Comment On A Lost Soldier From His Mom

I recieved this in my inbox tonight when I got home from showing off my little girl to one of her great grandma's tonight. I'm reminded again how precious life is and to be grateful and make the most of everyday we have with the ones we love. I can't wait to return home to NY with my baby girl and introduce her daddy to the newest love of his life.

My family prays for the soldiers deployed everyday and I hope that all of you remember that although it's not in the news so much and at the front of our minds we are still losing soldiers and their families and friends are still mourning loses like this one.

Here is the comment I found in my inbox today written by this soldiers mother. I only wish she had left an email address so that I could email her back.


"I'm the mother of Charles Dustin Parrish and I would like to tell you a little about him. He had such a big heart and quick to find humor in everything. He only had three weeks left in his tour but had re-enlisted in April. He was planning on continuing his medical training at Ft Benning, AL. He was too young to die. He had just decided what he wanted to do with the rest of his life and was putting his plan into action. He planned on making up for lost time with his son when he returned home. He had been separated for three years and rarely got to spend time with Caden. This too was a tragedy because Caden could have had more memories of his father. I will make sure Caden knows his dad through us. Dusty left behind two sisters, two brothers, and parents that all miss him dearly. I have to tell you about his other family though. His army family. Dusty was killed June 4th and his birthday was August 21, we we're all dreading that day. Everyday was a living hell for us as it was and we did not know how we were going to get through his birthday. Thirteen of his army family drove from Missouri to Alabama to celebrate Dusty's birthday. They spent the whole weekend with us and I can not tell you how much that helped us. We made it through his birthday with the help of his other family. I will never forget those soldiers and what they did for our family. I got to meet the medic that held my son the last hours of his life. I am grateful for her for being there when I couldn't. He had someone holding him as he slipped away. As Christmas approached another feeling of dread hung over our heads. We are a close family and spent holidays together. Dusty's younger brother is only six so we had to try to celebrate Christmas for him. If not for that fact we would have let the holidays slide by and pretend they did not exist. Two days before Christmas Dusty's sgt offered to come spend the holidays with us. On christmas eve Sgt Brittion, his wife and their infant daughter drove from Missouri to Alabama and spent Christmas with us. I'm not sure if they know exactly how much that meant to us but they saved us. While the void in our hearts still existed they made it a tiny bit smaller by being able to add them in our hearts. I am forever grateful to all of Dusty's Army family. There is not a day that goes by that my son is not in my thoughts. I love and miss him dearly. "

Please hug your children and your spouses tight and remember how precious each day is and say a little prayer for our troops because they are still out fighting and risking their lives everyday.

~Till They All Come Home~

Mackinley's Story

After a few false alarms and trips to the hospital Thursday night came and "Jane" called to tell me she was in labor. It was 3am. I got up and got around and went to pick her up. She and I headed for the hospital. She was in a lot of pain and I just knew it had to be the real deal this time.

We got to the hospital around 330am and got signed in and were taken upstairs to the OB floor. They hooked her all up and checked to see if she'd dilated and she was at 5cm. My mom came up and was in the delivery room the whole time. At that time I sent a message to facebook saying it was real and we'd be having a baby. I then took a phone call from one of my best friends who lives in Norway. We were on the phone for 10 minutes and then I went back in the room and she was dilated to 8cm and a few minutes later 9cm.

Mackinley was born at 4:47am. All was well with the birthmom and we got put into a recovery room together (the three of us). That choice was made by Jane and her decision alone to make. It was all just fine. Jane was discharged from the hospital Saturday morning and Mackinley and I were able to leave that evening.

She's healthy, and happy and perfect and we are all completely in love with our new little girl!! I was amazed at my bond with her so quickly! I can't wait for her to meet her daddy!

Tayton loves his baby sister!!

Korbin and Mackinley! She was born on his 7th Birthday!!

So darn sweet!

Heading home from the hospital!

In the elevator on the way home from the hospital.

Mackinley Alaine!!

Korbin teaching Mackinley about video games!

I love my baby girl!

~Till They All Come Home~

Mackinley has Arrived!

Our beautiful little girl was born at 4:47am today. The birthmom and I arrived at the hospital at 3:30 and she delivered in just over an hour.

Mackinley Alaine
7lb 14oz
20 inches long

Me and my little girl!! She was so sweet when she cried I couldn't help but giggle a little.

~Till They All Come Home~

Update and Appology

I suppose I've been missing from the blog world lately. It's been quite an interesting two months around here. We moved from MO to NY. The boys and I spent 9 whole days in NY before deciding to head to MI to await the arrival of our little girl because the birth mom (Jane) was having lots of issues.

