Christmas Cookies

We all made and decorated cookies on christmas eve. This was a yearly tradition in my family growing up, and now we do it in our house as well. Fisher now holds the record for putting more frosting on a cookie than previously thought humanly possible! Also in keeping with tradition, we made a few "felix" cookies in honor of my brother, Derek.
Scott and I were in the thick of battle competing for the title of best felix cookie. (i won, of course.)

Julieann and Josh bought Jamison a traditional Chinese formal outfit while we were in China. Jamison ALWAYS wants to wear it, but I only let him for special occasions. He wanted to wear it for Christmas. The last picture is him wearing his gold outfit holding Fisher.

We had a fun day together. The boys all played outside building a snow fort for most of the afternoon. they each got something they wanted for christmas, and i was so excited to be looking around our living room at all SIX boys together. Jamison's first christmas at home with us. It made me very happy. I am growing to like him more and more. i have loved him from the first time i saw his picture, but LIKING him is taking so much longer than i could have ever imagined. still waiting. still trusting.

Merry Christmas to you all. Peace to your heart.

Applesauce

Some of the boys helped me make applesauce. Jamison did a LOT of the peeling. He loves to help out in the kitchen. Oliver (5) and our youngest, Fisher(2) also really enjoy helping with cooking, so they tried their hand at peeling and measuring out cinnamon and sugar. Jamison is getting pretty handy in the kitchen. He uses a chef knife to cut up apples, celery and carrots. I like it that there is one child who Loves to empty the dishwasher for me :)

Hopefully i will be posting more pictures on here. i am slowly learning how to use this strange contraption called the computer. i wanted to post the pictures and i will write a post soon about school and jamison's surgery. today is a busy day for us. the kids are all waiting for me to finish this and make them breakfast. we have three hockey games and one hockey practice. jamison's saturday school with the national foundation of the blind has their christmas party today and i need to go grocery shopping sometime in there too!
thanks for checking in on us. much love!

Jamison and Holden

Teaching little brother, Holden how to use the brailler.

School Days

after many meetings and introductions, jamison has started school! he goes for about two hours each day right now. depending on how things go, his days will be lengthened accordingly.
so far, he LOVES it.
he has a cane traveling instructor, and a braille teacher. his braille teacher seems to be a wonderful fit for jamison as she is a huge go-getter and VERY excited about his education. a whole new world opened up for him the first day he started to use the braille books and braille machine.
you should have seen him the first time he started to figure out the alphabet in braille. it was AMAZING and so beautiful. you could see in his whole body the recognition beginning to take place. he was so excited. i just sat next to him with tears running down my face. it was such a great moment to see. we work each day with his braille machine (it's like a type writer, except it types out braille). he is so ready to learn, he works very hard and soaks up everything.
right now, he is going through an evaluation with translators to try to determine the best plan of action for his specific educational needs. there is very much to consider.

on a different note, he has his first surgery coming up. November 4th he will have plastic surgery on his nose and mouth and he will have an expander placed in his neck. Dr. Wood hopes to "de-bulk" and give more definition to jamison's nose. he will also enlarge the opening on the left side of jamison's mouth, enabling him to open his mouth more. right now it is difficult for jamison to take proper care of his teeth because he can't open his mouth far enough to floss or brush in the very back of his mouth. Dr. Wood will also be placing an expander in the right side of jamison's neck. Some of you out there have had the pleasure of working with expanders before, and you know how much fun they are! :) an expander is like a little balloon placed under the skin and slowly "inflated" over an eight week time period. this will stretch out the skin on his neck and give Dr. Wood a lot of loose skin to do reconstructive procedures on jamison's neck.
the process of getting the expander inflated slowly makes you look like you have a massive tumor growing off of your body. it isn't pretty, but the end result can be pretty amazing.
jamison says he is ready for this and that he understand's what is going to happen. i believe him. he says he has had worse procedures before and he seems to think this won't be so bad. wow. i am so happy that we will be able to be with him through all of this. it was so hard to be so far away from him when he was going through different procedures in China. i am very happy to be able to take care of him this time.

he does have more surgery coming up soon to do reconstructive work on his eye lids, but that is not scheduled yet. he creates quite a stir with all of the different doctor's we go to. he is being such a trooper. he has a lot ahead of him, but he seems up for the challenge.
right now he is thinking about "trick or treating" and keeps on asking me if he can go get candy yet. he's really excited for his first halloween and wants to dress up as old mac donald. :)

