No way

It's been almost a month since I've posted? Wow. Time flies! Quite a bit has happened too, but I will give the condensed version.
We put Alex back on the medicines after trying to give him more time off of them. He's been doing better over the last few days. He is also taking an aquatics class for Autistic kids (as well as others), and he really likes that. He also has tumbling and horse riding once a week. He is doing well in all of them. He's doing more in one year than I got to do my entire childhood!
I wrote in April that he fell and hit his front teeth, and I think I wrote that they were starting to turn gray, meaning the nerves were dying. He could have lost his teeth eventually. We have been praying about it and they are getting whiter! We've been praying the Lord would bring life back in the nerves and it looks to be happening! Amazing! It's been one miracle after another with this child! God has such favor upon him. It really blows me away!
We have also been working on the paper work for Russia and paperwork for adoption grants. We've gotten most of it done. Assuming the Lord is going to provide the next chunk of money we need pretty soon then we should be sending in the paperwork in the next week or so! After that we wait for a referral! Once we get the referral we leave for Russia two weeks after that to go meet our daughter! It happens fast once it gets going. The time between sending in the paperwork and actually getting a referral could be a while. Then after we meet the child we will return to Russia 2-3 months later for the court date and to bring her home. It's all very exciting. My prayer is to have her home by Christmas but it's in the Lord's hands.
As far as I go, I have taken up jogging and can jog up to a 1/4 of a mile right now. I hope I can keep going. I've been busy learning Russian, and trying to keep up with a couple of other things going on here.
It's really just been crazy around here. I don't have time to write any more for now. Hopefully I will get back on here soon!

Took the Plunge

We finally signed the adoption agency contract and sent it in! And amazingly enough we feel complete peace about it. Sure it's still scary, but neither one of us are having second thoughts. God has started blessing us financially this week! We have received almost $800 this week from friends at church, and we also found out we have more money in the bank accounts than we originally thought! It's enough to pay for my upcoming doctor's appointment ($500 or so) and to send off for the USCIS, which is approval from the US government to adopt! And we'll have money leftover! Our church family are also very excited for us. So it is an exciting time for us.
And I've finally decided to add a few pictures. Some from our gardens anniversary trip in April and from our beach trip. A picture of the cake I made for my mother and father in law for their birthdays. The first few are of us trying to get Alex's picture for his passport and we ended up getting some really cute ones. 22 pictures later we finally got one that worked. lol

A change!

I actually had a few minutes to write this morning. We were at church late last night, so Alex is sleeping in.
We went back to horse therapy yesterday! What a blessing! While we were there the riding instructor came out and talked to me. He said that they have raised enough money for Alex to ride for at least a year!!! That's over $4000! As I was talking to him I could just clearly see God's hand in the situation. There's no other explanation. John wants me to write up a story about Alex that he can pass on to the people who donated, so that maybe they will see how it is helping and will be willing to contribute more on an ongoing basis. Of course I will write the story! It gives me a chance to brag about Alex and what the Lord has done! Praise the Lord!
Also the last few days we have been talking about the Russian adoption again. For awhile we felt that the Lord said to wait. Boy that was hard. The longer we waited the more our enthusiasm went down. Well, I think we are beginning to see why the Lord had us wait. I mentioned in the last post that the agency we were going with changed the "rules" on us, so that caused us to look elsewhere. We were looking for an "easy" way out, a way that didn't require much faith. Local adoption was nearly free. The Russian adoption through the other agency (before the rules changed) would have been only traveling fees which would have been doable for us. It seems the Lord is wanting to take us the more expensive route because it causes us to rely on Him 100% for the money. It stretches our faith. There is NO way possible we could come up with the money. On Monday Steve found an agency that we had never seen before. We have not seen any bad reports about them anywhere. It is a small agency, and seems to be more like a family than just a business. Steve has emailed the director twice and both times she has gotten back to us within hours! It took a few days at least with the other agency. We feel more at peace with this place, and you pay as you go so if we back out or something happens we will not owe them tens of thousands of dollars. It appears that we will either be adopting from Moscow or from Magadan which is close to Japan. If we adopt from Magadan, on the second trip we will literally be flying all the way around the world (most likely) to bring our child(ren) home!
So now that we are talking about it again and things are happening, we are getting excited again. We both have fears which can become paralyzing, so I ask for your prayers that the Lord will help us overcome. We had a chat with our pastor last night that encouraged us and reminded us that the Lord called us to do this. The Lord is good and I know that He will guide us every step through this process. I will keep you all updated!

Lots of news!

