nicely came and picked us up and brought us back home. Chris and I were back home around 7:30 that night, so it was a very long day. 

Both D and I were sick before I left for the weekend, but I got worse Sunday night/Monday. I took D to the doctor on Tuesday. He has asthmatic bronchitis and the possible start of an ear infection, so we were sent home with steroids and antibiotics. Chris was gone Monday morning through Thursday night.

We've both stayed at home for 5 days now, and it's driving me a little stir crazy. However, it's been super cold, along with more snow storms, and neither D nor I really needed or wanted to be out in the cold. D's still struggling with breathing/coughing, but not as bad, so we'll see if we need to go back to the doctor tomorrow. He's not supposed to be around people with colds while on the one medication (which, I'm sick, but there's nothing to do about that!), so we skipped church this morning and won't be going to the Super Bowl party tonight either.

I must say that being house-bound for the past 5 days hasn't helped me from going a little crazy. When I was in Walmart a few weeks ago, I'd seen that they have the spring stuff out -- vegetable and flower seeds, pots, potting soil, etc... That doesn't help when it's still so far away from when we can plant! I can't wait for spring to get here so that things start to green up again. Winter is definitely not my favorite season. I tried starting seeds indoors for a few years, but whenever I tried to harden them for going outside they died, so I don't do that any more! I can't help but think about our visit to Keukenhof gardens outside of Amsterdam in 2009 while waiting for spring to come... 

We're also thinking about buying an acreage, so while I've been sick and not up to doing anything truly constructive, I've had plenty of time to think -- Chris would say too much time to think! ;) Living on an acreage has always been our goal, but now we're starting to seriously think about it and look at some places to get an idea on prices and what you get for your money.

There are so many things to consider when changing our home situation that I'd never really thought about, and the pros and cons associated, even between things like being located on a hard surface or gravel road.  Moving to an acreage is a big step, especially since we've both been used to living in the city for the past number of years. I've not lived in the country for about 27 years and Chris about 18 years. I don't think we can get a pizza delivered to the country.. hmmmm......

We have found an acreage that we both like the layout of the land, outbuildings and house. It's a little further away from the town we've been living in than I'd prefer, but it's the only house and land that we've liked. I've not seen a lot of homes for sale out there that have what we're looking for, that can easily be remodeled and are in our price range. This old one we like is lacking a few things that we want, but it has possibilities, and I definitely like to dream!

The house does need a bit of updating... OK, well, more than a bit (new windows, furnace, A/C, kitchen, probably a bathroom addition, add attached garage... oh, did I mention the old knob and tube wiring??). Yes, I'm sure some of you are laughing hysterically right now, but if we can get it for the right price, we'd like to get it... It's not like we'd redo all of that list at once anyway, cause it's not like we play the lottery or anything. :) 

It's been for sale since June, so hopefully by the time we make up our minds and get our finances in order, and see if we'd really like to go for it, it will still be for sale. Of course, that's saying the seller would accept our low offer...hmmmm.... now I'm laughing at myself cause we probably are a little bit crazy! :) Oh well, it's fun to dream and if this house gets sold to someone else, than I'll find another one to dream about!

Well, enough about houses... probably should work at picking up/cleaning ours so that if we do find something and buy it, our current one won't be too disorganized!

Hope everyone has a good day and week to come!

Marathon!!

September 22-24... We went down to the Quad Cities with some close friends this weekend to go to the Quad Cities Marathon.

Chris had been training with a friend for the Marathon and although that training was greatly thrown off after the birth of D, he decided to still run. Our friend hurt his knee and couldn't do the Marathon, but was able to do the 5K. Chris did really well and was pleased with his results, for not having trained much for the previous month and a half. Here are a few pictures.

We also had a nice supper with D's birth family while we were down there. He had grown quite a bit since they'd last seen him!

TPR & 2 week checkup

D's birth parents signed the TPR last Wednesday, and the 96 hour waiting  period expired Sunday morning. We are happy and excited we get to raise D!!

D had his checkup yesterday and he's doing great - already up to 8 lbs. 11 oz!!

