The Potty Dance

I don't know if you have seen "The Potty Dance" commercials on tv by pull ups, but Laneah loves that song. When it comes on she goes crazy. At the end of the commercial, it says that you can download the song/video online and since Laneah loves it so much I downloaded it for her. I think we had to listen to that song 20 times in a row:) She just danced the night away to this song. She cracks me up. What a little firecracker.

Who Said Jello Was Just For Eating?

Laneah has been pulling the boxes of jello out of the pantry for a long time now. She had never had jello before but was adamant that we make it. So a couple of nights ago I made jello with her. After it was firm, I thought it would be fun to make shapes with it using cookie cutters and then we could eat it, or at least Laneah could, I'm not to crazy about jello. But Laneah decided it would be more fun to just pulverize the jello and make a mess of it. And since jello is cheep and easy to make, I was more than happy to let her go to town. She had fun with it for a good 30 minutes. The funny thing was she wouldn't even taste it until the very end she stuck her head in the pan and licked it, but that was it. So no more jello for us unless it is for play time:)

Brooklyn's Birth

We were thrilled when Brooklyn's birth mother said she wanted us at the hospital for the birth. It was an amazing experience to watch our baby being born. One I can never thank the birth mother enough for. Brooklyn was born on Saturday, January 16th, at 9:40 am. She weighed 7 lbs, 2 ozs and was 21 inches long. She had lots of dark hair, and two big dimples. She was very relaxed and didn't cry hardly at all. She was completely healthy and so precious.

Jason was able to cut the umbilical cord
Brooklyn's first exam
Then held by mommy and daddy
First bath
Laying peacefully after her bath
Later that night we brought Laneah to see her new little sister
Laneah first seeing Brooklyn. She was so excited.


Brooklyn hummed like this all day and night long.

Brooklyn in her first outfit.
As you know we didn't get to leave the hospital with her as planned, but a little over three weeks later we were able to go back to Arizona and pick her up. Holding her again was wonderful. We are so happy to have her be part of our family.

Laneah at 2 years 2 months

Laneah is getting really good at hide and seek and loves to play it all day long. She will say "count" or "hide" and then she hides and laughs and laughs when you find her. If Jason or I are the ones hiding we will say, "close your eyes" and she will cover her eyes but peek through and you know she is peeking because her head will move in the direction that you are going. We will tell her "no peeking" and she will say "peeking!" and then laugh.

She is now potty trained! She hasn't had any accidents in several days although she still wears diapers at night. When we were teaching her to use the potty, she started yelling "I Pooped!" all the time. She would just walk around and say "I pooped, I pooped!"

Since Laneah is so daring I am constantly telling her to be careful. Now when she does something where she might get hurt, she looks at me and says "Careful"

When she gets excited she likes to yell either"Woo Woo!" Woo Hoo (like Homer from the Simpsons) or "all right!"

Laneah likes to cuddle, especially after her bath and she will say "Cuddle" when she wants to cuddle.

When she leaves to go somewhere or when one of us leaves, she always says "See Soon" (see you soon) and "right back", for be right back.

Laneah loves being a big sister. She took it better than I thought she would. She gives Brooklyn lots of kisses and always wants Brooklyn to be in her sight. She likes to help get diapers and pacifiers. Of course there are some jealousy issues, but overall, Laneah is a great big "sidder"


When Laneah does something good, she likes to shout"Big Gul" Big girl

Laneah has a new show that she likes to watch, she calls it "Boos Coos" -Blues Clues

She copies a lot of things that I say. When she does something like spill her drink I will sigh and say jeez, so now when she does something similar she will sigh and say"Jeez".

One of Laneah's favorite things to do right now is to put change in her Piggy Bank and then empty it and put the change back in. She calls nickles "sicles", quarters "corners", and dimes "dines".

Insists on taking showers instead of bath and calls it a "showie"

Laneah is so smart and beautiful. We love our little princess!

Sleepover

When Jason and I left for Arizona to pick up Brooklyn, we left Laneah home because we didn't think we would be gone more than a few days. On the day we left, Laneah stayed with our good friends Kami and Derrick. Kami just did this adorable post of their sleepover adventure and I copied it so you all could see it.

Dal's first sleep-over

Yesterday, I watched one of my best friend's(Rachel Carter) little girl, Laneah. We watched her all night and then she had a sleep-over with Dallas and then we played for a while in the morning before Megan, Laneah's aunt came to get her for a day at her house.

Dallas and Laneah are really good friends, she is his BFF. He loves to play with her and was so excited when I told him she was coming over and that she was going to sleep over too. He said, "Ya, Neah sleep in my bed, it's so comfy for her."

