08/21/2009 The bear pillow

Over a year ago, when we were in Korea to get Paul - we were trying to figure out what would comfort him - to help him in his transition from his foster mother and father who he obviously loved.



We noticed that he cuddled and snuggled on a bear pillow in their home.


It appeared to have been one of the foster family kids pillows, I am not sure, but it seems like they had it awhile. But they offered for us to take it - so Paul would have something familiar to snuggle with.


Well, one day last week, we had a visit from a new person, a member of Paul's first steps team. Paul had not yet met Lisa. He got down the photo album we put together after our trip to Korea and began to show Lisa pictures. I asked him, "where is Umma?" He pointed to his foster mom. "where is Appa?" He pointed to his foster father. Then Paul pointed out his bear pillow in the photos.


Still struggling to communicate verbally, he took Ms. Lisa's hand and walked her through our living room, into our family room (I was not sure where we were going) and down the hall and into his bedroom. Then he walked across his bedroom and picked up his bear pillow and showed it to Ms. Lisa. The same pillow.
Here is Paul in his big boy bed. See the pillow squeezed behind his head?

Closer:


I was amazed. That was the first time he did something like that. My precious boy - noticed his lovey in the photos and knew it was the same lovey he still has now. We will always keep the bear pillow - forever. It will be available for Paul's children some day when he has them.

I Love my boy!

08/07/2009 - The 4th. . .

Of July - not August

My sister-in-law reminded me this week that my blog had not been updated - I knew this, but I just have not had the energy. I am a very busy woman - and I will be honest - I love being busy with my kids. So, my house is not straitened or cleaned, and my laundry is backed up and regularly sitting in my living room waiting to be folded, and I get little sleep - therefore I am grumpy a lot. But, the few hours each day I get with my kids - I want to be with them. Of course it is not that easy. For after they are picked up from pre-school we have to have dinner, clean up from dinner, get baths and get ready for bed, read books and our daily Bible Story, and spend a few minutes playing. There is just never enough real time in the evening to do all we want to do - and sometimes all we want to do is just snuggle with each other.

We had a lovely 4th of July - it rained all day but we had fun with some friends we now consider family. The kind of friends who can see me at my worst and love me anyway. Between us we have five kids - all adopted from China, Korea and Guatemala. We bonded after all our boys came home. There is so much for girls in the China adopt community - but for boys it is scarce. We did not care if all our kids came from the same country - the common denominator is that we have boys all under 3 years old and internationally adopted. We are trying to celebrate diversity as well.

We got their portraits done together. Here is a small sampling of the 68 total pictures we got. Here are six - but the slideshow has a total of 14. Notice that they are holding their own countries flag while wearing U.S. flag shirts in celebration of our country's birthday. We also want to honor their own birth countries.

Also note how goofy my son is. What a funny little boy he is!

Lacie and Emmy (from China)



Paul (Korea), Michael (China), and Aidan (Guatemala)



All together now



The Slide show:


More to come . . .
Blessings!

Vonda