Family Pictures

I have to share some wonderful family pictures we had taken a few weeks ago. Rachel did an awesome job. I can't say enough about how wonderful she did. Kaden was a bit out of control for some of these but you would never know it from all the great pictures she was able to get!

Enjoy!!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

1st Twin's Game

Back in June we took Kaden to his first Twins game. We were lucky b/c he made it till the 6th Inning. I didn't think he would even make it that long! He enjoyed watching baseball, just like his daddy does. Here are some pictures!
































































The last 2 pictures I have to show you are Kaden's new hairdo we like to do in the bathtub. He likes to call it his "mocock" since he can't say "mohawk".

Dedicated to Dad/Grandpa Gary...

Okay so it has been a really long time since my last blog and I know I have a lot of explaining to do! First off let me start by saying these past few months has probably been the craziest time in our lives so far. Aaron and I both started new jobs in April at the companies we work for. On top of that change we did find out that Aaron's dad, Gary, was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer in April. It was caught very earlier so we were very hopeful that Gary could beat cancer. At the end of May Gary had surgery to remove the tumor. The surgery was successful at getting the tumor out, however chemo was still going to be needed this summer. Gary was recovering better than the doctors expected. Gary has dealt with health issues concerning his heart for many years so this was a big concern for a surgery that was going to last 12 hours. Gary came home from the hospital and was home 2 days before he passed away. Needless to say we were all shocked at this b/c he was doing so well. We did find out that the cancer Gary had was the worst type of Pancreatic Cancer and if chemo could have helped it would only be a matter of time before another tumor would appear again. It would have been a long battle. One that Gary never would have wanted. We now have peace knowing that Gary passed away in good spirits thinking he was going to beat cancer. He never knew how bad it really could have been. God truly did answer prayers by not letting Gary suffer. We are also so thankful that Gary got to spend a year with Kaden! When Aaron and I were considering in 2007 what to do, do we continue with fertility drugs or do go down the path of adoption. We really felt a strong pull towards adoption and some of that reasoning was that we wanted to make sure the Gary got to meet at least one of our children. We are so thankful for the past year! Kaden loved his grandpa. And more importantly Gary loved watching Kaden play and he brought so much joy to Gary in the last year.

If there is anything that we have learned over the past 3 months, it is that you can not take each day for granted. Cancer is such an ugly thing and to be honest we never thought when Gary was diagnosed that we only had 2 months left with him. We took for granted that we would have many months left. We are thankful for the time we had with Dad/Grandpa Gary. He will forever be missed and thought of each day!

I have lots more to update on our family and Kaden. I will get new pictures out this weekend, however I really wanted to do just give our respects to Gary in one post.

"Grandparents hold our tiny hands for just a little while, but our hearts forever"- Author Unknown

Picture was taken at Kaden's Baptism September 2008

Mommy's Weekend

I was so excited this weekend I was going to have some alone time. I had planned a baby shower for a friend when we found out that Aaron's brother from CO was going to CR Iowa. He decided to take Kaden and our dog Kirby down to IA for the weekend. I was excited to have some time by myself, which I haven't had a weekend by myself since Kaden has been home! My sister decided to come for Friday and we went shopping which was great. I could tell I was coming down with a cold but I figured it would pass. Well by Saturday the cold was here in full force. Luckily I made it thru the baby shower, since I was hosting at it at my house with some friends. After the shower I crashed for 3 hours woke up to eat and watch a little TV and then I was back in bed. On Sunday I felt a little better and was able to do some scrapbooking of Kaden's baby book. Well today I'm still feeling under the weather. It just seems to be so ironic I get a weekend to myself and what do you know I get sick! I can say that when all my boys got home on Sunday I was very happy to see them! Kaden is changing each day with picking up new words and I really do hate to miss that. They had a great time in IA visiting grandma Mary and grandpa Gary. Kaden of course came back with lots of new toys! I'll have to post more pictures this week. I'm hoping to also upload a video of Kaden on a sit in spin! He loved it! Grandma had it for him to play with and this toy it totally Kaden's kind of toy.