The kids had lots of fun playing when she got here, they bundled up in blankets on the couch, and played with toys, watched a little "Dora", played with all Dal's stuffed animals on his bed, jumped on the mini trampoline, and Laneah tried on Scarlette's and Dallas' shoes.

After dinner we did bath time with all 3 cuties in the tub, it was a fun bubbly time. Then came bed. Scarlette went down like normal. Dal and Neah were both sleeping in Dal's room, we had the pack and play set up for Neah, but she didn't want to have anything to do with it, so we let her lay in Dal's bed. Then we left them to play themselves to sleep. About 15 min after Derrick left the room we heard Dal say, "Neah, it's not nakie time yet" so of course we went in to check it out and Laneah had taken off her PJs and was running around in her diaper, and they were playing like crazy, not even a little bit tired. So we put Laneah's PJs back on and put them back in bed and left again.

After a little while longer we heard some loud noises and went back up to check on the kiddos and they were both running around completely buck naked!!! We couldn't believe it. We ended up pinning Laneah's jammies closed so she couldn't unzip them. Funny little kids we have. So after that escapade I stayed in the room for about 1 1/2 hours and sang to the kids and tried to get them to be quiet, but they kept wanting to play and not calming down, so after my best efforts, I had to defer to my better half. Derrick went up and in order to get them to calm down enough to sleep he had to put all the toys away, took the nightlight away, and told the kids if they didn't go to sleep they would be in trouble...by this time it was 11:30!!!

After that, they did sleep through the night. They even slept in to 7:30. Then we had a fun breakfast time and of course more play time! We played and played until Megan came to get Laneah just before nap time, which was well needed all the kids were starting to feel it by then.

All the kids had a wonderful time and it was a very fun first sleep-over, Thanks for sharing your cute daughter with us Rach!

Brooklyn at 1 Month

Weight: 9 lbs 1 oz- 50 percentile

Length: 21 inches- 50 percentile

Brooklyn is a little sweetheart. She is a good and content baby. She hardly ever cries and usually sleeps really well. She has bonded to me so well that she gets upset if I leave the room; even if she is sleeping, she knows. She loves to be held and to be lightly patted on her back. She enjoys her baths, especially when she gets her hair washed. She eats 4 oz about every three hours and I love kissing her chubby cheeks and her little dimples.

And the best news so far today is that we have been cleared to go home! It is still an at risk placement, but I am just happy to be able to leave Arizona for now and see my other little angel. Happy one month princess!

Faith

Just wanted to update everyone on our adoption status. After battling the weather to get here and holding Brooklyn, we discovered that a potential birth father hired a lawyer to contest the adoption. If he really cared about Brooklyn and it was about her I would have some sympathy for him, but it is not. First of all, he might not even be her birth father, second, it isn't about love for him, it is about power and revenge. His sister slashed the birth mother's tires and his family has called and left her nasty messages. He is currently in jail and won't be out for another month. His girlfriend harassed the birth mother and was arrested on her way to come attack her (luckily she got a lot of charges, she assaulted the officer, had drugs on her, was speeding and driving drunk) But this woman who lives with this potential birth father left messages on the birth mother's phone threatening to kill her and her children and that she would "torture Brooklyn, or whatever the stupid baby's name is". Hopefully this woman stays in jail for a long time. I am not sure what is going to happen. Our worker said that if it goes to trial, we could be stuck here until it is over, which could last over a year. It is scary. I miss Laneah so much. I thought I would get to go home on Friday and now I am stuck here indefinitely. I hope to get good news tomorrow.

I bought this necklace ( like the picture above, only mine has green beads) when I came home from Arizona without Brooklyn from a woman who has adopted two little boys and just won a contested adoption. I have been wearing it everyday; reminding me to be faithful. It is hard because every time we get close, something else happens, but I have to be grateful that the time I have with her right now. I have to be faithful and know that Heavenly Father will look out for our family. I know that we have been blessed and I have to believe that we haven't come this far only to have it not work out. Brooklyn is supposed to be a part of our eternal family. I hope that I will get to go home this week (Jason went back home on Friday) and rejoin my family, but for now I will continue to enjoy my alone time with Brooklyn and rely on my Heavenly Father to get me through this time of uncertainty. I will write more updates as I get them (hopefully from my own home!) Thank you for your prayers, they are invaluable!

My Little Valentine

Don't you just want to give her loads of kisses?

Brooklyn's First Bath (With us)

Brooklyn loves her baths. She just lays there and kicks and coos. When we wash her hair she smiles and closes her eyes. So sweet.