Latchu Baby

it's no secret that my feelings have been a little slow on the uptake concerning our newest monkey. it has NOT been all fluffy clouds and rainbows with cute dancing teddy bears.
in spite of this, good things continue to happen.
jamison really loves hot food. he calls it latchu ("spicy" or "hot pepper" in chinese) this is phonetically spelled. so each morning when he wakes up, he asks me for latchu noodles. he started all of this when julieann and i first met him in china. he would just randomly say the word latchu, and then bust a gut laughing about it.
he still says it, and he still thinks it's funny. nobody knows why but him.
but i started calling him latchu baby. my little spicy baby. and he's not little...well, maybe if you compared him to another 12 year old he'd be little. and he's not a baby. but in SO many ways he is a baby. in so many ways he is just starting out. he is brand new to our family. emotionally he's so tiny and young, fragile. he wants to be held. a lot.
he cries. a lot.
this world is new to him....our ways, our rules, our language, our food.
he is so curious and wants to learn. and he is learning like crazy. you would not believe how much english he understands. he loves to be called latchu baby. he used to think "baby" was a really mean thing to call him. but once he heard me calling scott "baby" and all of his brothers "baby" he quickly realized that it was not a bad thing at all, but quite the opposite. so now in the morning if i say, "good morning, jamison" he says, "no, jamison mommy.....latchu baby!"
it's so cute. i'm telling you, i'm softening. it will come. i have faith that it will all come in due time.
today at a doctors appointment, the interpreter asked him if he liked it here with his new family. he said something to her and she started laughing and told me that he said "of course i LOVE it here, there is no where i would want to be more than here."
i started crying right there in the waiting room. i'm so happy he likes it here....with us....i so desperately want him to be happy and to feel safe. i want to do right by him.

the infamous six

Well, here they are. all six of them. they feed off each other like sharks in a pool full of chum. things have been going really well for over a week now. jamison is softening his heart in a new way, and he is opening up like the most fragile of little flowers. i feel like his trust is so delicate.
he is a sexist young man, firmly insisting that women can't be doctors, and that only men can drink beer. he was offended at the way my friend, julieann was sitting on the couch, and tried to get her to cross her legs in a manner he deemed more befitting a lady. he wears rollerblades around the house with a neon green cape around his neck.

my heart is also softening to him. i have been very actively pursuing changing MY attitude and MY expectations, as that is all i can control. i have been thinking a great deal about arranged marriages, and how love can grow, slowly, if nurtured between two virtual strangers put suddenly into a very intimate relationship requiring a great deal of trust. our situation is similar. it will take a lot of time, a lot of consistency, and a whole lot of grace for this love to truly grow and for trust to develop and take deep root.

jamison has a dr. appt. with a cornea specialist in oct to determine if there is the possibility of any sight in his future. he has dr. appts. scheduled at the burn clinic, the plastic surgeon and needs some dental surgery. we are looking into his educational needs and trying to determine the best plan for him. let me tell you, this is a crash course into several new medical fields and educational fields. there is much for us to learn and decide. abba, give us wisdom!

elliott and holden started school yesterday, oliver and whitman start kindergarten tomorrow, leaving me, jamison, fisher, and baby sebastian (the little one i take care of) at home each afternoon. both fisher and baby seba will take a nap at the same time, giving jamison and i roughly two hours alone each day. i am counting on this time to be a time of quality bonding that we have not been able to experience so far. in my own heart, i am feeling much more settled and accepting of him in whatever manner he chooses to give himself to me...be it an angry, argumentative, hurting little boy, or a funny, thoughtful helper or anywhere in between.....i will take whatever i can get, and i will continue to pray for his heart and his healing.

Shepherd's Field pictures

here are, at long last, some pictures of our time at shepherd's field (philip hayden foundation)
i have pretty much only included pictures of the sweet babes, i hope some of you see your little one in here somewhere. they are too wonderful and precious for words. i have stories for grady's family if your out there.....and if anyone is interested in an amazing, kind, quiet, loving, dear, sweet, older boy, Joseph is your man. he has stolen my heart.
i am sorry if this format is really stupid. i do not know how to put pictures on here, and this is the best i could do.