Check It Out!

Two things you all have to check out if you haven't already.Click here to make a poster of your sweet. It's the NDSS, campaign for "We're More Alike Than Different". Thank you Cammie for posting Addy's adorable poster.

And second, head over to parenting.com and look at all the beautiful faces. They have a gallery of photos displayed in honor of Down syndrome Awareness Month, Emilia is in Round three. There are other familiar faces too. And add a picture of you kiddo while your there!

A Prayer Request For Jax

OK, I am determined to post everyday, no matter what. Emilia has PT and ST in like an hour and I'm no where near ready for any other people besides my family to see my house. But that will have to wait.

Our little friend Jax will be having surgery today. He will be getting a trach. I can only imagine the stress level in his family today. I'm of course asking for prayers and to keep Jax and Lacey, his Mom and Ray, his Dad in your thoughts. I always felt that God considers good thoughts as a type of prayer. So even if you're running around as I definitely will be today, keep Jax in your thoughts. He is a fighter for sure, a true wonder and miracle. And he has wrapped himself around my heart.
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Lacey, it's going to be OK!!. Love You!

Wordless Wednesday

A few words. Miss Em has been nicknamed Puppy by her sister Olivia, basically because she chews on everything just like a puppy. the bowl in the picture is not on her head to be cute, it's a safe place to keep it, or else it would be in her mouth. I was using it to rinse her off.
Last night Sophia looks at Em and says, " she is so cute, we need another Puppy ". Meaning we need another baby with Ds.
I love my kids!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They get, they really get that this is a blessing!!!!!!!

BTW, I think it's time for the big tub, she looks like a giant in there.
Oh and btw again, those are not my manly hands in the picture, I had Peter hold her for a minute. Just in case anyone was wondering. hehe

To The Farm We Go

We headed to the farm to pick out some pumpkins. It's a free hayride, YEAH! and got some cute pics. I love this one, you can see her bottom teeth.And she is wearing another headband. She pretty much leaves it alone. I'm glad because her hair is getting long but it's to fine for a clip.



A handy hay stack made for a cute photo


Pretty girls


The decorators, nothing spooky here.


They even decorated Andrew, well he's a little spooky!

What's Emilia up to?

Emilia will be one year on the 22nd of this month.I can't believe it. The time has gone by so quickly. Here is what my little girl has accomplished in the one glorious year she has been with us.


As you can see in the picture above, Emilia is learning how to extract eyeballs.Notice her very serious expression.
She is eating. She will eat anything I give her as long as it's clumpy. For a long time we couldn't figure out why she wasn't eating. She took her bottle beautifully, no trouble sucking. But when I fed her baby food it just all oozed out. I knew she was hungry and wanted the food.That was the worst part. She was hungry but couldn't keep the food in her mouth long enough to swallow. One day I made some thick oatmeal and she did much better. We completely ditched the baby food and started mashing table food. She never looked back. The muscles in her mouth were not strong enough to push the food back. I'm just happy we figured it out, so she is enjoying her food now. If anyone is having issues with smooth food and your baby is old enough for table food, give it a try, of course I'm not a doctor so make sure you consult your pediatrician first.

She is crawling.








She is sitting up and making friends with Butsey our very old and patient cat.



She is pulling herself in to a standing position. Probably only to chew on my couch.
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Emilia can hold her bottle, when she is lying down. she still won't do it if she is sitting.
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Emilia can bring two toys together and bang them. This was a tough one for her, because she has a need to put everything into her mouth. So instead of playing with toys she will just bring it to her mouth. Not much getting done when she is chewing on things all the time. She wants no part of a binky either.She takes it out of her mouth and chews on it. Her PT thought a binky would free up her hands and at the same time satisfy her need to chew. It was a great idea, but Em wasn't in on it. She has special toys to chew on when we are playing, if her need to chew gets out of hand I give her, her "chew toy" so she can get her fix, then we go back to playing with her other toys. Sometimes her urge is so strong it's like a tug of war between us.

