Updates from Colorado

New Blog

2009-01-31T22:50:00.001-07:00

I have started a new blog for our new adventure:

www.threeinmalaysia.blogspot.com

Family Photos

2009-01-31T22:45:00.002-07:00

Thank you, Lyndsey for taking such beautiful pictures of our family. If you want to see her amazing work (and cute pictures of our family), go to:

www.lyndseylewphotography.com

Enter the site, go to clients and the password is rachel.

A Quick Post

2009-01-28T21:07:00.002-07:00

Go to Lyndsey's blog to see some pictures of the kiddos on a firetruck: www.jobelyndsey.blogspot.com

Colorado Picnic

2009-01-20T09:09:00.004-07:00

We're about to leave and we feel like we didn't take advantage of the mountains that we had in our own backyard. We drove to this location just about 15 minutes from our house for a picnic last week. It's all the kids talk about.

My Favorite Christmas Photo

2009-01-10T21:56:00.002-07:00

Sears photo is never going to hire me. We weren't able to capture a 'perfect' photo of all of the cousins together, but this is one of my favorites.

A Prieview of Our Angel for the Christmas Program

2008-12-13T20:23:00.001-07:00

Cute

2008-12-13T20:20:00.002-07:00

Our Handsome Boy

2008-12-13T20:02:00.003-07:00

What Was He Thinking??

2008-12-13T20:00:00.002-07:00

It's amazing how Adlai's motor skills have progressed over the past two months. He's drawing shapes, faces and even letters. And, when he does something foolish, he can even clean up afterwards.

Kuala Lumpur

2008-11-18T23:53:00.005-07:00

We have one more day in KL before we head back home. We're excited to get back to see our kids and relieve my parents of the duty of watching our other two kiddos.

The view from our hotel. They take great care with all of the landscaping along the highways - it reminds me of Disney World - it's gorgeous. I find it strange, however, that no one seems to care about the trash/litter all over the streets.

The Petronas Twin Towers

Behind the Petronas twin towers - and yes, Ezra is as sleepy as he looks.

Starbucks tastes the same here & are as prevalent as in the U.S. We saw two within a 3 minute walk of eachother. This one was in the six story mall that is located between the twin towers.

Ezra

2008-11-10T11:44:00.002-07:00

Our cute little guy:

Ezra is crawling

2008-11-10T11:40:00.000-07:00

Although Ezra is our earliest crawler, he wasn't even close to his over-achieving cousin Braelee! (But she may have set a new baby record by crawling at 5 1/2 months!)

Fall is Upon Us

2008-11-10T11:39:00.000-07:00

We have yet to start bagging our leaves. I don't think that we can procrastinate any longer! Help Please???

Halloween

2008-11-10T11:38:00.000-07:00

We went to Colorado State University's student center again for another safe halloween. This year's theme was Dr. Suess. I am always so impressed with them! Each office was decorated like a scene from one of his books. Our favorites were The Grinch, The Lorax, and Horton Hears a Who.

Daddy, I'm Just Not That Into College Football!

2008-11-10T11:37:00.000-07:00

Our Littlest Pumpkin

2008-11-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

My Three Little Pumpkins

2008-11-03T21:25:00.005-07:00

I literally had to stuff Ezra into the little pumpkin outfit, but it had to be done! Ella was 2 months old when her photo was taken, Adlai was 3 months old and Ezra was 7 months.

Ella

Adlai

Ezra

Walgreens Passport Photos .. Way better than Sears Photo Studio!

2008-10-03T22:44:00.003-07:00

If I didn't have an awesome photographer friend (www.lyndseylewphotography.com), I may have had to start using Walgreens to take photos of the kids!

We Love You Daddy!

2008-09-17T19:04:00.010-07:00

My first attempt at using the timer feature on my camera - it was Ella's idea ... definitely not mine! I hate being photographed - especially before I get a chance to brush my hair :)

Raking Anyone?

2008-09-17T19:04:00.005-07:00

A few of the leaves have started to change color and fall.

