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!!!