I'm Still Alive and Still Walking

We did it! We finished the race. Jathan had hoped for under 2 hours, we did 2:05 but I am happy and I know that Jathan would have finished a whole lot faster if didn't stick by me, but he did and encouraged me the whole way. Maybe next year we can beat his goal together. (I'm hoping I will speed up rather than slow down in a year)

April's Happenings

Not a very catchy title, but hey, that's what this post is about. Just so you know that we haven't fallen off the face of the earth, I'll fill you in on what April has brought us...

We began April with my sister leaving after a several day visit. Her visit ended our 4 week guest stay. From March 4th thru April 1st we had visitors at our house every night except 2. The kids love visitors especially because the first visitors were missionaries that had 3 kids around their ages, the second visitors were their grandma and great grandma, lots of attention, and the third was their aunt. More attention. We were happy, though, to have the house back to normal and go back to our normal routines.

We celebrated Paige's 9th birthday this month, which I did post about, even though it was a bit late.

Last week was our semi-spring break. I say semi because like semi-retirement, we still did a bit of school work. We are going to take another break later before school is out, but we did need to tone down a bit and rest. Spring break was fun for the kids because they got to play more with their friends and swim a bit.

Paige loves her new wet suit. She freezes whenever she is wet, even if it is 100 degrees outside. I guess when you don't have any body fat, it is hard to stay warm. :)

We celebrated Easter. Our church had an Easter brunch, that was delicious! We had a wonderful service. And enjoyed dinner at our house with a few friends. The kids got to have a little egg hunt. Jathan and one of our guests hid the eggs. They tried making it challenging on the kids, and in the end they even had a hard time remembering where the last one was hidden.

We planted a garden. Jathan and the boys built these nifty garden boxes to put on the side yard. It is an area that isn't used much. The kids and I started seeds indoors and then were able to plant them a few days ago in the boxes. We will see how they do. I also worked on my herb garden in our back yard. I added some mint (in a pot), basil and lavender. In addition to that, I already had thyme, oregano, sage, chives, cilantro and rosemary.

The boys went to California Hot Springs with a couple other dads and their sons. Here they have pools that are fed by naturally hot springs. They have some to soak and then they cool down the water a bit for the swimming pool. The boys had a great time.

I got to go a way for a weekend to scrapbook. I feel a bit guilty about it all. I left on a Friday afternoon to go to LA and spend the night with my friend Suzanne. We had the house to ourselves because her husband took the rest of the family to visit his sister. Then we went to a hotel in Manhattan Beach to scrapbook Saturday through Sunday. It was a very nice hotel, I must say, so I felt a little out of my league there. I returned home to find a bouquet of flowers from Jathan. I thought I should bring him flowers, he was the one who had the kids by himself and still had to preach on Sunday morning. Then I found out the next day that he had scheduled a pedicure for me!

Jathan and I are going to end the month by running in a half marathon tomorrow. I will try post how it goes, but if you don't hear from me in a while, you will know what happened to me. Seriously, though, I am excited/nervous. I know we can do it, we did a trial run of the 13.1 miles a little over a month ago, but I still get nervous about these kinds of things.

I know I left a lot of details out, but I will try to fill them in later. But just because it has been so long, I thought I would get you up to speed a bit.

Happy 9th Birthday Paige!!!!

So this is a little late. But I still feel it is post worthy. My baby girl turned 9 this week! She use to be so little! I hated it when people would say "It will go by quick" "They grow up so fast". When we were going through sleepless nights, that didn't sound too bad, but now, I realize it is true. It is hard to think that the tiny red head we brought home from the hospital is the same person as this strawberry blond that loves football! I do sometimes miss that little stage, but I am finding that I love this one even more. I love knowing her dreams and see her pursue things that interest her. It is a fun time and I look forward to seeing her, Lord-willing, grow more and more.

Here is Paige 4 years ago.

Here she is opening her presents on her birthday. She got 2 backpacks from her grandparents. She wanted a small one to carry a few things when we hike up in the Sequoias. She also got a little one for our travels, I thought her Dora the Explorer backpack from preschool was a little outdated.

