Adoption/Birthday Party!

So my Cupcake is turning one and we are going to finally get to finalize Love Bug's adoption!  Cupcake doesn't turn one until March 19th, but Bug's adoption finalization is on March 9th so we are going to celebrate both in one big party!  I have been having a difficult time trying to figure out how to combine the parties and yet include something special for both of them!  On the way home from our wearhouse shopping trip last night Handsome and I finally got a moment to chat!  I was telling him how I didn't like how the Cupcakes and Ladybug themes were not meshing as well as I would have liked them too and how I love this song called "Blessings" by Laura Story and how it would be fun to turn part of that song into the inspiration for the party.  On both accounts (Cupcake and Love Bug) we spent much time in tearful prayer begging God to grow our family because we knew it was a desire He placed in our hearts!  And Handsome (who is such an amazing man) said we should do a garden theme because there is a quote "What if Your blessings come through raindrops, what if Your healing comes through tears."  He said that would work for a garden theme because of the tear drops from our prayers falling and watering the seed He placed in our hearts for a family.  That has grown into why we are celebrating; celebrating two little precious lives that are forever in our family!  SOOOOO, we are going to do a garden themed party in pale pink, white, green and we will use red and black lady bugs for accents! 

I am really excited about it, finally, something that is okay in my mind to fuse two parties into one!  Love bug will have her own cake that my wonderful Pastor's wife will make and Cupcake will have, wait for it, CUPCAKES!  I am not sure if I am going to try and make them myself or if I am going to have someone else do it...but either way, there will be cupcakes!  But the fact that we can use a song that is very meaningful to me is huge too!  Thank you to everyone that gave input while I was trying to find the 'perfect' party idea!  It will be fun to start putting it together now!  I will leave you with the lyrics to Laura Story's "Blessings" :

We pray for blessings

We pray for peace

Comfort for family, protection while we sleep

We pray for healing, for prosperity

We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering

All the while, You hear each spoken need

Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops

What if Your healing comes through tears

What if a thousand sleepless nights

Are what it takes to know You’re near

What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom

Your voice to hear

And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near

We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love

As if every promise from Your Word is not enough

All the while, You hear each desperate plea

And long that we'd have faith to believe

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops

What if Your healing comes through tears

What if a thousand sleepless nights

Are what it takes to know You’re near

And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us

When darkness seems to win

We know that pain reminds this heart

That this is not, this is not our home

It's not our home

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops

What if Your healing comes through tears

And what if a thousand sleepless nights

Are what it takes to know You’re near

What if my greatest disappointments

Or the aching of this life

Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy

And what if trials of this life

The rain, the storms, the hardest nights

Are Your mercies in disguise

7 Years

(This ultrasound picture is of our Cupcake, as I never got the opportunity to see our first four)

I remember thinking on Handsome and my 7th anniversary that it just was not possible that we had been married that long.  What had I ever done for 7 years of my life???  The only thing I could come up with was play the clarinet!  Well now today I look at the 7 year 'anniversary' of our third baby going to heaven and I think to myself, 'it seems like an eternity ago!'  Someone commented on a populare social networking site today after I had posted of what the day was, they were glad that we celebrate the day and the life we had for such a short time!  I had not really ever thought of celebrating before...I almost always am sad or quiet on our 'remembering' dates of our 4 precious babies in heaven!  But truly, a celebration is what it should be!  Life starts at conception and none of us really know the number of days we will live on this earth...God does not guarantee us 90 happy, healthy years....He doesn't even say that 'once you become pregnant you WILL have a baby in 40 weeks.'  That is not God's promise.  From this day forward I will try to celebrate the life that God blessed us with in each of our first four pregnancies.  They are children created in God's image just like Princess, Sunshine, Cupcake and Love Bug.  They are children that God blessed my husband with as he did with the P, S, C and LB!  They are NOT children that must be grieved for 70 years, they must be celebrated.  I have realized last year that having our first four children in heaven was, indeed, God's plan for our life...and that is ok.  I also realized, with that, that had our first four children not left us so early in their little lives that we most likely would not have the children we do now.  If we were able to get pregnant the first time around, give birth to a happy healthy baby, and go on our merry way I am not so sure we would have been as apt to walk the adoptive path.  THAT IS NOT SAYING that we think it is less of a path to walk, just saying that most couples that go about expanding their family the 'normal' way are a lot less likely to think of adoption.  HOWEVER, I have found myself thankful for our path...I do have 4 babies in heaven and because I know Jesus as my Saviour I will hold my babies in heaven on day.  This I am sure of.  Eternity is much longer than my short little 85ish years here...but I also now know that becaue of the start of our family having the ending it did, we now have four beautiful (and hopefully more) children that we can teach about Christ and hopefully one day they will accept him also and then for spend eternity as one big happy family! 

