Cinnamon Bread

I helped Adrianna make some cinnamon roll bread this Sunday. Adrianna loves to help me bake and she did a great job with this loaf. As you can see, she was very proud of the results. It was delicious!!

LOL (Laughing out Loud)

Sarah and I just had a good laugh looking through some of our pictures when we came upon this one, I hope you get a laugh too.

Daredevil

We got Adrianna this play roller coaster, it is a ten foot track and a cart that she loves to ride. After about an hour of riding it normally (sitting down) she started to stand on the seat, and then she moved to surfing on it from the side. She likes to show off her talents to anyone willing to watch. It is a fun way for her to use some of that excess energy.

From Roller Coaster

Alicia Smiles

One of the most amazing feelings as a father is having your daughter give you a great big grin. Here are some pictures of Alicia and her grins. She is a very happy and mellow girl and she is especially smiley after eating!

Summer Concert

Before I came home from San Jose on Friday, July 13th, Sarah and the girls enjoyed an outdoor concert at the First and Main Town Center. I met up with them afterwards for some Sushi and some Coldstone Ice Cream. It was a fun date night after a long trip. To make the trip even longer we got the crazy idea of going to see Harry Potter while we were out. With Alicia sound asleep we decided to be that crazy family who takes their little ones to the late showing. It was fun and both girls did very well, Adrianna made the whole theater laugh as she bade a sweet farewell (buh bye) to the character who dies toward the end of the movie.

Swimming Lessons

Adrianna loves the water, ever since we went to Sea World in April and saw Shamu she has wants to go swimming. Grandma Terry enrolled Adrianna in swim lessons at the Flying Horse Ranch club. The first lesson didn't go so well as Adrianna was not familiar with the instructors and wasn't so sure about being in the water. She loved the play area though where she could enjoy the water without having to float. The next day went a lot better because Sarah requested a male instructor who Adrianna opened up to. We will take up lessons again when things are not so crazy, thanks Mom for signing her up, Adrianna now asks about swimming whenever she can.

Anniversary

 

Sarah and I had our 7th Anniversary this weekend on the 22nd. Though we will celebrate it next weekend by skipping town as a family, Sarah made a wonderful Blueberry Heart shaped cake that was just to die for. She has really outdone herself with these cakes, but even more so she has outdone herself as a wife and mother. The past seven years have been wonderful and I am amazed that we have been able to keep up during the past 2. With so many changes and surprises through our daughters who knows what the next few years will bring!

Business Trip

I was in San Jose last week on Business working with our Recognition Systems factory. Because I was only 30 minutes from Santa Cruz I made a jaunt down to the beach and I enjoyed a few rides at the Boardwalk. The "Giant Dipper" is still as thrilling now as it was then! It was fun to remember when we lived in Watsonville and would go to the Boardwalk to enjoy the rides and the beach. Though I longed to have my girls with me I had an enjoyable evening and a productive week working in California.

Adoring Fans

Our friends the Stone Family joined us for dinner, they have two wonderful boys Ben & Josh who were wonderful with Adrianna and Alicia. Here is a picture of all of them adoring Alicia, I know it is a bit dark but I couldn't help but post it. I love how Adrianna is hanging over Josh gazing at her sister. Sarah has watched these two boys grow up since Ben was an infant. We hope that our two girls will have a similar sibling bond that Ben & Josh do.

Odd Traits

This picture may just seem like another pic of Alicia sleeping, though that is a wonderful blessing that we enjoy, this picture has special significance. Notice on the lower right the little foot portruding from the swaddling blanket. Sarah cannot sleep with her feet covered, no matter how cold, she must have at least one foot outside of any blankets. It just goes to show that our children inherit even our oddest traits!

Jesus pick up me?

Adrianna and I have a bedtime routine of singing from her song book of songs about Jesus. She loves singing "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam" with extra special emphasis on "BEAM". But what really amazes me is that everytime we turn to the page of the song "I wonder when He comes again" with an illustration of Jesus gathering little children around his knee, Adrianna says: "Jesus pick up me?" I tell her of course he will pick her up just like her mommy and daddy do. My evening moments with our daughters are special times that I will always cherish.

