Fun Saturday

Jack’s cousin Brian got married today so since Laila already had a nurse scheduled for the day we decided that we would go ahead and go.  It was hard but I thought it might be good for her since she knows the nurses really well and it was just way too hot for her to be able to go with us.

Jackson helping nurse Sharon with the morning vitals :)

The rest of us went out to the Warsaw area and celebrated with Brian & Laurel.  They got married on a boat in the middle of the lake and then had their reception on a huge dining boat on Wawasee.  It was a beautiful way to celebrate.

Jack & I on the upper deck soaking up some sun.

When we all got back home Sharon said Laila had a good day so we decided to go and have some fun taking her swimming at the Peterson’s.  They are so nice to let us use their pool all the time, even when they’re not home!  Thanks guys!!

Laila liked the water and kicked and splashed.  She also got some good leg exercise by being able to stand straight up on my legs for several minutes at a time.  I forgot to mention yesterday that she got mad that the kids had walked away and were in the bathroom brushing her teeth so she started to throw a fit.  I put her on all fours (with support) and told her if she wanted to see them that she would have to try to crawl to them.  She was actually doing a great job holding her weight and even army crawled a little.  I can’t wait to have her therapy review on Tuesday and get things rolling with the new therapists.  Only one of her four therapists was able to transfer up to our home so we have some work to do to get everything set up again.

Speaking of swimming, I’ve been waiting to post a great big GOOD JOB to both Emma and Jackson for the amazing way their swimming skills have improved this summer.  Emma just finished her second two-week session of swim lessons.  Last year she took one session and passed from Red Cross level 2 to level 3.  This past session she passed from level 5 to level 6.  She is doing amazing!  Check her out!

I think the biggest shock this summer was Jackson.  He has been so different from Emma the past few years.  At the age of three she was jumping off the boat with no fear going under the water and everything.  Jackson hasn’t been like that.  In this past month he has gotten over his fear tremendously!  He is now jumping into the shallow end all on his own, going down the slide on his own with his life jacket and now can keep up with the bigger kids playing on who can stay under the longest.  I’m so proud of the way he has overcome his fears!  We have one more swim lesson session to go through this summer and it’s the one that I had signed Jackson up for as well.  I’m so excited to see what he’ll be doing by the end of that!  Great job buddy!!

Laila – Day One

We made it through our first day!!! Laila slept all through the night and didn’t make a peep. I’d like to say it is because she is so comfortable here but I know most of it was pure exhaustion from the whole day at Riley’s yesterday.

Her nurse, Amy, arrived at 7 this morning and we spent some time going through the house and showing her where everything is. By the way, my mom is the greatest! She brought us dinner last night after keeping our other two kids all day then she stayed and helped me organize and put away all of Laila’s things. Thanks mom!! Anyway, Amy decided to wake Laila up to get her morning routine of bath, dressed, meds & stretching all started. Well, Laila must have still been tired because she was yawning and sleepy all morning. She took about a 3 1/2 hr nap in the afternoon so she must have been!

We had a great day together. Amy taught me several things and gave me tips. It’s great to have her here to help. It’s also great that Laila’s foster mom is so willing to answers my questions and be there for us as well. I definitely think I would feel a lot more overwhelmed if it wasn’t for (and no I’m not just saying that because I know she reads this ;) We had a few things that we had to go out for today so Laila stayed with Amy. I think it was so good for her to have someone here with her that she’s so familiar with. I think that will help the transition.

While Laila was snoozing away this afternoon I got some of my phone calls made checking up on different things that have been started to get her more equipment and benefits. I feel like it’s going to be a long process but I’m thankful for any help we can get. Jack and I have been looking at new vehicles and knew that sometime in the next few years we’re gonna need one with a wheelchair lift. Well, after lugging around the wheelchair yesterday and today, we’re thinking the sooner the better. She’s tiny but that chair weighs a ton. Also, the regular car seats aren’t so great for her because there’s not as much neck support so it would be really nice for her to be able to ride in the car in the chair that has been specially designed just for her. The problem: cost. These vans cost about an extra $25,000 more than the ones without the lift. Not to give too much away, but a used one will cost us more that a year’s salary. So, I’m also checking into special needs car seats and looking into different foundations to see if we could qualify for a grant or something. Someone today said to just write the owner of the Braun company and ask him to donate one to us because she’s so cute he’d have to say yes ;)

Anyway, enough money talk. Laila had fun watching the kids and laughing at them today. She babbled on and I finally got to hear her say her name today. One of the highlights was when Jack got home from work and walked in to see her, she smiled big and said “hi dad!” While I’m sure that she doesn’t know him as her dad yet and it was probably random, he was still super excited!

