Look what Saturday brought.

One of my facebook buddies was in China last week and took these pictures of Clare.  

Thank you Shannon!!!!!!!!!

Suzanne

WE ARE DOSSIER TO CHINA as of November 16th!!!!

We are coming soon to get you Clare!!

I can't wait to hold this sweet baby girl!!

Suzanne



A surprise this morning!!

I woke up this morning and this is what I found in my email.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!!!!

Suzanne

Blessings

I can't believe it is November, in Missouri, and I am still harvesting tomatoes!!!!!  Can you believe it??  This is the best year ever.  It has been a strange year too.  I didn't get a single tomato until September 5th and now they just keep coming.  Two nights last week, I had to cover them to keep the frost off, but they survived.  I only did it because the weather is suppose to be good for a least 10 more days and I wanted to leave them on the vine a little longer.  Anyway, here are pictures of my plants and the last two harvest.

I really think if they grow much longer, they are going to grab us and eat us one day.

I have never and I mean never had plant this big!!!

One small section of tomatoes left on vines.  I also, still have blooms.

This has been the most fun I have ever had gardening.  Everyday I go out and see what I can find.  I will be sad when it is all over.

Here are some fun pictures of Hannah.  She still hides when she sees the camera, but I got a couple of good ones anyways!!!

I hope you have a great day!!

Suzanne

Happy 4th Birthday

Not sure if I am ever going to get this blogging down.   I have every intention to post daily and then days turn to weeks.  It has been a very busy week!!  So, I am just going to blog about one day and will catch up, hopefully, later.  I have some cute Halloween pictures.


Happy Birthday to my sweet baby boy Aaron!!!!  He turned 4 on November 1st.  Wow, I can't believe he is really that old. 

The day started off as usual, except Hannah decided to get up early.  I was putting on Aaron's shoes and he was telling me to go and get Hannah, over and over.  I went to get her and when I picked her up, I realized she had twisted her hair so much it was caught in her hair.  So, I took her to the living room and Aaron's bus showed up.  I had to leave her in the chair, crying and take Aaron to the bus, our school district requires that anyone under 5 1/2  must be escorted to the bus.   I get him to the bus and realize it is his birthday, tell him Happy Birthday, kiss him, wave and hurry back into the house.   Hannah is standing in the chair, screaming, I try to untangle her finger and then it hits me, IT IS ONLY HAIR,  I NEED TO SAVE HER FINGER!!!  I go and get a pair of scissors and cut the hair and untangle her finger.  I don't have any idea how long her finger had been like that, she often wakes up and plays in her crib for awhile.  Here are pictures, they aren't great, but you get the idea:

Her finger still has a mark, but it pink and doesn't seem to hurt her.

Aaron is a shy little guy.  He loves candy and would eat it all day if allowed too.  But, he is not a Halloween man.  So, we only went to 3 houses and he was ready to go home!!  (Pictures to follow)
We went to Aaron's parent/teacher conference and learned how sweet and well mannered our little guy is.  His teacher loves him and told us how he plays with all the children, regardless of ability, and hugs everyone.  I really can see this, because he is so good to Hannah.  When we went to my parent's house on Halloween, he was watching TV when grandma took him candy.  She said he took it and started to hand it back to her and asked if Hannah got any, she told him yes, so he took it and ate it.

We had a small birthday party for him on Tuesday.  I made him a cake, just like he wanted, with train candles.  He loves to blow out candles and will have you light them over and over, but not tonight.  Tonight he wanted presents.  We gave them too him one at a time and he told us that he loved each of them.   So he are the pictures:

Suzanne

Clinic visit

Today was a very long day.  I had to get up at 6:00 am and get ready to take Hannah to her yearly cleft palate clinic visit.  I was doing really well and in the process of making Hannah some cups of milk to take with us.  I have to thicken all her fluids, so it had to be done before we left.  Hannah decided at 6:45 she wanted to get up and wouldn't stop crying, so I finally had to go and get her, because I didn't want her to wake up Aaron.  I got her dressed and ready to go.  We got out to the van and I went back into the house to get a stroller.  I was going to Sonic to get a diet coke and looked down at my van gauges and realized I need gas badly!  I ended up getting a very late start and thus hit all the rush hour traffic.   I could not drive in this mess everyday.  People are nuts, I am really surprised more people don't get killed in rush hour traffic. 


