One year ago...

One year ago, March 26, 2012, was a BIG day for our family.  Greg and I, for the first time saw our baby girl face to face, held her, fed her and saw her sleep for the first time.  So many memories, such an emotional day!  After working so hard and so long to get to China, it was almost unbelievable to finally be there!  I had dreamed many times before about our daughter and dreamed about her being home with us, so I kept pinching myself, thinking, "Is this for real, this time?"  I will always remember about that day...
seeing her all bundled up in many, many layers...

Her first smile in daddy's arms...

When we got back to our hotel, we stripped her down, just like the classes we took warned us not to do (imagine how we would feel if we were in a foreign place, with people who don't speak the same language as us and they start pulling our clothes off all while they are smiling and kissing us and speaking jibberish!)  We wanted to see if she had 10 fingers and 10 toes.  We bathed her and dressed her in some comfy clothes that we brought to China.  It was very hard for her to settle down for her nap, but with the help of the bottle, she couldn't fight it any longer. 
Her first nap with us...

We are so thankful for this beautiful child!  She brings so much life, joy, and laughter to our household and we have all enjoyed watching her grow and blossom, despite many setbacks. We have all felt growing pains as our household has grown and as Joy has grown and learned so much in this year.  Not only Joy, but Greg and I and even Brian and Noah have learned so much and grown this year.  So, we are all learning more about ourselves and about life through this special child God has placed in our home.

We celebrated our one year anniversary by eating Chinese!  Notice the hold Joy has on Greg and I! :)  I am so thankful that she is holding on to us!

Joy was crawling when we brought her home.  Now she is running and jumping!

And dancing...

Joy loves to dance!!

 

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven...a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to morun and a time to dance" Ecclesiastes 4:1, 4

 

 

Look who's talking

Joy is talking!  About a month ago Joy began making sounds and talking.  She is saying several words!

Big brother tied a balloon to Joy's poneytail.

Happy Chinese New Year!

We see lots of sweet smiles these days.  Unfortunately, it is very hard to get a smile on camera.  When I pull out the camera, she wants to see the picture before I have taken it.  As soon as she sees the camera, she runs to get behind it!

 

In the past month, we have moved Joy's bed to her own bedroom and she has done amazing with that transition. 

 

She is doing so good, her occupational therapist says she is on a 36 month level.  She was tested for physical therapy and she didn't qualify! :)

 

It has been so hard for Greg and I, trying to learn how to raise a very strong willed child, but her strong will has helped her to persist and work hard.  She doesn't give up and she has come so far.  It has been so fun to see!

 

Merry Christmas!

What a beautiful and wonderful Christmas this has been!  It has been a very dreary, rainy day outside, but inside the house is warmed with love and the laughter of our children!  I still wonder if this is all a dream and I will "wake up" from this dream, the dream that our daughter is finally home.  Before we brought Joy home, I would dream about her being home, even before we knew of her.  When I slow down and ponder the moment, reality shakes me and I find myself wondering, am I still dreaming...

Joy has enjoyed her first Christmas.  Before yesterday, she didn't know how to open a present, but she is a pro now! 

Joy applying her lipstick. For Christmas, Santa brought her a purse, complete with lipstick and keys!

Many times during the past month, I think back to last year and I remember decorating for Christmas and celebrating Christmas and the Christmas season with Joy in our hearts and minds and wishing her a Merry Christmas from across the world.  We wanted her to be home so bad and it was so hard to not have her to hold and tuck in at night and protect.  We are so very thankful for having Joy home this Christmas!  We are so thankful for Jesus, that he left his home and came to this broken world and made a Way for us to be at home with Him.  We are so thankful for our health and our family and friends who mean so much to us!

We are so thankful for the progress that Joy has made.  Last week we had a check up at the UAB International Adoption Clinic and found out that Joy is on a 24-30 month level cognitively!  What wonderful news that she has come SO FAR!  When we brought her home, she was on a 6 month level!  Physically, she is on a 12 month level.  So we are working hard on her speech and fine and gross motor skills.  We are confident that she will catch up!  She is working so hard on trying to make sounds, she watches our mouths and tries...she'll get there.  Her strong will can be an advantage!!

Merry Christmas!!!

Wow!  So much going on!  Since the last post, Joy had Bronchitis. At that Dr. visit, for the first time since coming home, Joy was "officially" diagnosed with Asthma.  She was pretty sick when we went to the Doctor and she received a breathing treatment at the Dr. office.

She is now using an inhaler regularly just to keep the asthma under control and she is doing much better.

Brian and Noah finished up football season with a bang!  Both of their teams grew so much over the course of the season and they both learned so much and had a really great time!  We all really enjoyed the season.  They both had great coaches.