Emilia is working on waving. She has the motion but at the wrong time. So cute. She will sit and wave( backwards) at herself.

Emilia is babbling nicely.

Emilia does the best raspberries.

Emilia tries to imitate a horsey noise I make to her.

Emilia loves her books.

Emilia loves to be outside, swings are fun

Emilia plays the piano with Daddy.
and her favorite thing to do is make us smile everyday!

Thankful Sunday

Here we are at the beginning of another week. What a busy one last week was. I feel like I was swooped up into a twister and just spit out. But I have a lot to be thankful for.

First, my little bugling is feeling much better. She sounded like her usual talkie self when she woke up this morning.

And what a morning! Despite the cold temp(37degrees) it is one of those, glorious, sunny, fall mornings. My favorite. And those silly cold temps will disappear by late morning

Silly girl below, Someone turned out the lights! But Emmie doesn't mind.
I'm thankful, I found some inexpensive headbands and some flowers in my craft box. I made Emmie some much needed headbands to keep her fast growing hair out of her eyes. She will be appearing in them in soon to be released photos, hehe.


.

I am thankful that even though we are in what I call "Survival Mode" I can still relax a little and have fun and I'm still laughing. Yes my stress level is on high, but I am realizing that God is not far behind. He didn't bring us this far to let go and watch us fall. My incredible Hubby (yes, Peter that's you) has been working around the clock. Something has to give soon. He works , I pray... teamwork!

I am also Thankful to start beginning to pray together again, as a family. Starting today! (Surprise guys). We had a good thing going and we stopped, that was wrong. today we begin again.

I am thankful for the long weekend. Today we are going to decorate outside for Halloween. I've grown to love this holiday since I've had kids. We don't do spooky. We do use cobwebs but that's it. Anyway they're not really spooky. We definitely don't glorify the devil. That's not what Halloween is all about.

I was really thankful to be able to go on Andrews field trip this past Friday. We went to visit a local farm. Andrew with his pumpkin, above. Below is a picture of a very aggressive, but gentle bull. We went on a hayride and had corn to feed the cows. Well this one and only bull among the cows, wanted more. He was too funny. His head was level to the trailer attached to the tractor we were in and he just came right in. He was particularly fond of one of the other Moms who came on the trip. Did we have a good laugh over that. She happened to have an animal print shirt on. We were rolling with laughter. We decided it was the shirt that attracted him to her. He must have thought she was a "special delivery".



I am thankful that Sophia in her wisdom, got the chore chart up and running. When I got up this morning it was all cleaned and ready for the new week. I let it go lately and , out of sight means out of mind. Also means nothing was getting done. Thanks Sophia!

And last but not least I am very thankful to Adrienne, for taking the time to make my Daily Smiles title so pretty. She surprised me with it last week. I really wanted to change the title design, but had no idea how to. Then all of a sudden there it was, what a surprise. And the funny part is Adrienne had no idea I wanted to change the title. Thanks again!

Wishing everyone great weather and a blessed Sunday!!

I've Been Tagged!

Thanks Lacey, I was having fun reading everyone else's tagged posts, on where they got their children's names from. Now I have to write one. OK, there's nothing unusual here. Except I wanted all the girls names to end in a.

Aniela- She was named after my hubby's Mom. Peter's mom died when he was 18.

Olivia Anne- OK, she was supposed to be Sophia, but I couldn't convince Peter. I also liked the name Olivia. When I was little I watch A popular movie about Jesus. The woman who played Mary, Jesus' Mother was Olivia DeHavilland,(spelling?) I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and always remembered her name.Her middle, Anne, I prayed to Saint Anne( the mother of Mary) everyday when I was pregnant with Olivia.

Sophia Elizabeth- Peter owed me the name Sophia, there was no discussing it. And Elizabeth had always been a favorite of mine. Sophia means wisdom, and Sophia was named correctly. She has a lot of potential in that department.

