Ladybugs and The Red Thread

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

The big horse

the small horse

A cool statue

Julia and Carla at the gardens

We've been busy!

Wow! I guess I had no idea how long it had been since I had posted an update on Julia and the family. We've done a ton of things since I last wrote.

The kids had bring break and we went to Grand Rapids to spend the night. We ended up going to Meijer Gardens (brrr...was it cold!) for the day and had a great time seeing the butterflies and wandering around the gardens. I would love to go back when it's nice and warm. I've got some great pictures of butterflies and I will post those later.

Julia had a CT scan last week. Still no results on that yet, but I will post when we get them. I'm dying to know what's going on in her middle ear. It will give us a better idea as to what her early intervention should be.

There was something else I was going to write about, but I can't think of it right now! If it comes to me, I will update again!

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Wagner Family Secret Pal!

Wow! What a great day! We received our finaly gift from our wonderful secret pal. Back in October we decided to join a secret pal swap with our DTC group. I knew that we would be traveling before the other families that were going the NSN route, but it was really fun to shop for our secret pal as well as look forward to getting a package from our pal. Since October we have received some really cute gifts. My favorite was probably the Chinese tea set. I love tea pots so this was a perfect gift! Anna loved the books for December and Cameron still has his Chinese New Year laterns hanging. Each gift was thoughtful and really meant a lot to us. This is the final month and the Kilgore family from PA sent us a beautiful quilt for Julia with the Chinese character for love in the center. It's just amazing. We also received a bag of Hersey kisses! ooohhhhh! Another treasure was a small Liberty Bell! Philly is on our list of places we'd love to take the kids to when they get older.

So...Thanks again for all the gifts and we hope that the wait for their new daughter will go fast and we can't wait to see pictures!!!

Julia and the quilt.

Julia showing how she likes the pretty fabric! :-)

A close-up of the Love character in the center

The quilt sent by the Kilgore family for Julia

Friday, March 17, 2006

The Accidental Adoption

I got this from our DTC group. I thought it was cute and wanted to post it. :-)

An Accidental Adoption

Have you ever noticed that you hear all the time about "accidental" pregnancies,
but never about couples who experience "accidental" adoptions?

Can you imagine:

Honey, sit down. I have some news for you.

What is it?

Well, I don't know how to say this, so I'll just come out with it. I went out to the mailbox today and ... well, we got an I-171H.

A what?!? An I171H? As in, we're going to have another baby?!?

It looks that way.

But how? We've been so careful! I put away all the blank I600A forms.
Didn't you hide our home study update?

Of course I did. But don't forget, there was that one night...

What night? (pauses) Ohhh, that night. But it was only once. We were just messing around.
I didn't print clearly.

I didn't even use ink! (pauses again) But it was kind of fun.
(giggles)
It was, wasn't it?

I'll never forget how cute you looked getting your fingerprints.

So now we've got our I-171H, eh? But that doesn't always mean you'll adopt, does it?
I mean, shouldn't you see the agency or something, make sure everything's okay?

I already did.

And?

I'm five documents along.

Five documents!

And they're all notarized, certified and authenticated… okay? There was one small scare when the agency couldn't see the notary's middle initial,
but it showed up just fine under the magnifying glass.

Thank God.

And you honey? Are you feeling okay?

I'm feeling fine. As long as I know you're happy about this.

Happy? I'm thrilled! It's always a shock at first when something like this happens,

but of course I'm happy!

Monday, March 13, 2006

Julia and her Audiologist

Julia had her first visit with Dr. Brenda today. She checked Julia for fluid in her good ear, that was all clear! YAY! She also completed an OAE. That came back as normal too. I'm not going into details tonight about those tests. They are very easy and painless for Julia and she did awesome. She never moved or flinched. It went great. Julia's next appointment will be next Tuesday at 10:00am to see Dr. Mendians, her ENT. That will also be a very routine visit. He will refer us to another hospital (I hope) for Julia's MRI. We need to know whether she has hearing in her microtic ear. I personally think she does, but...we won't know till then.

So...Cousin Kate, if there's anything else you can think of that we need to know before Julia's next appointment, let us know! I can't find your email address so I hope you read this soon! Take care and I hope school isn't kickin' your butt too bad. ;-)

Love you all!

Oh yeah, enjoy the latest group of pictures. Anna's party at the Fury hockey game as well as some of Julia eating a cupcake.