About Us

Monday, December 31, 2007

Thank you 2007!

man oh man, a nice wind storm is blowing out the old 2007 And blowing in the new 2008 season. hehe.. I know, cheezy, but fun to say when the wind storm is really whipping it up out there.

Happy New Year.

Let 2008 be the year of your dreams come true. 2007 was for us!

sure, there were bad happenings in 2007 on several fronts (even up to the last minute), but I won't let that get me down anymore. 2008 is full steam ahead without any resolutions, except to enjoy what we do have.

Love of a little girl in our lives!

Saturday, December 29, 2007

my beautiful bumbo baby


she got this for Christmas from us. Of course we had to open it for her (out of the box and not wrapped, hehe)...



She loved it and still does.


Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Happy 3 months my baby girl

Don't fuss at me, but I don't have any pictures uploaded to post yet. BUT, I have to wish my baby girl a Happy 3 month Birthday.

She is growing fast, but is dealing with having a head cold. Yuck. I feel for her. She is not running a fever, but is a crank-butt. I just want to hold her 24/7. I asked my mother-in-law to watch her here at home tomorrow instead of sending her to the sitters house. I want her to have a nice calm day and plus she will have one more day to help recover before heading back to the sitters. The doc's office said we don't give her anything, just let it runs it's course. We had to lift her mattress up on one end and added a humidifier to her room. She is sitting on daddy's lap watching the doggies play on the floor. She will recover. As will Dh and I from our head cold/sinus issues too. We all feel kinda yucky. MIL seems to be ok though.

Ok, Christmas was a blast. Julia cleaned up on the toys and cash. OMG. Her piggy bank is rich!

Lets put it this way, She got so many toys that I had to go out and buy some batteries. Fun.

Ok, I got several great gifts too. DH got me a new palm pilot. Sweet. But what I most wanted and got was an iPod nano (4 g). I am charging it now and am working on finding the install instructions for the music and photos.

DH got a Wii game and several blueray dvd's, a cardinals calendar and a Wii rechargable battery pack. He also got some cash too. Nice.

Ok, off to help give cranky-butt a bath and feed her.


see you all later.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Prayers to all the IF cyclers and perspective Adoptive parents

This is the hardest season for many who are trying to have a baby through fertility treatments and those that are on the waiting list or searching for a potential birth family to be matched with.

When I was doing treatment cycles with the RE (reproductive endocrinologist), I always dreaded the holiday season. I just could not get into it. I do 3/4 of the shopping needed for nieces and nephews so it was something I did dredge through each year. Don't get me wrong, I am appreciative of my friends and family and the gifts they gave, but there was always something missing.

I feel for you, all of you, that are still out there trying to grow your family in one way or another. I know you want to just curl up in bed to a really bad movie (non-IF/adoption of course), but we know many of you have to put on that smile and go do the wifely thing and try to celebrate.

Several years I celebrated with a drink or two in my hands to help dull the pain of being childless at that point in time in my life. Please don't feel alone, like you are the only one out there in this pain. We IF'ers and perspective adoptive parents know that there is a quiet community of fellow sisters out there that really do understand your pain. (I will always be infertile without a uterus now. I also have one embryo in the cryo-lab waiting for a gestational surrogate. )

I worried that the pain would never go away. It took many years of heartaches, miscarriages and pain to get to a point of having a sense of joy. Please don't give up hope. I know, some may say "whatever, she has a baby now so why would she say this", but I have been there and let me tell you sometimes you won't see the light at the end of the tunnel during the Holiday Season. The waiting sucks and the worries can drive one insane. Please lean on me and your fellow sisterhood that does understand where you are. I admit that what I was trying to conceive and while waiting to adopt sometimes I needed to hear those stories of success to know it really can happen for us. We would reach our ultimate goal of becoming parents.

I say my prayers for all of you each day. I say a prayer for those trying to add to their families too. Maybe DH and I will be there again one day soon when we try to have a second child.

May you have some warmth in your hearts knowing we are here for you.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

oh where has the time gone?

by day of the month, Julia is 12 weeks old. 3 months. Her Birth-day is the 27th of the month, but 12 weeks has already passed on days of the months. Amazing. I would predict that she is weighing in around 12 or 13 lbs now. I'll have to do the home scale measurement since she does not go back to the doc until Jan 28 or so.

Her recent milestones are as follows.

She is ticklish. If I tickle her under her arms on her sides, she wiggles back and forth if I go side to side. Well, tonight I did that and she started to giggle really hard. DH and I and my MIL (who lives with us now) all laughed out loud. It was so cute. I wish I had the video camera on her when she did that.

Julia is also starting to grab at things and grasp a hold of them. Like the toys on her Jumperoo. She sat there 2 nights ago and reached her hand out and put her fingers out and then wrapped them around the bead on the slide bar. I asked my MIL to watch her do that and she could not believe Julia is doing this already.

