We are home!!!


Finally we are home after a long week, what felt to me like the longest week of my life, we are finally settling down into our life as a family. I have posted some pics from yesterday for you guys to look at..

We will be in touch soon!

Darrian Keith Thornton

As most of you know Darrian came into the world as a surprise on 9/14 at 3:37 pm. We can not begin to describe the joy that he has already brought into our lives, we are so in love. I could not have made it through the whole thing without Keith's support. He is a proud father, and is constantly saying "that's his boy!". We are doing fine, Darrian is still in the hospital his lungs and all look great (Thank GOD), he scored a 9 on his apagar. He is growing and just has to get his food eatings down before he can come home.

I just wanted to post some pictures here... on my way to the hospital to see him!

Hi everyone,
So this weekend I was watching Bill Maher on HBO and he told the story of the "Jena Six" in Louisiana. I had not heard of this story because I guess main stream media has yet to tell the public about it. I personally was saddened by the story, and that in a time in 2007 we are still seeing issues like this going on. Mos Def a guest on the show said it best "Why should we have to live in two separate America's". Here in CA we live in our bubble that all is well in the world, mean while in the south all white juries are still convicting young black Americans as if we are living in 1950's.

One of the 6 students has already been tried and convicted and could face up to 22 years in jail, when the white students who beat up black students at a party just got probation.

I am putting the story here, I am also going to put a link to sign a petition to help free the Jena 6, if you are incline to do so after reading the story..

THE JENA SIX>>
In September 2006, a group of African American high school students in Jena, Louisiana, asked the school for permission to sit beneath a "whites only" shade tree. There was an unwritten rule that blacks couldn't sit beneath the tree. The school said they didn't care where students sat. The next day, students arrived at school to see three nooses (in school colors) hanging from the tree.
The boys who hung the nooses were suspended from school for a few days. The school administration chalked it up as a harmless prank, but Jena's black population didn't take it so lightly. Fights and unrest started breaking out at school. The District Attorney, Reed Walters, was called in to directly address black students at the school and told them all he could "end their life with a stroke of the pen." Black students were assaulted at white parties. A white man drew a loaded rifle on three black teens at a local convenience store. (They wrestled it from him and ran away.) Someone tried to burn down the school, and on December 4th, a fight broke out that led to six black students being charged with attempted murder. To his word, the D.A. pushed for maximum charges, which carry sentences of eighty years. Four of the six are being tried as adults (ages 17 & 18) and two are juveniles.Yesterday, I was in Jena for the first day of the trial for Mychal Bell, one of the Jena 6. The D.A., perhaps in response to public pressure, tried to get Bell to cop a plea. Bell refused, and today, jury selection began. After today, we'll know whether or not the case will be tried in front of an all-white jury. Jena's 85-percent white, and it remains to be seen whether or not the six can get a fair trial.Both off-the-record and on, Jena residents told me racism is alive and well in Louisiana, and this is a case where it rose above the levee, so to speak.Update: Mychal Bell, the first of the Jena Six to face trial, was found guilty of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit the same on June 28th. A comprehensive look at the case, the trial and the verdict was published on July 2nd at friendsofjustice. Plus, Democracy Now did a full story. To send a letter to Governor Blanco, please visit Color of Change.

HERE IS WHERE YOU CAN SIGN A PETITION.. http://civilliberty.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=civilliberty&cdn=newsissues&tm=2714&gps=145_1266_923_252&f=10&tt=11&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.naacp.org/get-involved/activism/petitions/jena-6/index.php



HERE IS WHERE YOU CAN READ MORE ABOUT THE STORY IN ORDER OF WHAT HAPPEN>>
http://civilliberty.about.com/od/raceequalopportunity/p/jena_six.htm

I have heard Oprah may do a show on this, which I hope happens so it can get national headlines... seems like this is something that should not be put under the rug..

Best wishes,
Michelle

Baby D's Room..

The crib finally came, mattress was picked up and everything came together so far in baby D's room. We are pretty much all set there, we want to order a rocking chair/glider and a changing table and we are done.. here are some pictures of everything.

from the ground up.

close up of bedding.

bedding and crib

from the top..

one side..