Just in case you've forgotten what we get to do every year, take a look at these links:

http://coloradofergusons.blogspot.com/2005/11/what-is-going-on-at-our-house.html

http://coloradofergusons.blogspot.com/2007/11/new-updates-finally.html

He's So Big!

2008-09-13T15:58:00.003-07:00

Wasn't he just born ???? He's getting close to being 6 months already.

Ella's First** Day of School

2008-09-13T15:45:00.003-07:00

**We're homeschooling her .. but she has a supplemental kindergarten program through the public schools 1 day per week. She was so excited!

Ezra Loves Ella Too

2008-09-04T19:38:00.003-07:00

There isn't a single person that can make Ezra laugh like his sister can!

A Few of My Favorite Photos

2008-09-03T20:16:00.004-07:00

A lot of time has passed since my last post .. and a lot has happened. Adlai turned 3, Ella turned 5, we spent 2 weeks in Texas and Ella was baptized at church. I'm not even going to try to give the details, but I will share some of my favorite photos from the last two months.

Ezra loves looking at himself in the mirror, Adlai is crazy about Spiderman (this week I'm trying to convince him that no one offers Spiderman gymnastics classes - it only took a couple of weeks to convince him that Wal-mart doesn't sell Spiderman makeup) and Ella has started kindergarten.

Picnic at City Park

2008-07-08T20:00:00.002-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we decided to take the opportunity to enjoy a picnic at the park. We've forgotten that we don't need to go far from home to enjoy Colorado.

Great photo opportunity, but it was so bright, that it was hard to get a good shot of both of the kids looking at the picture.

The kids enjoyed feeding the ducks their lunch (just the crusts of their sandwiches, of course). This view is from the middle of our city!

Have I Mentioned that Ella Loves Her New Brother?

2008-07-08T19:59:00.000-07:00

Ella would hold Ezra all day if we let her. She told me that she wants two more brothers and two sisters. Oh my!!!

Ezra is 3 Months Old!

2008-06-27T18:48:00.002-07:00

I may be a bit biased, but this has to be the cutest smile in the whole world ...

Please ignore the goofy mama's voice on the video :)

Ella Loves Her Brother!

2008-06-20T14:08:00.001-07:00

Horsetooth Hike

2008-06-20T13:18:00.008-07:00

Last weekend our family took a hike on a popular trail in Fort Collins. But, our family didn't make it very far! But, I have to say, Adlai was a trooper. Our little guy wanted to do it all by himself. He only spent some time on Case's shoulders when we forced him up there. Here are several pictures from our excursion. I've even included a shot of Samson.

The Faith of a Child

2008-06-20T13:16:00.001-07:00

I caught this picture of Case praying with the kids. Ella fell asleep, but Adlai sure was praying hard!

Case Has a New Co-worker!

2008-06-20T13:15:00.000-07:00

Working from home definitely has its perks!

10 Weeks Old

2008-06-07T22:02:00.003-07:00

Ezra is a chubby, happy baby! We are enjoying every moment with him.

Brothers

2008-06-07T21:57:00.001-07:00

Absolutely precious!

Cousins

2008-06-07T20:57:00.009-07:00

We recently made a trip to Wisconsin to visit my family. My sister, Jill, had a little girl (Braelee)exactly one week after Ezra was born. Here's a picture of our three and Jill's two little girls:

"Mattea, this is how you kiss a baby."

"Is this right?"

I'm 5 Weeks Old!

2008-05-01T20:26:00.005-07:00

Ezra looks so little in this picture .. but he really isn't. He's growing & gaining weight fast! Just four weeks ago he was drowning in his 0-3 month clothes. Now they barely fit him!

2008-05-01T20:00:00.005-07:00

Everyone has told me how much Ezra looks like his big brother Adlai. However, I think that he resembles his big sister even more. Check out these photos (the first one is Ella, the second is Ezra):

Bedtime!

2008-05-01T19:56:00.001-07:00

Ella and Adlai love hanging out with their baby brother.

