David Videos

Here is a video of how David crawls.... Go David Go!


Here is a video of David playing with his toys.


Here is a longer video of David playing with his toys.

Updates

I hope everyone had a blessed Easter!  We are wrapping up our homestudy, and wrapping up the giveaway!
We are happy to annouce that so far we have finally collected more than the value of the giveaway prize- with a slow go at first, we had our fingers crossed!

To finish our homestudy, we need to hear back from the FBI regarding our fingerprinting... they charged us on 4/7 for the fingerprint processing, so I hope it won't be too much longer.

Other things we need to do to finish- we need to have all of the reference forms turned back in.  We need to turn in the financial portion of the homestudy.  We need to do our autobiographies!  For James' portion I will have to plan a time write it as he "dictates" it to me.  He is a busy guy, and that will be the only way to get it done!  Other than that, the only thing else is the final interview with the homestudy agency, and get the final report written and sent off to the adoption agency!
I just finished this big report for the class I'm taking at WSU, so essentially I'm finished with the class!  I feel like a big burden has been lifted off my back, and now I'm trying to get everything DONE!  :-)
I have another BIG update (yay!):

David's 15 month milestones

David is growing up so quickly!  He is becoming more and more little boy and less baby every day!
This past month was marked with a long bout of bronchitis, with lots of coughing and chest wheezing.  He developed thrush, and is currently taking antibiotics for it and is using an inhaler for the wheezing.  Because of everything he has taken a few steps back with his eating... for over a week, he wouldn't tolerate foods with texture, and was very fussy pushing foods away.  So I had to baby him by spoon feeding very soft foods, while trying to encourage fluids, which also presenting issues as well.  In spite of the sickness and feeding setbacks, David has made other progresses! 

Gross Motor:
-David is trying to pull himself up to stand.  We have soft furniture, so it's hard for him to grasp it, but he is maneveruing his feet under him bum and shifting his weight to stand with barely any help.  I know by next month, he'll have this down!
-David is starting to cruise, though this is hard with our soft furniture... He knows that he needs to shift the weight on his feet to take steps different directions.  But he needs a spotter, because he'll still over-reach and fall over.
-David is starting to "army crawl".  He can move forward now on his tummy!  But his perferred method of travel is the roll.
-David is a pivoting pro while sitting. He's starting to scoot too.
-David loves to plunge forward over my legs - to go from sitting to crawling on top of me.  He tries to crawl but then just pushed himself back to sitting...

-We're working on tummy to sitting by pushing himself up.  I think in a month he'll have this down, because he's so close!

Fine Motor/Other:
-David is getting very accurate with putting a small ball into a specific "hole".
-David gets a lot of enjoyment out of playing the little monkey cymbols, and ringing the triangle.
-David waves to everyone!! He knows this pleases us, so he'll wave to get our attention and then clap when he knows we're happy!  It's sooo cute.  He'll wave to strangers in the store and draw them in... he loves the compliments! :-)
-David still says "ma ma" and "da da", with more meaning than before, but he'll just say it sometimes without meaning as well.  He'll do the sign for daddy- with meaning? I don't know...
-David is starting to follow directions when I point/emulate what to do.  Like open this, close this, spin this, do that, find the ball...
-Side note... still no teeth! He's our little late bloomer on this... But his little gummy smile is still stinking cute!

That's all for now!

Adoption Thoughts

Why are we adopting?

We are adopting because we want Evan! 

God has placed him in our hearts, and we can not deny it!  I am reminded of a sermon my pastor gave in which he was talking about the gift of prophecy (ie. during a church worship service), and he knew of an individual who had a very specific word to tell the congregation.  Well, they got timid, scard and questioned if the word was from God, and did not speak it out.  Well shortly thereafter, someone else spoke out the EXACT same word to the congregation.  The other person was blessed as the word edified the church. 

So I know we could have simply not persued adoption, and someone else would have likely, eventually adopted Evan.  But they are the ones that will be blessed for following God's prompting, and it wouldn't be us.  Not only would we not know if Evan was ok, we would have never known where our lives together could have been led.  We know that it is God's will for orphans to be adopted- His word tells us to look after the orphans, so why would we not pursue something that is 100% God's will?  There's no question about it- He will bless us for taking this step of faith, undoubtedly.  :-) 

So in short, we are all-or-nothing type of family, and we are ALL IN FOR EVAN! We are done being so "comforable" with our lives are are waiting eagerly to see what God's has in store for us.  And of course, we'll keep you posted along our journey...

This last week!

It's been a little while since I've last posted, so I'll just catch up on a few things that has happened and that we're going to do!

-On Sunday, David woke up gasping for air and could not breath very well.  He has had a stuffy/runny nose, and it was bad that morning.  I could also feel the vibration of fluid in the lungs as he breathed... so I took him to the Children's Hospital, and of course while we are in transit and as we arrived David seemed so much better!  All they did was suction his nose out by inserting a small tube, and verified that he's fine!  I'm very glad he's much better now; my thought was maybe he might need a breathing treatment of some sort- but that was not needed.  Since Sunday I have been offering more fluids, I have slightly inclined the head of David's mattress to help him breath (though he's starting to move more and is ending up backwards at the foot of the bed by the time he wakes up!), and I'm still continuing to suction out his nose with the nasal aspirator and hand suction bolus thing!  I also think that maybe it's allergies, since he doesn't seem sick and I'm experiencing the same symptoms myself and found that by taking an antihistamine really helped the symptoms. I just bought some allergy medicine yesterday, so I will see if this also helps David today.

