Michaelaroonie

My sweet Michaelaroonie! How are you Five years old already!? We love you so much, there are hardly words to describe how much you mean to us. You are so smart, and funny, and you are the smartest person I know. You have such a bright spirit and as most people who know you know, you keep us all on our toes! You got the nickname Roonie a long time ago, and it stuck. Mostly we call you Roonie, sometimes Roon, Rooney tunes, Roonalicious....etc. Sometimes after a long day the phrase around here is, "I've been Rooned"...and it's enough to describe a feeling! You are wise beyond your years, already sight reading many words, you can add and subtract and you are so logical it can be frustrating at times! Reading hundreds of stories is still a favorite way to pass your time. We have no idea where you learned to dance - but YOU CAN DANCE!!! You have such a sweet, honest testimony of the Gospel. You love President Monson and really want to give him a hug. There are a few "baby" things about you still, that I love:

-You are still desperate to win a "trumpy" after every game or contest

-Whenever you smell something stinky, you wonder if it was a "stunk," (The best word ever for an actual "skunk"

-You hate the sun in your eyes, you prefer to be in the "shood"

Other Things to remember:

-You bless that we can be safe at least 100 times each night

-You have daddy sing you the spanish version of "oh how lovely was the morning" and you are my sunshine at night.

-You love to go on dates with us individually

-You argue EVERYTHING!!!! You are going to be a lawyer!

-You are a wonderful big sister and Heidi just loves you!

We love you, you are beautiful and a ray of Sunshine in in our lives. Happy Birthday sweet Michaela Raylene!

Here are a few fun pictures of you "Fancy Nancy" birthday party. We had a bunch of little girls over and we painted fancy t-shirts, gave them some fancy tutu's and makeup and crowns and learned how to be fancy!! You had so much fun :)

Heidi, Lucy, Reagan and Michaela in their Fancy Hello Kitty dresses

Always the poser!
Right before your party, you got a black eye goofing around with Reagan!
Fancy Girls!!! (Heidi had fallen asleep already)
Make a wish on your Fancy Nancy Cake!
Daddy getting Fancy :)
Heidi LOVED getting fancy!!!!
Grandpa Sam reading a story at your party
Your Fancy Nancy Cake! Fancy Lessons!
A very fancy Reagan!
Heidi and Lucy painting the fancy shirts
Winn and Fife girls being princesses

Roonie, if I had to describe you in pictures, I would pick a sweet posing one above and the two below. You are my TORNADO!!!

And If I had to dedicate ONE SONG to dedicate to you, it would be this. I love you!!

PROOF of the DANCING!!!!

Adoption

Just like each person and family is unique, adoption can look different in each family. For example.....

Some adoptive families look just like ours and its hard for some people to understand that we are in fact an adoptive family!!

Even harder to understand, some adoptions can look nearly unrecognizable to the untrained eye....need an example of that too? -Don't worry, I've got one :)

Curious what this means? It means our family is expecting a baby on July 28th! This time though, we have adopted embryos, rather than an already born baby, so its me that is pregnant. Crazy right?! There are so many reasons we chose to do it this way this time, experiencing pregnancy is simply just one of them. Other reasons are not going through failed adoption after failed adoption, controlling the prenatal environment (however, we were thrilled with our other two kids' prenatal environments..) and the main one is that once you have one healthy child in adoption land - its really hard to add more for some reason.

I have struggled a little bit in deciding to do this. There are a few things that I really didn't/don't want to happen in this situation.

-I don't want people to be happy for me that I "Finally," get to experience pregnancy. I haven't been pining for that - I was pining to be a mom, and I have been one for about five years now. I am grateful to be pregnant, but mostly to be adding another person to our family. I have had a great pregnancy and it's been fun to be able to experience it, but it's not a bucket list item by itself. The new member of our family is the bucket list item :)

-I really don't want people to say, "I knew once you adopted you would have kids of your own!" Hello? Michaela and Heidi ARE mine. And this child is as genetically linked to me as my first two are - THEY AREN'T. Because of the power of the Temple though, they are mine, here on earth and forEVER.

-I really don't want my girls to think that I really wanted to be pregnant and I feel like I missed something with them. Truthfully? I can't imagine my life without my two little princess...AND their birthmom's/families/stories. They are such good girls and I love how they came into my life. This third child will be able to be breastfed and that is exciting to me, but not something I wished I could have done with my other two. I could have taken hormones and attempted to breastfeed them, but I didn't want to pretend they were biological, I wanted the world to know I am so proud of where they came from. Anyway, not to rant, I really just want people (you) to understand that a pregnancy is as much for me as it is for my current kids :)

SO. Be happy for us - WE ARE SO EXCITED! But don't be relieved for us, because we are so happy with how all our kids came here - all three of them! (Yikes...THREE KIDS!!)

