TIme for an update....Happy Holidays!!

So...it has been a while since I have updated.

Not a ton has changed around our house except that Mikaela is growing and changing a little bit everyday. She is recognizing each of us in our family and smiles a TON!! Brother gets the most smiles from her, she sure does love her brother.

Christmas was pretty relaxing for us. We stayed here in Texas where there was less snow than Nebraska. Christmas Eve we opened gifts at home and Dad, Bonnie and our friend Alex joined us for dinner and the opening gifts. Landon was excited and had a great time opening all of his gifts and Mikaela's gifts. She slept through most of the evening after one of her evening fits. Bonnie took over and did great with her and got her to sleep. She loves her Mimi and Didi!!

Then on Christmas day we opened our gifts from Santa and then went out to Mike and Janet's house for the day of Rowland Family Christmas. Another fun time of opening gifts with the family and again Mikaela slept through that event...morning nap time.

I went back to work for a couple weeks before Christmas break started and Mikaela started daycare. At first it was stressful with many daycare changes for many reasons and prayers were answered and we found an AWESOME daycare for Mikaela to go to. She loves it there. She gets excited in the mornings when dad drops her off and is happy in the afternoon when mom and brother pick her up.

I promise for the new year to do a better job at updating this for you all to enjoy!!

Halloween

Last weekend we went to the pumpkin patch. Landon had a great time feeding the animals, playing around and going on a hay rack ride. Mikaela slept the whole visit. Then one night during the week, Mikey and Landon carved the big pumpkin just as Landon wanted it carved.



We had a great time trick-or-treating over the weekend. Friday night we went to downtown Greenville and went around the square. It was crazy but nice that Mike could go with us to help Landon and we didn't have to have Mikaela in the stroller in the crazy crowds. Landon was Iron Man both nights but Mikaela was just dressed in a pumpkin outfit Friday night and was a Ladybug on Saturday.

Saturday evening we went over and went trick-or-treating with Aiden. They had a great time and Mikaela just hung out in the stroller again and was wide awake most of the time that we were out walking around.

Mikaela in her first outfit on Friday...spit up all over it before we got to go out.
Landon getting some candy downtown with Mikey.

Mikaela hanging out in the stroller while Landon and Aiden were trick-or-treating.


Landon as Iron Man and Aiden as Tin Man going up to get some candy...they are so big that they go up to the door by themselves...it was great!

Mikaela Denice Rowland is here!!!

She was born on October 9, 2009 at 6:52

She weighed in at 7 pounds 1 ounce

She has a beautiful head of black hair

She is a great baby. She did great on our 12 hour trip from NE to TX. When we came to town we went straight to pick up Landon so he could meet his new little sister. It was pretty late at night and he was sleeping, so she tried to wake him up but was not very successful.

Landon is in LOVE with his new sister. He is the best helper that we could ever ask for.

We also had pictures taken at the hospital on Saturday morning. You can look at them for 90 days from the date of the picture on this website.

www.our365.com

here is the info you will need to find us.

Birthday--October 9, 2009
Last name--Rowland
City--Greenville TX

Then you will find her little webpage with pictures. She was born in Lincoln NE.

Sorry to cut this short but I will post again soon. About to head to bed while Mikaela is sleeping for a bit. I will also post pictures on Facebook as we take them too.

Be looking for more updates as things happen around our house. Hoping to schedule a newborn photo shoot and a family photo shoot soon and then in a couple weeks the 2 kids are getting pictures together in their Halloween costumes.

Thanks to everyone for all the kind words to our family during this very exciting time in our lives. We will FOREVER LOVE and RESPECT Mikaela's birth parents and are very grateful that we can have her and them in our family now.

The time is almost here!!!

Just a quick update to let you all know that we have a plan of when Mikaela will be here.

She will be induced on the 14th during the evening and will hopefully here sometime on the 15th.

We are ALL really excited. Landon can't wait for his sister to get here and Mike is working really hard on getting her room ready. It probably won't be ready when she gets home but it will be close. Hopefully by next weekend we will have some of the laminate flooring down and the walls painted. Not to stressed since she will be in our room for a bit to begin with anyway and her furniture isn't here yet either but should be here soon.

So we have a plan ready for us to get our princess home soon. I am going to be leaving Texas about lunch time on the 14th and Mike is going to fly up there on the 16th. His family has some things going on that we decided that he needs to stay back a few days for. Landon is going to be staying here with some friends and with my dad for a bit. We didn't want him to miss to much school while we went to pick her up because we wanted to keep him home a bit while I was off work.

Just wanted to post a quick update on what is going on here with Mikaela Denice Rowland. The next post will be when she is here with us as part of our family!!!

Here are a few pictures of her bedroom furniture that we have ordered for her!!



I will also post again once her bedroom is 100% complete, so be looking for that post too!!!

Our Big Secret...

Some of you know our big secret and some of you don't so I will start from the beginning of the story.

As most of you know, Mike and I have been trying since March of 2008 to have a baby and have not been very successful until this May. We found out on May 23, the day after Landon graduated from Kindergarten that we were FINALLY expecting our bundle of joy that we have been praying for. Everything was going great, but we continued to pray for a healthy baby.

Then on June 22nd the scariest thing happened that could happen when you are pregnant, I started spotting. So we took Landon to my dad's and headed out to the ER to find out, hoping for the best. Well, we didn't get the best news...our baby had no heartbeat and to follow up with our OB the next day. So we did and he said the same thing, no heartbeat and the baby stopped growing at 7 weeks and we thought we were 9 weeks pregnant. It was really scary and we didn't know what to do but cry and be there for each other. The Dr. scheduled me to have a D & C on the 25th. All went fine with that and my mom came to be with us during that procedure. We were both really glad that she came down to be with us.

We were adjusting pretty well to what had just happened. We knew that God had a plan for us and our baby. We also knew that we did not do anything that could have prevented what happened.

Then a few days later, we received a phone call from mom with an answer to our prayers. She knew a teenage girl that was 6 months pregnant and she and the father knew that they are not ready to be parents. So mom told us about this situation and Mike and I both decided that this was our answer to our prayers for a healthy baby. We decided that we would LOVE to adopt the baby and have her become part of our family...that is right, the baby is a girl.

So we have started the process to adopt the baby girl. She will be born around the end of October and we will be on our way up there as soon as we hear she is on her way to see us. Landon is really excited to be a big brother to a little sister. Her name is going to be Mikaela Rowland, middle name still up for debate.

While we are going through the process to adopt Mikaela, Mike is going to adopt Landon. So we will all be a big, happy Rowland family by the spring.

We just really wanted to share these details with our friends and family. We are going to be using this blog as a way to update everyone on our life and the kids. We hope you are all as excited for our new family member as we are.

Check back for more details as they happen. Mike has started to redo her bedroom, so soon we will post pictures of that as it progresses.

New adventures in our life

Just a first post to get this started. I will be posting new and exciting adventures that happen in our family. A fun way to keep everyone updated and to let you "watch" Landon grow.