The "best" is HERE!!

After 4+ years of waiting, our dream of becoming parents is finally a reality! We wanted to be able to share this journey with our friends and family via this blog. We were blessed with the birth of our embryo adopted daughter Makenna Lee on June 2, 2010. We were doubly blessed on October 14, 2013 when Alexander Brooks was born. Alexander and Makenna are genetic siblings and we are so very thankful to their Texas Fan Club for sharing the gift of life with us!

Monday, November 15, 2010

ADOPTION DAY!!

Today was a very special day for us! We formally adopted Makenna into our family - a day in which we were able to celebrate her unique story! Our court hearing was scheduled for 11am and after a bit of a late start, all went very well. We spent the day as a family, eating lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and then off to do a little shopping and then home to have some good fun playtime together. What a GREAT DAY!

The judge couldn't resist holding her. Don't worry, she didn't spit up on him (thank goodness!)

LOVES her daddy!

Right after we left the courtroom, she was ALL smiles!

This is her new favorite face to make - she sucks on her bottom lip. Too stinkin' cute!

SO pretty:)

A little tummy time with my favorite fluffy dress!

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Chillin at Grandma and Grandpa's

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Thursday, November 11, 2010

Dirty girl...

Fun with mommy at the park

Swingin away

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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Funny new toy

The funniest part about this one is that she was SO crabby before this - I stuck her in her high chair so I could finish eating my dinner and start getting her cereal ready. I put the new toy on her high chair and she just startd squealing and laughing at it. Too cute!!

I've been trying to get her to laugh all week with no luck - guess she just needed a fun new toy to explore:)

No nap for me

Ok, this one is from last week but I'm finally getting some videos off my phone - this one is just for you Grandpa Best!

Enjoying the swings at the park with the sitter:)

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Solid foods, here I come!!

Before....

After....

All smiles:)

And now, all clean!!

Zoo day!

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Saturday, November 6, 2010

Off to buy me some TOYS!

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Friday, November 5, 2010

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Fun in the tub

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PT wipes me out!

Makenna did very good at PT today. PT says she has more of a weak muscle issue than anything on her left neck muscle so it will be lots of tummy time and repositioning to get her to look over her right shoulder more. We go back weekly for 8 weeks to learn more exercises and monitor her progress.

Getting ready for my PT appointment

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Baby Dedication

Sunday was a very special day for us as we celebrated Makenna's baby dedication at our church.

What exactly is a "baby dedication" you ask? Well, as believers in Jesus Christ, we desire to make a commitment before God and our church to submit Makenna to God's will and to raise her according to God's Word and God's ways. We are first, thanking God for the precious gift He has given us. We are making a promise to the Lord to do everything in our power to raise Makenna in a godly way, prayerfully until she can make a decision on her own to follow God. We are making a commitment to teach and train her in God's word, demonstrate godliness in our home, discipline according to God's ways and pray for her.

We were asked to choose a bible verse for the occasion and we chose the following 2 verses:

"As surely as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the LORD. I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD." And he worshiped the LORD there. 1 Samuel 1:26-28

"God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son." Ephesians 1: 5-6

It was an amazing day as we stood in front of our church looking out at all of our family members that made the trip to Milwaukee for the weekend to share with us and at the congregation that has been supporting us and praying for us on this journey. We had a wonderful celebration at our house afterwards with family, too. Thank you to all of you that have supported us and prayed for us on this journey and for those of you that were able to share in our special day! Makenna truly is a gift from God and we are so excited to see how He will use her to continue to glorify Him.

Here we are on stage right after the prayer over Makenna. Shelly was holding her during the prayer and she fussed the whole time.

As soon as she gave her back to me, she stopped crying:) Good girl!

She took a good nap towards the end of service and was NOT happy to be woken up! Too bad b/c it was such a cute family picture otherwise.

Oh boy, no more pictures mommy!

5 months!!

Happy 5 months Makenna!!!

In usual fashion, guess who woke up shortly after midnight to let us know it was her birthday? She does it every month - totally cracks us up. Last night it was at 12:20am and she woke up jibber jabbering away - Brad and I both got up and went in her room and her face lit up with smiles and she just kept right on a singing. I'm pretty sure she was singing "happy birthday to me!"

Here is a video of her from today:

And some fun pics from today:

Such a happy girl!!

Killer eyes!

Pure chubbs!

So pretty

Look at me, I know I'm SO stinkin cute!

Some fun facts:

-I am now officially in my crib. I had started getting up once during the middle of the night again anyway for a feeding so mommy and daddy decided to put me in the crib and see what happened. I did great the first night - no spitup on my pretty hair in the morning and I only got up once. Since then, I haven't been doing quite as well, but I have a bit of a bug and that might be part of it, too.

-I am a SUPER happy baby!

-I love to spit all over the place - daddy taught me how to stick out my tongue and make a spitty mess and I can't stop. Lots of nights I will wake up in my crib and just lay there spitting all over the place:)

-I'm a CHUNK - last week's doctor visit I measured in at 16lbs 8oz!

-My neck is slowly getting stronger - doctor thinks I have torticollis (where one sides neck muscles are shorter than the other) so I start PT to help stretch them out and straighten out my neck this Friday.

-I love my exersaucer! It lights up and plays fun music - red, yellow and bluuuue!

-I like it when mommy takes me for walks in the baby bjorn. I can look all around and see the pretty trees

-I am starting to notice Bugsey more. I will just sit and stare at him when I'm in my bumbo and on a few occassions, I've reached out and grabbed a handful of his fur.

-While I've been giggling for a few months now, I haven't had that big laugh out loud giggle until just this week. Its the CUTEST thing ever!

-I haven't figured out how to put my feet in my mouth yet, but I sure do like to look at them and try to figure out how to.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

My first giggles.....

Great weekend!!

Saturday my cousins Madison, Bryce and Drew came and we went trick or treating

So stinkin' cute!

Sunday was my baby dedication - here I am up on stage at church with mommy and daddy.

We had a big party at my house after the baby dedication - ALL my cousins were there! Here we are with Great Grandma Cookie Beek.

Havin' fun with Auntie Vicki

I LOVE my party dress!!

Big Day!

Today is Makenna's baby dedication!!

At this hour (2am here), trying to convince the little star of the day (Makenna, not Brad) that she has a big day ahead of her and needs her sleep. So far, its not working. I think she knows she's too cute to need anymore beauty sleep;)

I'd post a pic with this one, but don't want to encourage her to smile at the camera at this hour;).

Friday, October 29, 2010

Monday, October 25, 2010

Vote for Makenna

http://photos.parents.com/category/vote/photo/545189

I posted some of the pumpkin pics on the Parents.com website and entered them into their cute weekly kids contest. Please follow this link to vote for the "sad pumpkin" photo to help us win $250:)