Top ten from the past ten months!

Ten months ago, our precious Caleb came home.  What a joy and wonderful addition he has been to our family.  He is just the sweetest, cutest, funniest, littlest, cuddle bug ever! 

Here are my top ten pictures from the past ten months.  I think they do a pretty good job of capturing his personality!

So silly

 So sweet

 So cute

 Car lovin'

 Karate choppin'

 Sunglass wearin'

 Pool lovin'

 Ice cream eatin'

 Face makin'

 Snowbaby!

We love you Caleb!

We are home!!!

Yesterday, Claire had her surgery and she did amazing!  We had to be at the hospital at a crazy early hour.  However, once we got there we found out they had a cubicle reserved for us.  It was so nice to have a private area with 2 couches, 2 chairs, a table and a tv. Plus a direct line from the OR which they called us on every hour to tell us how she was doing.  We could eat food in there too.  Most times in surgery waiting areas you can't have food or drink because of the children who are waiting and can't have anything before surgery.  We were blessed to have our 2 ministers come and stay with us the entire time.  Sure made the waiting easier. 

Claire was very brave.  They did give her some goofy juice to help her feel more comfortable leaving mommy and daddy.  Boy, did that stuff work and fast!  She became very silly and she couldn't stop giggling.  They took her back at 730 and we got to see her again around 1200.  They initially admitted her to the hospital so they could watch her.  A lot of kiddos struggle with nausea and dizziness after this surgery.  She too had some nausea so she spent most of the afternoon sleeping.  When she woke up she was ready to eat and was happy again.  By the time the doctor came to see her Claire was doing great so she said we could go home!  We were so happy about that.  We were so tired after our long day and we knew the only way to get sleep would be to go home!  We did sleep well too.  We had to wake Claire up at 530 after we realized her dressing had come off in her sleep.  She has a pressure dressing that needs to stay on until Thursday.  She is still getting some pain medicine but she is eating well and is active...almost too active!

Thank you so much for your prayers.  We could certainly feel them.  We go back to the doctor on February 7.  This is when they will activate her implant and we will see what she thinks of having 2 implants.

Before surgery

 In recovery..trying to wake her up

 Having a hard time waking up

 Eating a popsicle in her room

 Bruce the moose came to visit

 She is not sure what she thinks of the moose

 Sleeping again

 Eating spaghetti and broccoli

 Going home..got a wagon ride to the car

 Claire today..trying to limit her activities!

Claire's surgery tomorrow

Well, tomorrow is a big day.  Claire is going to be receiving her 2nd cochlear implant.  We have talked about it with her and she is excited about getting one on the left side.  She currently has an hearing aid on the left side but she really does not get any benefit from it.  We have a crazy early arrive time for the hospital but at least she won't have to wait all day without eating.  They will keep her over night.  I will try to post and update on how things went.  I will update facebook throughout the day tomorrow so if you are my fb friend you can see how things are going there.  We appreciate all your prayers.  Even though we have been through this type of surgery before it is still never easy to let your child go when the time comes.

Here is a picture from her first surgery.  Hope she wakes up as easy in recovery and is ready to eat Popsicles again!  She is a real trooper!



Snow day!!

Today we had a snow day and my kids were so excited!  They could not wait to get outside. Why do they not feel the cold?  I was frozen and ready to go back inside and they were going strong!  I think little bodies are immune to the cold!  Here are some of our pics from today!

Claire making a snow angel!

 Caleb loved the snow!

 Crazy Claire even rolled around in the snow!

 Brianna helped the little ones make it down the hill.  Wish we could find a bigger hill!

 Boys ready to race!

 Looks like Nicholas barely won!

 Oops, Claire lost her hat and boot!

 Caleb and Brianna walking home...so sweet!

 Nicholas pulling Claire...see video below!

This is Nicholas pulling Claire down the street..it looks purple because I think my camera was too cold!

Check out the steam coming off of Nicholas..I guess he got a workout pulling Claire and Caleb!

Two less orphans!

