Catching Up

Isn't this a great picture of Whitney!?! She looks like a perfect fit for the glasses and the mics. She and Nathaniel got new laptops for Christmas so that they could do their studies for college work. Actually, they got them right after Christmas when the second of the last two old laptops finally gave up the ghost. This program for making funny photos came with their webcams that are on the laptops. Maybe I can put a photo that Nathaniel made on here later.
This is one taken on Whitney's computer again, but with Luke and Nathaniel and I in it. We were having some fun.

This is another fun photo. We had a couple of families over on Sunday for lunch in celebration of

Nathaniel's birthday. He got the new jacket and the scarf as gifts. The kids decided to take his skeleton that he keeps in his room and dress it up. It is even using Nathaniel's ipod. The little ones took the bottle of Mt Dew that was in the left arm.

Nathaniel is very excited that the day after his birthday, he received a clean (no metal) new smile! Doesn't he look great!?!

This is a short video of us all on Christmas morning. It was a very exciting and fairly chaotic time.
We all thoroughly enjoyed it! It was fun to see Luke's enthusiasm for each present he opened. I don't think anyone was disappointed with the joyous day. Each year, we think things will be too tight to have many gifts under the tree, and each year, the tree is loaded to overflowing. Note all the presents in the background.

We all wish you all a very Happy New Year! We look forward to seeing what new adventures the Lord has in store for all of us.

Tim's Birthday! and more Life with Luke

Today is Tim's birthday! Yay!!! He has decided to work from home, so that will be nice. Nathaniel and Luke and I went shopping and bought him lots of presents. All very practical, but I hope he will enjoy opening the packages anyway. I wish I could tell of the things we have done to prepare for this birthday for him, but...he may read my blog, and then the surprise would be ruined. Suffice it to say, we hope to make this a special day for my darling husband.

We have recovered from Luke's Thanksgiving cold and mine that followed on its heals. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving shared with friends. It was a blessing to be invited to join other families for the special day, as I would not have managed to accomplish a big meal, nor the celebratory feelings if we had ended up staying home. I assume due to the cold Luke woke up with, but possibly the anticipation of the big day also, Luke had his most challenging day with us so far. He had two fits before noon, and a close call during our Thanksgiving visit. Amazingly, we have not had any temper fits since that day!

We seem to have finally fully recovered the ground we lost after the last FM call. It took a full 10 days. During and following the call, Luke was in his baby talk, "I need nurturing" mode. It had seemed as first that the only negative results from the call were minor, but as the week progressed, I saw how Luke had pushed me away and was reaching out his siblings and Dad only. He also told me several times that I was not his mom that his FM was, and that he would never love me and he had only lied when he had said he did. It is a relief to be past all that.

I feel much more confident about my decisions in regards to refusing to be coerced into more communication with the foster parents, as we now have a therapist to advocate on Luke's behalf. She is a warm, happy lady who will come to our house once a week and stand up to social services for me about what is best for Luke. She agrees completely about cutting off the FP. Yay!
I am so pleased to see Luke decide continuously to make wiser choices and not make the choice to tantrum. I see him stop and think about which path he will take and he continues to take the path of wisdom and compliance. I don't carry high hopes that he will never choose to tantrum again, but we are certainly not seeing any for now, and I anticipate less from now on.

On Saturday, we had a lovely visit with a family who has adopted five children (also have four birth, and pregnant now, and 10 years younger than us). They were so encouraging and uplifting. Being with that family for much of Saturday was really very therapeutic. Even our teens enjoyed and felt uplifted by the visit. Unfortunately, I talked my voice right out. I haven't had it since. I would trade my voice for a week for the joy they brought into our home any day.

