Christmas Memories

The Kators over for homemade gingerbread making

Making our gingerbread house. Still in flour form

Mom and kids decided to join the the church's mega Christmas production. It was a blast as we rehearsed and hung out with friends. Our production was even attended by Tim Tebow and some other Bronco players. It made Bronco fans out of us...

Mom was curious as to what Hope would write to Santa if he happened to be real.

On Christmas, we made a cake for Jesus. It was made of burnt sugar and had toffee and chocolate mixed in.

Hope and Josiah at the Kolz's Christmas party

Fall Happenings

Here are a bunch of our homeschooled Art coop kids on a field trip to the painted mines out west.  They visited the really weird looking "hoo doos" and clambered all over the hills.

Hope and Josiah ran the town's pumpkin race. It was Josiah's first race and he did so well knowing that if he finished, he'd get a pumpkin for a prize. Now, our family is a running family!

We headed up to Denver for a few days of rest. While there, we ran into a few dinosaurs at the Dinosaur Park as well as the Denver Museum of Natural History.

Mom, giving the kids a face painting lesson.

Dad was teaching the kids about Noah's Ark and decided to build them their own - with a door that only HE could close. The kids loved it so much that the dog decided she wanted to get into the action.

Thanksgiving was fun as we had friends over and we had such a feast. Lisa made her Asian turkey. We also had bread stuffing, rice stuffing, green bean casserole, rolls, salad, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, fruit tart, caramel apple pie (above), ice cream, hot and sour soup, fried shrimp chips, caramel crunch pop corn. We had so much that our friends ate lunch AND dinner and there was still leftovers. Now, that was a fun feast!!!!!

Thank You

-Autumn Leaves blowing in the crisp air
-A warm house, fire in place, a soft fuzzy robe
-Fathers that come home after work 
-Mothers that make the whole house smell yummy for dinners
-Children laughing and crying
-Varieties of squash
-Children that listen during homeschooling
-Children that don't listen and don't want to be your children
-Children that make you go to your knees and seek the Lord for guidance and strength and perseverance because it somehow creates character
-Health
-Dogs that eat crayons and lick your face
-Friends who will eat your experimental foods (Asian Turkeys, Caramel pies, Blackberry cranberry sauce). Thanks Kolzs and Wus 
-Running to keep the holiday calories at bay


"Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" I Thessalonians 5:18

Summer Summary

Just because we are a few months behind on blog posts doesn't mean we weren't doing anything. Call it busyness and "life" that kept us from blogging. Here is a summary of our 2011 summer:

May - Fascinating that our 6 and 5 year old could do this on the computer...maybe dad helped a bit, eh?

May - Our kids love Costco boxes. It's their fave toy. We love the price

May - Hei Mei graduated from high school dog class. She's on to college soon - we hope she can one day become a therapy dog.

June - Packing food bags for Swaziland. One bag held 6 meals. We packed a couple hundred meals.

June - Dad's favorite animal is a penguin, so the kids painted this bank and put their handprints on the back before baking  it for Father's Day.

June - Lisa's sub-hour 10K. She looks like she's smiling, but she's actually in agony trying to beat this guy. Both were trying to get under an hour. We did it!!!

July - Hope saved up enough money to buy this circuit set. Of all the girly things mom tried to suggest she get, she decided that she wanted to make circuits. She loves this kit.

July - Lisa's brother's family came for a week, and we filled it up with rafting, zoo-ing, bigfoot searching, Pike's Peak, Manitou Springs. Here, the cousins finally found bigfoot.

July - We had cousins Emma and Nathan in our raft. Lisa was the only one worried that one of the kids would fall out. Everyone else was having a blast. Josiah told the guide the go straight for every dangerzone. Adrenaline junkie already...

August - We headed to Snow Mountain Ranch YMCA for a week break and enjoyed the outdoors.

August - Hope's first solo horse ride. She loved every second of it. Mom was maneuvering the camera while holding onto this horse which was quite spirited. It would jump every now and then.

August - Josiah's first encounter with a horse. He was deathly afraid of it but after a while, he really warmed up to the idea of sitting on animal that could crush his skull with one hoof.

August - another shot of our fearless cowgirl

August - first day of outside school. We'd been homeschooling throughout the summer, so they were excited to just put on uniforms and go outside and learn. No idea why they are screaming here...