Julia has officially grown out of her newborn clothes about 2 weeks ago and is now starting to fit very snug in her 0-3 month button up sleepers. Almost too snug that we might have to go with 3 or 3-6 month sleepers. She is not fat, just very very long. Heck, when she went in the day after Thanksgiving, she was already 23 inches long. I swear DH and I will be looking up at her to point our finger at her in a moment of discipline. She will be taller than both of us one day, I predict that.

Last night we went to South County Mall to see Santa. The line was long at 6:35 pm, but we got joined in to wait. DH had to buy 2 gifts from stores there so while he shopped, Julia and I waited as the line inched closer to Santa. Well, 1 hour and 20 minutes later, we finally got up to see him. Julia was content and wide eyed. She did so well thanks to being so young in age. Santa even remarked that she did so well for 3 months old. We had to do the pose over after they printed because the lady helper had her hand in the frame. LOL Next year, Julia will wear a dark dress, why? because she blended in with Santa's outfit too well. It was hard to see her dress.

We need to do another night of shopping Maybe tomorrow night or Sunday. Then I will spend most of the day on Monday (holiday for me) wrapping. I always wait until the last minute to wrap. Yes, I procrastinate, but I am a very good wrapper of presents so I don't mind. Quick and good. I even like to hand make my bows.



Ok, I hope you all have a wonderful intro into the Christmas Holiday Season. To those that shop last minute like me, I feel your regrets for not shopping earlier.

oh, I forgot to mention, our social worker called me today to do our 3 month post placement phone interview. It was great to talk to her. I actually miss the close contact we had from when we signed with the agency in the Spring this year up to just post placement after Julia's birth. I felt as though we talked with our social worker almost daily by email then and if not then by phone. Now, we are lucky if we chat by email or phone maybe once every 3 weeks or so. I need to mail her one of our picture Christmas cards. LOL procrastination again.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

12 years later, I still miss you, dad.........

December 15, 1995. The day my dad died from the evil grips of cancer. He was a young 49 years old. He worked hard all his life and raised a wonderful family (me, my brother and sister) and sadly lost his battle after 3 months of chemo and radiation. He was diagnosed stage 4 cancer in September 1995 with lung, liver and bone cancer. He did the chemo and radiation for comfort purposes. We cherished each moment we had with him, especially after his diagnosis.

My dad loved to go fishing out at Bush wildlife ponds. He loved to go camping down in Lesterville MO at Riversedge campgrounds and Twin Rivers campgrounds. He loved to get his lawn chair and cooler and go sit in the river to watch the drunks float by to the smiley face. Riversedge was the stop sign b4 the smiley face on the Black River floating. We used to go canoeing many many times on that same river when I was a youngster. I loved going fishing with him too.

The night he died in our home we grew up in, neighbors, friends and family came over to our house and we built a bonfire in our backyard. Yes, in the City of St. Louis in Shaw neighborhood. He did not want us to grieve his death, but to party and have fun like he would have wanted us to at a regular party. Celebrate his life he had and remember the good times we had. We did that. In fact, the local police department officers we knew joined in with us at the bonfire.

A plaque My dad had hanging in the kitchen in our house over on Flad Ave read:

I'd rather be fishing.

I can see him now, perched back in his lawn chair, cooler of beer at his side, rod and reel in the river fishing for catfish while still watching the drunk floaters going down the river. I will always see him like this. Happy and enjoying his time of relaxation.

I love you dad and I still miss you so much. Julia will get to know you by pictures and your fun camping stories I will tell her. She will be proud of her paw-paw.


I'll try and scan a picture of him later and post it.

I FUCKING HATE CANCER

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Congratulations, you are the 97th texter, YOU WIN

hehehe... My motto in life is if you don't play, you don't have a chance to win. So, every day on my drive home from work I listen to 97.1 Talk FM - The Dave Glover show. This month they are playing a text message contest to win a stocking stuffer gift or two and then if you win you will be registered to possibly win an all inclusive trip to Riu Caribe. So I heard the promo to text the word Presents into 53695. I did.... while waiting for the reply of the first text message I sent another text - same thing... Got the reply from the first text that I was texter # 15, try again. Seconds later I got another reply text saying "Congratulations, you are the 97th Texter. Call xxx-xxx-xxxx in the next 10 minutes to claim your prize" WOOOOHOOOOOO I FRICKIN' WON.


I FRICKIN' WON the stocking stuffer of 25.00 gift certificate to a new diner in town and then a 25.00 gift certificate to Hair Salon for Men. hehe too funny that I won a gift certificate for the Hair Salon for men when my husband is nearly bald and uses the buzz clippers at home to do his own hair. hehe... BUT I FRICKIN' WON.

So now I will be listening intently on December 19th at 7:05 AM to see if I won the Trip to Cancun. WOOOOHOOOOOO. I so hope I do. Jamie Allman and Crane need to make my day that morning. Oh I so dream of a vacation like that.

See, Since DH and I have spent the last 8 years trying to have a baby, we put vacation on hold for 7 of those 8 years. We SO NEED a trip out of here by ourselves. I Love my daughter, but we so need a vacation as a couple again.

Send me some winning vibes for that big trip.

hehe.. again, if you don't play, you don't have a chance to win. hehe

her head is breaking out

no, not a rash or cradle cap, but 2 times this past week we have gone in to get Julia from her crib for the morning and her head is at the end of the crib bars like she is trying to break out of jail. She is scooting herself from the middle of the crib all the way to the left (side/end) of the crib. Her head was pressed firmly up against the wood rail and she just looked up at us with a smile when we went to pick her up.

Little stinker. I had to raise the crib rail for the first time in fear she might be too close to the side (sliding) rail now when I go in there to get her. So she is fully protected with all rails in the up position.

she loves her jumperoo. Loves the lights and sounds and jumps a little with her feet touching the ground now.

grow girl grow.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

new milestone for Ms. Julia

Today we noticed she is starting to lift her legs off the play mat while on her back. it is funny. Leg lifts. I must get the video camera out and shoot a few clips. She is really starting to giggle too.

Friday, December 07, 2007

I'm a sucka for books

Julia is now the proud owner of the beginning series of Disney kids books and Dr. Seuss books. I joined the scholastic book club. OMG.. It is expensive, but I want her to have the new books I never got to have as a kid. I always had hand-me-downs and hated the tattered edges. I must say that I had a great time opening these two boxes of books. I can't wait to start reading them to her. She loves to hear my voice and really loves to hear my up and down tones so reading books to her will be a hoot. She smiles so big and almost giggles with joy.

I need to move the book case from downstairs tomorrow up to her room to accommodate all her books I have accumulated. I have gotten so many gift books for her and next weekend we are going to a Christmas gathering with friends and we decided to do a book exchange. I can't wait to see what she gets. I have a book ready to go for the exchange. It is one she already has and I love reading it to her so I bought an extra one to give as a gift.

What is your favorite book to read to your baby/toddler?

Sunday, December 02, 2007

our house grows by leaps and bounds

First off....Boohooo for Mizzou. Oh well, but we did have a great season. Now maybe we can make a bowl game of some sorts.

Yesterday DH and his siblings and myself helped move my mother in law in with us for a while. She is residing in the downstairs extra room. Her doggy, Bailey, is staying with us also. So we are a household of 3 adults, a 2 month old baby girl (who is getting so big) and 4 dogs. OMG... we are not totally cramped up, but it will be an adjustment with the dogs for sure. Our 3 doggies were and are set in their ways. So introducing another doggy is a challenge, but as The Dog Whisperer has taught us from his show, we are the Pack Leaders and the dogs will listen to US and not themselves. Ha. Yeah right. No, so far it has been pretty good, just a few nips at each other and growls we put a stop to right away. I hope it stays that calm.

As I type this out, Julia is laying in her bouncy seat just flinging her arms all around hitting her rattle on the gym links and giraffe and elephant. She loves her little toys. She loves the noises they make. Oh wait, she is protesting as she can't get a grip on one of them right now. She sometimes gets a firm grip on the links hanging down and really gives the bouncy seat a good shake. She really doesn't need the vibration button on since she rattles the seat pretty well herself.

We heard from Julia's birthmother this past week and we all plan on meeting up in person sometime this week. I am nervous to see how she will react to how big Julia has gotten. It will be a challenge to stay dry eyed at this visit. We are so blessed to have her in our lives and for Julia to have her in her life. We hope to see Julia's two siblings also. They will be amazed at how big she has gotten since they saw her at birth. I did send a 2 month update letter and pictures to the agency to forward to Julia's birthmother because we did not know when we would see her next. I'll give the agency a call tomorrow to ask them to go ahead and mail them out to Julia's birthmother so she can get the pictures added to her photo album.

Speaking of that first letter, I was nervous as to what to talk about at first, but I just opened up with stating that Julia is now 2 months old and here are some of the many pictures we have of her. I talked about her first few weeks and visitors she had and how she slept through the night a few times since birth. I gave her 2 different check up stats and also gave her some of the photos from Julia's first professional pictures we had taken at 5.5 weeks old. I am glad to share this with her. She has blessed DH and I with so much so we want to share that with her in these letters and pictures. Of course we decided to send the letters to the agency just in case H was not ready to receive them yet, but I am sure she is ok with it now.

Ok, getting told to get off my duff and put the ornaments on the small tree we got for the living room.

I'll give another update on the book I am reading. Good discussions to be had on it. Again that is the book : The Secret thoughts of an adoptive mother.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Go Mizzou, Here is your biggest (little) cheerleader

Julia made the sports picture page on KMOV.com today.. check her out.

KMOV.COM



GO MIZZOU

Yes, I fully intend to have her become a student of Mizzou one day.

University of Missouri

GO TIGERS.