Playing Catch Up

As the title suggests, we've had lots going on since we last posted, and it's time to play some catch up!

Also notice, our blog title has changed. Since this is not just about our bulgarian adoption anymore, we figured we'd switch it up!

First things first, some updates on Easton.
Since our last post, we have made our second visit to genetics to get the results of Easton's testing.  What we found was interesting, unexpected, and gave us more insight to Easton's biological family. With that being said, we found nothing genetically that is stopping Easton from full development.  The geneticist was able to go over an mri that we had been waiting to discuss with our neurologist, that showed some minor changes but nothing significant.  The rest of what we found out is Easton's story, and we'll leave it up to him if he wants to share that one day or not, as it's rather private.
We were thrilled with the news and are preparing to go full force back into therapy and school. We had taken a small break from therapy until we found a place closer and that is also able to offer behavioral therapy.  We are getting back into the swing of things and Easton will undergo another OT and ST eval this week.
We're having difficulties finding a dentist that our insurance prefers and that will take on Easton's hatred for a dentist. Planning on calling our 3rd one tomorrow to attempt making an appointment that won't be a waste of our time.

In growth, Easton continues to pack on the pounds and now inches.  He's up to 43 lbs and 41.5 inches. He's grown 3/4 of an inch in just the last month.  I expect to see his height continue to shoot up, but I'm thinking his weight is finally leveling off at 20 lbs gained since coming home.Although genetics did tell us his dna points to him being of short stature!

*2nd Adoption Update*
As far as our second adoption. Things are moving slowly as we expected.  The fees due up front are much more substantial and we are raising them day by day.  We need $3700 initially to pay an application  and acceptance fee.  We only need $1600 more and that will be met! Praise the Lord.  We've had some generous donations, 2 fundraisers, and all of our Farmers Market money to go toward the adoption so far. We are of course planning more fundraisers (which I dread even saying), so stay tuned for those.

I shared with a few friends, that this is by far the hardest part of adoption.  Not just having the money laying around to pay for everything (unless our house sells!!).  Although, I'm a firm believer if you are being called to something or feeling led to do something, and you can do it on your own, it's probably not God moving! Folks we are seeing God move already.  Every time I start to question if we can really bring in enough funds to do this again, God surprises us with a reminder that He's in control!

Our goal is to turn our application in by August and begin our homestudy. We will also be doing our second post adoption report for Easton to send to Bulgaria in August!

*Summer Happenings*
We've had a lot going on this summer. We are having a ton of new adventures as a family of three.  Just this past week we were gifted an amazing vacation with some great friends to the beach.  We wouldn't have had a vacation at all this year if they hadn't invited us to tag along and we are so thankful they did.  Last weekend we were blessed for the 3rd year to attend the Bulgarian adoptees reunion. This was our first year having Easton with us.  He was a little off that weekend and about sunday we figured out he had some sort of bug. That particular bug brought lots of blow outs and puking and a particularly small appetite which is not like Easton at all.  However I believe he enjoyed himself, especially at the splash park!!  I think a large group of kids sends him into some sort of survival mode and he shuts down a little. School should be interesting...to say the least. He was super clingy over the weekend, which we loved, but is very unusual for him. Almost like he needed extra reassurance. I'm just thankful we are able to give it to him!

The sand at the beach was a test the first day. Easton hated it, and wasn't fond of the water either. The second day he b-lined it for the ocean. We just had to be a little more patient and let him decide he wanted to do it.  He liked the pool a lot better because he could stand in it at different levels. He is such a water dog!! We had a great time away as a family, and now we are back and about to get back to normal life.

No seriously, he LOOOOOVES water, in case you couldn't tell!!

Ready, Set, Surprise!!

That title will get you curious won't it??

 I posted last time that our family has some exciting news...and we do!

 When we started Easton's adoption, we did not know that Easton was the child God had planned for us, but we are so so thankful that God's plans prevail and not ours. Easton is perfect for our family. God has blessed us with such a special treasure in Easton.