4th of July Fun

We celebrated the fourth by going to the Briargate YMCA with some friends, where they had an open house of sorts with a Bar-B-Q and fun games for the kids. We had a great time and the kiddos got to expend some energy dancing and playing. Alicia slept through the entire event which worked out perfectly. Click here or on the album above to link to a video of Adrianna getting down to the song YMCA by the Village People!

Later that evening we went for a stroll around the neighboorhood as a family. Adrianna loves our new double stroller, she enjoys looking at Alicia in her car seat. It is great to be able to stroll around and enjoy the wonderful Colorado evenings.

Beauty Sleep

There aren't many things better than falling asleep with your daughter. I missed out on many of these opportunities with Adrianna, so I enjoy each and every opportunity I get with Alicia. Sarah has always said I am a type of baby whisperer, babies just relax in my arms. But I think this day it worked in reverse, Alicia was the daddy whisperer; she caused me to relax so deeply that we both fell into sweet beauty sleep.

Alicia's Blessing Day

Alicia was given a name and blessed today at Church. It was a wonderful day and we were blessed that many of our family could be a part of the blessing including the Abuelos who came from Utah (thank you Mom & Dad for making that happen!). After church we had a wonderful meal of Milanesa (a recipe Sarah learned from Abuela), and Sarah made a beautiful and delicious rasberry cake. It is trully inspiring to see our girls enjoying their Great Grandparents. It was a wonderful family weekend!

Sweet Sleep

This was a rare moment when Adrianna actually fell asleep outside of her own bed. She had a long day, and after a stern talk to settle down she crashed hard! It made for a perfect opportunity to take a picture of both girls sound asleep.

1 Month & 3 Year Check-ups

Adrianna and Alicia went to see their pediatrician today.

Adrianna is perfectly healthy and is scalling the growth charts at 39" tall, and 34 lbs. She is in the 90th percentile for both height and weight and she shows no signs of slowing any time soon. Adrianna received a Hep A shot this visit, she is really good about the actual needle, but she hates to be restrained (imagine that)!

Alicia is also doing great, she weighed in at 8 lbs. 5 oz. and is 21.5" tall. Alicia doesn't get shots until next month so Sarah will probably send me to take her! :-)

We have two beautiful, healthy, and happy girls!

Portrait Studio Pics

For Adrianna's birthday we decided to have some 3 year old portraits taken. The studio told us to bring in Adrianna's favorite prop which is now Alicia. We had a good shoot and wanted to show off the beautiful pictures of our amazing girls.

Headline News!

Alicia's story made the front page of our local newspaper for Father's Day! It was a special treat to commemorate Father's Day for us. Thanks to our friends Angie & Derek who pitched our miracle to the local news. They initially wanted us to be on TV, but we thought that would be too much. We decided to go with the newspaper instead. We figured it would make a nice keepsake for Alicia. We met with a reporter earlier this week to tell her our story, we think she did a pretty good job. You can view the article online here. Thank you Angie for pursuing this, it was a lot of fun!

http://www.gazette.com/articles/terry_23707___article.html/sarah_baby.html

Footprints

We finally got around to taking some keepsake footprints of Alicia for her scrapbook. She has my feet, long and slender. Her feet and hair were the first things I noticed when I cut her ambilical cord. They looked so big for such a little girl! They don't look so big now, and they are still very cute.

Happy Day Birthdays

Adrianna and I celebrated our Birthdays this week. I took the days off to spend some quality time as birthday girl and birthday dad! Adrianna started off her day by dressing herself and putting on everything backwards (Shorts, shirt, and shoes). She makes backwards look good. We then enjoyed some princess pancakes for breakfast. Sarah made Adrianna a birthday cake. When Adrianna talks about birthdays she always says "Happy Day Birthday" rather than just "Happy Birthday". Sarah did an excellent job decorating the cake (I helped under her direction). She recently completed a course and wanted to show off her new talents with Adrianna's cake. It was a beautiful and delicious cake! The Fedele's then invited us over for her birthday dinner, where we enjoyed their family recipe Polenta (Delicious!). It was the perfect ending for Adrianna as she was the center of attention again! Thank you Fedeles for the wonderful party and presents, Adrianna loves her toy puppy! Thank you also to Tio David y Tia Vanessa for the very cute birthday girl dress!

