Shooting A Commercial

Last week I was approached by Twink's ST. She told me that the pre-school that Twink goes to is shooting a commercial and they'd like Twink and I to be in it. (OK it is the people who fund Lia's pre-school) We received the official invitation to be part of the commercial last Wednesday.

Of course I said yes but you should see my face. I had to go out and buy some make-up to cover all of my pimples from all the stress. Mind you I wear VERY little make-up so I'm excited to have found some thing to cover all of my blemishes. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow but can't promise anything.

Wish us Luck!

Sneak Peak

This is about all we can show you of Bebo until we receive word from China. Our dossier is completed and waiting for our home study to finish up. We have been unable to send in our LOI/EA as we have to wait until all of our home study visits are finished. As soon as the home study is finished then our agency will send our EA (electronic acceptance).

We are gearing up for a BIG fundraiser here on our blog. If you have any ideas please leave them in the comments or e-mail us.

Dash and Spitfire

I thought I'd post these cute pictures of Dash and Spitfire. Neither one of them like to have their pictures taken so this was great. As I was trying to get a single shot of Dash, Spitfire decided she was going to try to get in the picture. I think she did it to mainly annoy Dash. Just as I finished the first shot she wrapped her arms around him and gave him a big hug. You can tell by the pained look on his face he LOVED it! LOL

spitfire tells Dash she is going to marry him all the time (I don't think so sweetie)! It drives him crazy when she tells him this. She knows it bugs him so she'll keep doing it. She runs to the door when the bus arrives home in the afternoon to greet him. Other times they fight like cats and dogs. Oh but they do love each other! :)

As you can see I have my blog back to *normal* thanks to Carla's help this morning. I am so excited!

Can Anyone Help?

* Edited to say that I've completed the blog merge and everything is back to normal!*

It looks like Blogger has restored our blog that was deleted by mistake. Here is my problem, I would like to move the blog they restored to this blog. I have e-mailed Rebecca (she is the one who did our blog design) to see if she knows how to do it. If she does not, do any of you? I don't want to lose all of my comments on the old blog and I want to save all of my followers on this blog along with the blogs I follow. Worst case I spend eternity again updating the new blog and lose all the comments and videos.

If anyone can help, I'd be forever grateful! :)

Cerebral Palsy Awareness Day

As most of you know Twink suffers from mild cerebral palsy due to a in utero stroke. For those of you who do not know Twink she is a beautiful little girl who is smart, funny and loving. Twink's whole left temporal lobe was completely damaged as well as a small portion of her cerebellum. Her neurologist was pleasantly surprised when he saw her for the first time. Nothing like he thought he's see. He had just finished reading her file and was expecting to see a child not doing as well as Twink.

Twink does have difficulty with her her speech and but communicates in many ways. She is mastering sign language. Twink has a very small limp and fist her right hand. Other than that for our child most people can not tell that she has CP.

Education is everything and there are many people who are afraid when they hear the words Cerebral Palsy. I will admit our family was one of them. In fact it was not one of our special needs we checked of for our medical check list. Good thing the Lord knows best! :) What better day than today to educate people about Cerebral Palsy!


- The average prevalence of cerebral palsy is about 1 in 278 children. This first report of the prevalence and characteristics of CP, the most common cause of motor disability in childhood, are from Georgia, Alabama and Wisconsin. Can you even begin to imagine the numbers if there was a national surveillance?

- Cerebral palsy is one of the most common developmental disabilities in the US, affecting at least 800,000 children, adolescents and adults in America. Cerebral palsy is NOT a disease nor should it be considered one. It is not even a simple or single disorder but rather a broad range of disorders that disrupt a person’s ability to move, sit, stand, walk, talk and use their hands. The severity of the movement disorder and the type of movement difficulties can vary greatly. Some patients have only mild difficulties with balance, walking and fine motor skills while patients at the other extreme are completely trapped in their own bodies, fighting rigid limbs, and unable to speak or swallow.

