(Sunday Snapshot) 5 Years

"The wildest colts make the best horses."

 

~ Plutarch

 

 

"The most wasted of days is one without laughter."

 

~ ee cummings



"You don't raise heroes, you raise sons.

And if you treat them like sons, they'll turn into heroes,

even if it's just in your eyes."

 

~ Walter Schirra, Sr.

He answers to several different names depending on the day or his mood...

Spiderman, Batman, Tony Stark, Clark Kent, Ironman, Green Lantern.

Oh and of course Will or William.

 

The thing that stands out most about my youngest son is his good heart.

He also loves to build with lego's,

is a good Christian, and is a gifted athlete and dancer.

He has a curious mind and often thinks deeper than I do.

I believe that he is here to do great things.

 

We can't always say it's been easy but it's certainly been worth it.

There have been bumps in the road but we're happy to be

on this journey.

Without William it would have been a very different and much less exciting

5 years.

 

It was on this day 5 years ago in a conference room in the Lakeside Hotel in Fuzhou,

Fujian Province, China, we first met him. A very scared and upset 2 year old little boy,

who first went to Grace, then Dan and about a week later came to me.

The changes in him in the past 5 years have

been nothing short of miraculous,

and for that we are thankful.

 

My sweet William, I love you so.

 

 

 

"Yours is the light by which my spirit is born;

you are my sun, my moon

and all my stars."

 

~ ee cummings

 

 

 

  There are over 100,000,000 orphans world wide, please consider adoption.

Sunday Snapshot - A Merry (Birthday) Christmas

Guess who's 6 years old?

Will!

His birthday is Christmas Day but we celebrate it
a little early. Otherwise there's just
too much going on and his birthday gets lost
in the day.

At age 6, Will is:

confident,

handsome,

smart,

athletic (he may be teaching his hip hop class pretty soon),

funny,

a love bug,

loves Kindergarten, his teacher,

and his family.

He's grown more emotionally in the last year
than in the previous 2 years combined.
When I look at these pictures, I see a very happy little boy.
We've come a long way
and I'm happy we've made the journey!

Favorite photo(s) Friday - in search of the perfect tree

In years prior when we visited our favorite tree farm in early December,
we have for lack of better words...
basically frozen our rear ends off.
This year was a pleasant exception.

I did notice that I didn't get a shot of Dan actually cutting down the tree,
but I'm sure you get the idea.
This is obviously one of our favorite Christmas traditions and after the tree is tied to the top
of the car, we go inside
the little house on the property to warm up and have hot apple cider.
I find that I look forward to this experience almost more than actually putting up the tree
and decorating it.
Grace and Will have so much fun here and can race up and down the rows.

Hope you all are enjoying this season
and taking time for yourself too.

(Will and his Daddy, they are best buds).

49/52 - tree kiss

Sunday afternoon we went to cut a live tree,

this is the first year there was no snow and the temps were fairly mild.

I have more pics to post tomorrow and the kids had a blast.

Will was quite taken with what I call the "Charlie Brown trees,"

the small ones, some of which were kind of scraggly and sparse.

He went around kissing a few of these little guys and I found it incredibly cute.

I've heard of tree huggers but never a tree kisser.

black and white Wednesday - 3 years with Will

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

~ Robert Frost

And who would have thought that through a series of events

that our adoption journey would change directions and we would adopt a 2 and 1/2 year old little boy.

Who is now a funny, affectionate, giggling, cute little booty-shaking, adorable, brave, polite, gifted,

ticklish, intense, super hero loving, cartwheeling, and soon to be Kindergartner boy.

He has changed in ways that would have been hard to imagine 3 years ago.

And all in good ways.

In the last year he's blossomed and grown in his emotional maturity

and shows great compassion to others.

He's a caring, loving child.

Happy 3 years my youngest son,

I love you to the moon and back.

We have been endlessly blessed to have you in our lives.

Love,

Mommy

xoxo

Per Will's request, we'll celebrate his 3rd Forever Family Day with Chinese noodles for dinner
and a Lightning McQueen cake for dessert. ;)

(Taken 4 days ago of our handsome guy.)

For more black and whites, please see Lisa's blog
at The Long Road to China.

Sunday Snapshot - Superman

"We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today."

~ Stacia Tauscher

"To become a real boy you must prove yourself brave, truthful, and unselfish."

 ~ Pinocchio

Well Will has certainly got the traits that Pinocchio describes

to become a real boy.
And he is one brave little guy.

I'm truly astounded at how his recovery has gone.

He's now day 11 post-op and tomorrow has his first visit with the surgeon.

She'll removed some stitches inside his nose.

We notice that a little crease that was above his lip pre-operatively

has disappeared now. We're very pleased with how his nose appears.

Everything has healed beautifully and it's my opinion that the surgery was a huge success.

Will AKA 'Superman' has been back to his regular activities.

Which means cartwheels and round-offs ad lib.
No leaping over buildings in a single bound, please.

(These were shot on Friday for an online photography class I'm taking).

26/52 - the patient

The past 2 days have been long for all of us but Will did outstandingly well on surgery day and post-op.

We couldn't be more proud of our brave boy.

I cannot say enough about the people at the American Family Children's Hospital in Madison.

From his caring and gifted surgeon, his ENT doctor and dentist, and the nursing care he received.

As a former RN, I can say Will received medical care at it's very best.

We're happy this is behind us and hope Will's recovery and healing continue to go well.
It's going to be hard to keep this active boy from doing cartwheels but we're going to try
to get him to rest today. :)

Thank you for all the thoughts and prayers for Will yesterday, the 3 of us felt them.

And thank you to our friend Carla who took care of Grace and our dog Molly.

We'll be laying low on this long 4th of July weekend.

Have a fun and safe one!

xo

Sunday snapshot - Will

Bright  and early Wednesday morning, Will, my husband Dan and I will travel to our

nearby children's hospital that's in Madison.

Will is having a rhinoplasty of the tip of his nose (in layman's terms that's nose surgery.)

With yearly visits to our cleft team, we're following the recommendation of his surgeon.

She feels that as he's growing older, the tip is starting to point down.

I did ask that she keep the integrity of his beautiful Asian nose.
We know he'll have a few more surgeries in the years ahead related to his cleft.

The ENT doctor will be checking Will's ears and replace tubes if necessary.

Will is also having cavities filled by our ped dentist and some other dental work.

We're happy this will be only a one night stay and

Dan and I are staying with our little boy the entire time.

Post-op, he'll be receiving some surprises (a couple of new toys)
and ad lib amounts of TLC and snuggle time.

Please keep Will and his medical team in your thoughts and prayers Wednesday.

I have great confidence in these caring people and trust his wonderful surgeon implicitly.

Taken last week of our handsome guy.