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

April Update

Spring is in full swing for us, Adrianna is growing taller and taller eachday. She is slimming down and shooting up, it is a bit sad to see her loosing those wonderful chubbs. We enjoyed a wonderful Easter Brunch withfriends, Adrianna wasn't too sure about the easter egg hunt, but once shefound out there were goodies inside the eggs she was much happier. After the Easter brunch we babysat our friend's baby - Cassidy. Adrianna absolutely adores her and she loved peeking into her car seat to she how she was doing. We enjoyed spending Easter day with Grandma and Grandpa Terry, and Uncle Zane, Aunt Tamera, and Kyla.

Adrianna is showing a lot of interest in using the potty, she even goes sofar as to take off her diaper in bed and if we are careful she will leaveunwelcome surprises for us. She is doing much better now, a little tape goes a long way towards our sanity. We are working on potty training, so far she has been really good at letting us know - after she has gone. She is saying af ew more words as well as her signs. She says "purple", "yellow", "shoes", "good girl", and of course "puppy", not to be confused with "poopy", which she is also getting quite proficient at!

We enjoyed going to our friend Maria's sealing to her husband Sergey and their daugter Zoe. The pics of Adrianna in the pink dress are from that day.We had no idea that the dress would match the flowers so well. Adrianna tookgreat interest in the matching tulips on the Temple grounds.

Sarah recently started playing volleyball again at church, she enjoys takingan evening off to play. Joseph started a new quarter in school this month,he is on his final stretch and we are hoping he will be done by March of 2007.

Enjoy the pictures; we love you all very much.

Joseph, Sarah & Adrianna

Tulip Pictures

We took these pictures at the Denver Temple, it just happened that we picked this dress which Sarah's great grandmother made for Sarah as a toddler. Not only did Adrianna look great in the dress, but it perfectly matched the beautiful tulips in bloom on the temple grounds!