Baking with mommy!!

He loved helping me bake an apple pie for Thanksgiving!  Tomorrow he will be helping me bake an apple tart.  Let the holidays beginning....!!!!

Another evaluation over with!

I took Aiden to have a communication evaluation done at All Children's Hospital in Sarasota.  We are so blessed to only have to drive 15 minutes to get to a fabulous hospital.  The therapist was phenomenal and had a lot of positive things to say about Aiden's speech.  He has develop a lot of bad speech habits over the last 5 years, so now we are on the road to breaking the bad habits and creating proper speech.  It seems like the road is long, but Aiden has such a strong desire to correct his speech.  It breaks my heart sometimes, because I know he is fully aware that people can't really understand him.  He is such a sweet, sweet boy and wants to learn the right way. 

Last week we had Ashlea from Aiden's foster home visiting from China and he just adores her.  We have had a couple of crazy busy weeks, but things have settled down a bit.  Today Aiden had one of his best days and it was so nice!!  We see him relaxing more and more.   We had our final visit from our social worker and were told that we should have a court date to officially adopt after the new year.  

GOOD News on Aiden's cleft Lip/Palate

Yesterday we got GREAT news about Aiden's cleft lip/palate.  We have, in my opinion, the most wonderful plastic surgeon.  He said that out of all the Chinese children he has seen, Aiden's surgeries in China are some of the best.  He does have a little opening that allows some air through, but he didn't seem to think it needs to be closed immediately.  So, Aiden is good until he is 7 years old when he has to have a bone graft and at that time they will close the tiny hole in his palate.  He has all his teeth, which is huge!!  The next step is to see a dentist on his cleft team.  My first thought of Aiden's next surgery is, "What happens if we are overseas", but that is easy.....one of us will travel back for the surgery or God will prepare another avenue for Aiden to have the best care somewhere else.   I love serving God.  No worries, no fear....complete trust, unspeakable joy, and peace that passes all understanding!!

We did go trick or treating (just a fun time to get some candy) on Sunday.  I don't have any pictures right now, because I shot them in a RAW format instead of JPEG and those can only be processed through Photoshop and my desktop is in the shop.   However, my little man dressed up as a ninja.   My view point of the night, the houses with lights on were sparse and maybe having a dress up party would have been better.  Overall, we had a great time with the family.

A LONG overdue entry.............

I can't believe it has been over a month since my last blog. Over the last 4 weeks we have gone through a few fires, but with fire comes the refining process. And we all have been being refined. The first two weeks of October were rough and that is really putting it nicely. However, we made some adjusted based off of wonderful counsel and we have seen significant improvements. I really believe there are times when you make small adjustments and yield huge results.  Dave and I are so thankful for the huge support system we have and especially the guidance of the Holy Spirit, our Helper in life. 

I feel like the last eight weeks I have been a slave to my cell phone trying to get all of Aiden's appointments scheduled. At this point all the balls are rolling and I have EVERY appointment that I need right now scheduled.   Next week we have his cleft eval, and appointment for speech at a local school and our final post placement appointment with our social worker.  I have made a commitment that from the week of Thanksgiving to the New Year that we our going to take a breather from everything and enjoy the holidays.  I love this time of year!! 

Please pray for us that we would receive favorable reports from all the professionals dealing with our adoption and that we get a court date for December. Dave and I want to have our adoption finalized by the end of the year.  ~Thank You!

Breakthrough after breakthrough!

We had such a wonderful weekend and have been experience breakthroughs with Aiden nearly each day.  On Sunday he mentioned that his name was Aiden Jian (& former last name).  The first time I tried to tell him that he had a new name, which was during the first week he was home, he completely shut down on me for about 35/40 minutes.  Well, on Sunday I sensed the opportunity to say something again and he totally accepted his new name!!  He also seemed proud about it.  God is so good!  His play therapy is going well and we have our 1st post placement visit on Friday.  We started homeschooling on Monday and it was fairly successful.   We decided to home school his first year of school, because of all the changes he has recently gone through.  We are getting on a schedule this week, for me this is a very important factor in being productive.  Aiden even got up early with me this morning to meet our youth kids at See You At The Pole,( a student lead prayer event).  He did great!!   We are still working through some things, but as Dave and I continually yield to God, He will guide our every step!