HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY!!!!!

OMG!!!! I can hardly believe he turns 2 yrs old today!!! We had his birthday party yesterday. He's still having the poops, but overall he felt fine yesterday. We had a few of his friends, Hannah & Sara (both Guate kiddos). The 3 of them are so so cute together and Sara's Dad noticed that Sara & Hannah says certain words alike & throw fits the same. hahaha... too funny! It was just a nice relaxing day to spend celebrating. I'll post pictures soon. :) Love you all!!!!!

Connor's 2nd Birthday Party

Soooo tired out after a BIG day! ((notice the frosting on his mouth... haha... he fell FAST asleep!))

Blowing out the candles
his friend, Sara:
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse CAKE!
his friend, Hannah:
Our friends (L to R): Tina & Sara, Joni & Hannah
Riding his new Power Wheels 4-wheeler that he got from Nana & Papa! FUN!!!
Bubble Machine!
My precious BOY! He's getting so big!
Concentrating :)

It was alot of fun!! The kids had fun making crafts with colorful wooden sticks (like tongue depressors) & wooden shapes.. with glue! It was a nice small gathering of family & friends.

Connor's been sick

Thursday -- This morning when he woke up, he was acting fine but when we left to go drop him off at Nana's house, he pointed to his tummy, said, "Belly hurt, Mommy." But I dropped him off, said to give him motrin and see how he did. I always call my Mom while I'm working around lunch time to see how he's doing. She said he was doing fine. And she never calls my cellphone unless it's an emergency or she's worried about him, and she's never had to call. So when my phone rang during my last visit of the day, I let it go to voicemail then checked on my way out to the car to hear her say that he woke up from nap early, moaning and when she went to pick him up, he was burning up HOT! She took his temp and it was 103 under his arm, which makes it actually 104!! My poor baby!!!! I rushed right there, and he was punky... his eyes droopy, still laying on my Mom's chair with her moaning. He wanted me. I rocked him, gave him Tylenol.. and he was still burning up! But he started to want to get up to play, walk around.. so I knew he was starting to feel better. He kept saying different things hurt like his legs, belly, head, arms... I bet he was aching.. like body aches from feeling under the weather. He couldn't comfortable while I was rocking him, was fidgeting & moaning. But he was still drinking & had wet diapers, although was breathing funny... like moaning when he breathed out, but I listened to his lungs and they were clear. . . did the full thing, he wasn't breathing fast or slow, no retractions. I just held him & cuddled him which is what he wanted.. until he was feeling a bit better. Please pray this passes, if it's a stomach bug or what?! But I took his blankies out of the crib because he loves to cover up, but being that he had a 104 temp... no way... I feel bad and I just want to take this all away, make him feel better....

Here's when I knew he was okay: he was standing in front of the fridge, shakin' his booty to the tunes of his Leapfrog Fridge Farm. I was just standing there watching him, trying not to laugh...

Friday morning -- We were up all night last night. Poor baby.. had diarrhea, liquid every 2-3 hours, moaning. Still with the fever overnight, I was alternating Tylenol & Motrin. He was just miserable and I didn't sleep much because I was sitting at the end of the couch watching him breathe. He slept on the couch most of the night, some of the night in my bed with me.

He & I both slept in until like 10:15 this morning, he woke up much better, no fever, said, "Eat Be-kfast." and has been smiling & laugh, back to his normal self! YAY!!! Although he didn't eat anything, but has still been drinking here & there. If he doesn't improve by this afternoon, I'll be getting him into the doctor. And so far no more diarrhea since like 5 this morning. Thanks for the prayer, girls! I love you all!!! *HUGS* Ya know... right after I posted, stinky stinky... more liquid poopies!!!

Friday, mid morning -- I called his Ped office, they were double booked all day today so I took him to ER. They did a XR of his abdomen, came back with just gas in his bowels & irritation from the diarrhea.. likely gastritis. So she put him on clear liquids for 2 days then follow up with his Ped on Monday. He's lively today, laughing & playing... hasn't had an diarrhea since before we left for ER this morning. They also gave me containers to collect stool specimens in. So he's on the mend, no fever anymore. Praying he gets past this yucky thing he has & feels better soon!

Saturday morning -- He's doing much better, although.. poor thing.. wants to eat & can only have clear liquids. He's been eating jell-o & popsicles (Yum!), drinking fluids... I try not to eat in front of him because he always wants bites of mine. :( No more diarrhea since last night before bedtime! YAY! Also, he's has 2 big wet diapers, one in the middle of the night, the other this morning.. WooHoooo!! No fever since yesterday morning! I attempted to collect the stool samples, but they wanted me to use a U-bag (urine bag) that had a sticky edge that you stick over their "area".. so they wanted me to put it over his butt and collect clean specimens that way... well I put it on him and he screamed bloody murder the entire time, I felt horrible!! But he left it on, then came the BIG POOP and it was everywhere... that is, everywhere except in that bag. The entire bag came right off with all the poop, so there was no way of collecting any. So this attempt to use this bag is a bust... and now he has no more poopies... so.. whatever... I understand it needs to be collected but ya know... I'm not willing to torture my child to put this horribly painful U-bag on his bottom when it's already red & very tender from liquid poopies for over 24 hrs. :(

Today we're going out to a back to school bash at a playground, and then also doing some back to school shopping for his cousins, Gavin & Ashleigh. So we have a busy day, but I'm holding off on bringing him into sunday school tomorrow, it's unlikely that the diarrhea will come back but ya never know, so I don't want to go sharin' the wealth of this bug he may have had.

