Gotcha, 2 years

I can hardly believe it has been 2 years since our family grew. 2 years ago we were given this very tiny, scared precious baby girl. The first year was very rough for all of us. Katie had created her "coping" by withdrawing from physical touch, eating almost any solids and self soothing. Many nights I spent either just plain exhausted, crying, praying or walking the floors with her. My heart ached as I knew she was just did not understand how much we loved her and would do anything for her. Although I have no doubt that her nannies loved her and did ALL they could in caring for the children, she just didn't receive the time, physical touch, and love that she needed.
Year two improve greatly:) She now KNOWS that each and every one of her family loves her so much, and will do anything for her. She has the confidence and security that she didn't have before.Katie absolutely loves Toy Story and Dora and Diego! She is so funny, as when she counts, she counts in Spanish, but of course she knows how to count in English. Katie is so smart. She loves to draw pictures of her family. Which although she is almost 3, she is still 2. She draws us with arms, legs, eyes, mouths, hair, and they are so cute:) She also loves to draw rainbows. Katie loves going to the library for storytime. She is now in dance class and absolutely loves going! She is just so full of confidence. She is almost always happy and smiling. Everywhere we go at least 1 person, but usually more stop me to tell me what an adorable little girl I have. The cashiers at the grocery store know her by name, and if I go without her they ask where she is? She truly lights up any room she goes into.
I am so thankful that God has chosen us to be her parents. I cannot imagine life without Katie. We are truly blessed.

"Gotcha" 2 years

GOTCHA! 1 YEAR1

It is our 1 year gotcha anniversary! Its been quite a year. Katie has blossomed into the sweetest loving toddler any parent could ask for. She is still pretty small wearing a size 18 months, and some of those are still too big. She is talking up a storm and eats everything, well just about. Enjoy the pictures.

We are so blessed!

I can hardly believe it has been so long since I have updated our blog. I will try and keep this short and give some highlights. Katie had her lip repair May 13th and did better then the previous surgeries, but it was still very hard for her. She has fully recovered and has come out of her shell big time! Katie is my little girl who will say hi to every person she sees. Every night she turns on her keyboard music and dances for us, and let me say she has some moves. With 6 children we have seen alot of dancing, but seriously, she definitely loves to dance! Which is a good thing since we have bought a dance studio. When I was a little girl I always wanted to take dance classes. Tap specifically. I don't ever remember asking if I could, but oh how I loved Shirley Temple. So when I had my daughter I was so excited to let her take dance classes. My girlfriends daughter is 7 years older then Brooke and had started dancing when she was 2 1/2 and told me about the studio which is in our little downtown, litterally 5 walking minutes from our home. Brooke loved dance class from day one. She joined the competition team at age 6, and this past season danced her 1st solo, and competed with it! She absolutely loves to dance, and has been given a gift by God. To watch her ballet brings tears to our eyes as she is so graceful. So when this past spring we found out that the owner of the studio was going to close, my girlfriend and I bought the studio! Katie of course is too young to take dance classes, as we do not offer a ballet babies class, but next fall she will be 2 1/2 and can start class, assuming she is wanting to that is. We are all doing well, busy busy but well. Our oldest Josh has completed his fire academy, has 2 classes to go to complete his degree in fire science, and is currently in EMT school as well. He continues to work as a paid on call firefighter. Robby will be starting his 2nd year of college next month as well, also continuing for his degree in fire science. He has a bought a jeep and has learned alot about transmissions as he replaced his, with the help of a few friends. He is very knowledgable about car repair, something he loves to do. Bryan is a junior in high school this year, where did the time go. He is leading a bible study at our home this year with students from his public high school. He is in his 7th year of band/marching band and loving it. Aaron is a sophmore this year, on the National Honor Society, Marching band, and pursing advanced classes again this year. Brooke will be in 3rd grade and loving her baby sister! She is reading so much, and having a blast with the summer reading program at the library. Katie is just loving life, and everyone she meets! She is so so smart. She recently starting understanding that when I said at bedtime its time to say your prayers, she folds her little hands. I cannot even imagine life without her. We are so blessed. Praise God!

update & pictures

I know its been along time since I updated, so here is a couple of pictures of the girls.

