Wednesday, March 26, 2008

no early surgery... TJ is home!

We got a call from Shriners again Monday to come for surgery this week then the scheduler said, Oh wait, there is a note from our peditrician saying she has to wait 6 weeks from her clearance of RSV! Well, it worked out ok anyway because she has been really sick since Saturday night. Running high fevers not eating or drinking. She has been clear of fevers for about 18 hours now so hopefully the worst is over. So our May 15 date is concrete now.

On another note, TJ is home!! We are so happy to have him home! When he pulled up last night I said, Hannah look who just pulled up. She was sitting at the table eating some jello and jumped out of her chair yelling, "my big brother is home, my big brother is home!" She ran out the front door in her bare feet and yelled for TJ to hurry and get her! It was too cute. She has missed her big brother so much. She stayed up until he went to bed, after midnight, and slept with her big brother. She got up this morning so excited to see him still there!
I am posting a couple pictures of TJ and his graduation last thursday. We are very proud of him!


Friday, March 21, 2008

Feeling good with JoJo



We are surprising the girls with a vacation to Disney world in September. While shopping Disney online, they had these adorable JoJo outfits on clearance for 4.99! Hannah loves JoJo and had a JoJo 2nd birthday party! She loved trying her outfit on! I love "The Look" picture!!

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Hannah's official 3rd birthday pictures




Here are the pictures we got back of Hannah in her princess outfit! I love the one with the tiara on! She is such a beautiful little girl!! Hard to believe she is 3 years old already.

Coloring eggs....


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I thought I'd post the pictures from our day today. The girls looked so cute today I HAD to take some pictures this morning! Scott had the camara on some funky setting so they are kind of blurry but still adorable! Then this afternoon they were sharing a snack pack of pretzels and cheese. It was so cute to see Hannah sharing and them both dipping their fingers in the cheese! About 4:30 Scott got home and the girls wanted to go outside to greet him so I let them since the sun was at least out. We came back in the house and Hannah is fussing and brings me a tissue and tells me she has a very big booger in her nose (sorry for being graphic....) I wipe her nose which sends her into a tizzy crying huge tears and saying it hurts. I am not sure what is going on when she lays down the contents of her hand on the table....uncooked elbow macaroni....yes, she stuck one up her nose! Oh my! My only thought is how are we going to get that out! I couldn't even see it. I am the paramedic and trained to handle trauma and stressful situations and I just stood there trying to decide what to do when Scott says, plug her other nostril and have her blow! Well, thank the Lord it worked and out came the macaroni! What an object lessen we had with that! How boring would our lives be if we had not started over?!?!?!?! I can only dream....
Enjoy the pics!!

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

another day in the life...

Well, this morning I took Makenna to the doctor so he could clear her for surgery. The appt went well and he wrote the letter stating that she was a healthy girl. Now, if we can just Shriners to call us tomorrow morning again! I had put new outfits on the girls, something we rarely have since I do so much consignment shopping. After we got out to the van I stood Makenna down so I could open the van door and she proceeded to fall in the nastiest black puddle of yuck! Her pretty light pink easter pants with a big black blob from the knee down. AARRGG! I took a wipie and got as much off as I could then proceeded to Walmart. Since I didn't have Tyler today, I wanted to make the most of my "free" day and do some shopping in Wooster. I got the best parking space at Walmart, the very first on and I was so excited. It was windy and drizzeling rain so the short walk was going to be nice. I turned around to unbuckle Hannah. Usually I just unbuckle her before I get out of the van then she walks over to Makennas side to get out and it works out fine. Well, after I unbuckled her she began to cry that she wanted to go home. She actually begged and pleaded to go home. She was running a low grade temp and had the sniffles but didn't think it was that big of a deal. Well, something told me not to fight it so I backed out of the perfect spot and drove home. We got about 6 minutes into our 25 minute trip when I hear that awful sound. Yes, she hurled, looked like a water fountain. Luckily her coat was situated as such that there was a gap and it all went between the coat and her, which is gross but at least nothing to clean up on the floor or back of the seat! I am thankful for the small things in life! I didn't dare take her coat off to clean her up she would have frozen so I drove as fast as leagally possible and got her home. I took her in and staight to the bathroom and ran a tub of water and stripped her down and she got in the tub. She looked horrible poor baby. She got and just wanted her jammies on and go lay in my bed so that is what we did. I took a big bowl and gave to her in case she got sick again. She kept saying she was hungry now but I only let her eat small pieces of cracker. She finally fell asleep and slept for a couple of hours. I didn't take her temp but I am sure it was close to 102, she was very hot. Now this evening she has had a popcicle, 1 1/2 cups of sprite, a bowl of chicken noodle soup, and some fishy crackers. Her fever has broke and she is back to her talkitive self! She was wanting tacos for supper but I said NO WAY! Her new outfit that she wore today is in the washer, I am hoping all the yucks have come out in the wash! I am hoping she learned what the feeling is right before she pukes so we don't have any more surprises!
So it boils down to this, Makenna is cleared for surgery but is now exposed to the 24 hour flu! It may be 2010 before her surgery is complete!

