Our trip to the playground

Yesterday we went to the local park while Tommy had soccer practice and I took Paige and Luke to the playground.  It was obvious Luke has never been to a playground and he LOVED it! I think he could have stayed all night if his stomach didnt tell him it was time to eat! Luke is growing stronger and more brave by the day and he has gained quite a bit of weight in the month and a half he has been home, 7 lbs to be exact and he is no longer the skinny boy we met whose ribs were sticking out. Actually he has a little belly now hahah! What a joy to take to the playground, we laughed hard and he played hard and he is such a good big brother that he kept a vigilant eye on his sister when they were seperated on different activities. What a beautiful day it was!

                                             My Paige, she is such a joy!

 I am pretty sure Luke thinks he is a high fashion model with all the photos I take, he loves to pose now (oh and this pose was his idea not mine hehe... such a change as in China I had to trick him to take pictures of him!)

                                                    Luke and Paige posing for mommy!

                                                      Me and My girl! (photo credit to Luke.. he is quite the photographer!)

          Paige hanging on to her big brother as they get ready to go down the slide together!

                  Watch me go head first mom!  She is such a riot and a  gorgeous little girl!

     Luke learning how to swing on his own ,nope they didnt teach him that in China either! :( 

                                                        I think he could swing all day!

Happy 2 month Gotcha Day!

This is going to be short and sweet as I am on the run!  But I couldnt let this day go by and not post an update. Happy 2 month Gotcha day! We are still living in extreme bliss and cant beleive that it was 2 months ago today that we met our precious precious boy. Luke has become one of the most affectionate children I have ever met in my life. Which is very good as I am truly a huggy huggy smooshy kind of mom! He loves me to hold him as he leaps into my arms and wraps his long legs around my waist with a smile that is sooo big it his face can barely contain it! Mind you Luke has gained a good amount of weight in the 2 months we have had him (7 lbs to be exact!)  and I am now having a 75 lb boy jump full gear into my arms and wrap his legs around me.  Not an easy feat but let me tell you I will do it as long as I can! Luke has brought such joy to our family. His 2 brothers adore him, his sister and him get along so well and he has become her protector and he loves playing with her as well.

As of this week thanks to the improving weather Luke is now officially ADDICTED to being outside! I must admit I laughed hard the first time he broke a sweat and came in freaking out about the water pouring off of his head. Sad to think that in 10 years of his life he hasnt played hard enough to break a sweat.  That has changed and he is all about riding the scooter and now his bike. Luke and Paige and Tommy arrive home from school and bolt to the garage to get their riding gear and off they go. The have spent at least 3 hours a night after school the last few days riding and riding and riding. I love seeing the joy on their faces as they have each other to laugh and play with.

God has been so good to us! We couldnt have hand made a more perfect child for our family. Thank you Lord for these precious 2 months we have had as a fabulous family of six! We are looking forward to many many long years of joy with our new boy! Here is to many more updates and months and years to come!

 Aarons room was the "place to be" during Aarons spring break, his sister and 2 brothers miss him and his friends when he isnt here!

           Luke learning how to kick Aaron's friends' butt in the game of Melee heheh

                                                 These two have become the best of pals!

                                      Luke and Tommy heading off on their scooters!

 They love when the ice cream man comes. Luke cant beleive we have a truck that drives down the street and brings you ice cream. He says "Yea America and the Ice cream mean" hahahah

                                                        Luke learning how to ride his bike!

                           A mommy and a son together forever! (Thank you God for my gift!)

ENT and A hearing test in one day!

More and more doctors appointments are coming and going. Luke went back to Dupont yesterday to see the ENT and an Audiologist.  Luke has had many severe nose bleeds since we have been home. My upstairs is starting to look like a murder scene and Thank you to a good friend who gave me a secret way to get a TON of blood out of our cream colored upstairs carpets.  I put a humidifier in Lukes room as he seems to be stuggling to adjust to our heating system here and that helped for quite awhile and we had a week of no nose bleeds and then they came back with a vengance. Let me tell you it is scary to wake up with someone leaning over your face while you are sleeping and blood dripping all over your face while you sleep, scared me to death! Poor Luke he is just seeming to get used to them, but dont know if that is a good thing or not.

