Summertime's Coming!

Music Recitals are over! The weather is warmer! The garden is beginning to produce! All signs that summer is on its way! We love summer. Not only is it hot :), but Daddy's home! The school year will be over in a couple of weeks and then one week of Rock School for lessons and we will be in vacation/get ready for Creed mode. I love this time of year - in case you haven't noticed.

Shaun has another tooth that has broken thru this week. So, that's been not so fun with it coming thru but now that it's thru the skin, he seems to be much better with it. It has also helped tremendously with his feeding therapy because EVERYTHING is in his mouth these days which means that his gag reflex has diminished considerably - just because his mouth is getting used. So now, he can swallow bites of food (and some he puts in himself) without choking on them!

The pictures at the bottom are of us playing outside last night. Chris finished up teaching early and we got to have dinner and play together before heading to Bible Study. Yay for summer coming and us getting to eat and play as a family more regularly!

More Milestones!

I'm trying to be better about documenting milestones so as to not have to remember a big update. So, this week we had a couple of things that are blog-worthy.

1st of all Cadence has finally figured out all the letters in her name! Granted it takes several pages to get them all written down, she's on her way. Also, we noticed this week that as she draws people - which she does alot - they have ears. This is definitely new. She's really aware of ears right now and even noticed in a different picture this week that someone's ears weren't in the right place. It was really a backdrop behind the person that looked like ears coming out of the top of their head but still, she noticed it - which I thought was interesting. So, maybe that's why she's drawing ears on her people but either way, I thought it was fun to see people with ears :)

I don't know what's up with the pictures in this post but they won't move where I want them too :( So, Caleb Shaun's big news is that he sits up! I literally left him in Cadence's lap this week and came back into the room and he was sitting beside her not being supported by anything. I couldn't believe it! So, there are some pictures of that too. He's getting to be such a big boy and we can't believe how quickly things are coming for him now. We're so glad - and the physical therapist definitely thinks he'll meet my goal of crawling by his birthday!

Mother's Day

Mother's Day must be the strangest of all holidays in my world. I don't love it and almost wish that we could do without TV, card aisles, or even church around this time of the year. I hate that somehow just because you have a child in your cart with you, you get this extra day of "special" that people without children - often times for a variety of reasons - don't get. I guess I just know too many people who would like to be moms and aren't. And those feelings are still way too raw in my own heart to jump on the bandwagon of overpriced Hallmark cards on a made-up holiday.

Having been a "mom" for 3 years now with this holiday, it doesn't really get any less strange as the years go by. Anyone who follows this blog knows that I'm a Mother who has yet to give birth to a child. But, nonetheless, I have these 2 crazy blessings who refer to me as "Mommy" ( at least the one who talks) that take up most of the thoughts in my brain every waking moment of the day.

This year having this 3rd crazy blessing actually inside of me, Mother's Day got even weirder. I've always love and respected birth moms more than I could ever put into words, and carrying a child myself has made me respect them even more. The kind of love that says "I want to give you the best you could have in life, even if that's not me" is unbelievable. To know that Creed takes up as many thoughts in my life as Cadence and Caleb Shaun makes me think of our birth moms almost daily. To know that they felt their babies kick, and move, and have to pee in the middle of the night - several times a night - and have back aches, and more body changes than should be discussed on a blog, and still make the unselfish decision to give that baby to us - or anyone else who has an adopted child - is mind blowing to me. It's the kind of love where we lay down ourselves for another person and the only person who I can compare it to is Jesus. Pre-children, He's the only person outside of my own parents, who ever gave me a gift at such a huge cost to themselves. Post-children, we have 2 birth moms in our world who fit into that "unselfish love" category.

I don't know what I'm trying to say here really except that I didn't get a corsage to wear to church (thank God), and there were no presents (except for one from my mom), I cooked our lunch just like any other Sunday, and I didn't even take the Bruster's gift card that they gave away at church because I never participate in the "mother's day give-aways" - although I did get out of dirty diapers for the day :) - but I am grateful to be a Mom and don't take it lightly that it's my responsibility - along with Chris - to help these little people that God has entrusted us with to turn out to be people who grow up to love the Lord and continue to grow His kingdom regardless of what kind of success that looks like from a worldly perspective.

I guess if Mother's Day can turn me all introspective and make me a little more grateful it's not so horrible after all - although I'd still like to do without the cards, presents, and flowers associated with it :)

We celebrated Mother's Day this year thanks to some dear friends who gave us a swing set. We spent the entire afternoon after church in the yard with the kids playing on our newest form of entertainment. I'm so grateful for friends who bless you even when you don't expect it. The smile and excitement in Cadence first thing on a Sunday morning that makes her play in the cold in her pajamas is really one of my favorite things in the whole world! So, here are a few pics of our playing adventures and I'm sure there will be many more to come as the summer wears on.

Updates

It seems like not lots have been going on lately in Andersen world and yet when I think about it - and am reminded by family who see my kids after a month of not seeing them - there have been changes over the past few weeks.

