BFF's Avi Joy and Sarah out for an evening stroll on Memorial Day Weekend
Sleep this peacefully at night, little buddy!
So pretty in her pink dress. Thanks Cousin Maia!
A typical night at our house....
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Pictures
BFF's Avi Joy and Sarah out for an evening stroll on Memorial Day WeekendSleep this peacefully at night, little buddy!So pretty in her pink dress. Thanks Cousin Maia!
A typical night at our house....
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Round 2 at the doctor, a trip to the zoo, and something really gross...
On Saturday Sarah and Andrew made their first trip to the zoo. We went with the Perrymans and the Sweets. It was so wonderful to be away from the house for the day visiting with friends and not have to think about laundry, dishes, or other kid-related messes. Of course, getting out of the house with all the essential supplies needed for a baby and a toddler is no small task. I've actually learned to pack the night before and still allow 2 hours in the morning to get everyone ready. That way I'll only be 3o minutes late. :) Okay, being on time has never been my strong suite. Sarah's favorite things at the zoo were: the fish (aquariums), the one black goat (not the white ones) at the petting zoo, the mulch near the line for the train, and the snacks in mom's bag. Sarah became quite attached to the black goat for some reason and wouldn't pet any other goat in the fenced area. She would cry and run back to the black goat every time we tried to get her to pet the other ones. Well, I have to backtrack for a second to lead up to the most eventful part of our zoo trip.
On Friday I went back to see my doctor, this time for an allergy-caused sinus infection. She put me on a round of antibiotics and a drug to loosen up the congestion. Friday night my nose started to bleed (not totally uncommon). Michael and I were having a conversation so he followed me to the bathroom. When I took away the kleenex a fat blood clot over 2 inches long came out of my right sinus. This has never happened to me before, so we both freak out a little.
Back to the zoo. I was telling Natasha about the creepy nose bleed when my nose just starts gushing again. She ran with me to the bathroom where my nose just continues to gush. Then, more huge clots came out of my right sinus. Of course, in front of everyone waiting in line to go to the bathroom. You know how well blood in a public place goes over these days! I felt like a leper or some unclean thing. Natasha just jumped right in and helped me clean up. She actually washed and dried my shirt while I waited in the stall. Now that is a true friend! :)
Sarah is growing up so fast now....and it seems like it has accelerated since bringing Andrew home. Her language is still pretty delayed, although the vocabulary she understands seems to be about normal. She is saying a few new words: hi, eye, bow, and bye. Like a typical toddler, she is really into telling us "no." Only, she can't say the actual word, so she just shakes her head instead. And Sarah can take apart our house faster than I can tell her "no." She still loves the role of big sister and she thinks she should be the one to hold and feed her baby.
Andrew continues to keep us on our toes. We are trying to learn to distinguish his different cries and accept the fact that babies sometimes just cry no matter what. The reflux (or Gerd) is better some days than others. He still continues to be fussier at night. God knew what he was doing when he provided me with a night owl for a husband. In a few months most of the reflux and general fussiness should work itself out. He is gaining weight and his face is really filling out. He has such a cute face and I can't wait to see what his smile will look like.
In other family news...our congregation just voted on Sunday to call Michael as an associate pastor at our church. Here is a brief tidbit from Michael's blog that explains a bit of what has gone on in our lives the past 8 months.
In just under eight months, we’ve doubled the size of our family, adding two children under the age of two by way of adoption. As if the first transition wasn’t enough, amidst preparations for our second adoption I was also in search of where the Lord might be leading me (us) for my first call to ordained ministry. We had sleepless nights. Tears were shed, especially as doors began to open in other parts of the country. The distinct opportunity to move became a reality and we had some gut-wrenching decisions to make. In the end, a door was opened to remain in Tulsa and transition into a new, emerging and evolving position that will be much better articulated in hind-sight than it ever will be going forward. It involves ministry to youth, college-age, and young adults in an age where the church universal struggles to articulate and flesh-out what this looks like, but this is another post altogether.
You can check out our church at www.firstchurchtulsa.org (if you want). I'm hoping that after I post a few pictures Andrew will let me get a few hours of sleep.
On Friday I went back to see my doctor, this time for an allergy-caused sinus infection. She put me on a round of antibiotics and a drug to loosen up the congestion. Friday night my nose started to bleed (not totally uncommon). Michael and I were having a conversation so he followed me to the bathroom. When I took away the kleenex a fat blood clot over 2 inches long came out of my right sinus. This has never happened to me before, so we both freak out a little.
