She's {two}!!

Wow. My baby isn't a baby anymore. She's two. No sign of "baby" left. And while I guess there hasn't really been any signs of "baby" for a while, now it seems official. I can't say she's one anymore. She's officially a toddler and heading into what will hopefully NOT be the terrible two's!
Oh, how I love her so so much!  She lights up my world and constantly makes me laugh with the things that come out of her mouth.  She's one silly, crazy, funny, intelligent, caring, stubborn strong-willed, loving little girl and I wouldn't have it any other way!

As of late:

You talk 90 to nothing. nonstop. all the time!  And I love it!

Most of the time I forget I'm talking to a {now} two year old

Sometimes you talk so fast you can't get the words out right so you end up stuttering--It's so cute!

I love that you communicate and communicate well.

You sing all the time.

Your favorite songs are:

Jesus loves me

"Twinkle in a star"

{Sometimes you get the words wrong}

Hush little baby...town

You love playing "mommy"
{even with the other kids...not just your dolls}
You are slightly bossy
It cracks me up to hear you repeat some of the things I say all day
"one more time, that's it"
"Momma told you 'no'!"
"Look at my eyes"
"lay down and go to sleep"
Your new favorite thing to ask your babies is:
"Do you need to go potty?  Okay, let's go!"
I'm afraid you're going to drop one in the toilet....

You love to go to the grocery store
....both real and pretend....
EVERY TIME we say we are going "bye, bye"
you think we are going to "Emma, John, Kari-John, and JAAAYYDDDE's"

You love slides.  And stairs.
Oh my how you love to climb!
I'm waiting for the day you climb out of your crib...
You {love} bubbles.
And tea parties.
And baths.

You absolutely LOVE to make people laugh/smile.

And you constantly make me do both.
I love you sweet girl!

"You're my __________!"

Here lately

****Stupid auto-save....I had this 90% completed and somehow it deleted.  Before I could hit undo it auto-saved and I have NO clue how to get it back.........great****

Here are just a few of the things we've been up to here lately.

{Enjoy}

::::grin::::

Building {state of the art} gingerbread houses.  Yes, it was March, don't judge. :)

Making messes.  Hmm, I think "guilty" is written all over that face. :)

Going to the zoo with Lolly, Madison and Sylvia.  We had so much fun with them!!

Some of our favorites from our trip to the zoo:

Being silly with Daddy

"Hush monkey!  You're too loud!"

Alligators!  Chomp, chomp!

Riding the monorail

Sliding.  Oh how we love to slide!

Tippy toes

Hunting Easter eggs in the wind and rain with the bestie, Emma.

Just being plain cute!

And.......

Going to a "Hockey Gaaaaaaaaame!"

Uncle Trav came to see us!

We had so much fun at the hockey game with him...

Go Blackhawks!

And to top it off...

We got a game puck!

Thank you random man! :)

We've been up to {A LOT} lately, how about you?

Just because...

I knew you were dying to see this beautiful face. :::grin:::

One month from today...

My sweet girl will turn {TWO} !!

Two. Seriously, I can't believe she will be two. She has grown up WAY too fast and it makes my heart sad. Don't get me wrong, I love every bit of watching her grow and learn, but good grief, somebody give me a pause button! Even if it's just for a moment, I wish I could freeze time and hold on to these precious moments with her that I will never get back.

Moments in time take on new meanings when death has so rudely stolen them from you in the past. I never got these moments with Ellianna. My heart aches and longs for the memory of what could be: watching them play, interact, and even fight. It's amazing how much I wish I could sit them both in time out for pulling each others hair or hitting each other. :::grin::: I always wonder how different McKinnley would be if Ellianna were still alive. Would she be as strong-willed? {stubborn?} Would she be as bossy? Ornry? Or silly? All things I wonder, but all things that are completely irrelavant. It doesn't matter what could have been, because the fact is, it isn't. It isn't any of these things. And God knew this is how it would be. That's a hard concept to swallow. And as much as I wish Elli was here, McKinnley is exactly how she is supposed to be....and I love it! She is truly an amazing little girl with her ornry, silly, bossy, stubborn, strong-willed, independant, shy-yet-center of attention, loving, funny, sweet, caring, crazy, smart, care-free self. I wouldn't trade a second of it for the world!

