Lulu Sheep and Shoes

I bought these little shoes and sheep online...because the shoes were on clearance and because the sheep that is on them is named "Lulu". It was just too cute to pass up. ;)

Gotcha Bazzy

Here are more pictures from the day we were handed our son! :) Plus some from the next several days in Guatemala and a few from home. Kris went to the Panaderia in Grand Island today to get some authentic Tres Leches Cake to celebrate and we also ordered some homemade Tamales from a lady in town here that we should get this weekend. All I can say is YUM!!! :)

It's been so fun reliving this special day and it's neat that Bazzy seems to understand a bit more about it from looking at all the pictures and everything. He is very excited to have his "Guatemala Cake" tonight too.

We love you Sebastian Kristofer and we are so thankful that you are our son!!!

The Moment We Had Been Waiting For...

I'll just let this video speak for itself. ;)

Diving IN

It's so weird to be reliving this day in my head....just 2 years back. We thought we were going to get Sebastian earlier in the morning, but there was some sort of hold up with another family waiting for their baby, so we ended up having to wait 2 more hours until the phone rang and it was our "turn" to get our baby. Wow was that a long 2 hours!!! I spent a majority of that time standing on the balcony in our hotel room looking out over Guatemala City and wondering if Bazzy was in one of the cars driving towards our hotel. I listened to this song over and over and over, because it's one of my favorites and I truly had felt that we were "diving into" something amazing through the whole experience. I will post pics and the video later today...but this seemed appropriate for now...since I was listening to this song RIGHT NOW 2 years ago! WOAH!!!

The Day before we got Sebastian

2 years ago today, we were in Tikal Guatemala, anxiously waiting for the NEXT day because that's when we would finally have our Sebastian FOREVER!!! Truly one of the BEST days of our lives! The day before, we had gone back to Antigua to shop and eat and experience more of Guatemala and the entire trip was incredible. I wish we could do it all over again!

The slide show is of some of the pictures from the long wait for Bazzy and also the 2days before we got Sebastian in the Lobby of the Marriott Hotel in Guatemala City. I'll post pics (and maybe even the video)tomorrow of the day Sebastian became a forever part of our family. I can't believe that was 2 years ago!!!

Our adoption experience was so incredible and if anyone out there is even thinking about adopting a child...all I can say is DO IT! :) We have been so blessed by this little boy and I get so choked up even thinking about how God had this all planned out all along. He was chosen to be our son, just like the girls were chosen to be our daughters. It was just more of an adventure with Sebastian! :)

I remember this night SO well. I knew the next morning we would finally have our son and I was the happiest Mommy on the planet. What a moment! Break out the Tamales and Tres Leches Cake (YUM!!!)~ It's time to celebrate! ;)

Contractions

I spent the morning at the OB's office because I had so many contractions last night that I couldn't sleep. They were a couple minutes apart and lasted ALL night. Ugh! I was one centimeter when I went in this morning, so they said I could come home for now.

I'm thankful that I'm home and that she is staying inside. I'll be 31 weeks tomorrow and now I just continue to hang out on the couch and try to not have a baby. Fun! :)

Adorable

The Adoption Forum I look at posted this video and I just had to share it. The little girl is adorable and is a very talented little singer. They said that she is from a Chinese Christian family and some of the other videos she is singing in Mandarin. Too cute! This is a very hard song to sing, and she does such a great job for a 2 year old. Wow! Her pronunciation is too cute!

Easter Cuties

My contribution to Easter was getting my little cuties dressed (while I was sitting of course. Don't worry anyone! ;) ) and then taking a few pictures. These are the tulip dresses that I had gotten to match Lulu this summer, and since I didn't get to shop for Easter dresses after all the bedrest drama, I was very happy to already have these dresses. :)

The Hunt

We had an Easter Egg Hunt on Sunday after church. My job was to write out clues and fill eggs from the couch. No hiding eggs for me. ;) That job was left up to dad and Grandpa. I was thankful that I had pre-planned quite a bit of this before I went on bedrest. The week before I decided to get some gifts for the girls, and I was very happy that I had planned ahead.

We hid eggs and little gifts all around the yard for the kids to find.

Some were just plain eggs with candy in them, some had their names written on them, and there were 3 big striped eggs that they were supposed to look for because they had special clues in them that lead to other places.

It was really pretty cold outside, but the girls were too excited
about looking for eggs to even notice.

Bazzy really got into the egg hunt. I don't think he cared at all what was inside the eggs, he just loved running all over the yard hunting for them.

The 3 special striped eggs had clues in them that I had written in Spanish. The girls know some Spanish, but they were allowed to use one of our spanish picture dictionaries for words they needed help with. One led to the bathtub in our bedroom, one led to Sebastian's crib, and the last led to the sippy cup cabinet in our kitchen.