Adorable pictures

2008-04-26T18:47:00.003-07:00

I have to share a link to some adorable pictures my very talented friend took of Ezra:

Go to:

http://www.lyndseylewphotography.com/

then choose the website, and select the Clients tab. Our password is ezra.

Let me know what you think.

2008-04-14T20:18:00.003-07:00

Ella's friend Erik recently learned to ride his bike without training wheels. So, she decided that it was time for her training wheels to come off too! She's one determined little girl!

EZRA ANTHONY

2008-04-01T18:48:00.000-07:00

We are excited to announce that Ezra was born on Thursday March 27, 2008. He weighed 7lbs 3oz and was 20 inches long.

2008-04-01T18:46:00.001-07:00

No baby yet ...

2008-03-25T20:08:00.004-07:00

But, he will be evicted soon if he doesn't come on his own! I got really spoiled with Ella and Adlai coming so early!

In the meantime, here are a couple of fun photos from last week. We had a small snow storm on Sunday night & it was finally the kind of snow that was great for building a snowman. But, this snowman's life was short-lived!

Monday morning Snowman:

and 48 hours later:

Just Waiting .....

2008-03-14T14:24:00.013-07:00

Our new baby is almost here and I'm impatiently waiting. In the meantime, I thought that I had better get on top of updating this site!

For those of you who didn't even know that we were pregnant again, please forgive me. I have been awful about staying in touch. We found out that we were pregnant just days before we were officially put on the waiting list for our adoption. (It was a big suprise!) We are still on the waiting list, but we're putting that on hold for a little while.

When I found out I was pregnant, I started seeing a new doctor and he found that I have a couple of blood clotting disorders which could have contributed to a lot of my miscarriages. I have something called Factor II and I'm homozygous for MTHFR. So, I have been giving myself injections of Heparin (a blood thinner) in my stomach twice each day. The injections have made for a very long pregnancy!

Here are a couple of pictures that Case took of my pregnant belly. (I've touched up most of them with Photoshop, but Case wanted me to included an untouched one to show the battle scars from giving myself the heparin injections.)

37 weeks pregnant

Ella & Mom and Adlai & Mom

Here's the untouched photo. YIKES!

Some Recent Pictures of the Kids

2008-03-14T08:56:00.003-07:00

NEW Updates - FINALLY!

2007-11-05T13:20:00.000-07:00

Fall has arrived and the kids have been having a lot of fun. (Although our backs are aching from all of the raking.)

Trick-or-Treating Around the World

2007-11-05T13:15:00.000-07:00

The university in town had an event called Trick-or-Treating Around the World. The offices at the student center went all out and decorated their rooms. The kids were able to trick-or-treat in Disney World, Hollywood, Paris, Japan, China, Antartica, Italy, Finland and more. What a safe way to have some funny .. and without all the "spookiness" associated with Halloween.

Woody and Bullseye from Toy Story

2007-08-28T21:32:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how the summer flew by! We spent the end of June and beginning of July in Wausau, Wisconsin visiting my family. While we were there, we attended a huge family reunion (my mom is one of 10 kids), we spent time at my family's lakehouse (it was a new purchase for my sisters this year), we went strawberry picking and we went to a hot air balloon festival. Below are several pictures of the kids from our time there.

2007-08-28T21:30:00.000-07:00

ELLA

I can't believe that she'll be four next week. My little girl is growing up so fast!

2007-08-28T21:22:00.000-07:00

ADLAI

Our little guy turned 2 a couple of weeks ago. He is such a silly and happy kid. He's usually content doing whatever his big sister is doing. HE IS STILL HEAVILY INFLUENCED BY EVERYTHING THAT ELLA LIKES!! As you can guess, his daddy isn't crazy about this.

