Ferrell Family Fun!!

My Girls!

2009-02-28T17:39:00.000-05:00

2009-02-14T20:32:00.000-05:00

Hannah in typical toddler style celebrated 2 birthdays, one in Ohio and one in Indiana! The one in Ohio was very small and consisted only of cake and ice cream and opening gifts. The one in Indiana was a biggie...a surprise birthday party at Chucky Cheese! She had a wonderful time and was so very excited! I am sure she will be asking to go back again soon. Thank you everyone for being special to Hannah.

snow days and birthday lunches

2009-02-03T22:55:00.000-05:00

Makenna experienced snow for the first time! Last winter she had to stay in because we were trying to keep her healthy for surgery! She didn't really care for the snow at all!!!
Hannah has been asking to go to Red Lobster(s) for an entire year! Last year for her birthday, we told her she could go anywhere and she decided she liked the sign on the Red Lobster resturant so that is where we went! We surprised her after school today and took her there for lunch! She was very excited! She got her own salad and Hannah, Makenna and I shared the chicken linguini dinner. They brought her a scoop of ice cream with chocolate and whipped cream and a candle in it and she was beside herself! The look on her face when they sang to her was priceless! I told her to blow her candle out and she said " Mom, I have to make a wish first! I wish for a guitar" and blew her candle out!
We are having a few friends and family over tomorrow evening for birthday cake and then having a party in Indiana next week when we go over there.
Enjoy the pictures! I'll try to share more later!!

This is what you get when Makenna dresses herself!

2009-01-27T18:37:00.000-05:00

This is what you get when Makenna dresses herself! She came down this morning with her snowpants on and put on TJ's hat from when we went to Disney world when he was maybe 5! She spent much of her morning on the potty and then wanted her picture taken with pablo! (Don't you love my 2 colors on my bathroom walls? We are in the process of painting it the blue color....time...wish I had some!) She is her own person for sure!
I will add on of Pablo. He loves to crawl into small boxes to sleep. I thought this was too funny, not sure how he fit in this little paper box!

Great Saturday

2009-01-26T23:29:00.001-05:00

Here are some pictures from our wonderful weekend! I'll blog more later about it, but let's just say we had a wonderful time!

Christmas 2008

2008-12-26T20:37:00.000-05:00

Here is a smilebox of our Christmas morning. We had a wonderful Christmas. We are so blessed. Turn the music off of the blog on the left to hear the Christmas music of the smilebox!

Our 4 beautiful children!

2008-12-23T13:24:00.000-05:00

Finally an update!!

2008-12-23T13:22:00.000-05:00

I am sorry it has taken so long for me to update our blog! We have been so very busy….too busy. I guess I will just try to pick up where I left off and update. I do the blog for our friends and family out of state but also for our girls. I wished I could have kept a diary with the boys of all the happenings of our family. I would be so neat to look back on now. OK, here we go…
We spent Thanksgiving weekend in Indiana with Scott’s family. We had a nice time and the girls loved being with all their cousins. We stayed at Uncle Wade and Aunt Mitzi’s new house. They have no children of their own and have a room just for their nieces and nephews that include games, coloring books and crayons, dolls, trucks, a real swing hanging from the ceiling, tv, computer, and much more!! Scott drove home that Sunday after Thanksgiving and left the girls and I there since Makenna had a checkup at Shriners in Chicago on Wednesday. There was no reason to drive 5 hours home just to turn around and drive it back on Tuesday. Mitzi, Makenna, and I left Monday night for Chicago and spent all day Tuesday and the outlet malls north of Chicago for lots of Christmas shopping! I did get quite a bit of shopping done that day which was very nice. Mitzi made reservations for us at Rainforest Café which I had never been too. It was wonderful! Makenna was very excited to see all the animals and they sat us by a big aquarium and she was entranced with watching the fish. We went back to our beautiful hotel room Mitzi got for us, she works for Westin and got us a 2 room suite for 40 bucks a night, and fell fast asleep. Makenna had to be at Shriners by 8 the next morning so we were up very early. Makenna did very well for her check up. They were very impressed with her speech progression and said she far exceeded the goals for 6 month post surgery! The speech pathologist was very impressed and stated she feels as though Makenna will speak with no impediment at all. She also had a new tooth come in since surgery to fill in the gap where her gum clefts. They said they are not sure if she will have a permanent tooth come in but it is a good sign. She does not need to go back to Chicago until September. They will re-evaluate her lip repair then. Dr. G said that she is borderline as to if he should re-do her lip or not. He things with her talking more and using that upperlip the scar should go down more. He also said there were 2 little holes in the roof of her mouth that he thinks will continue to close. He said they were not fistulas. Scott came back to Indiana the following Friday and had Ryan and Jess with him. We had a nice weekend and finally came home! There is no place like home! We started off the week with working and going to see my new baby niece. We then had pictures to take of 3 lively children! It was quite the trip to photograph a 7 month old, and 18 month old, and a 4 year old. We all felt exhausted when we were done but we got some great shots!
When our clients left the studio, Scott shared with me about his day at work. He was called into his boss’s office that afternoon and told he was being laid off. He was allowed to work through the week and that was it. No severance pay no nothing. After 12 years with the company he was getting nothing. We were expecting his hours to get cut to 32 hours a week but he had the most seniority and thought, as did everyone else at the company, that Scott would be the last one standing. Needless to say the last 2 weeks have been a series of ups and downs. We have a couple of leads for him but nothing really stands out for him. He is looking at possibly going back to school for something in the medical field, the only career that will always be needed, just not sure how to survive while he does that! I was lucky enough to be able to pick up more hours at work, enough to get insurance for us. If anyone out there in blog land has a lead on a good job we’d be interested! We have been trying to decide if we stay here in Ohio with our church family and all our friends or move back to Indiana with Scotts family. Our first choice is to stay here in Ohio, the schools are so much better and we hate to move the girls from their friends and all that is familiar to them. Please keep us in prayer as we seek God’s will for us.
On the Hannah and Makenna front! These two have finally bonded! It took a year but they are very close now. You often see them hugging each other and looking out for each other. When we were in Chicago they called each other on the phone and talked to each other for a long time. It was too cute to listen to them saying they loved each other and missed each other. Last night we met my dad for our annual Christmas dinner and Makenna did not see TJ come and get Hannah out of our van to take into the restaurant. As we were walking into the restaurant she began frantically pointing to the van and yelling Nah Nah, what she calls Hannah, thinking we were leaving her there. So sweet. That is all for right now. I must clean up the house. We are having a realtor come to give us some advice on selling it quickly. We know there is no way we can make the payments. Our little town has lost over 300 jobs in the last few months so the housing market will only get worse. God has reminded us that our home is just stuff and He will take care of us wherever we go. Part of me is scared and part of me is so excited to see what God has for us. I will keep you posted as God moves in our lives.

Introducing Isabelle Carolyn!!

2008-12-08T10:10:00.000-05:00

I am an aunt and Hannah and Makenna are so excited to have a new cousin! They will forever call her Bubbles (Hannah started calling her Bubbles as soon as Kayla announced they were pregnant!) She was born early and weighed in at 7 pounds 9 ounces! Aunt Tina must get making bows for her hair!!

FALL 08 PICTURES

2008-11-06T23:20:00.001-05:00

Scott met us Tuesday at the park to take pictures of the girls. He had taken some other kids' pictures and I wanted some of the girls. It is so hard to get good pictures of the girls but these turned out OK. They still did not cooperate very well but we did get a few cute ones!

You will have to scroll down to the playlist box and hit stop to stop our music so you can hear what the music is on the smile box. Enjoy!

Jo Jo and Minnie Mouse

2008-11-02T19:52:00.000-05:00

Here are the girls dressed up for Trunk or Treat. We wanted pictures in front of the pumpkins and scarecrows on our front porch but Makenna has decided she is terrified of them! She will not walk up on the porch to come in the house, so we had to take hers in front of Ryans car!! We took them to a church here in town that had trunk or treat instead of taking them around town to strangers houses. There were probably 30 or so cars, truck, and vans with their trunks decorated as bible stories that passed out candy. Makenna was very afraid of Hannah as Jo Jo and most of the other kids dressed up! She made it through only because there was candy as a reward! The girls had a great time.
On Saturday afternoon we met our friend Ellie at the park and Scott took her 4 year old pictures. She is such a doll with her big blue eyes! She and Hannah are the same age and they all 3 had a great time playing in the leaves. Makenna fell in love with Ellie's mom Janeen and wanted her to carry her all over the park! Janeen was blessed with a beautiful little boy that has a cleft lip and palate. We are so blessed to have them in our little hometown to support each other!

A baby boy!

2008-10-24T09:11:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to post a picture of Jordan and Amy's baby Mason! I had asked for prayer a couple of days ago for them. These two have been through so much and I am so excited that God has blessed them with a beautiful baby boy! Mason Thomas is his name and I can't wait to hold him!

I have been tagged...

2008-10-22T21:55:00.000-04:00

I was tagged for the first time and not sure I am ready to play games like this! I will give it a try though... 7 things about me..... this is difficult!

1. I am a Diet Coke-a-holic. I can go a whole day without it but by the next day I am shaking and "need" one really badly!

2. I am not sure if I am cheap or thrifty. I understand a man's hunting/gathering instinct. As I shop, I feel like I am hunting for the best bargin around. I get so excited when I can purchase something for 80% off! I'd have to say that 80% of the girls' clothes are ebay, consignment, and outlet!! Love, Love, Love a great bargin....it's an obsession....can you tell?

3. My maiden name is the same as my married name...I know, so unsual. I always hated my last name (Farrell) growing up. I was in speech therapy until I was in 5th grade because I could not say my r's or l's. I looked so forward to someday changing my last name to Smith or something easy but no, the man of my dreams shared the same last name! I still get nervous if I have to say my last name!

4. I hate my girls leaving the house with their hair not done up and a nice outfit on. On Saturdays when I work and Scott has the girls, he struggles with fixing their hair...oh they look like little orphans all over again!!

5. I think my dream career would be a performer. I would secretly love to sing and dance on broadway!!

6. I am a saucy girl, I have to dunk everything in some sort of dip or sauce, drives Scott ( who is incredibly plain) crazy!

7. I hate to read, I know, isn't that terrible? I can read for 2 minutes and realize I keep reading the same line over and over. It just never sinks in!

OK, so now I am to tag 7 of my friends! Not sure I will find that many to tag but I will try.

Janeen http://littleski.blogspot.com
Gary http://shotsontherun.blogspot.com
Kathy http://seven-alexanders.blogspot.com
Julie http://mom2mygirls.blogspot.com
Temple http://sigtemp.typepad.com/nihao

Well, that's the best I can do.....5 people! I hate to be a bother and ask people I don't know!! Is that silly? I guess number 8 would be I am secretly a shy person! As you can also see, I can't figure how to insert a link in my blog to all my friends addresses! #9?

pics

2008-10-21T13:59:00.000-04:00

bugs bugs bugs...