 Not every day is easy, in fact some of them are down right hard. Most of the time Easton can communicate with us, but in those times where we don't have a clue what our child needs or wants...it's difficult. It's difficult when he laughs while being in trouble, or when he purposely will defy you just to see what reaction he'll get. It's hard when he says he's hungry but won't eat, or when he starts pouting because he wants to do something other than what you want him to do. It's tough when you know he's capable of going to the potty, but will use his diaper just so he doesn't have to stop doing what he wants to. It's heartbreaking when he's upset but won't let you near him.

 BUT... As our pastor often says "Thank God for BUTs"...

 isn't that normal with every child you've ever known. Aren't biological children just as difficult sometimes. I'll answer with a big YES. Even though we have no biological children, most of the struggles we have with Easton would be no different if he was biologically ours. Yes it's hard and we lose patience, maybe even many times a day, BUT it is soooo worth it. I would do it a million times over and over again.

The hard stuff doesn't even come close to comparing to the joy, happiness, and Character building Easton is doing in our lives. I've learned a lot about myself through easton. A lot of things I don't necessarily like, and am trying to work on, but I've heard parenthood will do that to you!

So with all of that said... We want more of this joy and happiness Easton has filled our lives with. We are excited to announce that we are beginning the process of adoption again! Our family is going to grow again and we couldn't be more excited.

We will not be going back to Bulgaria, in fact we are going to a different continent all together, but we are beyond thrilled. If Easton has taught us anything....it's that the children the world has discarded and sees as unworthy often wait the longest for families, but are by far the biggest blessing! So for that reason we will be going through a special needs program again.

We did not choose it at first last time, until we saw Easton's picture, but this time we are determined to bring one of these sweet angels home and into our family. We are very open to whatever God has for us this time and unlike last time are not specifying gender or limited needs. While we hope to adopt a child with cleft lip/cleft palate or limb differences (due to the overwhelming need in the country we are going to) we are open to many other needs.

 God proved Himself time and time again during our last adoption, and we are even more excited to watch him do it again. We can't wait for Easton to have a sibling to play with and learn from!!

 We hope you will join us on this journey as we take it on for the 2nd time. It will be no easier this time, in fact, financially it will probably be much harder, but the bigger the mountain the more room for God to work and show his power and majesty!

 This journey will likely take 2 years and will no doubt test my patience again but we are prepared for the uphill battle and are confident that God has ordained this adoption.

Stay tuned it's bound to be exciting!!

Summer Fun

Time is flying by now that Easton is home with us. Every day we find ourselves saying it feels like he's always been here, but we can't believe it's already been 5 months.
Now that the weather is warming up here in KY, we are finally able to be outside more. Easton would live outside if we'd let him.
He's getting to experience lots of firsts this summer! First Easter, first picnic, first time throwing rocks in the creek, first time fishing with daddy, first time playing in the water hose, first time camping...and on and on and on!
You want to know one of the things I love most about this kid? His Joy. He radiates joy. No matter what, he's always laughing at something. Even when we don't know what's so funny, he's rolling in the floor losing his breath he's laughing so hard. It's impossible to have a bad day when he's around!! He's brought so much happiness to our life!

Lets see...in the last month we signed up for kindergarten, stopped private therapies, grew some more of course, and started learning colors and the alphabet.  Now of course he still can't speak clearly but if we ask him to pick up whatever letter he can do it, or to match colors he can do it! It's amazing how smart he is.  Although he knows when I'm trying to catch a video because he purposely picks every answer except for the correct one and then laughs!

Easton is very much all boy. He is testing more and more limits. He's in the stage now where us saying "no" is funny so he inches closer and closer while looking you in the eye and laughing even though he knows he's not supposed to.  As frustrated as we get sometimes, we lay down at night and thank God that he's in a family and is getting to experience what it means to be a little mischievous!!

