Fun at home

It's been so fun to see Ato T become more and more comfortable with his place in our family every day! He has begun to try and play with a few toys, and he loves to wrestle with his sisters, who just adore him! He has even begun to "play" us by trying to get sympathy when all he really wants is to be held. (Yes, we still give in on this quite a bit. - We just figure he still needs it for attachment purposes.)

Birthfamily fisit

We had a fun visit with Miss I's birth family a couple of weeks ago. This was their first time meeting ato T. Fun was had by all!

Surgery

Well, Ato T is off to have a VT shunt surgery tomorrow. From what I understand, the procedure involves making a burr hole in his head, then making a small incision in his abdomen, and essentially threading the shunt tubing through the two openings. Our surgeon does about 400 of these a year, and I have been hearing that the new ones have much less risk of infections and complications. But still, that's my baby's head you're drilling into! Please remember to keep him in your prayers. We were told to expect a 3-5 day stay. I'll try to update the blog from the hospital. Thanks everyone!

Melting my heart

I was praying over Miss I a couple of days ago. Just general prayers about how we would like her to grow into a woman who loves God and serves him, things like that. She stopped me in the middle of the prayer and said, "I'm going to take care of them when I grow up." I asked who, and she answered Miss O and Ato T. Oh, the love that is in her heart! We praise the Lord for her caring, and we continue to pray that her brother and sister do not ever feel like a "burden" to her - because they are not. They are precious gifts from our Creator!

Swingin' kids!

Miss I is, to say the least, enamored with The Magic School Bus books, as well as with the ocean. She loves the books so much we often catch her sleeping with them.

Ato T having fun rolling in the grass!

Egg hunt

Fun Easter egg hunt at church! Miss O loved it for the first time! Miss I was a bit overwhelmed, but still gathered her share of eggs. Ato T is still a little small to do it.

Easter eggs

We colored Easter eggs twice this year! Once with our homeschool group. Our friend Lori spent a lot of time boiling foods to make natural dyes for us to use on Friday! Then we dyed our own eggs at home on Saturday.

Miss I

Miss I has been earning money to buy some sea animals. This is her first purchase - a crab. She is really proud of herself, and has a plan about which animals she will buy next.

Grandma Bogie stopped by for a visit when she was in the cities for a class last week. The kids enjoyed seeing her! We have been playing outside a lot lately, and the girls have made up a number of fun games to play together. Here they are playing baby and mommy. Miss O is wearing an eye patch because we're patching it for an hour a day in hopes that it will help strengthen the other eye.

Ato T update

Despite all of his physical difficulties, this is the happiest boy I have ever met! Here's where he is at. He can sit on his own for up to 5 minutes at a time - when he wants to. :) He is working on getting into a crawling position, but when he does get into it he gets so excited that he tips over. Its' adorable. We have started chiropractic care for all 3 kids, and are seeing changes in Ato T. He is MUCH more relaxed, especially just after an adjustment. This will allow us to at least put off giving him botox and phenol injections in his legs and hand. Hopefully we won't ever have to, but we'll see how he does. We were hoping the treatments would help with the CSF drainage as well. It does seem to help, but unfortunately I don't think it's quite enough. He is still in a fair amount of pain almost all the time, and is beginning to vomit more because of it. We'll discuss this with his neurosurgeon this week. Ato T LOVES to be outside rolling around in the grass or swinging. He's definitely all boy! Thank you all for your continued prayers. We are continuing to pray that God's will will be done through his life.