Adding Another Child

How has it really been adding another child – a newborn?  It has been easy, difficult, fun, trying, joyful, aggravating . . . . Daniel is a bit of a fussy baby.  He did have some issues with a gassy tummy at birth, so we’ve had to deal with a little bit of that the first month.  We have figured out how to soothe him better and what makes him happy – for the most part. 

Nicholas has his good days and bad days too.  He has been letting us know both verbally and by his actions that he isn’t too happy about losing some of his attention.  He’s not awful by any means, but he knows which buttons of mine to press.  We’re working on it though and talking about it with him.  We’ve also tried to take him out alone with either of us, even if it is just to the grocery store. 

Here are some activities that Nicholas has been up to in the last couple of days:

We’re finally getting into the groove of our summer reading program.  Our goal is to read 20-30 minutes a day.  We also try and go the library once a week (Daniel didn’t cry this time!).  Nicholas was looking for an extra star or two on his chart, so Nana obliged.  We’re hoping to pass our love of books down to Nicholas and Daniel.

Nicholas and I also baked cookies today while Daniel was asleep.  I’ve probably said this before, but I am a terrible baker.  I don’t know what it is, but things just don’t come out right.  The other day I made these banana chocolate chip bars and they actually scratched my throat when I swallowed.  I had to trash the entire batch.  Then I saw a recipe for peanut butter cookies with just 3 ingredients.  The blogger said that her five-year-old could do them.  So, I figured that with my five-year-old’s help that I had a fighting chance of them tasting decent.  And, it worked!

Adding 1 cup of sugar to 1 egg

1 Cup of Peanut butter

Eating a cookie and playing his DS

Each day gets easier in some ways.  Having a newborn can be difficult since he can’t tell us what’s upsetting him.  He is growing and changing though.  He’s chunking up because I can definitely feel a difference when I am holding him.  Also, I was holding him against my chest today and he was lifting his head up pretty well and taking a look around.  I can tell more exciting days are on the horizon.


I got some awake pictures of Daniel.  I put him in the swing and he was content for a minute.  He really hates the swing, so I had to act quickly.  I think I got some great expressions!

This weekend we will be celebrating Family Day as a do-over.  There was a bad storm this past Monday, so Nicholas didn’t get to go out to eat (we had pizza instead).    My birthday is also coming up and I get to go out to lunch and enjoy the afternoon with just Evan.  It should be a good birthday!

Watch Me Grow: 3 Years and 1 Month!

I am going to try and document Daniel’s milestones each month, but this month he shares his monthly “birthday” with Nicholas’ special day.  Three years ago, Nicholas officially became our son!  We call it “Family Day”.  We will make Daniel’s on the date we finalize in court.  While Daniel obviously is a part of our family now, the court date just makes it all official.  We don’t give out presents on Family Day, but we do allow Nicholas to pick where we are going out to eat.  He’s been excited about it for a month.

We’re so thankful for both of our sons.  Nicholas is just a wonderful kid.  He definitely has a good heart.  We were listening to a CD in the car and one of the songs talks about being the body of Christ.  Nicholas told me that he wants to be the foot, just like a young couple from our church that are missionaries.  He wants to go tell people far away about Jesus.  I told him that I would miss him, but I want him to do what God wants him to do.  He said, “I’m going to go really far away – like Florida or New York.”  I thought that was so cute.  I just love hearing his heart.  God definitely has great plans for him.

Daniel is a month old today.  He has grown a lot already too.  While we don’t have a weight check until July, we weighed him a couple times at home and we think he is close to 9 lbs.  He is still wearing a newborn diaper, but will transition to a size 1 very soon.  His newborn clothing is fitting perfectly, but soon enough we’ll probably be moving on up to the next size with those too.

I had just washed his hair in this picture.

Daniel loves to look at our faces when we feed him.  He has grasped my necklace a couple of times and I had to fight for him to let it go.  He has tried his play mat and didn’t seem to be annoyed by tummy time.

We switched over to "back time" after awhile.

We’re going to start sleep training him soon.  He did have an almost 5-hour stretch of sleep last night.  It was a pleasant surprise.  

