Sticker Power

There is something called sticker obsession that is going on in the Birkeland home at the moment. Emmi used to hate anything that stuck to her. She would panic until someone helped her get it off. It all changed on one particular night.

I had all the Young Women over one evening, so Brian took Emmi out on a couple of errands. They went to Office Max and she picked out a package of stickers. She brought them home and soon every girl had a sticker on their forehead or hands. By the end of the night this is how she looked.




Hilarious. I am still picking up stickers in the most random places. All her dolls are plastered with stickers. Our furniture, floors, and clothes have been tagged. I can't complain about the obsession because it entertains her for hours.

Dinner Out....Gone Bad

We rarely dare anymore to go out to dinner with Emmi these days. First of all you never know if it will be the time she eats well, or when she takes a bite and says, "all done" and fights you until you let her down and then she roams the restaurant and begs for everyones attention around her.

So tonight was the night we dared to go out. Now, we didn't set our expectations too high. We went fast food thinking how can you go wrong? We walked into "Eat a Burger" with high hopes it would be an enjoyable meal. Boy were we mistaken.

First of all, we ordered her a kids meal....why do we ever do that? She never eats it. Second, all she would do is dip her fry in the sauce and then lick the sauce. There's a point when you call that quits. When you look over and she is still working on the same fry and the sauce is gone. We told her to bite the dang fry. So she does. Somehow she doesn't chew it and tries to swallow it whole. She starts choking. Finally she got the fry back up with several blows to the back. Nevermind the sound effects here people. Then she starts coughing with her smokers cough that she can't kick. All of sudden everything comes back up. I mean fountain of throw-up. All over our food, down her, and all over the seat. We just sit there looking at each other. Emmi says, "I throw up" No???????? really??????

The sweet girls helped us clean everything up. Appetites are now gone and we kinda just slither ourselves out of the place with Emmi's clothes in a garbage sack and a naked girl. Fun Saturday night out eh???

Christmas 2008!

I haven't posted any of our Christmas photos yet. Since this blog is somewhat of a journal I felt like I needed to write down the memories of Christmas 2008. So before you see these pictures I wanted to say that I was so excited for Christmas this year with Emmi. She understood that a "scary" man named Santa Claus would come and bring her toys. The thing she didn't understand, nor cared to understand was how many toys He would bring and what He would bring. She just wanted "A toy".




On Christmas morning she walked into the family room and she didn't even know how to react. Toys everywhere. She didn't know where to even begin. Could overstimulus be an understatement? Ummm....yeah....for sure.

She did go straight to her kitchen after coaching her that she could actually go and touch some of these toys. She was in heaven with the kitchen. Setting the table, eating all the play food, cooking eggs, serving drinks. It was a kick watching her and her imagination come to light. She could have cared less about anything else in the room. After becoming so tired of saying, "hey look Emmi what is in this package?", or "what else to did Santa bring you Emmi?". Finally we gave up. For two weeks after Christmas we still had unopened presents under the tree. In fact most went into the closet for Emmi's Birthday.






post Christmas let down!



So the moral to this story is tell the big scary man "Santa" no more than 3 toys max.

We did have an awesome December. Our home felt so warm and festive, no one was sick, lots of family Christmas parties, and lots of just hanging out listening to Christmas music and admiring our favorite Christmas tree ever. There always seems to be some magic feeling in the air about Christmas time and I am always sad to see it end, but it is always so fun to bring in a new year and hope to have it better than the last. Happy New Year everyone and I hope we can all make it a happy, healthy, and prosperous year.

In Memory of my baby boy!!!

Ever since I found out that we are having a baby boy I can not help but to reflect upon my little Raggy Birkeland. I know I haven't mentioned him on our family blog, but most of you know he was our first little boy that was just too sick to endure this life. I remember when I finally got pregnant again with Emmi we were so surprised when we found out it was a girl. We thought for sure it was a boy and that we would be able to have a little boy come back to us to fill that empty void we felt. But, of course we didn't care we just wanted to take home a healthy strong baby. Our dream did come true.

For the past 3 1/2 years I have kept this huge storage bin of all of Raggy's clothes that I had bought while I was pregnant. Yes, my mom and I went crazy and shopped and shopped for this little boy. But, when things went rotten I wanted to take them all back, or give them away. Seeing them only reminded me of what I didn't have and all the pain we had gone through. I didn't care about the stupid clothes, I just wanted my baby boy. So, for all these years this bin of clothing got stuck in my mom's basement.

On New Years Day we spent the day at my mom's. My mom made mention of the clothes, which literally I think I had blocked from my memory for coping sake. We brought the huge bin up from the basement and went through all of it and separted all of it into sizes. I never thought in a million years that I would be able to put those clothes on a baby of mine. We are so happy for this baby boy. I feel like it is an answer to our prayers from years ago. It finally has been granted. This new little boy appears perfect, and all we can do now is pray that my body can keep him in until he is ready to come healthy and strong.

Guess what a birdie told me?

Emmi is thinking really hard about it.

This is probably super OLD NEWS.... but...........



That is right! I am now 20 weeks pregnant and we found out it is a BOY!!!
Holy cow I am so super excited but then again so super nervous. A boy...What do I do with a boy? My whole world has been GIRL. Brian is still pinching himself that he will get to do all the boy stuff. We were just banking on all girls since that seems to be the trend in his family.

Everything has been going rather smoothly so far. About 5 weeks ago I went into surgery for a cervical cerclage, which is a stitch in my cervix to keep the baby in even if my cervix thins. It isn't a for sure thing, but I pray it will help. I go in to the Dr. every 2 weeks for cervix checks. So far everything looks great. Next week is a big appointment since this is the week things went bad when I was pregnant with Emmi.

I have quit work for the remainder of my pregnancy just to assure fewer contractions and fewer complications. I somehow don't feel one bit bad. I will miss my friends but I am sure we will keep in touch.

I am thankful for all the support I have already been given and we now just pray that this baby comes to us healthy and strong.