I love you McKinnley Grace, but do me a favor, will ya? Slow down and stop growing up so fast!!

Everything Changed

December 4, 2006.

We went in for a {regular} 16 week check up hoping we might get lucky and find out the sex a little early. Everything had been picture perfect so far, we had no reason for concern. That quickly changed. The doc's mood slowly changed as he was performing the ultrasound. He didn't seem {too} concerned, but concern was there nonetheless. Maybe he was just being guarded. Not sure. But he told us there was "some fluid around the head and some behind the ears." My first thought... "Fluid around the head? Isn't his or her entire head surrounded by fluid?" The wording just didn't make since to me. He said it could turn out to be nothing but that we would need to see a specialist with better equipment to determine if there was a legit problem. Okay, fine. We would go to a specialist in a couple of days. It would turn out to be nothing. My faith was high. I had just gotten all cleaned up from the lovely jelly they plop on your belly when the doctor came back in. He informed us that he had made us an appointment with the specialist and we were to head over there right away. What?! Right away?! My faith suddenly came crashing down. {Now} I was worried.

On the way to the other doctor, whose name I can't even recall (is that bad?),we were busy praying, and making phone calls to our family asking them to pray. I {tried} to put on a brave face, or voice in this case, and tell them it was no big deal and could easily turn out to be nothing. I tried my hardest to believe the words that were coming out of my own mouth. I wasn't very convincing.

We sat in an awkward silence mixed with the slightest bit of small talk while we waited in the waiting room. We were both scared, nervous and praying. Neither of us had the words to say. What do you say in that situation anyway? We were finally called back and met the doctor. Still don't remember his name. Thick accent, salt and pepper hair...yeah that's all I've got for ya. He was nice enough, I suppose. Very professional and not very personable, but not rude. Just very matter of fact. His super thick accent didn't help things. He dealt with high risk pregnancies and genetic disorders all day, every day. He came across very {calloused} and accustom to this process, but again, not rude.

The room was dimly lit, making it hard to remember much about it. There was the table/chair thingy you lay on, high tech ultrasound equipment, a couple of chairs, a long row of counters and counter tops, along with a TV monitor. The monitor mirrored what was on the ultrasound screen so I could see it without getting a crick in my neck. The room itself made me sad. It wasn't a place I would have ever pictured myself and it certainly wasn't a place I wanted to be. But it would be a place I would become very familiar with over the next several months. The doctor came back in and turned off the lights, making the already dimly lit room seem pitch black. The only light came from the two screens. Creepy. Scott stood by my head and held my hand as the doctor began the ultrasound. He took his time, took lots of measurements, and was very quiet. {Too} quiet. He finally broke his silence and began to talk about everything he saw. He confirmed what Dr. S had told us about the fluid. There was fluid on the baby's brain and some behind the ears. He also noted that the arms and legs were measuring a bit small. He then informed us that we would have (I'll get into that more later) to have an amniocentesis to determine what was really going on. He wanted to schedule it for the next day, which happened to be my birthday. Not happening. So we scheduled it for the sixth instead.

And thus began a whirlwind of testing on this new journey we had now been thrust down.

The first half of the pregnancy....

"Are you saying what I {think} you're saying?!"

Why, yes, we were. ***disclaimer: This again, is talking about our first pregnancy with Elli, not the one with McKinnley or a current one...as we are not pregnant. Continue*** We were pregnant with our first baby and we were ecstatic. The first grand baby on my parent's side, the 3rd (which ended up being the fifth...two more adoptions during the pregnancy!) on Scott's side. Everyone was so excited to meet this little bundle of joy.

I didn't have much morning sickness, but when I did have it, it was ROUGH! Starting at 6 weeks, I woke up in the middle of the night, every 2 hours on the dot. I thought {death} was knocking at my door.

I kid. Sorta.

