on the road again

We are in the middle of our first road trip with both of our girls. They did really well on the 6 hour ride to West Virginia (well, it took us 8 hours with stops), and I really enjoyed spending a few days seeing friends and family. We drove 8 hours through the night to Pennsylvania to see Graig’s extended family, and the girls slept a good part of that stretch of the road trip. We have lots of fun things planned when all the aunts, uncles, and cousins arrive in the next 24 hours or so. Should be good times.

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pizza picnic

Tonight we had a pizza picnic on the porch. We rarely order pizza since Melia hasn’t been able to eat it, but this evening she had her first taste of real pizza. She loved it! Kailyn is really enjoying her exersaucer these days. She’s saying “da da da da” often, but it’s just babbling.

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mixed drinks

Let me start by saying that I have NEVER been a bartender, and I have NO aspirations to ever be one. However, the past few days I have felt a tiny bit like someone who mixes drinks for a living. As I mentioned before, Melia has recently outgrown her dairy allergies. Because she has been completely “dairy free” for more than two years, we have had to gradually add lactose back into her diet so her body gets used to it again. That process requires mixing soy milk with Lactaid in increasing amounts, then we switch to mixing Lactaid with 2% milk in increasing amounts. In addition to this, Kailyn’s pediatrician would like us to work toward getting Kailyn to switch to a formula that is used for children with dairy allergies. At first Kaily refused to take ANY of the Nutramigen, so we are gradually mixing it in with what she’s used to. For the past couple of weeks, my mornings consist of mixing milks and formulas for my girls. Here’s a sample. For Melia, measure two ounces of Lactaid and mix with two ounces of 2% milk. Add chocolate syrup so she’ll actually drink it. Stir. Add a straw. Butter and syrup on her pancakes. Cheerfully announce that breakfast is ready. Now it’s Kailyn’s turn. Turn water on and let it heat up to just the right temperature–not too hot, not too cold. Put six ounces of “just right” water in a bottle. Add 2 1/3 scoops of Nutramigen. Shake well. Add 2/3 scoop of Enfamil Lipil. Mix well again. Repeat every 3-4 hours. For the past couple of days, Kaily has taken bottles made with 3/4 Nutramigen and 1/4 Lipil, but she will not take 100% Nutramigen. Tomorrow we will try to figure out a 4/5 and 1/5 formula for the formula. OK, now that I’ve totally bored you with mundane details of my daily life, on to more fun things!

We had a really fun weekend with our friends in Columbus. As I suspected, I hardly saw Melia, only when she was hungry or thirsty. She played SO hard all weekend with our friends’ older girls. The daddies camped outside with the older girls on Saturday night, and everyone actually stayed in the tent all night. Melia got to try a brownie with a little ice cream, had her first little bowl of Dippin’ Dots, and gulped down her first smore with a Hershey bar. It’s so fun to see her begin to add dairy to her diet and enjoy it. Also, our friends youngest daughter is almost one year old. I really enjoyed seeing how Kailyn reacted to little C. These girls don’t have a choice, they HAVE to be friends. 🙂 Kaily was really outgoing and seemed like she was quite interested in interacting with little C. We had so much fun with the T’s! Thanks for a great weekend, guys!

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still the one

Ten years ago today, Graig and I stood in front of my home church in WV and pledged our love to each other forever. I can say without reservation that it’s been the best ten years of my life. So many things have happened in the last decade together. We’ve moved five times, been to Kenya together five times (if you’ve ever traveled to a third world country with a child, you know how bonding that experience is), taken countless road trips to see friends and family, been through four job changes (three for me and one for Graig), survived infertility, adopted a dog, served countless hours in our church, had a baby, decided to adopt from Africa, started the adoption process, found out another baby was on the way (surprise!), Kailyn was born three months early (HUGE surprise!), 101 days in the NICU while trying to keep life somewhat normal for Melia, volunteering to help in preschool, and just the normal busyness of life with two kids while working on adoption paperwork on the side. Crazy fun! It’s so amazing to see God’s hand in our marriage and our family.

