Thankful

Today I have so much to be thankful for but today I am especially thankful for my two beautiful miracles, Raegan and Karis. I am thankful for the journey that God has taken Josh and I on to receive each of them into our lives. And I am so thankful for my wonderful husband who God has chosen as my partner to journey through life with. I am so thankful for the gift of adoption and honored that God has chosen Josh and I to experience the miracle of life through adoption. I am thankful that God first chose to lovingly pursue and adopt each one of us if we are willing to call Him our Heavenly Father. And I am thankful that God has modeled adoption for us so that we are able to in turn lovingly and passionately pursue the children that God has called us to adopt here on earth. I can't imagine my life any other way. When I look at the children that God has blessed me with I can't help but praise Him. He is so good. He is so faithful. He has turned my darkest days into indescribable joy. I am not only thankful for bringing Raegan and Karis into my life but I am thankful for what the journey to get to them has taught me. Thank you God for all of your blessings which are too numerous to name and too joyful to describe!

1 Year Ago

A year ago I wrote a post on our other blog http://www.adoptingembies.blogspot.com/ titled " Filling our Mini Van". That day 1 one year ago I was resting in our hotel room in Knoxville, TN one day post embie transfer for our third embyro adoption. This year we have one more seat filled up in our mini van with a beautiful 3 month old baby girl. In that post I wrote that I had hoped that two more seats would be filled up by the 2 embies that were placed in my womb but God had other plans and although I still think about that embie that was with Karis when she was placed in my womb, I can't stop praising God for the miracle of Karis. And I praise Him also that the other embie from her transfer and all of the other embies that didn't survive are now with Him in Heaven. I am so thankful for all of the embies that we were blessed to be able to give a chance for life on earth and we are so thankful for our precious baby girl Karis who God has blessed us with. During our journey through infertility and adoption in various forms we have had a lot of pain and disappointment but the joy that both of our daughters have brought us far outweigh the pain we have felt on our darkest days. They both light up our life so much and we could never, ever imagine life without them. Our time here on earth is not meant to be lived pain free. If it was we would never grow. And if we never had to feel pain then we would never be able to experience joy. So today I praise God for Karis' life. I praise God for the two precious girls that take up two special seats in our mini van. And I pray " God if it's your will please continue to fill up our mini van and continue to lead us in this journey to the children that you want us to be parents to."

3 Months, Sleep and the Potty

Karis turned 3 months on Saturday! It's hard to beleive that she is already 3 months! And for her 3 month birthday Karis decided to learn how to fall asleep! Literally overnight she changed from having to be rocked, bounced and shushed to sleep to being able to fall asleep with a few quick bounces and being laid down with her pacifier. I took her to a Womens Retreat with my church on Saturday and I was a little nervous to take her because she sometimes is hard to get to sleep but she did great. She was such a big girl. She was quiet when she was awake and when she got tired she would fall right to sleep after I held her and bounced her a few times. That night she went to sleep really easily and I thought it might have been due to her busy day but the next day she went down for her naps really easily too! I took the girls up to my parents house on Sunday to stay with them while Josh was away on a buisness trip and Karis did great there too. She went to sleep easily at night around 7 pm and slept until 4 am and then went back down until 7 or some days 8 am! She made Mommy very proud and very happy! She is also really starting to show her personality. She is such a happy girl and I found her ticklish spots! Her laugh is just as contagious as Raegan's was! She wakes up with a bright smile on her face and she flashes her smile often even when she is tired! She is really starting to fill out in her cheeks and legs too so I must be feeding her ok! She continues to light up our lives just like her big sister!

Speaking of Raegan. I think she is offically potty trained. It has been a rather slow process to potty train Raegan. We knew she could do it but we didn't really push it since we knew once the baby came that she would probably regress anyway. She was doing pretty good with going number 1 but did not want to go number 2 on the potty! We decided we would let her tell us when she was ready and if she was not fully trained by the time she turned 3 then we would push it. But while we were at Grandma and Pop Pop's house she started telling us everytime she had to go and on our last day there when Josh got home she told him she had to go "poopy on the potty" and he took her and she went! We were so proud of her! She has done a good job at keeping it up this time too so I think she has graduated to being potty trained!

We had a great time at Grandma and Pop Pop's house even though we missed Daddy. We even took the girls to the train museum downtown and Karis got to go on her first train ride! We are glad to have Daddy home now and hopefully the girls keep up with what they "learned" at Grandma and Pop Pop's house. I joked with my parents that I am going to send my kids up there when I need them to do something. In 3 days at my parents house Karis learned to sleep and Raegan learned to go potty and I didn't really even have to do anything! We are super proud of and extremely thankful for our two beautiful girls!

Trunk or Treat

About a month ago I asked Raegan what she wanted to be for Halloween and she said a turtle. Her favorite animal is a turtle. She has a stuffed turtle name "Turtle" that she sleeps with and she loves turtles. So since she was going to be a turtle we decided to make Karis a fish and we already had a Lobster costume for our dog Kona so we went with an "Under the Sea" theme. We were going to decorate our car with our "Under the Sea" theme for Trunk or Treat at our church but after we got to thinking about it we decided we would hold off on doing that since we have an infant this year. I made costumes for them and Raegan was so excited one morning to wake up and see her turtle costume. She decided that daddy was going to be a shark and Mommy was going to be an octupus but I didn't have time to make us costumes so Daddy ended up wearing a wet suit and being a scuba diver and I went as "Mommy". We took Raegan to our friends church and the church that we go to MOPS at on saturday night. We ate dinner when we got there because we were hungry ( Chick Fil A donated sandwiches) but by the time we went out to go to the Trunk or Treat part the line was so long that we couldn't do that. Raegan was disappointed because she wanted candy but we ended up just coming home. We gave Raegan an ice cream cone at home since she didn't get to get candy. But the next night our church was also having a Trunk or Treat. I debated on not taking Karis since it didn't really even start until her bed time but she slept so well on saturday night that I decided to take her. We got there right when it started and Raegan enjoyed going by all of the trunks and getting candy. Her bucket was quickly filled up. Karis did really well too considering it was so late. She fell asleep in the car on the way to the church and when we got there I put her laying down in her stroller. She started fussing though so I thought she was getting tired but as soon as I picked her up she was fine. She just didn't want to miss anything and she enjoyed looking around. We all had fun and we are already starting to plan what are "theme" is going to be next year!