3 Day Weekend

Who doesn't love a day off? I do, always have! Some might say being a stay at home Mom everyday is a day off... not true. The girls keep me very busy and can't ever seem to be done with my chores especially now that we have a bigger house. Some times I feel like a dog chasing its tail. So, when Shawn has a day off I try to mix the to do list with a little down time if I can. Shawn is great at relaxing, what man isn't lol! This Presidents Day weekend we managed to relax and tackle a few things around the house. When Shawn is home I a bit more productive because I basically let him have Daddy duty while I do things like laundry which is what I managed to do this weekend. We went for a walk on Saturday as a family which was really nice. I am loving our double stroller, its awesome!

I still have about 2 more weeks before I can really start working out. I have never really enjoyed working out but have had to off & on in order to take my Army PT test when needed. I have 6 months to take and pass a PT test again and have told myself that I will take & pass the 1st attempt. So, I have a lot of work to do & I am anxious to get to it. The Army requires 60 points in each event and if I did that bare minimum I would need to: Do 20 push ups in 2 minutes, 46 sit ups in 2 minutes, and run 2 miles in 20 minutes. I have always tried to do more than the minimum to set a standard for myself, my fellow soldiers and my unit. Having to lose weight while preparing for a PT test will be a new challenge for me but I think I am up to it!! My Dr gave me the green light to start walking at my 4 week recovery mark. I started walking right at 4 weeks which was this past Friday. I walked for an hour and was sooooooo sore the rest of the day. It was a good sore though. Saturday we only walked for about 30 minutes. Before we became pregnant I weighed 127 pounds, my top weight while pregnant 181. Yes, thats right I gained 54 pounds. As of this morning the scale said I weigh 153, so I have lost 28 pounds in just 4 weeks. This is great number wise but the scale is not everything. The numbers are not everything. Muscle weighs more than fat so this needs to be factored in as well as I am not going for a certain number but to look good and feel good again. The Army does have a chart of age, sex & height as to what you should approximately weigh so I have to keep that in mind in this journey as well. The goal really is to be HEALTHY and not OVER weight. So I will share parts of my journey with everyone, I am not afraid to put it out there for everyone to read :-)

Little Miss Norah is now of course a month old. Doing Foster care and having raised 2 kids from birth thru that... I now think that each kiddo grows faster and faster. Its still amazing to see mile stones and I dont think I could ever get board of witnessing them! Both girls had Dr appointments on Monday and both girls are hitting all there miles stones on time if not a little early. The Dr was extremely happy with them both. D is now 24 pounds and will be coming off formula over the next few days transitioning to milk and more big girl foods. Shes been trying many of the things we eat but the Dr said its now time for her to eat what we are eating. She is such a big girl and I can hardly believe she is a year old now. I have enjoyed watching her grow this past year and cant wait to see how she blossoms over the next year. 

School started yesterday and has already been a challenge with the girls today, but I am bound and determined to make the two work with out either of them lacking. I always love a challenge so I will keep you posted on the full time Mom who is also a full time college student journey. Having 2 young ones I am sure I will have many stories to tell along the way.

Hope everyone enjoyed there 3 day weekend as much as we did. Any time together as a Family is always welcomed!

Falling into a routine

     So, little Miss Norah will be 1 month old tomorrow. This past month has been a blur and I was just thinking last night that it seems like ages ago that I was pregnant not just 4 weeks. She is a really great Baby and is falling into a routine at a steady pace. Shawn will say she is difficult but this is only Baby #2 for him this is #3 for me in less than 3 years. My Baby skills are more polished than his. He has been wonderful though, coming home every day from work and taking over the task of the girls so I can get a mini break if only it means I make dinner and can finally do the dishes. He wakes them up and gets all 3 of us girls moving in the morning lol! I am not exactly what you would call a morning person but I have become more of one with kids, kinda don't have a choice.

     This past Monday Miss D turned ONE... I cant believe it. She is growing so fast right before my eyes. A year ago I got a phone call asking if I wanted a Newborn Baby girl and for a moment I almost said no. Thank goodness I said yes because I couldn't imagine my life with out her. She is one amazing little girl, whom I grow more and more in love with everyday. We are hoping all goes well and she is officially and Adams by Summer time. That means we will have gone from a family of 2 to 4 in just 1 year!! I feel so blessed, I find myself staring at the girls thinking I must be dreaming.

     Shawn is back at work after 3 weeks of helping out with Norah and my recovery. He was reluctant at first he enjoyed his days in pajamas lounging around, but now that he's back in the classroom he couldn't be happier. I went thru the process to become an official volunteer for him and was going in to help him out regularly until Norah came. Last Friday was the 1st time going into his classroom to help with 2 kids. I go when school has released for the day of course. I felt like I was moving in. I had to bring the playpen to keep D contained and toys for her, bottles galore for both it was pretty comical but it went well. We got a lot accomplished. Not sure if I will go back to doing it weekly but I will still go, I have to Shawn's not that creative so when he has creative projects to get done he calls in the reinforcements lol.

