Cloth and wool...

We visited our friends at the local diaper shop on Thursday and both Estuardo and Onnolee got new "woolies", wool diaper covers. It hasn't been much harder cloth diapering two as opposed to one, we run a load of diapers about every 2 days now instead of every 3. We used disposable diapers while we were in Guatemala and I just couldn't hardly wait to get home to our cloth and wool. The disposables just seem so...paper...

And the mystery guest is...
Estuardo in his new Lana night soaker!
Onnolee in her "rainbow short" prefold diaper from Green Mountain Diaper Company.
And her new Aristocrat wooly!

Babywatching

My husband laughs at me because I am so enthralled watching the babies grow and learn to do things. Estuardo got a bunch of Fisher Price Little People toys for Christmas and it just amazes me how he automatically knows how to drive his cars in the garage and put the horses in the barn...he's only 21 months old! I am so happy that he is enjoying his toys!

Okay, Mama, go away!!
And then of course there's little Miss Smiley!!!
CHEESE!!!

Settling in

Well, after 2 weeks of no sleep for Mom or Dad, Onnolee is finally starting to -mostly- sleep through the night instead of crying every half hour. She only wakes up twice or so to suck bottle and goes right back to sleep. She is finally starting to drink 4 or 5 ounces out of her bottle all at once, instead of 1/2 ounce spurts here and there. After 2 weeks of refusing to eat anything except torn up pieces of bread, she ate chicken, carrots, cereal and a whole container of mango dessert tonight along with her bread and cereal puffs.
After 2 nights of fairly decent sleep, I almost feel normal...

Feeling a little better!!!

Oops, where's Estuardo?

Ahh, there he is! Having a little snack...
Momentarily getting along fine!
Awww~~~little princess!

"ROCK" a BYE baby!!!

Ha, should I give it a name?? 6 days of hard labor...whew!!

FINALLY SOME PICS!!!

What next?

We've been facing one disaster after another for the past 2 weeks. We missed our connecting flight in Houston after arriving 45 minutes late and then taking over an hour to get through customs. There were no flights until the next morning so they set up a "discount" room for us. The shuttle that was supposed to take us there left us standing at the curb and drove off without us, leaving us to wait over an hour for the next shuttle. Our flight the next day was uneventful but Houston decided to keep one of our suitcases, the one with the babies' coats in it. The temperature in Salt Lake was 0 degrees. We had set aside one day to visit with our family in Salt Lake but instead spent it in Houston, so we barely had time to have dinner with our relatives so they could meet Onnolee. No major events on the drive home, thank goodness, but the two babies ended up with bad respiratory infections, and Estuardo had to go to the ER with his high fever and ended up with a major ear infection on top of the respiratory infection---he was very sick! And we no sooner got home than my body decided it was time for another kidney stone. Which decided it was going to stay stuck since Thursday and it still hasn't passed. So here I am trying to be happy and enjoy these two babies...on Percocet. All 3 of us are feeling a little better today finally. I took a few pics, hopefully will post them shortly.

OH MY HECK...

Wow, what a disaster it almost was...
We made it to our appointment at the Embassy on Friday and we thought we were all prepared...First disaster was that I had accidentally left my PIN number at home so I had no access to cash through the ATM. We knew we were okay because the Embassy takes visa...well, of course their credit card machine was not working. Cash only. First panic of the morning. Our facilitator reassured us that we could pay on Monday as long as it was at least an hour before visa pick-up. I thankfully remembered that my PIN number was on the dashboard of my van which was parked at my daughter's house, so I was able to get that later in the day. So after about 2 hours of LOOONNNNG waiting time in a crowded room with two babes, we finally got called. We presented all our paperwork--- our 3 years taxes and my most recent pay stub. "Where is your W-2?" (oops) No W-2, no visa. Yikes. Okay so again, we needed to get it by Monday. So as soon as we got back I started communicating with my employer trying to get them to fax me a copy. No way, they say. It's confidential, they are not allowed. I started emailing my boss. The best option we were able to get them to agree to at first was to snail-mail me a copy...to GUATEMALA!!!!! It would have taken WEEKS!!! There I was, sitting in the Baby Lounge at the Marriot, crying my eyes out, wondering what the heck I was going to do. Finally, after 2 hours (literally) of emails, my boss convinced the super-high-ups to email me a copy. Tears of relief!!!
And just as a little icing on the cake...later that day when Stew and I were sitting in the Baby Lounge reflecting on the state of affairs, all of a sudden the whole room SHOOK!!!!! Down here they refer to it as "the shakes"...just a little 5.6 Richter EARTHQUAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my heck...what a day...
Sorry no pics...we both forgot our lappies and this computer does not take sd cards, so pics when we get home.
Oh, yesterday we took a tour of Antigua with Highland Tours, Juan Carlos. It was awesome and highly recommended!
Onnolee has the throw-up-icky-diaper crud. Once we get rid of that, everything should be great. She is just beautiful, and wants to be held all the time right now.

We are here!

Onnolee is just gorgeous! We had a tearful goodbye meeting with her fostermom last night, as well as our attorney and our facilitator. Our embassy appointment this morning was unfortunately not problem free, and we have a few hoops to jump by Monday so we are a little stressed and a lot tired. No pics to post yet. Hopefully in the next day or two when things settle down a little. Estuardo is handling things well although he has been very clingy. More later...