They found new jammies, jump roaps, baby stuffed birds, and the movie Enchanted hidden in the different spots. They loved figuring out the clues and then trying to find the special hiding spots. My Mom always did these special Easter egg hunts with clues and other fun things, so it's great to be able to pass that tradition on to our kids now. :)

Everyone was busy for almost an hour afterwards looking through their eggs and playing.

It was definitely a successful Easter Egg hunt and we were happy that everyone was quiet for awhile too. ;) I hope you all had fun Easter celebrations!

Coloring Eggs

My Last Day Out

This was my last day of fun out of the house. Ah, the memories. :) We went to the Stuhr museum last weekend for their Spring/Easter Festival. It was very cute and the kids made lots of crafts and had an Easter Egg Hunt.

Katryna is working on decorating her wooden egg.

Here is Sofia's finished egg. Isn't it pretty?

Mia is waiting patiently here to plant a daisy in a little plastic cup.

Her daisy is actually starting to grow in our windowsill, so she is very happy about that.

Sofia made this lovely Easter Bonnet. It was really cute, but she said it was "too itchy"!

Bazzy has gotten SO brave in the past several months. Last year he wouldn't go anywhere NEAR a giant white bunny. I'm sure some of you have seen the pictures taken at Disney where he is TERRIFIED by all the giant creatures. ;) Now he seems to be just fine with the Easter Bunny...so that's good. Maybe it's because the Easter Bunny comes with candy. :)

Halleluiah

Happy Easter

Hee hee

So Far So good...

The girls keep reminding me that it's Spring now! So Happy Spring! :)

My appointment this afternoon went pretty good. My cervix is shorter (not so good), but the funneling isn't as bad (which is good). So I guess staying off my feet is actually helping so far. When she got done checking everything she said "well, this makes me feel a little better. I'm not quite as worried that you will have an Easter Baby now." So...so far so good! :)

Thanks for all the emails and comments everyone! It's so nice to know people are thinking about us during these interesting times. :)

I'm thankful that I have found something "useful" to do while I'm sitting around. I have been in contact with a woman that works with The Medical Advocacy Team and they help bring kids from Haiti and other countries that need life saving surgery to America to have surgeries that are donated by American Doctors and hospital staff. I think what they do is amazing and I'm very excited to be helping them. We had actually been in contact because they needed a host family for a baby girl who was coming to Omaha to have surgery. I would have LOVED to host this sweet baby girl....BUT this whole pregnancy thing made that pretty much impossible. They had another family that they had asked to host the baby...so I think everything is pretty much set up for her surgery now thankfully. They asked if they could have me contact some Medical people for them, and I have high hopes of having quite a few of these little sweeties come to Omaha for their surgeries, and now that I'm on bed rest I'm going to be phoning some hospitals around the country for them to help put together a database of doctors and hospitals that are willing to provide care for International Children. If anyone in Omaha is interested in helping in any way...please let me know. I know they will need host families in the future and I think it would be such a blessing to have one of these children be a part of your family for a period of time. :) I'm happy to have something like this to do while I'm busy sitting.

Here is a link to their website (if I can get it to work. I'm bad at links) and you should check out their T-shirt fundraiser cuz it's for a great cause and I really like the shirts. They are very cool! I'm looking forward to wearing mine when I can fit in regular clothes again!

Mom's Group Friends...

THANK YOU!!!

You all are amazing! I wanted to go out and get a card to say thank you...but for obvious reasons that's not probably the best thing for me to do right now. ;) SO, this is my blog thank you, that will someday be followed by a proper THANK YOU! :) I was overwhelmed with your kindness and generosity as Alexis kept showing me all the yummy food that you had sent. It's so nice to know we have such great stuff in the house now that we can eat and I don't have to stress about not being able to run to the grocery store. Everything was SO thoughtful and I wish I could give you guys a BIG HUG!!! THANK YOU!

It was so fun having Alexis and her kiddos here yesterday. It made the day go so quickly and she was so helpful with getting food ready for the kids and everything. Thanks Alexis! I hope you got to see enough cranes! :) I also loved being able to hold Adi! She is SO cute!

Thank you friends!!! You are the BEST! :)

And So it Begins...

I went to the doctor today because I could tell that something had "changed" over the weekend with the contractions and the amount of pain that I was in. I was honestly HOPING that she would just say "everything looks great still" and I could continue with my little happy self just going about life...but not the case today. :( My OB has been watching for this "funneling" thing (I'm not going to get too graffic for the male readers sake!), but according to the high risk OB, this is what shows that Preterm Labor is occuring. As soon as she checked me today, she said "oh no". I said "WHAT?" She said, "remember that thing I was telling you I hope that we DON'T see? Well that's what I"m seeing". Oh. Then she said "SO, you probably know what I"m going to say, right?" "Bedrest?" I said sadly. YEP! And so it begins!