So what are we going to do to celebrate a decade together? We are all going to Columbus to see some of our best friends for the weekend! Can’t wait. We haven’t seen them for a long time because of Kailyn’s early arrival, and we REALLY miss them. We also have reservations next month to go back to Mexico to an all-inclusive resort for a few days. We went to Cancun for our honeymoon, but this time we won’t eat tomatoes and lettuce washed in the local water. We learned our lesson well. 🙂

Graig, you are my best friend. We make an amazing team, and I love you more today than I did ten years ago. You are “Jesus with skin on” to me. I’m amazed by your love and grace and commitment to me, our girls, the daughter(s) to come, to God and to serving others. I am humbled that God chose you for me, and you agreed! I love you, babe. Can’t wait to see what is ahead. I know it will be exciting, scary, a great adventure, and a fun ride. I’m so thankful to have you by my side. What do you say to another 50 years or so together? Happy anniversary! Tilymty, Sara

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growing up

On Friday, Melia graduated from preschool. The kids did a little performance for the parents, and then we all had snacks and chatted. I thought I would be more emotional than I was, but I was too busy. Both Graig and Kailyn were feeling under the weather, and our plan for feeding her before the program failed miserably, so I was a little distracted by trying to video tape, hold Kailyn, and figure out how long she could wait to eat. We just can’t believe our Melia is growing up so fast. She is such a helpful, smart, and kind daughter, and we feel very blessed to be her parents. She certainly is not perfect, but we love her a ton. I’ll post a picture soon.

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the rest of the story, for now

OK, double posts in one day–must be some story to tell. It is. If you haven’t read the previous post from earlier today, I would recommend starting with that one.

After Kailyn woke up from her nap, Graig went BACK to CVS to get some temperature strips that he had seen there earlier. He brought them home, opened them up to use right away, and the box was empty. Are you serious? Someone stole the temperature strips, and Graig bought an empty box. You have got to be kidding me! Can this day get any crazier? (Yes, it can.) By this time it was dinner time. We gobbled down a very quick dinner, and Graig went BACK out to a different pharmacy. He didn’t find what we wanted, so he went to Busch’s pharmacy. Didn’t have it either, so back to the pharmacy around the corner from us. He brought home the exact same kind of thermometer that our fiasco began with, only this one worked. Finally! We tried using it under her arm, but that didn’t work so we took her temperature rectally. Now we had the first accurate measurement of her fever today. It was 100.7. More Tylenol and then we put her right in the bathtub with Melia. Kaily loves bath time, so we were hoping she would perk up a little. We could tell the Tylenol was beginning to work because she was splashing around like usual. Then she started crying, and we realized with horror that the rectal thermometer had done more than record her temperature. She was now pooping in the tub! Melia hopped out quickly, and Graig volunteered to clean up the mess while I tried to calm Kailyn down. She was screaming at the top of her lungs again. Sorry again, neighbors. Graig cleaned up the mess, scrubbed the tub, then we bathed both girls. Whew! Kailyn is finally in bed. It’s only 7:15, and I’m feeling exhausted. What a day. I’m SOOOOO thankful that I didn’t have to deal with all of this craziness by myself, and hopefully the worst is over. Feel better, sweet girl!

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poor baby

Last night when we went to bed around 11:00, I realized that Kailyn had a fever. She felt REALLY warm, so of course I started to worry about her. I checked her temp with the ear thermometer that we have for Melia. It’s not recommended for babies because their ear canals are too small, but I used it anyway because it was late and we were tired. It wasn’t an accurate reading, but it showed she had a fever (not just my imagination). I gave her some Tylenol and prayed that the fever would be gone in the morning. I was hoping that she was just teething and that the fever would be a quick one. Wrong. All day today we’ve been battling this fever. I even decided to go so far as to get out the dreaded rectal thermometer that we bought about two months ago. I wanted an accurate temperature reading to know whether or not I should call the doctor, so I found the thermometer and got everything ready to use it. Of course it didn’t work. The battery must be dead. We’ve had so much trouble with that thermometer! It’s never really worked since we got it not long ago. I left a message on Graig’s phone asking him to PLEASE bring home a thermometer that worked! He went to two stores and only found ones like we already had, so he bought a pacifier thermometer. We’ve never tried that kind before, and the shape of it is very different from the kind of pacifier that Kaily is used to. I was doubtful whether she would put it in her mouth for the 90 seconds it required. She hated it. You should have heard her scream! Sorry, neighbors! Well, she wore herself out with the screaming and is now sleeping. Looks like we’ll be making another trip to the pharmacy to see what else we can find.

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dedication day

Yesterday we participated in baby dedications at our church. Here are a couple of pictures from that special event, and then a couple more of the girls later that day.

Kailyn has started to suck on her lips. That leads to some very cute expressions. She is also sitting up really well now!

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