Katherine's One Year Doctor Visit

Katherine had her one year well-baby visit this morning. She weighed in at 20 pounds, 12.5 ounces and is 29 1/2" long. (50%ile for weight and 75%ile for height). She is healthy as can be. She also got 4 shots today, and she was sound asleep in her car seat before we even made it home from the pediatrician's office.

We are so thankful that we have found a great pediatrician here--we had a great one in Georgia, and wondered if we were going to be able to match that when we moved. Thankfully, we have. :-)

Quick Baby #3 Update

I have my first doctor's appointment scheduled for Monday, Sept. 8. They scheduled me quicker here than my doctor in Georgia did with Katherine. I think it is probably just 2 different offices working on their own schedules. Sooner is fine with me, though. The appointment is with the same doctor who delivered Katherine.

I'm feeling okay considering I'm in my first trimester of pregnancy. The sickness just isn't as bad this time, but I am tired all the time, of course.

We have started shopping for a larger vehicle. We are probably looking for a used mini-van with low mileage. We have awhile before we have to have it, of course, but we are starting to look at what is available, and if we find the right thing for the right price, we will go on and make a move there.

The church building and grounds committee is looking into what it will take to add another bedroom and bathroom to our house, so hopefully there will be some progress on that front soon.

Mary Joyce gets more than I really thought she would at this point. She knows the baby is in my tummy, and she keeps wanting to look at the Waiting for Baby book that my friend Heidi got for her when we were expecting Katherine.

I'll try to do some regular posting sometime within the next few days. I have a few recent pictures, but not many. I don't make many pictures when Mary Joyce is running around in just a shirt and training pants.

Anyway, that's the latest...

More Info, By Request :-)

Many of you have requested more information about yesterday's post. I'll fill in what I can, considering we don't have much more to go on right now. Yes, we are expecting Baby #3. We have been suspicious about this for a little while, especially considering I have been falling asleep on the couch in front of the Olympics by around 9:00 each night--not like me at all. This was confirmed by a home test yesterday and the onset of morning sickness this morning. :-) Using one of those online due date calculators, it looks like baby will be due around April 29. That will put just a little more age difference between this baby and Katherine than there is between Katherine and Mary Joyce. I'll be calling tomorrow to schedule my first ob-gyn appointment.

As for the "was this planned" question--yes, but we weren't expecting things to happen so soon. We were married for 7 years before Katherine was born. However, I will be 36 in October, and we didn't want to wait too long.

We are blessed, thrilled, and excited!

Today's Post

Much Better Now!

Thankfully for us, Fay has moved on. Things eased up quite a bit around lunch time. The rest of the day, we've had wind and intermittent rain showers, but that we can deal with. Our outdoor table is no longer taking up half of our computer room for one thing. :-) Our regular sitters even offered to take the girls tonight so that Chet and I were able to have our regular Friday night date night. It was so good for all of us just to get out of the house for awhile. Thanks for all of the prayers!

Still Here, Still Raining...

It is now Friday morning. Fay has actually moved some in the last day or so, and now we're getting the back end of the rains and wind. It is really not that bad as rain and wind go--no worse than a summer storm, except for the fact that it WON'T GO AWAY! This is getting old, and our whole household has a case of cabin fever. Katherine is supposed to have a doctor's appointment at 11:30, and the office is open. We're trying to decide now whether to go or to reschedule. Chet did go into the office for a little while this morning, so things are getting a little more back to normal. Power went out once during the night (Mary Joyce was NOT happy to be without her night light--she does not like the total dark), came back on, and went out again early this morning. That time it stayed off until 8:30 or so, but everything is up and running now.

Edited to Add: For the record, we called and rescheduled Katherine's one year check-up for next week.

Fay Pictures-Wednesday and Thursday

Latest Update

We are right in the middle of the eye of the storm right now, so we're doing a lot of waiting. We know the rough stuff is coming back, but we're not sure when at the moment. Chet went out once yesterday before things got bad and once today since we're solidly in the eye and it was safe to do so, and made some pictures of the ocean--pretty amazing stuff. I'm going to post some pictures in the next thread.

Obviously, we still have power at the moment. Our longest outage has been about 10-15 minutes.

Fay, Fay, Go Away!

All is well with us right now. We thought the worst would be through here already, but Fay has decided to camp out for awhile. We are basically in the eye right now, so we are only getting some wind and a little rain. When the storm starts moving again, we'll get the other side, though. So we've had a lot of wind, a good amount of rain, but there is no water in our house--so far, so good. Chet walked down to the church to check there while things were relatively calm, and he said all is well there. However, he did say that A1A (highway along the beach) looks like it is covered with snowdrifts, except they are sand. He didn't take the camera with him, so no pictures of that. Power is still on, as is our satellite, believe it or not. The power has flickered a couple of times, but it has come back on.

Fay's On the Way...