We were having so much fun with each other today that I didn’t take any pictures! I did however get this short video of her babbling a bit. She was talking so good before I grabbed the camera (typical kid!!) but this is good as well. Especially for those of you far away that aren’t sure when you’ll get to meet her.

Not sure if I had mentioned this before but my friend Kat nominated us to a photographer that she knows for a free portrait session to get family pictures with our new little love. Well the woman picked us and so we’re looking forward to doing that. Wednesday night before Laila came, Kat came over and brought all the kids matching outfits for when we get the pictures taken. They were all very excited and I showed Laila her dress today and she smiled big. She loves Miss Kat :)

We also got a reclining high chair today from our Peterson friends. Miss Chanda hand sewed a cover for it just for Laila. Although Laila loves Miss Chanda, I think she has a secret crush on Mr. Ross. Chanda said she’s gonna have to keep an eye on our flirty little girl :)

This evening Emma and Jackson went off to VBS at church and after visiting with the Petersons, we took Laila over to meet Grandma Hamstra at Oak Grove. Grandma was so excited to meet her and they were comparing wheelchairs and leg braces. I think they’ve decided to be buddies :) Wish I wouldn’t have forgotten my camera :(

After Oak Grove it was time to go get Emma & Jackson from church. We were very excited to introduce her to all of our CCOD friends. We were surrounded by friends saying hi to her and welcoming her. She got a little scared of the VBS mascot Cooper but don’t worry Mr. Phillips, I’m sure she’ll love you when you’re not dressed up like an enormous dog!! ;) We also received a gift basket from Life’s Little Dreams, the adoption/foster care ministry at our church. Laila did really well for a while but then just wanted to snuggle into my neck and hide from people. She got a little overwhelmed. The good thing is that she got to meet several people tonight so Sunday will be a little easier. We can’t wait to teach her to pray and watch for what God is doing in her life. I think we’re still just kind of blown away at the way we’ve seen His hand bring us where we are today. We have a long rode ahead of us but it would be silly for us not to trust Him with the way He has made His presence so evident to us so far. I hope Laila can grasp that too some day. I’m already trying to teach her to fold her hands and am praying with her every night for God to help her feel comfortable, safe, & secure here with us. Would you pray for that too please?

The Hamstras

We made it home, everyone’s finally in bed and settled, and I’m exhausted.  Here are a few fun pictures from Laila’s homecoming.  I’ll write more soon :)

July 15th - Hamstra Day

It's 12:12 am and today is the day we bring Laila home. I've been busy getting the house ready so I'm all caught up on cleaning and can just focus on her and having fun with all three kids (that's fun to say :)

Jack and I have talked a little bit about how we both aren't sure if we're feeling the way we're supposed to be feeling. We're not jump up and down excited like some would be and we're not nervously scared like others would be. We're just us. Going through everyday getting in place the things that need to be done to have our daughter here. The thing is that it's not wrong, it's actually very, very right. We just feel like she supposed to be here and where has she been all along because her place is here. It's not even like it's new (though obviously in some ways it does) it's just like she fits. After we had her for that first weekend it was like we realized she fit the hole that we had both been feeling for so long but couldn't quite figure out what the plan was for us and for more children. She fits. She's always fit, just in God's own timing.

What I wanted to write earlier today about Emma and Jackson was both of their reactions to a new sister. I don't think I ever explained it in another post. We sat them down for dinner several weeks ago and brought up the idea of having Laila come and live with us and both kids were strikingly mature about it. You'd expect a kid to automatically say yes or no, but both of them spent time in their own way thinking. Emma started with asking some question and saying she was a bit nervous. We answered her questions and then she said that yes she would like to have her become her sister. All the while Jackson sat quietly on his end of the table so we finally asked him what he thought and he sat for a minute and then finally said "I need some time to think about it." Uh, how old is he?!?!? So we asked if we could answer any questions and he simply said no. The night went on and we didn't say anything to him and then at bed time he called us both into his room. He said "Mom & dad I have something to tell you. I want Laila to come and be my sister." We asked what had made his mind up and if Emma had told him to say that and he said "uh no, I said I just needed time to think and now I know I want her to."

Since the talks that kids have been nothing but excited about finally having their sister come to stay with us permanently. They are both big helps with her and we're grateful for that. As I'm sure you have gathered, she has some disabilities. I haven't spelled them out on here because I don't want that to be what people automatically label her as. I'm not ashamed of the way God made her, I'm actually very excited about it but I know there are others who don't see her that way, they may never look past the tube or the wheelchair. I'm thankful that God has given us different eyes and different hearts for her and that he included our other two children in that as well. At times it will be difficult I'm sure but it is so completely clear that this is God's plan for all of us so we know that He'll bring us through those and help us to see the complete joy that is Laila. Smile, giggles, curiosity, and the unknown are just a few of the amazing wonders God is giving us in this amazing little girl. We're thankful for it all.