August - We headed to Mr. Matt and Mrs. Arlene's parent's cabin in Durango, CO. Hope and Josiah call this place the Lincoln log house because it's cool log house. The kids learned to fish from Dad and Mr. Matt.

August - Mr. Matt helps Hope reel in a large bass. She's thinking this is a bit on the slimy side.

August - Dad helps Josiah catch a large one. He's thinking slime as well...Later, we swam in their river and caught crawfish. Just the kids and mom were brave enough to take some home for gnawing on. They were on the gritty side, but it was fun.

 

A journey of attachment

Today, our son turned 5. We celebrated a few days earlier with an oreo pie and a simple dinner at the Elephant Bar. He wanted a hamburger with fries. At first, he really wanted McDonald's, but we convinced him that another restaurant may serve better food. He happily relented.

He's been home for half of his life now. We think he's finally realized that he is not going anywhere anymore. This 2.5 years has been a strenuous journey for all of us. I think it's time to share a bit of our tears and laughter in this blog:

RAD. Anyone who has ever adopted has read or heard about this three letters. It stands for "Reactive Attachment Disorder". This was not on our radar as we did not have major issues with adopting Hope at 12 months old. Of course, she had her  initial 6 month grieving period, but it may have just been getting used to living in a new home with weird people and weird food. But after 6 months, she was the typical baby with tantrums and snugglies.


With Josiah, something wasn't right the first few days between Lisa and him. There was no instant attraction and no eye contact for months and months and months.  We all thought that this would go away and we'd all settle into a happy lifestyle of one girl, one boy. How cute. Cute never came. Josiah acted like a guest in our home for 2 years. He treated Lisa anywhere from a slave to a nobody. He ran to Paxton and clung to him and treated him like a slave as well.  When men came into our home, he would run into their laps and snuggle with them. People thought it was cute, but somewhere deep in our heart of hearts, we felt there was something amiss. We just couldn't put our finger on it. We just thought he'd grow out of it...

Of course, we were hoping that he'd grow out of many things: like falling on his face over and over again, 
like staring off in space for long periods of time, 
like crying when he was happy 
or laughing when he was sad, 
like wearing shorts in the snow 
or wearing a down overcoat in 90 degree weather, 
like aspirating all liquids thinner than a smoothie, 
like swallowing a whole triscuit and not feeling it,
like diarrhea every day for months on end,
like bloody noses every other day, 
like fasting 24 hours every week, 
like poopy underwear all day and not telling anyone, 
like not speaking sentences until he was 3.5 years old
like not making sense with his sentences when he was 4 year old
like being the victim in every situation...


So, we put him in physical therapy because at 2.5 years old, he had the strength of a 12 month old. We put him in speech therapy because he had the vocab of a 1 year old or less. We put him in Occupational therapy because of sensory issues and processing issues. We put him in feeding therapy because he didn't know how to chew food and swallow.  He saw the GI doctor to check for food intolerances or bowel disorders. He saw the neurologist who did an MRI on his brain and found a smaller than normal cerebellum. He saw a pediatric developmentalist who diagnosed him with gross delays, possible issues in the future.  

No one was there in China to teach him how to do the simplest acts. No one was there during his critical growing moments. He was alone and had to figure it out on his own...  And somehow, he managed to get to 2.5.  He was aspirating on all liquids and even after three barium swallows, his muscles showed that if he dumped water down his throat, the liquid would end up in his lungs because he didn't know when to swallow...


And so, we thought that all of these issues would soon resolve after all the therapy and medical workups...

After 6 months of Josiah being home, he continued to act like a little guest in our home: he never looked at mom in the eye, he walked away whenever we went outside, he refused to come close to us, he acted like an outsider. And, he continued to fall and aspirate and fast and bleed and cry and whine and fall and poopy and cry and fast and whine. But we just assumed that this was the typical boy stuff. Just a little rougher...

But what started us down the "attachment" road was one night, when Lisa was wondering how if life would be harder or easier if Josiah was around or not. The answer that came made her decide this family needed some intervention asap....


So, we headed to a few clueless counselors at the army base in Virginia and asked them for help. One counselor stated, "Josiah will always have his emptiness and lonliness problem, so you just need to accept that he will have this emotional hole in his heart for the rest of his life." 