Isabella Rose- It was getting harder to think of names by now. Especially names we agreed on. Isabella Rose just sounded beautiful, my beautiful rose.

Andrew Thomas- You would think by the time we got a boy there would be plenty of names to choose from. I threw out plenty of choices but Peter threw them all back. Seems he wanted the name to sound good in English and Polish. So after months of going back and forth it was decided upon, Andrew Thomas, I really wanted to name him Noah, but it was out of the question. I pushed for that name for months. I still want a Noah!

Emilia Faith- Also took a while to get a name for her. My hubby was stuck on Natalia. Beautiful but it didn't sit well with me. I would die if someone shortened it to Nat! Olivia suggested Emilia, one day while we were at a cook out discussing names for this baby. We all looked at each other in agreement. Emily was my Aunts name and we think Emilia was my great Grandmother's name. It was perfect. Why didn't I think of that? Done. As for her middle name Faith, do I have to explain. hehe.

So there you have it. Now for tagging others. Look out here I come!
If you see your name below,play along. If you see your name below and have already been tagged, sorry, please disregard!

Kele- from- Giles Family of 5
Keli- from- Three Girls and Tim
Tausha- from- Let Your Troubles Roll By
Jeana- from- Feisty Kaelyn
Denise- from- Sweet Ella Grace
Tina- from- My Precious Saira
Darlena- from- The Lehnick Family
Lori- from- Banana Pants

Sibling Love

Emilia is a little under the weather today. She has been up since 4:30am. A stuffy nose and probably a sore throat from breathing through her mouth. No fever ,so I am hopeful it is nothing big. The cute part is that her adoring fan club, who all should be getting ready for school, are trying to comfort her.
Anyone worried about how other siblings will react to a new baby who has Ds. Don't! It was one of my concerns too, but as you can see, they love her to pieces. There was never an issue for them. The minute they saw her, they were in love.
They all had initial fears. Fears that she would look different, or that their friends would reject them. All normal fears. Mine were worse than those.
One thing we did was we talked a lot about those fears. And we looked at families, (through blogs) together. We saw families doing things together , living a "normal" life. It really helped my kids to understand what Ds was.
My advise to anyone who might be reading this, and are in this particular situation, would be , just be as open as possible with your children.Include them in on as much as possible. Prepare for this child together as a family.
As scared as I was, this is one thing I think I did right. And I do believe it paid off. My children are Emilia's biggest advocates and protectors. The love they have for her is a beautiful thing to watch.