2008-10-21T13:34:00.000-04:00

Well,after 4 doctor appts, it has been decided that there is some sort of mite in our house. The girls have had a few spots on them for about 6 weeks, they come and go, would itch, but didn't bother them too badly. When we went to Disney, Makenna had a horrible first night before we went in to the park and we ended up stopping at a Stat care place to have her looked at. The doctor there said it was bug bites but I knew that we had not been around bugs. They continued to get a few while at Disney but they did heal up a little bit. We had been home over a week and they were almost dried up when bingo, one morning Makenna woke up with 5 spots on her back. That was it, we were going to the doctor. He said he thought they were infected hair folicles that had staph in them. I questioned how Hannah could also have them but took the antibiotic and cream and headed home. Well, by that weekend, Makenna was covered and so was Hannah. We went back to the doctor and he said he didn't have a clue now and referred us to a dermitologist who said he didn't really know but thought they were mite bites. Something you cannot see. I have been to the laundry mat and washed everything the girls own, all bedding, we have bleached their room, beds, treated the cat for fleas and mites, flea bombed the house and still we have spots. Poor Makenna has close to 50 in all different stages of healing and Hannah's are almost dried up. Scott, Ryan, and I have not had the first spot...? Maybe they are chinese fleas? Thinking maybe it was the fleas, I put the cat out in the garage so the cold would kill the fleas if he had any. I had not seen any on him, but treated anyway. We started seeing a couple of fleas in the house then. When I called the vet, she said to bring the cat back in the house, the fleas were jumping on us since the cat wasn't in the house. So we brought the sacrifical cat back in so all his friends could party on him again and treated him again. It has been so frustrating to get this under control. We have had Pablo for at least 6 years and I have never seen a flea on him. Thank goodness we had our 12 month final post placement homestudy for Makenna so even though they are being eaten alive with fleas, they can't send her back to China!!
That has been the story around here. On a Hannah note, she fell off a barstool in the family room last Friday and hit her face hard. I almost took her to the emergency room because of brusing around the eye and temple. She also had some blood in her nostril which my fear was if she hit hard enough to get blood in her nose she may be hurt badly. I watched her like a hawk,and rocked her most of the afternoon. The doctor said if her nose looked like it was broken to take her to the ER but it is still as cute as ever. On Sunday however, out of the blue, blood started pouring out of that nostril. It was really weird, and quite almost as quickly as it started. She does have a huge shiner though! I will try to post pictures yet today. We have been busy with pictures and I had 2 uppercase living shows in the last couple of weeks. Things are never dull for sure!
If anyone has any ideas on our bug situation, please let me know!
Please say a prayer for my friends today that are having their first baby. Amy and Jordan have been though so much, losing a daughter, miscarriages, etc. They are at the hospital now waiting the arrival of Mason Thomas!! I can't wait to meet him!

The pumpkin farm!

2008-10-12T15:24:00.000-04:00

Who is following us?

2008-10-08T21:01:00.001-04:00

Hi guys. I know you probably want an update on the goings on in our lives but no time right now! We have 7 photography orders to get sent to the lab tonight! Do me a favor and click the follow tab on the left side of the screen so we know who is following our blog! It is great fun to see who follows and some of you have blogs that I'd love to follow too!
On a very quick note. Miss Makenna is really talking up a storm! She is saying new words every day and I can understand alot of them! We were driving by the local Chinese resturant, Ming Hing, and she pointed and yelled "Ming Ming"! It was plain as day! We also got our hair cut last night. We cut quite a bit off of Makennas and bobbed it like Hannah's while it grows out. It looks so cute. I gave them a bath tonight then put mousse in their hair and dryed it with a round brush. They loved it!
On a side note, keep our friends Scott and Trish in your prayers. Trish lost her dad early this morning. He was a Christian and is in a much better place but will missed terribly.
That's all for now!!

We are home

2008-09-27T20:30:00.001-04:00

We made it home! The trip home was pretty non eventful and even though we did not want to leave Utopia aka Disney, we knew we had to! I will try to post more about our trip soon, but we are off and running hard this week with our schedule. I hope to at least post more pictures for you, I know that is what most of you want anyway!!

Blessings

More Pics of Disney

2008-09-25T08:08:00.001-04:00

Where had the week gone?!

2008-09-24T22:50:00.000-04:00

Oh where has the week gone?! I had such high hopes of journaling every night about our day’s activities but here it is Wednesday afternoon and I have not journaled since Saturday night! I hope I remember it all. To put our experiences in a sentence it would go something like, Hannah loves pretty much everything and Makenna is afraid of everything! How ironic is it that, the Makster, that usually has no fear is afraid of every character that we have seen and Hannah the quiet one (I mean quiet in the sense of being outgoing and doing things not talking!) has had a blast getting involved in every dance and character that comes along! The only exception to that rule is Pocahontas…Makenna sat on her lap for a picture, but only after she talked to her for a while. We are having a great time and the girls are also doing very well. We have had a character meal every day and Hannah has loved it. On Tuesday we had breakfast with the princesses. Belle greeted us in her beautiful yellow dress and there was a photographer there to take your daughters picture with her. Of course Makenna would have no part in that but Hannah loved it. She kept talking about how beautiful Belle was after we got to our table. Then one by one we had princesses come by our table to pictures and autographs. The really nice thing about the princesses and not characters is that they can talk. The characters cannot speak to the kids. Hannah wore her Sleeping Beauty dress and Makenna refused to wear her Cinderella so she wore her tinkerbell outfit! When sleeping Beauty came to our table and saw that Hannah had on her dress, she said, “Oh my little sister is here!” Hannah thought that was wonderful! We then had Jasmine come to our table. Hannah has yet to see Aladdin but Scott sure has and he was so hoping that she would be one of the princesses that would come to our table! When we visited Disney when the boys were in grade school, Scott got to see the real live Jasmine and has been a fan ever since! He did manage to snap a couple of pictures of she and Hannah….for Hannah of course! Mary Poppins was next to come out and then was Mulan! Hannah said Ni Hao (hello in Chinese) to Mulan and Mulan got so excited that she knew some Chinese. She came and spent extra time with us at our table. She also gave Hannah a kiss on the cheek with her red lipstick and left a mark. Hannah was so excited that she refused to wash it off all day. We only did a few things at Epcot that day. The girls were tired so we headed for home and to swim for a bit before going to bed early. We had breakfast reservations for 8:05 the next morning so my plan was to not have them nap. That worked fairly well but it was hard getting them up so early. I had read to have an early breakfast at Animal Kingdom’s Tusker House and then hit the safari ASAP because the animals would still be up eating their breakfast and you would see more of them. Well, it just so happened to be a little cooler that morning and the animals were up and about! We saw 3 giraffes running around the plains, I mean actually running! It was the most awkward looking run I have ever seen…Priceless. The lion was also out as well as hipps, rhino’s, and many more. This morning we had breakfast with Tigger, Eeyore, Piglet, and Pooh. It was great fun and had a great spread of food! The girls have not eaten much since we have been here but I am hoping they are just too excited to eat. Tomorrow we have our last character meal. It is called breakfast with Chef Mickey. It is in the Contemporary hotel and supposed to be wonderful. They all have been great though. The characters know to stay away from Makenna but they also will offer her a high five to get her involved a little bit. The staff here has been wonderful. When they see the girls they usually greet, “Good Morning Princess”. Well, that is about all for today. It is now after 9:30 Wednesday night and Scott is waiting on our clothes to dry at the laundry mat and I am headed to bed! The girls are fast asleep and I am hoping they sleep all night. Hannah has done very well but Makenna has been waking up quite a few times per night. I am going to sleep with Makenna tonight just so see if I can get hr back to sleep right away instead of her fussing for a while. I will try to post pics soon of Sunday – Wednesday goingsons!
Talk to you all soon!

pics from disney

2008-09-21T16:32:00.001-04:00

DISNEY!!!!!!

2008-09-21T15:31:00.000-04:00

I will try to get you caught up on our vacation journey! It is Sunday afternoon around 2 and we are back at the resort and the girls are lying down to take a nap. They have, for the most part, done very well on the trip. OK, I’ll start at the beginning with Friday….

We had fairly uneventful flights, other than both of them being delayed after we were loaded and supposed to keep the girls in their seatbelts, HaHa! Hannah did very well and Makenna did, well, Makenna did it Makenna style! Those of you that know her know that she is only still for 5-10 seconds at a time, well, that did not change just because we were 20,000 feet in the air! Just like the long trip from China home, as long as there was a steady supply of snacks she would sit. We had a couple of times that she had to be in her seatbelt and she screamed and kept unbuckling her belt. It only took a small tap on the leg and she’d comply. She is getting a little better about realizing that what we say is what we mean. By the time we landed in Florida, the girls were tired and exhausted. They had been up for 7 hours and only had granola bars and snacks. We had planned on purchasing them McDonalds for them in Atlanta but since our flight from Akron Canton was delayed 30 minutes and we only had a 45 minute layover, we did not have time. You’d be impressed, we made it with 2 toddlers, 2 carry ons (the girls carried their own carryons), and the strollers through Atlanta airport, on the shuttle, up an elevator, then back down, to get to our next gate in 15 minutes. They were boarding as we made it to the gate. After we got the rental car, we headed to Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Mike’s house and swam for hours in their beautiful pool. Hannah, who is terrified of dogs and they have a German Shepard, was usually calm around Macy. Then they started throwing Macy’s ball in the pool and watching her swim to retrieve it. It was a great time and the highlight was the girls got to roast their first hotdogs on an open fire and follow it up with roasted marshmallows! Makenna had some spots on her before we left and we were unsure of what they were from and while we were swimming, she got some more. She had a very rough night Friday night, running a fever and scratching continually all night long. We got up Saturday morning and had a bowl of cereal and headed out. We drove past a stat care and stopped in to see what was wrong with Makenna. Well, the “doctor” said they were bug bites, even though Hannah has some too and there had been no bugs while swimming. They did give her a Benedryl injection to help with the itching and we were on our way again. We stopped by Walmart and gathered water, juice boxes, snacks, benedryl, cooler etc and we finally made it to our resort around 1:30. We had been told by our car rental company that we could drop the car off at one of 2 locations inside Disney but then found out the closest one was outside of the Disney grounds and they closed at 2 so we’d be charged another day rental……not happy at all about that but we will talk about that later! We headed to Magic Kingdom and the girls were so excited to pull up to the gates. As we walked through the gate there was a band playing and dancing going on. The look on the girls’ faces was priceless! I was choked up and could speak for the first 10 or 15 minutes of being there! Am I a sap or what?! We decided that since we only had a little over an hour before our dinner reservations that we would go find Liberty Inn where we were going to eat dinner. We found it without any problems then just wondered around until it was time to eat . As soon as we got up on the porch to enter the restaurant, the heavens opened up and the rain poured, and poured, and poured. We did not have the extra rain ponchos on the strollers so they got drenched but we were dry! We had the most wonderful meal for supper. It was served family style and they brought a salad and rolls with honey butter for starters. After we were finished with our salad out came the plate of meats, carved beef (the most wonderful beef I can remember having for years and years!), sliced turkey, and pork loin with a pineapple/mustardy tasting glaze on it, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and macaroni and cheese. After our long 2 days with not much in the way of a meal it was so filling and wonderful. To top off the meal, they brought homemade apple cobbler with ice cream! It sure hit the spot! While we were eating this entire time, Minnie mouse, Goofy, Pluto, Chip and Dale all came around to each table to sign autograph books and get your picture taken with them. Well you know brave Makenna and wussy Hannah you can imagine how that all went! WRONG! Makenna was terrified of them and Hannah went right up to them and hugged them and had the time of her life! Makenna had to hang on to Scott when they came around the table and she’d be screaming in fear but still waving bye bye to them. She even blew them kisses through her tears! It was the funniest thing to watch. By the end of dinner, she still didn’t really want much to do with them but would at least give them high fives. When Goofy was at our table, Dale was at the table next to ours and Goofy pulled Dale’s tail then blamed Hannah! It was too funny to watch Hannah talk her way out of that. Hannah had found 2 acorn type tops on the ground outside and insisted on taking them in the restaurant for Chip and Dale for them to eat so when she gave her top to them, they gave her the biggest hug! As we were out walking around later on, the bear jamboree bears were singing and dancing and invited kids to join in. Hannah ran right out and danced and did the hokey pokey with them and had a blast. She has been so fun to watch her blossom on this trip. We came back to the room and gave the girls a bath and they were out! They slept so well last night and woke up excited for their new day! I’ll post more about our day today a little later. We are going to upload our pictures onto the Disney site then we will post some here soon! Wish you all were here with us!

