We are home and well...

Entering the surgery center.
Pre-Op.

Home with a red cast and ice pack eating a Jason's Deli kids meal, watching Toy Story.

The surgery went well. It took about an hour. The Dr. did not need to put a pin in, thank goodness. But he did have to cast twice, as the thumb shifted the first time. Thankfully Isaac was out and had no idea. After the surgery, he was screaming crying and thrashing around on the bed. This is his usual reaction to anesthesia, we warned them to have us in there as soon as he recovered but no...they didn't believe us apparently. He even ripped his IV out of his foot in his fit. The post-op nurses were not understanding or kind, Billy even had to give them a little attitude. But we were discharged within 20 minutes and headed home with a very tearful and drugged little boy.

It is now after 6:00 and he is bouncing all over the house. I have given him orders to play nicely or lay down. It is just not possible! Atleast I am glad the drugs have worn off!

The worst part of all of this is no flag football this season and two months of no recess at school!!
I have been really stressed and sad about this whole ordeal. We go back in a week for a follow-up and more x-rays and then it should be taken off at the end of October. We will see!

Isaac gets his cast today!

Isaac goes into surgery today at 1:00 to line his broken thumb back up and get his cast on. Please pray for us!! He is currently starving as he has not been able to eat pre-surgery!

These photos were taken when he was fitted for his splint. The x-rays were so cool to look at! You can see how swollen his right hand is in the above photo. And yet he smiles when he sees the camera!

The week from you know where...

Well, we are finally moved in to the house, have the apartment cleaned and will be moving over all the boxes in the garage today. Our lease ends Wed, so we still have two more days. I have no pictures because we do not have internet at the house yet, or a phone line actually. That will hopefully be remedied tomorrow.

So here goes (for those of you who are wondering where on earth I have been for the past week!) my rundown of the week-from-you-know-where. Beginning with last Monday:
We celebrated Vivi's adoption day, it was SO windy and we had a bit of an altercation with a guy on a cell phone. So that was fun. I was already stressed, so I was not in a good place!

Tuesday I took Isaac to school and he fell on the cement and broke his thumb (see previous post). That had us visiting Dr's and the ER until 10:30 that night.

Wed. I spent all morning on the phone with Dr.s trying to get a Pediatric Ortho to see him on Medicaid- not an easy feat. We have Medicaid for him as part of our adoption subsidy from the state. It is really hard to find Medicaid providers. Children's wouldn't see him until this Friday which was not exceptable. SO finally our wonderful pediatrician's office found one in Southlake. That afternoon a huge handful of Vivi's hair fell out of her head. No explanation. She has not lost anymore hair since so we are hoping it was some freak occurance. She has a bit of a bald spot now that requires the use of a headband to keep the short pieces down.

Thursday was moving day. This is the rundown- the house flooded...and I mean flooded- carpet cleaners came to removed padding and set dryers down, appliance guy and plumber came to check out the leak (washing machine) and the movers came with all of our furniture.. having to be careful not to slip on wet floors. We also find out that the house has no phone jacks.

Friday I take Isaac to his Ortho appt. He will have to have surgery to reset his thumb and to have his cast put on. Then I had to go to City Hall to get the water changed over in our name. Fridge arrives from Craigslist...find out the house doesn't have a water line for the icemaker. Lovely. Later find out the freezer is not freezing and alot of our food melts and has to be thrown out. Pest control comes to spray, appliance guy comes back and doesn't have the right part for the washing machine.

Sat. we clean the apartment and pick up the kids from my parents house. Vivi locks herself in our bedroom and gets orange paint on the carpet. Isaac pees all over the bathroom floor because he can't get his pants down fast enough with his hand splinted. I have one of many meltdowns. We call in reinforcements and Billy's mom showed up yesterday. We had to go to Home Depot to bite the bullet and purchase a new fridge (won't be coming till Thursday)...no more appliances off Craigslist for us. I am now at Starbucks typing this and trying to de-stress with a brownie. Whew. Today we have a full day of errands and more moving stuff and unpacking. I will post photos of the house as soon as we get internet at the house (hopefully tomorrow).

Please pray for us. Things have not been this difficult to manage for us in quite sometime. So as things stand now- we have no working freezer, light sockets in the house that don't work, no phone, no internet, no washing machine, broken doorbell, and a VERY exhausted and stressed Mommy and Daddy.

On the bright side, Nana is here to manage the house and various workers in and out- the kids have enjoyed their big backyard and seperate rooms, I have put out all my fall decor (woohoo!!), and Isaac's birthday is in two weeks. SO things may start looking up for us, Lord willing. And Gloria...I promise once things settle I will be hooking up that web cam and downloading skype!

Thank you to my faithful readers for making it this far with me in the post. I am off and running again! Check back later in the week for a very big picture post!!

Moving and A Broken Thumb

Tonight is our last night in our apartment!! Woo hoo! We found a four bedroom rental house closer to church. Longer commute for Billy to work, but it will be worth it. We are almost completely packed. I am finishing up laundry today with bathroom rugs and shower curtains. We still do not have a fridge, though so that could be tricky! The kids will be staying with my parents tomorrow through Sat. so atleast they will have access to fresh food!

