a couple of pictures

I think I wrote about the girls playing "Old Fashioned Times". They decided that it would be g=fun to do things like wash clothes by hand. This was totally their idea! I had nothing to do with it. The funny thing was that when they were done Isabella comes inside and tells me that she *knows* why they made washing machines! It's so that you can do the wash faster. Ummmm, very astute of her I would think :-) So I took some pictures of them washing and hanging the clothes to dry.

We went to church yesterday! It had been at least 6 weeks since we last went. It was great to be back. Jedidiah did well. Although giving him a tube feeding in the van just does not work as well as when we are at home. It moves way tooooooo slow! (the feeding, not the van)

We have a quiet week here. Just schooling, cleaning and preparing. I am trying to prepare some fun themes for a "summer camp' to do here after our school year is over. We end June 29. We will have a three week break before we start our next school year. We will be trying a year round approach this year. We'll see how it goes. We are also preparing Isabella for her first away from home experience. She will be staying with Jerry's parents for about 4 days at the end of the month. We will then all go down to get her on the 4th of July. She is so excited! She is making a paper chain to count down the days.

In less than on week our little man will turn ONE years old!!!! Oh my goodness how time flies! I am so amazed at how far he has come, and at the same time, how far he has to go. We went to a graduation party this weekend and met up with a family we used to go to church with about two years ago. The wife was immediately asking questions about Jedidiah. She then shared her own experience of having found an orange sized tumor inside of her that the doctors gave her 6 months to live. Well it's been six months and she looks totally healthy. She said she went to a homeopathic doctor as she didn't trust the regular doctors. It was by following the regular doctors advice that she got the tumor. Long story short, long term use of benedryl can cause these rare tumors, the kind that she had. So she sought alternative help. She will be giving me his name just to see if he can do anything for Jedidiah. I'm game. I'm not sure if I wrote about the medicine we gave Jedidiah this past thursday/friday. The GI doctors gave him this antihistamine that has the side effect of increasing appetite. Well it worked! However, it also totally altered his personality! He wouldn't smile or interact, was constantly fussy. So we said, no way! And so our saga continues.

Well I have some pita bread to make and laundry to fold and kids to school and.....well you get the idea. Have a great day!

Scrub a dub dub two girls and their tubs, washing their clothes away....

Along came their sister, who sat down beside them and washed her clothing too.

Here they are hanging their clothing up. Isabella rigged up the clothing lines between the porch steps and the soccer goal, and between the wheel burrow and steps.

Here's little man working on his balance. His feet look so tiny in this picture!

It looks like Jedidiah has something to say! Here he is with some of his fan club.

an update and dinosaur flies

Happy boy! He was had a great time playing with this box.

Look Ma, I'm standing. Granted he didn't get there by himself, but standing there is a huge feat for him. He is really wanting to get around and was thrilled to be standing.

Creatures from the dark side.....her from under cabinets I mean. Read the exciting story below.

First the update on Jedidiah. He had two days of tests this week at Duke. The first day was for a stomach empty test and an upper G.I. x-ray. Both tests came back normal. The x-ray did show some reflux, but the doctor said everyone has a bit of reflux and what he had on the x-ray was nothing significant. I am not going to halt his reflux medicine at this time however. Then he had an endoscopy on Thursday. They had to put him under with general anesthesia. They failed to tell us what to expect when he was falling asleep. Something along the lines of : oh don't worry if you see him flailing his arms/legs and heaving his chest like he can't breath is all normal. Yeah that would have been really great!! Nothing like thinking your child is dying in front of your eyes! He came out just fine and the findings did not show anything abnormal. We will have to wait for the biopsy results to come back next week though as not everything can be seen visually. He has lost weight due to having to fast before the procedures! Ugh! We just can't seem to win. But hopefully with the pictures below you can see just how happy he is in spite of his small size. He is getting stronger. He is trying to move around on his own in what ever means he can. He doesn't get really far, but he has determination :-)

And as far as dinosaur flies go..... I do believe I wrote about them last year. You have your deer flies, then horse flies and then there are the flies that I believe fit more to the size of a dinosaur. I had one in the van with me. Not a good combination to be sure. I have to say I was glad that my van as a mess as I had something to whack it with ( a tennis racket to be exact). I thought it had flown out the window, but as I opened the passenger door today there it was in the foot well. Dead of course, the best kind. So I told Moira to go and get the camera and a quarter. She wanted to know why I needed a quarter. I told her that way people could see how big it is as you really can't tell with it being in a picture all by itself. You need something to compare it to. She said I didn't need a quarter as she could just hold it in her hand. Then she proceeded to pick the disgusting thing up! Now mind you Moira is a girly girl. She loves kitties, and anyting pink, and wouldn't mind being a ballerina....AND she is the only one who will willingly handle bugs, dead and alive! Surely she is not related to me!!!!