First day of preschool

2008-09-16T17:47:00.000-04:00

Well, it has finally come and gone! Hannah has officially started preschool! We started last night with picking out the perfect outfit, making a new hairbow to match and getting to bed about 8:00. I had to wake the girls up at 7:30 which I found out needs to be by 7. Hannah needs snuggle time and to lay in my bed, drink her milk or juice and chill for a bit before she can start the day, alot like me!
We got all ready for school, grabbed a granola bar for breakfast, tried to snap a few pictures of which she did NOT want to do, and head to school. We met up with her buddy Caleb that lives across the street and had to have pictures taken together. Makenna was feeling left out so she got in on a picture, of course Hannah not wanting her picture taken, was being very uncoorperative. How can we be photographers and not get a picture of our own daughter?!
Hannah marched into her room without looking back. I snapped a picture outside as I was leaving looking in at her little class. She was of course talking to the little girl next to her! After we left the church, Makenna and I had our first story time. Can I just say NIGHTMARE?! She is not ready to sit down and listen to a story, basically, she isn't ready to stop. She is on the go from sun up to sun down! She pitched a few fits, refused to color her craft, only wanting the glue stick to play with. She did enjoy the bells that we all got to jingle and march in a circle to music. All in all, I am not looking forward to our next session! We stopped by our friends house to visit since we only had about a half an hour before we had to pick up Hannah and Makenna was not a nice girl there either. She started rubbing her eyes so we left and I drove around a bit hopeing she'd drop off to sleep before getting Hannah and Caleb but no luck.
We went to Hannah's class to get her and she ran out of her room with an apple cutout that had a sticker that said "I survived my first day of preschool"! We had to then wait in line for Caleb since he is in another class and we headed to the "mailboxes" to get our mail. Hannah was prancing around so I knew she had to go potty but she refused to go. As I was trying to keep 3 toddlers together, grab mail, and get Hannah to the bathroom, Makenna is pulling boxes off the shelve...what a time. Hannah proceeds to announce that she has peed her pants! This child is so afraid of those darn automatic flushing toilets that we cannot hardly get her to go out in public. I have no idea what we will do in Disney next week!
She had a great time, played with playdoh and in the kitchen. That was all I could get out of her! She asked for a nap this afternoon so I guess she was warn out!
I will attach a couple of pics to show how adorable she was!

family update

2008-09-11T13:02:00.001-04:00

Just time for a quick update on the Ferrell family! We have been quite busy around here lately! I guess one of the biggest milestones is that Makenna Grace is beginning to speak!! She attempts to say new words daily and is so very proud of herself. She has proven herself to be a true daddy's girl, crying for him at night and whenever mom puts her in timeout or gives her a swat on the behind! We have started bedtime bootcamp here trying to break the cycle of her waking up every night at 3am and wanting to come to bed with us. So for 3 nights in a row, mean mommy goes upstairs and will lay on the foot of her bed and calm her down. She gets VERY upset that I refuse to take her downstairs and screams for DaDa and then Ryan to save her from this horrible mom! She kicks, screams, and actually will turn circles in the bed as she pitches her fit! Hannah, laying beside her usually sleeps through the whole thing! The shocker is when Hannah used to sleep in our room, if we were sneaking out of the room after she was asleep and the floor would squeak, she'd wake up and she can sleep through Makenna's 20 - 30 minute fit 3 foot from her head!!
Hannah gets to go meet her teacher tonight at preschool! She is very excited but also reserved. Not too sure she will love it as much as mom thinks she will!
Ryan is working nights at Walmart doing remodeling which means he is sleeping during the day. I try to keep the girls quiet so he can rest. Poor guy is pretty pooped! He also starts a new job tonight at Best Buy and then will go to Walmart right after and work until 7ish tomorrow morning!
TJ is trying to get recruiter assistant and come home for a few weeks. It looks like it will be postponed until October.
Scott and I are swamped between the photography business, my uppercase living, and wrangeling 2 toddlers. I have been working at our county fair this week at a booth for uppercase living trying to get some leads, so hopefully that picks up soon too.
Hannah had "professional" pictures taken by a very nice lady here in our town. She has posted a few on her blog at http://imagesbykaren.typepad.com. Makenna is a few posts back.
That's about it. I have the girls at the sitter so I can clean my house today. Hard to keep them in the family room where they are quiet for Ryan to sleep and clean the rest of the house! Figure one day at the sitter is cheaper than a maid!!

On a serious note, please keep my friend in prayer as she is in China and just received her baby. They are having some difficult issues and covet your prayers.

pictures

2008-08-20T23:45:00.000-04:00

Notice the big boo boo on Makenna's nose? Well, it was a small mosquito bite that she keeps picking! Every morning and everyday after nap, she looks like she has gone 3 rounds with dried blood all over her face. I have been keeping New Skin on it but she still manages to scratch it open. I keep telling her it will scar then when she is 15, she is going to be mad at me for letting her pick it. Anyway, just wanted to clarify the large scab!

Let's try to get caught up!

2008-08-20T22:05:00.001-04:00

Wow, where has the time gone?! Things here at the Ferrell house have been busy to say the least. We have had everything from Ryan wrecking Scotts wonderful truck (totaling it) to Makenna finally making a few words, to me, Tina, beginning yet another business, and then there is just life!
We are so grateful for God's grace with Ryan. He totaled Scott's truck a few weeks ago and walked away without a scratch. That makes 2 vehicles in 6 months that he has wrecked and totaled and walked away from both without any injuries to himself or any other vehicle being involved. Keep Ryan in prayer as he is seaching for God's plan in his life. He is just not sure which direction he wants to go in.
And then there is Makenna! All those weeks of speech and she refused to say a word! In a rare twist of events, her original speech therapist was pregnant and took maternaty leave but her replacement was also pregnant! The plan was for Leann to be back from leave before the second one had her baby but as fate would have it, baby number 2 was born early! We have not been to speech in about 3 weeks and in that time she has added 4 or 5 words to her vocabulary!! Go figure! She FINALLY says Daddy! When she is upstairs crying at bedtime or in the night she will cry out "mama" and pause, then "dada", then pause, the "ryan"! Too cute. The only other name she will say is cousin Tyler and she says "I" ler. We go to speech tomorrow morning for therapist number 3. I have already decided that since she did't like #2 and struggled with her that if she doesn't do well tomorrow, we will just wait another 4 or 5 weeks for LeAnn to be back from maternaty leave.
On the Hannah front, she is getting excited for school. I have been busy Ebaying getting her adorable outfits for school. Like always, she will have way too many clothes but if you can get them for cheap why not!! We will have to go shoe shopping and she needs a special first bookbag yet. We did stop in her preschool to drop off paperwork last week and she was very excited to see her classroom. Of course everything was still packed up and nothing decorated but she was still excited. The lady giving us the mini tour commented on how talkative she was......like we didn't know that!
I finally had a Saturday off last weekend and we decided to take the girls to a large petting zoo down in amish country. Hannah was terrified of all the animals! Makenna was not afraid of anything except when the goats mobbed her! We have video of Hannah looking into the bird cage full of parakeets saying,"Hi, my name is Hannah. Would you like to say hello to me?" Too cute! After seeing the monkeys, alligators, baby deer, goats, donkeys, ducks and chickens everywhere, bunnies, baby ducks, porqupines, sheep, and who knows what else, we boarded a wagon pulled by 2 big work horses for the big tour. We saw ostriches, emus, water buffalo, many different kinds of deer, elams, yak, zebra, brauma bull, long horned steers, camels, pot bellied pigs, and more I am sure I am forgetting! We got buckets of feed to feed the animals from the wagon. The girls enjoyed it, well Hannah really enjoyed it, Makenna was ready for a nap! Hannah was all brave from the comforts of the wagon and kept asking the guy if we could get out now to pet the buffalo! I will try to post some pictures from the day. Those poor baby ducks...they were in a pen that you could just pick them up. Picture the whole day, kid after kid picking you up, getting scared, then dropping you back into your pen!
Not much else to report. Scott tried to quit the photography business but everytime he did, someone else called to schedule and I took the booking! He has now purchased a new camara and we are gearing up to get busy again! I have started selling uppercase living. I love this product! I am so anxious to use all my free product coming but we have so many rooms in our house that need painted I need to hold off until I decide on paint colors and get it painted before I can order! Until then, I just gather ideas! You can check out my website at http://TinaFerrell.uppercaseliving.net .
I will try to borrow Ryan's laptop tonight that has the pictures from the petting farm on and upload a slide show tonight.
God Bless

pictures of Makenna

2008-08-08T14:44:00.000-04:00

We learned about a program where professional photographers donate their time and services to photograph children that are adopted.
We went to a wonderful photographer here in our town and she did a wonderful job! She has posted a few pictures of Makenna on her blog if you want to check them out. We go on Wednesday to view the proofs. I am sure it will be hard to make a decision!!

Here is her website. If anyone has an adopted child home less than one year, you should check local photographers and see if they are a member of this club. It is a wonderful gift!

http://imagesbykaren.typepad.com/

NEW BUSINESS VENTURE

2008-08-07T12:16:00.000-04:00

I have a new business!! As if we are not busy enough in our house, I have begun another home business. I started selling uppercase living!! I am very excited about the product. I was the first consultant to sign up in Wayne County so I am hoping and praying for great things! This is very new to our area and so far there is much interest. You can view my website and let me know if you have any questions or would like to host a show. If you are looking for some extra money and would be interested in signing up to sell let me know that too! I have had 2 shows and already made back the money I spent to sign up!!! Enjoy looking at the online catalog! Let me know if you want a real one to look at!!