Now I know I rambled and the flow of this post just isn't there (when do my post ever really flow?) but today I choose to try and celebrate the life God had blessed us with for the short weeks that this little one made this Mama feel so yucky.  But that yuckiness always meant there was someone there...and I would take it 10 time over to know that God is blessing us with more precious littles!

January 3rd

January 3rd, 2002

It was a very chilly morning in SouthWest Minnesota.  Handsome and I had spent the night at his parents home ~in seperate rooms~ and we were getting up fairly early to hit the road.  He was taking me back to Chicago for college and then continuing on to North Carolina, where he lived at the time.  We had already said good-bye to my family and so we were loading up his green Bonneville and then ate breakfast with his parents and got in the car.  As we pulled out of the driveway we turned left, not right like we were supposed to.  He said he wanted to say good-bye to our 'special spot' which is a beautiful bridge over a stream in the midst of a curvy gravel road.  The summer before we had sat there for hours talking about this and that and I do believe this is the place where we finally confessed our love towards eachother...though we already knew it was there!

As we get there he put the car in park and gave me a hand written note, it was lovely.  The way it ended was something about the picture God had painted for his (Handsome's) life and asked me if I would help to complete that picture and become his wife!  When I looked up he had the ring box open (it had its own light in it!) and of course I said YES! 

This explained why his mom was crying so much when we left, because though we were a mile away from their house we did not return, we drove all the way to Chicago from Minnesota and I wasn't allowed to tell anyone until I returned to college...sneaky guy!  Of course both our parents already knew it was going to happen because in the gentleman like way that he has always been he asked my Dad's permission to marry me. 

But how exciting it is to think that on January 3rd. 2012 I was promised and committed to my husband for 10 years!  We had an interesting relationship, maybe even weird by today's standards, in that once we started dating we really only saw eachother face to face 5 times before we dates, maybe six.  We also never kissed until we said 'I Do' on our wedding day!  Most of our dating relationship was over the phone while I was at college and he lived in the South.  We got to know eachother very well that way.

I pray often that God keeps my children's future spouses pure in the way he kept us pure.  What an amazing gift to be able to give to the person you just married and will spend the rest of your life with...but on the other side, think of all the baggage that each relationship brings into your life.  I was once told that as you give pieces of your heart to people you never get them back.  There are 'holes' in my heart where, unfortunately, I gave those pieces to two other guys.  And it was those holes that caused the most trouble between my handsome and I in the early years of marriage.  Now, of course, I don't give them second thoughts if I hear their names or see pictures of them....but I do believe that those pieces are gone forever, because if you truly love how do you intend to take it back?  If you can take love back it wasn't really love to begin with! 

January 3rd, 2002~ The day that I knew God had brought the man of my dreams into my life forever and for always!  Or as one of our favorite artists says, "Forever and Ever, Amen!"  I am still unsure why God thought I was so deserving to receive such an amazing, godly, man....but I am sure thankful EVERY single day that He saw fit to bring Handsome and myself together!  Here is to 10 more amazing years!

Sunshine

 Our Sunshine turned 5 on December 27th, it is crazy to believe that the child I always think of as my baby is already 5.  It has been so easy to keep him my baby because of his extra needs, but the truth of the matter is he really is no longer a baby!