Oi. I didn't mean to go a month! I haven't been on the computer much at all, which has helped me get other things done, but when I was on I had to pick and choose what I was going to do. I don't figure many people (if any) read this so I had to let it go. Lots of things have happened so I will try to cram as much into this post as I have time for!
I'll try to go in chronological order. First off, Steve and I went to the Fort Worth gardens for our 6th anniversary. We usually go on a trip but money was tight. We had a good time and got some pretty pictures. When we got home, the babysitter told us she broke Alex. They were running around outside and he fell and kissed the pavement. He had a busted bottom lip, cut upper gums, and a loose front tooth and a crooked front tooth. When we saw him we thought it was really bad and that he might need to go to the ER, but Steve cleaned him up and tried to turn his crooked tooth back. Alex was a champ! He had done all his crying when it happened (a couple hours earlier) and he never complained about it! He only said twice that his mouth hurt and that was the next morning. So he handled it better than I expected. His loose tooth tightened up again and his crooked tooth isn't that noticeable (just to us). It could have been so much worse so we are very thankful!
He seems to have a lazy eye or something like that going on. For a few months his left eye has been turned in at times. Any of you reading this, I ask for your prayers for his eye. If it continues we will get it looked at.
Another way the Lord has had His hand on Alex is with the horse riding. Last Wednesday was his first Wednesday of not riding. He has a rocking horse and all day he dragged that horse around the house! I showed him how to "feed" it and brush it. He had hardly ever played with it before that day, so that showed me that he knew he was suppose to ride Richie that day! I was glad to see the connection but so sad that he couldn't go. Later that afternoon his PT, Suzanne, called and said some sad news turned into good news. The riding instructor's mom had died. He requested that instead of sending flowers etc, that friends and family donate money to the therapy center. Then he said all of the money that comes in is to go to Alex's riding fund! Can you believe it? I was going to cry on the phone. They had already gotten over $1000! That's at least 12 more weeks of riding! I was/am so excited! Praise the Lord! Even friends who don't know the Lord know that it is only He Who could have worked that out! The riding instructor has only seen Alex a couple of times, and that money probably could have gone to so many other things. We are truly blessed and I am so excited for Alex!
Those are the two major things that have happened. We are in Houston at the moment. Steve had a business trip that started in Austin, then San Antonio, and now to Houston. We are going home today. We've been gone a week! We are hoping to go out to the coast before heading home so that will be nice. Alex has only been on a beach once and he liked it (who doesn't?). We spent about four days with my family while Steve was working in San Antonio, so that was fun. Alex came out of his shell and his speech was amazing! He is talking so much more now.
On the adoption front, things are changing. We went to a foster/adoption meeting a week ago just to see if we would be intersted in doing that. Fostering does not seem easy to me so I will need to pray more about that. Adoption isn't either but at least once you have the child you don't have to worry about them leaving. We received an email from the Russian agency we were looking at and it turns out (because of the economy) the funding requirements have changed and are no longer things we feel we can handle (more than three kids, children older than we feel comfortable taking in etc). So for now, unless the Lord drops $50K in our laps to get one child, it looks like that is on hold. We still feel He laid that on our hearts, but the timing is not now. All this could change, so we will see. We are praying about local adoption and I am going to the doctor to make sure nothing is wrong before trying to get pregnant again.
We could be moving in 6 weeks since our lease is up. Something else we are praying about. So I need to get busy cleaning up the house when we get back.
I guess that's about all my news. I will try to post pictures soon and try to get back to posting at least once a week!

Craziness!

Last week I limited my time on the computer to the absolute minimum for several reasons, so I haven't blogged much. It's been really busy anyway.
We had just gotten over the flu when Alex got pink eye and I got sinus/upper respiratory infections. Fun, fun! He's doing better now, but is complaining about his ears. If he's still complaining tomorrow I will have to call his doctor. I am getting better too. Just tired and feeling weak.
We learned that the funding for Alex's horse therapy will be over at the end of the month, thanks to the economy. I am going to look into a couple of other possibilities. One is 40 miles away, and free. The other is closer and not free, but I don't know how much it will cost. I was sad about him losing his funding because he enjoys it so much and the people there really like him, but it is very very expensive and there's no way we can keep taking him on our own.
I have felt in the last couple of weeks that the Lord was about to bring some changes. I don't know what kind but I've just had a feeling of expectancy. I do hope there is some change for the good.
Alex is doing really well with the Alphabet. I took pictures of things around the house with the letter next to the object. He has really caught on quickly and knows almost all the letters except 2-3. Next we will work on letters and reading short words. He's been playing better with kids and is more active since getting off the meds. But he has been more temperamental the last few days too.
He's also been falling asleep in the evenings on the floor or in my lap. I've included one of the pictures.
I babysat two kids this week, which I never do because I don't like it. I have never liked it. But it wasn't too bad and we survived. I watched a 4 year old girl and a 1 year old boy. It made me realized how blessed I am with Alex. They weren't bad kids, but they are "normal" outgoing and therefore more active and bouncing from one thing to the next! I'm not used to that. Alex has a good attention span.
Here are some pictures of the week. It will probably be another week before I get to check in again, unless some great happens, then I'll get back here sooner.