And on to the other part of my blog post title. Isaac broke his thumb yesterday! I let him out of the van at noon to go to school and I heard him yell "wait for me!" and he took off running. Two seconds later he was on the cement screaming crying. He tore up some of the skin so I thought he was upset about the blood and I sent him on in, asking the teacher if she would run him by the school nurse for a bandaid. Well just as I am pulling into home, they call my cell to tell me that his thumb has swelled and I can hear he is still crying. Great. So I told her I wanted to get him into a Dr. right away and would pick him up (he has a very high tolerance to pain, so I knew something wasn't right). I took him straight to our Dr. who sent me for x-rays. At about 4:30, I got the call that he had a fracture in his thumb. So I had to wait for Billy to get home, we fed the kids, and headed to the emergency room for a splint. At 10:30 p.m., we were finally treated and released from the ER. It was the longest day of my life! I do not have any pictures as my camera was home, but I have loaded it into my bag so that if the Ortho says he needs a cast, I will be ready!

I am pretty upset about this. A break this early in life could mean he will be susceptible to breaking that part again throughout his childhood, plus he now cannot play flag football this fall and the company made a big deal about no refunds (it was NOT cheap). SO I am having a really hard time today; the stress of moving, having to get my child a cast, losing so much money and the fun of watching him play....not a good day for me. Wed. are my longest days as we have school, choir, Awana, and Bible Study...not getting home until 8:30 at night with two exhausted kids and a drained Mommy. I think we will just have to skip our commitments tonight and I will use my morning OJ to wash down two Exedrins. Pray I make it to naptime.

Vivianna's Adoption Day!! **Updated with photos!

Finding a balloon that does not say "happy birthday"...not an easy feat.

The Ariel doll was bought by Aunt Vicki when we were in Galveston.
We got her an Ariel and Flounder bath toy, stickers, a ring, and some candy.

Had to keep with our running tradition of her wearing a polka dot dress on adoption day!

Today marks the day that we finalized Vivianna's adoption. Her birthfamily came to court with us, which was a real blessing. Our attorney was surprised and said he had never had a birthmother attend the court proceedings. That night we had a big party at my sister's house. Every year we celeberate with a cookie cake, a couple gifts, and a fun activity. If the weather holds out today we will be having our celebration at a park.

This picture was taken as she took a little snooze before we walked into court to finalize.
This was last year's celebration, the theme was Minnie Mouse.
This year the theme is Ariel.

I will post photos of this year's celebration tonight!

Braids

BEFORE
AFTER

Vivi's hair has been getting longer and fuller- Billy says it grows "out" not "down"...so true! This summer Paige and I worked on some braids. This has become my favorite hairstyle of hers. So pretty! P.S. That before shot was natural...no comb or pick had been taken to that head, this is the way she looks every morning and nap!

Found this on the magazine stand!

This was my *light* reading during our mini vacation last weekend.

The article was good. It had some points that were iffy- meaning Billy and I thought they were trying to put a race issue on kids that is actually their normal competitive spirits, but other parts of the article were great. It says that studies have shown kids as young as 6 months old judge others based on skin color. The University of Texas in Austin did a big study where they wanted to see if showing race conscience videos to kids and talking to them about race would change their views on those different from them. The most shocking part to me was that of the 100 families (all caucasian) that were recruited to participate in the study, dozens of families dropped out when they were asked to have conversations about race to their child. They actually said they did not want to point out other races because they were wanting their child to grow up "color blind". The fact is, this is impossible. "Children see racial differences as much as they see the difference between pink and blue", the article states. The article pointed out than many caucasian families will not discuss race or racial attitudes with their children whereas families from other racial groups do because they must.

The article also says that "researches have found that the more diverse the environment, the more kids self-segreagate by race and ethnicity." This is interesting because many of us believe that if we expose our child to a diverse community, they will not have biases and negative feelings towards people groups based on their race. The article's main point to make was that the best way to raise a child who is nuetral in the way they view different ethnicities is to talk about race at an early age (3 according to the article.) It made the point of stating that children who grew up learning about the ways that other people groups have been suppressed and mistreated, gained a greater sense of compassion than for those children who grew up unaware.

All around this was a very interesting article, one I recommend reading for sure. It is important for us to note that talking about race should not be a conversation we shy away from in an effort to appear non-racist. Racial conversations allow our children to know they can talk to us about anything and we won't be embarrassed or upset to have these discussions.

Flag Football

Much to his Nana's hesitation (she would rather he play a safer sport!), our little guy is starting flag football this Sunday afternoon.

Something I am sure Gloria's husband, Dave will be happy to hear!

I am excited for him! There is no tackling and the practices are an hour before the game so it only takes up 2 hours of our week! woo hoo! Isaac's favorite game to play with other kids is tag, so this is right up his alley! He will be on a team with 9 other boys and they will have games every week and a tournament with trophies! This is where parenting gets really fun!

P.S. I was chosen to be Isaac's room mom at school. Looks like this will be a busy semester!

Galveston Beach

We had a great time in Galveston for Billy's birthday. As is typical, I took so many pictures it has taken several posts to piece this trip together! The weather was iffy...rain half the time, beautiful skies the last 24 hours. But it worked out for us. The last morning when we went to the beach, it was gorgeous. We were the only ones for miles. The water was a great temp. and the under tow was barely there so the kids had lots of freedom to run and splash. The house was as beautiful as the photos showed. And the beach club we had access to looked like a tropical resort. It was all so amazing. It was a very comfortable and relaxing weekend with Billy's family. Thank you to everyone that helped to make it special!! Enjoy the photos!

Harbor tour with dolphin sightings!

We had seafood the second night and this was the view!

The Beach Club Pool