CHECK OUT:
http://tinaferrell.uppercaseliving.net/Home.m

A cutie-pa-tutie!

2008-07-13T23:07:00.000-04:00

Look at this adorable boy! I am hoping he will someday be my son-in-law!! Our friends Gary and Dawn are in China now preparing to bring him home the end of the week! Please keep them in prayer as they finish their trip in China, the long flight home, and for Sean to feel right at home in his new home!

2008-07-13T22:48:00.000-04:00

Here are some pictures from our mini photo shoot tonight. I mostly wanted to get Hananh's pictures for her 2 year "Gotcha Day" anniversary...even though we are a month late! As you notice, Miss Hannah got her hair cut! She had so much new hair growth under her hair that we decided to cut it off in the back and let it grow out together. I love her hair like this! She looks so grown up with it cut!
Enjoy the pictures. I will try to update soon!

please pray for our friends

2008-07-07T15:04:00.000-04:00

Please keep our friends Gary and Dawn in prayer. They are in China right now adopting an adorable little boy! He was born with a pretty severe heart defect and will most likely require surgery soon after he gets home.
If you'd like to follow their blog it is
www.Shotsontherun.blogspot.com

Thank you for your prayers on their behalf!

Tina

4th of July

2008-07-07T13:59:00.000-04:00

I will post more soon, I promise! We have been so busy lately!

trip to shriners

2008-06-19T08:18:00.000-04:00

Well, as though we have not done enough traveling in the last couple of weeks, we left Tuesday evening for Chicago Shriners. We left the house by 5:30 and had to stop about an hour and a half into the trip so we could eat. We got the girls good and full with high hopes that they would just drift off to la la land for the next 4 ½ hours…..NO WAY! That would be far too easy wouldn’t it? Hannah fell asleep after a couple of hours since she did not have a nap Tuesday, she was pretty tired. Makenna on the other hand, even though she was tired, refused to go to sleep. I think she slept the last hour of the trip. With the stopping we did, we did not get to our hotel until 12:30 our time. We were all very pooped. The girls were so excited to get in the hotel room and I had a hard time keeping them quiet so we didn’t disturb the other guests! Hannah crawled in bed with Scott and Makenna slept with me. Even though she was tired, she was very excited and didn’t want to fall asleep. She kept playing with my face and trying to talk to me. I finally fell asleep and when her play toy didn’t play anymore, she finally fell asleep. We were up by 7 AM and all of us showered, dressed, and packed up by little after 8. We stopped at McDonalds for breakfast then to Shriners we went. Our appt was at 9:30 and we arrived right on time. Thank goodness for our Garman GPS, it takes us right to places. As we walked in the hospital, the nurse that discharged us from the hospital after Makenna’s surgery was walking another family out to their car. She remembered Makenna and wanted to talk to her. Everyone is so very nice there. They really do care about the kids there. We saw the audiologist first and he said that her hearing was great! He did a hearing test and she did really well until she lost interested and refused to look towards the sound. When she is done, she is done! We then saw the ENT. He said the tubes looked good and had no recommendations for us. He said we do not need to use the ear plugs for bath time or swimming, unless she will be more than a foot and a half under water! We sat and sat and I finally asked someone when we would see the plastic surgeons. Come to find out, they had Makenna on the wrong list and she was not scheduled to see them! They called the doctors back up to the clinic and we finally go to see Dr. Grasseschi (I think that is how you spell it!) He said her mouth looked great, he had no concerns. He said the little bit of drainage out her nose could come from the roof of her mouth where there is a tiny spot still not completely healed, or could be from the back of the palate. I told him that we still were not giving her chips or anything hard like that and he said to allow her to eat whatever she wanted…no restrictions. He has no idea what all this girl would eat! As we were leaving Shriners, we asked at the front desk how close China Town was from the hospital. It was within a half hour so we decided to stop by on our way out of town.. We had seen lots of buildings from the highway on our way to the hospital with Chinese writing on them and we were intrigued so we headed off for some simulated culture for the girls! On the way there we drove through little Mexico! It lasted forever; it was about the size of the real Mexico! When we finally arrived at China town, it was shocking at how similar it was to China. For one thing of course you see so many Asians in one place! We parked and got out of the van and right away the smell took you back to China! We started walking and had many many stares from women trying to decide if the girls were Chinese or they looked like me, or maybe I had an affair?! We went in one shop that had grocery type items and Hannah did not like it at all. I think she recognized the smell from far back in her little mind and she got scared. She cried to leave right away. We did not go into another store for a long time after that, just walked and enjoyed the sights and sounds. We were wanting to get the girls authentic Chinese noodles but there were so many restaurants we were overwhelmed at which one to choose. Scott saw a Caucasian couple getting ready to head into this one restaurant and asked them about it. They said it was very good so we decided to try it out,. We had to collapse the strollers and carry the girls and strollers up a flight of steps because the restaurant was on the second floor! It was very good food. Scott and I’s meals came with egg drop soup and the girls loved it. We each got sweet and sour chicken and fried rice. I thought I’d get something to share with the girls that wouldn’t be so spicy. I ordered them a side of lo mein noodles since that is what Hannah really wanted. They brought this huge platter of noodles! The girls hardly touched it so we ended up bringing it home. They also served 4 cookies and 4 fortune cookies at the end of our meal. I used my chopsticks throughout the entire meal and even fed Makenna off of them! I was fairly proud of myself, only spilling rice on myself or the table a couple of times. When we were getting ready to leave a lady sitting at the table next to us asked how old the girls were and commented on Hannah’s vocabulary and her use of words. She said she was very impressed. We have one that speaks at a 4 or 5 year old level and one that doesn’t speak at all! We did stop in a couple of other stores and Hannah did much better., I think she realized by that point that she was safe. She tried on some hats in one store and looked through the traditional Chinese dresses. As we were walking to the van we passed a Chinese Christian bookstore and went in. The number one thing I remember is Tornado Makenna. Oh my, how embarrassing! She was sooooo tired and ready for a nap and she was terrible! She would pick up any book and throw it down and keep running. We had her belted in her stroller but she was screaming and pitching such a huge fit we let her out..big mistake! We did get a couple of nice books for the girls. The sales girl was wonderful. They are run by a church in China town and they give English lessons to the Chinese people and then tell them about Jesus. Sounded like an awesome ministry. They had the cutest little bible books written in Chinese then English on the same page. As we headed back to the van, we decided we need to do this again when we can stay longer. The sales ladies loved asking questions about the girls. Everyone kept saying how big Makenna was! She has gone from skinny starving little girl to a chunky monkey for sure! She is up to 27 pounds!
It is now 9:49 pm and we are little over an hour from home. Makenna has just now finally dozed off! How this girl fights sleep while traveling. Next time, we are drugging her, hate to do it but it is miserable for everyone! Hannah decided she was starving the whole way home so she had cheeseburgers from McDonalds, cookies, 2 cups of Gatorade, cup of milk, cup of my watered down diet coke……..and still kept saying she was hungry. She is still awake watching Milo and Otis. Amazing that girl She is really turning into quite the little traveler. She is not afraid of hotels any more and feels safe in most environments. Tomorrow is a big day for her…it is her second Gotcha Day anniversary! Hard to believe it has been 2 years in some aspects and it also seems like she has always been with us! I will try to post pictures of her in her gotcha day outfit tomorrow. I am sure it still fits her well; it was pretty big on her when we got her!

vacation pics and prayer request

2008-06-17T07:32:00.001-04:00

OK, so 2 weeks later, here are the rest of the vacation pictures!! We have been so busy since we got home! Scott finally got the pictures converted from RAW files to jpeg so I could do something with them. We leave for Shriners this afternoon for Makenna's followup appt tomorrow. She will see the plastic surgeon, ENT, audiologist, and not sure who else again.
We will come straight home. My uncle is in his last days with cancer. I doubt that he will be here on this earth by the time we get home and honestly I hope he isn't. It is painful to watch someone as active as he was to be so bed ridden. We lost my mom three years ago next month, her younger brother a year ago this month, and now her older brother. They are all had melanomia. My mom's was laryngeal melanomia, she was only 1 of about 50 in the world to have this rare type. Her younger brother had melanomia in his eyeball which is also not very common. Her older brother had spots on his back and shoulder removed but it had spread by the time they found it. The doctors said that he should have died 6 months ago because of the large size of his tumors but he has an incredible will to live. He was hoping to live until his 75th birthday which is July 18. I think they are throwing him an early birthday party. I told him after living 74 and 11/12's he could celebrate a couple weeks early! I went to see him yesterday and spend a little time with him. It was hard leaving knowing I won't see him again until heaven probably. Please keep my family in prayer and especially his family as they walk through this diffiult time. My aunt just lost her mother in March and now her husband.
Thank you for your prayers.
God Bless

Some fun pics from Friday

2008-06-15T16:12:00.000-04:00

Here are some pictures we took of Hannah, Makenna and Tyler Michael. He celebrated his 1st birthday a couple of weeks ago! Hard to believe he is getting so big! I got his mommy a photoframe with 3 openings and put a pic of Tyler in is birthday hat, one with the cake in front of him, and one all messy in the frame for her to keep. It was pretty cute. Although, Tyler was not happy about getting his picture taken and really did not like getting messy in his cake, the pictures turned out cute! The girls also did not do well. Scott takes wonderful pictures of other people's kids but his own kids will not cooperate!
Enjoy!

Our famous family!

2008-06-15T13:52:00.000-04:00

Well, I have so much to post but this will be short and sweet! In recognition of Father's Day, Scott was asked if the newspaper could feature him for todays issue. They wanted to tell his story of how we were inches away from empty nest and freedom and how we ended up with 2 beautiful little active girls from China! We were thrilled to have the opportunity to share our testimony about our adoptions but unfortunately they did not meantion God in the article! We were disappointed especially since Scott gave them a copy of an article he had written entitled "The Relunctant Father" which told his spiritual struggle with his selfish side of wanting to be finished with raising kids and knowing God wanted him to start again. We pray that even though God was not in our story in the paper, He will still be honored and maybe another precious child will find a forever home because of it. Here is the story and picture! BTW, It was amazing how many people saw this before church! We had people we didn't know come up to us at church to talk about adoption. We also had a family see us in Dairy Queen that had seen the picture and article that talked to us! Gotta love small towns!

PS, I have much to post on our past week and also the rest of our vacation. I will do that soon I Promise!

