handsful

Lainey, on the morning of her 2nd birthday, July 4, 2008.  She was greeted by very smiley parents and the flash of a camera.  She has momma and baby tiger both tucked safely under each arm. 

She was then whisked to the breakfast table for cinnamon muffins and blueberry cream oatmeal.  She loves using her own spoon to feed herself now…we delayed teaching her that prior to surgery, knowing it would only make it more frustrating for her when she couldn’t feed herself.  Clean up is a little more of a challenge, but our dog Jack is happy to help out if I miss something on the floor. 

Every birthday girl has to look her best for cake and presents, so we gave her a relaxing bath.  Don’t worry, pouring water over her head is her favorite part of the bath…she asks for “mo” (more!) over and over. 

Dressed and hair-bowed, she was ready for some presents!  Here’s something I bet you’ve never heard of…a two year old who is compelled to throw away, in the trash can, every single piece of paper that she pulls off the present.  We ended up bringing a trashcan in the room, to speed things up! 

Lainey do you like your new cozy coupe car?  I think she does.  We also got her a tricycle with a handle that we can turn to help her steer (great find at a consignment shop, actually!), a toddler computer toy, a Lainey-sized patio chair, and a shape sorter. 

She tried very hard to blow out her candles, but she just hasn’t mastered blowing through her mouth yet.  She either ends up blowing through her nose or sputtering through her mouth.  She’ll get it eventually, until then big sister Abbey helped her blow them out. 

She began tasting her cake, very daintily.  You can’t see it, but her bib is embroidered with “Lainey” under the cupcake.  A wonderful, online friend surprised us with her handiwork last week.  Thank you again, Kelly! 

Then, she started to enjoy herself. 

She usually hates to get her hands messy, but she made an exception…just this time. 

Switching gears to July 4th…we all dressed up and went to Jon and Anne’s house for a cook-out.  Despite Lainey missing her nap, she had a blast.  She kept Randy in the pool for over an hour, we had to get her out by promising her food!  Even though it was only her 3rd time ever in a pool, she was jumping in forwards AND backwards and the higher Randy tossed her the more she laughed.  She had the whole crowd smiling. 

Happy Birthday, Lainey.  We love you more than we thought possible.  God has given us a gift we are so unworthy of…you.  If only we could let your birthmother know how much you are loved. 

Lainey and Dr. Glassman

Lainey had her 5 week post-op visit today and all is well.  No more follow-ups, she’s been given clearance to swim, use sippy cups, try straws, etc.  Woo hoo!  He said the repair looks great.  Our next step will be to monitor her speech development…she could need another surgery depending on how that progresses.  If not, then the next surgery will be when she’s around 4 or 5, to revise her lip and nose repair.  Between now and then, she’ll be monitored regularly by the cleft palate clinic.

Tomorrow is the big day!  TWO!   

Randy has great memories of playing in forts as a kid.  His mom would help him and his big brother, Tony make elaborate forts complete with tunnels and rooms.  So, Randy and the big kids had their own fort building time and the kids slept in it last night.  Well, Abbey lasted almost all night, she got hot and went to her own bed. 

Here’s a good shot of it, with Payton cleverly showing us the front door.  There was a back exit too, and even a room that included the TV so they could watch a movie.  Major dad points! 

Lainey missed out on fort-building night, she had already hit the sack :)  Here she is showing the face she makes when we tell her to smile.  We might need to work on that a little. 

She’s still healing very well, no problems.  It’s been 4 weeks now and her next (and, hopefully last) post-op appt. is Thursday morning.  We found out this weekend that she does indeed know who we all are.  We spread out in the family room and Randy asked her “where’s Payton?”, “where’s Marley?”, etc. and she got it all right!  She also has another purposeful word now, other than pointing to her eye and saying it.  She’ll now approximate the word “more” rather than just signing it.  It comes out more like a “mo”, but we’ll take it. 

Now, that’s a better smile!  Wonder what we said to her that time?  As you can tell, it’s crunch time on the bangs or no bangs decision!  We’re pretty sure we’re going with no bangs, so I need to get a LOT of cheap hair clips/elastics since I anticipate losing them as quickly as I put them in. 

Can you say busy??  We’ve had our plates full lately!  I guess it’s been obvious, with the serious lack of blogging.  We’ve had many appointments lately, and renovations to the house and/or repairs (painting is being done from the roof leaks a while back) mean there is always someone here doing something. 

Last weekend, Randy’s dad and Kathy visited us for the weekend.  We had dinner out, dinner in, girls day-out shopping, boys day-in Wii playing, swimming, and presents!  They covered all the kid’s birthdays in one swoop (Abbey’s is in February, and when our kids were in NC while we were in China, they were both terribly sick and couldn’t see her).  There were also presents for R’s dad for Father’s day and for Kathy’s birthday. 

Nana and Lainey snuggle up for some light reading

I think I’m gonna really like this Paw Paw guy…

5 of their 17 grandchildren…Lainey is lucky #17 :)

Here are a few Before/After pics of our new counters and backsplash.  We’re so happy with how they look!

I’ll end with a few random pics from the week…

Payton has a little friend…see him?

Lainey admires Nana’s jewelry on her.  She’s a girly-girl for sure. 

Sisterly love! 

Who needs a mannequin when you have a baby sister?