This adoption is also open, we know the genetic family and love them very much. We are SO BLESSED in adoption to be able to have two healthy children with wonderful birth families, and another baby on the way with an equally wonderful genetic family. We are so happy to share our news with you and hope you share our joy with us! We truly feel blessed.

We're Here!!

Sorry for the lack of posts, it's not for a lack of events the last few weeks, just the opposite! We've been to pumpkin patches, Halloween parties, the Winn's came for Thanksgiving (pictures still on camera), and now we have an entire month of December to catch up on as well! At the very least, I will post these for Davea, who has asked me twice to update - SORRY!!!! We are grateful for such wonderful, healthy, full of life little girls and could not be happier with life right now. I really can't wait to post again - we have news we hope to share with you all!!!!

Heidi is two!!! (on the 21st)

Two Minutes

Two Hours

Two Days

Two Weeks

Two Months

Two Years!!! (She took treats to Michaela's class)

Sometimes I think parenting is a big mean joke. Heavenly Father gives us these special babies, and makes them so sweet and perfect and wonderful, and makes us think it will last forever....(not including the Eternal perspective) and then He grows them up so fast we don't even know where the time went! How is it possible that Heidi is already two? On the other hand though, it just seems as if she has always been a part of our lives. She is truly such a blessing and we love her so, SO much. Such a sweet little doll baby, she is the peacemaker in our home. If we ask her to do something, her response is, "Ok mommy, I do it." Or, "Yes, I can!" She is such a joy, very quick to snuggle or ask for a huggie, she adores her big sister, and looks for her all day. I just can't say enough about how essential Heidi is to our family, we love her so much and are to grateful to have her!

I tried to do a little birthday survey for Heidi this year and it went like this....

Mommy: Heidi, what is your favorite food?

Heidi: Yes, I want to eat.....

Mommy: Heidi, who do you love?

Heidi: Daddy home?

So we gave up for now! Below is a funny that Heidi said.....I hope to keep track of hers like I did Michaela's!

Heidi got in trouble for putting toys in the fridge....after I scolded her she came up to me with a very deep scowl and said, ""HEY. You be nice at Heidi Michelle Fife!"

I failed to post on Ericka's birthday, but we love her as much as our own daughters and are so proud of her too. She is truly one of my best friends and I love our relationship! Happy Birthday Ericka and we can't wait for your annual visit!!!

Sleep Study

So you know how I complain a lot that Michaela never sleeps? And that I swear I am not exaggerating when I say she still gets up EVERY night at least five or six times? Well, folks - I am not crazy! We finally took her in for a sleep study where the dr confirmed to me that normal kids do not wake up more than once a night, and even once a night consistently is not alright. Even going to the bathroom at night every night is not normal! Anyway. I took her in for an actual sleep study. I bribed her with new jammies, and a stuffed animal. She HATED that they put all the sensors on her, and pretty much screamed the entire twenty minutes it took the guy to get them on her. He took her out to the middle area where they watched us sleep and showed her to computer monitors and what they did when she moved or held her breath or anything like that. She thought that was pretty interesting. So we get into bed, and I got her to sleep with my fantastic singing after about ten minutes. I sang all primary songs and held none of my skills back ;) As soon as I drifted off to sleep, the guy came in and said since she was deeply sleeping he was going to put the nose sensor in. I told him he is crazy if he thought she would just stay sleeping and let him do that! He did anyway and duh- she woke up and freaked. It took me another 45 minutes of singing to get her back to sleep with that thing up her nose! This time though, I sang a little Taylor Swift, some Praise to the Man, all the Primary songs I knew and then I even threw in a little Gaga :) Yes, Seriously - Lady Gaga.

Anyway, she woke up her normal amount of times and it took me the normal amount of time to coax her back to sleep. The next morning she screamed again to get the sensors off but was very happy to get her complimenentary chocolate muffin (Me too!) and get the heck out of there! The best/worst part? On the way out, the sleep technician told us to have a great day and told me I had a very wonderful singing voice - because he can hear us all night!!!!!!!!! I didn't think about that!!! I was very careful to sleep modestly because I knew he could see me, but I didn't realize he could hear me singing LADY GAGA!!!!

