Just like Grandpa

Innocent enough right? Just sitting at the breakfast table with his favorite food, a banana.....




And then comes a slight lean and a mischievious grin.........and then an all out belly laugh because he is proud of his FART. What a knucklehead, this kid cracks me up everyday

Our Family of Three

So this last week has had me thinking about adding to our family. Well ok, so I feel like I am always thinking about bringing another child into our family. One...because even though conception has yet to happen for me, each month I wonder..."will this be the miracle month?"....and then of course every notion comes crashing down and bam we start the cycle over. Another, I often wonder if Erik will be an only child and if so what is the best way I can parent him to turn out to be a well rounded and balanced person.

Over the weekend we got to spend time with Lindsay's family and Erik got to spend time with his cousins, one being a month old. Seeing him with that little one made my heart warm and yet break at the same time. Here he was offering kisses on a whim, trying to cover the infant with a blanket and asking to hold him. I couldn't have been happier to see him excited about a baby and yet it almost broke my heart to know that he may never get to do that with a sibling. That we may never bring home a little one explaining that he is the new big brother. With the addition of my adorable new nephew of course brought on conversation about Linds and I adding to our family. And since we are very open with anyone and everyone about our situation I spoke about how we would love to have more children but at this point we are planning on just Erik and if more come to us it would be an extra special bonus. We are not going to stop trying to add to our family yet (although we will most likely need to take a break while away because we can't adopt in Australia).

The truth is while its fun to imagine more kids, and we can hope, it's just too hard on my heart to expect or keep thinking something may be around the corner. A little while after our conversation my sister in-law told me that it was hard for her to here that we are just planning for Erik. I understand that and I know wholeheartedly that she understands us as well. I learned before Erik came along that when I could accept my future as it is, everything falls into perspective and is easier to handle. So for now I just imagine the three of us in the years to come.

But if another spirit finds their way into our arms of course we are prepared and willing to raise them with the same love we have for Erik.

A quote from Mrs. R from the R house sums it up fantastically...

Before we even started to entertain the idea that we would want to add more children to our family, I had to make sure I was okay with my family being the size that it is and not getting any bigger. If I didn’t, I think I would go crazy with all the emails and phone calls I get about possible adoption situations. It’s easy to write that down, but when I really stop and think about the fact that there are two women in this world that carried and had a baby and chose to place that baby in our home and the trust they have in us ...it seems totally unlikely that there would seriously be more women out there that would choose us. How could we be so lucky and so blessed more than two times? It blows my mind. But, maybe there is. And if there is, I will be thrilled. We would all be thrilled and overjoyed. But, if there isn’t, I adore my boys to the core of my soul and feel honored to be chosen to be their mama. I can’t emotionally spend their childhood thinking about another child that may or may not arrive into our home and hearts. I can hope, but I can’t be obsessed. For me, that meant being okay with where we are at and hoping for the best.

posted on therhouse.blogspot.com on Jan.13, 2011

Time flies

All right so you probably won't see many actual pictures on the blog for a short time. We only have one camera and Lindsay took ours with him when he left for his training for the move, so we are without and while yes I could take pics with my parents camera and everyone else's........well I have been lazy. So I will give you updates on happenings but you probably won't see too many pics. Although I did just remember we bought Erik a childrens digital camera for his birthday and so maybe you will see some pics from his perspective.



Can you believe our little magoo is 2 already! Holy cow...not me. We are celebrating his birthday in an upcoming weekend. He is in full swing tantrum modes and likes to run away from me every single, I mean every single time I ask him to get his coat or shoes on so that we can go out the door. I hate to run after him every time because he thinks its a funny game, and so I try my hardest to let him make the decision to come to me, but by golly we have places to go with time restraints sometimes and it is frustrating. And we are slowly approaching the "I can do everything by myself" phase which is so totally awesome (read that in a sarcastic manner please).



I love our little man, he is goofy and will do anything for a laugh, he is sweet and likes to cuddle, he is obsessed with airplanes and Thomas the train. He wants to feed and watch for deer outside all the time here at Grandma's house. Erik has started to say prayers, which warms my little mama heart but he loves the deer so much that when we start a prayer, now that he is saying them, he can't continue past the "dear Heavenly Father" because he thinks we are saying deer and he points out the window and say's "where go" or "dees (deers), trees" and then giggles.



Erik recently had to be evaluated by a physical and occupational therapist for our move. He has always been slightly behind his peers, but never enough where I thought he needed therapy. Well we have to go through a medical review process (please don't get me started at how annoyed I am with the whole system), and the doc thought he should be evaluated to make sure he doesn't need treatment before we leave. So he was evaluated and the occupational therapist said he is good to go, showed me some things I could work on, and gave me some great insight just about parenting routines. etc. She was way cool and a great therapist. The physical therapist was equally nice and although she did recommend some therapy just for the next month or so to catch him up to where he should be (right now he is at a 25-30% delay for gross motor skills) she said he wouldn't need continued help once we move. Wahoo! So I am glad that he will get help to catch up and I am eager to glean whatever info she has about helping him in the future. Seriously therapists have the best and most creative ideas for helping kids and not only that but all the ideas they both gave me are fun and things I can do just to help keep him busy during the day. The extra perk is just that he unknowingly is working on his motor skills. Genius!


Lindsay is doing well to those who are curious. He is enjoying the warm weather and sun that Australia has to offer and is looking forward to finishing up training so that we can all be together again. Luckily we have skype so we get to see each other but being together in person is the best. This will have actually been the longest stint of us being apart by the time we reunite, which is crazy. It's hard to be away, and it's hard to parent alone, but I am thankful to be around family that can help out, especially on those days, you know those days, we all have them whether we are parents or not. It helps to have an amazing husband who has helped me learn to keep a big picture perspective on life so that I can remind myself, that this too shall be but a small moment in time.