Happy Day Birthdays

For Joseph's birthday we went to Kura for sushi. Adrianna loves miso soup, and tempura fried vegetables, she also enjoys a few pieces of nigiri here and there. I couldn't have asked for a better birthday. After lunch we enjoyed a relaxing evening at home, a final afternoon off before I return to work.

Buh Bye Twos

Adrianna's last night as a 2 year old, tomorrow she will be 3.

Tios (Uncles) Visit

Tios Visit

Joseph's brothers came down to visit today, David came all the way from Washington D.C., and brought a friend (Lenny) to see Alicia. They were in Colorado on business and made a weekend of their trip to see family. We cooked up some Brats and Hamburgers and enjoyed some time at the park. To Adrianna "Uncle (Tio)" means: "rough-housing and play time." She had a blast at the park playing soccer, chase, tackle, and wrestling with her uncles.

David, Kurt, and Lenny got to enjoy Alicia; though she slept through most of their visit they each got to hold our sweet little angel. We finished the night playing two rounds of Settlers of Catan. Thank you Tios for a fun filled visit and for the wonderful gifts for both Alicia and Adrianna.

Alicia Time

Adrianna treasures her moments with her baby sister. Here she is enjoying some relaxing time with Alicia in her big girl bed. We moved her to Sarah's full size bed last month, just a few weeks before Alicia joined us. It was the perfect time so we can enjoy cuddling in her room.

Kisses

You can't help but want to kiss those beautiful cheeks!

Family Picnic

We enjoyed our first Family picnic with Alicia on Tuesday, she had her 2 week doctor's visit so they could check on her weight (she is now 7 lbs). After her visit we joined up with Adrianna's playgroup at Ye Old World Park in Cordera, it is themed after Alice in Wonderland. Adrianna got a chance to run around while Sarah was swarmed by moms who wanted to confirm the rumors of Alicia's miraculous birth. It was nice to relax a bit and enjoy the park.

Family Picnic

Bath Time

Unlike her sister, Alicia was not excited about bath time. She did not like being naked or the temperature changes at all. She is still pretty cute even when she is pissed off! She finally calmed down once she was swaddled up again.

Buds

Adrianna just adores her sister, she loves the moments they get to spend together. She likes to help in any way possible, from getting blankets, diapers, lotion, etc... You name it Adrianna is on top of it. She is a great help and a wonderful big sister.

Beautiful Bellies

Adrianna and Alicia, comparing bellies. Quite the contrast!!

Long Day

Alicia had a very long day today: including a trip to Sarah's doctor, a stop at babies 'r us, and the regular sleep, eat, you know what cycle. By the end of the day she couldn't even hold on to her pacifier!

Doctor Leihr

Sarah saw Dr. Leihr today who delivered Alicia. Sarah is healing well and feeling better each day; though she still has her ups and downs.

Dr. Leihr is older than he looks, but this didn't stop Sarah from cracking jokes about his age through the whole delivery process. When she first saw him at our first visit she called him Doogie Houser! The jokes kept her in good spirits and the nurses laughing. He did a great job and we are very grateful that he was willing to see us with such short notice and work with us though we did not have any pre-natal care.

Doctor Visit

We took Alicia to the doctor's today, she did great and made sure to show off her healthy lungs.















Alicia weighs 6 lbs. 9 oz. and is doing great!

Pictures!

I have uploaded pictures of Alicia's first few days with us to our web album at the following link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/penguinfam/AliciaLynn

Enjoy! And expect plenty more.

