Time Flies!

7 months ago we met Isaac for the first time! His life has changed so much since that day. He has learned and grown so much and so have we. Many people have told us we have done such a wonderful thing by adopting an orphan child with Down Syndrome and that he is a lucky boy, but the truth is we are the lucky ones! Our family is very blessed to have him, he has touched our hearts and lives in a positive way :) . We have had a very busy summer, We watched Isaac's older brother ride bulls in the local rodeos, went swimming at grandpas, celebrated the 4th of July and Isaac's 7th birthday, went camping, spent time at the race track, had testing for school, went to fairs and amusement parks, seen several movies, played at parks, and went to the lake and rode the tube and wave runners. There was never a dull moment. Isaac has added more words to his English vocabulary, started putting two words together and tries to count. He started 2nd grade and is in a cluster class, he likes school and brings home happy faces almost everyday. He has music, math, reading, PE, art, and goes to the library just like every other 2nd grader along with speech and occupational therapies. School wears him out and he falls asleep on the bus everyday on his way home. Tonight he surprised me with how many alphabet sounds he knows. His teacher gave him a ABC song DVD so he could practice while he was off track, we decided to watch it and he started singing along and making all the sounds and doing hand motions, it was so adorable! A couple weeks ago Isaac lost his first tooth, he was so worried about it I found him in the bathroom sobbing with a washrag in his mouth. He kept pointing to his tooth and saying "teeth". It was challenging trying to explain that his tooth was going to fall out and he would get a new one, that it is ok and it happens to everyone. I looked up some videos on youtube.com and we seen some weird cartoons about teeth and we saw videos of kids pulling their teeth until he stopped crying. When dad came home Isaac showed him his loose tooth and dad pulled it, it was easy as pie. October is Down Syndrome awareness month. It makes me so happy that my family has been blessed with Isaacs extra chromosome! It breaks my heart knowing that 90% of DS prenatal diagnosis will be aborted. These kids have so much to give and teach society, we just need to take the time to listen and it would make the world a better place.

Feels like Family

4 months ago we went to Taiwan to pick up a little boy who we had only seen pictures of and skyped with a couple times. We brought him back home to Utah with us and introduced him to his new family... 4 brothers, 2 sisters and a niece. It is crazy that it has only been 4 months because it feels like he has been part of our family for a long time. He has accepted, trusts and loves all of us with an open heart. I hate that when I look at the scars on his body I don't know the stories behind them like I do my bio children. He loves to tell us stories...to bad they are in mandarin. Sometimes I can get small pieces of his stories because his body language is very good, he is such a crack-up. Isaac's English is coming along way better than I expected. He has started putting 2 words together now like "help me", "save me", and "stop it" when he is being tickled by his brothers. He took swimming lessons and LOVED every minute. So far this summer Isaac went camping, swimming, racing, boating, to the rodeo, watch fireworks and a carnival and he has LOVED everything. Isaac will celebrate his 7th birthday on Sunday. We are looking forward to watching him blow out the candles and open presents. He also has many new things to before the summer is over. Just wanted to update everyone on what is going on. Lots of love to everyone! XOXO

Love being home!

We have had our new little boy, Isaac, home for 8 weeks now. He is adjusting amazing! It is so amazing watching him everyday knowing that everything he knew is now gone. Everything in his life has changed! Smells, people, food, language, friends, clothes, toys, home, caretakers, family, school, etc. I keep waiting for him to show some kind of signs of being homesick and everyday he surprises me how well he is doing. Yesterday was his first day of school. He did terrific according to his teacher. He came home and showed us papers he had worked on. So far he is using a few English words in place of the Chinese ones he was using :). He has a great appetite and likes most foods. He follows directions. Loves taking baths and will start swimming lessons next week. We took him to the pool last week and he had so much fun playing with his brothers and niece. We met a family there who has a 8 year old boy with DS who is in the school class that Isaac with be attending next year. It was fun visiting with them. Isaac loves to play outside riding bikes and playing basketball. We would like to thank Gift of Adoption Funds for their support and grant that helped put us to the top of our fundraising goals and making the adoption a reality for our family!

Back from Taiwan :)

Sorry I was not able to leave updates here on our trip to Taiwan but when I logged into my account everything was in Chinese and I couldn't read it :(. We have been home for 5 days now and I could not ask for things to be better :). We left for Taiwan on Friday night (March 8th) we had a short layover in LA then off to Beijing China (12 hour flight). It was crazy since we left in the dark in Saturday morning and we didn't see the sun until we landed in Beijing on Sunday March 10th. Our layover in China was about 3 hours, just long enough to get our passports stamped, go through security again, charge our cell phones and be at our gate to leave for Taiwan. We tried to use the internet in China but we could not use Yahoo, Google or Facebook. Our flight to Taiwan was another 4 hours :(. We had some weird white sausage thing for breakfast on the plane. I was surprised that Tayler ate it. When we got to Taiwan we picked up our luggage but Taylers was not there so we had to have the airlines track it. They said it was still in Beijing and they would send it to our hotel the next morning. We had a driver named Nick Lee pick us up at the airport and take us to our hotel. It was still early afternoon so we had Nick drive us around Taipei. He took us to a temple, a memorial park, a handicraft center, a small market, and gave us lots of advise about what to see while we were in Taipei. After a busy day sight seeing we grabbed some pork rice and went to bed. Monday morning we took a cab to the orphanage. The front desk at the hotel (Awsome ladies) called to get the address of the orphanage for us to give the cab driver. He drove us to a tree in an intersection and stopped and told us the tree was very old. He pulled a couple feet further and stopped again and waited. I asked if this was our stop and he said yes. It was scary for a minute since we did not look like we were anywhere specific, especially an orphanage. I asked the driver if he would call the orphanage to verify the address and he ended up needed to drive another half block up the road. The tree he was pointing to us was a busy tourist attraction so he thought that was were we wanted to go :). At the orphanage we met Po-Chi's birth mother. The social worker translated for us. She gave us some pictures she had taken of Po-Chi and herself when the orphanage let her take him for their last good-byes. It was sad knowing that the mother may never see her little boy again. She said that after meeting us she felt a lot better about the situation and she felt that he would have a great life with us and that he will be happy. She gave me a locket with her picture in it and I gave her a necklace that has a small map of Salt Lake City on it. Now it was finally the moment we had been waiting for......meeting Po-Chi! He came in running to us. He went right to Tayler :) He loved watching himself on Taylers phone, he took everyone for a ride in the office chair and did a dance. The orphanage took us upstairs for some lunch, Po-Chi was tired so they gave him a nap ahe Tayler, LuEssa and I went shopping at the little market the cab driver showed us. We went back to the orphanage and gave them the donations that we collected for them back at home, baby clothes, cloth diapers, coloring books and crayons. The social worker and Po-Chi came back with us to our hotel because we had to get an emergency China VISA for Po-Chi since we have a layover in China on our way home and people from Taiwan need a special VISA for China. She left Po-Chi with us at the hotle while she did the VISA work. He had so much fun... we wore him out....or should I say Tayler wore him out. On Tuesday we went to the orphanage again to meet with Po-Chi's care taker. She was sad and she cried to see him leave but happy to know he has a forever family. Po-Chi ran and played with Tayler as we talked to the caretaker. Po-Chi spotted his bag and said it was time to leave. He said good-bye to all the staff at the orphanage and his friends and he left the orphanage forever. :) We still had most of the day to ourselves so we went to the Taipei 101 building. It was the tallest building in the world until a few years ago when a building in Dubai out did it. It was the most modern building we seen in Taiwan. There was a big mall filled with name brand stores. Good thing it was all out of my price range. We learned how to take the MRT ( mass transit). On Wednesday we had to go to our AIT (US Embassy) appointment and interview. I had to show them a bunch of paperwork and answer a bunch of questions and they approved Po-Chi's VISA and told us to come back at 3 pm to pick it up. We did some other sight seeing and markets in between the time. Thursday we had all to ourselves so we went to the zoo :) After the zoo we went on a gondola with a glass floor. It was way long and went up and down and over the hills until we were at the top of Mong Kong where they are famous for their tea. Friday was our final day in Taiwan, our social worker brought us the China VISA, our driver picked us up and we were on our way home with our new little boy :)