We're hoping to teach him to swim this summer. He loves water so much and has no fear of it, so hopefully that will be fairly easy to do. He's building muscle like crazy and starting to conquer stairs. Especially if there's something at the top or bottom that he's after!

Easton is catching on to so many new concepts, and is such a problem solver.  It really is amazing how smart he is. We are almost certain in a few years he'll be caught up developmentally. 

June 3 is our Genetics appointment where we will go and find the results of his lab work.  Most days we are convinced it is simply orphanage life that has created Easton's delays, but regardless of the outcome he's far surpassed what we were told he would ever do!!  I love the resilience in our little guy. He teaches us every day what it means to look adversity in the eye and be an overcomer!!

I'll leave some pictures to follow, so you can see a glimpse of the joy he brings into our life.

Also stay tuned for some excited news from our family in the coming weeks! I promise it'll be good :)

Almost 5 months home

I really planned on posting at least monthly...well that hasn't happened.  My goal is to blog much more often, but I'm not the most productive person when it comes to sitting down and blogging..or really sitting down and doing anything for that matter!!

There has been a few happenings since I last wrote. We had our genetics appointment, unfortunately we won't know any results from that until June 3rd. We have also had Easton's MRI and EEG that Neurology scheduled and both came back perfectly normal (woohoo!!).

Easton is continuing to grow like crazy, he is slightly over 40 inches tall and weighs 42 pounds. That's a whopping 18 pounds  and 2.5 inches grown since being home. We can see it in his clothes too because he's going up a size about every month.  We are currently in 4t and 5t clothes.  He can still wear some 3t pants but it's pushing it!!

We also recently celebrated Easton's 7th birthday. It's hard to imagine that it was his first birthday party, but it's exciting to know it won't be his last!! We celebrated with a small group of family and friends on the farm (where Easton loves to be the most) and enjoyed a perfect saturday with kites, pinatas, cake, and gifts!

He's continuing with therapy and has started wearing braces for his feet.  It will hopefully just give him the extra support he needs to get rid of the "wobbling" (for lack of a better term) he still has when walking and running. Also hopefully to give him a boost in walking up and down stairs.  I can already tell the strength he's gained since being home. He was able to climb a pretty steep incline on an inflatable in order to slide down at our church Carnival.  That was a huge feat and he did it several times. PT has discharged Easton since he's doing so well and also so that we can save any visits he might need for the end of the year.  OT and ST will continue to co-treat and work on feeding therapy and things like using a pencil and spoon correctly.

He's also becoming increasingly affectionate. He will reach out for kisses and hugs, sometimes when you least expect it.  He's such a little parrot and will mimic nearly everything we say and do.  He's still pretty uncoordinated but love his heart he tries! 

We've started RTI testing at the elementary school in hopes of getting related services through the school system soon.  He will also begin behavioral therapy through a private group.  This might be slightly different than it sounds, because Easton's behavior in general is outstanding.  This therapy will help with things like his tendency to get overexcited, refuse to eat with his hands, refuse to brush his teeth, potty training, etc.  It's a pretty incredible program and it's designed to work through life's hurdles with children who have a difficult time getting over them!

I had forgotten all of things I need to post about in this particular post but after grabbing a few pictures to upload I remembered so many things! I'll caption the pictures!

My handsome little man getting not so little anymore!

This was Easton at his birthday party

A not so happy little boy during the EEG

Easton digging into his homemade birthday cake (it got far too messy for a shirt)

You can't get a good picture of him in the water because he's never still! He LOOOOVES the water

Finally showing attachment to a toy that plays music and sleeping all night with it! He will pull out the tail and play lullabies until he falls asleep

HAHA one of my favorites! Easton's expression when the head of the pinata came flying off! He is actually screaming with excitement but he looks mortified!!

Daddy and Easton watching cousin Hunter play baseball

Learning to blow out candles, he did a really good job. All you have to do is tell him somethings hot and he tries to blow it out!

Love this kid!

Easton is pouting because I made him sit still and attempted saying the ABC's, he wasn't impressed

Hiking through the woods, this boy loves the outdoors.