Friday, March 14, 2008

Out of the mouths of smart 3 year olds...

Oh my....
Tonight we put the girls to bed and came back downstairs to wait for them to fall asleep. We have the monitor on so we can hear if Makenna gets out of bed or if they need something. Makenna had decided that she was NOT ready for bed and layed in her bed and kept yelling "Ma, Ma" and then would fuss for a minute or two! After about 15minutes or so I heard Hannah yelling at Makenna. She said, and I quote, "SHUT UP! Makenna Grace, Shut your mouth!" To my knowledge we have never told Hannah to shut up. We don't usually use those words so I have no idea where she got them from. After she would yell at Makenna, Makenna would grunt her dis-approval back to her. It was funny to listen to!
These girls have so many funny moments. I need to be better at coming right here and posting so we don't forget them. There will be so many memories we will have with the girls because of their blogs. I forget so much about the boys when they were this age, didn't take the time to write things down.....very sad. I love the kids at this age, they really are alot of fun!
Makenna has really been giving the kisses this week. She will give usually 5 or 6 kisses in a row. Of course, she has to wipe her mouth off after each kiss because she sees us wipe her slobber off our face! I keep telling her that we are not the ones that slobber and she just laughs at us. She is becoming even more of a lovey baby. She loves to be cuddled and rocked. She usually wakes up at least once in the middle of the night and call for me and I will go up and pick her up and hold her and sing one verse of Jesus loves me to her and she will go right back to sleep. I tried just patting her and that didn't work, she wants a quick snuggle! I then lay her back down in her big girl bed and she is out for the rest of the night! It is almost like a test to see if I will come to her aid.
Hannah is doing so well with potty training. We have not worn a pull up out for at least 2 weeks now. We still wear one at night and during nap. She is a big drinker so she always has to pee! Seldom does she wake up dry at either time. She has decided to begin sleeping in her and Makenna's room again. I re-arranged it and put Makenna in her big girl bed so I don't know if that has anything to do with the change or not. She has been doing well at night too. I don't know if I posted or not, but we ended up giving her plug back to her. It was taking 2-3 hours to get her settled down and get to sleep. She never asked for her plug but one day I asked her if she wanted it back. She said yes and we have not had much of a problem since! The rule is, when she wakes up in the morning and nap she has to put it in the drawer in the bedside table. She does fairly well with that rule. Every now and then she will come downstairs with it and I'll tell her to go back to bed. Sometimes she does for 15-20 minutes then comes down happy for her day to start with no plug! Hannah still has alot of abandonment issues I think. She is always quick to question if she will be by herself. She will ask why I rock her at night sometimes, she'll say," Do you rock me because you love me?" She is really working on the trust thing with us and trying to figure out why we do things for her. It is really sad to think of all the heartache this baby has been through in her short life. We tell her every day that she gets to stay with us forever and we will always take care of her. She never has to move to another family. She has also been asking questions about her growing in my tummy. I told her that she grew in my heart, I loved her before we ever met her. Being the smart little girl she is, she wanted to know who's tummy she grew in. I told her that there was a lady in China that gave birth to her but she couldn't take care of her and took her somewhere safe where the police man could find her and help her. I told her that God had told mommy and daddy that there was a baby girl in China that needed them and so we got on a plane and flew to China to get her. Out of the blue a week or so ago while she was laying in her "first" room we painted for her, she asked if Scott and i talked about her while we were painting her room! She said, "Did you and daddy say 'I wonder what Hannah Mei is doing in China' when you were painting my room?" I do not know how on earth she comes up with the things she says! Since she sees Makenna likes to be rocked, she doesn't want to miss out and I have had lots of time rocking Hannah as well. Hannah would allow you to hold her but usually she preferred to face out most of the time. She would face you for shorter periods of time but lately she has wanted me to hold her close and rock her and snuggle her. I think she is really beginning to trust us.
We are so thankful for the girls. There are moments when we question why God had us start all over but for the most part, we are thrilled with our lives. Scott was laying in bed on the laptop the other night and wanted to look at the special needs kids on our agency's list! He said we are NOT adopting again, just wanted to look. We did find a couple that were awfully cute! We talked about how do you know when to stop, there are so many children that need homes. Could we love one more, sure. Do we have the patience to raise one more, sometimes! Financially it would be so very tight is it fair to Hannah and Makenna? We just continue to pray for the orphans of the world. If every church in the United States would adopt just bring just a couple of orphans home there would be very few orphans in the world left! Could you imagine, following God's word and taking in the orphans to the point of no more left?! I can't imagine how it must break God's heart to see these little children laying in an orphanage, hungry for food and for love and attention. And how His heart must break with the teenage orphans that don't fit in and have never been loved.
We are so grateful that we were obedient and stepped out of the boat to a different life path! Adoption may not be for you but NEVER let finances stop you. We have adopted 2 beautiful girls only by God's provision. We had to save up for the 200 application fee and here we are 3 years later with 2 girls! God is good, and He does have a sense of humor!
Well, better get on with my day. The girls were taking a bath as I typed this and Hannah yelled that Makenna just pooped in the tub... again...... What a blessed life I have!

