Our Christmas tree farm outing 2013

We've gone to this family owned Christmas tree farm now for several years.  It's really become one of those traditions that the kids look forward to every year.  It's a great excuse to spend the day outdoors, take a wagon ride and roast marshmallows.  This was the first year for both Emmie and Joseph and they both seemed to enjoy it.

So fun.

My handsome husband doing the manly job of chopping the tree for us ;)

I wish I had gotten a picture of Joseph on the wagon ride.  He's been on one other wagon ride since he's been home and I guess he remembered what riding ipon a wagon was like because as soon as we sat down on the wagon he started to giggle the most wonderful giggle and bouce up and down...knowing what was coming.  It was awesome to see how much he enjoyed it!

Surgery...

Joseph had hid first surgery yesterday.  He had tubes put in both ears as well as had his adenoids taken out.  What was supposed to be a half hour procedure turned into 6 1/2 hours at the hospital.  It was a really long day for our little guy, but he did incredibly well and we're hoping this will help a lot with his overall health.  The ENT said that his ears were TOTALLY Full of fluid and that he had probably had many ear infections that went untreated (poor guy!). Hopefully this will clear him up and keep him healthier.

One benefit of the surgery was that I actually got to be there within minutes of him coming out of surgery so that I could cuddle him and do all the after care for him.  It was so good to know that he had a mama there to care about how he felt and help to console him. 

 So very thankful this season for our little Bulgarian boy and having him home with us.

She'd follow him anywhere

These two are like to little peas in a pod.  Joseph has grown from just tolerating Emmie to seeming to like her around.  He will even reach out every once and awhile and give her a good head squeeze kind of hug...which always startles and excites Emmie.  See...she loves this little guy. She'd be thrilled if he would love on her like she would like to love on him.  She follows him everywhere he goes around the house.  She can be playing with something but if she sees him travel away, she stops what she's doing to follow him.  Always.  She's his little shadow.  She's really quite attached to him which is surprising because he doesn't really interact with her a whole lot.

She just seems to like the comfort of having him nearby ;)

We're the lucky ones

I hear it a lot.

"He's so lucky to have been adopted by you folks!"

Yes, I guess you can look at it like that.  He certainly needed to be adopted.  It scares me to think of what his life would have been like if he had grown older...unadopted...and eventually transferred to some place even worse.  Already I see all that Joseph has to struggle with for the lack of interaction and care that he missed out on in his baby orphanage. So many things that would be better for him if he had started out in a family.   He does so well and is working so hard but the gaps are there from lack of a family...he bangs his head a lot these days as he is being challenged to learn and connect with people and things around him.

I am thankful that he is home...and yes, he DID need to be adopted by us..that is for sure.  But WE are the lucky ones, too.  I think people forget that.  People don't look at all that we need to do to care for Joseph and think us lucky.  But we are.  We have been given the chance to love more fully as God loves...to love Joseph unconditionally and to care for him even though he was not born into our own family.  It is awesome to love not because he is my natural born son but because he is beautiful in the eyes of God and so he is beautiful to me.  It's a gift, really...to have your understanding of love be truly enlarged like that.  

He has made me love more fully...and for that I am thankful.

There is nothing sweeter than to accidentally over-hear your six year old daughter explain to some girls at the park that "That is my brother.  He was adopted and he has Down syndrome.  He is THE BEST brother in the whole wide world!!"  She was so serious, too.  Meant it with all her heart.  Pretty high praises considering she has a bunch of pretty awesome other brothers as well ;). I'm sure the other boys won't take offense.

  They think he's pretty great, too :)

Historic settlement and farm

We finally got a chance to visit a historic settlement near home.

A great excuse to get out in the fall weather and learn a little history while we're at it.

Buddies for life...this oldest and youngest have been tight from the very beginning.  He's already concerned about growing up and having to leave her.  I'm sure they are going to be very close even when they're older.

Quick update

It seems like I'm never going to get the time to write a proper update here...even though I very much want to.  I had such grand plans for posts I wanted to write throughout October for Respect Life Month as well as Down Syndrome Awareness Month...it's so fitting that the two are focused on in the same month.  But instead God has called me to the trenches this past month.  I've been filled to the brim with life's work, which happens to be quite challenging right now.  There just seems to be so much to do and just not enough of me to do it all.  It's a season...and I'm looking forward to Advent and a new Advent book by Ann Voskcamp to help put things back in proper order.

Joseph has been home 4 months now...

And I can't even describe how very much we all love him....he's a Perry...and that's pretty much all there is to it.  The kids tell me daily how much they love "the babies" (Joseph and Emmeline are known as the babies....the boys are "the bigs" and Lilly and Matthias are "the littles."  The kids humble me every day with how they care about him.  He is still banging his head...and the kids take good care to make sure they intervene and protect his little head from getting hurt.  They even take turns doing these compression movements on him that are designed to give him the sensory imput that he is looking for when he bangs his head.  It seems to work...and the kids are so attentive to him and his need for this.  It's beautiful to watch your kids happily care for others.

There is so much to write about Joseph...he's doing PT, OT and speech now.  Learning so much every week.  Feeding is still our biggest issue right now.  We may be re-visiting the idea of a g-tube with our pediatrician if some of our new feeding ideas do not bear any fruit this coming month.  Our pediatrician kept holding us off on the g-tube but our last visit in to see him had even the pediatrician thinking that it might be time to finally take that step.  Praying we make some improvements in eating this month.  Pray with us?

Emmeline is 9 months....can you believe it?

Pure joy.  Seriously....this kid just oozes happy all over the place.  She makes our family so much better;). I just wish she'd slow down for awhile and stay little for me.

That's all I have time for right now.  Hopefully more soon on all the kids...and more specifics about Joseph and how he's doing.

Have a blessed day on this feast of All Saints!

Pumpkins

Wwwww

Went and did our pumpkin picking this weekend...all the kids got to ride the wagon around the farm, pick pumpkins, have strawberry slushies and hang out to play at the farm for awhile.  We've all decided that we'd like to try our hand at growing our own pumpkins...we've never done that before but this farm had some really cool varieties of pumpkin that had overgrown into some pretty neat shapes.  The boys want to grow some like that so they can paint or carve some interesting things with them.  Hopefully next year.

Joseph did great with his first pumpkin picking trip.  He was quiet for the whole wagon ride but then cried A LOT when we got off so he was definitely letting us know that he didn't want it to end!  He really liked playing in the sandbox, too.

Sorry for the lack of posts...I've been barely keeping my head above water with a lot of things going on right now.  Joseph is now doing PT, OT and speech therapy and I hope to post progress about all of that soon.  Especially with it being respect life month and Down syndrome awareness month...hopefully I can squeeze some more time to get on here more often.  I have so much to report and so much to say about the blessing that Joseph is to our family.  

Hopefully more soon!

Apple picking