The Hand Of God

I couldn't possibly make that post any longer yesterday, buy adding the feelings I'm about to share right now. I feel that this deserves a post all it's own. When we had Andrew in November of 03', I thought we were done. I mean we got the boy! The golden child was born. Our family was complete. But I never had that "done feeling" that my friends expressed. It just didn't sit right with me. I wasn't at peace with our decision . Plus, everytime I would look at the kids all together doing something there was one missing. There was always an empty spot. I would think, "another child would look good in that mix, or when we were all watching TV, there would be an empty spot on the floor or couch. I kept getting the feeling it needed to be filled. There was also an empty spot in my heart. You should have seen Peter's face when I told him that one! But I think he felt the same. Anyway it was agreed upon, let's have another one, besides Andrew could use a baby brother.
I have always gotten pregnant immediately, there was never a problem. I figured this would be the same as all the others. Well, month after month we tried and nothing. One year and nothing. I even went to my doctors, sure something was wrong. Nothing! You're fine. I prayed and prayed, then doubted and doubted. Maybe God doesn't agree with our decision. Maybe He thinks we have enough kids. But why would I have such a longing for another child.
Finally after a year and a half of trying. I had to have a serious sit down with God. In my bedroom I have the most beautiful crucifix, it was given to my father-in -law, by a friend, who received it from a priest from Germany. So it's been around . Miracle it hasn't been lost or broken in all these years. But I just sat there, and spoke . I said, "Jesus, you know how much we want another child. But I can't go through this anymore. Hoping every month and then the let down. it's too much. it's now or never. If I don't get pregnant this month , I'm done. I'm not going to try anymore." I, in my whole life, don't think I ever heard a more clear response from God. I immediately heard, not in a voice but like a sentence being written in my head. I heard, "Do you want this child , no matter what"? Somehow I new that was a trick question, but I did, so,"I said YES" Emilia was conceived that month. It was January, 2008.
When we got the word about DS being a very likely possibility, that conversation with God came rushing back. So this is what he meant.
OK, let's go ahead to the moment she was born. I had warned Peter that if this baby did indeed have Ds , be prepared because I was going to loose it! I was certain I would crumble, I didn't even know if I would be able to hold her. I did love her, but I was so scared.
Well, they put her in my arms and at that moment I felt every piece of stress and fear and doubt just disappear. I felt a love enfold around me, A love that could only come from God. I could say I felt His arms holding me as I was holding Emilia. And the joy I felt for her at that moment has never left. I wish I could paint or draw because the picture in my head is so great. The labor and delivery room full of nurses and the doctor, Peter, equipment, but the picture in my head is just me and Emilia, and Jesus siting on the bed with us, with such a smile. A smile that you would give to a child ,like "see, I told you it would be OK". It was the most precious moment of my life. The closest I've ever felt to Jesus. A gift I will treasure forever.

The Kid is Alright

The kids get to see there new treasure




OK, I'm back on track, ready to finish Emilia's story. I last wrote that I had left the doctor's office with strict orders to get to the hospital. When I got home Peter had arranged for Andrew and the girls to be picked up. My friend Melinda ,who by the way is an extraordinary mother to thirteen extraordinary children, took care of everyone.
We arrived at the hospital and told them our story. My doctor said she was going to call ahead so they would be expecting me. Well... they were not! So now they don't know who I am or why I'm there. They do seem to believe my story so they start the admitting procedures and put a call in to my doctor. And I wait, and wait and wait. Finally Peter was like "OK let's get going here"!
At last they bring me to my room and tell me a doctor will be up shortly to start inducing me. Four short hours later someone came in. The first part was a twelve hour suppository to soften my cervix. the nurses tried to be positive and tell me that since this is my fifth pregnancy , the suppository might just do the trick. If not they would start pitocin in the morning. Since no one really new one way or the other for sure, I wanted Peter to stay at the hospital . Just my luck he leaves and I go into labor and he misses everything. So my sweet Melinda takes care of everyone, her thirteen and my four. This woman deserves a post of her own. One day she's going to get it whether she wants it or not.
They hooked me up , well the baby up to a heart monitor. And we saw that she was having decels. That freaked me out. But they were stopped by me changing positions. She was fine when I was in the most uncomfortable position possible. The nurses assured me that they were watching the monitor at the nurses station and if anything went wrong they would be right in. For the most part everything went OK, I couldn't sleep because I was too busy watching and listening to the monitor.
Poor Peter stayed with me through the night on that not so comfortable fold out bed. A nurse and I did have a great laugh at his expense. Late at night one sweet nurse came to check on me. I was warm, so earlier I had opened the window. The October air felt so good. Well, it got colder and I was fine but when the nurse came in she started to shiver, and asked me if I was cold. I told her I was fine. She looked at Peter who was rolled up into a tiny ball with just his nose sticking out. We started laughing so hard we were crying. She asked me if she should check for a pulse. We were on the floor laughing.
The next morning , I was supposed to go down at 7:30. Well in came the good news that they were backed up, and it would be a few more hours!! Great, what the heck was the rush to get here for! Seriously a few minutes later they came back and said I was going to the Labor and Delivery room at 9:00, GREAT!!!
Down we go and they get the Pitocin going and then we wait. I found out from my labor and delivery nurse that I was number nine on the list of women waiting to be induced that morning, but she saw my unusual situation and bumped me up, because she had a student with her that day and thought I would make an interesting patient. Whatever works! I was very grateful.