Katie has been with us almost 3 months now!! We continuously see so many changes in her. She now weighs 18.1lbs!! She has outgrown almost all of her clothes and is wearing a size 12 months now. She is not walking alone yet, but we know it won't be long. The ps has decided to only do her palate on 2-25,not her lip as was originally scheduled. Katie would be under anesthesia longer then she would like, and her palate is going to be a big surgery in itself. Her next surgery date for her lip repair is 5-13. Katie is trying to talk and is attempting so many words we can hardly believe it. She is on a pretty good schedule now and her eating is so improved. She still doesn't want much of anything with a texture, of which we haven't pushed as she can only have baby food consistancy food after surgery for several weeks. Also no bottle, so we have been trying to give her a cup so she will be use to it after surgery. Thats going as to be expected:)

Having a baby again has been a huge change in all of our lives, but Katie has truly been a blessing to our family that we may have missed had we not followed God, and listened to what direction He was leading us.

Its been 4 weeks & an update

I can hardly believe that it has been 4 weeks today since our precious beautiful daughter was placed in my arms. The tiny and scared baby who cried ALOT, now has her forever family and is very very happy. I love to hear her belly laughs and those sweet sweet smiles she gives. I love to watch her discover new toys and how they work. I love to see her sway her head to music and smile.

Its hard to believe that 5 1/2 weeks ago we started our travel journey to bring home Katie. In those 5 1/2 weeks we have traveled through 17 timezones, twice, been united with our adorable daughter, gone through many appointments in China and lived in a hotel for 2 weeks, 5 out of 8 of us got the stomach flu, Katie had surgery, and then 3 out of 8 got colds to boot!! It really has been quite a month to say the least. We are so grateful to have our daughter home with us to celebrate the best time of the year. Christmas. The time we celebrate our Saviors birth and His gift to us.

I haven't posted an update on Katies surgery as we have just had too much going on. Katie had surgery on 12-3. The plastic surgeon was unable to do all she hoped to. Katie has a very wide cleft lip and palate. The original plan was to do a lip adhesion, repair her soft palate, and ear tubes. Her soft palate was not able to be started. She now has what looks like half of an upper denture, of course with no teeth. The orthodontist will make changes to this every 1-2 weeks. The purpose of this is to mold her gums closer together. Her cleft is just too wide to repair and it needs to come closer. The plastic surgeon told us she has only had 2 1 yo have this. One suceeded and 1 did not. The one that suceeded was surgically put in with pins, and the other one , well the baby wouldn't leave it in their mouth. So far so good, although it is very difficult to put it in. Just try and picture putting a denture in a 12 month olds mouth. haha I know it sounds pretty funny doesn't it. I had a really hard time getting it in and took a break for awhile. Jeff was holding her as I had tried. So later that evening I tried on my own, on my first try I was unable to do it. I prayed "God please help me to do this, she needs this to help her palate", yes I alone was able to do it. Praise God!! So the PS hopes to do her next surgery in 2 months. We love the PS. She is also Brookes PS and is amazing. We have seen her on discovery health 3 times now for different cases. One of the reasons she didn't want to repair her soft palate was she felt it would affect her speech and if we can get things to move it is so much to Katies benefit in the longrun.

If you're wondering what is a lip adhesion is, well basically her nose has been put into place and the area under her nose is together. Her lip itself is not, so she looks like she has a split lip, or some may call it , an incomplete cleft lip. She is wearing the no no's, aka, arm restraints, but only at night and naps for the most part. The purpose for those is to keep her from touch the surgery site, as well as pulling out her ortho device.

We can hardly remember what life was like before Katie was with us. She has made huge milestones as far acclimating to family life. She loves all of us, and we all love her so much. We are still trying to get her to gain weight, as she hasn't gained much since coming home. We're still working on that one, but know in time she will catch up. She use to be tiny proportionally, however now she is not. She is 25-50% for her height, head & chest, however -3% for her weight. The Dr.s aren't too concerned at this point, but are keeping an eye on that.