Our follow up was today and the dr was semi surprised to read that over the coarse of the night she woke herself up 21 times, and at least one or twice of that EACH HOUR was because she was not getting enough oxygen. 21 times folks!!!! The solution? Watch her weight as she gets older so she doesn't become overweight, and wait it out. OR - we could try to wrestle a sleep mask on her each night. He said that they don't even attempt that anymore though because this age group just doesn't cooperate with that. I could have told him that! Anyway, there is a problem, but since she has already had her tonsils and adenoids out, there really isn't anything we can do about it right now. At least I know that I am not crazy! And that locking her in her room which I have never been able to bring myself to do, or punishing her in any other way won't work because there is something clinically wrong. At least I have the satisfaction of knowing that I am not ruining her or bringing this on myself by letting her get away with it. I am so, SO, grateful that I have listened to the Spirit when I felt like she wasn't too spoiled or doing this to be mean. I feel so relieved that I am not guilt ridden today after finding out that it is not her fault she wakes up so frequently. So, blessings is disguise! Tired, bloodshot eyes, impatient disguise, but blessings in disguise nonetheless!! Here are a few pictures. Mostly for my own documentation, they aren't fun to look at because she is sad, but she will want to see them someday.

Twice in a week!!!!

This is a record lately!!! I also wanted to journal about early September activities and since I only meet the bare minimum requirements for Heaven, I use this as my only journal :) The beginning of September was so beautiful! We went to an outdoor resort near our house almost every day and Michaela learned to swim! (Doggy paddle.....) She was so excited and I am so proud of her! But the best part? Michelle and Shannon came to visit!!!!!!!!!!!!! We had so much fun and Shannon makes me so baby hungry I can hardly stand it! Of course, I took Michelle out by my parents house - Forks WA to visit our dear friend Edward Cullen ;) Our girls stayed with my parents and it was just a mommy date! I love Michelle!!! Wish we lived closer but the distance makes our visits that much sweeter. It's weird that we didn't really take the camera out too often as we are such avid scrapbookers - but there aren't that many pictures to document the trip! All the pictures of the girls are on her camera and the Forks trip is on mine. Shannon is DELICIOUS!

Of course we went to Forks!! PS - we are not twilight diehards, but we saw the first movies together and we thought it would be fun to go here together - and it WAS!

Makes sense that we bought scrapbook stuff right?!

Hello Jacob :)

Bella's House

Grandpa Jon and Shawnie at Alderbrook Resort

Learning to Swim!

Scrumptious!

Rock Star anyone?!

What? Can't you tell that the broom is the microphone stand and the purple playspoon is the microphone? I could :)

Time for an Update!

Another wonderful month at Sunnyside! (Yeah, we named our house....get it? It's yellow and has a cool view of the sunny side of the hill.....? Go with us here!) We had some beautiful visitors (Winn Girls) and the most handsome Winn guy I know - Miles! I loved having my sister here for four days. Sister's are so wonderful and I really miss mine sometimes. I'm so glad she lives closer so I can see her and her sweet babies more! My parents joined the fun too of course and while it was crowded, it was priceless! During the Relief Society Broadcast, we left Jordan and my dad with the four girls and we took Miles. My dad's big idea? Finger painting with four girls ages four and under! Mission accomplished and they had a blast! Those pictures must be on my phone......

We have lots going on at our house! Getting ready for mine and Heidi's birthday, anticipating another visit from Ericka, whose birthday is just two weeks before Heidi's. And then there is mine.....eight days after Heidi's! Also, I hope Davea is out there somewhere reading this - WE MISS YOU and hope you are ok! (Can't find her right now....Prayers please!) We love having Shawnie living with us, she got to go to her homecoming dance last week and looked beautiful! We feel very blessed this month, and our new saying that I will be framing is - "In our family we do not say lucky, we say Blessed!" How true it is at the Fife house!

Below are pictures, what you all really come here for. Thanks for reading my monthly update.

Shawnie and her friends at Homecoming. They had a Disney theme so she and her friend went as Rapunzel and Flynn Ryder. His costume was the easiest costume I have made!!! I need some boys next!!

Winn and Fife girls going crazy when Grandpa walked in the door!!

Happy 2nd Birthday Sweet Lucy!

Slumber party in Michaela's Room! Heidi and Miles crashed long before this, but these three stuck it out in with Grandma and Grandpa - brave grandparents!!

Reagan and Michaela

The main women in my life! Jordan was a little uneasy with all the estrogen floating around!!

Capes! Or dresses, depending on the game :)

Trying so hard for a picture of all four of them.....we bagged the attempt and took them to Penny's!

Sweet, kissable Miles - I miss you so!!!! (We are soulmates!)

And what post would be complete without a picture of Jordan doing what he has become recently obsessed with - Frog catching?!?!