Connor continually keeps me laughing & smiling! Here's one to giggle about... tonight he brought me one book after another, telling me, "Read the book, Mommy." One book is all animals, a simple board book. At this point, he's able to name about 75% of them without being reminded what the animal is. He's always gotten excited when I turn the page to the baby chicks. Well . . . tonight I turned the page and he says, "NUGGETS!" HAHAHAHA!!!! Oh goodness! I was cracking up!!!!

Also, my Mom said to me today, "It's amazing how much he's like you." :) He sure is . . . I've always been clumsy & accident-prone. He's soooo clumsy, accident-prone, always getting owies on a daily basis. I love to swim, and this little one is like a FISHIE! I have a happy-go-lucky cheerful personality... he is such a charmer, so friendly, loves to smile & laugh, sing & dance, loves to say Hi or Hello to people when we're out. :)

Connor's 2yr photo session

There is an organization called Celebrating Adoption that consists of professional photographers volunteering their time & expertise to offer a photo session to adoptive families & their kids. I set up this session with a photographer in Indiana, where she lives which is just 30 minutes from us.. she said these sample pictures would be available on her blog today, so here I went to check tonight... here they are! Enjoy!!! :) I have to tell you... as the blog loaded and I saw these pictures, my eyes welled up with tears! Connor is just.... my little guy, my baby boy, my precious little guy... tears of pride, love, joy, peace.. just so so proud of him.. to see these pictures is like looking back in time to getting those beloved, cherished pictures from Guatemala, while he was there... and me here.. waiting. And now to be there with him having his pictures taken, to watch him respond so well... It all culminated to being like, 'WOW! Now I'm part of it.' Like it feels like he's always been here... and yet I feel part of his world now.. always have, but seeing these pictures made me speechless, in awe... she did such a GREAT job with him!

Love, Sara (and Connor)

**Hover over then Click on the "Celebrating Adoption" hyperlink to see the pictures**

What an Amazing Day!!

First, thanks to everyone who was covering me in prayer for the pain I had in the back of my head. Yesterday, I woke up & had a few periodic twinges of the same pain then the pain was gone completely. I've not had any pain since yesterday morning! PRAISE THE LORD!!! I am soooo happy that's over! It was the strangest feeling and I was miserable. It made me think of the thorn in Paul's flesh (2 Corinthians 12), wherein Jesus desired to walk through the pain with him, not remove the pain immediately. Sometimes it takes us just giving it over to the One who offers to walk through pain with us, whatever the pain might be. Sometimes we just want the pain to be gone, to move right to it being over and not suffering. I have to admit, I've not always been the best about getting through painful moments without griping/complaining about it. This time, it didn't take long for me to reach out to my prayer warriors - my family & friends - to ask them to pray. I only took the Flexeril 2 nights, and prayed through it all.

Then, today we went to a Guatemalan Fiesta in Caledonia, MI. I'd gotten this email quite a while ago about this get together, but never decided on whether or not to go, if we could, if we had plans, etc. So a few days ago, I decided we'd go. It was an hour & a half drive, but turned out to be well worth the drive! We got there, Connor had fallen asleep 15 minutes before getting there.. I parked, got everything out of the car, then got Connor out. It was at a family's home who are also adoptive parents. We walked up, got our stuff put down.. and I turned back toward the house to see a friend from the Bethany boards, our adoption group online. They live about 2 hours NORTH of where this get together was.. and we live almost 2 hours south! Neither her nor I knew the other would be there today!! How awesome is THAT??!!!! WOW!!!! We'd never met in person, but we've developed friendships on this online forum wherein we're all adoptive parents of children from Guatemala, or are waiting in process to bring their children home! Never did it enter either of our minds that we'd both end up there today! It was such an awesome, amazing day!! We had lunch, the kids played, ran around, went swimming in the pool, played in the sandbox (the kids.. haha), whack the pinatas. It was an amazing thing to be in the presence of ALL adoptive parents of Guate kids... to see all the kids together. One little boy who was about 7 yrs old, walked past us and was yelling at his Mom, "Come on, Mom.. come see this baby! He looks just like me!" Awwww!!! How cute!!!! And so when he walked past us, his Mom motioned toward Connor, said, "Is this the baby?" He goes, "Nope." hahaha! Too funny! All of the kids were in age range from Connor's age up to teenagers. Some families also have bio kids, so that was cool too. Here are some pics from the day!!

Sue & Elijah w/ Connor & I

Connor having a go at the pinata!

The Yount Family (most of them anyway) :D

Elijah w/ his Dad hitting the pinata!

I've been home sick the past 2 days, not sick, but with this pain in the back of my head on the left side. It's just thrown me for a loop! MAN! I saw the doctor on Tuesday, he gave me Flexeril to relax the muscle that he believes is strained/pulled... it attaches right in the spot where it hurts. It's this horrible throbbing pain that comes on periodically, bad pain! Connor's been hanging in there with me through it. I'm starting to feel a little better each day. I've just been feeling like I'm out of commission the past few days, unable to do much because that darn muscle just pulls & aches. This morning, Connor prayed over me, it was so cute! He always says his AMENs with such enthusiasm... prayers of children can also be heard, thank you very much. :)