So here are the pics: Oh bummer I can't find a few of the pictures on my computer!!! We had some technical difficulties and sent some of the pictures by email to Jerry's email account and now they are not on our computer anymore. Maybe I will be able to find them later. The last picuture above was what Saoirse saw when she opened the cupboard underneath the bathroom sink to get some toilet paper. The poor thing came to me and said in a quivering voice, "Mommy, come here, there is a big spider in the bathroom." Then she said, no, not a spider a big bug. I went in opened the cupboard and let out a scream. That made the girls come running to see. They saw it a screamed and then Daddy came to the rescue to rid our house of such a creature. Life is never dull around here!

Ok, so I found the lost pictures. Here is the dinosaur fly!

Here's Isabella bird watching. It is her new hobby.

Here are our brand new, VERY stable stairs. We are very glad to walk down and not think that the stairs may sway out from underneath us. Ok, it wasn't that bad, but compared to these stairs they seemed that bad. Jerry has been working hard to get these done.

This is proof that these girls are not related to me. Well I suppose it would help to know what it is that they are doing that make them not my daughters. In that bucket happen to be 4 very unattractive grasshoppers! Not only are they looking at them, but they are touching them and they named them!! Saoirse's favorite was Lemon. Yeah, they are totally not related to me. I only named worms when I was a child, which is far more acceptable than grasshoppers hands down.

14 pounds again

Finally, Jedidiah has regained the lost weight. I am a little apprehensive to stay excited though as we won't know how long he may stay this weight. He goes for his first round of G.I. testing tomorrow at Duke. He will have a stomache empty test and an upper G.I. x-ray done. Then he has his first physical therapy session on wednesday. And last but not least he has his endoscopy on thursday. I am so very thankful that someone from our church will be able to watch the girls for us then. Jerry has to go into work that day and has a doctors appointment himself later on in the afternoon. I am hoping to make it to the weekend all in one piece :-)

The oldest three girls get to go see a professional soccer game on friday. They are looking forward to it. We are pretty sure that we will be able to return to church very soon. Hopefully this coming Sunday. It will depend on Jedidiah's test results.

So my house if pretty clear of toys as of today. After two days of nagging and nagging the girls to pick up their mess we decided it was time to "help" them learn how to clean up after themselves. So we put all thier toys in the attic. They got to keep out one toy. Things like coloring, puzzles, board games and outside toys were exempt from being banned to the attic. So if they can keep their one toy taken care of then we will let them have two toys, and so forth. I assure you they still have plenty here to make a mess with though!

Well I must be off to get their schooling done. Then make dinner. TTFN

GOODNESS!!

My how time flies. I wish I could say it was all fun as well, but not so. Some amazing things are happening here, some good some bad. I think I have a novel in my head of all the things that I want to write about. Of course I can only write so much in whatever time I have before Jedidiah wakes up from his nap.

Speaking of Jedidiah....he's the one who is not so good :-( We are going to see a pediatric gastrointerologist (sp?) tomorrow. Three or four weeks ago when we started feeding him all his food all of the time, he started taking in less and less on his own, which made me have to give him more tube feedings. Then the week after he started refusing to nurse on both sides and not eating his solid food. so I switched around when he ate his solid food and that took care of that, but he still only eats half of what he used to. Then this past week he started throwing up. I thought it was because he outgrew the dosage of his reflux medicine. Although that is still a possibility he never even used to spit up let alone throw up! He threw up his feeding tube on Thursday which was traumatic for him and I. I tried putting in our last tube on Friday and when I opened the package the tube was defective! Ugh! Of course it was after hours and the health care company that we get our tubes from couldn't help us. So I was really hoping that we could hold out till Monday before having to get a tube, but I could tell he was not putting out enough fluid to make it the weekend. Not to mention his soft spot on his head has sunken (it's not actually sunken, as it is usually bulging, but it sunk from where it normally is). So Jedidiah and I got to spend the morning in the ER yesterday so we could get a new tube in. A three hour wait in the empty waiting room first. Then we were out of there two ours later with some very expensive tubes. Expensive in the fact that buying them is only 14 dollars but the emergency visit will be more than that! Ha! We would have been out of there an hour earlier but there was a lack of communication between the doctors and nurses. Because Jedidiah has neurological issues (his big head and the past history of the scans yada, yada, yada..) the doctors wanted to make sure this was a gastro issue and the throwing up wasn't because of increased pressure in his head. Once they determined that is was only gastro they failed to give the green light to the nurses to give us the feeding tube. Oh well we are home. Possibly only temporarily though. The receptionist for the G.I. doctor told us to be prepared that Jedidiah may have to be admitted to the hospital if they can't do all the testing that they need to in their office. Oh joy. You know I am looking forward to that possibility! But hopefully we can get some answers and fast. Jedidiah was up to 14 pounds 1.5 ounces and today he was at 13 pounds 8.5 ounces. I could just cry. Every time we go forward we have to go back.