2008-06-06T22:18:00.000-04:00

We had a fun day today. Hannah woke up at 7 and woke Makenna up. They are sleeping on a twin size air mattress on the side of our bed. I got Hannah up and we went out on the balcony to look for dolphin. They usually are out in the bay early in the morning and in the evening. Scott picked up Makenna and put her in bed with them and they both drifted back off to sleep for another 2 hours! They were so cute in there sleeping together. Makenna has to sleep on her tummy and had her little butt stuck up in the air just slumbering away!
We got up and got ready and headed out to the beach. We went to a really nice beach today, much better than the one the day before. Although, really, any day you get to go to a beach is a good day! The girls liked the beach alot more today. They both played and had a great time in the sand. Makenna even got brave enough to go up to the water and rinse her hands off when they got sandy! Hannah would go fill her bucket up with water by herself so it was all in all a fun time. I will post pictures a little later. Scott is laying down with the girls right now getting them to sleep and I can't find his camara to get the card out! We came back to the condo and ate some lunch and I put the girls down for a nap. TJ got off work today early and was here by 1. He was so tired and laid down with Hannah for a nap. I went in to lay down with them and TJ and I slept until 6! We were so tired! TJ suggested a great pizza place to try for supper so we ordered and Scott went to pick it up. The girls are pretty energetic and we didn't want to take them to a resturant! That is about our lazy day today! Everyone but Scott and I are sitting around the dining room table playing poker, not sure who is winning but seems to be pretty heated at times. I'll post today's pictures when I can tonight!
Signing off from the beach......only one day left...... :(

Our vacation so far

2008-06-06T07:19:00.000-04:00

Here it goes. For some reason when I powered up the laptop this morning, everything was in jibberish. When I type in a website to go to, it is all symbols but when I get there it is fine. When I put a title to this post, it is in all symbols but the blog is OK. Scott is sleeping so I'll ask him when he wakes up. Anyway, about our trip...
The ride down here was LONG. It was enough to take some of the cheapness out of me and I am checking on flying to Disney in Sept! We only made it an hour or so and stopped to eat, hoping the girls would then drift off to sleep and sleep the whole way. What was I smoking?! The girls fussed then played then fussed until around 9:30 or so. When Scott stopped to get something to drink at 1AM they both woke up again. Hannah could not go back to sleep and was awake until 4:30. She kept saying she was too excited to see her big brother to sleep. I even did the unthinkable and got her out of her carseat and made a bed on the floor between the captian chairs for her to sleep on....no go. At 4:30 I finally put her back in her seat and told her she didn't have to sleep but she had to close her eyes and just rest. That was enough to knock her out like a light until we were pulling in the parking lot of the condo.
We got in a little after 7 on Wednesday morning. We were all pretty tired. The girls were excited to be here and grandma fixed them breakfast. We got swimsuits on and headed to the pool by 9 AM! I was surprised that neither one of the girls took to the water like I thought they would. They were both afraid of the water at first. The water was pretty chilly but even in the hot tub where it was warm like bath water they were not big fans. Makenna did better if her feet could touch so she ran circles on the seat in the hot tub! Hannah sat on the edge alot and put her feet in and splashed. By 10:30 it was getting hot and we headed back up to the room for lunch and naps. The girls went right down for a nap and I was exhausted but didn't want to spend my vacation inside so I headed back out to the pool. I had this plan of how not to get burnt but in the end it didn't work. I took 30 SPF and applied it to my body but when I rolled over on my stomach, I didn't reapply to the back of my legs and back and boy did I pay the price. I was only out for an hour or so but I am as red as a lobster on my back side. So stinking mad at myself for that. I was determined to come down here, enjoy the sun without a sunburn! I have not been in the sun or a tanning bed since my mom was diagnosed with skin cancer and passed away almost 3 years ago. I am very aware of the dangers of sunburns and preach to my boys all the time about applying sunscreen. Oh well, not much to do now but stay covered up outside! TJ stopped over when he got off work and we headed to a beach. We loaded up 101 sand toys and buckets, towels, beach chairs, sunscreen, and took off. The girls liked the sand when we got there but they were not sure about the waves coming up and covering their feet! Hannah wanted nothing to do with it and Makenna didn't care for it either. Now, Makenna is the type of kid that in a bathtub, she is on her tummy, putting her face in the water and "swimming". Scott ended up sitting down in the sand with her and they probably sat the for at least an hour for her to get used to it. After a while, she warmed up a little to the beach fun. What was so funny is she refused to walk on the beach and didn't want to put her knees down to crawl in it so she did the crab walk wherever she wanted to go! Hannah had fun playing in the sand with her favorite person in the whole wide world..TJ. By the end of the day, we had sea gulls eating out of our hands. The girls thought that was pretty funny. We returned to the condo and ate dinner and put the girls and us to bed by 9. We were all 4 out like a light and the girls slept all night long. Hannah woke me up around 8 and she and I got up and Makenna and Scott slept until after 9.
Thursday morning Scott, Anna, Hannah, and I got up and headed to TJ's base to meet him during his lunch time. He showed us all around his base but wouldn't allow us in his room! Not sure why, it has to be kept clean all the time. Said something about not informing his room mate that we were coming...who knows! Hannah was upset that TJ didn't let her see his room! There is a big air show at the base this weekend and the blue angels were practicing while we were there. That was interesting to watch them. When TJ went back to work, we went to the PX and went shopping. Anna had her military ID since her dad is in the airforce so we had a fun time. I was in charge of cooking supper Thursday night so we had a mexican fiesta!
The girls have done pretty well so far. They do get bored with no toys to play with. Makenna has started really caring about her diapers....as soon as she pees or poops she wants it off. I think we are ready to potty train! 2 times down here, she has reached in her diaper and pulled out a little something somthing if you get my drift. She has had little marble poopies since surgery and she finds them interesting! Oh my, the horror on everyones face when she does this. Yesterday I changed her and a few minutes later she grabbed her nose to let me know she was stinky. I checked her and she was fine but about 5 minutes later, she had pooped in her diaper.
Well, that should catch you up on our vacation up to Friday morning. I think we are headed to the beach this morning. I promised Hannah I'd take her and a bucket to gather shells!

Vacation pics from yesterday

2008-06-05T17:55:00.000-04:00

I'll post a little later. It is my night to cook and need to fix supper for the starving natives! We are having a great time!

What a weekend!

2008-06-02T08:10:00.001-04:00

Well, he did it! Ryan graduated!

We had a very nice time with friends and family this weekend. We had Scott's parents, sisters and their famlies come over from Indiana and stay with us. It is fun to get everyone together. The girls enjoy their cousins and it is fun to watch them together. Scott took pictures Sunday morning and when you look at the cousins picture there are alot of them but there are 5 missing! Ryan is the only white kid in the bunch....pretty funny for him to be a minority in his family!

We had a nice turn out for Ryan's graduation party. It is terrible that we only see friends that live within 10 minutes on special occasions like this! We are all just so busy though. We came home after his party and we were exhausted. Jontel, Scott's nephew, is going to be a senior year and Scott offered to shoot his senior pictures. We did the indoor pictures Saturday night in the living room and Scott did outside pictures Sunday morning before they left to go home. He is a pretty photogenic kid so they turned out pretty nice. Jontel has an amazing gift when it ocmes to sports, especially track and football, but he didn't want pictures with his uniforms and trophies he wanted pictures taken with the American flag and a bible. He has set his lifetime goal of going into politics and someday becoming president of the United States! If any kid can do it, he can. He is just one of those kids you meet and just like right off the bat. I posted more of his pictures on Scott's website, www.CapturedMemoriesPhotography.zenfolio.com .

I wanted to post the video of Ryan's life that we did but it is 10 minutes long and I can't find a place to upload a video that long to post here. If anyone knows of a program or how I can do that please let me know.

On a final last funny note, Scott got the girls ready for bed last night because I was sewing them a couple of little dresses to take on vacation. This morning Hannah woke up at 6:30 crying so I got up and went to check on her. Scott had forgot to put a diaper on her and she had peed her bed and she was upset. She was freezing and she said "mommy, my teeth won't stop moving"! It was just too cute. She came down and snuggled in bed with me to warm up. Makenna also woke up during the commotion and she was a bear so after she hate her breakfast (and hannah's) I put her back to bed and she is asleep again! She has speech today and I am anxious to show off her new words, if she will cooperate!

update on little Reid

2008-05-30T21:41:00.000-04:00

I wanted to post a progress report on little Reid. He is doing great! Thank you on behalf of his family for all the prayers. He is going back Monday to have his stitches removed. Mom says he is eating well and sleeping better now that he is home. He is quite handsome if I say so myself!

pics of Makenna

2008-05-28T16:02:00.001-04:00

Don't compare the pictures you are about to see with the work Scott does! I did use his camara, which was used the night before for outside pictures and set all wrong for indoor use, and turn the studio lights on and that was it! She was just too cute to not snap some pictures of! I love the long eyelashes in the middle picture!
Ryan says she looks just like Boo from Monster's Inc. I haven't seen the movie but have seen pics and she does look like her!! Just wanted to share.

OK, Hannah got up from her nap and wanted some taken too. I think I did even worse on these!! Good thing Scott is our photographer and not me!

our fun weekend

2008-05-27T13:14:00.000-04:00

We had a great, busy, but great weekend! I wanted to get pictures of all 4 kids but it just didn't work out. Ryan didn't get in until about 1 AM Sunday night, Monday morning, and TJ was in and out all weekend. I think TJ had a nice relaxing weekend. He got to go to many graduation parties and get caught up with friends. He slept downstairs in his old room, Ryan's room now, on Friday night and loved it! Hannah was not very happy about him not sleeping with her though and let him have it. Saturday night he ended up camping out with a friend and tried to sneak in the house and upstairs around 7AM thinking Hannah would still be asleep and she wouldn't know but she had already gotten up and was crying that TJ was not there again! He did feel bad about that. She got him on Sunday night though! She was finally a happy camper. Makenna took a day to warm up to TJ but then took to him just great. He enjoyed showing off his newest sister that doesn't drool anymore at graduation parties we went to!
Ryan had a good time in Nicaragua. He was touch by how poor everyone seemed to be. They visited a dump where people live and scavange for food and clothes. He said that was really hard. They performed skits, did vbs, and visited an orphanage afew times. He said the orphanage was hard on him because he kept thinking of his 2 little sisters which he adores, and what they would have been like if we had not adopted them. He has enjoyed playing with the girls again and listening to all the silly talk that comes from Hannah. Like "Guess what?" "What Hannah" "When I was in the bathtub, my butt could make bubbles"
Oh my, what a funny little child!
Sunday we dedicated Makenna to the Lord and promised to raise her in a loving Christian home and bring her up in the way of the Lord. She did great, although right before we were to go forward, she pooped her pants! I didn't take the diaper bag in to church because we were only going to be there for church and thought I was safe so I ran out to the bathroom, took the diaper off her, dumped the dirty deed in the toilet, put the dirty diaper back on her and ran back into church just as they were calling our name!! At least she didn't stink when Pastor Mike picked her up! As we were walking back up the isle she waved her little miss america wave to everyone sitting in church and said Hi! It was too cute!