He also loves his papaw and the tractor. It's amazing how fast he learns. If papaw shuts the tractor off EAston will reach for the key and try to turn it, if that doesn't work he goes for the gear shift and the throttle. He pays so much attention to every detail of everything. It really is amazing!

 

 

Every day Easton continues to learn something new and surprise us with something we didn't realize he knew. His comprehension is incredible and he can answer yes and no questions appropriately for the most part. 

Love this little guy so much and so thankful God brought him into our family. We are looking forward to the next many many years that he has to grow and learn!!

3 Months Home

Wow, it seems un real that we could have been home for 3 months already. And at the same time it feels like Easton's been a part of our family forever. We wouldn't trade life with him for anything. He's brought so much laughter and joy into our lives. He teaches us something new every day (mostly patience!!) and every day we see him learning. He's soaking life up like a sponge. It makes me sad to think
that if there would have been even just a tiny effort put into teaching him, how different he might be. But if he was any different we wouldn't be able to watch God's hand work in his life and grow the way that he is. He's so perfect for our family!


We've had lots of medical appointments since being home and I'll try to review the majority of what we've found out, but in a quick summary, Easton is very healthy medically.


*We've seen audiology to find out that his hearing is perfect (which we basically knew).

*We've seen Urology which told us that his kidneys were healthy even though his medical report showed one kidney might not be functioning properly. So that was a blessing.

*We've started PT OT and ST and they are wonderful. We love the group of girls that is working with Easton and his improvements are amazing. We were going to be seeing Shriners for Eastons feet and legs, because the MD felt he might need bracing due to some flat feet. Our PT offered to do the bracing for us, so we took her up on it. But his improvements in this department have blown her away. He picks his toes up when he walks now and he's built so much more muscle and coordination that he looks like a different child walking and running. Basically the braces will help get rid of the wobbling he does with his upper body when walking sometimes.
OT and ST are working together with Easton to work on his aversion to touching things and his aversion to any type of oral stimulation outside of food (i.e. brusing his teeth) and of course on his speech. His speech really has made improvements in just three months. He says "bye bye", "mama","ball" and has started to attempt other words like "go""papa""eat""stop" "shoe" and "more". He can say his vowel sounds pretty well most of the time also. The only trouble was he couldn't use his toungue to make sounds so "go" only sounded like "ooo" and "eat" only sounds like "eee".
Basically our ST said that he has no language so we will treat his language development like an infants. He will learn sounds and those sounds will eventually progress into full words. So that's what we work on. Soon he will be starting PT OT and ST through our local school system too so we are excited to see how the extra therapy each week helps him.

*All of Eastons lab work came back great except for a little anemia which we knew about. We are giving him an iron supplement and hoping it corrects itself over the next few months.

*Opthalmology said his eyes were pretty good except for being a little near-sighted but nothing that we are going to worry about correcting right now.

*Modified Barium Swallow was conducted to check and see if his tongue thrusting at certain foods was neurological or simply a response to different textures. Praise the lord his swallowing was perfect, so we've gotten much more aggressive about getting him to chew and try harder/crunchier foods.
Sometimes we have to offer him something "fun" like touching the ceiling (which he loves to do) if he'll eat something crunchy, and it seems to be working so far!

We are still scheduled to see Genetics tomorrow, so we are really anxious about this visit

So far Easton has gained 15 lbs and 1 inch in height. We've gone from 24 month clothing to 3T. The pants still have to be adjusted at the waist a little but 2t are too short and he's wearing 4T in shirts. If he hits 40lbs he will officially be on the growth chart in weight for a 7 year old!

He's learning how to be in a family. He's learning how to follow directions and picking up understanding english like crazy. We can be doing laundry (which he loves to help with) and I'll give him the dryer sheets and say "go throw them away" and he will go to the kitchen and throw them away then come back to me. It's really amazing how quickly he's picked up a new language. There's very little he doesn't understand. HE still has trouble with object recognition and unless we point at what we want him to get, typically he can't figure out what it is we are wanting. HE does know shoes, ball and door, but besides that he seems to get a little confused (but it has to be expected).

