Noelle Dreams & Beyond

cc is officially ours. Knew he was from the moment I laid eyes on him. So very, very happy it's finally done. Here is our beautiful boy, Caleb! And here is baby sister, Evan. This is the first time I've even opened my blog since that last post this summer. Crazy! No guarantees anymore I can keep this up. The only reason I can post right now is that Evan is actually sleeping WITHOUT ME!!! Almost never happens at night. She's actually going on two hours without me right now. AMAZING! And speak of the devil...there she is! Gotta go!

Evan Rose arrived Tuesday, February 17, 2009, weighing 6 lbs. 14 oz. and measuring 19 3/4" long. Life is BUSY and beautiful. I will post more soon.

I'm now just over a week away from my due date, which is Valentine's Day. Miss Evan Rose will be here very soon! We feel ready, though we still need to do a few things like install her car seat. As of today I'm riding around with a towel in the seat in case my water breaks. I seem to be having a little trickling of amniotic fluid, which is exciting, but I guess it could be awhile yet before I actually go into labor. While I'm pretty uncomfortable, I'm enjoying these last days of pregnancy. We have prepared cc as best we can. How much can you really prepare an 11-month-old? We just give him lots of tlc (nothing different there) and his dada now sleeps with him every night on a twin mattress in his room. We figure we'll each sleep with a child for awhile. No biggie. We attempted forcing him to sleep alone a few months back, but it just didn't work. None of us were getting sleep, cc seemed traumatized, and we decided it just wasn't worth it. I r...

Just wanted to check in and say happy new year to anyone who happens to stop by. We are in the final stretch to the arrival of baby #2 with only 6 weeks or so to go. It's really hard to believe. We don't even have her room ready...actually we haven't even started yet! cc just keeps us so busy, and these days when he's sleeping or his dada has him, I'm sleeping. Just SO TIRED and so much to do! cc will be 10 months old in 2 days, and he continues to amaze us with his skillfullness. He's been walking behind a push toy ever since my mom gave it to him a few weeks ago as if he always knew how. He'll actually try to turn it when he runs into something. He occasionally says bye-bye and attempts to wave, and his fine motor skills get better every day - this requires me to keep the tiniest grains of dirt off the floor unless I don't mind him ingesting whatever he picks up. (We try, but our house just isn't that clean.) We have him sleeping on a tw...

I plan to post a pregnancy picture soon. Just wanted to say hi until then... I think November has been even busier than October! We have lots of projects in the works, such as the baby-proofing we didn't worry about until cc began crawling a few weeks ago. We also have a nursery to do and Christmas shopping and baby shower planning and the usual stuff that goes along with having a home and a family. I am forever sleep-deprived, especially since cc is in our bed again. (More to come on that front...I simply cannot let him cry it out as much as everyone keeps suggesting it.) I also want to say biggest congrats to our friends who recently got their referral from China!!!!

Yes, Chris and I found out that cc will be getting a sister in February! We honestly couldn't believe it when the ultrasound technician gave us the news a couple of weeks ago - due to the multitude of men in Chris' family. A few people have pointed out to us recently that this really doesn't have anything to do with determining sex, so I've only been misinformed about this for the last 15 years or so! We've always thought we'd have boys if we were able to have kids biologically. Funny how life happens. We feel incredibly blessed and excited about having a boy AND a girl, who may be followed shortly thereafter by another girl! Yes, we're still pursuing our China adoption, and as you can imagine these days we're OK with the wait. :) We're thinking she'll come to us in 2010, but as always we really have no idea when. I can't believe I'm halfway through my pregnancy. We have so much to do before this little girl makes her grand entran...

I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. This is the first time I've been pregnant beyond 13 weeks, and now I'm over 14 weeks. I still have some nausea, fatigue and headaches, but it's all getting so much better. We've had several ultrasounds, and things are looking great in my belly - we've already counted fingers on this tiny baby! We'll find out whether it's a boy or girl in 4 weeks, and I can hardly wait. Most are betting it's a boy, and that's what we always figured it would be because of the literal sea of males in Chris' family. Either way, we'll be thrilled. I've chosen to have my prenatal care at the local birth center, which is a half hour or so away, and that is where I'll give birth with the assistance of a midwife. I feel really good about this decision, and Chris does as well. I have a number of friends who have given birth there and had wonderful experiences. I believe the baby and I are in very good hands. I h...

I have several pieces of very happy news: First of all, we are getting closer and closer to becoming cc's forever family. Recently our social worker said for the first time that we are being considered for his permanent placement. Hooray!!!!!! Chris and I squeezed each other's hand so hard when we heard this. What a relief. We're almost there, cc! Another exciting turn of events is that cc has begun sleeping through the night recently. He doesn't do it every night, but if he wakes up it's around 4am after having been asleep since about 7pm, and so we've gotten some good solid sleep by this point. If he wakes up before 5:30am, we're able to give him a bottle and then he'll go back down until 7am or so. If he wakes up around 5:30, he's often up for a couple of hours. So I actually can't decide which I prefer. I'm not exactly a morning person, though having a baby certainly forces you to try to be one. Either way, he's doing so we...