Do you hear the heavens rejoicing?  As of yesterday, there are 2 less orphans in this world!  I am so excited and so happy for my friend Sonia and her family!  Sonia and her husband, John and their 4 boys are in China right now.  Yesterday, they added Jacob and Joey to their family!  Yes, you read that right.  They adopted 2 boys at the same time!  Last year, Nicholas and Sonia's oldest son, Jason were on the same basketball team.  We spent each Saturday cheering on our boys and talking about adoption.  Sonia and her husband were just starting the process and she had so many questions!  It is so awesome to finally see them united with their boys!

Here is Sonia with Joey..isn't he just the cutest?

 Here is Sonia with Jacob..another handsome boy!

 John and Sonia and their 6 boys!

 Joey

 Jacob

Jacob and Joey are orphans no more!  Their smiles just say it all don't you think?

Now they are...
sons
brothers
grandsons
and loved forever!

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Look how I found Claire and Caleb this past weekend!  They love to read books before falling asleep which is fine.  However, why they choose to get in Caleb's bed together I will never understand!  Claire's bed is much bigger!  They must like to be cozy!  Found them like this last night too!  So sweet...they are best friends!

More Christmas memories....

I have been wanting to blog more about our Christmas trip but we have been recovering from our trip home!  We certainly had an horrible interesting ride home.  We planned on leaving on December 31, however Hunter got sick with a stomach bug on the 30th.  Snow came in that night as well...so we decided we would delay a day and give the roads a chance to be cleared and for Hunter to recover.  Fast forward to the morning we are set to leave...before we even got out of bed Nicholas came in and told us he had just gotten sick.  GREAT!  Roads are clear but now Nicholas is sick.  We decided to push on and hit the road..had to get back for school and work.  Thankfully, Nicholas was able to sleep in the car and only got "sick" once.  Four hours into our 12 hour drive, Gary told me his stomach was hurting and he had the chills.  Oh boy!  Still have a long way to go and now I am the driver!  Fast forward again (oh how I wish I could have really hit fast forward on that day and just got home), we are now about 1 hour from home and Brianna starts getting "sick".  We stopped to take care of her and she told me she hadn't been feeling good but she was just trying to make it home.  I already had a feeling that she didn't feel good after she slept for hours and didn't want to eat but I was in denial.  I just knew we would make it home without any more victims.  Um...well we just got back on the road and someone yells from the back "Claire is getting sick".  I could not believe my ears.  This was not happening..but alas it was.  We did finally make it home but every time Caleb made a sound we were asking him if he was okay.  I guess by this point I was pretty paranoid about who was going to be next!  January 1, 2011 is a day we all want to forget at our house.  Everyone has recovered now and guess what?  Caleb never got it!  However, my parents and my sister and her husband weren't so lucky.

OK, I did not intend for this post to be about our trip home.  Sorry about that :)  I wanted to share some more about our Christmas fun in Nebraska.  Here's the rest of the story...

Every Christmas my mom comes up with some crazy idea for the grand kids to do for their presents.  One year, she and my dad spent days carefully opening walnuts and taking out the nuts.  They then folded money and placed it in the nuts and glued them back shut.  What a fun surprise that was for the kids!  Well, this year did not disappoint either.  My mom came up with games from the new show Minute to Win it for the kids to play.  The kids had a blast and so did everyone watching!  By the way, they only had 1 minute to complete each game!

The first game they played was cookie face. They had to get the cookie from their forehead to their mouth without using any hands.

Claire and Stacey

 Zach, Hunter and Nicholas

 Erikka, Mia, and Stacey

 Maggie and Nicholas go head to head

 Nicholas won the round!

 Maggie is close

The next game was separation anxiety.  They had to separate 50 m&ms into 5 cups by color picking them up 1 at a time and using only 1 hand.  

The littlest players got some help

Katrina, Sierra and Maggie

The next game was egg roll.  They had to make an egg roll into the square using only a pizza box.  Amazingly, only 1 egg broke during this game!

The next game was stack attack.  They had to stack 36 cups in 1 minute.  The smaller kids just did 15 cups!

The next game was junk in the trunk.  They had to get all of the ping pong balls out of the tissue box that was strapped to their back.  This game brought the most laughter!

The last game was elephant march.  They had to knock over 2 liter bottles with the baseball that is in nylons attached to their head.  This game was hard!

Well, thanks for sticking it out with my long post!  I wanted to blog these memories while they are still fresh. Hope you enjoyed a look into our Christmas!