-So I have not been very good at finishing up the homestudy paperwork.  I have a good start, and know I can finish up probably in a week if I were given a deadline.  I still have 1 client's video left to edit (I just got another client's videos mailed out yesterday- yay!! So 1 to go), and I'm taking an online class as well and have a huge upcoming paper that is due.  Busy, busy!

-I am meeting with my fundraising team on Friday!  We are going to get a raffle going starting next week!  It will be a VISA giftcard- we will determine the amount on Friday.  But I know the raffle tickets are going to be $1.00 each.  I will have an official blog post for the raffle with the start and end dates and where I can announce the winner as well.

-Also- this is too cute to not mention... David is now starting to clap his hands when I sing "if you're happy and you know it!"  So proud of the big boy!

No hospital bake sale!

Unfortunately, we did not get the hospital approval to do a bake sale; I just got the word yesterday.  I know a lot of people who are willing to set up a mini bake stand at their work lunch rooms, at their children's schools- I would just need to get a box of some sort with a lock on it.  Has anyone had success with an idea such as this?  Any tips on setting this up?

For now my focus is the "Park Sale" during summer- and we can certainly have a bake sale there!  Yesterday I had a flier get e-mailed out to all the employees in my department (Over 100 people!).  That is so wonderful that hopefully I can get my co-workers on board for dontaing their good will items, especially since I am willing to pick up at their homes!  I am adding my e-mail to my profile to make it more convienent for people to contact me to pick up their items!

David's 14-month Milestones

Today little David is 14 months old!  He is growing so much, and is so big!
He's over 24 lbs, and wears size 5 diapers and 24 months clothes.  At his last doctor's visit, he is over 50 percentile for all boys for height and weight, and over 95 percentile for Down syndrome boys for height and weight.  YAY!  He hasn't been to play group in over 2 weeks because of being sick- and when he came back he was already taller.  He could stand and reach play with the water and water toys in the sensory table station!  He couldn't do this before.

Gross Motor Development:
-Holding on to him, he can take steps well.  He is very wobbly and all over the place still.   But he can physically lift his legs and put them down in front of him to move forward.
-On the floor:  He rolls too much.  I'm going to have to now be a more active paricipant on getting him to tolerate: being on his tummy more, going up on hands and knees, and pushing off with each foot against my hand to move forward.
So far a good practice place has been in the tub with 2 inches of water!  I will be right there to help him.  But the narrowness of the tub prevents him from rolling, and he loves to push off the sides to move.  I've even seen him try to climb out of the tub!  He doesn't do this "on land" so this is encouraging!  I just think he's super-motivated in the tub at that point to get out to something warmer!
-David can now push foward/"walk" on the walker (the kind with the seat)

Fine Motor Development:

-David can hold a spoon and feed himself, if I "load" the spoon with food.
-According to the physical therapist, David is playing with toys at an 8-month old baby.  He shakes and bangs simple toys together for the most part.  BUT sometimes he'll surprise me:
Toy piano- I will push a certain color to play a note, and he will go for the same color to copy me!
Ring stacker- I will show him how to put the large ring on first, and he will copy me!  But if I add to it and show him the next ring, instead of stacking it- he will take the large one off and bang the two rings together...
Drum- Yesterday the physical therapist had a toy drum and worked with David to bang the drum with up and down movements, instead of side swinging movements.  It took SEVERAL attempts, but he got it!  This is teaching me how long it takes him to learn something new.  I just need to be more creative and have a little more patience, but I'm sure David will be doing a lot more things with this new mindset!
-David is starting to wave now.  It is not consistant though.
-David does the sign for "daddy" and "milk"- but I just don't know think it's done with meaning.
-David says "da da" and "ma ma" but with a little more meaning than before.

David's Favorite Foods:
David is enjoying all sorts of foods now- even without teeth! Here are some foods we've been trying in addition to the foods mentioned in his 13-month milestone post:
-Egg omelette
-French toast
-McDonalds cheese burger- hold the pickles
-Pudding/Tapioca/Yogurt
-Grilled cheese sandwhich
-Peanut butter and jelly sandwhich
-Diced peaches, mandrain orange sections, diced pears
-Cooked yam slices
-French fries, sweet potato fries
-Soft cookie (just tiny "tastes")
(Most of the above I have to cut into tiny pieces and hand feed him- because he will not take a bite out of the bigger piece, or feed himself yet.)  I'm trying to be more adventerous and let David enjoy all types of foods- that are still basically soft-textured.  Any other ideas?
So that's about it for milestones, I'll add to the list if I think of anything I forgot.  I have some video I'd like to put on here as well of David doing these things.  I just need to find the mini firewire-type cord to do this. We recently moved, so it's a little tricky finding things these days...  More to come!  :-)