I found Tracy and her company “Junkposse” (http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5208670) when I came across one of her creations on another blog.  I immediately emailed her, asking if she’d be willing to make a custom piece for me.  After talking back and forth, and deciding what we wanted, this is it.  I just love it!  I assume you can see it (I wasn’t able to zoom like I wanted to), but each of the kids names are on the fingers and the heart in the midddle says “blessings”.  We thought it worked well with our “handsful” theme, at the same time explaining that having our hands full isn’t a negative thing (as a lot of people seem to think), but truly a blessing from God. 

She totally surprised me by putting my name on the back!! 

Tracy is such a sweet woman who truly loves creating perfect pieces for her clients.  She’s also an adoptive mom herself and has made many pieces for auctions and charities that benefit adoption, as well as giving portions of her proceeds to adoption charities.  Go check her out, I promise you’ll be thrilled that you did! 

My favorite Gotcha day picture…this was soon after we arrived at the hotel.  We had taken off her coat, and were trying to interact with her on the bed.  Her little tightly clamped lips speak volumes, I think. 

This is today, 4 months later.  Her hair is getting so long, it’s getting down right unruly!  We usually try and keep it up in a tiny pony tail on top, or with a clip off to the side.  We’re in major “hairbow training” right now…she jerks it out, I put it back, she jerks it out…get it?  We’re not doing the bang thing, so she’s either gonna have to get used to them or get used to seeing through hair.  :) 

 

So, what do you think of our new place?  We’re still unpacking boxes (i.e. tweaking things here and there), but we’re thrilled with our new look.  Randy has worked HARD, making lots of changes to an existing WordPress design to make it look just like we wanted.  He always amazes me at how skilled he is in the “computer arts”…and, if he’s not sure of how to do something, he figures it out (or asks his college roomate Alan). 

One new thing you’ll notice is the button at the top called “Community Forum“.  We’re trying our hand at having a place where you can start topics (i.e. ask a question, make a suggestion, share an idea, etc) which others can then see and reply to.  By doing this, a conversation happens among those choosing to join in.  We think it’ll be great . . . as long as LOTS of people are there.  When you click the “Community Forum” button, a new browser window will open for that site, so you can shrink or close it to get back to Handsful.  Check out the post in the Admin section at the bottom, from Randy.  It’ll give more of an idea of what we’re trying to do with the forum.

Now, back to regularly scheduled blogging…

Since we last posted, Lainey had her 2 week post-op check for her cleft palate surgery and all is well!  She’s healing perfectly, no problems there.  She was able to kiss those no-nos goodbye…woo hoo!  She’s still not able to have a sippy cup (dang) yet, and has to wait until her next post-op check at the 5 week mark to see if she gets her swimming privileges back.  Not sure of the delay on that last one, but I guess I’ll trust the surgeon knows what he’s doing.  Here’s our happy “I can bend my arms now” girl getting caught doing something she loves…climbing anything and everything she can find. 

Oops, she sees me…

We had a rather eventful day last Thursday.  We were driving home from Lainey’s appointment, when the big kids called us on Randy’s cell phone.  They’re hysterical, telling Randy it’s raining in the house.  Huh?  We assume they’re exagerating (most kids do) and there must be a leak in the pool bathroom again.  He tells them to get a pot and put it under the leak, when Payton says they’ve run out of pots!  Oh dear…so we race home, walk in the door, and hear it raining in our office.  Water is literally POURING from the roof, around the chandelier, and filling up the glass fixtures which are overflowing and also pouring water on the floor. 

The picture doesn’t do it justice

Remember when we mentioned we were having our roof re-done?  Well, the leak started when a tarp they had laid down flew up during a big rainstorm (yes, it has indeed rained EVERYDAY since they’ve been working on the roof) and water rushed in under it.  After putting more pots, etc. under the office leaks, we walked around and found others…about 7 rooms total had either break-through leaks or water obviously pooling on top of the ceiling and bleeding through.  A water/humidity removal company arrived that night and set up 17 (yes, that many) industrial sized fans in the areas with the most damage, as well as 4 HUGE dehumidifiers to try and dry us out and get the moisture out.  Have you ever tried to sleep with the sound of helicopter blades whirring beside your ear?  Of course you haven’t, and I hadn’t either until that first night with those fans.  I mean they are LOUD.  I had to wear ear plugs!  As of today, they’re still here but we were promised yesterday that they’ll be here today to take them out, our air/walls are showing acceptable amounts of humidity now.  Whew.  Next, we’ll have carpet cleaners come and take out the water stains, and then the painters will come and repaint those areas that need it.  I took a picture of Lainey with the fan in her room, and a shot of Marley beside one of the dehumidifier “beasts”. 

Not exactly a gentle breeze!

Our floor is a tangle of about a gillion cords…loving that. 

So, that’s been our excitement of late!  But, we’re seeing the light…the roof should (ha) be done today, the fans will be packed up and out’a here, and we can get back to normal.  Well, our normal. 

We did have a nice Father’s Day with Randy on Sunday…he spent a lot of it messing around with this new website, but he loves that kind of stuff.  He got a bunch of “Pop” goodies…Pop-Tarts, popsicles, Corn pops…get it?  And, I made him a collage picture of the kids at Shutterfly.  Here he is with his crew of 5. 

Glad to be back!  Now, I can finally catch up on all of the blogs I read!