When we went to a second counselor, she called Josiah over on the second visit and told him to sit in her lap. Of course, he did that and charmed her with his smile. Her response? "You see, he's the normal one. The problem is you."  When asked if she'd heard of RAD, she looked at us blankly. We stopped seeing her...


When we moved back to Colorado, Josiah continued to be our guest. There was an emptiness in his look, his heart, his actions. Oft times, he'd comply with our demands, but joy was lacking. He couldn't hold a 5 second face to face encounter with mom. Hugs and kisses were only reserved for outsiders, especially boys and men. Mom couldn't even hold his hand for affection. A simple touch would send him running away.

One day, Josiah looked at mom and stated "I like Dad!" and walked away. After a few more hundred emotional stabs in the heart, Lisa decided to call around and seek for a Christian counselor who knew something about attachment therapy. We were directed to a man named Mark Beal, a Christian who not only went to our church, but spent most of his life researching attachment disorders. We found our man!


Almost immediately, Mark showed us what was really going on inside of Josiah's broken heart. It never was about all the strange behavior that we saw and had to receive from him. It was about the heartache from being profoundly neglected and left alone. His behavior was the world that he created to make himself safe. In a child that has reactive attachment disorder, an empty room with a door that only opens from the inside is his reality. Nothing outside of himself is safe. So, Josiah created a universe where nobody was safe and only what he decided was right was right. 

How this exhibited in Josiah was in sensory issues (cold was hot/hot was cold), emotional issues (he'd cry when he was happy and laugh was he was sad), mental issues (he literally would turn into himself and not hear the rest of the world, almost disassociated himself from his surroundings).  So, physicians were concerned about delayed growth, autism, adhd. Even eating disorders came out: fasting for 24 hours every week. A nutritionist asked me to give him every fat thing there was out there: ice cream, sour cream, cottage cheese, cheese, avocados, fat off of cuts of meat, oil, whole milk, meat, cream, chips, McDonalds. The only problem was that Josiah hated all of these things. He would sit and stare at the food put in front of him. When there was fatty chunks of meat and a salad, he always chose salads. Lisa resorted to adding chunks of butter into everything he ate. Tablespoons of olive oil were poured into his soups. The GI doctor gave us a drink that would give him 600 calories in one sitting; Josiah would sip it for weeks.


But as we started to address the heart of his pain, a spiritual light suddenly shone into his life. 


When Josiah again said to mom, "I love dad" and walked away, Lisa responded with "I know that when you were young, your birth mom couldn't take care of you, and that you are mad at her for the pain that she caused you". Josiah fell to the ground and bawled for a good long time. Scales fell off...


Many nights were spent with mom holding Josiah. He was not used to being held. He fought so hard. It was not the soft, cuddling, love moments between mom and child. It was mom trying to condition Josiah to accept the love of a mom for the first time. It literally sucked Lisa's energy dry to the bone.  She took off many nights to just re-energize. She would share his story to him and try to explain that the lady that gave him birth could not take care of him anymore. So, the orphanage did. And then a foster family took him in for just a little bit before sending him BACK to the orphanage. So a second foster family came into the picture before we came to pick him up. By then, his heart was already stone cold and was hidden deep deep inside his little room. No one could reach him.


But God did.


And slowly, by grasping the ankles of Jesus, Lisa's mom heart gained energy to keep loving on this boy.  Lots of prayers were poured over this child. And so we kept on giving Josiah cuddle time and prayer time. We even anointed his head with oil and asked Jesus to heal Josiah both physically, spiritually, and emotionally. The kingdom of Heaven was breaking forth.


So Josiah started to exhibit new tendencies. One day, Lisa started experiencing heart palpitations: anxiety attacks, she thought. She even went to the doctor's to get an EKG and blood work because it was becoming more and more frequent.  Later, she learned that Josiah's own anxiety was projected onto Lisa. Mom felt son's fear - subconsciously. So, Lisa started to  address Josiah everytime she had the heart palpitations. She had to tell Josiah that she knew he was starting to get anxious and would have to comfort him and tell him we were not leaving him. Josiah would start to cry and let loose. This wore Lisa out. But it was good. Josiah's fear were being addressed.


Then, Josiah started to literally drain Lisa's energy dry, simply by sitting there in front of her. One day, while driving Josiah to school, Lisa (after a full night's sleep) suddenly felt like she was going to pass out in slumber while driving!  She learned later that again, Josiah was so worked up and anxious that he was sucking the energy out of Lisa.  Lisa had to work on calming him and comforting him, letting him know that she knew he was anxious but he was still loved.