Big boy bed

I have a funny story about Adlai. We are in the process of potty training him. We started right around his birthday and he has been doing great. However, if he is busy, he could care less when he has an accident. It doesn't bother him one bit if his underwear are wet and urine is dripping down his legs. (This bothered Ella so much that she was completely potty trained in 2 days.) So, I have resorted to using pull-ups at times. I was very anti pull-ups with Ella, but I still bought a pack for trips, etc. But, most of the package of pink Cinderella pull-ups was still left over. Why waste them, right? Although I bought some Buzz lightyear boy pull ups, Adlai often chooses to wear a Cinderella one.

Many people have assured me that this is normal and he'll turn out okay. So, I'm not worried. In fact, Case bought hime a plastic sword and I actually had to take it away because he was being much too agressive with it.

2007-08-28T21:19:00.000-07:00

CUTE PICTURES
While we were in Wisconsin, I tried to get some photos of the kiddos together. However, they were being attacked by killer mosquitos during our mini unsuccessful phot shoot.

If you look closely, you can see the little bugger on Ella's thumb .. thus the look of terror!

Another mosquito is biting her arm in this photo.

Now she's mad, because she got blood on her pretty dress!

2007-08-28T21:18:00.000-07:00

ADOPTION UPDATES - THE LATEST NEWS

What a process this has been! A draft of our homestudy is complete, our training is done, our pockets are empty AND we are officially on the waiting list to receive a referral to adopt a baby from Taiwan (as of August 5th). That's the good news. However, our agency is now quoting a wait time of 18 months for a referral of a baby boy and 2 years for a baby girl. (When we first started the process, the wait time was expected to be only 6 months for a boy.) This is not our agency's fault, however. The requirements to adopt a baby from China became very strict in May of this year and the wait time that China is quoting is 3 YEARS for a baby girl. Thus, there has been an enormous flood of people moving over to Taiwan's program. It looks like we won't be traveling to Taiwan to pick up our baby until at least 2009.

2007-06-19T21:01:00.000-07:00

ADOPTION UPDATES - WE'RE MOVING FORWARD:

We had our first homestudy appointment yesterday. So far, so good. Our social worker spent about two hours at our house asking us questions related to our motivation for adopting. She also briefly toured of our house. And to think, we spent all weekend getting our house ready for her first visit. We knew that it was probably going to be like this .. but having a social worker come to your home is definitely motivation to get the things that we've wanted to get done for years. She was glad that she was the source of our motivation, but she insisted that we don't need to worry about having our house clean for her next visits.

We have two more visits next week, then hopefully our social worker can get our homestudy written up quickly. As soon as we submit a draft of our homestudy to our agency, we are officially on the waiting list for a referral! How exciting!

2007-06-19T20:49:00.000-07:00

IS THERE ANY HOPE FOR OUR SON??

Adlai LOVES to imitate his sister. I think that it's hillarious, but Case isn't so thrilled. I'm supposed to be buying a Rambo outfit for him as I write this.

It is so fun to watch Ella and Adlai play together. They certainly are best buddies! Even with Ella's strong influence, it has been fun to see how differently God created girls and boys. Adlai often carries around his baby (like his sister) but he also insists on carrying his John Deere tractor too.

The other day I found Adlai playing in the yard with his toy dinosaurs. He was acting out that these toy dinosaurs were fighting and eating eachother up. I never taught him how to play like that. He's all boy!

2007-06-19T20:45:00.000-07:00

Case's Genes are the Dominant Genes in this family:

This is a picture of Case (no it's not Adlai) when he was about 1 year old.

2007-06-19T20:30:00.000-07:00

Ella posing for the Camera:

2007-06-02T20:52:00.000-07:00

ADOPTION UPDATES

We have completed the overwhelming process of collecting all of the necessary paperwork to start our homestudy. The homestudy is the process where a social worker visits our home (the state of Colorado requires three separate visits), examines our home and interviews us. He/she then writes up a long report that is submitted to our agency and to the orphanage in Taiwan. Hopefully we will be able to get our homestudy started this week.