Sisters

Adrianna is so happy to have a baby sister. She cannot get enough of baby Alicia. Adrianna wakes up and wants to see the baby, she goes to bed and wants to give kisses to the baby. She is very sweet, it is neat to see how much she adores her sister. The only problem we are having is keeping her busy with helping in a constructive way, I guess that is a pretty good problem to have. Adrianna and Alicia, they make a beautiful pair!

Announcing Alicia Lynn!

Hear ye, Hear Ye - Alicia Lynn is here!

We would like to announce the surprise arrival of our daughter Alicia Lynn. Sarah gave birth to her, on May 22nd, at 9:22pm. The incredible & surprising part is that we found out she was pregnant on May 22nd at about 12:15pm. Which means Sarah knew she was pregnant for a few hours before Alicia joined us. For everyone who asks: "How did that happen?" here is the low-down:

Sarah has PCOS and so she does not have regular periods, she has also been told since she was 17 that she would not be able to conceive. She was seeing a PCOS specialist to control the PCOS, but not to get pregnant. We adopted our first daughter (Adrianna) in October of 2005 and we were sealed to her in October of 2006. We were contemplating putting in paperwork to adopt another child but we haven't moved on that yet. The fact of the matter is, pregnancy was not on our minds as a possible option.

Sarah began suffering from abdominal pains and cramps on Saturday, May 19th. On Monday the pain became severe and so we went to her doctor on Tuesday because Sarah felt like she did when she had a miscarriage about 5 years ago. The doctor asked several questions, several times, and asked if we were trying to get pregnant. Though we weren't trying we weren't doing anything to prevent pregnancy either, so the doctor took Sarah's vitals and had her give a sample of urine. A few minutes later the Nurse Practitioner met with us, asked us more of the same questions and told us that we were pregnant! Though we were shocked at first we thought, "O.K. we can only be a few months along and that we could get through it." We knew there was a serious risk of losing the pregnancy because of Sarah's PCOS. The nurse offered to do an ultrasound to check the health of the baby. During the ultrasound we saw the head and several other parts but we couldn't take any precise measurements to determine the age. We heard a healthy heartbeat which got us very excited and the nurse figured that the baby was well into her second or third trimester, but we figured we had a few months to prepare still. She sent us to the imaging center where they could get a more exact measure of how far along Sarah was.

At the imaging place they did a more precise ultrasound, we saw she was a girl and we heard her wonderful heart again. The technician told us that she was about 38 weeks along!! This is about where the panic started to set in, the technician said we would be due between the 31st of May and the 6th of June! We still didn't even have an OB as the doctor Sarah was seeing did not do Obstetrics. We called one office who wasn't sure if they could take someone so late in their term, and we called another office who many of our church friends had used for their pregnancies and we got an appointment the next day at 9:30 am. He offered to talk to me as I was on the phone and we learned his office was across the street and he could see us that afternoon if we would like. We took him up on the offer and went across the parking lot for an exam. The doctor noticed several symptoms that were alarming and he did an exam and determined she was 4 centimeters dilated. He immediately told us we needed to get to the hospital and we would probably deliver that night. In awe and somewhat scared we drove up to Memorial North to give birth to our baby girl. We were admitted to the hospital and got Sarah hooked up to the monitors and we got set to have this baby girl. Sarah opted for an epidural and the doctor put an internal monitor on the baby's head. As they gave a dose of Petosin and Sarah had a small contraction the baby's heart rate dropped to 40 and the doctor decided to deliver by C-Section to avoid further stress on the baby with labor. Though she was scared, Sarah did really well and Alicia Lynn was born at 9:22pm, only 9 hours after we found out we were pregnant. She was perfectly healthy and weighed in at 6 lbs. 12 oz, and was 19 3/4 in long.

Alicia is a beautiful little girl and we are so excited to have her in our family. Both mommy and baby are doing well now and we are getting ready to take them home today! Heavenly Father does not give us much notice with Children, he gave us a week from when we first got an e-mail about Adrianna to when we picked her up, and now he has given us 9 hours. We have amazing stories to tell both of our beautiful girls, I am sure one day they will fight over who has the better story about coming into our family.