Things were moving slowly, I was walking around but Emilia kept having decels. The nurse waved me back and that was the end of my walking. I had to stay in bed. Emilia was not handling the Pitocin very well. Whenever the nurse turned up the amount Emilia would have decels.On top of that , whenever I had a contraction her heart rate was not recovering. That 's not very productive. I new if something didn't give I was headed for a c-section. We had been doing this all day, it was 3:oo and my nurse's shift was over. I was devastated, I didn't want another nurse. She decided to stay, imagine that, she called her kids at home and stayed with me. What a sweetie!
We filled out the c-section papers just in case. She said if we were ready to go , we probably wouldn't need them. She was right.Things began to move quickly.
With my other children I never opted to have them given to me the second they were born. I was fine to wait until they were swaddled (weak stomach). But with Em it was different. I wanted to be the first one to see her. I didn't want the expression of a doctor to tell me if she did or did not have Ds. At exactly 5:oo pm on October 22, 2008, Emilia Faith graced us with her presence. What a moment! What an incredible moment!
But... it's going to have to wait.This post is long enough. Did anyone make it to the end? I do apologize for being long winded.

Insane Thoughts

I love the lip


I know I left off with me and Peter on our way to the hospital, but I an going to get off track today. I'll continue Emilia's story soon.

But yesterday I was talking to Peter and I told him what my very first thought was when I heard Em most likely had DS. I keep saying "most likely" because we declined the amnio that would tell us for sure. One thing I promised myself is that when writing these posts I would be honest, whether it was flattering or not. How can you help someone if you paint a false picture of yourself. And truth be known, I wasn't jumping up and down with joy when we first heard the words dS.
Any way and this may sound goofy or selfish , and you're probably right, but my first thought was " Oh my goodness, she won't have pretty eyes like the rest of our children". My thoughts back then were that people with DS were defined by their eyes. You could tell if someone has ds from their eyes. I was all wrapped up in a "look". One that my baby was going to have and one that she wasn't going to have.

Again, God was listening. And in His loving and caring way, put me in my place yet again. Emilia is baby number six. All of our kids do have beautiful eyes. All lovely shades of brown, topaz and even a little green(Bella). but the fairest of them all is EMILIA! When she was born the first place I looked were into her eyes. They screamed DS, and they were the most beautiful eyes I ever saw. Not because they were blue (I couldn't tell at that moment what color they were) but because they were mine. God just threw the blue in there for kicks.
What I'm getting at here is , if you are struggling with a pregnancy, or you think you thoughts are crazy, they're not. I want my honesty to comfort someone. If you read this and say,"wow, I thought only I had thoughts like that", then great! You know you're not alone.

Gotta fly, the kids are going to be sooo late for school!

Our First Buddy Walk

The skies cleared and the sun was shining on us as we participated in our first Buddy Walk.What a hoot it was to be surrounded by so many beautiful families. It was the biggest walk so far with about 400 people. Remember we're a small state.



The beginning

The eating. Look how happy Sophia looks and how serious Peter looks. Funny.
This is me and my "Buddy" Melinda, she is Emilia's Godmother.
Peter holding on to some double trouble!

This wonderful man is Dr. Pueschel, one of the worlds leading Down Syndrome specialists and Em's Doctor. He is one the kindest, most gentle human beings I have ever met. We are so lucky to have him.
She finally gave in to sleep. she had a long and wonderful day. Can't wait to do it again next year.
BTW, check out Sophia's blog . My little sweet has updated and changed into her fall colors.

Something was wrong...

