11-Months Old

We are a little late on this one :-) I didn't actually get to 'celebrate' with Mari when she was 11 months old as I was in Haiti once again. Daddy also didn't think he could handle the photography duty, so pictures had to wait until I got home.

So here we are - 11 months old (and a few days). We are busy. We are getting into everything. We are crawling all over the place, being held, being put down, sitting in our lap, crawling around, etc. Sometimes we attempt to put food into our mouth, other times we think it's hilarious to wipe it all on the floor and wait for us to pick it up. Although she is getting better! She might be ready to eat her first birthday cake!!!

I am also pround to announce that daddy did AMAZING while I was gone! He got Mari to sleep through the night!!!! Oh it has been so great! Although we do have to laugh because one night I was telling Mari how amazing it is that she was sleeping through the night...maybe it was time to start thinking about a brother or sister for her. Low and behold - she got up in the middle of the night! I don't think she is ready to 'share' her mommy or her daddy yet. Which we are totally fine with! It has not been a topic of conversation in this house yet unless we are joking :-)

Seriously....what is that face!

We look forward to celebrating Mari's first birthday. I am constantly in awe by our lifes events this past year. July 15th, 2011 was the day that we were 'chosen' as Mari's parents. July 15th, 2012 we were playing around with our 11 month old! It's just crazy! But we love every minute!

10-Months Old

Once again, here we are showcasing another month gone by! I know I am not the only one when I say that time is just going by way to quickly! I want time to STOP!

Mari is so full of personality, spunk and smiles. She has us laughing so many times through out the day. She is still constantly on the go, stopping to be picked up, only to be put down to go again. It's a constant shuffle in the house. She has about four standard crawls so far. We had the initial inch-worm crawl, which has progressed into the 'crawl with one leg, drag the other leg' crawl, sometimes we do the actual 'normal' crawl, and lastly we do the "jungle book" crawl where we are up on our hands and our feet! Whatever gets her to where she wants to go the fastest I guess!

This past month we spent a lot of time outside, enjoying the swing, going for rides in the ranger, and walks around the yard. She also got to enjoy her kiddie pool a few times and loved it! She could spash in water all day long! She loves waving bye-bye to people and blowing kisses at them. We have been doing a little sign language with her and the main word I am trying to focus on is 'mama' since she only continues to say 'dada' :-) I'm also convinsed that her second word at this point is going to be 'kitty'. Somewhere on the totem pole I'm sure I will get a 'mama' out. She loves pulling herself up on everything and finding whatever treasures she can grab on the shelves and she loves helping with laundry...and by helping I mean crawling on top of the nicely folded clothes.

We took her pictures and she was in such a great giggly and goofy mood. It was funny because I took out the blanket that we use for the back drop trying to get everything ready. I got the blanket set up and Mari crawled right over to it and sat in the perfect spot. She knows what it is for! And she started hamming it up for the camera right away.

All posed and ready to go before mama is even ready!

I was too busy laughing at her goofy antics that I was not paying attention at the pictures - so I got a lot of legs/feet cut off! Better luck next month!

Staying Busy

Life is sure busy with a little 9 1/2 month old. She is on the go! Cory and I always joke that we didn't really take advantage of the 'non-mobile' stage. Once she started moving - we figured that we could keep her confined in the living room because it is a step-down. That took about a weekend for her to master crawling up the step to wherever we are!
Mari continues to love doing her 'inch worm crawl' to get to wherever she wants to go. However she is also figuring out how to crawl on her knees, and loves pulling herself up and standing next to things. However, when she stands, she gets super excited and doesn't realize that she needs to hold on - thus resulting in a puffy and bleeding lip on Saturday. Let's hope that was the only time for a while that involved blood!

So here are some pics of us doing 'daily life'.

Mari loves books. She loves being read to, and she loves reading them herself.

We wanted to clean the garage one night so moved her johhny-jump-up outside.
Mari was one happy little jumping bean.

Showing off our skills at standing up by the window.

She loves riding around in the ranger, which works out well for watering plants, picking up sticks,
or just driving around for entertainment. Gotta keep her safe tho!

Our favorite spot to crawl into - our 2 endtables!

No rest for Mari - Daddy even makes her help put her toys together!

Justin's 1st Birthday in Heaven

Last week (May 26th) we celebrated Justin's first birthday in Heaven by having a balloon release and a great get-together with family and friends over at Heidi's house. It was an amazing evening to partake in - and I completely lost it when someone started singing Happy Birthday.