So besides hearing about my downer of a weekend being sick, I have to share a new story of Kaden. About a week ago I asked Kaden if he was poopy, he responded "Not me". I died laughing b/c I wasn't sure where he had learned this. I've tried to get him to say "Not me" to other things but he only says it when you mention poopy. Today I talked to Laura, Kaden's Daycare lady, and she told me that she always ask the kids if they are poopy and they respond "Not me". She said that Kaden started doing this last week and she also found it so funny. I think this is just the beginning of "Not me" in our house, I'm sure there will be plenty more sightings!

1 Year

Today marks our 1 year since we met Kaden. This week has been so surreal for us. Our lives have changed so much in a year that it seems like it has been longer than 1 year. Today all I could think of was what March 24, 2008 felt like. I remember being so nervous that day. We were going to meet our son! Yet we weren't sure what medical issues we would see. I remember seeing the black and white photo of Kaden, which was not a good picture of him, but he still looked so cute! We talked to the MOE about the medical information they had. We were so excited b/c he was 9 months old and we wanted a baby if possible. I remember our agency reps kept saying this is good he is very young like you wanted and I kept thinking we are finally going to meet our baby! We then headed to the baby home to meet Kaden to find out he was actually in the hospital very sick. We talked and got all the information we could on medical and birth family background. After that we headed to the hospital. I will not forget meeting Kaden. We had just gotten into the room and all of a sudden this little baby boy was rolled into the room in his crib. He looked so confused as to what was going on. He did not cry or smile. He was just taking it all in. There were 6 adults waiting to meeting him! I picked him up out of the crib and he was so strong. He immediately wanted to stand up. He also loved to pull my hair. Once Aaron and I held him for a few minutes we let the doctor we had hired exam Kaden. Kaden got a clean bill of health physically. We knew that day meeting Kaden that he was our son. He was responding very positively to Aaron and me. The rest of the week went so fast between running paperwork around and spending as much time with Kaden as we possibly could.

Now fast forward one year later and I am amazed at how much our baby has changed! He is now a little boy. Each week he changes so much right now. He is talking a lot. He says at least 1 new word a day. We can basically communicate with him thru words now. I keep thinking back to how sick Kaden was for the first 9 months of his life. Since he has came home we have not had the problems he had then. I know his swallowing issues caused a lot of his sicknesses. I'm so thankful we have been working on this since being home 1 month and was able to figure out this was the problem. We are entering the 2year old attitude,which can be challenging some days, but the good days far out weigh the frustrating days. I also remember how when we came home I was so worried about attachment and if we were doing things right. Now I can say that I feel we are fully attached as a family.

To end this post I want to share with a story that happened last week. We have been working on putting Kaden to sleep without rocking him to sleep. Yes if you are wondering I am that mom that can't let go of the rocking time and I have been doing it for 10 months now! I just love that time and I wasn't ready to give it up but Kaden seems ready to go to sleep on his own so we are now working on this. Night 2 of doing this Kaden was still talking about 15 minutes after I had left the room. Aaron went into check on Kaden and tell him it was night night time. I still had the monitor on downstairs and I could hear everything. Aaron said to Kaden, "Night Night Kaden daddy loves you." To our surprise Kaden said back to Aaron, "Love you daddy." This is the first time he said love you! Aaron came downstairs with the biggest smile on his face and of course I was in tears b/c it was such a precious moment. Now I'll leave you with pictures over the past year.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

New Layout!!

I realize that the blog needed some love so I decided to change it up! Check out the side bar. I added pictures from Trip 1 to Month 8 of being home. You can see how much Kaden has changed. Thanks Becky & Karyn for reminding me I needed to do this! That was my intention at the beginning of the blog but I slacked off. But now here it is and it is amazing to see how much Kaden has changed. I can't even believe it looking at the pictures. He really was so small when we got him and really did look sick. Now he is a healthy boy! At his 18 month checkup he was 23 lbs, he has gained 8 lbs since being home. Let me tell you this boy can eat. When ever you ask him if he wants to eat he runs over to his highchair and says "Eat, Eat".

Wearing Mommy's Glasses

I wear glasses for reading and working on my computer. Kaden thinks it is so funny when I am wearing my glasses. He decided that he wanted to try them on. Here are some great pictures of Kaden in my glasses!! He loves to make people laugh. I think we may have a class clown on our hands. He latest thing is standing on the bottom step of our stairs and he says "I jump", then he tries to jump but mostly belly flops on the ground.