Wonderful Weekend!

Last year we went to the Buddy Walk with no idea that a year from them we would be home with our two little ones. We did not even know about Veronika or Gavyn at the time. It was a chance to learn more about Down syndrome and see kids of all ages who had Down syndrome. What we saw, and learned was more than we could have ever hoped and dreamed.

Buddy Walk 2011

Fast forward a year and you have this weekend. So much has happened in a year! Just after the buddy walk last year we ended up finding Veronika on Reece's Rainbow and committed to her. A month later we committed to Gavyn. We have been home a little over two months now and this weekend we were able to take them to the Buddy Walk!

We had such a great time and got to see many of our friends from last year plus some new friends as well! We passed around some fliers and some candy for Reece's Rainbow and wore our Reece's Rainbow shirts as well. It was so great to be able to share our story and a story of hope to others.

After the Buddy Walk, we went to the Grist Mill where they were making fry bread and homemade hand churned butter. Brandon got to have a turn with the churn.

Afterwards, we walked around and took some pictures. It is so beautiful at the Grist Mill, and it is so rich with history!

In other news.... Veronika has been really stubborn about standing up. She hates it. Or rather, she did until we found how to get her excited about standing. Veronika LOVES Signing Time. She is already signing more and while I do not like kids watching tv, we have made an exception with Signing Time.

She will pull to a stand and then when she gets tired she will sit back down on the wedge (the brown thing behind her legs). She is doing so well!!!

Gavyn is doing very well with sitting up and no longer wants to be on his back or even try to be on hands and knees. All he wants to do is sit down all the time. Sadly, he is getting his first cold :(
He has a runny nose and has been very clingy lately. It is helping a lot with bonding thou! He is getting a lot of extra cuddle and rocking time. Hopefully we can avoid a fever.
Hope all of you have had a great weekend!!!
God Bless!!

One of THOSE Bloggers...

I remember reading blogs before we brought home our little two. I remember their excitement as they got ready to bring their child/children home, and I loved hearing and seeing pictures while they were in country, and then finally got to come home! I loved their homecoming pictures and videos and then... I remember how I felt when they stopped blogging. I could not understand how they could just stop, or not always stop but not give updates very often. I remember feeling kinda disappointed, and while I understood they were busy, I felt like I had helped them home and I wanted so much to continue to follow along. I remember promising I would never become "one of THOSE bloggers".

I certainly did not set out to be "One of THOSE Bloggers", in fact, I doubt any of THOSE bloggers ever do. Coming home brought many changes around our house, and now that I in the same position as "THOSE" bloggers, I realize I AM one of them.

So you must be wondering what in the world has kept us so busy that I have had little time to blog? I will do my best to explain.
Since we have been home, both Veronika and Gavyn have ...
been to the pediatrician thee times
had their eyes checked
had chest x-rays
had EKGs
had two sets of blood work
had their hearing checked
had our insurance PT evaluation 
had our insurance OT evaluation
had a neurology exam (for Gavyn)
had a meeting to set up PT with Early Intervention

• had their PT evaluation
• had another meeting to go over the results

gone to our first Down syndrome play group

And those are only things we have done OUTSIDE the home!!
At home we have had a lot going on...
Our oldest daughter moved back home so she could go back to college, and then in Sept. our teenagers started back in school, for our son it was his first year of high school, and our daughter it was her second year in high school. We try hard to balance everything with Veronika and Gavyn, giving them a chance to play and discover, but also work on muscle tone, gross motor, fine motor, and oral stimulation. So while Veronika and Gavyn are napping, I normally fill my time with cleaning up around the house and taking a little break for myself. But I hate to leave you hanging, so while I admit I have become "one of those bloggers" I guess sometimes I wonder, if anyone is actually reading my blog posts. I ended up moderating comments because of blog trolls and since then my comments have trickled down. I am not certain if it is because I have moderated the comments which means a little more work to leave one, or if it is because no one is reading it anymore. So if you are reading please let me know!!

We had a double birthday party for them and they had a great time!!!

 Please excuse the chicken wire in the background, my amazing husband was building me a little support cage for my garden so my green bean plants dont fall over.

 We had a BBQ and cooked up some burgers and hotdogs, I made some cupcakes for everyone, and then a smash cake for Veronika and Gavyn. They LOVED it!!

I always wondered... is there a hard part to adopting? Honestly, for me, I would have to say YES!! There are several things that are/were hard...

1. Being away from family while you travel
2. Seeing other children there and then having to leave them behind
3. Having 20+ days with your husband 24/7 (I LOVE being with my husband) to being without him for 20+ days while you are alone (didn't like HATED being alone and missed everyone like mad)
4. Flying home alone with two babies (crazy, insane, hard, what was I thinking, so amazingly tired, how they expect a person to eat when they dont give you the bulkhead seating you requested and you have a baby in your lap so you cant put your laptray down to eat???  not easy, but the babies were amazingly well behaved and hardly cried at all, and were the quietest and best behaved children on the whole flight, of course the child behind my seat did not fit into that description and had the best time kicking the living daylights out of my seat, moving her feet in time to the beat of the music she was listening too)
5. Getting back home and being excited to see everyone and realizing that your husband has to go into work every day and you no longer have him around all day
6. Finding your groove again (going from working full time for over ten years to being a stay at home mom again)
7. Realizing that just because you are tired you have appointment after appointment to go to (including one the day after I got back home)

BUT

One Look at These Two 

And you know it was SO worth it!!

Making Progress

 It is hard to imagine life without our two little ones home. There have been some adjustments, but we can honestly say that our lives are so much richer with them in it.
We have enjoyed a new park that a friend showed us. It is not only local, but it has baby swings!!  Our two LOVE to swing so that made this park a big winner.

For some reason, all summer long we had mild weather, too cool for the beach, but now that school is back in session there is a heat wave. To help cool off, instead of just getting a bath after eating, I decided to let our littles play in the water outside. Since our Princess loves to splash I figured it would be a really good way to wash off their lunch. In the end however, I had to finish washing them up, but they had a lot of fun playing with the water and doing some splashing.



Life is certainly sweet!