This is suppose to be his mad face.


His Macaulay Culkin Impression or surprise face.


Didn't take a nap.


Proving to be much like his father.

A Newsy Note

I read a book called Raindrops on Roman and it's about a mom's journey to help her son recover from Autism and SPD (sensory processing disorder) both of which Alex has been diagnosed with. She talks about the "skills and drills" she used to bring her son out of it. Of course she worked with her son 10 hours or more a day, and I can't really do that. But I have been working with Alex a couple of hours a day since Saturday. Even in this short amount of time I have seen his imaginative play increase and he has learned the first four letters of the alphabet. So I know it's working. We have a long way to go. For example, he will not play at the park. He refuses to do anything, except feed the ducks. I need wisdom and direction on how to push him (leave him alone and everyone's happy), when to push him, and how to teach him. I know the Lord will show me. I believe He has given me a door to go through and I need to push through even when it gets tough.
Also last night we went to church as we usually do on Wednesday nights. We were prepared to study Galatians as we have been doing the last few weeks. Instead Pastor Rick feels led to pray. He gives us some of his prayer requests and then goes around the room asking us for ours. I'm thinking, "If we are praying for all these requests individually, then it's going to take all night and we won't get through much of Galatians." That's exactly what happened and how awesome it was! When it came to my turn to share my prayer request (and I have several) I ended up just giving a praise report that Alex is almost off of his medicines because he is doing so well. They were all encouraged to hear that and praised God. During prayer time, a friend named John, thanked God for the work He is doing in Alex. John then went on to pray a beautiful prayer of encouragement and blessing over Steve, Alex and I. I wish I could remember it, because it was so appropriate and timely. He prayed about our adoption plans also. A little later Pastor Rick started praying about adoption and before he could get very far he had to stop; he was so moved by the Spirit. At first I didn't know if he was talking about human adoption or adoption in Christ. When he continued praying he was talking about human adoption. The Lord had been speaking to him about it this week. He cried out to God for all the children all over the world that need homes and love. He prayed for Steve and I and for the ministry opportunities in adopting etc. That was the confirmation Steve and I were seeking the Lord for! We had asked the Lord to speak to both of us at the same time! He did! After prayer time had to come to an end (it was getting late), Pastor Rick looked at Steve and I and said, "So what is going on with you two and the adoption?" He said it with the expectation that God has been working through us and that He is going to do mighty things through us. I couldn't even speak. I was still crying. lol. God IS doing something in this situation, and He wants us to adopt and may be moving even more people to adopt as well. It was just an awesome time. I wish I could put it into words better, but all I can say is that God is moving and we are in a time of expectation! We will probably be signing with the agency this weekend, I would assume by Monday, unless the Lord has other plans. We know now that we need to do this! We do need prayer for direction and for specifics. Once we sign with the agency, we need to let them know how many kids, what ages, whether to do the children on the waiting program (certain ages and of 2 or more children, and paid for except traveling expenses.) or to just adopt one (a lot more expensive!). I know the Lord will reveal things in time. For now He wants us to be in a constant state of prayer, seeking His face, and doing the things He has already set before us. I am excited to see what the Lord is going to do! I see now that fasting does make a difference and it makes me want to fast more often. There are several things that I have been praying about for years and they have not changed. I am wondering if fasting will work in those areas also. It wouldn't hurt to do it. If all that happens is that I get closer to God then that's all I need! I will keep you all posted!

Been sick

Well, the last week of flu season and we got the flu. Thankfully we are almost over it. I am ready for next week to get here because I will be feeling better and I can get back on a schedule.
We went to the neurologist today for Alex's last appointment. They are such wonderful people! We will miss them, but they did say that even if Alex gets sick or we have a concern we can still call them and come in. So he's pretty much our pediatrician too! I am glad they are open to that because I trust them and Alex seems to like them. Everything seems to be going great with Alex. He will be getting off his medicines now. They said if he starts going crazy (hopefully not literally) after a few days they may have to put him back on it for awhile longer. They think he'll be fine though. He may have to go to a neuro-opthomologist? to have his eyes looked at. One of them tends to go in for a moment when he shifts his eyes to a different object. He's also become more sensitive to light. They were amazed at how much he was talking and how much he's grown. They also gave us vitamins to help with his digestive tract.
After dinner, Steve took apart one of Alex's toys to fix the microphone. Before this Alex has wanted nothing to do with his daddy at all. Tonight he has been "helping" daddy fix his toy. It's been great to see! I guess I need to find some more broken toys! Ha ha. Here's some pictures!
Oh and he also fell asleep on the floor today which is unusual: