Bella, Gabe and Josiah

Tonight I heard about another NICU family. They had twin girls this week at 25 weeks. One of the girls passed away today and the other is still fighting. I looked at the pictures of these two little girls in their little incubators and read about all of the struggles that their little bodies are having right now and all I could do was cry. That could have so easily been us. We could have so easily been the ones holding our baby as he passed into the arms of Jesus. How did we get to be so lucky? Why did we get to take our little boy home relatively unscathed? Why us? I know the answer. I know about the providence of God and that He is in control of all things and that He has a plan in everything. I know that He loves these babies more than any of the rest of us can even dream of. But when I look at pictures of other little babies that aren't going to get to come home, the only thing I can think, is why me? Why is my sweet little Gabe sitting in my dishwasher exploring what kinds of

We had some good brother-sister bonding this evening. Dinner was taking forever  to cook, so naturally the two of them were hanging out in the kitchen to encourage the food to cook faster. Then Bella was showing Gabe how to brush his teeth. Clearly the best place to do that was sitting in the sink... In other Gabe news, he's up to 16lbs 7oz. He's gained nearly a half a pound in a week. Apparently all of the pediasure we've been shoving down him is doing some good. It looks like we can stop that now, which will be nice. He's figured out how to clap and loves practicing. Today when I dropped him off at school, he waved goodbye and then clapped for himself, since he did such a good job waving bye. He's also graduated to eating whatever we're eating for dinner (for the most part...). Tonight he ate three Swedish Meatballs. His Swedish Great Grandpa would be so proud!    

Bella and I went skiing today. She has a free lift ticket this year, as well as one free rental and lesson, so we decided to take advantage of that. She had her lesson in the morning, so I skiied by myself for a bit. It was going well until the chair lift stopped. Since they stop it regularly when people are having issues getting on or off, I wasn't concerned as it's usually back in a minute or two. That did not happen today. It turns out that there was a power outage in half the city and we had no power. We sat there for a half an hour until they were able to hook up the diesel generator to let us all down. After Bella's lesson we got some lunch and then we skiied together. This was only her second time skiing, but she loved it. Hopefully we'll be able to get her up again this year while she's still got a free lift ticket. Plus, we had a lot of time hanging out together for the day. That said, right now my entire body is sore...      

We've had a long week over here. We had a great weekend last weekend with lots of friends and good times, but then life gets back to normal and that transition can be hard. Plus, there wasn't nearly enough sleeping and we have to catch up on all the things that didn't happen while we had extra people around. On top of that, I had four appointments for the kids in two days and we ended up making some big decisions that we weren't planning on making right now, but it turned out that this was the week to make them. Plus, the complicated way in which our family was formed sometimes rears it's head in some difficult ways and that definitely happened this week. It's been a long week.  But today is a new day and Bella and I are off on an adventure! Gabe even waved goodbye for the first time as we left this morning. A few pictures from the last few days... When you've just had a good breakfast of milk, the best thing to do is sit down amd eat a bowl of cheerios, rig

This weekend did not go as planned. Actually, we had no actual plans, just some thoughts about what we needed to do. Instead, on Friday night we got a call from Bella's BFF's mom telling us that they's gotten weathered out of their town and were stuck here until they could catch a flight home. So, the three of them stayed at our place for the weekend. It was a lot of fun. They moved two years ago, and while the girls have seen each other a couple of times, this was the first time since they'd left that all of us adults had spent any time together. Saturday night the third member of their little threesome came over with her family. We had quite the houseful: 3 10-year-olds, 3 babies and 5 adults. But it was a lot of fun and the girls hadn't all hung out together in about 4 years. Sunday we had the three girls for awhile. We pulled out Bella's tea set and had a tea party. Then one of the other moms took them to see Beauty and the Beast. Our houseguests kept Gabe f

It's a good thing that these moose pictures are nearly done. It took me two days to get an actual, reasonable picture.

One year ago, Pat and I had just spent the night at the nicu. They unhooked Gabe from all of the machines and we took care of him all night for the very first time. The nurse was there if we had questions, but it was all us. One year ago, we sat with baited breath, waiting for the eye doctor to give us his final report. If he gave us the okay, we could go home. If not, we had to stay. One year ago, we walked out of the hospital yet again, but this time we were carrying a carseat with a tiny baby in it. We put him in the car for the first time and we both broke into tears. One year ago, we got on a plane and flew home. We spent our first night as a family of four in our own home, all together at last. How is it possible that was only a year ago? What was our life like without this little guy at home???  