So much for my quick doctors visit. I went through the normal routine check up. Not much to do when your due any minute. I was practically on my way out when the doctor asked me why I didn't have an ultra sound done the last time I was in.(There are a group of doctors in the building so I rarely see the same one) She noticed it had been a month since my last one. I was having an ultrasound every two weeks to follow dilated renal tubes.OK, I don't know the answer to that question. Maybe because I was close to my due date and everything was going pretty good the last doctor didn't think it was necessary. Well she thought since I was there I should have one. OK, remember I'm still in the "it's all about me" mode. This is killing my day. So here we go, u/s done , waiting for the doc to give me the thumbs up and I'm outta there. The doctor came back into the exam room and the look on her face said it all. Somethings wrong. She immediately asked me if my water broke. DAH, of course not, I obviously would have known and told you. How can you not know if your water broke, you'd be wet! Well I must of had a slow leak or something because there was almost no amniotic fluid left. She gave the baby a stress test. Not bad but not really great, That was the result. Still not completely sure what that meant. After the test she told me she wanted me to go to the hospital to be induced.There was no way of knowing how long the baby has been without fluid. She wanted the baby out. OMG, wait! I have kids at school, one getting out as we speak(Andrew at noon) the others at 3:00, I can't just go to the hospital. She gave me about two hours to pull things together and get myself admitted. Of course I called Peter to get Andrew, and explain what was going on. I stayed amazingly calm. That was until I left the office and got into my car.That's when it hit me like a ton of bricks. I COULD LOOSE THIS BABY!
I want this baby, I am not going to loose this baby now. No stinkin way! Do you hear me God!!! This baby is mine ! This baby has a family waiting at home! There's no way something is going to happen to this baby three days before her due date! I sat there completely hysterical and alone, praying. I finally saw at that moment that I really did love this baby,much more than I let myself think I did. I had built a strong wall not letting all my love for her in, just to protect ...ME! God came a knockin' and kicked that wall down. I finally saw that it wasn't all about poor me.It never was.It was about the baby. This baby that was in distress right now. This baby that I loved, no matter what.No, Princess it's not all about you(that was God speaking) By the time I got home I was completely calm. I just told Peter we had to go and everything was going to be OK.
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Since it's Sunday I will end that part of the post for now. And continue with my Thankful Sunday Post.

I'm thankful that Doctor thought it best to do one more u/s.
I'm thankful for our Buddy Walk today.And really thankful it's a beautiful day, yesterday it poured non stop all day.
I'm thankful that we will all be able to attend at some time today. Scheduling is crazy with the girls but we figured out a way that everyone can be there albeit in shifts but that's OK.
I'm thankful to be blessed with Em and be a part of this wonderful world I never knew existed. What a lesson she has taught me.
Everyone have a wonderful Sunday!

* BTW, the link I have for the dilated renal tubes is not the best. Emilia's kidneys were fine , just the tubes leading from her kidneys were dilated and they were fine after she was born.

The Very Beginning

This is probably the last thing we did as a family before Emilia was born. We went apple picking, it was the end of September, 2008 right after Olivia's birthday party, and no Lacey we do not have our own orchard. Although that is my husbands dream. Anyway you can see how pregnant I am in this picture. There is a smile on my face but such confusion in my heart. There was always a dark cloud following me around. If I was having a good time like in this picture I would suddenly remember" Hey your life is coming to an abrupt end, you can't be happy". And boy would that thought bring on a mood! Usually a poor me meltdown. I had some real whoopers. The unknown is a scary place, and even though I had a very supportive husband and friends I felt like no one really knew what I was going through. I was the one carrying this baby, I was the one who felt her move, I was the one dealing with doctors who I swear couldn't stand seeing me hang on to any hope. (that's another post, I have to stretch this out all month). ME, ME ME. It's all about me, right? OH no princess it's not all about you!(who said that?) The sooner I figured that out the better off everyone was. But I didn't figure that out until the day before Emilia was born, October 21st. I thought this would be my last doctors appointment, my due date was Oct 24th.It was a beautiful morning, I remember dropping the kids at school and heading straight to the doctors, thankful for an early morning appointment. Get in, get out, get on with my day. But something was wrong...