Sunday afternoon we went to my brother Todd's house for a cookout. The girls had a good time playing with the other kids there. We ate too much there and then headed out for graduation parties!
Monday morning we went to the Memorial Day parade. That lasted a total of 6 minutes if you count from the time you saw them coming down the street!! Hannah wasn't happy that there was no candy thrown! She is used to the huge 4th of July parade where you have to take a bucket because you get so much candy!
Monday afternoon our friends Vicki and Amber, and Ambers boyfriend Tim came up from around Columbus to spend Memorial Day with us. Jim and Vicki have 3 children from China and are who we blame when we have a trying day with the girls! They are the people that introduced us to the plight of the orphans. We had a fun time playing, eating, and getting caught up on life. We went to Dairy Queen on their way out of town and the kids enjoyed thier ice cream....5 little Chinese children under the age of 5 drew lots of attention! Hannah's little boyfriend that lives behind us came over and he was the minority! Too funny. We had a great time.

God Bless

Please pray for Reid

2008-05-26T22:49:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to ask my cyber friends to pray for little Reid today. He is having surgery to close his cleft lip. He is an adorable little guy with the most beautiful blue eyes! He will be a lady killer some day!! I know his family would appreciate the prayer support.
Scott and I had the opportunity to do Reids first photoshoot a few weeks ago! What a cutie pie! I'll post a picture so all the world can see.
Thank you in advance and I'll post an update soon.
God Bless

OK, so I couldn't decide on just one picture!!

Makenna's awakening!

2008-05-23T18:56:00.001-04:00

She is saying new sounds today!! I was feeding her supper tonight and she was signing daddy and asking where he was. I started in with my dadadadadadadadadadada trying to get her to say it. She did!! It kind of somes out like Ga Ga but every now and then it is a D sound! She was so proud of herself! She said it over and over when daddy came into the dining room. She has also been saying some other sounds today. It is like she realized that she can make sounds!
Just wanted to share her big milestone!

busy week and busy weekend!

2008-05-23T09:06:00.001-04:00

I just thought I'd write a bit about our week. We have had a much better week than I thought we would with Makenna being in arm splints and eating pureed food! She has been such a trouper through this whole ordeal. She eats whatever you feed her. Her fits have gone down in number in the last couple of days. She does get angry if we are at the supper table and I take a bite off my plate instead of just feeding her! She does not mind the splints being on still. She does love to take them off though and she just smiles a huge smile and moves her arms around. I usually scratch her arms for her and she loves it! For the most part, she has not really tried to put things in her mouth. I did catch her putting her num num (blankie) in her mouth yesterday but we got it out right away. Last night she finally slept most of the night. The 3 nights before, she was up almost every hour crying. I'd have to go upstairs and pick her up for 30 seconds then lay her back down and she'd go back to sleep for an hour then wake back up! I don't know if her arm hurt from the splints or she was just afraid and needed to see me. Hannah has decided that she wants to sleep with Makenna in their room and not in TJ's bed again! She changes her opinion on where she sleeps every week or so! We went through a period of 2 weeks where every night she would come down and get in bed with us so I made her a pallet on the floor with sheet, blanket and pillow. I told her if she woke up she was not to wake up mommy, just lay down on the floor and go back to sleep. Of course being the good mom I am, I can hear the pitter patter of her little feet hitting the floor upstairs and her clumping down the steps! She told me the one morning that sleeping on the floor was not very comfortable! I told her to stay in hr own bed then! She has slept all night in her bed the last 3 nights. We have had a big celebration in the mornings when she sleeps all night upstairs!
TJ is coming home tonight. Hannah is very excited about him coming home again! She said yesterday morning she wanted to talk to TJ so we called his cell. I knew he'd be at work but she left a long message for him. He called back right as I was being poked for some bloodwork. That was a fun time...bloodwork..... I had both the girls with me and went in the hospital. I had put Makenna in her stroller to contain her. When they finally called me back she was done sitting in the stroller and wanted out. She was fussing (actually pitching a spicey girl fit), Hannah was asking the phlibomist a million questions like, 'are you going to hurt my mom, is she going to cry, can i hold her hand so she is brave, does she have to pee in a cup when you are done, she needs a bandaid, can i have a bandaid'. That is just a sampling of the questions she asked in the 5 minute window!! During the Makenna fit, the Hannah questions, and my being poked, TJ is calling! After the tech was done with my blood Hannah asked her what she was going to do with it now and she said "label her tubes". Hannah pipes up and says, my baby sister Makenna has tubes but the doctor said I didn't need tubes, meaning tubes in their ears!!! Oh this girl is too smart!
Ryan is still in Nicaragua. He will be home late Sunday night. From the email updates we have been getting, they are having a great time. They have been working in the orphanage, doing VBS, and general repair and clean up duties. It sounds like they are having a blast! I am glad that he finally got the funds together so he could go on this senior trip.
Last night a reporter came to the house to interview Scott for a Fathers Day story they are doing on dads that have adopted. Scott had written an article entitled "The Reluctant Father" so he also gave that to her. I am anxious to read what they write about him. He is a great dad and he loves his girls so much. It is much different than his relationship with the boys, he said as much as he loved the boys, girls are different! They have him wrapped around thier fingers! Maybe I'll scan the article and post it here when it prints. They want a picture of Scott and the girls for the article. I am very excited that they chose hime for the article! He has alot to say even though he doesn't say much.
Well, that is about it for today. Got to scrub floors and finish cleaning for company this weekend! I have told Scott that I need a wife!
Oh yes, I wanted to meantion, our church is so wonderful. They have been bringing meals in every night this week for us since Makenna had surgery. I feel guilty for accepting them since she is doing so well, but I got to say Scott and I were trying to decide who was going to break what next week for more meals!! First time in a long time that "I" have had a hot meal on the table for Scott when he got home! We have tator tot casserole, pulled pork sandwiches, 2 batches of home made applesauce, lemon pie, cheese cake, brownies, lazagna, ham....on and on!!!
Well, I promise I am signing off now!
God Bless!

PLEASE PRAY FOR THIS FAMILY

2008-05-22T08:09:00.000-04:00

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080521/TUNEIN/80521174/1073/ENTERTAINMENT07

http://us.mg1.mail.yahoo.com/dc/launch?.rand=1gakrp4ocqqdd

Please pray for the Steven Curtis Chapman family. Thier son accidently ran over their youngest daughter adopted from China and she was killed. I can't imagine losing a child and also can't imagine the guilt and feeling that their son is feeling.
The first song in my playlist on the blog is SCC Cinderella. He wrote that song to remind us all not to wish our children's lives away to quickly. We never know what tomorrow holds. I always have tears when I hear that song as it is, but now they have a totally new meaning.
Please lift them up in prayer in the upcoming days and weeks. Their family has done so much for adoption and help so many people financially with their adoptions. We question God at times like this but must remember that we only see today and God sees the big picture.

Thank you for your prayers.

God Bless.

more on the earthquake

2008-05-21T14:07:00.000-04:00

http://www.chinabush.org/

Here is a blog of a family living in China working at an orphanage close to Beijing. He has alot about the earthquake and some very sad pictures. My heart goes out to the people of China.

earthquake victims need help

2008-05-19T07:56:00.000-04:00

http://halfthesky.org/journal/

Here is link to Half the Sky Foundation that is in China trying to help the people there. This newsletter talks of the newly orphaned children from the earthquake and the needs of China. It is a much more honest look at what is really going on. If you feel lead, please donate to help these people. The people of China have gone through so much and have so little. It is very sad. Makenna's orphanage was less than 200 miles from the epicenter. They have reported no damage. Hannah's birth city has reported that they also felt the earthquake and they are hundereds of miles from the epicenter.

pictures from Chicago Shriners

2008-05-18T22:48:00.001-04:00

Just thought I'd update you all as to how Makenna is doing. I guess in one word, GREAT! We are so blessed that she has come through this surgery so well. Our biggest problem is that she is two years old...she wants to do it herself! She doesn't want mommy to feed her, she wants to do it! She has not had any pain meds since Friday evening which is amazing to me. She is a tough cookie for sure! Scott was laughing that Makenna could rip her arm off and might be down for a few minutes but then get up and start playing again...Hannah on the other hand, the drama queen of the east, would be down for the count for days and weeks! She insists on bandaids for old wounds that you barely see the scratch! Of course at grandma and grandpa's last week, grandma would let her pick out however many bandaids she needed after her bath and put them on! The special things you get to do at grandma and grandpas! She has been a little pill since we returned home, after all, she is not the center of attention any more! I look for today to go better.
Makenna after not sleeping much since we had left Tuesday night, went up to her bed Saturday night when we got home and wanted to be put in bed. She grabbed her num num's (blankies) and rolled over on her side and was asleep within the minute! She woke up once and I went up and held her for a minute and laid her back down where she slept the rest of the night! She is so excited about being home. She is doing great with her arm splints. When they fall off or she takes them off, she will bring them to me to put back on! We take them off 3 or 4 times a day so she can rest her arms and watch her closely. So far, she has only tried to put her finger in her mouth once. I have a hard time getting fluids in her, she doesn't care for the syringe for fluids and I don't care for the mess of her drinking out of a regular cup!
As you can see from the pictures, we have no post surgery pictures. We had our camara with us the whole time but it was such a crazy time with her that we didn't even snap one picture! I wished we would have had one or two but that's OK. I don't think she'd want to remember that ordeal anyway. If anyone is thinking of appling to Shriners for their surgery, I recommend it! The freedom the doctors have to practice medicine as they see fit with no insurance to deal with! They told us Friday that we could go home but if we wanted to stay another day, that was fine with them! Most hospitals kick you out 10 minutes after surgery!
Thank you so much for the emails of support also. We have been so blessed!

update on Makenna

2008-05-16T17:10:00.000-04:00

Hello all. So sorry we did not get to post while we were at Shriners. Things were fairly crazy and didn't take the time. Makenna is out of the hospital. As I write we are at SCott's parents house in Indpls. The doctors said that surgery went as perfectly as possible. When the ent went to put the tubes in, he pulled out a huge ball of wax out of her ear and said it was the biggest hunk of wax out of a child this age he had seen! Maybe that had something to do with her not hearing?!?! After the surgeon came and gave us report on her he said that they'd some get us in about a half hour and get us so we could go back and see her. Within 20 minutes the doctor came out and said "Are you Makenna's parents? Come quick, she is about to kill us all!" Let me tell you about our spicy little girl! They could not calm her down at all and she screamed continually for at least 3 hours! She would settle for a few seconds then rear back and stiffen up to the point of you could not hardly even hold her. They had give her medication to calm her and it had the opposite effect on her. Between the morphine for pain, and the other meds, she was so snowed she didn't know what was going on. It was very difficult to watch and it took quite a long time for her to come around. I stayed in the PICU with her all night and by the time Scott got there around 7 this morning, she was doing much better. She had to lay on my chest all night to sleep and would wake screaming 3 or 4 times an hour so it was a very long night! We forced her to drink some juice and eat some cream of wheat so they would discharge her. She was so glad to get the IV and SPO2 off her foot(check her oxygen saturation) ! She would pull all the cardiac leads off her chest numerous times, she just hated all those wires. Since her IV was in her foot she couldn't get down or leave the room so she was happy to have that stuff all gone and get up and walk. The staff was wonderful at Shriners. I highly recommend them! Scott talked today about how we couldn't decide if we wanted to deal with a cleft lip/palate baby when we were looking at our agency's special needs list and after this week and seeing some of the children and what the parents and kids have to endure, we are so blessed to have a cleft child, something that is so easily fixed.