We told our matchmaker/social worker that we do not want to be taken off the list of those still looking for children. We know that we will have to renew our home study soon, but it is much easier to renew than to start over. We are definitely still wanting at least two more, hopeful under four years old. Luke is very interested in having more adopted kids and is enthralled with babies. He also is amazingly gentle with babies and protective of them. I am so glad that this little boy is not what the "adoption people" all warned us he would be. God is an amazing God. He put that list of yucky stuff in Luke's description to scare everyone else off, then he directed us straight to him. God be praised!

Building Castles and Relationships

These past couple of days, the boys have been very involved with construction projects. The castles they have built together have been great fun. I put all of Luke's toys away since I found he didn't play with them anyway and he needed to know that having access to his things is a privilege that must be earned. This worked wonders in unexpected ways. I have found that he is now actually enjoying playing with toys. He asked specifically for a toy and then plays with it, sometimes even alone. Up until now, he has seemed to have no interest in toys, let alone playing by himself. Since making it a privilege to play with them, he seems more content. Maybe this will stay, maybe it wont, but for now, it is working.
Luke had a phone conversation yesterday with the FM (foster mom). He instantly went to baby mode and remained baby-like the entire evening, even to the point of wanting to sleep in our bed last night. We went with what his needs seemed to be and he seemed to recover faster this time. It is still too soon to know right now whether we will continue to see the effects today and into tomorrow. In the past, just the suggestion of a call caused disruption for 2-3 days following. We feel that since we are continuing to be pressured by the social workers, we had better start jumping through their hoops to keep them content. Hence, the suggestion for a phone call. Pray we will be able to keep a visit from happening. We don't think it is in Luke's or our best interest to have him see them again.

Baptized!!!

Luke was very excited to be baptized last Sunday.
We were unsure whether to have Luke baptized now or later, when he becomes lawfully our son. When Luke came to the time he wanted a new name, we decided that this would be a good time to go ahead and have him baptized, after all he is our son in every way except lawfully. We had him baptized with his new name, Luke Bradford Ewing. We may later, on his new birth certificate add Jonathan as another middle name, but at this time, Luke has been adamant about leaving it off.
After Lukes baptism on Sunday, we had our congregational lunch with our church, then a time of celebration for Luke becoming our son. We recieved some nice gifts and donations. We sang some songs and Luke enjoyed watching a small skit put on by some of the young people. All in all, it was a very nice time.
Nathaniel spent time on the trampoline teaching Luke about static electricity. He came in and tried to do it on the carpet, but without any success. Nathaniel's hair was standing straight up during the lesson.
Today, we explored pine cones to see if we could see where the seed is. We never did find them, but enjoyed dissecting it to look. We have also spent time together working on a phonics program to find out how well he can read. So far, he does very well.

Tears Instead of a Fit

I felt like we had major victory today! We had friends over today to work on a quilt for Luke. He was having fun with the two boys visiting and his brothers, but at lunch started to act a bit less than nice to me. So, I figured a rest time would be best. We have been having him take a nap each afternoon. It helps him stay nice throughout the day. He was very disappointed about the rest time today, but instead of the fit that I might have had to endure in the past, I kept reminding him to make wise choices, and...he did!!! I was so happy. He was very unhappy. He cried, he was so unhappy. But, that was a milestone, because before now, he almost never cried and usually had a huge fit when he was made to do something he did not want to do. I was sad about his sadness, but so very happy for his decision to be in control and be sad when sad was appropriate.
Yay! It's been a rough week with a social worker visit and negative interactions with the FM(foster-mom). It felt like I had a little miracle of sunshine in my rainy day. Thanks for your prayers. They are working!