Switch – a - Room

We’ve been working out tails off over here.  Even before we found out about Laila coming Emma had decided to move in to the bedroom in our basement because she is EXTREMELY afraid of tornados.  We’ve been battling ever spring/summer to get her to go to bed at night because she’s always afraid that there is going to be a tornado.  I explained to her that we have a basement and so if that ever happen, (and probably never will even though the stupid siren goes off all the time!) we have a basement and tornados can’t get underground.  Well she decided that’s where she wanted to be then.  I never thought that she would want to move down there as a seven year old, I figured it would be the teenage “I want my own space” years.  So, we let her try it out for a week or two and she slept wonderfully and loved it so we decided to let her stay. 

The bedroom situation was one of the big things that Jack and I discussed when thinking about adopting Laila because it meant we would have to have Emma & Jackson share a room for a few years.  Laila has some pretty bad nights and we didn’t want her keeping Emma up if they shared a room.  We also knew that those “tween” years are coming for Emma and that she would not want to be sharing a room with her little brother.  We decided that we’d do it for now and God would work out the details later with an addition to our house or something.  How cool that it’s already taken care of?!?

We had some friends offer to paint Emma’s room for us while we were in Mexico so that was a HUGE help because #1 I HATE to paint, #2 it was going to take a ton of painting because it was covering dark wood paneling and #3 I just don’t have the time.  I knew we wouldn’t have the time once we got home with only having 5 days until Laila comes and I didn’t want Emma to ever think “oh, we’ll get to you after we get Laila settled.”

So…… four coats of primer, a coat of paint and more hours than she’ll admit to later….. Chanda made Emma’s room beautiful :)

I told her I wanted it splatter paint to kind of give it some character and to make it match the new bed set Emma had picked out.  It looks really neat!  I think Amanda’s gonna paint some big stars on the walls with some of the left over purple, silver & black to finish it off.

The only issue with this switching of rooms is the mess that it made.  We emptied Emma’s new room and then had all of that mess in the middle of the basement and had to find place for all of it because this was our guest bedroom/catch all room…..  We also had to empty Emma’s old room (including the closet full of junk!!!) to make room for Laila’s stuff.  It was a lot of work and the rest of the house has to turned into a mess in the process but I’m so glad to have the girl’s rooms all finished and settled.

Laila’s Room

Well, enough writing for now.  Need to get the rest of this house cleaned before I bring Laila home tomorrow :)  If I get it done I really wanna write a little about my sweet Emma & Jackson later.  We’ll see…..

ps – here’s Jackson’s room just for fun.  nothing changed but didn’t want to leave him out :)

Are you reading this?  Leave a comment with your name so I know who’s actually reading.  I’m curious.

Mission/Anniversary Trip 2010

Married for 10 years…… It is just absolutely unbelievable to me.  What an amazing blessing these 10 yrs have been.  Although I can look back and see times that we struggled with different things that were going on in our lives, I really can’t think of times that we seriously struggled with our marriage.  It’s been a wonderful, joy filled partnership that I thank God for all the time.  I always tell Jack that I’m not sure why God blessed me were I was in my life when I was 18 and we met but I’m so glad He did!

We started thinking last summer about what we would do for our 10th this year and we tossed around the idea of a Carribean vacation or something exotic but we just couldn’t come up with the right thing.  After talking and praying a bit, Jack said “why don’t we go back to the Yucatan?”  We had been there over our 4th anniversary working together on the mission field and I couldn’t think of a better way for us to spend our 10th.  Being on the mission field together as a couple is one of the most powerful things I could ever recommend to another couple.  A mission trip is always such a huge blessing to a person anyway; putting yourself aside, being out of your “comfort zone,” experiencing the thrill and excitement of the unknown, then being able to experience that with the person God gave you to always be right there on your team is simply amazing.

Once we gave this trip over to God, He ran with it!  We received a credit card offer which got us free airline tickets (NEVER, ever saw one of these that wasn’t a scam but I went through this one with a fine tooth comb and it was actually legit!).  THEN, our friends in Michigan had owed us an authentic New Orleans meal from a voucher we had bought from an auction I organized for our previous trip to the Yucatan so we decided to take them up on that one Sunday we were visiting up there.  Well, we told them about our upcoming trip and how we would work for several days and then try to get a hotel somewhere for the last few days of our trip.  They looked at each other and then pulled out a book from the time share that they own.  Sure enough, the resort they go through had a hotel in Merida close to where we would be.  They decided to give us the stay in the five start resort for only the cost of their transfer fee.  The time share is always for seven days and we didn’t want it for the whole time but it turned out good because we were able to let our missionary friends take advantage of the hotel as well one of the nights we weren’t there.  Seriously, can you believe how big our God is?  Free airfare, basically free hotel; glory to Him.