Soccer Form

Adrianna and I went to the park to kick the ball around. I was quite impressed with the natural form she showed in these pictures. She even throws the ball correctly, both feet on the ground, both hands on the ball, all the way behind the head. She is a natural!! Click here to view the all the pictures.

June Update

We celebrated two very special birthday's this month. June 11th was Adrianna's second birthday! The Fedele's helped us throw her an amazing party on the 10th at their house. Thank you to everyone who came and celebrated with us. Adrianna had a great time, she loved seeing all her friends, and she thoroughly enjoys the wonderful gifts she received. Joseph's 30th birthday was on the 12th, he took the day off to recover from Adrianna's party. For his birthday we enjoyed a fun breakfast at Ruby's. We also enjoyed an afternoon picnic in Garden of the Gods with the Sweat family. We met the Sweats through Families Supporting Adoption, they have been a wonderful support for us as we have gone through the adoption process.

Adrianna had her 2 Year Old checkup this month, she is about 37" tall and 29 lbs. She has lost her chunk, but Sarah says she still has her deliciously munchable thighs! She is really shooting up, she may outgrow us both!

On top of the birthday parties we also enjoyed visiting with other friends and family this month. One of Sarah's childhood friends invited us over for a Family Bar-B-Q. We enjoyed reliving old times, and Adrianna enjoyed playing on their piano. Also, one of Sarah's many cousins was in town. We visited them at Fargo's Pizza for dinner, which was a lot of fun.




Adrianna saw her first movie, Ice Age 2, with her friends Tyler and Ashlyn. She has a great time ooohing and ahhhing at the movie, and screaming when the squirel would get hurt chasing for his acorn. Adrianna does not watch TV, so Sarah was not sure if she would pay attention to the movie-but she did! Sarah had a lot of fun watching Adrianna at the theater, though she didn't pay much attention to the movie.

It has been a great start to the Summer for us, we love you very much and wish everyone the best. Have a great summer!!!

May Update

May has been a very fun month for us! We have enjoyed several parties and get-togethers.

We started out the month with a wonderful Cinco de Mayo / Immigration party at our friends Maria and Denny’s. We enjoyed making delicious tamales, and Adrianna enjoyed the attention as she made friends with everyone. We even got to take a few swings at the piñata and Adrianna’s overalls came in very handy as Denny helped her to load up with candy. Adrianna got to sit on a horse, which was very exciting for a moment-- then she wanted off. Adrianna also enjoyed riding in the canoe as we relaxed on their pond. It was a wonderful way to celebrate.

We enjoyed a wonderful Mother's day, it was Sarah's first as a mother to Adrianna. I cooked up a delicious steak dinner and we reflected on how long we anxiously waited for Adrianna to join our family.

Sarah and Adrianna found time to enjoy the Zoo with Tracey and Amelia. Adrianna loved all the animals –even though she calls all animals “puppy”! Though she will give the correct sign for some of the animals and tried to teach those near by the sign as well!

Sarah has also been enjoying Wednesday institute class (church class) taught by Sister Thornley. Sister Thornley is a wonderful teacher who shares her love of the gospel and gives great insight to the scriptures for all who attend! She was a dear friend of Sarah’s mom and often shares great memories of her mom with Sarah! Adrianna gets to play with new friends in the nursery there.

We held a Families Supporting Adoption (FSA) Bar-b-q at our house. We enjoyed having several families over to celebrate the blessings adoption has brought us. Everyone had wonderful stories that we enjoyed sharing. It was great to get together with dear friends as well as meet new ones!

To finish the month, we made a trek to Arizona for Memorial Day which we spent with Sarah’s uncle and family. We got to meet the newest baby cousins and we enjoyed swimming in the beautiful pool to escape the Arizona heat (which to our surprise was not that bad). Aunt Rocky taught Adrianna how to kick in the water, but her favorite was riding Shamu around the pool. We had a great time as we enjoyed some delicious Mexican cooking great hospitality and a lot of fun with everyone there.

Enjoy the pictures!

Joseph, Sarah & Adrianna