Last night was the Wax Museum. For the last month or so, Bella's class has been researching famous people. They made posters, wrote speeches and found costumes based on all of their research. Last night they all had the opportunity to present their findings as a wax museum, so we spent the evening wandering the halls and learning about famous people. It was a lot of fun and I learned some very interesting things. Of course, the best was Bella. :) She picked Jane Goodall. It's been fun watching her prepare for this event. She's growing up so fast. How did she get old enough to do a research presentation???  

"Mom. What is this?" "It's fun to play with." "Can I eat it???" Because he asked nicely, he got kiwi for dinner.        

When I was a kid, my Mom had a bunch of Madam Alexander dolls. I thought they were wonderful and started buying some of my own. Between the two of us, we have a pretty good collection, but they have been sitting in boxes for the last few years. Now that I have Bella, I've bought her a couple, one for a birthday before we were married, and one as an adoption present. She really does like them, so we thought it would be fun to pull out all of my dolls for her. So Pat put up a shelf and last night we put up all of the dolls, so she has the complete collection.  In the process of looking through my childhood stuff to find the dolls, we found my old rocking horse that was made by my Great Grandad. We decided to pull it out for Gabe. The horse used to have more hair and a tail, but I remember pulling it all out. I don't remember chewing on his ears though...        

Yesterday was Bella's birthday party. She wanted a pool party, so she invited a bunch of friends and we all went swimming. I do have lots of pictures of the party, however I'm trying to be respectful of puting pictures of other people's kids on the internet and in every single picture, Bella is standing next to one of the kidd whose parents I don't know, so I have no idea if they would want me posting pictures of their kid... After swimming, we had pizza, cake, presents and then a rousing game of Pin the Horn on the Unicorn. Some of them were so close that there may have been some cheating... Since we were at the pool, Gabe got to go swimming for the first time. I was a bit concerned that my little wiggle monster would just dive in headfirst, so we borrowed water wings. They ended up being way too big, so we just held him, which worked out fine. I'm not sure if he loved the swimming and the splashing or the people watching more. There were a lot of people around to

Have you ever seen a better expression of pure joy??? They pulled out the bubbles at day care and Gabe loved it. He didn't want to play with the bubbles, he just wanted to be surrounded by them. On Wednesday we discovered that Gabe had another ear infection and his second tooth had popped through. I had no idea either of these things was happening as he was still a happy little baby. He wasn't cranky at all. He's such a sweet little guy. I love him.  

Happy Birthday Bella! We love you so much! You may not have come into my life in the traditional way, but I'm so glad that you did. I love you so much! We celebrated yesterday with a family birthday party. We'll have a big birthday with her friends this weekend.    

Gabe hasn't been feeling well this weekend. This morning he was having a tough time, so he and I stayed home from church and snuggled. However, just because he wasn't feeling very well did not mean that he wanted to sit and snuggle all morning. He had things to do and places to explore! We have a huge box in the living room at the moment that I thought would make a great tunnel. Gabe, however, refused to go through it and just tried to climb on it. However, then Max went through it. If Max can do, then Gabe will! There was plenty of other exploring to be done... He even found the girl scout cookies. Bella put her backpack behind the couch to see if that would keep Gabe out of the cat's little area. Nope. It should be noted that he was not stuck. He got himself out and got to the orange ball, which was his plan. After church, Gram and Gramps came over to celebrate Bella's birthday tomorrow. He was feeling better this evening, so we went to church. He spent much of the se

Pat and I were talking the other day about stairs. We live in a one story house so Gabe doesn't have the opportunity to learn how to go up and down the stairs. My parents have stairs, but their stairs are straight up and three flights worth, so it just doesn't seem like a good place for a baby to practice... Last night we were at the church and I put Gabe down on the floor. He turned around the crawled up the three stairs to get into the sound booth. So apparently we don't need to worry about stairs, he's got this down. This shouldn't surprise me. The daycare ladies told that he crawls under the high chairs when everyone else is eating and steals the food that they drop. They've been trying to figure out how to separate the eating and the playing area, so they bought a fence to block it off. Apparently it took Gabe 3 minutes to figure out how to go around it. So much for that plan...