Back to the zoo. I was telling Natasha about the creepy nose bleed when my nose just starts gushing again. She ran with me to the bathroom where my nose just continues to gush. Then, more huge clots came out of my right sinus. Of course, in front of everyone waiting in line to go to the bathroom. You know how well blood in a public place goes over these days! I felt like a leper or some unclean thing. Natasha just jumped right in and helped me clean up. She actually washed and dried my shirt while I waited in the stall. Now that is a true friend! :)
Sarah is growing up so fast now....and it seems like it has accelerated since bringing Andrew home. Her language is still pretty delayed, although the vocabulary she understands seems to be about normal. She is saying a few new words: hi, eye, bow, and bye. Like a typical toddler, she is really into telling us "no." Only, she can't say the actual word, so she just shakes her head instead. And Sarah can take apart our house faster than I can tell her "no." She still loves the role of big sister and she thinks she should be the one to hold and feed her baby.
Andrew continues to keep us on our toes. We are trying to learn to distinguish his different cries and accept the fact that babies sometimes just cry no matter what. The reflux (or Gerd) is better some days than others. He still continues to be fussier at night. God knew what he was doing when he provided me with a night owl for a husband. In a few months most of the reflux and general fussiness should work itself out. He is gaining weight and his face is really filling out. He has such a cute face and I can't wait to see what his smile will look like.
In other family news...our congregation just voted on Sunday to call Michael as an associate pastor at our church. Here is a brief tidbit from Michael's blog that explains a bit of what has gone on in our lives the past 8 months.
In just under eight months, we’ve doubled the size of our family, adding two children under the age of two by way of adoption. As if the first transition wasn’t enough, amidst preparations for our second adoption I was also in search of where the Lord might be leading me (us) for my first call to ordained ministry. We had sleepless nights. Tears were shed, especially as doors began to open in other parts of the country. The distinct opportunity to move became a reality and we had some gut-wrenching decisions to make. In the end, a door was opened to remain in Tulsa and transition into a new, emerging and evolving position that will be much better articulated in hind-sight than it ever will be going forward. It involves ministry to youth, college-age, and young adults in an age where the church universal struggles to articulate and flesh-out what this looks like, but this is another post altogether.
You can check out our church at www.firstchurchtulsa.org (if you want). I'm hoping that after I post a few pictures Andrew will let me get a few hours of sleep.
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Saturday, May 12, 2007
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
What just happened?
(This is a "before and after" story - I started this post yesterday/Wednesday.)
Have you ever had times in your life where you just have to shake your head and ask "what just happened?!" It's only Wednesday, but this might go down in our record book as the l-o-n-g-e-s-t week ever for our family. To start off, our new son is getting all his zzz's during the day and virtually none at night. So, after 3 weeks, we are exhausted. He seems to have bad stomach cramps at night and he vomits and spits-up frequently between 11pm and 4am. After trying 3 different formulas (including soy) thinking that it would solve the problem, we found out from his doctor that he has reflux. We can go back to using milk-based formula. Hopefully with some new strategies and reflux medicine it will resolve our night time issues. So, Monday night I went to bed around 10:30pm and laid in bed for about an hour thinking that I had a really bad tension headache and stress stomach ache. Then the vomiting started - 14 + hours long. Somewhere in that 14 hours the fever and chills began. At the same time, Michael was dealing with Andrew's vomiting and stomach cramps (we hadn't been to see his doctor yet to know it was the reflux). At 4am Michael had to get some sleep, so I took care of Andrew between my own visits to the bathroom. By 11:30am on Tuesday I realized that I had to go to the doctor myself. Michael took the baby to work with him and Sarah went to Mother's Day Out. (Michael also had to take the baby by himself to the baby shower our work was having for us.) My mom drove me to the doctor to get a shot of Phenergan (sp?), which stopped the nausea, but also made me pass out until around 11:00am today. Thankfully my parents took Andrew last night so that we all could get some decent sleep. The icing on the cake has been Sarah's extra messy diapers. She has had really nasty ones on and off for a few days now, but it seems to be worsening. This afternoon she woke up way too soon from her nap. Determined to let her cry herself back to sleep, I didn't attend to her right away. After a while I realized she wasn't going to stop crying. When I went in to check on her there was a mess all over her crib.....and her hands. She had put her hands down her diaper! There's one more part of the story that makes it just really gross. Sarah is very attached to her toothbrush and sometimes we let her have it just to stop the whining. Well, the toothbrush was laying right in the middle of the mess!
Since we have been home with Sarah, so many people (well-meaning, I'm sure) have told us how easy we've had it with Sarah. We've often been told we don't know what real parents go through. So, for everyone that has teased us over the past 8 months....let it be known, we've just been schooled!!! (ha, ha) I'm sure we'll laugh about this......someday! Well, I'm off to finish boiling toothbrushes (don't worry - I threw Sarah's away) and washing bed linens.
Thursday.... A new day!!
