Baby, it was Well worth the trip to Imperial Missouri

Today, my mom and I set up vendor booth (easy up tent awning and several tables) at the Creative Learning Center parking lot at Seckman Rd and Old Lemay Ferry in Imperial MO. This was a baby swap meet that was listed on craigslist a few weeks back. My mom called and ordered one space, but After a few days of gathering up my items that Julia has grown out of, I asked my mom to get two spaces and we would share the space. Glad we did because we had a ton of items to sell. My mom makes homemade baby items like blanket, bibs, pillows, the baby bottle holders I use to sell (she is still selling on ebay). I got rid of about 140.00 worth of items and clothes. SWEET. I'll be sure to do this sale again next week. The lady that runs the center said they plan on making this an annual sale and we would be first on her list and get prime pick of the spots in the lot. We were 2 sellers of only 5 total so I think we will do well with this type of sale next year again.

Sure, setting up a yard sale is hard work, especially if you have to take your items some place else besides just outside your home, but I do feel this is a great opportunity to join a swap meet / baby sale that might grow as big as the mehlville baby mania sale that is held twice a hear, spring & fall. I still have lots of items to sell so my mom, sister and I plan on getting a booth at the mehlville sale in October.

Julia, your bank account is growing fast if I can keep up these sales of items you are growing out of.

I know, we could have kept it all for when we do adopt again one day, but in my small house I don't have storage like I would love to have and no garage so I can't keep it here. With being a bargain shopper that I am, I know I'll be able to replenish my supply of items we will need for baby #2 when that comes time in a few years.

As I sit here typing this out, I am also peeking over at my daughter that is getting flustered because she can't get the drum stick on the little tikes zylaphone to work right. She just can't grasp the concept that the drum stick needs to hit the keys instead of her inserting it in her mouth. LOL

This past week I picked up a picture of DH, Julia and I. I showed it to Julia and pointed to Dada for her. She looked at the picture and said "Dada" without me provoking her. hehe.

Attaining a new babysitter, what a heartache yet joyful change

Julia has been with the same babysitter from 8 weeks of age until now at just over 8 months old. Tomorrow is her last day with D, her current babysitter. D lives about 10 minutes SW of us and I drop Julia off there M-F around 7:30 am. DH picks her up. D is a great sitter, but there is a time when it comes to knowing our daughter needs to expand her sights. My sister is now going to babysit her full time in her home.

See, this is a good thing. Why? Well, my sister is one that love to take her 3 children (14, 12, 5) to the zoo, grants farm, science center, susson park (sp, is that spelled correctly?) and to the water park at Six flaggs. Julia didn't get to do those things with her current sitter and I hated knowing that sitter did not even have a car at home in case of emergencies.

The good of those months with D as her sitter are that she was able to help closely interact with Julia to teach her many things. Helped her reach many milestones. It was an understanding that D would not tell us of any milestones reached because she wanted to have us experience them as first time parents on our own. So when Julia started to smile, maybe D saw it first, but she never let us know that. The only way we would know if Julia reached a milestone is we relayed it back to D that we saw that milestone and she just smiled and shook her head. I know some moms wouldn't like this kind of care, but it made me feel good to know I got to see her crawl for the first time, say bye-bye and wave for the first time.

I trust my sister, I know she has raised her children to not be 100% spoiled and makes them do chores and makes them sit down and do their homework each night, plus she really gets down on their level to talk to them if something has not gone accordingly or a little "time out" needs to be instilled. She does not raise a hand to her children and I am so thankful for that. I don't want my child to be around such negativity in discipline (not that D had this happening). My sister will work with Julia on her skills, help her learn to walk, help her learn playtime sharing of toys and just overall have fun each day.

I want my daughter to have fun, yet have respect for her adult figure in charge of her. I know this will be carried over into her life by my sister.

I am so thankful for family being in town and that my sister has decided to be a stay-at-home mom again. Plus she gets to spend time with her other cousins, my brothers children, because my sister will also be babysitting them. No, not too many children at all in one house, just lots of cousins to share time together with.

Julia, I know you will have such fun there. You'll be able to learn to swim, spend time with Aunt C and have nap time with your cousins too each day. I can't wait to see you in action with them all. I'll hopefully be able to go to the zoo and or grants farm with you all soon.

Cheers to family and the support they give.

Wordless Wednesday (video so there are some words, hehe)

EWWWWWW.. OMG.. yick.....