So off to the doctors we went.  The ENT said Luke has MANY little blood vessels that are crazy close to the surface and look very agitated. He is pretty sure it is from the changes in his environement, having spent 10 years of his life in a buidling with not much in the way of heat and maybe some allergies as well but that is hard to say at this point. So we are keeping with the humidifier and he gave us an antibiotic ointment for Lukes nose and hopefully that will help. We will go back in a few months when we stop using the heater and the weather changes and becomes more humid (this is NJ after all and we have plenty of summer humidity).

After that we hit the Audiologist for Lukes hearing test. Luke is so darn cute ,but he gets soooooo nervous when we go to the doctors that my heart breaks for him. He was so afraid he wouldnt "do good" on his hearing test and we would be mad at him or send him back to China. That breaks my heart that he even would think that. I told him we dont care if you hear anything or hear everything we love you for who you are and we think you are perfect the way God made you!  That said he decided it was safe to get his hearing tested. He had 3 different kinds of hearing tests done yesterday and they all showed what my husband and I knew already, the boy hears nothing. No matter what the frequency or Decibel level he has no response. I knew that already from his lack of reactions to any sounds at all..... and my hubby, his daddy doesnt hear much (well almost nothing) but my husband can hear our HUGE German Shepard bark when he is in the same room with him and Luke doesnt hear that so I suspected that he didnt have any hearing at all.  The Audiologist asked if we wanted him sent for an MRI and we said no, we are happy with the results of the hearing test. We really just needed it for the school as we dont care what his hearing loss is. Luke says "So can I hear?" I said what do you think? He said "Nope I am Deaf, just like my dad!" With that he gave the biggest smile ever! I told him that is right you are Deaf just like your daddy and God made you both PERFECT!   So we are done with the Audiologist, told them no further tests until our school demands a new audiogram down the road (and they will) other then that we are done with Audiology, no hearing aids, no cochlear nothing, just a beautiful boy that God made perfect the way he is and we dont want to change a thing about him.

School update. Luke is doing amazing in school! He is picking up things so fast it is crazy! He was funny on Monday when he came home with his first ever Library books, he was so proud of his books and couldnt wait to show them to me! Ofcourse the one is about DOGS heheh Luke is a crazy animal lover, he lives to talk about animals (one reason why him and Paige hit it off so well as she is OBSESSED with Animals and now her new brother is too!) and the other book was how to draw animals. We found out while visiting Lukes school that he has some really good artistic talent that we knew nothing about. The boy can draw! But funny thing is he does best when he has a picture to look at, not so good when drawing from his own mind.  But he has a hidden talent! I am wondering how many more hidden talents and abilities he has. It is truly amazing to watch the many layers of Luke open up and see what else he has hidden inside.

Lukes Language is skyrocketing! We can have all kinds of great converstasions now and I am starting to be able to explain many abstract ideas to him now too, although some are just to hard to explain still, he surely is progressing gorgeously and his ASL (American Sign Language) is so amazing to see! The boy is a natural signer! He signs like he has been doing it for years, not just less then 2 months! 

Oh FYI Luke is starting to play with Tommys friends now when they come over, we have discoverd Luke is in Love with our trampoline! The boy cant get enough of jumping around like a crazy man on there, he is hysterical to watch! Now he will go on there with Tommy and a few friends and they will play for hours and jump and laugh and of course since they are boys,tackle each other heheh.  Luke is funny for if one of Tommys friends tackles tommy Luke will run over and be Tommys protector and tackle them back. (ofcourse they are just playing and Tommy is a football player and a wrestler so it is all about contact sports in my house) Tommy thinks it is amazing that Luke wants to protect him and it makes me cry when I look out at the window and see Luke jumping on the trampoline with Tommy, Paige and 2 of Tommys friends and Luke is laughing so hard and playing so hard and you can clearly see he is having the time of his life. I cry not out of sadness, but out of Joy for knowing that Lukes horrible past of neglect, suffering and the feeling of being all alone in the world are over. Luke is so full of joy and laughter and never ending smiles that it is obvious to us that he feels safe and happy here. If we even mention China he gets terribly upset and tells me that China is over and he will never go back! He signs "me, you, daddy, Aaron, Tommy and paige are family forever"  Yup he is right, we are family forever and I Praise God for saving this precious little boy for our family, for knowing that he was perfect for us and that we are perfect for him! Thank you God for blessing us so!!!!!!!

Luke showing the boys his famous "take down" that Tommy taught him for wrestling!

                                                     I love watching them play together!

Trying to add more photos but they are onmy iphone and for some reason wont save to my computer... I am working on it!