We have been fingerprinted, have had background checks run on us, we've provided our complete financial history, we have completed detailed questionairres about our life history (thankfully the state of Colorado allows us to do this in place of writing and autobiography), we've had physicals performed for our whole family, we've had to go through training, we've had to provide copies of every significant document we have (birth certificates, passports, marriage liscense, tax returns, etc.), we've provided proof of health insurance for our adopted child & proof of employment, we've written a dear birthmother letter (which the birthmother in Taiwan may see), and we have put together a scrapbook of our family. We've already spent thousands of dollars and we're not even close to being finished (the entire adoption will cost us about $25,000). Sometimes the whole process is so overwhelming. I've struggled with not growing bitter over all that is required of us. But, we are confident that this is where God is leading us, so I'm willing to coninue providing what is required.

As soon as we get a draft of our homestudy into our agency we will officially be on the waiting list for our child. How exciting!! At that point we expect the wait for a referral to be close to 12 months.

P.S. If anyone has any unique fundraising ideas for our adoption let me know. We won't have to pay most of the money until after we get a referral, so we have a little while to raise some money.

2007-06-02T20:28:00.000-07:00

MEMORIAL DAY IN TEXAS

We spent the past week in Texas with our friend Fondly and her son Erik. She has a great slideshow of our trip on her blog. Check it out at:

www.wucooper.blogspot.com

2007-05-10T13:35:00.000-07:00

It's kind of official .. we're adopting!

We are so excited to announce our plans to adopt. Presently we're preparing to adopt a baby from Taiwan. We have applied with an agency and we're moving forward with the process to have our lives evaluated to make sure that we are fit to be adoptive parents. On Saturday, Case and I have our first meeting with the agency that will be doing our homestudy. The homestudy process will take a couple of months, and then, assuming we have a positive homestudy, we will get on a waiting list for a referral of a baby. The wait for a referral will be about 12 months and then another 4 months before we travel to to take our baby back to the US.

We believe that God has lead us to start this process. Even before we had children, we had a heart to adopt. We're taking a break from trying to have more biological children to pursue it now. While we wait for the referral of our child, we will start meeting with an infertility specialist to see if he can determine why we've been miscarrying.

We will keep you updated with our status and we'll include prayer requests regarding the process.

2007-05-10T13:08:00.000-07:00

DISNEY WORLD

We took a trip to Orlando in April with Case's family. Ella was so excited to meet Cinderella. Our little girl talks a lot, and most of the conversations leading up to our trip were about Cinderella. Well, after spending $400 on tickets for our family to get into the park for two days, we never did meet her. For $400 there should have been a Cinderella on every corner! Ella did get to go into the castle and decided that we didn't get to meet her because she was taking a nap. Thankfully we were able to wave to her during the Disney parade.

We had a lot of fun on the trip and lots of great memories.

The cousins are having a snack before riding the Dumbo ride

Although the quality of the photo isn't great, this is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. Case and Ella were ahead of us on a kiddy roller coaster. Look at Ella's little hands up in the air.

Adlai enjoying the action (It's great that you don't have to pay for a 1-year-old to enter the park.)

Ella and Madalyn with Granddaddy & Grandmother

2007-05-10T13:03:00.000-07:00

In April, my sister Jill and her family visited us for the week. Of course, the weather was awful (as it always is when my family visits) but we hope that they'll come back again. Here's a picture of my kids with their cousin Mattea. Mattea is going to be 1 already on May 11th.

2007-03-19T23:16:00.000-07:00

In Loving Memory ...

This is an ultrasound we had shortly before we miscarried. This isn't a very good picture of our baby, but you can see it's head, body, arms and legs. Our little one was moving all over the place.

Case and I were due to have another baby on September 17th. However, after almost 13 weeks of pregnancy we sadly miscarried our small, but perfectly formed little angel. We were just about into the second trimester, we daily listened to our baby's heartbeat and I had been feeling our little one move for a week. We were so hopeful that everything was moving along perfectly that we even purchased a new car that would be large enough to hold a third car seat. However, God had a different plan for this child.

Please pray for our family as we go through another difficult loss.