Yes, my daughter is a Steelers fan. Paige has liked the Steelers ever since she got into football. She says the Colts are her second favorite. But to her, the Steelers are #1. She has several Colts items, but I felt it was time that she had something with "her" team on it. And Jathan didn't argue. So she received a Steelers pillow, earrings and alarm clock. She was pretty happy.

Since it is an odd year birthday for Paige, she got to have a party. The parties have definitely changed a bit since the first ones I did for her. She has her own ideas now. This year she wanted a few families to come for dinner. She wanted a few games and knew exactly which ones she wanted. One was a version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. We have had that game at about every birthday party we have done. Usually with a little twist to fit the theme like pin the license plate on Lightning McQueen for the Cars party and pin the sombrero on the vaquero for the Mexican birthday. So Paige wanted pin the tail on the whale. I have to say that I thought this to be a little under her age and wondered what the other kids her age would think, but when it came time to do it at the party the kids threw in a new twist and had the parents do it.

They had great fun blindfolding us, spinning us around and directing us to the actual game. Paige had a great time at her party. She was with family and friends, so she was happy.

Can't Resist This Smile

I love this picture. I am not even sure who took it because I was busy dishing out birthday cake at Paige's party. (I'll post about her birthday later). I think the cake is why the smile is so big. It is a little fuzzy, but you can still see how beautiful Drew's smile is.

We've Come a Long Way

Thank you to those that commented on my last post and shared that you were praying for us. That means so much to me.

I posted that Sunday morning. Around lunch time I was in the kitchen and "M" was listening to a CD in the adjoining room. The CD is one that the kids listened to ALL the time last summer. Once school started in the fall, we didn't hear so much and through winter and now spring, I don't recall the CD being played at all. So when she had the music going, it immediately took me back to last summer. I thought of the beginning days with "M" and the first couple of months. I realized how far we have come. How far God has brought us. We were in a valley last month, but looking back that valley wasn't as low as the valleys we were in at the beginning. It helped to look back and think of it as going through a mountain range. When you start you are low, but you climb, get to the top of a peak and then you will go down again, before you climb to get to the next. The next climb will take you to a peak a bit higher then the last. And so it goes. When you are in the middle of it you forget how far you have come. Sometimes you are in a valley and you look back at the last peak and get frustrated, but there is a bigger peak just ahead. I needed to remember that. We have come so far. She calls us mommy and daddy. Yesterday she gave Paige a card that said "I Love You". She is learning what it is like to be in a family. I see her as mine. We have come so far. I needed to be reminded that God is working. The next valley will still be hard, but I want to remember that the peak ahead will be worth the work and prayers.

Catching up

Well it is 9:30 Sunday morning. I should be at church, but I am home with two sick little girls. Not too sick, thankfully.

I just typed, "I haven't updated my blog for a while", then erased it because I feel like I start every post that way, but I guess that is usually how it is. I am not a very good blogger, one because writing isn't my favorite thing, two because I have kids and a husband and I homeschool, and lots of other projects that are always waiting to get done, so there goes my computer time. But I wouldn't have it any other way, it just means that I simply am not a very good blogger.

So anyway, here I am home when I usually am not. And because the girls aren't in too bad of shape (low fevers and sniffles) I decided I would take some time to bring everyone up to speed on our lives. There are some things that I have wanted to post for a while, but haven't for a variety of reasons.

The last month has been crazy with company. Since March 4th until April 1st we had overnight guests all but 3 nights. We have had missionaries, my mom and grandma and then my sister. In the middle of all of that I had strep throat, we have tried to continue on a schedule with school and we have had some parenting/child issues that have been a bit difficult. But now it is quiet. Don't get me wrong, we loved the company!