We've been here in Michigan for 3 weeks today. Jane is dilated to 2-3 cm right now and hopefully we'll be having a baby soon. My family had a baby shower for us on the 6th and we had a wonderful time catching up since I haven't seen many of the guests in years! I had a great time and got lots of great things for Mackinley.

Her name will be Mackinley Alaine. We will call her Kinley for short. The name Alaine is after our mom's middle names Alice (Kirke's mom) and Jane (my mom and grandma's). I just squished them together and came out with Alaine.

Mackinley is due on March 23 and we're hoping she arrives soon so the boys and I can get back to NY with Kirke. We have two lawyers hired and waiting for the birth to get the ball rolling. One is here in Michigan where we will get a power of attorney so that we can take her to NY with us. She will also handle the birth parents termination of parental rights. Then we have another lawyer in NY that will handle the petition for adoption and representing us there. I'm relieved to have all of the legal stuff in the hands of lawyers and we just need to wait for her arrival.

Please pray for a healthy baby. I know that this pregnancy has been rough and Mackinley may have a rough start. Please keep her and the birth mom in your prayers. We know that if she's born with problems we'll handle them as they come and that we can handle whatever we're given but we pray she's alright!!

Thank you for every one's support and hopefully I'll be posting pictures very very soon!!

~Till They All Come Home~

Adoption Update

Everything is going fine, we've been super busy. We moved from MO to NY over the past two weeks. It's been crazy. We cleared our house on post Jan 29 and stayed with friends till the 3rd of Feb. Then we drove to Michigan till the 9th to visit my family and then we headed up to NY. Since arriving in NY it's been madness. We unpaced all 9000 pounds of our stuff and painted a ton! We've been working on getting things ready for the arrival our little one in March.

Jane (birthmom) has been having a rough pregnancy. I was scheduled to come home March 1 but after she spent more time in the hospital Friday night being monitored having contractions we decided I'd come home a week early. So here we are in Michigan waiting on the arrival our daughter. She's not due until March 23 but the doctor says she will probably come before then and that she's far enough along now for it be okay. Keep your fingers crossed and pray for a safe delivery in the near future. The sooner she's born the sooner we can get back to NY for her to meet her Daddy!

~Till They All Come Home~

Korbin Again

Lately Korbin has been calling his bike helmet a "gelmet". I thought he was just being his normal silly self.

Well a few minutes ago he asked for his gelmet. I said "you mean helmet?" He said "well I call it a gelmet so that I don't have to say that bad word!"

Apparently the "hel" in helmet is a bit more than he can handle!

~Till They All Come Home~

Poor Scrappy

I have had Scrappy longer than I've had Kirke. The poor dog is soon to be 12 and I were him I'd run away because he puts up with an awful lot!






The kids love him a little too much sometimes. They take "mans best friend" to a whole new level when they stick him in the wagon, put a blanket on him and he just sits there and takes it!

~Till They All Come Home~

Korbin's Full Of It!

I'm making taco's for dinner and Korbin is just starving to death! I asked him to take the lettuce out of the fridge for me.

I heard him muttering "why do I always have to do the disgusting things"! The kid hates lettuce!

I reply, "it's just leaves there's nothing gross about it".

He then says to me, "I'll just hold it by the very corner, this is very disturbing to me!"

I then say "I'll give you $5 bucks if you'll taste the lettuce."

Korbins looks at me seriously interested and replies, "make it ten!"

Deals off!

~Till They All Come Home~

Korbin's Intuition

We're in the car and just passed a group of basic training soldiers carrying their weapons.

Korbin asked Kirke if they were M16's. Then he asked "when you were in practice for the Army did you have an M16 that shot nerf darts?"

Its an interesting theory really. Can't the troops just play laser tag instead of killing one another? There's enough natural disasters killing people that we really should start thinking like a 6 year old!

Show Us Your Privates

I'm pretty sure I don't have any lurkers but just in case I thought I'd join the fun and call you out to say hello! But I think that to have lurkers you'd have to have readers and I'm not sure I have more than the three of you who comment regularly. But hey let's have a go at this and see if anyone new comes out. I do have 54 followers so maybe a few of you could say hello. Perhaps I might get more than 5 comments on post? Check out my older posts cause this one is lame.

Our quote of the day here today was:

Today Korbin said "Tayton acts as if the whole world Avolves around him". Yep that's a new word and I love it!

~Till They All Come Home~

In Case Anyone Was Wondering

I haven't talked much about the adoption lately because frankly there's not much going on. We're just in that waiting phase. The birthmom is doing fine and keeps in contact with me. We talk at least by text most days. The legal stuff is also in the waiting phase so there's not much going on.

