It's been a while

Sarah showing off her back-handspring!

Grace and Maddie enjoying waffles and fruit with the all important whipped creme!


Duchess and her hurt paw.

Silly Clarence!

Even sillier Ginger!


Wow, time is just flying by! We've been busy enjoying the fall weather. We've had some first experiences and also closed a chapter in our lives.

Grace enjoyed having one of her friends spend the night for the first time. Grace has gone on sleep overs but we've never had any of her friends stay here! It was so much fun for her! Of course Analiese (and Matthew) wanted to be in on all of the activities but Grace didn't want to share. Being the older sister, Sarah painted all of the girls nails and did some art projects with them. Grace and her friend, Maddie, loved the attention!

Sarah has been enjoying practicing for the Nutcracker. Her mouse name is Skitter! Sarah went for her costume fitting this past week and just cannot believe how many layers she must wear! This experience is so wonderful for her. She is seeing the difference between her classes at the dance studio and the Nutcracker with a professional ballet company! Sarah, of course, is rising to the occasion and just loving every minute of it! We should have her performance schedule by November 2nd.

Oh, and Sarah has finally mastered her back-handspring! It really isn't polished but it was wonderful to see her accomplish something she has worked so hard at! The down-side? She now wants to get back into tumbling so she can polish the back-handspring and begin work on some more difficult skills! That means, bye-bye to my free Friday nights....

Sweet Duchess, the only cat that we allow outside, was attacked this past Tuesday. Dave brought the kids home and everyone (including Duchess) went outside to play. When Matthew went into the house for some water, Duchess ran in behind him. Immediately Matthew came running outside to tell Dave that the cat was bleeding.

Duchess was in lots of pain and would not let Dave very close to her. He was able to get her into the laundry room and give her some pain meds. By the time I got home, about 40 minutes later, the paw was so swollen and she had bled all over the floor. We immediately went to the vet who shaved the hair from the paw and did a full exam. It was his opinion that she was attacked by another animal. He cleaned the wound, gave an antibiotic shot and sent us home with meds and care instructions. Miraculously, the cat was walking on her paw within 24 hours and off the pain meds by 36 hours. She is healing nicely but rather angry that she can no longer go outside!

We had our last visit with our social worker, June, today. It was the 12 month post placement report visit for Matthew's adoption! Our relationship with June began in 2002 when we started our journey to adopt Grace. She has been with us through Grace's adoption, 2 post-placement visits, our adoption of Analiese and 2 post visits and now Matthew. She asked, before she left..."Is this the last?" I immediately said, "YES!" Dave was slower to respond, but after some prompting from me, (Dave? Dave?) he also said, "yes".

Matthew is doing so well these days. Yesterday the kids were home all day with Dave as it was a teacher work day for me. When I came home, Matthew hugged me tightly, kissed me and said, "I missed you all day today." That is so unusual as he generally loves spending time with his Daddy and doesn't miss Mom!

All of the kids are doing GREAT in school. Sarah had a rough start adjusting to the demands and responsibilities of 5th grade but quickly got on the right track, Grace is just shining and progressing so well, Matthew is doing more and more work independently and actually showing great progress in his reading skills. He read, "Dan the Tan Man" to everyone who would listen! Analiese has made the most progress! She just "gets" it!!! She is decoding, and blending her sounds. It is amazing to watch the light bulb burn so brightly!

We also had a visit with the craniofacial team this past week for Analiese. The speech therapist completed some evaluations of her speech and WOW, WOW, WOW! Some of Analiese's sounds are NORMAL!!!! Of course this is wearing the obturator but her speech is clear on so many sounds. This is great news and allows us to put off having any more surgery for her so we can continue to work on her speech!

If we had to pick a complaint it would be that we haven't seen William, Thomas and James in a while. They are very busy with school and activities. Thomas is just doing great, academically, at Tech. William, on the other hand, seems to be very well socially and not as well academically. Oh, growing up and making decisions.... James continues to do well in school and just competed in a race held at Disneyworld in Orlando. We hope to see them soon as the twins 19th (!!!!) birthday is on Halloween.

Life is good for us and we are grateful for everyday we have together. Talking with June today I realized that somewhere in the past 11, sometimes very stressful, months we've all found our new place. My family is, once again, happy and healthy. God continues to bless us!