Then we realized that every time we prepared for church on Sunday's, Lisa would experience palpitations. It was driving her crazy until we started to pray over Josiah and address his anxious thoughts and calm him down. Were we crazy or was this a spiritual attach going on? 


Over a period of 6 months, we saw a new boy come out of his shell. Josiah is a boy that laughs all the time. Light fills his eyes. He acts like a boy who wants to get dirty and jump on bikes and go and go. He lets mom hold him and kiss him and tell him that he's loved. He wakes up in the morning and gets his hug before running off to play. He loves to help with chores around the house, and he's not being paid yet!!!


Every night, we pray a blessing over him and seek the Lord to do miracles in his life. We break the curses and bonds that have held him back for so long. And we see that these chains are loosed. It is so good to see the Lord pressing into Josiah's life.


There is much work as we continue to journey into attachment. He still wipes off mom's kisses. He doesn't like when we touch his head. He still has PT, but she says he is so close to graduating. He has OT and Speech to work on his sensory and help him catch up with language. He's a persevering kid, even to the point of annoying us to death, but he at least tries now.

He's working on belonging. Our hearts are mending, and this mending includes Jesus knitting us together each day.


So much more to come....

Josiah is 5

Our Birthday Boy

His gift is almost taller than him!

Riding on his gift

We were actually camping on his birthday, so here's a pic of him on the 28th. We celebrated gifts and cake early.

Little boy wanted an Oreo pie for his birthday, so he got it!

Josiah Funny

This may only be funny for those who know Chinese, but it had us in stitches. Josiah was visiting his GI doctor, Dr. Yazdi a week ago. I was driving by  his office one morning.

Josiah: Hey, we just passed the doctor's office
Mom: Josiah, you see a lot of doctors. Which doctor is this one?
Josiah: The duck doctor.
Mom: What?
Josiah: Dr. Ya Zi (ya zi is how we say duck in Chinese)
Mom and Hope bust out laughing for a good 5 minutes. 

A Hope and Dad Funny

Hope (saying mean things to Josiah about Josiah)
Dad: Hope, since you can't say nice things, you need to cover your mouth for some time.
Hope: (is not talking, but picks up her leftover pizza from Costco and proceeds to eat it in the car)
Dad: Hope, didn't I tell you that you need to cover your mouth!!!!
Hope: Dad, what you meant to say was "no talking". You didn't mean "no eating"....

A Hope funny about Dave Ramsey

Hope: So there goes another Molly Maid car, the one that stops at our neighbors' homes

Mom: You know, some people choose to spend their money on services like housekeeping. You can spend a few hundred dollars hiring people to clean your house or you can use that money elsewhere.

Hope: Americans are kind of stupid about spending their money. They really need to listen to Dave Ramsey...

Colorado Reception for the Gibsons

Enjoying another party with the Gibsons. This time, it was in Colorado's Garden of the God's Clubhouse. Hope refused to wear her flower girl dress again (strong willed girl!!!).

Josiah was more compliant and wore his tux again. He was too shy to stand next to the newlyweds.

Our Time in San Diego

Overlooking San Diego Bay, Point Loma. Loving the sea breeze, the pelicans, the gulls, the ships, the sea lions.

Hope getting her Junior Ranger Badge for studying Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo. Every moment is a learning moment!

The tide pools. Hope is falling off a rock as the waves crash behind her.

Just a year ago, this kid was deathly afraid of water. This time, he was loving every moment of the cold splashes on this pink toes.

Loving Grandma

Lisa's 5K. She was trying to run it under 30 minutes and managed it. She sprinted the last few meters and experienced "no pain, no gain". Good thing the pain went away.

Hope preparing for her race

Running her 1 miler with dad

Running to the finish line all by herself

At the wedding rehearsal. Hope was too proud of her medal to put it away, so she and Josiah walked down the aisle with her race garment on.

The best man fixes the ring bearer's bow tie

Flower Girl and Ring Bearer

Last minute preparations before the wedding

Here they come, walking very slowly. Hope concentrates on scattering the flowers just perfectly. Josiah was hamming it up.

Leeann Walker and Kent Gibson exchanging vows