First snow Oct 12!

We have lived here in Iowa for almost 14 years - NEVER has snow showed up so soon. It was a very cool summer, then a nice month or so of fall - and the cold weather hit way too early. It was a Monday morning, but I let the 4 littles go "play" awhile thinking it would all be gone very soon. HA! It snowed nearly all day!

Mary

UNO

The kids love playing UNO. Nathan has finally found out that the game itself is actually fun and he doesn't HAVE to win to enjoy himself. This has increased our pleasure in the game, too - no crying, whining children at the table anymore. Even Caitlin, when she got stuck between the younger sweet sisters, Sarabeth and Juliana .... who morfed into the deadly Draw 2/Draw 4 duo and pounded poor Cait - she just kept on smiling! And Juls just giggled and sighed when she forgot to say, "Uno" and got stuck with 4 extra cards .... actually after what she did to Caitlin, we were glad to quickly yell uno and stick her with her extra cards!

Game night is always fun - and always too short for the littles.

Mary

Jeremy's new arm/hand

We went to Shriners Oct 7/8 and Jeremy rec'd his first prosthetic. We did not expect an actual hand, but rather a type of utility tool to aid him in some life skills. So in some ways we were excited to see this neat little hand, but questioned if it was going to actually help him the ways we had hoped.



Jeremy was very thrilled to actually pick things up and pinch them for the first time with only one extremity. If he was sitting still waiting for the next thing to do, or while we were playing cards, you would catch him using the right hand to squeeze his left "blobby/appendage". This is something he could never do before - kind of like twiddling your thumbs, he will squeeze, release, squeeze, release. He astounded the Occupational Therapist with how quickly he learned to use the hand. The OT said it usually takes the entire first session (at least) for the child to learn what Jeremy learned coming up the stairs from the prosthetic room to the therapy room. He could pick up nearly anything she placed before him. She quickly shifted to teaching him how much pressure to squeeze with by placing various spongy blocks, balls on the table - then asked him to pick this one up without squishing it or pick this other one up and squish it completely. She would hold her hand, palm side up about 1-2 feet above the table and tell him to place it in her hand while maintaining the requested pressure. He accomplished each feat correctly the first time with every request. You will see in the video how he uses his left arm to pull on the cord to close the fingers - and the arm points out like a child with her tongue out to the side while carefully coloring! The OT and I caught this at the same time and just laughed.



I did ask him to give my nose a squeeze - BIG mistake!!! OUCH!! The hand is "at rest" in the open position so he must think and keep the tension to keep it closed. The "hands" that are at rest in the closed position and must be consciously opened are typically hooks - the therapist said children don't take as well to them due to how they look. It would be much easier for him to open on demand, close onto a toy (light saber, bat) and then be free to do what he wants with it - not having to maintain muscle control from the left to keep his right "hand" closed.



The OT said he needs an elbow joint to straighten or bend to do more things, but this is the first step in getting started with prosthetics. As well as he did with each task, the hand does not, unfortunately, help him with much of anything day to day. It does NOT help him eat, write, color or toilet. He can not pull down or pull up his pants while he has the hand on. So, he does not use it day to day. He will put it on and do some tasks as we ask him, but then it comes off. This is fine - the folks at Shriners know that he will likely do most things with his natural arms and only use a prosthetic for certain tasks. We have not found too many everyday tasks that the hand actually helps him do better yet. He had adapted so well previously. I do believe a longer prosthetic with a jointed elbow would help him more, but we don't return to Shriners until February. The waiting game. So we will continue to have him practice with what he has and master what he can. Then we will go to the next step next year.

Below you will see what Jeremy did right off the bat with the therapist. What a quick learner!!

Whatcha think, Charis???

Blessings,

Mary

Vera Bradley purses

A chance to win a Vera Bradley bag AND help us bring Christina home!!

A dear friend of mine from the adoption world is doing a fundraiser to help us bring Christina home. She is raffling off 15 Vera Bradley purses. For a chance to win AND help us bring Christina home go to http://www.hopeandhealingfororphans.blogspot.com/ .

PLUS I received several new pictures of Christina today!! That's always great to see!

If you are not interested in purses and still would like to help us bring Christina home, go to our blog for her www.afamilyforchristina.blogspot.com and give alittle to help alot with our Chip-in!

Mary : )

Adoption of Christina

It is with great JOY

we announce that we have

Pre-Approval (PA) from the
China officials to

pursue the adoption of

DuJie .... Christina

who lives atShepherd's Field Langfang Village!