Julia is in the living room right on the floor by the couch, DH is on the couch with his foot 1/2 hanging off the couch.. I look over and suddenly Julia has DH's big toe in her mouth.... EWWWWWWW. DH was shocked that she decided to nibble on his foot.

I am sure this won't be the worst that she will be adventurous to put in her mouth.

What crazy things has your child put in their mouth?

Silly Saturday slide show.......my(Julia's) many faces (and coupon links)

LOOKING for HUGGIES Gentle Care Diaper coupons... I can trade up with similac or enfamil coupons!

Ok, here is a slide show I put together of Julia's many faces from the last few months. (also, read below about the coupons I have found online with no obligations to "sign up" with these sites).

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

http://www.bluebunny.com/Coupons.aspx (1.00 off blue bunny premium ice cream quart)

Wordless Wednesday

I see teeth in them there gums...

yes, Julia has two teeth popping through on her lower gum. My question is.... is it ok to have them popping forward toward her bottom lip instead of growing up through the top line of her bottom gum line? Does that make sense? Well, if you pull her lip down, the two front teeth are growing out forward towards me instead of growing up through her gum line towards her upper jaw. Can you envision this? I'll try and take a picture tomorrow night to show you. DH thought it was strange too to have them coming out forward instead of straight up. Hummmmm. I'll ask her doc's office the next time I see them. Nothing we can do, I assume. Just let them grow in and then we will see if they cause problems when her permanent teeth start to grow in. Fun.

I'll be honest and say she is not too fussy. Ok, there, I've gone and done it and jinxed myself. I bet she will be a total fuss bucket from here on out. Ha. Oh and she has blisters on her top gum where her two front teeth will hopefully come in. I guess this is why she has been tugging at her ears lately.

I am using the hylands teething tablets and they seem to help sooth her. She got fussy right before bed tonight so they seemed to help calm her down and stop the ear tugging.

I LOVE THESE milestones!

another milestone is that she is starting to crawl. She gets up on all 4 limbs and does a hand over hand once and then lands on her belly and pulls herself along to try and reach for a toy. So she is getting in a crawl or two before she plops down. Ok, Honest, I will baby proof the outlets and cords tomorrow night. I need to tie up the computer cords and wires. I need to move the floor fan to another location so she can't get to the cord and buttons. I need to move the cd rack downstairs so she can't pull it over. She has started pulling up on the furniture and in her crib so the rail has been raised all the way up as her mattress has already been lowered.

Her newest attempt at a word is Dawg.... She sees the doggies come into the room and she screams DAWG (more of a silent g, but it is what I think is the word DOG. So that makes mama, dada, baba and dog.

Oh, tonight at dinner she started shaking her head NO at me when I tried to give her a spoonful of turkey and rice dinner from the jar. DH saw that NO head shake and started laughing. I said "Ut Oh, we are in trouble now". There is no stopping her.

Julia got to experience her first trip to the deep country of Missouri. My Aunt and Uncle bought something like 400 acres of land down in Iron County MO. Not too far from the Tom Sauk resevoir that broke a few years back. We played in the new house the built and out on the drive and then I went fishing and caught the biggest croppy out of their little pond. We had such a great time. Daddy and Julia watched us as several of us in the family (nephews and my brother) were all fishing cathing perch, croppy and even a small mouth bass out of the pond. My uncle was surprised there were so many fish in that there pond. Fun.

I let the bunnies go in the woods at my uncles place. I'll post pictures of how big they got. Only two survived, but at least I was able to save two instead of none. The bunnies will love it in the woods.

I had no fun Sunday night, Monday and today. I was home sick with bad tummy issues. I called the doc today to see if there was anything I could do besides immodium and they said nope unless I had a fever, which I did not. Ick. Not the fun way to lose 5 lbs. This PCOS ridden body of my won't let me lose 5 lbs normally so I am taking all I can get. Just not the fun way to lose them there lbs. ha


Ok, off to bed. I promise, more pictures tomorrow.

I know there are milestones I am forgetting for Ms. Julia so I'll post them later when I remember them. Bah

Sleep well. I sure am going to with the window fans in action tonight. A great night to sleep under the warm blankets while the fans are blowing cool air around. ahhhhh, sweet spring weather. (I know in a few weeks time I'll be complaining about having to turn on the air conditioner so I'll bask in the cool chill of the night from the window fans for now).

