Adoption Blog

Back from Hawaii

Here are some pictures from Hawaii.

Here is a list of the people and some of the places that are in the pictures:

- Kaylee
- Naomi
- Matt (Naomi's Brother)
- Ann Marie (Naomi's Sister)
- Jason (Ann Marie's Boy)
- Abby (Ann Marie's Girl)
- Lexi (Matt's Girl)
- Terri (Friend's house that we stayed at)

- Kualoa Beach Park
- Chinaman's Hat (Island)
- Kaneohe (city on Oahu where we stayed)
- Brand New Starbucks in Kaneohe (Yum!)
- Aloha Tower (Market Place)

More Pic's of Kaylee

Here are some new pictures of little Kaylee girl.

Hawaii Bound

Tomorrow we fly to Hawaii. Unfortunately this time it is not a planned vacation. Naomi's grandmother passed away so we are going to attend the funeral.

Her grandmother was wonderful. She always treated me with kindness. And she made the best sweet potato tempura in the world!

We are blessed to be able to travel to Hawaii to share this time with Naomi's family. And... we might just be able to show off little Kaylee girl while we are there. :-)

Recall of Hip Hammock

Playtex is recalling all of their Hip Hammock baby carriers! Here is another link from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

We have one and we love it. We used it on our trip to China. No problems at all. I guess I should send ours in for an exchange.

How Much TV Is Too Much?

In my last post I mentioned how much Kaylee loves to watch DVD's. Several people commented and suggested that we limit the amount of TV that we let her watch. We absolutely agree. We do not want her to watch too much TV. And we do not want to get in the habbit of just putting her in front of the TV because it is easy for us.

How much is too much? Does anyone have any data on this? What do the experts say? What do you say?

A Long Overdue Update

Isn't she just the cutest...

I guess it has been a while since my last post. But guess what? I have been just a tad bit busy being a new daddy! :-)

Where do I begin? First, I just want to say thank you to everyone who has sent us emails asking us to post updates. It's so nice to know that we have friends out there keeping up with our story. You all are GREAT! And you know, blogging would be pretty boring if it was just me and my computer.

I guess this might be a long update. So please click below to catch up on life with little Kaylee girl!

Everything is going GREAT! Kaylee is absolutely wonderful. She is so much fun! I have never seen a baby smile as much as she does. But I can never get a good picture of her smiling. Every time she smiles and I press the button on my camera, she gets this serious look on her face when she sees the little red light that indicates the flash is ready. haha... It's hilarious. She goes from laughing to serious in an instant. I'll keep trying and maybe I can get some smiling pictures.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before or not but she just loves the TV. Baby Einstein is her favorite. If she is watching it, and you stand in front of her, she looks at you like you are crazy, then she leans over and looks around you. It's just cracks me up.

We haven't had much luck getting her to eat solid food. She still only takes the bottle. But we try every day. I know a lot (most) of the babies in our group ate solid food along with their bottle. Kaylee just doesn't want anything to do with a spoon. In fact, the only two things she will put in her mouth are her thumb and the bottle. That's it. I'm sure she will begin to eat solid food eventually. Our pediatrician tells us to keep trying.

She has been making a lot of improvements with her muscle development. She can sit up by herself but we have to keep a hand close by because she tends to eventually tilt and then tumble. And she loves to stand when we hold her under her arms. She can't wait to walk! She is not crawling yet but she sure is rolling. She can move across the floor just rolling over and over. We have been working with her and trying to teach her to crawl. But I sort of think it is something she will figure out on her own. This is one of those things that we are a little confused about. We know that most babies start crawling long before their 10th month. So we feel like maybe we should sort of show her or help her. But we know that she will catch up in her own time. And we are beginning to relax more and let her grow at her own schedule. We still work with her daily to make sure she is getting enough exercise and opportunities to practice.

I listen for sounds that Kaylee makes. Then, at a later time I will make a sound. She will get an excited look on her face. And after I make the sound a few more times, she will make it back at me. Then she gets this huge smile on her face. It might be something as simple as ba ba ba. Or maybe a kissing sound with the lips. Or a clicking sound. And I have found that when I make a new sound that she likes, it's only good for about 24 hours. Then the excitement wears off and I need to find a new one. We've gone through a lot of animal sounds. It started with a bark, then a pig sound, then a quack like a duck, then this funky frog sound I can make. I cycled back through and had another run with the bark, but again it only lasted about a day.

We took her to the pediatrician about a week after we returned from China. We went ahead and had her immunizations done again. We just wanted to make sure she was fully immunized and our doctor told us there was no harm in repeating them, even if she had them in China. Then we had a bit of a situation. They needed to take some blood so they could test it for things like HIV, Hepatitis, etc... They tried but they could not find her vein. It was absolutely horrible. I had to hold her down. We finally stopped and decided to bring her back when another nurse would be there with the hope that she could have better luck. Unfortunately the second attempt failed. No luck. We tried. But they just couldn't get any blood. So they told us to take her to the hospital. They are hoping that there will be someone there who has experience dealing with these difficult cases. We decided to wait a little while since the two previous visits were a bit traumatizing. Then we had relatives in town. So we just haven't had time. But it looks like we are going to go tomorrow. Today actually, after I go to sleep and then wake up. It is after 1:00 in the morning. Ugh...

I could go on and on and on... Kaylee is just so awesome! I will try to post a bit more frequently. Thanks everyone for the emails and for posting comments. It sure is nice to read all of your kind words, advice, and friendly notes.