Jonathan or Luke

Well, I know this is a little confusing, but I am going to attempt to make some sense of it. During snuggle/bonding time a couple of nights ago, I told Luke (formerly Jonathan) that if we had had Luke "from the beginning, when I found out I was pregnant, Daddy would have been so excited. Right away, we would have started to think of names to name our new little boy." Right away, Luke jumped in and exclaimed, "What would you have named me?" I answered back with one of the names that Tim and I had considered when we had thought we might rename our adopted little boy. Luke immediately responded, "No..., it's too long. I want a short name." I asked him about a few names that start with 'J', thinking he might like it to sound a little similar. He responded, "No. I don't want any 'J-O' names." I went to thinking and named the gospels to him, all except John, since he had already nixed that anyway. When I said the name Luke, he asked, "How do you spell Luke?" So, I spelled it for him and told him I thought it was a nice name and that Dad liked the name as well. He said, "Okay, Luke." He then asked," Will people laugh at me if I change my name?" I assured him nobody would. That was pretty much the end of the topic until I said, "Good-night, Jonathan." He looked at me sideways and said, "Remember...?" So I said, "Good-night Luke." And he said good-night.

The next day, I carefully tested the situation to see if it was one of those topics that we can talk about at night, but are taboo during the daylight hours. I was right. He did not want to talk about it. So, I didn't mention it again all day. Then, unexpectedly, when a young lady introduced him as Jonathan Ewing to her little brother at a church party last night, he looked up at me and said, "Mom, I'm not Jonathan, I'm Luke." He then asked me to fix the name written on his cup to say "Luke". After that, all evening, he was telling people his name is Luke. He corrected me any time I made the mistake of calling him "Jonathan".

This morning, I waited for him to show us what he would be called. It is still Luke. So, I would say at this point, even though we have not decided what we will do with a middle name at this point, our new son has a new name.

Incidental, Luke is a little dancing machine. He loves to dance and is not shy about dancing with any of the girls. It was fun to see the girls all wanting to dance with him. He should have the dances down in no time with all of his practice.

Luke, waiting with David this morning, to go get his first pair of pistols.

After a nice nap, enjoying his new guns.

Reasons to Sing Praise

Yesterday was a long, tired, somewhat bored day. It's not that we had nothing to do. I think the rain and not being able to play outside just created that feeling inside of us. We found many things to do: Play Doh, learning games, drumming, watching an educational DVD, reading, school work, hot/cold game and other short-lived activities. The day seemed to crawl by for all of us, but perhaps it was good to have a slowed-down restful pace.

Today, feeling fresh and renewed, we started off with a bang. Right after morning devotions and breakfast, we went into a 15 minute cleaning race. We set the timer and everyone worked as fast and efficiently as they could to get the house looking tidy again. I figured that if each of us, including Jonathan, put in 15 minutes of continuous work, that is over an hour of cleaning when added all together.

Jonathan took the responsibility of vacuuming the living room. He says this was the very first time he ever vacuumed. He did a great job! What a big helper! Nobody even had to go over his job when he was through. Of course, we didn't expect perfection, we didn't have him move furniture and Nathaniel gave him brief instructions, but he did the job on his own.

Jonathan continues to appreciate snuggle time at night, and continues to want to play the "if I were your baby from the beginning" game. This has been making huge strides for us in the bonding process. He has becomes very willing to obey and eager to please, particularly for me. I think after this weekend, when things get back to some semblance of normal with Tim's work, Tim will also start this bonding process with Jonathan. It can be a little irritating at times to have a 6 year old acting like a baby, but I know it will be short lived, and it doesn't go on continuously, all day. He just has moments when he wants to be treated like a baby, other times he insists he is a big boy. One other nice thing about the baby play, believe it or not, the potty times seem to be getting better during this baby spell, rather than worse. Yay!

The older boys are doing a great job of entertaining, encouraging and playing with their new little brother. They have dawnings of reality occasionally, when they see that there are times when they would prefer to not have the big brother responsibilities and have more time alone.

Jonathan stated quite frankly, when the subject came up, that "NO!" his sister will not be allowed to marry, "ever!" He says we need to put a few "holes in her clothes so she wont be so pretty" to make sure it will never happen. ROTFLOL. I think our little boy has become completely enthralled with each them.

We feel so completely blessed by how well our time is going with our little Jonathan and what laughter and joy he brings to our home.