I have an Ethiopian Nephew!!

My sister, Aimee, got her referral yesterday!!! We are so excited for Micah to be in the family. I can't wait for them to go and bring that baby back. Congrats Neal family.

Taylor Isabelle

Taylor was born a couple of weeks ago. She is a miracle baby! I don't have a picture of her because I haven't gotten to see her yet. She's still in the nicu. Jenny was measuring huge, really huge towards the end of her pregnancy. They did an ultrasound and saw fluid on Taylor's heart and other areas of her body. They did an emergency c-section at 37 weeks. The first few minutes of Taylor's life were rough, but with the help of the doctor's the Lord sustained this sweet baby's life. For two weeks now they have been draining fluid and they have finally figured out that her Thoracic duct was leaking. They have put her on a special formula and are hoping that this will allow the leak to heal on it's own! Hopefully, she will not need to have surgery. Jenny and Brian have been through a lot in the last couple of weeks. We hope they can take their baby home soon.

It has been so amazing to pray for Taylor and see how the Lord has worked miracles in her short life. We're hoping that she will be free of all her tubes and be able to be loved on by all of us soon:)

Apples, Apples, Apples

I haven't posted in a while and lots of stuff has happened.....

We went to the apple orchard with Sarah and we had so much fun. The boys love this apple orchard! We rode a fun tracker to the apples, got out and picked away, then we took the tracker to the fun play stuff and ate doughnuts and drank cider! So much fun.

Nathan thinks that Sarah's his girlfriend. He has a serious crush on her. He was at preschool before we went to the orchard and his teacher said he was talking about Sarah all morning:)

Three's Company

So I've moved Addie out of her "lofty" room into the boys room. We've been thinking about moving the boys to the bedroom on the first floor so that we won't have to walk through Addie's room all the time. A couple days ago I set up the pack-n-play in the boys room to test things out. She was so crazily excited about it. Her and Caleb played in it for a long time. Just laughing and laughing. Then when it was time for her to take a nap she just sat in there talking and laughing for over an hour.

That night was a little rough though she kept on waking up and I couldn't tell if she wanted to sleep in her crib or the pack-n-play or what, so I decided yesterday to just move the crib into the boys room.

She completely wigged out when she saw that I had taken the pack-n-play down. Then when I started to take her crib apart she was following me around whining...."Mommy, what the heck, where am I going to sleep?"

Our crib is all cracked out so it took forever to take apart. I actually didn't take it all apart because the screws are stripped so I had to wrestle a half-taken apart crib down a couple of stairs and then up a couple of stairs into the room. Addie seemed a little relieved when the crib was in the room.

So I got over the hurtle of getting the crib in the room but then I had to put the sides back on. This crib is a hand-me-down (that I totally appreciate) and it's seen better days. In order to get the sides on everything has to be lined up at once, by the time I'd get one side right the other would move and I was losing it! Lots of AHHHHs and grunts happening. Addie was walking around the crib with a wrench, helping. All the while Nathan was reading books and resting in his bed, he totally didn't even look at me. Seriously, it took me way too long to put it back together. I was sweating like I had just worked out for hours. Real sad.

So she's in the room now. She's loving it. The boys are loving it. Everyone's happy.

Hint-Hint

This morning the boys were quiet for way too long, when I checked on them this is what I found.

I'm wondering if they are hinting that I need to step up the cooking and the cleaning:)

Fat chance boys!

But really they read Rachael Ray and Real Simple for a very long time.

Haircut Update

To talk Nathan into letting us cut his hair I showed him this picture:

Then I pointed out what Michael's hair looks like in the back. He then let Michael cut off the tail, but only the tail. Now he looks like this:

After Michael cut it he said "Now do I wook wike Daddy?"

Notice the sucker in the picture:) "Wow Nay Nay you let us cut one little piece of hair, you get a sucker right before bed." Pretty smart:)

Even though he can be a little tough to deal with sometimes, he's so cute. His voice is really endearing. He makes me laugh....here's a little snipet of cute Nathan talk:

Mommy's Naptime Barber Shop

Nathan is ridiculously opposed to grooming. He hates getting his nails clipped and completely freaks out when I cut his hair. The last night I cut his hair I really thought I was going to get a call from CPS. I brought the clippers outside and tried to convince him it'd be fun to get a haircut while he sat on his bike while eating sucker (I'm telling you, I've tried every kind of bribery out there.) I ended up having to pin him between my legs and hold his head with one hand while, cutting his hair with the other. All the while he's screaming, crying, almost hyperventaliting. Caleb meanwhile is trying to convince him that it's not bad and that it doesn't hurt. When trying to talk to him didn't work Caleb started singing to him, to comfort him. He was unsuccessful, but he made me laugh which took the edge off my frustration with Nathan:)

So.....I'm trying a new thing....cut it while he's sleeping.

He woke up before I could do the back, hopefully he'll let me cut some tonight:)