Weekend Visit to Spokane & Sandpoint

We had a really great weekend visiting friends and family on the "other side" of the mountains. Last Thursday we drove over to Spokane and spent the night at Tim & Megan's. Friday we had a nice relaxed morning with Auntie Megan and then stopped by the Spokane XO office to visit my co-workers there. From there we went to John & Carmen's to meet Mr. Luke (and visit the rest of the family). He is a darling baby and so quiet compared to our two wiggle worms!

Friday evening we had a delightful dinner and visit with Doug, Debbie, Connor, Nathan and Debbie's cousin Brenda. It was so fun to catch up with them again - it had been far too long since we spent any time together.

Friday and Saturday nights we spent with Grandma Rosie near Sandpoint and Saturday for lunch we went to Sandra, Alberto & Gene's place for a WONDERFUL REAL ITALIAN lunch. For those of you who don't know...Sandra was raised here but lived in Italy for many years. She and her husband Alberto moved to the US 6 or 7 years ago to be near her mother Gene. The babies got cooed over in Italian and renamed! That's right - some American sounds/names are too hard for Alberto so Elijah was given the Italian pronunciation (El - ee - ah) which we both quite like and Peytine Melody-Ann was called Anna (ahh-na).

Sunday we had lunch at Stan's new place in Couer d'Alene - he has it fixed up really nice even though he's only been there for 3 weeks and let me tell you the steak he fixed was FABULOUS!

I should just say right up front that I didn't do a great job as a photojournalist of our weekend...I got a few pictures but not nearly enough. So here are the pictures I have and hopefully will get a few more from Uncle Tim & Auntie Megan since they took several while we were at their place.

Here is Mr. Luke ... looking so adorable sitting on Mommy's lap.


Caelyn holding Peytine:


Carlee holding Elijah:


Thing 1 & Thing 2 at Doug & Debbie's place:


Grandma Rosie has her arms full:


Sandra & Alberto with El-ee-ah and Anna:


Elijah looked so cute in both of these that I just couldn't resist putting them both in:



Oh - and to make things a little more interesting, we brought a new kitty over for Grandma Rosie. Her name is Sweat Pea and she is settling in quite nicely!:


And for those of you who wonder how I work with two babies at home:

(Actually, I have to confess, the real answer to how I do it is our neighbor Kay! I'll try to snag a picture of her and the babies soon.)

Here is one final picture - not from the weekend but I just found it on my cell phone and thought it needed to be posted. This is Uncle Todd holding Peytine at Aunt Velma's.

Nana & Bobpa visit etc

Jean's parents Bob & Shirley (aka Bobpa and Nana) visited Sunday through Tuesday. Here are a few photos of their time with us.







Glen & Hazel came for dinner:


Aunt Velma with Elijah:


Aunt Velma with Peytine:


This weekend we are off to meet our new nephew Luke and introduce Elijah & Peytine to lots of other family members: Uncle John & Auntie Carmen, cousins Caelyn, Carlee and Luke; Auntie Megan and Uncle Tim, Grandma Rosie and Uncle Stan. We also hope to see Auntie Lisa and cousins Johanna, Tati and Rogerio.

More Pictures & Garage Sale update

Adoption Fundraiser Garage Sale Update:

Several have asked how the big Garage sale went so we wanted to let you know that it went really well. We sold probably 70% of what we had and the rest was donated to Goodwill. We had a few items that we kept after the sale to sell on Craigslist and between those and the garage sale day we made right about $600. Thanks again so much to those who donated to the cause: Garry & Nancy, Tim & Megan, DeAnna & Bob, Jen & Adrian, James & Tamara and special thanks to neighbors Tamara and Kay for helping with pricing and to Kay who helped ALL DAY on Saturday. We appreciate all of you.

In other news...from my previous post you know that we have a new nephew - Luke Andrew. Here are a couple of pictures of Luke and his big sisters Caelyn & Carlee. We are looking forward to meeting Luke and seeing the rest of the family in a couple of weeks.