 That came full circle on December 30th when we officially confirmed that he is autistic.  Not a word I like to use around him, but not a word we are afraid of either.  We have wondered for some time if that was the case, and really, we wouldn't have needed a doctor to tell us this...but there really is nothing more we can do for him than we already are.  Sure, we can always improve on things....but schedule schedule schedule is very important to him, always has been!  Also his gluten free diet is a big thing to.  But yet, I do not consider myself to be a parent to a special needs child.  He is not terribly high on the spectrum, but he is high enough that as we have slowly told friends and family they were not shocked to hear the news. 

 In other news, he is in love with beyblades.  Sort of a modern day top, if you will.  He REALLY like potatos of any form and likes that more and more foods are coming out gluten free!  He takes every chance he can get to do fun things with Daddy or snuggle with Mommy.  He is also such a sweet, loving big brother to his baby sisters!  He is small for his age, only weighing in around 36 lbs and wearing sz 4 clothing (shirt are too big for him!)  We have been working on hitting this 40 lb mark for a couple of years now....but in his time!  The child eats like a horse but he doesn't EVER stop moving either.  He will sit still if you give him something to keep his hands busy.  Some of my favorites about him right now are his tender heart towards the feelings of others, his sweet snuggles, his beautiful blue eyes and last but NOT least, HIS GIGGLES!  What a precious addition to our family....he really is a ray of Sunshine!

Some happenings....

 First with Miss Cupcake...she will be 10 months on Thursday and has no teeth!  She finally decided that scooting might be a good way to get things as of last night.  It was a very sad and pathetic attempt and scooting 18 inches to get her bottle, but she did accomplish about 10 of the inches by way of scooting and then decided it was easier to turn and roll!  She is such a stinker sometimes!  Though almost always a very good natured baby!  She has moved up to size 6 month or 6-9 month clothes (mostly because baby sister pushed her out of the 3 month ones!) and just moved into size 3 diapers. What an adorable blessing she is to our family!

(The first picture was from early December, she went through a phase where her mouth was almost always open and yet made hardly any sound!  The second picture was from our trip to the middle of our state to meet with our case worker for our monthly home study and she needed a bath, so she decided just to chill out in the hotel sink for a while!)

 And now for Miss Love Bug!  She will be 5 months one week from today.  Hard to believe my baby is getting so old for how tiny she still is.  As of today she has started solid foods...she started with squash and seems to like to very well.  She attacks the spoon as it comes toward her mouth, which makes me think I should have started sooner.  Either way, she is enjoying it!  There are still some Newborn sized outfits she is wearing but she has mostly moved up to the 3 month or 0-3 month sizes.  She is still rocking size 1 diapers though (they pretty much go up to her arm pits, but Newborn diapers just do not hold enough!)  She is starting to grasp at things and bring toys to her mouth, she also is very quick to smile with her entire face and go back to her worried, serious look.  At times you can really get her going and she will make sweet little baby noises for you!  So thankful she is doing so well!  On 12.30.11 she was 9 lbs 11 oz, so not yet 10 lbs!  What an honor it is to be her Mommy!

(Both pictures are taken on random days in December while we were just haning out together!)

Ideal Protein after Cupcake...

So I started my Ideal Protein diet on 1.5.12 after having my baby, and pumping for 9.5 months I NEED to get back to loosing!  Of course I have several goals to meet...my first weight goal is 1 lb further than I got before Cupcake came along!  I have a LONG ways to go...I actually when I started my diet had 9 lbs to loose to get back to my lowest I was after having Emi!  If I reach that goal...49 lbs lost from 1.5.12, I would like to loose 35 more lbs after that.  For a total of 84 lbs lost!  HOWEVER, I do not intend on reaching the second goal...maybe not even the first goal because my biggest goal is to be able to have another beautiful baby!  We will see which of these goals happens and in what order!  Haaha, here we go!  I would say loosing 3.5 lbs in the first 2 days is off to a good start!