Now to be transparent. Two other big things that have been going on in our lives is just figuring out how to parent children from hard places. This last month has ended the honeymoon period with "M". We struggled with lying, framing siblings, and refusing to take discipline. Here is where we struggled with parenting. Figuring out what the root issues were, discipling when a sin, and showing unconditional love through it all. There were days when I couldn't believe anything she said and she didn't care. And how do you help siblings bond when they don't trust her because she lies to them too and she tries to get them in trouble. I had a conversation with Clay about showing Christ's love to her, but at the same time I am thinking it is natural consequences for her that he doesn't want to be around her. But still she is his sister. Thankfully the last couple of weeks have been better, not every word is a lie. It has been a good reminder to us that kids do not come from situations like hers and not have any affects. So we are trusting God and crying out to God that he would help us, giving us wisdom and love for her. A quote from The Christian Guide to The Connected Child says "the past affects the future...but it does not have to determine it." It is so good to know that God is with us and he can transform anyone. If you think of us you can pray for our family as we bond and help her heal and show her Christ. We are so thankful for "M" and do love her so much. Adoption isn't easy, but we have seen God work in our life through it. We also are constantly reminded about how hopeless we were before we were adopted into God's family.

The other big thing is Drew. To make this short and not turn into a book, I am going to summarize a lot of what has happened the last 5 1/2 years since we have had Drew. He is a lovable little boy, always has been. However he has always had a temper with a very short fuse. Sometimes we weren't even sure what set him off. When we first got him, we thought he was adjusting, then we thought terrible twos, then we thought because his speech was delayed he was frustrated because he couldn't communicate. He would scream and jump around, and slap himself. He broke his crib even. But as he got older it got worse. Even after he could talk, although he still has a hard time expressing himself. After Godly counsel and a lot of praying, we were still not making any progress. In fact as his vocab expanded, his screaming turned into yelling at me and now he wasn't hitting himself, he was hitting walls and kicking them. We were frustrated. Most people didn't see this. It didn't happen all the time, but when it did he would scream for hours, I am not kidding we left church with him screaming one day and he screamed until it was time for bed that night. I was told just let him scream, but now he is hitting and kicking and throwing things. Sometimes he will wake up like this and have no idea why. After he calms down, he is happy and he himself doesn't seem to understand why. To go along with this, we still had speech issues, coordination issues (although give him a ball and he is amazing, but he runs into everything and you have to watch your feet, because you will most definitely have your feet stepped on when he walks by). He also seemed delayed in learning things that I thought he should know. About a year and a half ago, I talked to a friend who had some similar issues with her adopted child. She asked some questions and gave her thoughts. The past few months we have seen some doctors and they believe based on his history of prenatal alcohol exposure that he has FAE (Fetal Alcohol Effects). I was told by a professional that we would most likely go through the grieving process once it was diagnosed. I can't say that I have, maybe because for over a year I was sure that is what it was and feel better now that I know that I am not crazy and now we have people that are willing to help us. We are working with the charter school he is in to test him and find out exactly where he is at with with learning, speech, and psychologically. We struggle with school. He loves it, but his brain is like swiss cheese sometimes the info is there and somethings it is in a hole. For several months he can count to twenty. But one week last semester he couldn't count past five for the whole week. Then the next week he was back where he left off. We are getting help but there is no cure for FAE, we believe he is mild (thank goodness). We have found some ways that help him when he rages here at home, but if we are in public we still don't know what to do besides leave and hopefully we aren't far from home because he is yelling and hitting the window of the van the whole way home. We still don't know how to prevent the rages.

This has been our life. I have debated about sharing these issues on the blog for quite a while, but of course never did until now. The bright side is that God is working, in our kids and in us. We love our kids and wouldn't change our decision to adopt them for a million dollars. But it isn't always easy. When I was pregnant with Paige and Clay, I made sure I did everything by the book so that they could have that advantage. I can't control what Drew's birthmom drank while he was in her womb. With Paige, Clay and even Drew after 7 months of age, we have loved them, showing them by hugging and kissing them, telling them and providing their needs and structure. "M" didn't have that. And there is nothing I can do about the past. But they are our children now and we will do our part in pointing them to Christ and trust God to do the rest.

Thanks for listening. Or reading rather. I share this so I can be a little more honest in what goes on in our home and some of the daily struggles we have and also to share the triumphs. And maybe you can pray for us when we come to your mind. I in no way intend to turn anyone off adopting. Rather I hope that you will see how much children need loving and committed parents to teach them the ways of the Lord. But it isn't easy. Worth it yes, so very worth it!