It is a long God story in how we went from deferring to another family for the adoption of Gregg to pursuing the adoption of Christina who we have been sponsoring .... and John has been smitten with .... since last year. We met Christina in February 2008 while visiting The Village prior to adopting Jeremy - same time we met Gregg. Go to Christina's adoption blog link (on sidebar) to read the story behind this announcement. We are so happy to know that it is a pleasing thing to God to have this child placed into our family.Christina will be 10 on November 11th - our oldest child from China, but will always be our smallest .... her special need is that she has a form of dwarfism and presently stands at 38 inches tall and wears 3-4T clothes. I simply can't wait to send her a new outfit and the family photo album I have already put together for her - to let her know that SHE finally, after so very many years, now has a family of her own!

Spring 2009 Photo Gallery

An Easter morning photo of the kids: Grace (15) Caitlin (16)
Nathan (5), Jeremy (8), Sarabeth (9) and Juliana (5)



Mary and Juls coloring eggs


Grace, before she cut her hair


Nathan is a budding artist


Caitlin getting all the dye ready



Our spring project... all the living room carpet is out, awaiting the new carpet's installation


A thorough cleaning and getting the walls ready for paint

The walls aren't white anymore!


Tan paint goes onto the hallway walls


The offending light fixture, which overheated and caused an attic fire!


The Clear Lake fire department was out in force


Firefighters begin the cleanup


And what a mess it was!


We spent HOURS cleaning up the mess



Mary reads the birthday card Juliana made for her


Another homemade birthday card.... Happy 50th Momma!


Jeremy the swordsman in action!


Happy 9th birthday Jeremy


Wow. Jeremy cleaned up on his birthday!


Trying out his birthday basketball


Jeremy gets ready to help dad grill his birthday dinner


Caitlin, on her 17th BD!


Not as many presents as Jeremy got. Welcome to adulthood Cait!


But.... the adult type presents can be pretty sweet :-)


This is a Washburn guitar. It has a very rich sound. Needless to say, Caitlin was pleased!


Playing a song for her Dad.

Global Warming??

What a bizarre summer thus far. It has only hit 90 degrees on 3 days so far! According to Weather Underground, the temp at Mason City hit 90 on May 19, 93 on June 22 and 92 on June 23. So far in July, the high temperature for the month is 84 degrees on July 6. Today you ask? A brisk 71 degrees under a bright cloudless sky. Mary had to break out a sweatshirt this morning when it was a breezy 55 degrees.

This summer, we set up a 4 foot by 18 foot pool for the kids. We filled it over a month ago and they have only been in it 2 or 3 times. The water temp has not risen above 73 degrees because we just haven't had any HOT days!

More posts and pics to come soon!

John

Juliana is Toothless!

Juliana lost her first tooth today. It has been loose for several weeks and she's been wiggling and wiggling it. Today she came out of her room with a few tears in her eyes. She had wiggled it a bit much and the tooth was barely hanging on and was bleeding. Daddy got a tissue for Mom to "wipe away the blood" and voila! She did bleed for a while. As most of you know, Juls has had two open heart surgeries and is now on a baby aspirin daily, which means she bleeds a bit longer. She bit on a tissue for a while and after a few more tears, Juliana was all smiles!

Grace Turns 15

February 28, 2009: Grace is growing up so fast. She turned 15 today and we celebrated with a lasagna feast and birthday pie. Jeriah and Shawna were able to join us, as did the Cox family. It was an excellent dinner! Grace is in the 9th grade now and has been homeschooled the entire time. This year she is in a new curriculum called "Sonlight", which requires a LOT of reading. Grace is a reader who can devour whole books in a single sitting it seems. She says she is "tolerating" the Sonlight, as the reading consists of a lot of literature and she would rather be reading Star Wars or Narnia. Grace is currently planning on doing a missions trip to Idaho this summer with the youth from another church here in Iowa. She's looking forward to the opportunity to witness for Christ and see a different part of the country. She also will likely be trying to get her learner's permit this year. Keep us all in your prayers!

Happy Birthday Grace. We Love You!

Happy 9th Birthday Sarabeth!

January 31, 2009: We celebrated Sarabeth's 9th birthday today. She has been with us for just over two years now and we've been blessed by her addition to our family. This past year we were privileged to see Sarabeth come to know the Lord as her Savior and were excited to see her follow the Lord in believer's baptism. She is a quiet child and very well behaved. She enjoys helping out around the house and usually keeps her room very tidy. In school she does good in spelling, but not so much so in math. She has been taking piano lessons for a year and a half and is doing great in that. We enjoy listening to her practice! Sarabeth is an animal lover and really enjoys having our puppy Lizzie around the house.

Happy Birthday Sarabeth. We Love You!