I have the girls set up to walk to school with the neighbors pretty much watching them all along the way (I'm a little paranoid about them walking, even though it's literally like a 2 minute walk) and Mia will be going to preschool from now on with our next door neighbor and one of her favorite friends, Carter. Kris is off all of next week (YAY), so that timing couldn't have been any better. After that, I'm thinking about having some college girls come help during the day. So if anyone wants to come be a temporary nanny for a few weeks....just let me know. ;) I'll even throw in a few cranes if you would like!?! We got plenty. :)

We had our half hour or so of freaking out, but now we're ready to tackle this new adventure and I'm planning on just taking it day by day. I know that every day will make little miss Lulu bigger, stronger, and healthier. I'm thankful I had such a happy birthday and a fun weekend and I'm ready to rest, rest, REST now. Bring it on! :)

Just a Few More Cranes

I know ya'll are probably sick and tired of all these crane pictures...but I had to put just a FEW more on, just because I like them and it's my blog~ so tough! :) I can see why the people who live around here are not quite as excited as I have been about the cranes...because it is becoming so "normal" to just see them along the side of the road here. We saw a bunch while driving yesterday and I said "look kids, Cranes!" and they were all like "yeah, great mom. More Cranes!" LOL! :) The novelty has apparently worn off. So here are the last of my crane pictures (for now)...

Baby Sister Lulu

I LOVE how Bazzy talks about "Baby Sister Lulu". I think it's the way he says "Lulu", but I can't get enough of it. His little lips are so CUTE when he says it. :) Yes, I'm gushing. Anyways...I had to get it on tape today just to show you all. ;)

I'm 32!!!

I woke up to a chorus of little people singing me HAPPY BIRTHDAY this morning. Doesn't get much better than that! :) Mia and Sebastian have been telling me or singing me Happy Birthday pretty much non stop ever since. LOL! It's nice to have such enthusiasm!

It will be a pretty mellow day here, but that's just fine. I plan on trying to sit down as much as possible and since Kris is on Call, we are going to pick up Chinese food and have a Birthday Feast tonight. YUM!!!

Cranes At Sunset

I took the girls to watch the cranes land on the Platte River at Sunset last night. I've been contracting more and more and I'm starting to stress a bit that my time is "limited"...so I packed up the girls in the beautiful 57 degree weather and off to the river we went. ALL the cranes come into the river every night for safety and I had heard that it was amazing and I must agree~ it was AMAZING! There were SO many birds and the noise was crazy. The noise was definitely the girls favorite part. ;)

This is about 30 minutes before sunset. The sky was filled with birds and many were starting to land on the river.

They land on the sand bars and they just kept coming and coming.

I think my favorite part about them is still watching them land. :)

This is much closer to sunset. The water and sand bars are almost completely covered in Cranes and Geese, and yet the sky is still FILLED with birds!

This is the opposite side of the river from where we were standing and you can see how much of the sky is filled with birds that are still flying in to land on the Platte. Crazy!

This is the last picture I got before it was pretty much completely dark. I didn't really want to be out in the pitch black with the girls, so we decided it was time to get going. ;) The sand bars couldn't even be seen at this point. They were completely covered with birds and the noise was almost deafening. I'm SO glad we went. The girls woke up this morning and said they could hear cranes in their sleep. ;)

Mommy Wars

Have you heard this term? Mommy Wars? This was our topic of discussion at our last MOPS meeting and I honestly had no idea this "war" was going on! It's basically a battle between Moms that choose to stay at home with their kids and Moms that choose to continue with their career after having children. The Moms that stay at home feel that EVERY Mom should be at home with their kids and the Moms that work feel that Moms who stay home are providing a disservice to women everywhere by not being strong career-types. You really should try to google it and see how many things come up. Amazing!

MY opinion on this is that it truly is a personal decision that every woman needs to make. I have friends that work and friends that stay at home. I don't think every woman is "wired" to be a stay at home Mom. In fact some women might be better Moms because they get to continue with their careers and that is what works for them and makes them complete. I HAD to work for 3 years after having children and for me, all I wanted to be was a stay at home Mom. I LOVE it! I truly do! I have never been happier and I can't imagine it any other way now. But that's ME and I know not everyone feels like that. How can one woman say that they are right and another is wrong in this situation? Our opinions are our opinions and not an absolute, right?