We are seeing more and more that Joy is understanding so much of what we are saying.  Joy loves to empty the cabinet of plastic containers and this particular day I asked her to clean up the mess and she turned around and started picking up and putting away the containers back in the cabinet!  My jaw dropped and I turned and saw that Noah was witnessing this moment also and his jaw dropped also! 

Field Trip to Fort Toulouse!  Joy and I went to Ft. Toulouse with Noah and had a great time. 

Once we got home, we received news that Brian had broken his nose during P.E. at school!  Brian had surgery on his nose and is doing very well and healing nicely!

What a JOY she is! She is a beautiful girl! She wears a LOT of pink! :)

We decorated for Christmas today!  The picture above is Joy hanging her first Christmas ornament ever! We bought Joy her very own Christmas ornament in China and she hung it today on the tree. We were very excited to have Joy to decorate for Christmas with us for her first time, but for the most part, she was unhappy and throwing fits, as shown in the pic below.

We are so excited to have Joy home this year for Thanksgiving and Christmas and to celebrate the birth of our Savior with our new daughter!

Home for six months!

We've been home for six months and we are doing really good!  It feels great to finally be at the point where we can say that!  Joy seems to be more and more comfortable at home.  We are enjoying her so much.  She is so much fun and she is a sweet girl.  We have been staying VERY busy with Brian and Noah playing football, Brian in the band, school and homework, and Joy going to speech therapy three times a month.  We have the best speech therapist in the area!  The speech therapist recently expressed concern that Joy is not babbling or making any more sounds than she is making at this point.  Joy is still not talking and we have been working on a handful of sounds for the past few months, but all our work seems unsuccessful so far.  We just found out that Joy had fluid behind her eardrums and on Wednesday the ENT replaced the tubes in her ears.  The tubes had stopped up and their was infection in both ears.  We are praying and believing that with this new set of tubes, we will soon see alot of progress in Joy's speech and development.  Even though Joy is not communicating verbally yet, she is communicating with us.  She has learned several signs, her newest signs learned are "open" and "diaper change".  We've been so busy, we haven't taken many pics the last few weeks, but I've included a few.

Trip to Mobile

For Gene and Norma's (Greg's parents) 50th anniversary they took the family to Mobile and we had a really good time!

We appreciate so much their example of love and faithfulness!

Five months since coming home...

...and Joy is doing so good!  I am so impressed with how much she is understanding and communicating with us!  Joy said her first word, "mama" on August 15th!  So far that is her only audible word, but she is trying so hard to say something else.  She is starting to babble and move her mouth and tongue around experiencing with different sounds.  She is saying many words using signs.  She is so close to picking up "water" and "thank you" in signs.  She is pointing to communicate!  Up until now when we didn't go or do what she wanted she would arch her back and through her head back.  She has conked her head on the wall more than once!  Now she points and she gets a kick out of it when we are able to accomodate and she knows she just communicated with us! 

 Joy is walking!!  What a huge world has opened up to her now that she can go on her own!  Her personality seems to have changed just since she started walking.  She is much more content and happy and she wanders off to explore and play by herself now, giving mom a few minutes to do things here and there!  I was just noticing that she seems to find more pleasure in the little things now.  I often find her smiling and laughing at the little things.  When we first brought Joy home, she would laugh if we tickled her and then her facial expression would immediatly go back to serious.  Now, is something makes her laugh, she wants to do it again and again! 

Her constant drooling has slowed way down.  When we brought Joy home, she was drinking from a bottle with a hole cut into the nipple so that the formula and cereal could flow out without her sucking on it at all.  She never learned to suck, so we have been trying to teach her how to suck since her surgery.  For the first four months since coming home, Joy would soak through about five bibs and five shirts daily.  We also would always have a towel in hand drying drool off her chin and drying the floor and toys she was playing with.  Over the past four weeks, with the help of our speech therapist, Joy has become aware of the need to suck and swallow.  When she is drooling, we tell her to wipe her chin and she does!  We tell her to suck the spit back in and swallow and she wipes her chin!  She is now drinking from a bottle with no alterations to the nipple!!!  A miracle! 

This sweet baby is working so hard and learning so much.   



For a couple of months since Joy's surgery, she would cry and cry when Greg tried to put her to bed.  She is finally bonding with Greg and feeling more comfortable with her daddy putting her to bed!



Beautiful!

Brian and Noah have started school!

They were excited the first day!  Now the homework is overwelming and tiring!  We were all thankful for Labor Day break!

Brian and Noah are both playing football at school.  This is Noah at practice.

Brian and Joy taking turns rolling each other up in my excercise mat!  Fun!!  She adores her brothers and they adore her!  They can make her laugh like no one else!