The birthmom is 30 weeks today and we have 10 weeks left! We move to NY in just a few short weeks and we've stayed busy with purging lots of things we don't need or don't use. We're stopping to visit my family in MI for a couple days on our drive to Fort Drum and then I'll be back to MI closer to the baby's due date.

Everything should go smoothly. Pray that it goes quickly so that we can get back to NY and get the baby home.

~Till They All Come Home~

Meet The Neighbors! Let's Fight!

We've had a few of our neighbors move away recently which means new ones moving in. In the two and a half years we've lived in this house we haven't had any neighbors with kids my boys age.

Until now! Today I met the neighbors that moved in across the street. I was outside playing in the snow with the naughty little blond boys when it happened. The neighbors across the street were playing outside too. They were shoveling snow into a giant heap just like we were. There was a man, a boy and little girl.

The man says "are you making a snow fort too?" I say "yep and then we're gonna attack yours!" Cause I'm brave like that and assume everyone appreciates my bold sense of humor. Luckily he laughed.

Eventually we went over and introduce ourselves. They have a 10 year old son, an 8 year old girl and a 3 year old girl. PERFECT! Except we move in a few weeks!

The icing on the cake was when I asked what school they go to and they said they home school! Go figure!

The boys decided we needed a flag for our fort. Tayton took a towel and wrote "Best" and we planted it on top of our fort facing across the street toward their fort.

Then we decided that a great science lesson would be to build a catapult to launch snow balls at our targets. We built it and then decided to go out and test the thing. It was pathetic. But while we were out there the neighbors came out and planted a flag on top of their fort.

It read: "Bigger and Better Fort"

I guess not everyone knows our last name is Best and we're not just conceited!

~Till They All Come Home~

The Girls are Screaming Out for Help!

With all this new technology, inventions and the accomplishments that have been made over the past hundred or so years, we still have a MAJOR problem.

How is it that they can make underwear that makes you look two sizes smaller, shoes that tone your butt when you walk, pants that have built in butt lifters but my bra's are still attacking me by the middle of the day?

Is it so hard to spend a little time figuring out a way to make that darn piece of shrapnel stay inside the material made to hold it in place? I'm tried of standing in a crowded room and trying to conceal the fact that I'm being stabbed by my undergarments. There are probably permanent scars on the sides of "the girls" from these darn torture devices.

For the love of God and the sake and my "girls" please someone poke some darn holes in the metal wire and sew it in or figure out another way to save me from an accidental breast reduction!!

~Till They All Come Home~

The Coolest Gift

We just received three Christmas cards from one of Kirke's family members. Each card described a special gift given to a family in Asia in our names.

A pair of Chickens given in Tayton's name: "EGGcellent Protein. Each of these eggs are packed with nutrients. Imagine a little, malnourished child becoming smarter and stronger every day as he gobbles up his delicious eggs! And when his family’s chickens reproduce, they can sell the chicks for additional income. You can bless a South Asian family with chickens."

A pair of bunnies was given in Korbin's: "The Gift that Keeps on Giving…Quickly. A pair of Christmas bunnies will help provide a steady, nutritious diet of lean meat for a growing family. A mommy rabbit can produce several litters a year, each with up to 12 bunnies. So raising rabbits is a wonderful way for a poor family to provide food for their children and generate income as well."

And in mine and Kirke's name a family was given a took kit: "A Farmer’s Best Friends. Planting a garden may not be the first thing on your mind at Christmas—but in India, planting season is vital for a poor, rural family. You can provide a set of tools for a family to grow their own nutritious crops and maintain their home throughout the year. A tool kit includes an axe, shovel, saw, plow, sickle and crowbar."

This is an awesome gift and I'm thrilled to know that families will be benefit from these gifts!

~Till They All Come Home~

He said What?

Korbin loves Kirke's mom. He and Mimi are inseparable while she's here or we're visiting down there. Yesterday was the end of her visit and we kept warning him that she was going back home. We didn't want a big dramatic goodbye scene with him saying "why didn't you tell me she was leaving"!

We got to the airport and Korbin got out to hug Mimi and say goodbye and he says:

"Bye Mimi, I hope you make it alive!"

Wow, where does he get this stuff from!

~Till They All Come Home~

Ten Years Together

Ten years ago I was 20 years and 23 days old. He was a much older at 21 years and 29 days old. We had been out of high school for only 2 1/2 years. We were kids. I was working as a home health aide and still making pizza at the local Little Caesars where I had worked since I was 15. He had spent 2 1/2 years in the Army and was stationed at Ft Drum NY. I lived with my wonderful Aunt and he lived in the barracks 600 miles away.

The engagement lasted 6 months. We planned the wedding and ten years ago today was the day we pulled it off. We had about a 125 guests. Ten of those were his family from Texas and the rest were our friends and family in Michigan.

I hadn't met any of his family other than his mother. I was scared they would hate me. Afterall he was marrying a "northern girl". I was okay with that because we were in love.

Our friends knew us as Micky and Opie. We had lived 9 hours apart for the duration of our engagement and were anxious to begin our lives together. Two kids from different worlds but love was all we needed.

Our pastor was a man I had known since I was 8 years old. He lived next door to my grandparents (now parents) house. My Maid of Honor was one of my best friends I'd known since I was 7 years old. My bridesmaid was my exboyfriend's youngest sister. I had a 10 year old Jr Bridesmaid who I had babysat since I was 12 and her two sisters were my flower girls.

Kirke's Best Man was his best buddy at Ft Drum. His groomsman was a childhood friend from Texas who was living in Michigan only a half hour from my hometown. The Jr Groomsman was my 12 year old cousin. We had two ushers. Our buddy Mark who was like a brother to me and my 14 year old cousin.

Ten years ago we were married. We still kinda like each other now. Two and half kids later we're still in love. I love you Kirke and I'd do it all over again if I had the chance!

~Till They All Come Home~

Adoption Is On Track

We talked to our lawyer on Friday about some concerns we've been having that I can't mention here because I want to protect the privacy of Jane as well as our own. But the good news is that the lawyer certain that there is nothing that's going to stand in the way of this adoption taking place as easily as we had hoped aside from of course Jane changing her mind. But we're certain that she's not going to do that. She and I talk nearly every day and she's anxious to be the one who's able to make our family complete by adding a little girl to our world!

We are ready for the baby other than clothes. We have two boys who are super environmental and we're going to use either cloth diapers or gDiapers with our daughter. We like the idea of saving money and doing our share for the environment.

The pumping is still going the same. I've added the herb fenugreek twice a day. It could take weeks to start actually producing milk and not just small drops of whatever. I've ordered a book about adoptive breastfeeding and plan to attend the next local meeting of the La Leche League International.

So everything is going perfect and a huge weight was lifted from our shoulders as well as Jane's and the rest of our families. It's the greatest feeling ever to have the confirmation that our daughter will be ours in about 3 short months!!

~Till They All Come Home~

Did I Mention I Turned 30?

I have been spending entirely too much time being a dork and playing Farmville on Facebook and playing over there catching up with old friends I never thought I'd wonder about and ones I wonder about frequently.

So I apologize for forgetting to mention that I had a birthday last week! I turned 30 and had myself a great party with great friends and good food and lots to drink. It was great. Here are a few pictures.

This is my fake I'm sad to turn to 30 face. Actually it's sort of refreshing to join the rest of my friends in the over 30 club!!

This is a more real me.......

Notice the very big, very sharp knife in my hand and the closest bystander:

This is the cake my very good, very talented friend Breanna made for me.

And golly gee I only have pictures of the guys playing Rockband and none of our girl band....weird.

We missed you Suds family!!

~Till They All Come Home~

This video is from the 19th when we told the boys that we having a girl. Enjoy!

~Till They All Come Home~

Breastfeeding without Pregnancy: Adoptive Mom's Can Breastfeed

Everyone knows we're adopting a baby girl in March. When I had both boys I didn't hesitate with my decision to breastfeed them. Tayton nursed for 10 1/2 months and Korbin for only 6 weeks when a kickass case of mastitis along with him being hospitalized for 3 days on top of still having an 18 month old at home made it too much to handle and he went on formula.

If we were having this child ourselves we'd definitely chose breast milk as her source of nutrition. I wasn't aware that adoptive mom's do have the option to breastfeed also. I know that a lot of adoptions don't have a long period for planning like we happen to be blessed with so it might not work as well for some. For us having 7 months to plan for our new arrival we've have time and have done our research.

It wasn't an easy decision to make but we've decided to make the commitment and see if I can produce milk and nurse this baby. I visited my family doctor who made sure I was aware of the commitment it's going to take in order to trick my body into thinking it should be produce milk and he did a little research into the medicines I had read about and in the end decided to prescribe Reglan and I bought a pump.

I've started the pills and pumping. I want to give my body plenty of time and not feel rushed as we get too near the end of the pregnancy and not have results. I'm happy to report that it is going well so far. I'll be thrilled when the first real drops appear but for now I'm happy with a little moisture as a sign that this is meant to be and we'll be able to provide this great source of nutrition and bonding for our new baby girl!

~Till They All Come Home~