A lady from Bethany posted this today and I thought it was great. I don't really take offense when someone says I'm a Mom or housewife...because I know the joys and challenges of what I've chosen to do and I love it, so you can think what you like! ;) BUT~ it is funny that some people think SAHM's just lounge around all day watching soaps and snacking. :) I wish!

JUST A MOM?

A woman, renewing her driver's license at the County Clerk's office
was asked by the woman recorder to state her occupation.

She hesitated, uncertain how to classify herself.


"What I mean is," explained the recorder,
"do you have a job or are you just a......?"

"Of course I have a job," snapped the woman.


"I'm a Mom."

"We don't list 'Mom' as an occupation, 'housewife' covers it,"
said the recorder emphatically.


I forgot all about her story until one day I found myself in the
same situation, this time at our own Town Hall.

The Clerk was obviously a career woman, poised,
efficient and possessed of a high sounding title like,
"Official Interrogator" or "Town Registrar."


"What is your occupation?" she probed.

What made me say it?
I do not know.
The words simply popped out.
"I'm a Research Associate in the field of
Child Development and Human Relations."

The clerk paused, ball-point pen frozen in midair and
looked up as though she had not heard right.


I repeated the title slowly emphasizing the most significant words.
Then I stared with wonder as my pronouncement was written,
in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire.

"Might I ask." said the clerk with new interest."just what do you do in your field?"


Coolly, without any trace of fluster in my voice,
I heard myself reply,
"I have a continuing program of research,
[what mother doesn't)
in the laboratory and in the field,
(normally I would have said indoors and out).
I'm working for my Masters, (first the Lord and then the whole family)
and already have four credits (all daughters).
Of course, the job is one of the most demanding in the humanities,
(any mother care to disagree?)
and I often work 14 hours a day, (24 is more like it).
But the job is more challenging than most run-of-the-mill careers and the rewards are more of a satisfaction rather than just money."

There was an increasing note of respect in the clerk's voice as she
completed the form, stood up and personally ushered me to the door.

As I drove into our driveway, buoyed up by my glamorous new career,
I was greeted by my lab assistants -- ages 13, 7, and 3.
Upstairs I could hear our new experimental model,
(a 6 month old baby) in the child development program,
testing out a new vocal pattern.
I felt I had scored a beat on bureaucracy!
And I had gone on the official records as someone more distinguished and indispensable to mankind than
"just another Mom." Motherhood!


What a glorious career!
Especially when there's a title on the door.


Does this make grandmothers
"Senior Research associates in the field of
Child Development and Human Relations"
and great grandmothers
"Executive Senior Research Associates"?
I think so!!!
I also think it makes Aunts
"Associate Research Assistants".

"Mala Nanas"

I realized today that I have influenced Sebastian in his choosing of Bananas. Yes, I know that sounds wierd. Whenever we go to the store, I always check to see if the bananas are "Guatemala Bananas" and since Sebastian is usually with me, he has come to check for the Guatemala Sticker on the bananas too. I always choose the Guatemalan ones...I think because I feel like we are helping the economy in his home land or something, but it's become quite a thing because we always check the bananas at the store. ;) Today at lunch, I was getting lunch ready for the little ones and Baz kept saying "Mala Nanas?" and it took me about three times of him repeating it to realize he wanted me to check the bananas to see if they have the Guatemala sticker on them. LOL! There was no sticker, but I had checked in the store and I knew they were "Mala Nanas." He was satisfied and even took a picture with the Nanas for Mommy! :)

Cranes, Geese, and more Cranes

Our search for birds was a success! We found Snow Geese first, and realized that they are quite skiddish. As soon as our car approached, the whole flock took off. SO many birds!

Then we saw the cranes flying in the distance. This is just a small amount of what we could see in the sky. UNBELIEVABLE how many cranes!


While we were parked, we had a bunch of Snow Geese fly over our van. I think they are very pretty from underneath. Especially the white ones.

We finally found a field with cranes. They are BIG birds! We opened all the windows of the van (even though it is freezing today) so Bazzy and Mia could hear how loud they were. If you've witnessed this before, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Loud!

I thought it was very interesting how the Cranes and Snow Geese seperated themselves in all the fields that we saw. There was always a very distinct gap between the two types of birds and they would take off and fly together, but always land back in their own spots. I read that the Snow Geese are only here for about 2 more weeks, but the Cranes will be here until April and lots more are still on the way. Hard to believe there could be more!

We really liked watching the Sandhill Cranes land. They tuck their feet under their bellies until they are just about to land and then their feet get all crazy until they're on the ground. It was a beautiful, FREEZING, wonderful day to go searching for cranes. Bazzy was our "spotter" and shouted MORE BIRDS whenever he saw them. ;) I'm hoping to go out at Sunset in the next week or so to see them all fly in over the Platte River. SO happy to not be on bedrest! :)