Hard

Sorry to those looking for an upbeat post - this definitely isn't one of those, so you might not want to keep reading.
Adoption is a hard road for all involved. Nothing specific happened today, these are just thoughts I've had for a while...
It's hard thinking that how we might become parents is through someone else's pain. Our joy - their grief.
It's hard to take care of a little one and not become attached, especially not knowing if he's going to come home with us or not. I mean, how do you not get attached to a cutie pie you're caring for??
It's hard watching birth parents with their little boy and seeing them struggle to say goodbye each time.  I wish circumstances were different for them.
Yes, I realize that would mean that we wouldn't be able to raise D, or any future adopted child, without someone else experiencing some kind of loss.
I know, we don't live in a perfect world, but a broken one. I just really wish it weren't broken right now and that none of us would have to suffer heartache and loss - under any circumstances.
We'd hoped to be coming home tomorrow either with D in tow or without him. Right now E&D still haven't signed TPR and won't until Wednesday some time... So, we're going to try and get D in for his one week checkup down here tomorrow.
Do we go home on Monday as originally planned (which was supposed to be the earliest date that TPR revocation would have been over)... do we stay until next Sunday when the new revocation period is done...
Ahhh... I wish I had some quick and easy answers right now and not so many doubts and fears, but I don't ...
Yes, I'm praying for peace, understanding, wisdom and patience, and thank you to those that are praying for us - we definitely need and appreciate it. I know Chris wishes I wasn't such a pessimist!
We're praying for our families and friends too, as we know this waiting period is hard on you too.
I'm sorry family and friends that we don't know what to tell you about our current situation.
My next post won't be such a downer, just needed to share some things on my heart right now.
And ok, I'm whining a bit, cause I do miss the comfort of our bed (hotel sheets just seem to not fit the beds very well), our kitties and the familiarity of home!

Discharged and more!



D was discharged into our care on Wednesday. 


At the hospital the day D was born.

We had a relatively uneventful evening back at the hotel. Nicole took the late night feeding while Chris did the next two in the morning. Chris had originally agreed to do the late night one because he thought beach volleyball was on, but then we realized it wasn't, so he decided to back out.

D has been a great little boy so far, so quiet and a good eater! Nicole has been praising the bottles we're using (Playtex VentAire) because they let so little air into D's tummy. Of course, nobody told Chris (kind of) so he thought he was a failure at burping. We also like the gDiapers we're using.

E & D were planning on signing the Termination of Parental Rights (TPR) on Thursday, but unfortunately for us, that didn't happen. They reassured us that they hadn't changed their minds about the adoption, and have rescheduled the meeting with their lawyer for Wednesday. It's definitely hard to wait for the TPR signing and the waiting period after that.




They stopped over on Thursday night for a little bit.  We had planned on staying in town with D until the TPR revocation period was over, but now that might be a lot longer than we had first hoped (if they sign on Wednesday, the revocation period would be over on Sunday, Aug. 19th), so plans might be changing as to how long we are down here. We hadn't wanted to bring D home until he was 'ours', but that's a long time to be in a hotel with limited resources with a newborn, equally hard if we have him home with us and they change their minds! Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers - they are definitely appreciated!




In the car seat with my cute hat,
waiting to go back to the hotel.

Thursday night was a little rougher than Wednesday. Nicole did not get nearly as much sleep, so a nap was in order Friday afternoon. D also had his first stroller ride today. We walked around the Northpark Mall, the first "exercise" either of us has had this week. ;-)  He slept through the whole thing, but was ready to eat when we got back to the hotel.

Sorry it's been so long since we've updated, but like we said, somebody has been keeping us busy!  Here's a few recent pics.

Sorry also about the weird formatting -- still trying to get used to how this blog site works!

After my bath - all happy again!

 



All snuggled up in the sleep sack.





It's a boy!

Baby D was born yesterday morning! Here he is after his first bath. :-)

He's supposed to be eating, but he'd just rather sleep at the moment!

Due date update

E let us know today that she will be induced August 6th if she doesn't go into labor before that!

So we'll be busy this weekend finalizing some baby preparations, and probably fitting in another movie too, before we'd need to find a babysitter for such adventures.  :-)

We saw "The Dark Knight Rises" last night and enjoyed that. They lost power at the beginning of the movie, so it started late, but I'm guessing it was because of a lightening strike, so that was ok! We got about 1/2" and it was definitely needed.