Cadence is such a great big sister. she loves Caleb Shaun so much and tells everyone that she loves her "Shaunie SO MUCH" She is so observant of the therapists who come in to work with Shaun. I don't even realize how much she is picking up about his care until she models it later.

For instance, this morning he had physical therapy for the first time and the therapist was talking about how one of our main goals for right now is to stretch out his left side because he has a tendency to always lean to the right. So, she showed me some stretching exercises to do with him. We then went to the pediatrician and as Shaun was laying on the table and the dr and I were talking, Cadence jumped up on the table with him and began to stretch him out. Exactly like we had been shown! And I thought she was watching Little House on the Prairie while the therapist and I were talking!

She's also jumped in on the feeding therapy. Here she is feeding him one night as I cook supper.

I think he was stunned :) That's pudding on his face in case you're wondering. At this point he will open his mouth (occasionally) for pudding, pixie sticks, lollipops, lemonade, apple juice, and some fruits - mostly pears. He DOES NOT like a frozen banana ;)

Shaun is also beginning to hold himself up more. We can now sit him in the bumbo and he will play with the toys around him without fussing! A tooth came in sometime over the last couple of weeks (you can see it in the top picture of the 2 of them) and over the past couple of days he started saying "dada" What a fun age!

And for the 3rd Andersen child; he now officially has a name.

So, introducing Creed Samuel Andersen!

The REVEAL party

April 16th, 2010 - the Andersen Reveal Party!

We, Andersens, have some of the best friends around and they are so excited about the new baby and how God continues to show His sense of humor with how He grows our family. So, they wanted to have a Reveal party to let everyone know what the sex of the new baby would be.

We had our appt at 9:15 on Friday morning and spent the day trying to keep a secret :) We did call our parents and siblings and tell them what the baby was but other than that, we tried to keep it quiet.

My Mom got this as her reveal

Chris' Dad got a balloon as well but I don't have a picture of it yet.

On to the party. We showed up and the decorations looked like this...

Our Peeps that came to celebrate with us - we are so thankful for the people - and many more!

Cadence with some of her peeps :)

A meltdown over who knows what?!?!?

Everyone gave name suggestions so Chris was reading some of them.

And then, the Reveal itself. We worked hard to make sure that Cadence didn't know what the baby was because we wanted her to be a part of the Reveal. We went back and forth all week on how to tell everyone what the newest Andersen was and eventually came up with a new doll for Cadence. However, this doll wasn't just any doll.

Years ago when we still lived in FL, I had a friend, Joey, who prayed for Chris and I lots with our struggle with infertility. Her family even tried every avenue that they knew of us to help us expand our family. So, the night before we moved to NC, Joey and her husband came over to our house to say good-bye. They showed up with this Cabbage Patch Doll and a card. In the card Joey explained that this doll was a physical reminder that there were people in FL who loved us and were believing for a family for us. Joey was convinced that not only would we somehow have a racially mixed family, but that the Lord would also give us a son. So, for 4 years this Cabbage patch doll has sat in the top of my closet and everytime I would walk into the closet and look at it, I was reminded of her dear friendship and the fact that the Lord had promised us something that we just had to wait on. We can now attest (like we couldn't before) that the Lord is faithful and not slow to keep His promises. Not only do we have a racially diverse family, but we have been given not 1 son, but 2! Our sweet Caleb Shaun, and this newest Andersen :)

Cadence was pretty excited about the present until she realized it was a boy! She has been sure that the new baby was a girl because in her brain, we already have a boy baby in Shaun. No worries tho, she's warming up to having 2 brothers :)

and loves her new baby named Alex Deree - I have no idea of where the name came from!

So, the Andersen family in it's latest completion!

Who knows what God has in store for the Andersens next. We're thinking an oriental girl would round us out pretty well but as we've learned over and over again thru the years, our best plans often aren't what God has for us........what He has is SO MUCH BETTER!

It's A .....,........

If you don't already know, you'll have to go HERE to find out and see Cadence's reaction to the news :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjh_vm__SAM

Batman or the other guy

Cadence has been really into markers lately. She's loving drawing, coloring, anything that has to do with putting color on something - she likes it! We've had to lay out some guidelines about markers because she has her Crayola ones but upstairs in Daddy's room she can use his dry erase markers - on his board - or even permanent markers that tend to lay around upstairs. So, I've had to clarify to her that Daddy's markers can't be used except when we're watching her and in the right spots. She's pretty good about this line of thinking and so we haven't had many issues with the markers.

This past Saturday, I was doing something and she came up to me with a pink crayola marker and a permanent black marker. She asked me if she could use the pink one but not the black one. I said, " that's correct you need to put the black one in Mommy's desk drawer and use your pink one" I'm so glad I did because I went on about my business and a few minutes later she came up to me and looked like this..........

I nearly died, but tried to keep my composure and asked her why she colored her whole face. Her answer was that she was "batman or dat udder guy" we're not sure of who the other guy is and she often confuses spiderman and batman so there really is no good reason for her to have a pink face but she sure did. So, I did what any mom would do and told her to go show her Daddy while I looked for the camera :)

PS whoever invented washable markers should be made a saint because they are incredible things. Probably better technology than electricity or inside toilets!