Forever Family!

As of 9am this morning, Avery is officially ours forever!! It was way quicker that I imagined. Our lawyer asked us a few questions, the judge signed some papers and we were done. Knowing my personality, I figured that I would cry at some point, but there just wasn’t any time! We were in and out in less than 10 minutes. I’m still trying to put into words exactly how I feel, but words are eluding me today.

In other news, Christmas has arrived at our house. We decorated and put up the tree Thanksgiving weekend…in addition to rearranging most of our house. The tree is amazing this year, way to go DJ!! Avery’s room is finally done also and she has actually slept in it a couple times. One of those times she even slept through the night!!! Woohoo!!!

Sorry this is so short, Pictures to follow!

Post again soon!!
~Jeny

Two Months!!

Well, we made it to two months old already!!! Hard to believe, but the time has just flown by! It's overwhelming just how much she has changed in that short amount of time. She had her first set of shots and was a very cranky baby that night :@( Aside from that night, she is a very happy baby. She has a smile that lights up her whole face and melts your heart :@) She's starting to coo and make silly little noises. She likes hearing her name and loves her sissy. If she hears Mackenzie in the room, she will literally bend over backwards to see her. It's amazing to see the two of them together - just so sweet!!

I'm happy to announce that she is sleeping through the night!!! Woohoo!!! The first time she did that I woke up feeling like a brand new person. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!! She started just in time for mommy to go back to work :@( I went back this past Wednesday and leaving her that first day was rough. The next day was better though. It was much easier to adjust to having her in school than it was with Mackenzie. It helped that the ladies at her school were so excited to finally get their hands on her. She's at the same school Mackenzie was at for VPK and is at for after-school care so she is able to pop in and "check-up" on her. Avery's first day wore her out!!! She didn't nap too much that day, and came home and slept 4 1/2 hours straight! She's adjusting a little better, but still just cat-naps through the day, she's entirely too nosy to let activity go on around her!! (She gets that from her sissy!)

The week before I went back to work we got some time with my mom. I'd like to post some pictures of Nana with her granddaughters, but I realized that over the whole week we didn't get a single picture (except for those couple silly ones on my cell phone that I would be dis-owned for posting :@) Oh well, we are heading up that way next week so I will make sure to take plenty of pictures then.

This past weekend Mackenzie had her very first ice skating competition. She did great and I am so proud of her!! She had two events, stroking (literally just skating around the rink) and compulsory. For the compulsory event they had a little routine that they practiced that was adorable. I am most proud of the fact that even though she admitted later that she was a little scared that she still held her head up high and brought home the gold! It was also a great teaching moment afterward to remind her that when we are scared, God is there to give us strength. I am amazed at how quickly she is growing up and what a wonderful little girl she is growing up to be. Today she asked me "Mommy, so how is work going?" It was the grown up way that she asked it that just floored me and brought a little tear to my eye.

Here are some updated pictures of my little princesses :@)

At Seaworld with Shamu!

Love my girls!

Happy the class pet got to go ice skating with us!

Seriously, it doesn't get any cuter than that!!

Post again soon,
~Jeny

So we have been down and out with a nasty cold for the last week. Avery got it first, poor girl, and then was kind enough to share it with mommy. So far only the two of us have had it and I have my fingers crossed that it will stay that way. We are both on the mend just in time for some fabulous "fall" weather here in central Florida. It's been the kind of days that remind me just why I endure the nasty muggy summers.

Avery is growing well. It's hard to believe that she is 6 weeks old today. She is spending lots of time awake now and smiles at us a couple times a day now. We're getting better with our nights now. The last week was rough because of her cold. We had a few days where we got very little sleep because every time we would lay her down she would start coughing and wake herself up. You could tell the first day she truly felt better because she slept pretty much the entire day waking up only to eat. So glad she is finally better though :@)

Her room is starting to come together. We have taped it off and have bought the paint. Hopefully we will get to paint it this week and then we can finish putting the room together. We are doing purple on the top, brown on the bottom and a lime-green chair rail. Her nursery set is elephants. Here is the link for it:
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=11632544&fromRegistryNumber=47064006&product_skn=773823

In other news, we have our "Match Meeting" on Friday for the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program for our mentoring through the Beta Center. So excited to be starting it finally! We hung out with the girls there yesterday. It's amazing to think that the last time we were there Avery had JUST been born and we didn't even know she existed yet. The girls loved her!! They were really excited for us and that means the world to me. It's been great getting to know all of them and spending time with them.