We booked all this last fall and had everything in place long ago.  Well, come to find out, a group from our old church planned a trip and they ended up being there the same time as us so we all got to work together again!  The other amazing thing about the timing of this trip is Laila.  We really felt like God wanted us to make this trip and we didn’t know how that would fit into foster care but we knew He would work it out.  He had perfect timing planned out so far ahead of us that Laila would not be needing a home not until we got home (t-minus 4 days and counting by the way ;)

The trip turned out to be so much more than we could’ve imagined.  We got to work on the Mission Outreach Center that they are building on their property.  The mission has always housed groups at the church or in the homes of different members of the church.  When this is finished they will have one place that will hold several people and it is two-story so they can house men on one floor and women on another.  We worked on finishing the roof for the second story.  Not sure if Craig planned it this way or if it was just God’s timing but it worked out perfect that Jack was there because his height was a huge asset in handing up buckets of concrete and blocks up to the men on the roof. 

No roof when we arrived

This is what we start out with for our concrete

My big muscles :)  This is how we mix; no concrete trucks here!

Jack passing the buckets of concrete up to Marco

 

Once the edges were done, these solid concrete beams were delivered.  HEAVY!!!  Of course the little Mexican guys can carry them with just two of them but we needed a team!

 

Once the beams were in place, we passed all these blocks up an assembly line for the men to get up onto the roof.

  

Again, my big tall husband was a HUGE help.  I love him :)

It’s sideways but here’s a video of Jack in the background passing the blocks up to the roof.

That was the end of the work that Jack and I did because we knew we needed to make time for spending together (we’re not so good and making time for each other).  We left the group and went to the nice hotel.  We ended up going back and visiting the group a few times, once for church on Wednesday night and once because our friends Raul & Sandra invited us over for dinner.   We had an amazing time exploring downtown Merida and having to speak the language, shop and find restaurants on our own. 

 

Us on our actual anniversary

Craig & Rhonda suggested this really great restaurant.  The man is cooking our dinner over a flaming pineapple that had a face made on it like Mr. Potato Head!

Meet some of our Yucatan Friends:

left to right:  Craig, Rhonda, Janet, Sandra, Abby, Raul, Me & Jack

Hermanas: Me, Sandra & Rhonda

Jonathan, Me & Jack

Made a Mommy at Riley’s

So turns out Laila was actually sick and that is why she was so out of it when she was here the other day.  Her foster mom decided to have her checked out at the doctor and since she’s so complicated that usually means they end up sending her to Riley’s in Indianapolis, and was so yesterday.

I waited to hear whether or not they were going to admit her and they ended up deciding to so I hopped in the car and headed down there to stay overnight with her.  It worked out well for all of us because her foster brother was sick too so mom needed to stay with him and dad had a prior commitment so I got to actually be a help!  Yay!

She was still in the ER when I arrived at around 11pm to relieve dad and the home nurse.  We wanted until about 1am before they got her to a room.  On our way to the room she had to stop for an x-ray so we headed that way with the nurse trying to steer this big old crib down the hallway (which was actually pretty comical!).  When we got to the x-ray the tech kept saying things like “your mommy will hold you” and “mommy, can you hold her hand?”  I must have had a funny look on my face because he asked me if something was wrong.  I told him I just hadn’t really been called that for her yet and he just smiled and said “well, pretty soon she’s yours so you better get used to it mommy!”  Of course I started to cry because that seems to be all I do these days.  I actually think I’m having more hormone issues with adoption than I did with actual birth!! ;)  I think something clicked.  As the nurses would come in and out and everyone just says mom or mommy when referring to me and it no longer seemed foreign to me anymore.   I was able to be with her, comfort her, clean her up, sing to her.  I felt like a mommy.

I think one of the greatest things about today though was spending it with her foster mom.  She truly has a gift for this.  At one point a new person came in and looked at the both of us and said “which one’s mom?” and without missing a beat she said “both of us, I’m foster and she’s adoptive.”  I love that.  I love that we see each other and are thankful for each of our parts in Laila’s life.  I love that this special little girl is loved so much by so many.  What a true blessing we have to be in this wonderful journey with them.

Laila ended up feeling much better today and was able to go home this evening.  I’m so fortunate to be able to go through these experiences and learning while we have help and someone to learn from.  What a wonderful way God has guided us and set up this whole situation.

I ask prayers as we leave in the morning for Mexico.  Praise God with us for our wonderful 10 years of marriage, praise Him for the three amazing children He has placed in our lives, praise Him for our desire to serve Him on this trip, praise Him for His wonderful, unimaginable, unfailing love.  Lord strength Jack and I as we spend this time together and be with our kiddos and keep them healthy and safe until we return.

When we get back = T-minus 5 days till Laila comes to stay!!  :)