We serve a great God and he answered many prayers. Upon waking up at 5 AM on Thursday morning, Makenna was signing hungry and to eat. Of course it was surgery day and she was not able to eat or drink anything so I put her in the stroller and we walked for about 3 hours until Scott got there. We went outside to the walking path and I just prayed as we walked that God would take all her hunger pangs away and she never signed to eat again that day! We praise God for answering that prayer. All the prayers that went up for a successful surgery and that was granted. When we sent word that she was having a hard time after surgery and prayers went up, that was also answered. Our prayers about Scott being able to stay at the Ronald McDonald house for 5 dollars a night was also answered! It was so nice to know he was sleeping an a comfortable Select Comfort bed with free food there while I was with Makenna in the hospital!!!! That's OK, he slept Wed. and Thurs night and I will get to sleep tonight!

Thank you so much for following and for all your prayers. We will update pictures after we get home tomorrow.

Side note: After I wrote this, I fixed Makenna some Double Chicken Noodle soup and put it in the blender. She ate at least a half a can of that, a half container of chocolate pudding, and some apple sauce! She has not had pain meds since 11 this morning and it i s now 8:30. I gave her some meds now since we are going to bed, hoping she will sleep. I think her recovery is going to be great. She doesn't even seem to mind the No No's on her arms! She was so happy to get all the wires off of herself I think she is Ok with just the no no's. THey have not slowed her down, she was climbing the chairs, on the kitchen table etc!

Messy Makenna!

2008-05-12T16:36:00.001-04:00

Is it because she is a cleft and drools or is she just messy? We will find out soon!! We leave for Chicago tomorrow! Surgery on Thursday! We'll keep you posted.

Make a Smilebox postcard

Makenna turns 2!

2008-05-12T16:01:00.000-04:00

Happy 2nd birthday Makenna Grace! We had a little get together Saturday night for Makenna. She LOVED her birthday cake! We sat that cake down and she tried to stick her hand in the icing! She had cake and icing everywhere! We had to lose her pants before gifts because there was cake on them. She had a great time.

Prom pics

2008-05-07T22:08:00.000-04:00

Here are some pictures from prom night last Saturday night! I'll post some of Ryan and Jess in the next day or so. Due to some issues, we were not able to photgraph Ryan and Jess before prom! We are getting pictures from her parents!

more pics that Scott has taken

2008-05-06T15:40:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to brag on Scott and show off some of his pictures he has taken this week! We had the priviledge of photographing a little boy from our own little town here that was born with bilateral cleft lip and palate. He was so good and those blue eyes...OH MY!! We also took more pictures of our first and tiniest angel! She is 5 weeks old already. I wanted to try out the new antique baby scale I had purchased and she was the perfect baby! Her mommy brought the perfect dress for the pictures too. I think Scott is doing great!! We have another sitting tonight. We are so grateful for people giving us the chance to "practice" with their kids!!
Enjoy the slide show.

Trip to the park

2008-04-30T22:40:00.001-04:00

angel girls

2008-04-27T22:12:00.001-04:00

We have a client tomorrow afternoon and Scott was setting up his lights and checking his settings on his camera. We had 2 willing little models more than willing to have their picture taken tonight...a rare thing! We are learning as we go, but I have to say that I think these are as good as any picture we have had taken of the girls! Scott captured them beautifully tonight!
Enjoy!

spring pictures

2008-04-25T14:57:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to post some pictures from this week. The girls are having a blast being outside. Makenna is a dirt magnet! She can go outside and within 2 minutes either be playing in the dirt or eating it! The other night we were pulling weeds and there was a big earth worm and I put it in her hand and of course she was going to eat it! Oh, that girl! Scott took them outside last night and within a minute she was covered in sidewalk chalk! I think it will be a 2 bath a day summer!
We'll post more pictures soon!

POOP

2008-04-18T19:20:00.001-04:00

Yes, that has been my life this week....poop! Tonight, Friday, is the first time all week that I have been by myself at home and the silence is WONDERFUL!! I have been wanting to blog about our week but there just hasn't been enough time in the day. So, on with the poop.....
Our first story starts out last Sunday...
Hannah often times has to go "potty" right before we leave church to go to lunch. Most of the time I take her and she tries but no success. Often it takes 2 or 3 dry runs to finally have the magic appear! I was not going to take her on Sunday because it was the first run and she never goes but there were people standing around us that heard her announce to the entire lobby that she had to go poop so I took her so there would be no calls to children services, although looking back the vacation this week would have been great! Anyway I took her in the big handicap stall so that we had plenty of room and I sat her on the potty. Now, everyone knows a room made out of ceramic tile tends to echo like the grand canyon and Hannah proved that theory at that moment. Here is the conversation, mind you she is using her outside voice:

Hannah: "Does is smell like poop in here mom?"
Me: "No Hannah", she had not done the dirty deed yet, "please be quiet and concentrate on doing your business."
Hannah: After doing her business, "It smells like poop now huh mom"?
Me: "Hannah, please do not announce to the county you just pooped!"
Hannah: She sniffs a couple of big breaths and says, "I can't even smell you any more mom, all I smell is this poop!"
Hannah: "Tell me good job Hannah Mei"

Hannah tells me what to tell her all the time. She has these little conversations in her head that she wants to have and she will fill me in on the script as we go! She is so funny and I can't imagine life without her! She truely brightens my day every day.

Poop #2
Thursday after nap time I could hear Makenna on the monitor that she was up moving around so I headed up to get her. Hannah had just come down from her nap and Tyler (my 10 month old nephew) was now awake also. As I rounded the corner to head up the steps I noticed a very foul odor coming for the upstairs and I knew I was going to have a bad diaper to change. I only wished it were that simple! I walked in her room and there she is just playing away will poop everywhere! She had it up her arms, in between her fingers, on her legs, feet, all over the outside of her diaper...it was bad! I was so startled I yelled at her to stop because she was walking around and squishing it into the carpet and she signed that she was dirty right away! If you don't know the sign for dirty, you put your back of your hand under your chin and wiggle your fingers. I did not want her hands anywhere near her face and yelled at her to stop. When she gets yelled at her coping mechanism is to put her hands in her mouth...yes she did...and I was about to get sick. I got the wipes and laid her on a towel to clean her up. I scrubbed and scrubbed but it was not coming off very well! I eventually picked her naked little body up under the arms and carried her downstairs and plopped her into a tub of hot water. I put lots of mr bubble in the bath because we needed all the help we could get! I then proceeded to have to scrub the carpet and go through to find all the toys she had been playing with. How does a child do this much damage in 10 minutes?! There was no poop in her bed so I know it happened after she woke up!
And then the thought flutters through my mind....Ryan graduates in 6 weeks....we could have been done.....we could have been free.....what was God thinking?! I am so thankful that those times are few and far between. For the most part Makenna is a very happy girl. I must say today though she was a terror. She pitched more fits today than ever..she wanted to be outside playing and only outside playing! The little girl that 2 weeks ago refused to walk on grass was running barefoot through the yard, digging in the dirt, picking flowers,and swinging on her swingset! What a difference in these little girls' lives! We are so blessed to be able to play a part in raising them into the Christian women that God has called them to bed. I just hope I live long enough to see it!! People often tell us that the girls will keep us young...my response is, either keep us young or kill us one!
I hope I wasn't too graphic in my poop stories but this journal is a journal for the girls when they are older to go back and read about their childhood. I had to include these 2 stories!
God Bless

Makenna's first official pictures!

2008-04-18T09:22:00.001-04:00

We finally got Makenna's pictures taken! I wanted her to wear the same little white dress that Hannah did for her first pictures. We made it in the nic of time!! The dress was snug! She is such a ham, loves to have her picture taken!

Scott's Website

2008-04-18T00:16:00.000-04:00

Scott has an official website for his photography business! He are in the process of getting it set up and pictures uploaded. He is anxious to get busy taking pictures and he is offering great deals (almost free) in the next couple of months just to get his name out. If you know anyone in the area that is in need of a economical photographer let us know!! He is doing pictures in exchange for publicity!

www.CapturedMemoriesPhotography.zenfolio.com

first semi-pro photo shoot!

2008-04-16T09:37:00.000-04:00

Here is a couple of pictures from our first client! Miss Sophie Renee was a wonderful test subject. She was wide eyed and did just want we asked her to do! She didn't fuss one time! She is adorable! She was about 10 days old here. Thanks Tim and Chrissy for the opportunity to do these for you!

Check out my Slide Show!

2008-04-12T21:07:00.001-04:00

Difficult day for Hannah

2008-04-09T08:18:00.001-04:00

Well, yesterday was a hard day for Miss Hannah. She had her 3 year old physical and that included one shot. She had also gotten a splinter in her foot that we could not get out so Dr. Burke got that out too. She was very upset by the time we left!! The fun part of the appointment was that she got to pee in a cup!! How exciting is that! She has since asked if she can pee in the cup again! Oh my. Anyway, she weighed 31 pounds and was 36 inches tall. She is in the 20 percentile for height and 50 percentile for weight. He said she was doing great. He did confirm something that I had been suspecting. Hannah has been asking "what did you say" alot and I think her speech has gotten harder to understand in the last couple of months. She is also talking VERY loudly. He said that she did have fluid in one of her ears, no infection, just fluid. He recommends we take her to the ENT here in town and have her evaluated and possible ear tubes. Neither one of the boys needed tubes and Makenna does for sure and possibly Hannah too!
Last night Hannah's leg was hurting so badly she couldn't walk and cried, I am sure not having a nap helped with her mood. Daddy was going to take the girls for a wagon ride but Hannah didn't want to go. I think the bumping around would have been too much for her so she and mommy sat in the rocking chair and rocked and rocked and talked about life! It was such a neat time. I love when I get to spend one on one time with the girls. Hannah really is the sweetest little girl. We are so blessed!
I will get pictures from Easter posted soon. Can you believe I have not even downloaded them off the camara yet?! Oh my, I have been busy!

ps. I heard Hannah upstairs fussing. Usually she just comes downstairs in the morning so I went up to her room. She was laying there so pathetic, saying she couldn't walk on her leg again and needed to be carried downstairs! I carried her down and stood her in the family room to which she was saying her leg didn't work still. I told her to try it out first and I'd be right there if she needed me to pick her up. Well, to her amazement she was able to walk! The look on her face was of awe that she could actually walk today! Too priceless!

no early surgery... TJ is home!