This was our seventh devastating miscarriage. I have been tested for so many different things and I appear to be completely healthy. We will probably start going to the infertility clinic in town when we are ready AND when/if God leads us. We are truly hopeful that He will someday allow us to give birth to one more child.

Thank you to all of our family and friends who have remembered us in this time. Your thoughtfulness has encouraged us so much as we have greived the loss of our baby.

2007-02-27T21:01:00.000-07:00

IT'S BEEN WAY TOO LONG!

Well, I've missed Thanksgiving, the Colorado Snowstorm and Christmas. Sorry about that! Instead of posting photos that are months old, here are a couple of recent photos of the kids from a trip that we took to Wisconsin at the end of January.

2007-02-27T20:55:00.000-07:00

SLEDDING IN WISCONSIN

My parents live at the bottom of a big hill, and during a snow storm we took advantage of it:

He can barely walk, but he's warm!

2007-02-27T20:39:00.000-07:00

ADLAI'S FIRST HAIRCUT

Before: (bye-bye curls - but it had to be done, especially when a lady behind me in line at the store said to me: "I don't even know if that's a boy or girl". Once I told Case the story, the haircut was a must!)

During: (that's Grandma cutting his hair)

AFTER: "I'm not going to show anyone .. I don't like it."

Just kidding - Our handsome boy.

2007-02-27T20:36:00.000-07:00

Many attempts were made at getting a picture of all of the cousins together. This was the best that we could do:

2007-02-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

Ella the gymnast

Recently we were back in Wisconsin. Ella's aunt Jill is a gymnastics coach for a high school team and we got to tag along at one of her practices. Ella was fearless. She kept climbing the high beam and would walk the whole way across with confidence!

2006-09-17T21:08:00.000-07:00

Wisconsin Vacation - August 2006

Our family travelled to a lake in northern Wisconsin for a week in the middle of August for a family vacation. My parents, my sisters and their families were all there. Case was able to experience some good fishing and I even water-skied for first time in seven years. Ella is still talking about the time she spent with her aunts and uncles.

2006-09-17T21:04:00.000-07:00

My beautiful niece, Mattea

2006-09-17T21:02:00.000-07:00

I think that these two businessmen were relaxed on their vacation! Pictured with Case, is my brother-in-law, Justin - Jill's husband.

2006-09-17T20:58:00.000-07:00

Ella's favorite part about fishing was playing with the worms. She loved pulling them out of the container and showing them off. I don't think that her cousin Mattea (bottom picture) was as excited about them, though.

2006-09-17T20:52:00.000-07:00

My Star Fishermen

Case bought a fishing liscense while we were there and entered a fishing contest between my family and cousins. Although he didn't win, he did catch an decent-sized walleye.

2006-09-17T20:50:00.000-07:00

Adlai loved the water!

2006-09-17T20:48:00.000-07:00

Ella prepares to battle swimming in the lake.

2006-09-17T20:44:00.000-07:00

Happy 1st Birthday Adlai!

I can't believe that my baby is already 1! I had a hard time with this milestone!

2006-09-17T20:41:00.000-07:00

Adlai eats his first cake. We actually had to almost force him to "dig in" and eat it. I think that he would have preferred carrots to carrot cake!

2006-09-17T20:36:00.000-07:00

Adlai Stands on his own!

Shortly before his first birthday, Adlai was able to stand on his own. He's now (at 13 months) quite comfortable doing it and even takes steps - but he still prefers to crawl.

2006-09-17T20:32:00.000-07:00

Adlai's Curls

This is what Adlai's hair looks like after a bath. Case thinks we need to cut it - but I'm not ready to yet.

2006-09-17T20:20:00.000-07:00

Cabo San Lucas - July 6th through the 10th

From Texas, our family flew to Cabo San Lucas for a short vacation. It was beautiful and relaxing! (Next time, however, we'll have to make sure we bring a babysitter.)

