LFA: 6 Weeks Home Already!

Where have we been?

Well we've been home now for 6 weeks! All is well in the home as all five of us continue to adjust. The kids are doing really well and are enjoying their new home very much. Julie and I are really enjoying the children and marvel at the family that God has made.

Throughout this adoption process we have been continually blessed by friends and family who have given us so many wonderful and encouraging comments, toys, clothing and so much more. THANK YOU!!! Because of your love, support, and generosity the "burdens" associated with becoming a family of 5 have been very light. Thank you for allowing us to focus on the children and their immediate needs, rather than feeling like we were in need of things. WE LOVE YOU!

In the past couple weeks Julie has been working very diligently to have all the medical evaluations done for the children. A couple weeks ago they had their first pediatric visit and that went well. No problems detected; we are very thankful. Now she is getting us ready for a plethora of medical tests. We hope to complete those next week. After that we'll move on to eye and then dental (for all of us). Our goal is to have all this preliminary stuff done or started by May.

So far we've . . . Had many great visitors, including Karl's parents and Julie's mom. We've celebrated Andres' birthday with a trip to the bowling alley and a pizza party at home. The kids have done super, super well in church (5 straight weeks). Played in the backyard whenever the weather was good (this week was the best so far). Had a developmental screening for Andres and learned that he's on track. Had an English language screening for Anji and learned that she qualifies for a special bi-lingual education program. We will soon set up another screening for Claudia to enter a special bi-lingual preschool program as well. Our plan is to send the girls to these programs this summer so they can have a bit of a jump start.

Another special event in our lives occurred just last night. We were offered a spur of the moment date by our friend Lisa and we took it. She came over with her children and they all played and ate pizza while J and I went to eat and talk for a couple hours. It was the first time we'd been alone & out of the house together! It felt awkward not attending to the ninos, but we were fine ;) We had a really wonderful time and enjoyed the spontaneous reconnection time. THANK YOU LISA!!!

(Julie here!) There's SO much to do around here and we are really working on trying to manage our tiny amount of time for maximum productivity. Our taxes have been hanging over our heads and we are so thrilled because we worked on them for three days and got them done and sent them out today! What a relief! Now we still have a lot of other paperwork stuff to do but are just working down the priority list and getting one thing done at a time. The days fly by and so do our evenings! Lately I have spent w-a-y too much (nap) time on the phone trying to make certain that these lab tests for the kids would be covered in full by our insurance and now more time trying to confirm the medical facility will be covered as well - AAAAH - very frustrating and time-consuming!!! We have been healthy for the most part over here - but have had colds off & on along with coughs. Right now, we are all well again. An exciting thing on our home front is that we had a massive pile of coats vexing our entryway (and us!) and we bought hooks/shelves & Karl spent last Saturday hanging them all as well as hanging a new mirror and it looks fantastic!!! We are so happy and it looks about a million times better!

Future: We're going to work on providing you with more news. This is a start and we'll keep it up.

Praising God with you for LFA5!