And because he is so cute.. here is baby d's bear we built at build a bear when Chris and Julie came to see us a couple sunday's ago! He has sunglasses like daddy!

A last look...

So today we had a follow up 3D ultrasound, our last one before expected arrival date. Darrian was about the same, not wanting his picture taken. You can for sure tell that some of this weight is going towards him! He is getting big, which is good. Heartbeat was strong too.

I have a couple pictures to post here, the rest really were not that great but I will take another look. It is odd to see some things in the ultrasounds from Keith and I, to me he looks a lot like Keith in the pictures. Of course we could be wrong but for sure I think he has daddy's nose.. Keith is very excited to have a mini me so we will see how it all turns out. Looks like he has some chubby cheeks too!

hand in front of his face..

Where he really looks like daddy...



32 weeks ... only 55 days left (if he is on time) !

Spelling with Flickr

While I am trolling the sites of baby stuff I ran across this cool thing on one of the cool sites I go to called Nested ( http://nested.typepad.com/blog/ ), which is a blog by another person about baby stuff, I saw a posting about a cool site called Spelling with Flickr where you can put in a name and they pull pictures of letters to spell up the word. I put in our babies name and here is what they came up with below, if you don't like the letter than you can scroll through more on Flickr and pick new ones.

Go here to play!! :)

http://metaatem.net/words/

Where has the summer gone?? ....

I have been meaning to update more, at least try and update once a week but I am sort of failing at it. I can't believe it has been 3 weeks since I last wrote here, at any rate here is an idea of what is going on..

Keith's mom: It has been a long month plus for her, and for her family. There have been many times where we thought she for sure was not going to make it. I will say she has hung in there and she is alert at this time. They took her out of sedation and she began to be aware of where she was on Saturday night, Sunday. I am sure it is hard for her to wake up and be in the state that she is in. We can't hear her because of the trek but she does seem to try and talk. She is not able to write right now because the drugs are wearing off in her body. We really don't know what the future will hold. She still has the cancer and they will not treat it anymore because the time that she has had in the hospital her immune system could not handle chemo right now so she would not be able to be treated for it. We are hoping it will all work out, that is all we can do at this point.

Baby news: I am 31 weeks, can't believe how fast time has gone. Keith and I are super excited to meet our little guy. The baby's room is pretty much done except we got the closets redone and the way we did them now we have to get new closets doors (always something) so we are working on that. The crib is on it's way but not suppose to be here till next Monday. I can't wait to get the bedding on and get that set up. We have gotten (via gifts from my mom) the stroller, car seat, and the bassinet pack and play. We got the bedding that I am in love with. Everything matches brown and baby blue. He even got his first pair of shoes :). He is moving a lot which I love feeling, and responds to daddy a lot and to music. The shower is planned for 9/16 and I am excited hoping you all can make it!

Over the past month we have done two more weddings, one was in Monterey that Niki helped me with so K could be close to his mom. Then I had another one on the 18th in San Jose. We also celebrated a lot of birthdays! 8/6 was my mom's and we took her to Bing Crosby's in Walnut Creek, 8/8 was Keith's birthday and my mom and I got him the new iphone !!! he was super surprised because he was not expecting it at all and since then I have not seen him because he is always downloading thing onto it. We also took him to dinner at Lark Creek in Walnut Creek. Then on 8/11 was Devyn's birthday and I took her to the Giants game, it was a lot of fun even if the giants lost by a bunch! Natalie came into town for another week on 8/12, I hate seeing her go. We went to the niner game on 8/13 with Nicole, her brother has really nice tickets! 8/14 was dinner at her mom's house and K and I went to that. Then we went to the city for shopping and back to walnut creek for dinner on 8/15. I stayed in at night but Nat went out to SF, 8/16 her friends band Xanimo were in town for a show in Berkeley that we all went to. I had the Friday 8/17 off because my mom and I went to Gemma and Ryan's wedding in Auburn, then came home early 8/18 for a wedding I had to do in San Jose that Keith helped me with! Are you tired yet? I am.. Sunday Chris and Julie and the two cutest girls came over and we went to build a bear and to Pyramid for K's bday lunch. It was fun, and we made a bear for the baby. It is dressed like Keith and although K won't show it I think he thinks it is pretty cute!! I am going to post pictures of all of the above later I promise!

This week we don't have too much going on, I have to go to an appt. in SF this week and I have a rehearsal and birthday party on Thursday and a wedding on Sunday. The wedding Sunday is pretty easy, it is in Moraga and a day wedding from 10 am to 2pm! I am excited for an easy one..

That is all that is going on with us right now, I will update more with pictures soon!

Some ramblings...

Sunday we were at the hospital most of the day with my mother-in-law. It is hard. The doctors call him daily to tell us there is no change in her condition and want us to decide what to do, meaning taking her off the life support machine. We have sort of talked about it and don't see how we could just take her off the machine, and always wonder what if.... however the entire team of professionals there feel that if her heart goes next that we do not try pattles and so on, because of the stress on her body and also the time she would be without oxygen to her brain could lead to brain damage, not to mention all the other things she is fighting against (kidney failure, stage 4 breast cancer). These are hard life decisions to make, and we are hoping her heart won't fail so it isn't something we have to deal with. Keith has been doing really good dealing with the doctors, I can not express how hard of a task that is. To listen to the constant reminders of how many bad things are and try to muster up the strength to go in and pep talk your mom into fighting for her life, and make casual conversation with someone who can not respond back. It is hard, very hard and we can use all the positive thoughts and prayers we can get for her. It is hard for me to watch Keith deal with all of this, I try to help out with calls to bills, and doctors to take some of the pressure off of him. I make the nightly call for him to get a status update. It seems most of the family think that he should be calling to give updates, I can't express how hard that is, if they want an update I think they should Keith and see how she is doing, and how he is. Not expect him to be the one to leave the hospital and make the calls to 20 people... hard life things.

After the hospital we went out to dinner together and to a movie, we went to see Sicko. We were saying in a long time from now when our parents are not nearby we will move to France or England because they seem to have it more "together" than we do at the moment. It was a very educational movie and really do recommend everyone see it.

On the baby front things are good, he is 28 weeks old next week.. only 84 days (or so they say) till we meet him. We got the baby bedding in the mail last week, we are very happy with the choice! The room is coming together, we are getting the custom closet today (thank you to Aunt Niki for the discount) and then we just need the crib.

Here is a look at the baby bedding below.. I will update with Nursery pics soon!

Picture update Friday...

This week went by so super fast! Monday I had a Drs. appt and all was fine, the little guy even kicked the doppler they use to hear his heartbeat. Natalie got into town and we took her to dinner at the Forgien Cinema in SF on Monday, Tuesday work, and then we went to dinner at the Cantina, Wednesday we ran around a bit and then hung out Natalie went to the movies, Thursday I had a rehearsal.. Natalie left :( , and tonight I am just relaxing. Keith also started on the babies room. I had a Drs. appointment today for another look at the little one, it went fine although he seems to hate being bothered. It seems like they got what they needed though, and it didn't last too long. After I went to see Donna in ICU. She is just holding her own but not really improving. She is headed into Acute Kidney failure, which is common in those hospitalized. They are going to try and start dialysis tonight, we are praying it will help. The drs. said she is in grave condition, the good news is that her immune system is fighting and going up in count. It was at 18 tuesday, and 30 today, which because of the Chemo is good that it keeps going up and shows her body is fighting... all we can hope for.

We have a wedding tomorrow, and hospital visits in between.. Just hope this takes a turn for the better and her lungs react to the antibiotics.

Here are some pictures from Devan's visit.. Natalie's Visit, and the beginning of the baby room..

This picture makes me laugh.. the pose.. Devan..
Devan and Ashlei.. He made her laugh about something..
Devan and his girlfriend Natania
Eli with the thing you listen to the movie with at the table..

The inside part of the forgein Cinema.. where the bar is

Natalie and Jenny..
Natalie and Keith (and Jenny in the background)
Where we sat outside, films shown on back wall
Parton shots ..round 3 I think.. Nat, Jenny, and Sofia..
Natalie and her happy bday kat cake!

two fav things ...chicken and wine.. (mixed with three shots of patron)
Make a wish..

The begining of the baby room... Just one wall like this, the wall the crib will go against..

An update...