We are currently holed up at home waiting to see what Tropical Storm Fay is going to bring us later today, tonight, and in the morning. Right now, it is stalled south of here, dumping lots and lots of rain down around the Space Center. So far, we've just had lots of wind and some rain here. Chet had jury duty Monday and Tuesday, but was released yesterday afternoon. He's home this afternoon and most likely tomorrow on weather days, and Prayer Meeting is off for tonight. We're as prepared as we can be, especially considering we're novices at this whole thing. Right now, there's just a lot of waiting and watching the weather reports on TV. If you think about it, pray for everyone who is having to deal with this storm.

Will update when I can, provided the power stays on...

Meeting Tiffani

One of the things we never expected when we started Adoption Voyages was the opportunity to meet (in person) some of the families whose journeys we have hosted . We have built several wonderful friendships this way--a real blessing.

Our move to Florida brought us very close geographically to one of our AV families, Becky and Ryan. They started out in the China program, but recently moved to domestic adoption and very quickly brought home their precious baby girl, Tiffani. (That is a very simplified version of a very long story. You can read more on their website.)

Anyway, this past Saturday, we were finally able to get together in person. It was really great to meet them and their sweet baby girl. :-)

China Families Olympics Party

The Last of the Vacation Pictures

August 6, 2008--Katherine Turns One!

I have already shared some pictures from Katherine's birthday party, but I thought I would also share a few from her actual birthday. It is so hard to believe that our baby girl is already one year old! She is pulling up, cruising, and trying to stand on her own, so walking won't be too far down the road. And today (August 14), we just used the last of her formula, so she is completely transitioned to whole milk! She is still such a laid-back, smiley girl, too--much more reserved than Mary Joyce is.

Katherine's claim to fame is that she can sleep absolutely anywhere. You've seen the multiple sleeping in the exersaucer and in the high chair pictures...well, now Miss Katherine can fall asleep in a shopping cart. She lays her little head down on her arms, which are propped on the bar in front of her, and takes herself a nice little nap. You can't imagine the looks we get when she does that... :-)

Happy Birthday, Katherine! Mama, Daddy, and Mary Joyce love you very much!

One Year Old Girl


Publix gives you a free "One Year Old Cake" when you purchase a first birthday cake. Instead of using it at the big party, we saved it for her actual birthday.


Mary Joyce enjoyed the "Happy Cake" very much!


Grandmama waited and gave Katherine her present on her actual birthday. Here is Katherine "reading" her birthday card.


This duck is adorable. It came from our friend's store, Mulberry Toys. (Check out their website, and please excuse the shameless plug, but they have great, quality toys. :-) )

Catching Up with Old Friends

Meeting Katie Jane

Tuesday night of our vacation, we had a chance to go and visit with Chet's cousin Richard and his wife Mandy. They have 2 boys, Tyler and Tommy, and a brand new baby girl named Katie Jane. The grown-ups had a great time visiting, and Mary Joyce gave the boys some good practice at having a pesky little sister. :-) Katherine was absolutely fascinated by Katie Jane, who is just adorable...

Chet Holding Katie Jane


Richard Holding Katherine


All of the 5 Kids (R to L: Mary Joyce, Tyler, Katie Jane, Katherine, and Tommy)

Summary of our Vacation

As I mentioned earlier, we are home, and we had a great trip to Georgia. I've finally had time today to start posting some of the pictures from our vacation. There are a ton of them, so I'm breaking them up by event. Here's an explanation of what you are seeing:

Visit from Lao Lao and Papa--
My parents came down to visit us for a few days before we left on our vacation. It was great to have some time to spend together, and the girls really enjoyed their time with their grandparents.

Family Get-Together--
Chet organized a low-country boil for the extended family while we were in town. We all got together at the family cabin on Saturday. We had a great time, and the food turned out very well. Mary Joyce learned a lot about playing in the dirt, blowing bubbles, and chasing baby frogs that day. She had a blast! Everyone enjoyed Katherine--this was the first time most of the extended family was able to meet her. She mostly wanted to get down and crawl around, which we finally relented and let her do.

Katherine's First Birthday Party--
We celebrated Katherine's First Birthday on Sunday, August 3. (Her actual birthday was on the 6th.) We had her party at Grandmama's house and set up a wading pool and a slip and slide for the big kids. Katherine was NOT fond of the wading pool at all, but the younger "big kids" enjoyed it. The big kids had a great time on the slip and slide.

I will post a couple more slideshows a little later, probably tomorrow or Monday. We were able to visit the girls' newest cousin, Katie Jane, who was born July 24. We also had a chance to meet up with our travel buddies, Marsha and Jeremy, and their children, Spencer, Aidyn, and Preston. (Aidyn and Mary Joyce are from the same orphanage. Their family moved to Tennessee about the same time we moved to Florida, but we all lived in Georgia when the girls were adopted. Preston is exactly one month older than Katherine.) I will probably add one more slideshow with miscellaneous vacation photos, too. As I said, it was a busy week. :-)

Katherine's First Birthday Party

Family Get-Together in Georgia

A Visit from Lao Lao and Papa (Before our Vacation)

We're Home!

We made it back home from Georgia this afternoon. We had a great and very busy trip, and I've got lots of pictures to post. Hopefully within the next day or two, I'll be able to get things ready for the blog. For now, I'm off to bed...