2006-09-17T20:19:00.000-07:00

Ella on the beach. Cabo's weather was great. It's not very humid and was in the low 90s the entire time we were there. However, we didn't get to spend a lot of time on the beach because Cabo's beaches are generally rough with a strong undertow. We chose the hotel that we stayed at because it was on one of Cabo's few swimable beaches - but it was still quite rough while we were there.

2006-09-17T20:12:00.000-07:00

Adlai enjoying the sun!

2006-09-17T20:08:00.000-07:00

Ella and Adlai loved the water and the beautiful weather.

2006-09-17T20:01:00.000-07:00

4th of July in Texas

We spent the 4th of July in Granbury Texas with Case's family. One of the big highlights was the 4th of July parade. Ella had a blast!

2006-09-17T19:58:00.000-07:00

The cousins try to stay cool at the 4th of July parade!

2006-09-17T19:54:00.000-07:00

2006-09-17T19:53:00.000-07:00

Ella with her cousins: Jacob, Madalyn & Sidney

2006-09-17T19:40:00.000-07:00

Ella and Adlai had the chance to spend some time with their Great-Grand Daddy while we were in Texas. Great Granddad sells puppies once a month at a place called Canton. I've never seen a flea market like this one. It has to be one of the hugest ones in the nation! My family would love this!

2006-09-17T19:36:00.000-07:00

Adlai and Great GrandDaddy

2006-09-17T19:32:00.000-07:00

Ella loved taking care of Great GrandDaddy's puppies

2006-09-17T19:30:00.000-07:00

2006-06-09T12:51:00.000-07:00

Sad News!

Late last month we announced to many of you that we were expecting Ferguson #3 in mid-January 2007. We are very sad to announce that I am expected to miscarry again. Last week during an ultrasound we realized that we were pregnant with twins, but that the babies were not developing properly - we should have easily been able to see heartbeats. We were hopeful that it was just too early, so we had another ultrasound this week - but the news was not good. This will be loss number 5 (and 6 for us). If I do not miscarry naturally in the next 2 weeks, I will have one last ultrasound to determine if I need to have a D&C.

Our doctor thinks that I may be a carrier of some chromosome problem. I'm not a biologist, and I can't explain it back to you, but it made sense at the time. I had some bloodwork done and we will know in 6-8 weeks if this is the reason for all of my miscarriages. It won't stop us from trying again, but it will at least give us some answers.

2006-05-20T18:51:00.000-07:00

My new niece!

My sister Jill (not pictured) had a little girl on May 11th named Mattea Elizabeth. I can't wait to go to Wisconsin to see her in August!

2006-05-20T18:38:00.000-07:00

Battle Wounds!
In the same day both of our kids sustained injuries to their faces. I was afraid to go out in public with them for fear of being reported to social services. Ella was on Daddy's shoulders on the way to church and a big tree attacked her. She had a big gash on her forehead. Adlai somehow managed to climb out of his car (a toy that's like a walker in the shape of a car) and landed head first on some of our landscaping outside.

2006-05-20T18:29:00.000-07:00

Our new jogging stroller finally arrived! This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago on a cold spring day. Case takes both the kids and I get a little bit of down time. Case loves it, the kids love it, and I love the time of refreshment for myself.

A friend recommended this stroller and I pass on the recommendation. I've run with it and it is so easy to push (easier than our single stoller) and has so many great features.

2006-05-01T13:38:00.000-07:00

This past Easter, we spent the day at our Pastor's house. They live in the city, but have a small farm. The kids got to ride horses and pet some small animals including a miniature donkey, a miniature horse and a goat. Approximately 50 international students and their families joined us for the day. The day was a blessing for all of us involved. I've posted a few pictures from the day. I can't take credit for any of the pictures. Thank you Ling & Hongyan

2006-05-01T13:26:00.000-07:00

Ella & her friends

2006-05-01T13:24:00.000-07:00

I love this picture .. it shows how little the donkey was

2006-05-01T13:23:00.001-07:00

2006-05-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

Sorry, Ella - we're not buying one!

2006-05-01T13:22:00.000-07:00

2006-05-01T13:21:00.000-07:00

"Cheese"