A Wedding, A Vacation and Back to Reality

Last weekend my cousin Andrew got married near Milwaukee. We had fun visiting with extended family that we've not seen in a while, and probably won't get to see again for another year. Glad almost all of us were able to make it!

Congrats Andrew and Cassie!

We were able to sneak a family photo in after the wedding before we went to the reception, with Lake Michigan in the background.

We also enjoyed visiting Lion's Den Gorge Nature Preserve. We saw some awesome views of Lake Michigan, hiked on a few trails and enjoyed the cool waters of the lake.

The only thing that could have made it better was for it to be a little cooler and the humidity not so high!

The Baskin-Robbins ice cream afterwards helped cool us down though. :) It's probably a good thing we don't have one near us.

We also enjoyed going to a Brewers/Cardinals baseball game. I'd been to the old stadium (County Stadium), but not to the new one (Miller Park). It was a nice end to a great weekend when the Cardinals scored in the 9th inning to win the game! We had fun cheering and perhaps a few of us had hoarse voices the next day. ;)

We ended our long weekend by meeting with E&D. It was our second meeting and it was good to get to know each other a little more. None of us have been through adoption before so this is a new situation for all of us. For me, meeting with them alleviated some of my fears and concerns; hopefully it did the same for them about us. I know there are many things to work out now and in the future, as we're doing an open adoption, so good communication is key.

I'm definitely a person that likes to be in control of things, and adoption is something I can't control, so it really tests me! I know all of this is in God's hands, but it's so hard sometimes to trust that He knows best. Prayers are definitely welcome for all of us! E's still regularly having contractions, so, who knows when our little guy will show up! We do finally have a name picked out, but we're not sharing! ;)

It's back to the 'real' world this week. Laundry, bills, yard work and my bookkeeping office work. There are plenty of little home projects/organizing that I'd like to get finished and work on before we're a family of three, not to mention keeping up with the regular weekly chores. I've been a little stressed trying to make sure home and work lives are in order before E gives birth and we're away from home for a while.

It's also back to exercising and dieting for me. About a month ago, I'd started regularly exercising again and eating proper portions and had lost about 4 pounds. But, I got busy with baby preparations and vacations, so I let exercising slide, so it's back to the grindstone for me! I know I will like the results and I have to keep reminding myself that!

Chris is still training for the 1/2 or full marathon and is still mostly sticking to his running training schedule in addition to the 2-man sand volleyball games.

I suppose I should quit procrastinating with the blog and get to work!! Hope everyone is doing well.

Changing Plans & Adoption

It's been a crazy day today! We've been waiting to share our news personally with some extended family members that we planned to see in the upcoming week, but they might find out sooner, don't be mad you haven't found out yet, we were waiting to tell in person!! :)

We were picked by E and D to parent their baby boy, due August 12th. We got to meet them June 18th and we were really nervous, but excited to meet them. Well, this morning at 6:30, Chris calls and said that D had let him know that E was in labor as of 1:30 a.m.!!! I really wasn't awake when Chris called me, so I was confused for a moment before it clicked which E & D he was talking about. I think that's the fastest I've gotten out of bed at 6:30 in the morning.

Chris has been in Ohio for the USA Volleyball Juniors Nationals competition since Tuesday and was supposed to come back late Saturday. So, he's making plans to be back in Iowa late tonight or early Friday morning. Good luck on your remaining matches girls! He was able to catch a ride back with some other competing team's parents from Iowa. Thanks a bunch!!

I was going to go with my parents for a long weekend to visit New York City, driving to Chicago today for my flight to NYC tomorrow (Friday) morning... well, that obviously isn't happening now!! I hope they have lots of fun in my place!

I spent the morning doing a lot of frantic, last minute changing plans and planning for being gone for baby boy's birth! I was definitely scrambling to get everything done and packing/re-packing for the soon-to-be 3 of us... oh yeah, and getting the child seat in the car... did I mention there were heat indexes in the upper 90s to 100s while I was installing the child seat? Hmmm... do they make air conditioned garages?? ;-)

The doctors were able to stop E's early labor -- she's about 33 1/2 weeks -- so, now we have to wait for the little one to decide when he wants to make his appearance! :)

Hope everyone is able to keep cool and hydrated.