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Icicle Fun!

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Makenna is feeling much better! Today she just had one breathing treatment before bedtime. We took the girls to friends of ours to stay for a couple of hours so we could go to a birthday party tonight. I think Makenna was as excited to get out of the house as Scott and I were to get away with no kids! When we got home, Scott grabbed an icicle off the front of the house and gave it to Makenna to hold. Before it broke into pieces, it was as big as she was! She wouldn't let go of it for anything! I had to put it in a bowl and save it in the freezer for her!
We decided to move Makenna to her twin bed today. Nap didn't go so well so we will see how tonight goes!

God Bless!
Tina

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Makenna

I just wanted to write out a couple of things I have been thinking about when it comes to Makenna. I remember when we would get updates on Makenna before we traveled to get her, they always had something about her being loud, stubbourn,and sometimes difficult. Since we have had her we have noticed she is loud, but having a substancial hearing loss will do that to you. As far as being stubbourn, yes we do see that at times but not to the degree I thought we would. When we found out that they put her back in foster care 2 months before we went to get her, my guess was that they couldn't deal with her anymore and wanted her gone from the orphanage to make their life easier. I pictured this little bratty girl that bit, hit, and pitched awful fits to get her way. We have had some of all of those but on such a minor scale. She is such a fun, happy, and smart little girl. She loves to love and be loved on, something I don't think she got much of in China. I keep going back to our gotcha day when we were at the orphanage getting her. We got to take a very short tour of the orphanage after we got Makenna and not one nanny came up to Makenna to tell her goodbye or have their picture taken with her. We would never know which nanny was her "special" nanny. There was other babies there, but they were mostly in their cribs for nap time. It did not dawn on us that no onen came to tell her goodbye until after we were home with us. It breaks my heart to think that this precious child just needed a family to love her and to take care of her. She makes us laugh so much. Last night since she is so sick, she slept with mommy and daddy. She would not go to sleep until midnight and she would stand up and fall back on the pillows and just laugh so hard. She was so slap happy she was hilarious! She cracked herself up. She likes to patty cake on her own and loves to be tickled. She is also learning itsy bitsy spider motions. I can't wait for her to actually hear the song. I am sure she will catch up very quickly when she can finally hear.
This afternoon, Hannah was upstair sleeping and Makenna was not ready for a nap yet so we were in the kitchen and I'd take off running back the hall and hide in my room. She would just squeal with delight and I'd hear those pitter patter little flat feet come plomping down the hall. You could hear her heavy breathing from her pneumonia and she'd peek around the corner into the closet and just laugh the biggest laugh then take off running back down the hall wanting me to chase her!
For almost the entire time we waited for our Travel Approval to go get Makenna, I was afraid of her. Afraid of her cleft palate and if I could handle it. I admit I must be a very vain person deep down. I didn't want to deal with the drool, speech therapy, surgeries, etc. But after getting to know this little jewel of a daughter, I wouldn't trade her for the world! Her cleft is such a small piece of the total package. I would be willing to talk to anyone out there about adopting a cleft child. Of course we have not been through the surgeries yet but it is such a small deal compaired to the love that these children have to offer.