Well, that's about all I've got for now.

Post again soon!
~Jeny

A day of firsts

So today was a day of big firsts around here starting with Miss A's very first "awake" smile! She's given us lots of asleep (gas) smiles, but this was her very first awake "hey-I-recognize-you" smiles! It instantly made me forget about the 5 times she had woken me up last night. Her smile is just as beautiful and perfect as I imagined it would be :@)

Our second first occurred in the carline waiting to pick up big sis. Avery had her very first diaper blowout. WooHoo!! It was followed by our first emergency change in the car on the floorboard in the backseat. Did I mention that it was raining?? Seriously, what a MESS!! Out both sides and up the back! Gross!

Our last first came tonight with Mackenzie's first skate night at school. She did so well for her first time roller skating. We had to go straight there from her ice skating practice, and I think she thought she was going to do much better than she did. I had to remind her that these things take practice and that she did well for her first time. I tried to take pictures, but none of them came out well :@(

Post again soon,
~Jeny

Picture Post!!

Some of my favorites!

Yep, we're still here!

That has probably been the longest lapse in Jeny-blog history! And this time I have an excellent reason. Miss Avery is growing like a weed. She is up to 7lbs 6oz as of her last doctor's visit and is starting to outgrow her newborn clothes.

She's also starting to sleep for longer stretches of time. YAY!!!
She doesn't always do this at night though. BOO!!!

Despite the lack of sleep we are absolutely smitten with her :@) There is some jealousy and sibling rivalry starting to sneak in though. Mackenzie is having a bit of a hard time adjusting to not being the center of the universe any more and the crying does not sit well either. Yesterday she told Avery that her crying was "Unacceptable!" and today she told her "Avery, please stop crying, you are giving me a headache!" She then proceeded to start crying herself. Considering we were stuck in the car in traffic, I was close to tears myself.

I'll try to update here as often as I can at least to get some pictures up.

Post again soon!
~Jeny

Meeting Avery (Part 2)

Sorry it took so long, but here it is…

While I waited for DJ to get home I started getting everything ready to head to the hospital. Luckily since the last false alarm we had everything washed, put away in nice little bins and ready to go. Getting the diaper bag ready to go was the easy part, getting me ready to go was crazy!! It took me forever to figure out what to wear! Seems silly now, but I just had no clue. I wanted to look nice, but not too nice. Luckily my friend Adrienne was there to keep me sane (while she cleaned my house – Thank you Ade!!!!)

Once DJ was home and Mackenzie was picked up from school we were ready to head to the hospital. It was a very surreal drive. We headed up to Winnie Palmer and met with Michelle, the director of our Adoption Agency. We got a quick background on the birthparents and a rundown on how the rest of the evening would go. Then we got our hospital stickers and headed on up. Walking into the hospital room was such an amazing and overwhelming experience. We were lucky to meet both Avery’s birthmother (ABM) and birthfather (ABF) and spend some time talking to them and getting to know one another.

ABM asked me if I wanted to hold her so I did. She then asked Mackenzie if she was excited to be a big sister. In true Mackenzie fashion she said “I’m already a big sister.” It was comforting to know that since they had read our profile book there was no need to explain :@) We sat with them for awhile and I’m proud to say that I did not breakdown crying like I was afraid I would. We took some pictures together and then left to give them some time to say their goodbyes. I will confess that I did breakdown crying right before we left the room. I just couldn’t contain the overwhelming sense of greatfulness that I felt. I tried to express it and hopefully it came across.

After we left we then had to wait for the hospital social worker to handle the discharge paperwork. We learned that she had been called to Arnold Palmer to handle an emergency and we would have to wait. We decided to head down to the cafeteria where amazingly, part of our church family was waiting having just visited another member of our church who had their son the previous day. We ate some dinner, hung out and answered Mackenzie’s endless requests to “Please go get my baby sister.” We were finally able to go back up and start the discharge process.

They brought Avery to the nursery and we changed her into her going-home outfit (the same outfit Mackenzie and I both wore) and wrapped her in her blanket. We headed down the elevator to the lobby. Amazingly, Jack’s nurse, Brie, was working and was able to meet us in the lobby. It was at that moment that it really struck us that we were leaving Winnie Palmer with a baby. We got Avery loaded up and headed for home.

I’m sure that I missed many details as much of the night was a blur. We are settling into life as a family of four. It’s still amazing to think that we have a new daughter. She currently has her days and nights mixed up but is getting better. I'll get some new pictures posted soon.

Post again soon,
~Jeny