All the balloons!!!

All those balloons with prayers and thoughts of Justin. Oh how we miss you.

9-Months Old

Mari turned 9-months old last Thursday! 9 MONTHS!!!  Again I can't believe how fast our baby girl is growing up!

She is 'inch-worm' crawling all.over.the.place. Her clothes are filthy at the end of the day because she is constantly sliding around on her belly. She is also working really hard on standing up next to things - which has us very nervous as one of her favorite places to practice this skill is by our fireplace. She babbles a lot, and especially loves to babble louder when anyone else is trying to have a conversation. She wants all eyes on her and you better be listening to her too! She continues to love her johhny-jump-up, however she uses it more as a swing than for jumping. She can get herself swinging pretty good in that thing by running, bouncing and pulling her legs up and swinging around. She also loves to be outside as much as she can - enjoying her swing, riding around in the ranger, or even playing in the grass when I am doing something quick in the garden. Whenever she does an 'amazing act' she will stop, look at you and start clapping until you clap along with her, then she gives her big Mari smile and starts acting goofy all over again. She loves all her baby food and we really have not found anything that she won't eat...in terms of baby food. She absolutely will not eat anything with texture at this point, not even the puffs. O-well we will get there eventually...

We thought we were getting pretty smart by giving her small objects to hold onto while trying to take
her picture to help keep her distracted from the paper behind her...

It realy only gave us about an additional 5 seconds...

                                    

Sunday, May 27th was also the 'one year' anniversary on when I received the phone call from my cousin that would eventually lead us to Mari. A phone call we were never expecting  to receive, a phone call that has brought so much joy to our lives.

Mother's Day

I got to celebrate my first Mother's Day yesterday. It felt so amazing to finally celebrate a day I have been waiting years for! It was full of love, laughter and lots of hugs and kisses from Mari. It was also filled with tears, pain and heartache.

While I was celebrating my first Mother's Day, I watched as my mom celebrated a Mother's Day with a son in heaven. A scab that was all too fresh, was ripped open again with another daily reminder of her son, a son who will no longer be able to wish her a Happy Mother's Day.

While I was celebrating Mother's Day, there is a birthmother who longed for the baby girl that she gave birth too. There was a mother who remembered her baby girl kicking her in the stomach one year ago today.

While I was celebrating Mother's Day, I had a mother in law and a sister in law who didn't have their husbands to help celebrate with them...and I'm sure there thoughts quickly turned to, "in a month it will be Father's Day".

While I was celebrating Mother's Day, I remembered the previous years where I, quite honestly, hated this day. Experiencing infertility can do that to a person. It can make a person bitter and angry and jealous.

While I was celebrating Mother's Day, I realized it didn't matter what day it was. All that mattered was that I have a baby girl that I love with all my heart, and a little girl who loves me too. I got to wake up to see her smile and hear her giggles. Today I got to experience the same.

I love you baby Mari. I thank God every day for your birth parents, that they gave us our angel. I know they can see how much we love you, how much we cherish you.

I can't wait to celebrate Mother's Day again next year...but in the meantime we will be celebrating every day with our angel Mari.

8-Months Old

Mari was 8-months old yesterday!!! She is now trying to impress us with wanting to pull herself up on things, however her favorite spot to try and pull herself up is in her little plastic bathtub! She still is not crawling, but can find ways to get to certain things if she wants them bad enough. She also still LUVS her johnny-jump-up, or just jumping if you are holding her. However if you are holding her...don't expect her to do any work. She basically just picks her legs up, and then you are responsible for ALL the work after that.

She has also been blessing us (sarcasm) with a more stubborn side and some mini trantrums. Oh Lordy, I hope this is not a glimpse into our future. She has the whole 'straight as a board, fling head back' thing down.

Our biggest news! She started sleeping through the night! Oh it felt great sleeping an entire night through. But then she must have heard us rejoicing, so she has now decided that three nights of sleeping through the night was enough, and we are back to the once a night feedings. I know she should be able to sleep through the night, but even though I would love sleep, I won't take any of those minutes for granted. So we usually grumble with a smile on our face.

Oh, was I suppose to leave this paper up?

She has also been enjoying the beautiful weather outside and I think she would have no problem literally spending all day outside. She enjoys the stroller a lot, which is good, because between daycare and home we go on a lot of walks!