     Besides the Girls growing up right before our eyes, there hasn't been a whole lot going on. Shawn loves work, I am enjoying being a stay at home Mom and all that entails. Starting on the 20th I am going back to school for a second BA degree. I applied to ASU for a MA in Non Profit before the Holidays and was not accepted due to a lower GPA. So I am going back to Wayland where I got my BA in Criminal Justice. I will take enough classes at minimum to bring up my GPA but might possibly go all the way as to obtain a 2nd BA degree, this time in Christian Ministries. Thank goodness Uncle Sam foots the bill, & it helps that they pay me to go to school as well. Getting paid to be a college student is something I never dreamed of, super grateful! Going to give School a good 3 weeks to integrate it into our schedule then around mid March we will be starting Emergency Receiving & Respite for Foster Care. Its an on call last minute kind of status but short term too. I am still fumbling with what I want to be when I grow up but Shawn & I have decided that there is no rush and if I start a civilian career at the age of 35 for 20 years I can still retire at the age of 55. So for the next 5 years I enjoy my kids, keep going to school to keep my brain active as well as to interact with adults lol, and we wait and see what God has in store for Me/Us. I am excited for the journey ahead.

     We splurged and had Newborn pictures taken of Norah, as well as Family and 1 year old pictures for D. I can only show pictures of Norah on here but am anxious for when we can share cute D's face with the world. So here are a few of my favorites from the Newborn session...

This one has special meaning, Norah is asleep in my Grandma Rahn's old suitcase. A suitcase she had for ages. It still saddens Me that she passed away in October and just missed meeting Norah. But this picture makes me happy in a special way.

Norah Patience Adams

Our own little Miss America!

Wrapped in the same flag we used in our Maternity pictures, it was wrapped around my belly!

Happy in Daddy's arms.

Hope everyone enjoys there Presidents Day weekend. We will its a 3 day for Shawn so we are going to stay at home and enjoy some family time!

The miracle of life

Its been crazy busy since my last post. A HUGE change in our life... Baby Adams is finally here! Norah Patience Adams born January 20, 2012 at 8:52 pm 7 lbs 14 ounces and she is PERFECT! Her due date was projected as January 20th. Thursday, January 19th at about 7 pm we sat down to watch a movie, just prior I had been complaining that I was "so ready to have this Baby" and "what is she waiting for". The house was SO organized it wasn't even funny we had gone as far as cleaned out/organized/labeled the inside of our pantry & refrigerator. I even said "shes going to catch us off guard", that she certainly did. At 8 pm my water broke unexpectedly and we were off to the hospital. I wasnt completely sure it was my water so Shawn kept saying were coming back home and thought putting the bags in the truck was silly. Well, it wasn't silly, they admitted us right away and I was in labor for 24 hours 52 minutes. When we got there I was so excited, anxious and scared thinking this is it were really having a Baby. I was not prepared to be in labor for so long. I had wanted to go med free for the whole thing... after 9 hours no meds and only dilating 4 cm I knew I had to fold and get an epidural or I would be out of energy to push later and would probably have to have a c section. Shawn says the epidural was the best thing ever since we didn't have to go to the bathroom all the time for me to puke. I ended up having some serious back pain with the epidural, they had to flip me "like a burger" every 45 min to try and ease the pain. At 22 hours I was told that I could push, I was also told that the Baby was sideways and there was a large possibility I wouldn't be able to push her out, I am stubborn and wanted to try anyway. 2 hours of pushing and she didn't budge, we had to have a c section after all. At that point I was starving, tired and beyond ready to meet my daughter that I was not upset I just wanted to move forward. We had 4 names picked for Baby Adams and we planned on meeting her first before picking. When I heard her cry Norah stood out in my head, as I was rolled back into our room I heard the Dr yell Norah down the hall, the photographer said she liked Norah... but when Shawn handed her to me for the first time a Norah Jones song came on Pandora that was playing on my cell... it was fait, Norah it was!

We stayed in the hospital from Thursday night until Monday morning. Going home was a welcome relief and has been a surreal experience. I have done the bring a new Baby home before with the Foster kids so there wasn't any real stress attached. The first night was bad, Baby needed to adjust to the new environment, but since then its been almost smooth sailing. She is well on her way to sleeping thru the night, right now she's up about every 3 hours eating tons! She's  blessing to watch sleep and grow already. After a very long four years of trying she is finally here and we could not be happier or feel more blessed. We have so much to be thankful for. A week before Norah's arrival we were given the good news that we can adopt our Foster daughter, we couldn't be happier.

Enjoy some of our labor/delivery photos...

This journey has been a long one but well worth the Patience... Norah Patience Adams.

The week before her arrival I did many projects around the house... need to take pictures of them all and share, pretty impressed with myself as to how they came out and how much I got done. I am finding the key to a stress free life with kids is organization. If everything has a place then its more likely we will put things away and it makes things easier/quicker to find. More on this later...