I ended up being 8 minutes late or so I thought, I got there and they told me I was early and my appointment was really at 9 am.  I go to sign her in and they said that her dad checked her in and was I sure that this was Hannah??  No, I'm not sure, I just picked her up in the parking lot!!!!!!!!!!!!  Anyway, they figured out that they checked her in, instead of a little guy named Wyatt.   Wyatt and Hannah aren't even close.  We sat around and waited for her turn.  We started by going and getting a hearing test.  Hannah has always passed, but not today.  She failed in every area, except some higher tones which are just barely in the normal range.  We redid all the test a second and time and there was no improvement.  Next we got to go and see the ENT.  She was really nice and said, "I think we need to put tubes in her ears."  I told her she had tubes and she replied Oh, I missed that and I thought this was going to be an easy case.  We end up going to the microscope room and they worked on her ears for about 45 minutes.  Hannah was so mad.  She was red, crying and burning up.  Her right tube is clogged and they tried to clear it but couldn't.  Her right one is clear, but she still isn't hearing well.  We left the ENT with a follow up visit for next week, surgery scheduled for December 7th.  At this surgery they are going to repair her larynx cleft, which should keep her from aspirating, they will check her tubes and replace, if needed and do a hearing test and decide if she needs hearing aids.  She is also on a new diet.  The following items are not suppose to be eaten after lunch:   Hot dags, ketchup, mustard, peppermint, fried foods(tater tots, french fries, chicken nuggets, etc.), any tomato products, lemonade, oranges, orange juice, chocolate, fruit punch, caffeine, tea, spicy foods.  Not sure what is left and all fast food is out.  I am going to have to call tomorrow and find out why she can't have those foods, I know she told me, but I can't remember.  I wasn't expecting any of this.

Next we saw the plastic surgeon and he said we needed to wait another year for her cleft repair, because she is so small.  I did ask him if he would take care of Clare and he agreed and said he would go ahead and schedule her surgery in 7 months, every though she isn't here yet, but that way she wouldn't have to wait a long time after she got home.  He also said he would repair her lip and palate all in the same surgery, because of her age!!

We saw a speech therapist and were told to get a new one, because Hannah cannot hear the one she has, because she has a deep voice and we need one that specializes in cleft palates and high pitch.  We saw an occupational therapist, and are now being sent to a feeding clinic to improve muscle tone.  Last, but not least we saw a nutritionalist and I was informed I needed to make sure she was drinking 40 ozs. of fluid a day.  This is going to be interesting.  She has never taken 40 ozs or anywhere near that, her entire life.  The most she has ever taken was 30 ozs. and she wasn't eating food then.  Finally we were sent home, with way more info than I could digest at one time, when I was simply planning on finding out if they would repair her cleft palate now or later.

Please pray for healing of Hannah's ears.


Suzanne

DAY 71!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today has been like every other day.  I wake up and check email, read news, wake Aaron up and get him ready and off to school.  Hannah gets up and then the older ones do.  We started school and waited on Aaron to get home.  He got home at 12:46 and the mail lady was down the street.  I looked out the door to see if she had come by yet and as usual she was talking to the older couple a few doors ahead of us.  I started making lunch and was just about done, when I realized that I hadn't made my daily trek to the mailbox.  Guess what I found in my mailbox???  A small letter, with my name on front, from the Department of Homeland Security.  Not the big manilla one I was told should be coming.  No, I got a small, white envelop.

Now I want to cry.  What can they possible want???  I open the letter and totally to my surprise, I have received:   I-797 APPROVAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you believe it????  It is finally here!!!!!!!!!!!  I am so excited.  We still won't have our dossier to China by the Nov. 4th deadline, but we filed for an extension yesterday.  Hopefully with this information, China will grant our request.  Our dossier SHOULD be in China by the end of November!!

Hannah is sick again.  Took her to the doctor yesterday and they said she has a Left ear infection and that it looks like the tube is coming out. :(  We just got the tubes in June and it took me 6 months to get them.  Not very happy about that, especially if she is going to start getting ear infections. 

I am now waiting to hear from the agency, what to do next. 

I hope everyone has a blessed day!!!!!!!!!!


Suzanne