Wordless Wednesday...... a little late

she does a new trick for my mother's day gift

Today has been such a wonderful day (yet her birthmother is on my mind lots)....

today I woke up to Julia laying in her crib smiling at me through her soothie binkie. She reached up for me to pick her up. Ok, melt my heart, especially on my first Mother's Day. What a gift, what a blessing, what a love unknown until now.

we played, we ate, we slept a little and then we rolled out of bed to go visit family.

before we left for visiting family I noticed she had been on her belly and in the blink of my eye (yes, I missed it that quick), she turned herself around and into an up sitting position. From her belly she did this. YEAH. another milestone. This new trick of hers confirms my thoughts that she will be crawling very very soon. she is up on her knees and hands rocking back and forth and looks like a leapfrog even bringing her hands up off the floor in this position. too cute.

Agenda is to get a new toy box for the living room to put all her noise toys in. Any suggestions on what kind of container/toy box to buy? again stimulating the economy like bush wants me to. LOL

Children .. what a gift. a precious gift.

with every tear I shed
there comes joy to be fed.
sleepless nights and worry of when
but looking at you now makes me forget the bad zen

Our Stimulous check at work, stimulating the economy the baby way

I have to say that this stimulus check is at work as Bush wants it to be. We stimulated the economy by buying Julia a new "convertible" car seat. We bought a britax marathon in onyx.

I know, you all might say, why spend so much (we didn't pay as much as what my link to amazon shows!!!! but we did get it on amazon last night for much cheaper). This is what we decided on and I have no qualms about it. Our daughter will be safe. I work for a car insurance company so they insist on using new car seats. I believe in this so we researched and bought new. You never know what you will be getting from a used car seat from somebody these days. You can check recalls online, but you will never know if that seat has been in a vehicle involved in an accident. I will not compromise the life of our child by buying used.

Julia is around 16.5 lbs (or maybe more now since I have not weighed her in a week) and she is growing so long I can't even keep count of how many inches she is now. Maybe 27" or maybe just over 27" and she is not even 7.5 months old yet. Her feet stick out over the end of the baby seat she is in now by about 2". I think once she hits 18 lbs we will put the new carseat in my vehicle (DH will get the cosco brand of seat for his truck.). It will face the rear of my little Tribute, but I know it is only a few short months before she can ride facing forward.

This little girl is growing up too fast, but I love watching it happen.

Today we visited a local blogger to pick up some avon and shop her yard sale. It was fun meeting her in person. Sorry we missed her daughter. Julia was wide awake and was wanting to play. hehe Maybe we can meet up at the Zoo or Shaw's Garden soon. I hate not being off during the week because I seem to miss all the places in town that have free events/admission for kids!

While hitting yard sales today, I had so many compliments on Julia's eyes. She has radiant blue eyes that look so cool in the sunshine. So many people said they love her eyes. I do too. When Julia heard them talking to her, she turned around (I had my home made ultimate wrap on) and looked at me for approval to smile back at those people. She was so cute. I find more and more that she mimics what we do. If I grunt, she grunts. If I say "where's dada", she says dada. When I gently slap my open hand on the table in a pattern, she does the same to that beat of mine. here is a recent pic of those pretty blue eyes.


Talking about these things makes my day. It all makes sense now, this is the way life is suppose to be, a big happy family of 3.

Happy Mother's day to me and all you mom's out there.

Bliss in Approaching my first Mother's Day. (if, mc, adoption ment)

All the years growing up, I would make a mothers day card from scratch for my mom in school. About 3 weeks before mother's day we would take plastic egg cartons and cut them up into two by two by two..etc... We would be in class, lay out some newspaper to protect the floor and scoop dirt from a bag the teacher would bring in into the cartons, take the end of a pencil and put a hole in the dirt about 1/2 way down. We then took a gerber daisy seed and plant it in that dirt. We watered them every afternoon in class and then when the Friday before Mother's day came around, we were given our precious hand grown seedlings in a small brown paper bag to take home. We were instructed to NOT give them to our mothers until Sunday. Let me tell you, it was such a joy to make that card to go along with that seedling and see the smile on my mom's face as she opened that brown bag that very Sunday morning when I woke up. Sure, she really did know what she was getting in that bag, but it was sure bliss on my part to know I put so much love and care into that gift and it made her day.