Finally, we enjoyed celebrating Father's Day yesterday.  Nicholas and Daniel gave Evan some candy.  Nicholas also had painted a mug for Evan while we were at the hospital last month. I had Nicholas give Evan one of my more creative ideas for a gift as well.  The two of them love playing cards, so I ordered a deck of cards with their picture on the back of each one.  Evan was pleasantly surprised with that gift.  I'm glad he enjoyed his day.  He really is a wonderful, hands-on father.  I know the boys are in good hands with him!

From Daniel

Good looking deck of cards

Happy One Month, Daniel!  And, Happy 3rd Family Day, Nicholas!  We love you both so much!

It is hard to pose a newborn

June 2009

June 2012

10 Years and 2 Kids

We celebrated our 10^th wedding anniversary last week.  I guess we can use the word “celebrated” loosely.  We did acknowledge it.  But, we haven’t really celebrated it yet.  Dinner consisted of going to the carnival at the church next door and Evan and Nicholas bringing back hot dogs.  We hope to at least go out to eat sometime soon. 

It has been an interesting 10 years to say the least.  We had plans and dreams for our lives together.  I’m not sure much has gone according to plan.  But, thankfully, it is not my plans that prevail.  We have weathered the trials and enjoyed the good times.  God has given us two wonderful boys to love and to raise.  We’re definitely thankful for all we went through in the past ten years.  It only made us stronger and reaped a wonderful harvest.

Daniel is approaching the four-week mark.  He is awake a lot more during the day.  But, when he sleeps he has some of the cutest sleeping positions.

Just hanging out

One of his favorite positions

This is how I find him most mornings.

We had Nicholas’ speech evaluated this week.  In many areas he is fine, but there are a few weak areas.  Since he was borderline with his delay, I had the option of whether or not I wanted him to have therapy.  We decided that he will have speech therapy this summer.  It will be once a week for 30 minutes.  I think he will enjoy it though.

In adoption fundraising news, I sent in the payment for the placement fee.  We now are working on the post-placement fees.  We already had two visits out of seven (I think).  Our social worker will be here once a month until finalization, which should be in November or December.  Our other “fee” is unknown and hard to plan.  It is medical expenses (all Daniel’s expenses from the hospital) and legal.  I have no idea what the total amount is yet (We’ve only received a bill for $50 so far).  So, for now, we’re working on the $1750.00 that we know about.  Ordinary Hero has another grant contest that starts this coming weekend.  Any amount will help toward our post-placement fees.

Finally, we had Nicholas’ five-year-old pictures and Daniel’s newborn pictures today.  Both did pretty well and I think we’re going to have some cute pictures.  

Things That Have Happened Lately . . .

I mailed Nicholas’ FINAL post placement report!  That’s it!  We don’t have to worry about them anymore.  It is such a good feeling. 

Daniel weighed 7 lbs. 1 oz. at his weight check appointment this past Friday.  Since he is doing so well and I looked so tired, our pediatrician suggested a feeding plan.  Daniel was “snacking” and falling asleep during feedings.  This made him want to eat more frequently in small amounts.  Our pediatrician wants us to feed him every 3 hours.  Daniel wasn’t too thrilled with the plan at first, but he’s doing better.  We actually had a four hour stretch of sleep last night!

Sometimes he'll sleep in the swing for me too.

 Some people, who have given us gifts for Daniel, have also given Nicholas a gift.  He was thrilled with one of the gifts he opened from someone at church.  He had seen it on television and told me he wanted it.  He was looking at the box and then turned to me and said, “But, you have to be 18 or older to order, Mom.”  Evan and I could barely keep a straight face.  That child doesn’t miss a beat!

Daniel’s umbilical cord took forever to fall off.  We gave him sponge baths until it did.  Today we finally decided to give him a real bath.  He wasn’t too thrilled about it though.

All better

 Even better!

Nicholas is becoming quite the little speller.  He had me take a picture of some of the things he spelled by himself.  It wasn’t even school time!

 He had some help with this last word.  My mom was teasing him by calling him a different name the other day.  Now they call each other this name back and forth.  It is kind of an inside joke with him and my parents.  So, this picture is for them:

  

Well, we’re getting the hang of things around here.  I noticed that Daniel usually gives me an hour at a time to get things done.  It is not always the hour I want (like when it is time to make dinner), but I’ll take what I can get.  I’m still working on giving Nicholas more quality time.  He’s doing pretty well, but this still isn’t easy on him.  I keep assuring him that it will get better.  But, he’s still the happy, silly guy that we love.