I can't believe it is already Wednesday. The weekend wasn't as easy going as we wanted it to be, although we were planning for visitors and playing tourist sometimes life changes plans for you. Keith's Mom was running a fever on Thursday and Keith took her to the ER, where they decided to keep her and run test. Since she has been diagnosed with Cancer, and her back pain from it she has spent most her time laying down which was causing some fluid to build in her lungs. Friday they told us she had pneumonia and because of the chemo she had been taking it would go from bad to worse rapidly. Friday before going to get Devan our nephew at the airport Ashlei and I went to visit her and she was doing okay, but had the chills very very bad, she also had some shortness of breath that they were giving her some oxygen for. It was weird because two years almost to the date (July 15,2005) I felt like I was in the same place with my Dad. I could almost know what was going to come next. I told Ashlei it was going to get worse before this got any better.. We went to get Devan and out to dinner we got home around 12am.

Next morning the hospital called and said they were moving his mom to ICU because she had shallow breathing overnight. We got ready and all went to see her. Her fever had spiked to 105 which made her a bit out of it, and they got her on a respirator to help with her breathing. It is hard for someone to see their Mom or Grandma in this state, it is not easy at all. We all took turns two at a time going back and talking with her... I had asked the nurse about the ventilator knowing that could be coming next, the nurse told us that she was very very sick with pneumonia, and it was going to get worse before it got better. They would not allow us to stay too long because she had not slept, and was trying to talk to us and they wanted her to just rest and breath. So we left and decided to go to SF and make the best of the day, if we could. We walked around a bit at the wharf and at Union Square. We then left and went to dinner in Berkeley and the DR. called Keith to tell him that they had put her on a ventilator and it was doing the breathing for her. The news we knew was coming but did not want to hear.

The next day we all went to see her but they had put her into an induced coma so they could let the breathing machine do the work for her, she was not all the way sedated and did open her eyes for Keith and Devan.

Her lungs are both pretty full with fluid at this point, and she is in Adult respiratory distress disorder meaning her lungs are not functioning on their own. She is holding her own despite all of the above. The doctor told us she had a 50/50 chance of making it, and we are choosing to hold onto the hope that the 50 chance that she will overcome this. It is just going to be a long road. Keith has been going every day, I went Monday to see her and will go today. Although they don't allow us to stay long, so we have been trying to occupy our time otherwise when we are not there. Natalie is here for the week, and we went out for her birthday Monday and I think it really helped Keith let go a bit. The amount of stress he has on his shoulders right now is indescribable. I do think it helps us both that my dad was in the same place, and the drs. said he would not make it and he did. It is possible.

So keep Keith's Mom in your prayers and god willing she will turn the corner to good anytime soon. I will keep you updated when I can.

We will post pictures from the weekend and Natalie's bday parties soon..

Ready for the weekend...

Weather seems like it is going to be perfect this weekend. Hopefully it will stay the 89 it is now and not get much hotter. I don't have a wedding this weekend, which is nice. This is our last break we have until Aug. 11th so we are going to enjoy it. Our nephew and his girlfriend are flying in tonight to spend the weekend. We don't have specific plans but will hopefully be in SF for most of tomorrow. I have a couple appointments this weekend as well that I have to squeeze in here and there. I will make sure and return with pictures. Next week is going to be a busy one with bday celebrations with Natalie (I am flying her in as a gift, a selfish one) and with appointments and rehearsals so I will try and relax a bit this weekend.

I have some pictures here from the wedding we did in Carmel. A really sweet couple Deb and Laron. They met on match.com 4 years ago, and clicked ever since. This was a day of wedding I had at a golf course down there.. I didn't have my hands in it much. I was a bit surprised by the dress she wore, I didn't know it would be purple. I looked great on her, and this was not a second wedding for either so it caught me off guard. She was really sweet and very thankful. She did some neat things like cakes as centerpieces...I don't have a pic of that just yet. I don't really love the pictures the photographer took, not really my style but it will give you an idea.

These are not in order.. here at the pics..

The bride and groom exchanging vows under the chuppah a jewish canopy that symbolizes "home" for the couple. The family stand under the Chuppah during the ceremony..

Here they are about to cut the cake:

Under the Chuppah

The "hora" otherwise known as the jewish chair dance... during the reception.
here I am setting up the cake table
Right after they got married!