Ok, I think we can breathe a little easier now. I'm back on my feet, Sarah's diapers are better, and we just gave Andrew his first dose of medicine. Hopefully we'll all have a better night's sleep. Despite the illness and sleepless nights, everything else is going well. Both kids are healthy and beautiful. Sarah loves, loves, loves her baby brother. We have not had any jealousy issues since we left the hospital. She showers Andrew with kisses and likes to press her cheek against his and say "ahh." I really thought that bringing a baby into our home would make Sarah regress a little bit, like wanting to take bottles again, but it has actually made her grow up even more. She is asserting her independence a little more each day. Of course we are getting to see lots of two year old behaviors in her (she is now 22 months). Somebody please tell me the whining stops at age 3! :-) Andrew is also a growing boy. Despite loosing his lunch daily (the reflux thing) he managed to gain 1.3 pounds in two weeks. He is now an 8 pound boy. He is about to outgrow his newborn clothing already. Michael and I are both looking forward to about the third month, when things settle into more of a routine and we start to see smiles and personality. Newborns are hard to read.
That's about all the time and energy I have for blogging right now. We have all these wonderful pictures of the kids to share...but it'll have to wait for another night.
Have you ever had times in your life where you just have to shake your head and ask "what just happened?!" It's only Wednesday, but this might go down in our record book as the l-o-n-g-e-s-t week ever for our family. To start off, our new son is getting all his zzz's during the day and virtually none at night. So, after 3 weeks, we are exhausted. He seems to have bad stomach cramps at night and he vomits and spits-up frequently between 11pm and 4am. After trying 3 different formulas (including soy) thinking that it would solve the problem, we found out from his doctor that he has reflux. We can go back to using milk-based formula. Hopefully with some new strategies and reflux medicine it will resolve our night time issues. So, Monday night I went to bed around 10:30pm and laid in bed for about an hour thinking that I had a really bad tension headache and stress stomach ache. Then the vomiting started - 14 + hours long. Somewhere in that 14 hours the fever and chills began. At the same time, Michael was dealing with Andrew's vomiting and stomach cramps (we hadn't been to see his doctor yet to know it was the reflux). At 4am Michael had to get some sleep, so I took care of Andrew between my own visits to the bathroom. By 11:30am on Tuesday I realized that I had to go to the doctor myself. Michael took the baby to work with him and Sarah went to Mother's Day Out. (Michael also had to take the baby by himself to the baby shower our work was having for us.) My mom drove me to the doctor to get a shot of Phenergan (sp?), which stopped the nausea, but also made me pass out until around 11:00am today. Thankfully my parents took Andrew last night so that we all could get some decent sleep. The icing on the cake has been Sarah's extra messy diapers. She has had really nasty ones on and off for a few days now, but it seems to be worsening. This afternoon she woke up way too soon from her nap. Determined to let her cry herself back to sleep, I didn't attend to her right away. After a while I realized she wasn't going to stop crying. When I went in to check on her there was a mess all over her crib.....and her hands. She had put her hands down her diaper! There's one more part of the story that makes it just really gross. Sarah is very attached to her toothbrush and sometimes we let her have it just to stop the whining. Well, the toothbrush was laying right in the middle of the mess!
Since we have been home with Sarah, so many people (well-meaning, I'm sure) have told us how easy we've had it with Sarah. We've often been told we don't know what real parents go through. So, for everyone that has teased us over the past 8 months....let it be known, we've just been schooled!!! (ha, ha) I'm sure we'll laugh about this......someday! Well, I'm off to finish boiling toothbrushes (don't worry - I threw Sarah's away) and washing bed linens.
Thursday.... A new day!!
Ok, I think we can breathe a little easier now. I'm back on my feet, Sarah's diapers are better, and we just gave Andrew his first dose of medicine. Hopefully we'll all have a better night's sleep. Despite the illness and sleepless nights, everything else is going well. Both kids are healthy and beautiful. Sarah loves, loves, loves her baby brother. We have not had any jealousy issues since we left the hospital. She showers Andrew with kisses and likes to press her cheek against his and say "ahh." I really thought that bringing a baby into our home would make Sarah regress a little bit, like wanting to take bottles again, but it has actually made her grow up even more. She is asserting her independence a little more each day. Of course we are getting to see lots of two year old behaviors in her (she is now 22 months). Somebody please tell me the whining stops at age 3! :-) Andrew is also a growing boy. Despite loosing his lunch daily (the reflux thing) he managed to gain 1.3 pounds in two weeks. He is now an 8 pound boy. He is about to outgrow his newborn clothing already. Michael and I are both looking forward to about the third month, when things settle into more of a routine and we start to see smiles and personality. Newborns are hard to read.
That's about all the time and energy I have for blogging right now. We have all these wonderful pictures of the kids to share...but it'll have to wait for another night.
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