I was showing someone our family picture that we had taken in January when TJ was home and their comments have just stuck in my head. They said, "It looks like a complete family". I think that is how I feel, Makenna Grace Bao Xian does complete our family in a beautiful way.

Monday, March 3, 2008

No surgery for Makenna

Well, I called Shriners this morning to explain to them what has been going on with Makenna this weekend. She said based on how she was yesterday that they would not want her to have surgery this week. Last night Makenna was in bed with SCott and I and with only a diaper and not covered up she had a temp of 104. She was wheezing and even some grunting. I gave her another albuterol at 3 and more motrin and she slept until 8ish this morning. I say she slept till then, she awoke crying almost every hour on the hour all night long. When the nurse at Shriners transfered me down to the surgery appt desk, the lady said that the ONLY opening she had before JULY was May 15!!! I hate that we have to put it off for 2 more months. We are still on a call list if someone else cancells but that means 2 more months of staying home with her to try to keep her healthy. We are going to check into getting tubes put in here instead of making her wait for 2 more months to finally hear. We have an appointment with her doctor today at 2 to find out what is going on with her. My guess is possible RSV. I'll keep you updated!

OK, well is it 12 hours later and just thought I'd post that makenna has pneumonia. We are treating her at home for now and praying she gets feeling better very soon.

Please pray for friends of ours Mark and Vicki. We traveled to China with them for our first adoption and became instant friends and have kept in contact since. Vicki called tonight to tell me that Mark passed away on Saturday night. He leaves behind a wonderful wife and 6 daughters. I know they would appreciate your prayers. He was a wonderful Christian man and I know he is rejoicing in heaven right now.

Thanks for the prayers

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Bad news........I think

Well, Miss Makenna woke up this morning to bad coughing and she has been running a temp all day today. I am sure that with a fever this close to surgery they will not go through with it. Although I really want the surgery done and overwith, I don't want complications because of her being sick either. We just ask you to pray for her. I know without a doubt that God can heal her for surgery this week. I was upset about it this morning then thought of the extra month we had to wait to travel and get Makenna. I am not sure why we had to wait, we were ready to go but maybe she wasn't. I know God has all things under His control and I have to trust in that. She has only left the house a handful of times since January and we have done all we can to keep her healthy. We did go to my cousins wedding reception last night. My uncle, her dad, is suffering from cancer and has been told he has a short time here on this earth left. I felt it was necessary to take her so he could meet her. Scott and Makenna didn't stay long maybe an hour and a half but she started coughing last night even. I guess if she was going to get sick from going outside, then she would have come down with something on the way to Chicago.
I will keep you posted on what is decided. I am going to call Shriners in the morning and talk to them. Makenna has a doc appt at 2 tomorrow that was set up last week so Dr Burke could check her over and call Shriners with a report. I will post last tomorrow on what was decided.
Thanks!
God Bless