Easton is great at going with the flow and would be going somewhere all the time if he could. He loves it outside (that's an understatement) and would stay there all of the time regardless of the temperature.

We took him bowling a few weeks ago and he did so great, learning how and taking his turn. He really enjoyed it. He even attempted to be the bowling ball by running down the lane...that didn't work out so well for him haha!

We are working every day to get our little guy where he needs to be and his progress just blows us away. His behavior has made great strides. When he first came home, his first reaction to being told no or being made to do something he didn't want to, was to hit/scratch/bite. That has changed dramatically. This behavior has completely vanished and now when he's done something wrong and told no, he comes to give a hug and kiss like he's sorry! Smart kid, and learning quickly!!


Here's some picture for you to enjoy and see how our boy is growing!!

One Month Home

Wow, it's amazing to think that Easton has been home 1 month.  It seems like he's been here forever and such a short time all at the same time.  It's been an incredible journey and every day is another adventure.  First I'll give an update on all the excitement we've had these past few weeks! Then I know you want to know how Easton is adjusting!

First we spent our first weekend putting up our Christmas tree and Easton loves it. At first he wanted to knock the ornaments off but after correcting him several times he stopped that. Now he just wants the lights turned on all the time and if we start to leave the house he wants to make sure the tree is turned off.  He loves it.

hanging the first ornament

Then we went on a mini family vacation to Gatlinburg and had a blast. We spent time swimming, looking at lights, and of course eating good. We went with my parents and they enjoyed their time with their new (and first) grandson. Here are a few pictures from our trip.

He looooves water

We worried a little about his ability to adjust and "go with the flow" so soon, but he had no problems.  He's attaching well and seems to feel safe as long as we are around.  No issues interrupting schedule or where we are.  We can tell when he starts feeling stressed in new places (like Dr.'s offices) and it just didn't happen here. What a blessing. This little guy is so special, and so perfect for our family. God always knows what He's doing.

Then came Christmas.  We knew he wouldn't completely understand what was going on but we planned to celebrate like he would.  He did so well, and even though he doesn't understand presents or play with toys he enjoyed the time playing with us and opening presents (once he figured out how). Here are a few photos from our Christmas festivities and a few of him playing with some of his favorite gifts!!

his face says it all

I see sports in this boys future!

Starting early so he can be like Daddy!

Update on Easton
Easton is learning so much every day! He's growing like crazy (probably because he eats so much).

At 1 month home he's gained 9.5 lbs.  And it is so easy to see. His legs have almost doubled in size, his face is filling out, and you can't see his ribs anymore.

He's signing "more" "please" "eat" and "again" but uses "more" for almost everything he wants so we aren't sure he completely understands what he's saying.

He can blow kisses, give hugs & kisses, wave bye, dance when prompted, pat his belly and say "ho ho ho", and give the best high 5's around!

He loves to be turned upside down, be chased, be tickled, and rough house as much as possible.

His favorite things to do is throw the ball and any of the above mentioned plus run as far and fast as possible.

Favorite foods: yogurt and mashed potatoes (not together of course)
    He still has aversions to anything crunchy but will eat almost anything he can mash in his palate or just swallow.

He is not fond of our dog but tolerates her.

He loves to be active and keeps us on the go all the time!!!
He laughs more than anyone I've ever met in my life but has tendency's to get mad when he doesn't get what he wants (we are working on this).

He will mimic almost any sound we make, even though it doesn't sound the same when it comes out of his mouth, he's trying.

We are working on potty training, it's slow, but he's trying!!

Parenthood is such a joy and we are so blessed to be the parents of this incredible child. I'll leave you with a few more pics of all the fun we have!

four generations

he loves the lawnmower

still unsure about walking on grass

First haircut

running wild

He has learned to pass and catch this ball all on his own