We've been busy with the camera around here too...such great subjects! Here are a few pictures of Peytine and Elijah from the last week.

In their new outfits on Sunday:


arm in arm in their crib:

Happy at Bedtime:

Holding hands:

With cousin Leah who came to visit over the weekend:

Leah and Elijah napping:

Turn that frown:

Upside down:

Elijah & Peytine

Here are a few pictures of the babies from this week. They are such good babies - rarely fuss and very smiley and happy most of the time.

Peytine on the left and Elijah on the right:




Peytine Cutie Pie:


Happy Boy:


Watson the crib guard:


Melanie & Alexia come for a visit:



In other news...they both slept through their first wednesday night bible study...it was so fabulous!!

Surprise Babies

Darin and I have decided to become foster parents again...today 4 month old boy/girl twins were placed with us. This is a "long term" foster placement. There is some possibility that these babies will become available for adoption but for now, for our own sanity, we are viewing this as a foster placement only.

The babies names are Peytine (girl - pronounced Pay-ton) and Elijah (boy). They were born May 7th of this year so are almost 5 months old. They were born premature at almost 35 weeks and are very healthy and developmentally on target but a little small compared to a full term 5 month old.

We found a zip lock bag with several professionally taken photos of the babies in their diaper bag so it's nice to have a pictoral history of them. I scanned in a few of the photos for your viewing pleasure. Also - we took a few pictures tonight and they are below as well.

We'll share more as things progress but wanted to get this update out tonight for those of you that are anxiously awaiting pictures.

They are fairly close to newborn in this photo:



Here is Elijah:



And Peytine:



These are fairly recent pictures of the two of them together:




Here is a picture of Darin and Elijah in one of those happy full baby tummy moments!



Here is Peytine after she finally fell asleep in the Moby Wrap:



And here is one of me with both of them - you can tell that Elijah is a bit bigger than Peytine:

Garage Sale

You might have guessed from the last post that our Adoption Fundraiser garage sale originally scheduled for 9/20 has been postponed.

Our garage sale will be Saturday 9/27 from 9 AM - 4 PM.

We are definitely still accepting donations to the cause!!

Lemonade

Sometimes life gives you lemons but what I've learned is that they make the sweetest lemonade if you can find the courage to squeeze the sweetness out of the experience.

My dear cousin Christina passed away on Friday after a very courageous 2 and a half year battle with cancer. She was only 24. In spite of what might seem like a tragedy of a life cut short, she was an amazing example to all of us. Her spirit of acceptance was really remarkable - she definitely made lemonade out of the lemons she was handed and was a beautiful person inside and out. We will miss her but our lives have been enrinched by having seen her sweet smile and the sparkle in her eyes, for having felt her kind, courageous spirit and known the warmth of her love. Please keep her sweet husband Kerry and her family in your thoughts and prayers.

Here is a photo of Kerry & Christina and their dogs from their Christmas card last year.



I received the news of her death on my way to Seattle on Friday to participate in the Alex's Lemonade Stand cancer fundraiser that my company does every year. This year we lucked out and our Seattle office was able to put up our stand in front of Whole Foods on Westlake Avenue. They donated Organic Lemonade for us and gave us a great location. Alex's Lemonade Stand is a non-profit organization that raises money to fight childhood cancers. Alex was a little girl that was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 4 and decided to have a lemonade stand to raise money to find a cure for cancer. Before she died at the age of 8 she had raised over $1 million with her lemonade stand. You can donate to our team's fundraising effort at this link. Our goal is to raise $4000 - so far we are just over the $1000 mark with over $600 of that made on Friday selling lemonade.

Our team was very moved by the news of Christina's passing that very morning and everyone inspired to dedicate our efforts that day to Christina. Thanks Seattle XO team - your extra efforts were definitely noticed.

This year Darin built us a stand to use - it turned out great! The best part is it breaks down and is easily storable so we can use it every year when we do our fundraiser.

Here is a photo of our stand with some of the Seattle XO office team.



So - when life hands you lemons...make lemonade.