Well, let me state that my Mother's day is going to be that, PURE BLISS. I plan on soaking in every moment with my husband and daughter knowing we are a family we had so hoped for in so many previous sad heartbroken Mother's days past. When we started trying to conceive back in 1999, I was ignorant to the idea of ever having problems of having a baby in our lives. When Mother's day in 2000 approached, I was heartbroken again to know we had lost two angels to heaven by then. I started to build that fear of thinking we would never be able to have a baby. I would never be able to celebrate my very first Mother's day. Then the next 6 years past with diminished hope year after year, day after day, minute after minute.

I realized after our last loss in November 2005 that it was time to find a new way to build that family we had dreamed of for so long. We wanted to be able to share our love for parenting. We wanted to go to family gathering with a son or daughter attached to our hip. We longed for the nights we would rock our baby to sleep and watch them wake up with a smile. We looked forward to the challenges. I can now say that after having finalized Julia's adoption this past month, I am slowly let my guard down of expectant disappointment. Fear of my body failing me once again, fear of letting my husband go one more year without becoming a father. But now I can bask in the bliss of smelling our daughters bald head of the beautiful baby lotion after her bath. I can do those things. This is what makes it blissful.

I am a mother and it feels so wonderful to say that. (Thank you to Julia's birthmother for making this all possible.)

Ladies, those of you that are still trying to become that mother you always dreamed you would be, hang in there. The wait, the pain, the fears will be soothed over for you eventually. I know, the waiting is just not fair -It Sucks!, but I will stand by you to not give up hope for you to achieve that goal. This little baby you dream of is out there and will eventually touch your heart in the most special way and will make your first Mother's day THE BEST EVER.


Grant us the hope
Spare us the pain
don't let us mope
Love for a child is what we want to gain

Waiting is painful
Days are long
hope of Rewards are blissful
It makes us all that strong

Sometimes our chin hangs low
But Your dream is there
Grasp it now and fro
for the dreams bring you that hug able bear!

dealing with memories (miscarriage, pregnancy, adoption mentioned below!)

remembering our expectant due dates with miscarriages.......

The majority of us women that suffer through miscarriages have this spot in our hearts that will never let us forget when we got pregnant, when we miscarried, when our pregnancy due date was(is) and how it felt to be pregnant. I keep this in my heart. I don't speak it to the public because so many just don't understand the pain associated with the losses of our kind. They mean well, but their words of comfort sometimes come out wrong and become stab wounds I have to again heal from so I just don't mention it anymore. Yes, I am so thankful we did get pregnant. I know so many women that go through fertility treatments don't ever achieve pregnancy and I do respect that. Again, I am just speaking my mind and heart here on my blog.
I do remind my husband of these dates when they happen, I whisper them in his ear that morning of each anniversary date of these sad events. He will then in turn hug me and tells me he loves me. He knows I will remember this and always tell him when these days approach. This is my portal to be able to SHOUT out to the world that our sweet babies is in heaven. No, I don't get mad at my husband for not mentioning it, I just think this is a woman's vice we have, we just always remember these types of things. I do let him know so that he can be my rock that day and remember with me that we were able to get pregnant and we were so thankful for that. He grieves right along with me too for our losses. I usually will shed a tear or two, but only in silence in my own corner of my cube or bed or at the computer late at night when I can't sleep and am thinking of my angels in heaven.

This year on Mother's day I want to release 9 balloons towards the heavens in recognition of all the angels we have in our hearts.

I always asked God "WHY, WHY must I suffer so many miscarriages", but I will never regret having tried to get pregnant. I do regret that it took us nearly 8 years of losses to realize the ultimate goal of which was to become PARENTS. Yes, we were parents to our angels in heaven, but we so longed to become parents to an Earth Angel and we give Thanks every day for Julia in our lives. Again, I have said this before, had we not gone through all the days of trying to conceive, our two ectopic pregnancies, our five miscarriages(including two sets of twins that were due May 7th and May 10th in two different years),we would not have gone down the path of domestic open adoption like we did. I know, it is a seesaw of good and bad, the bad was outweighing the good for some many months of trying to conceive, then finally if we were blessed enough to get pregnant, we would miscarry. It was enough to bring me down to a very hard low in emotions and physical being, But I did not let that stop my dream of becoming a mother and watching my husband become a father. We did not want to live childless after infertility and miscarriages. We stood strong and did our research to know that I could not carry a baby so we looked at surrogacy and then international and or domestic adoption. We chose domestic open adoption and we did become parents.

Nearly nine and a half long years, we remember our angels in heaven each day and celebrate our transition into parenthood with the birth and raising of our beautiful daughter.