The girls had their end of year testing a week ago. It went pretty well overall, but their shortcomings were definitely evident. I already knew where they needed more work, but if I had doubts before, I don't now. Isabella did great in math and language, and resources. But the reading comprehension is lacking. It's not even that she can't comprehend what she is reading, it's just she doesn't take the time to read carefully and look back for answers. Ugh. Moira did well in math and reading, but did poorly in spelling and her timed math. She can do all the math problems in the timed section. However if you tell her she is being timed (about anything, even in a game) she freaks out and "can't " do it! I already knew spelling was going to be a sour point. She can read well, but she can't spell. There seems to be a disconnect with her hearing something and being able to do it or spell it. She has always been this way. She can read a word, but give her that same word to spell and she can't. This will be our last month of school. Then we will have a three week break before the new school year starts. I decided to take the year round approach as that seems more beneficial to the seasons and them retaining their past learning. It is so hot here in the summer it didn't make sense for us to waste our inside time, when we could be learning.

The other big news has been pretty amazing to see develop. It has come time to adopt. Well, starting the process at least. We always knew we would adopt, but it was always, someday. However God told us it is now. I had been praying over the years on and off that I would have the same love for our adopted children as our biological children. I was afraid that I wouldn't and there would always be a difference. Well I happened to visit someones blog the other week. I went there to read what she had to say about nutrition. It just so happens they have two adorable boys they adopted from Ethiopia. The first picture I saw on her blog was of the youngest. He reminded me so much of Jedidiah. He has a big head, small jaw, those beautiful happy eyes....oh my I had to read their story. I searched back through her blog to read about their adoption story and all of a sudden I knew we had children over there that are ours to raise! I can not explain it. My heart was burning to hold our children. I have this love for children I have not met yet. I really wanted to tell Jerry about it. But I thought it would be best to let God convict him in His own time. Well that would have been only a few hour wait!!
Jerry came to the table with a very serious look on his face. I was terrified he was going to tell me he lost his job! He said a few things about how he know God was telling him we would be going into ministry sometime in the future. Hmmm. Ok, I thought. I wasn't really sure what to say as he was obviously very overcome with what ever thoughts or convictions he was having. So I decided to wait till he was ready to tell me. Then after dinner he was on his laptop and he turned it around to show me what had convicted him. It was a picture of a starving African child. Oh, how my heart started burning again. He went on to say that he didn't know why God gave him this love for these children. Well I thought I knew, it was because he was convicting both of us at the same time! So we've been looking into it. My heart is with the Ethiopian children. Jerry has a burden for the children of Liberia. So I thought it best to look up other peoples blogs about adopting from Liberia as I wanted to be on the same page as Jerry. I didn't find too many. But I found on in particular that documents their whole journey. And oh the horror of it over there! I don't think I can go into it. Sixty percent of babies under a year die there. There is no running water or electricity. The atrocities being done to children there are horrid. The poverty is overwhelming. It is so bad. So my heart is turning to Liberia. Although somewhere in my heart there is an Ethiopian child waiting :-) Like I said we are in the very beginning stages. There is a long road ahead of us. It seems almost impossible that it will happen. There's the saying: Where there's a will, there's a way. Well I was thinking that is really is more like: With God's will he makes the way. I am eager to see how He makes the way for us to adopt our children from Africa.

Ok, I think I better end this novel. I'll let you all know how Jedidiah's appointment went.