Honestly, I have never felt so sick. There was no relief. I would have felt better if I had thrown up. But not once during the few weeks that it lasted, did I throw up. I know some people might say I got lucky and shouldn't be complaining. I mean, after all, it only lasted a few weeks and I never threw up, but man oh man, it was BAD!! (And I can say this now because I have since had another precious baby girl, had morning sickness all day, everyday for months and threw up every.single.day. And strangely enough, I would take that over what I dealt with the few short weeks of morning sickness with Elli.)

Enough about that. :::grin:::

Two words. Dairy. Queen. A Dairy Queen 1/2 chocolate chip cookie dough, 1/2 Reese's blizzard to be exact. If there was one thing I craved over everything else, this was it. Yum. I could have eaten one every day, but I was a good girl and refrained. I only had one once a week. ::grin:: Other than that, I didn't have many other cravings. I did start liking {some} vegetables and watermelon though. And if you know me at all, you know that in itself is HUGE! I hated veggies!

Scott went to every appointment with me. He didn't want to miss out on anything. He loved seeing her move and flip and whatever else she was doing in there. The look on his face when he heard the heartbeat each time was the best! Pure joy. The pregnancy was going smoothly and everything was measuring right on schedule.

And then we went in for our 16 week appointment on December 4th, 2006...and {everything} change...

What I do all day...

***I wrote this several weeks ago and never published it. I had a photo attached of all of the kiddos, but I keep forgetting to ask the parents for permission to put their child's picture on here. So I just took the picture off and decided to post it without it. :::grin:::***

Well, let's see, a {normal} day would look like this...

Play with kids
Feed the kiddos breakfast
check for dirty diapers
(change dirty diapers if needed)
put 2 kids down for a nap
play with the rest of the kiddos
start getting lunch together
get up the babies from napping
feed the kiddos lunch
change diapers
play some more
put {everyone} down for a nap
try and sneak a nap in for myself
(less than 50% success rate with that...)
get everyone up from nap
change diapers
feed the kids a snack
play even more
Parents pick up their kids
}Repeat{

So all of that summed up....eat, sleep and clean poop.

Today, however, has looked like this.....

play with kids
3 kids fed breakfast
1 given breathing treatment
retrieved toy microphone and potty seat from {toilet}
cleaned the kid playing in toilet
wash the kiddo's shirt since it was covered in toilet water
clean toilet
throw away toy mic that was now {filled} with toilet water
clean potty seat
take 1 potty twice
put 2 down for nap
take 3 outside to play, color and burn off some of this crazy energy
sent 1 inside with hubby b/c she didn't want shoes on
play with 2 outside
bring them inside and tell them "hands up, don't touch anything."
they immediately wiped the sidewalk chalk on the walls and furniture
clean chalk off of the 2 and EVERYTHING they touched
:::::::::::::::::::::::::
pause here for a moment. It's only 9:45 am at this point. ::grin:: Continue.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::
play with 3 kids still awake
break up at least 5 "fights"
get the 2 up from nap
start prepping lunch
change 2 diapers
feed all five kiddos
another breathing treatment
1 given a bottle
break up at least 5 more "fights"
1 sat in time out twice
check for dirty diapers
change 2 more diapers
1 taken to potty again and changed pull-up
all 5 put down for a nap {!!!}
finally eat lunch for myself
sit down to write this post at 1:15 pm
2 wake up way too early
put two back to sleep

It's now just a bit after 2:00 pm...

I still have the "after nap" routine left. We'll see how that goes! :::grin:::
}hopefully not repeat{

I love what I do. And I would today over again a million times if it meant I would still get to stay at home with McKinnley. I love the kids I watch. Some may criticize that I have no life and I'm "stuck" here at home, but I don't agree at all. Sure, it definitely has it's challenges and some days I just want to pull my hair out and cry, but it's so worth it. Not only do I get to stay home with my baby girl, but I get the opportunity to shape and mold 4 other beautiful children.

Thank you Jessica and Nick, Aimee and Ryan, and Mark and Sara for trusting me with your precious kiddos. I love them so much...even on days like today.

::::grin::::