31 for 21 A Valient Effort

Emilia in the NICU, just a day old. She is wrapped in one of the handmade blankets we received from a kind stranger. I will always treasure it.



OK Cammie I'm in!! I'm making a valiant effort to partake in Down Syndrome Awareness and post everyday. At least a picture. I'm doing this in an attempt to help or comfort anyone who is in the same situation I was in just one year ago. I was about to give birth to a baby with DS and had no idea what to expect or how I would react. All I can say is ...IT'S ALL GOOD!
Thought I would start when Emilia was born and work my way up to the present, since it's her birthday month it seems like a good plan. I didn't start this blog until Em was six months old so now you get to see her from the beginning

New Button

October is National Down Syndrome Month.Like my new button to the right? Want one? You can get it here, go see Adrienne.

Wordless Wednesday

This picture is so funny. Peter found her sleeping like this. Can you see her hands are covering her eyes? I wonder what she was thinking? It looks like she was wishing "would everyone just go away and let me sleep"! And yes, we flipped her over.





No reason for this one except her smile. Sorry it's so fuzzy, I must have the camera on the wrong setting.

Thankful Sunday...Late again

Busy, Busy weekend we had. Olivia had her friends sleepover Saturday night for her birthday. Yes we are still celebrating. As you can see above it was wall to wall girls, literally! Right now I'm somewhere in between completely exhausted but not quite dead. The weather is awesome and hopefully some time soon Emilia and I will be able to enjoy some quality time together inhaling the scents of fall.

I am thankful for some leaves that decided to fall from the trees. This made Andrew happy, since that is what they are supposed to do when it's fall

I am thankful Emilia did well at both her eye doctor and audiology appointments.

I am also thankful her speech therapy is improving. Emilia is able to chew and swallow anything clumpy. She still can't manage anything smooth unless it's dipped in a cracker. She is completely off baby food and eating everything mashed.

I am very thankful for a good friend who didn't mind that I totally blew off lunch duty at school on Friday. So Sorry!

I'm thankful for the apple pie that's in my oven.


I'm eternally thankful that when I went to hang a blanket outside this morning I noticed this "little guy" who made his home right in front of, my back door. Had I opened the door I just might have swallowed him, guess he should be thankful too. He was promptly relocated by Peter. Even with a blurry picture you can see he's not very friendly looking




I'm thankful for Aniela, my sweet step- daughter who moved to LA to pursue a career in dance.
I'm thankful that she is OK, and checks in on a regular basis. I am so thankful that she has had the courage to stick it out so far from home. She has been there for a whole year. I'm thankful for the life lessons she is learning, if nothing else she will be a stronger and much wiser person when this experience is over.

No Baby Was Harmed In The Taking Of This Picture

This is how Emilia usually plays with this toy. However today she fell and I think she forgot to let go and took the toy with her. There should have been some loud crying, but Em decided to just keep on playing. So what if she was pinned to the ground by a huge toy. Andrew on the other hand was nearing a panic attack.Poor kid wasn't sure what to do, lift the toy or leave it. He new she should be crying, common sense told him that much. Seriously look at the picture below. Emilia's guardian angel was on the ball.


Her hand is blurry because she is reaching for the lights on top. She wasn't even startled. She did do this once before and was upset and crying. I really believe her angel caught her, or actually caught the toy. Anyway her angel saved the day and my baby.

Emmie's Play Date

This is as good as it gets. We really need to get Em some more lively friends. At least they don't fight over toys and sharing is a breeze with this bunch.
Actually Bella did this little set up. She was pretending the blond was Ella, the smallest doll was Zoey, the boy doll was Jax How cute is that, so actually Emmie had a lovely play date.