2008-03-26T11:15:00.000-04:00

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!

Feeling good with JoJo

2008-03-21T10:38:00.000-04:00

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!!

Hannah's official 3rd birthday pictures

2008-03-20T22:40:00.000-04:00

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....

2008-03-20T22:07:00.000-04:00

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!!

another day in the life...

2008-03-18T18:15:00.000-04:00

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!

Happy Easter pictures!

2008-03-15T22:15:00.000-04:00

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

2008-03-14T10:27:00.000-04:00

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!

SNOW FUN!

2008-03-10T20:55:00.000-04:00

Make a postcard - it's easy!

Icicle Fun!

2008-03-09T22:18:00.000-04:00

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

Makenna

2008-03-04T13:43:00.000-05:00

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.

No surgery for Makenna

2008-03-03T11:09:00.000-05:00

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

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

2008-03-02T14:42:00.000-05:00

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

Tyler Michael

2008-02-28T11:14:00.000-05:00

Here is a smilebox I made for Tyler Michael's mommy and daddy yesterday. He had his first blueberry pancake! He was too funny eating it, not used to anything solid like that!

makenna cleans!

2008-02-28T08:07:00.000-05:00

Makenna was cleaning last night. She saw the broom and dustpan out so she took it upon herself to sweep the kitchen floor! She knew just want to do too, swept the dirt in the dustpan then dumped it in the trash! Too cute. The first picture is of her watching Ryan drive out of the driveway. She loves to stand at the dining room window and watch people leave (actually she first cries because she wants to go with them but then decides it is at least better to watch them drive away)! The last picture is of the girls a couple of mornings ago. They had dumped out all their toys and Hannah was sitting in one of the bins. Makenna insisted on sitting in the small bin with her! They had just gotten out of the tub so their hair wasn't combed yet and they weren't even completely dressed yet!

Things are going OK here. We leave this Tuesday for Chicago Shriners. I have been kind of worried about Makenna as she has been sick. She was on albuterol last week but has not had any the past 2 days. I just hope she is healthy enough for surgery. I am going to take her to Dr. Burke on Monday or Tuesday morning before we leave for Chicago just to make sure he thinks she is well enough. I don't want to drive over there for nothing! Well, I better go, I hear Makenna in the monitor yelling for me. MA! MA! is what I hear, too funny. She has been trying to say Ryan too. It usually comes out IIIa but it is the sound she makes when she sees him so that is what we are thinking!

Here are a couple of pics from breakfast this morning. Makenna had pancakes with fresh blueberries and strawberries with some powdered sugar on them and then a side of banana! She enjoyed it very much as you can tell!
Hannah chose a bowl of cereal with strawberries and blueberries in it. They are too cute for words sometimes!

Bad Bad Girls....

2008-02-24T09:30:00.000-05:00

The girls "were" watching Ni Hao Kai Lan Friday night and I was in the dining room working on some things when Scott came home and asked what the girls were fussing about. I replied I didn't hear a thing, had blocked it out begging for 10 minutes without them hanging on me. Scott went in the kitchen and quietly asked me to come in the kitchen and look at the girls. Oh my the sight we saw! Hannah had gotten up on the bar and got the diaper rash cream down and "shared" it with her sister. It was everywhere and all over Makenna. I was so worried about the cream being in her mouth that Makenna went directly to the bathtub without pictures. Hannah only had it on her hands. I had to take a scraper and just like putty, scrape it off the coffee table then use grease cutting 409 and a tooth brush to get it all out. Scott worked on the carpet and after 40 minutes or so we had it cleaned up.
We are hoping we instilled in Hannah to NEVER do that again. We'll see. When we asked why she did that she said "I just had to".
All this just confirms that yes, we are too old for toddlers........

Life with 2 girls....

2008-02-13T14:05:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd post a little bit about what life has been with the girls here lately! As you know Hannah just celebrated her 3rd birthday. It is hard to believe that we have had Hannah in our home for 20 months now! I can't hardly remember when she wasn't here. She is such a sweet and beautiful child. She says the funniest things too. We have been told many times that she speaks at a 4 year old level. She not only knows alot of words but she knows how to put them in context. One day I asked her if she had done something she wasn't supposed to do and her reply was,"Yes I did. It was necessary." , she told Scott's parents that Makenna didn't "cooperate" with the doctors at Shriners! She had been doing so well with sleeping upstairs in her new room with Makenna but here lately she has decided that Makenna "bothers" her too much! For nap time, I allow her to sleep down in our room so they don't wake each other up.
We had been talking to Hannah about going to her big girl class at church since way before we left for China. She has been in the 1-2 year old class since we got her in June of 06! She was literally terrified if we tried to get her to go into the 2-3 year old class. She would shake and scream in fear so we left her in the little class with Makenna but told her when she turned 3 that she was legally too old to be in there and would have to go to her big girl class. Each week we did a count down, 3 more weeks, 2 more weeks, 1 more week... We had her birthday party on Saturday evening and she woke up Sunday morning declaring this was the day she went in her big girl class and off she went!! She colored pictures, sang song, played with Sammy the puppet that helps with story time, and had a great time! She has now gone 2 weeks in a row. In another huge event for her she has given up her pacifiers! We had also talked for the month before her birthday that on her birthday she had to get rid of her "plugs" because she would be too big for them. We gave her the choice of boxing them up and mailing them to China for the boys and girls that don't have plugs to have or give them to our friend Chrissy that is expecting baby Soapy (Sophia)in March. She chose to give them to Chrissy so the day after her birthday, we gathered them up and put them in a baggie. I asked her if she needed one last suck on them and she agreed. She took each one out and carefully put it in her mouth and sucked on it for 5 seconds or so then set it down until she had all of them out of the bag. She put them back in the baggie and cheered "bye bye pluggies" and that was it! She and daddy took them to Chrissy's house and handed them over. That night she was a little leary going to bed that evening and said that she couldn't sleep because she needed something in her mouth! I gave her a sippy cup of water and told her to take a couple of sips of water then lay there and rest. It worked and she slept all night! It does take her a little longer to fall asleep and she is not sure she wants to sleep upstairs now but all in all she is doing well. I told her Monday night that if she slept in her bed all night that she didn't have to take a nap on Tuesday and we would paint her toe nails and make a Kai Lan lantern. She was so excited and did great! So she now has purple toe nails and we have 3 Chinese lanterns hanging from our dining room table light!
I would have to say that the honeymoon is over between she and Makenna! She has gone from being very motherly to treating Makenna like a red headed step sister half the time! I think we are working through some jealousy issues so I am trying to spend more time with Hannah. Scott also takes Hannah with him if he goes anywhere in the evenings. This has helped some too. We have also been putting Makenna to bed and letting Hannah stay up for another hour and playing with her. All in all she is such a blessing. I love to watch her sleep and look at that beautiful little face and just wonder what she is dreaming about, what her dreams are, what she will be when she grows up. Daddy signed her up for preschool last week! I almost forgot to mention that! She will start next fall and she is very excited, not that she knows what she will be doing but she is excited about getting a book bag and going to school like Ryan!
On to Makenna Grace. Where do I start with this little spicey girl! She has had a flawless transition. I know that children do not just bond to their new parents but she honestly does not show one sign of not bonding to us. As long as she has her way she is a delightful child!! We have seen the spicey girl temper move up a notch or 10 in the last couple of weeks. She has gone from screaming if something is taken from her to throwing herself on the floor and literly screaming until she almost passes out! This usually happens when Hannah is taking something from her. She has never done it with Scott or I! IF she sees Hannah coming towards her and she knows that Hannah wants what she has (usually because she snatched it from her) she will begin screaming this high pitched alert the neighbors scream and flop on the floor. Being the great mother I am I usually just laugh at her because it is so funny. She will lay there until she is done then come to me for a hug.
Shriners asked us to break her of her bottle before surgery but that is not an easy task! She has refused to go without a bottle! The problem is that she has a hard time with most sippy cups. She just drools so much more with those than her bottle and it takes forever for her to drink from her cup. At night I have been trying to rock her to sleep because I think she will need to do that after surgery. SHe has acted like she enjoys it although sometimes she just wants to play with my face or hair instead of going to sleep! Her other little thing is pinching! The little snot will grab a hunk of skin, usually your cheek or even your hand and pinch the snot out of it. Hannah and I both have war wounds from her this week on our cheeks! I have been pinching her back but I don't know that it is sinking in that it is bad to do. She has been signing more and has also added a couple of words. She was signing baby to her book the other night and has started saying mum mum (num num what the girls call their blankies), hot, hi, mama, and what I think is Ryan. She was standing at the top of the steps this week yelling IIIIIIan, It did sound much like her other yelling but I have heard it a couple of times. She insists on feeding herself which is usually a huge mess but I guess she must learn. She wants to have her own fork but just holds it in her left hand hand and feeds herself with her right hand! Some how her hair is a showcase for what she had to eat!
Makenna gets upset when someone leaves the house. Since we returned from Shriners we have not taken her out of the house butjust a couple of times. She wants to leave so badly! She will get her coat and try to put it on. When we tell her no she will cry and go to the window in the dining room and watch them leave! It does break my heart but it is what is best for now. We have been lucky enough to escape all the flu and bugs out there. We have had some snotty noses but that is it.
Ryan has had a rough couple of months but seems to be doing much better. He started a new job yesterday and his dad is hoping he can get some free pizza from time to time! A couple of weeks ago, while we were in Chicago, Ryan's brakes went out on his car and he had an accident. He skidded across 4 lanes of traffic and finally came to a stop. We are so thankful that there were no semis coming. It could have been a much different situation. Because of him going through a fence and the damage that was done, his car was not worth fixing. We had just put 800 dollars into it in December so that is wasted as well! Oh the lessons of life!
TJ is doing well, although really sick right now. We appreciate prayers for him as he is batteling a nasty chest cold. He said he doesn't ever remember being this sick. TJ is set to graduate his school on March 21 and got his orders that he will report to Cherry Point NC afterward. We are happy that he will be much closer to home. He thinks that he will be deployed end of the year. He is hoping to make it home for Anna and Ryans' graduation this spring.
That is about all I have on the kids. I hope I didn't ramble too much, just knew it had been a while since I had posted much about daily life. I am sure there will be things I forgot but we'll save those for another day!!
God Bless!

The power of Jesus

2008-02-11T14:08:00.000-05:00

I just saw this posted on one of my yahoo groups and it brought me to tears. It is a great representation of how much Christ loves each of us. I hope you watch it and you are as moved as I was. We all lose our way sometimes and it may not be to the degree of the girl in the play but Jesus is still pulling us close to Him.
God Bless.

Check out my Slide Show!

2008-02-10T18:11:00.001-05:00

Smilebox of Hannah's b-day

2008-02-07T00:40:00.000-05:00

Can't help it, made another smilebox! I really love this program!!

Best Cousins....

2008-02-06T10:28:00.001-05:00