Love Without Boundaries

LWB is an organization that helps orphans in China. They provide life saving surgeries to the neediest children and provide healing homes and care for these little ones that don't have any family looking after them. Rick and I are now sponsoring a child. Her name is "Julia" and she lives in the Anhui province.

Here is what is known about Julia:

Julia is an "LWB Heart Baby" who needs some extra TLC after surgery. She battled with pneumonia for several months prior to her heart surgery for a VSD, but was finally able to have a successful repair right before Christmas. At 13 months, Julia is very tiny and delayed, and she is not yet even able to sit. At Heartbridge we will help Julia to work on meeting delayed physical and developmental milestones, and keep her lungs clear of infection until she is strong enough to return to her hometown.

LWB sends us pictures every month and a little update so that we can know how she is doing. We just received an email that she is back in the hospital again with pneumonia. My heart breaks for this little girl- I wish she had a forever family that could take her home and give her the care she needs to get better. Julia is one of many orphans in this world that need us to look out for them! I asked about the status of her adoption and it appears that she has not yet been registered for adoption. I am going to post her update every month, hoping that someone who reads my blog will be touched by her sweet face and encouraged to sponsor another little one from China. The website to do so is: www.lovewithoutboundaries.com and you can click on "sponsor a child."

Timothy 3 Month Pictures

Andrew the Artist

Andrew has really been getting into his art lately. He comes home from school with pictures that are colored perfectly, he is always making things or wanting to draw things. He definitely has a skill/talent for drawing (at least his mother thinks so!) If you say "draw Thomas the Train" he will draw the most wonderful train with so much detail. I really think it is fascinating for a 4 year old to be this creative! So, the other day, out of nowhere he said he wanted to make a stop sign. So, we made a stop sign. He walks around the house telling everyone to "STOP!" Pretty funny. Then, out of nowhere, he said he wanted to make a list for his birthday party. So, he sat down and thought of everyone he wanted to invite and wrote down everyone's name. It took forever!!!!

This is the back of the list

This is the front of the list.

Andrew's stop sign. Why did he want to make a stop sign? We may never know! I asked him what shape it was and he said "octagon". I had 4th graders that didn't know that!!!!

Timothy

Timothy is such a happy little boy! He is really very sweet, but we are still trying to figure out his feeding issues! At about 3 or 4 weeks he starts projectile vomiting when he ate, and was very cranky during the actual feeding process. I did some reading on the internet (of course...) and it said to try and eliminate dairy. I did that, and Timothy was significantly better! No more projectile, but still some spit up and discomfort while he ate. As you all know, Andrew is allergic to milk, so our pediatrician thought we should have an appointment with the pediatric GI doctor. When we told him about Timothy, his immediate reaction was that Timmy has a milk protein allergy.... just like big brother. He said that I have 2 options... 1)take all milk out of my diet (that means reading labels, no milk as an ingredient) or 2) he needs to be on the hypoallergenic formula. He said that soy is not a good option because most milk protein kids also have trouble with soy, so the SAFEST thing is for him to be the special formula. Well, for those that don't know, this formula costs $26/can and lasts about 4 days. Holy cow! I was totally on board to go milk free. But, we bought a can and wanted to "test" it out. If Timmy was just a little bit better, we were sticking with BM and regular formula. Well, Timothy had it for an entire day and NOTHING was spit back up the entire day. He was so happy and content. He played on his belly, kicked his legs, lifted his head.... things he had not been doing before (maybe because his belly hurt so bad?) I thought maybe it could be coincidence. That night, I nursed him through the night and he was spitting up and crying and kicking his legs.... so we have decided to go straight to the formula. It just isn't worth his discomfort. Rick and I agree that it is not the first way we would like to spend $200/month, but the bottom line is that he is worth a lot more than that so we are going to suck it up and pay it!!!!

My happy little boy!

This was the day he had the formula... lifting his head and playing. Maybe it was just coincidence, or maybe his belly didn't hurt for a change!

I noticed that Timothy is starting to TRY and reach for things. In this picture you can see him focusing on the toy... his hand was going up and down, like he wanted to grab the toy. It won't be long!

Another picture of happy Timothy

Finally got a good picture of my boys! Everyone was smiling!!!!

Kentucky Basketball

It is a great time to be a Kentucky basketball fan- and I am loving every minute of it! I have always loved UK basketball, even the last few years when we had a mean drunk for a coach. This year has been great and I look forward to watching the games every week. For my birthday, Rick asked his cousin if I could have some tickets to one of the games. Did I mention his cousin has seats on the FLOOR????? It was so much fun. I took a friend, because Rick is a loser Louisville fan, and we had a blast. It went by way too fast! Oh- we even got to meet Ashley Judd. Let's just say I wasn't impressed. Melissa asked if we could have our picture taken with her and she said "No, I am taking a break right now but thanks for asking!" How rude! We saw her in the bathroom and it was only us, one other lady and Ashley. It would not have been a big deal to take a picture- I am no longer a fan of Ms. Judd!

We sat directly across from the players- we were on the court!

I feel like he looked right at me when I took this. He was probably thinking "can you knock it off with the pictures lady!"

Mr. Patrick Patterson- one of my faves!

The other fave- John Wall.

Here I am with one of my best friends, Melissa.

We had so much fun together at the game!

Snow!!!!

Last week we had a few good days of snow. The boys loved playing in it! Matthew is wearing the plastic bags on his shoes again this year! I told myself that I was going to buy him boots before the snow came, but I never got around to it.Oh, well.... guess I can make that my goal for next year!!!

Timothy in his church clothes- the only time he gets out of pajamas is when we go to church!!!

Timothy has the BIGGEST smile, I really don't think it could get any bigger

I have completely given up on getting a decent picture of my 3 boys together!

Bringing chubby back for sure!

More Pictures

Bill took this picture of Timothy in his stocking. I love it!

Here are my boys with their new cousin, Eden born on December 10, 2009

Here are the boys with their cousins on the Fischer side

Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year! The boys really got into the magic of Santa and enjoyed opening all of their gifts! We spent Christmas morning together as a family, then went to my parents house for lunch and presents. The day after Christmas we went to the Fischer's house in NOKY where the boys got to meet their newest cousin!

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care

Christmas morning, before the boys tore into everything!

This was Christmas Eve, we went to see Santa before he went on his trip around the world! Both boys told Santa what they wanted.

Our family on Christmas Eve