- There is currently no cure for cerebral palsy and in most cases, it is not preventable. In over 50 years, treatments for CP have not progressed much at all. In fact, today, there remains little consensus among medical professionals regarding what causes CP or how best to treat it. Why do 800,000 or more Americans have CP, and yet we don’t know much more about what causes it or how to prevent it than we did a half century ago?
Resources: Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Reaching for the Stars (RFTS)

Now mind you these are US statistics not China. Although it seems China is referring many children these days with CP.

We Have A Name

OK so most of you heard that we were calling our little guy Eli in the video. Well that name did not sound so great with our last name. We have chosen a new name! His name will be .......! :) I for one fell in love with it after finding out the meaning of the name. So there you have it, we will refer to him as Bebo ;). Oh and we are keeping his Chinese name as his middle name. We did the same thing for Twink only we added our own middle name also.  Our Bebo will only have his Chinese name as a middle name. If I only knew if I was pronouncing his Chinese name correctly! ;)

WoooHooo!

Thanks to a sweetheart named Carla she pointed me in the right direction and I have found almost my entire blog! Mind you I have lost my blog design and comments but I can do without! I am so excited! :D I may have lost about 40 posts but we'll see. It will take me some time to upload these but I can't take to long as I do not know how long they will stay on the web. Thank you Jesus! What a way to start the morning!

Answered Prayers!

**Be sure to have your volume turned on so you know what is going on**

We hope you enjoyed our children’s reaction as much as we did. Spitfire was a little hesitant at first but after about 20 minutes really came around. We wish we had captured some of things she was saying then because her excitement was really starting to show.
So, we always knew we would go back for our son but just didn’t know the timing. God does however and his timing is perfect and it is now. The Count and I started to seriously talk about it a few months ago. The conversations first started to lean towards opening our home to foster care and then before we knew it were discussing the possibilities of adopting again from China. Going back was something we knew we would do but probably wait a few years. As we talked we started to ask why we were waiting a few years. Now was the time. Twink has made huge strides and continues to show even further improvement almost daily. My health with my neck will always have certain limitations but am about as healed as I will get. The Count will be done with school later this year so now is the time.
We had started a new blog about a month ago for this new journey and we’ll open that up once China approves us. We thought the Lord was opening certain doors with a certain child but after several weeks, realized this was not God’s plan for us. Our new path has led us to a little 6 year old boy. We officially accepted his referral today. We have worked on our paperwork over the last few weeks and most of it is done and ready to go. Our hope is to travel in early January of next year to bring him home. We always wished that we brought Jewel when we brought Twink home so this time we will bring her. We will write more later but please keep us in your prayers as we embark on this new journey.
When we have our approval from China we will be able to post more about our little guy. As for the name, we are still working on that one. Just when we think we have one we change it! LOL

Signing

Yes, I'm still here but I really don't have much to blog about these days. The weather is cold but there is no snow! :) I have to love that. We are looking at a warm up for the weekend so maybe I'll send the kids out for a "treasure hunt". Oh what is my treasure hunt you ask? Oh that is when my kids and the neighbor kids race around my 2 acre yard looking for as much treasure, ok garbage as they can find! Then they hit the neighbors yard! LOL I don't think this will happen for too much longer. Usually an ice cream is their reward and our yards look great!

Ok back to signing! Twink is doing great with some of her signing. I taught her the most beautiful sign last week. She points to her eye and says I then crosses her arms and rocks back and forth a bit and then points to you! Soooo, I LOVE YOU! It is very sweet to actually see. If I can find the right camera I'll video it and show you her sweetness.

Twink's speech is really coming along. Maybe I should say her speech sounds and her babble. I'll be on the phone some times and she gets going and it totally distracts me from my phone conversation. She is trying so hard to produce more words. She tries to sing twinkle twinkle. She can say some of the words clear and some of them come out kind of crazy BUT you know what they are suppose to be. We are seeing improvements! :)

We are finally going to get a sensory evaluation! PTL!!!!! She is still having problems in that department. I've been told that she will be able to do therapeutic horse back lessons otherwise known as hippo-therapy. I am looking forward to that, sorta. LOL I feel we are finally make progress in areas that needed it.

I'm off to find the camera and get of video! :)