God works his wonders in mysterious ways for some. I do believe he had a plan for us and I am thankful we finally reached that plan.

I extend a Happy Mother's Day wish to all of us out there that have angels in heaven and now earthly angels too.

ladies, don't give up hope that you will one day be a mother to the child you are destined to meet.

tears are shed not just a few.
you once grew in me
I lost you, but I love you

Ummm, is this a bad thing? Pigeon flies into the side of our house

and dies. I was cooking dinner tonight and heard a huge thud outside the back window, but I was too busy keeping the little one fed and cooking some italian breaded chicken breasts I was just putting in the oven to bake. I didn't pay attention to what it might have been other than a bird that "oops" hit the house. DH then came home from his final test in his class at Forest Park community college and went to let the dogs out. He had to quickly halt them and told me to come look. It was a dead adult pigeon laying flat on its back with a broken neck. Ewww, bloody too. Smack dab into the back of our house, that is one dumb dead pigeon now.

Is this something of any means? Does it mean we will have bad or good things happen to our house? OH PLEASE let it be all good things that happen.

Ok City folk, ONE less pigeon cooing on my neighbors front porch. I do love animals, but these things are dirty and make way too much noise when one wants to sleep or have a quiet moment outside. God Rest his soul, but how dumb can you be to fly directly into a brick wall of a house? Doh.

Meanwhile, I am down to 3 bunnies and it looks like soon down to 2. The smaller of the two furless bunnies didn't make it through the night Saturday. Its sibling with no fur does have its eyes open now, but still has little to no fur and is seeming to be very weak. BUT the other two bunnies are thriving. They bolt to the cage door every time I open it. I mean a full on hop! Sweet.

I was reading up online today about hand raising little wild bunnies and less than 1/2 of them survive from hand raising. I can tell you I did this hand raising a few years back and they survived just fine. Here are those bunnies in the backyard a few days before I released them into the wild through a friend that has property in Salem MO.

shake shake shake part 2

Did you feel that one this morning? around 6:20 AM I was in the shower and DH was out feeding Julia. I did not feel it, but I heard the dogs jump up and were a little unsettled. Fox 2 news says it was a 2.7 centered in FENTON Missouri! WOW. That is a tad bit close. They called it an aftershock, but how can that be?

we need to make weekends longer for the working folk

See, by time I go to dinner or a Cardinals vs. Cubs game like last night and then do some yard sales today along with meeting up with a bunch of other mothers and kiddo's from our former infertility support group, my weekend is virtually over.

I'll post a picture or two of Julia's first trip to the Cardinals game. She got to see them play against the Chicago Cubs. She was so good. I used my homemade moby wrap (thanks mom) to carry her and she loved it. She got to face out to the crowd and just had a good time checking everything and everyone out. Welcome to a true St. Louis Cardinals Fan.

The bunnies (4) are all doing ok. I finally found the heating pad to put under the cage and it has really helped with keeping them nice and snuggled warm.

Today we are heading to the Mehlville baby mania sale with my sister, mom, aunt and Julia. FUN.

Then we are meeting up with the group of friends I mentioned above. So much fun. We are going to Faust Park in Chesterfield MO. Never been there. I can't wait. I'll be sure to take a few pictures of Ms. Julia.

Oh, her newest trick, Waving and saying bye-bye. I haven't got it on film yet, but I promise I will. She is so quick to learn these things.

ok, off to baby mania

We are proud parents again, this time it is quads..... (bunnies ment)

no no no... not a human babies, but baby bunny rabbits. Look, they are so stinking cute.

Our dog discovered the nest yesterday morning and had one in her mouth by time DH got out there. He was able to rescue that one and we got them back into the nest. He put another piece of trellis to keep the dogs back from the deck trellis. The mother rabbit nested right under the edge of the deck by the trellis line. So I left some carrots and strawberries there to entice the mom to come back, but after nearly 36 hours the nest had not been visited again by the mom. So I took it upon myself to rescue them. I thought there were 4 babies that were maybe 2 weeks old, but I soon discovered tonight there were 6 babies. SIX. two did not survive the night. I will dig a small grave for them tonight in the yard. Meanwhile... here are the remaining 4.
I did this hand rearing a few years back from another next my doggy in heaven discovered too. So I will get my skills back in order for hand feeding every few hours. I think they are about 1.5 weeks old. two have fur, but none have their eyes open yet.

Anyone willing to take them from me and hand rear them? I'll suppy the cage and the syringes to feed them.