Five years!!

 I cannot believe its been five years ago our two youngest came to SD on 3-23-2012. We had waited so long to get matched with so many let downs, near matches, and lost paper work.... then its finally reality!

How wonderful and happy we were but it came to a huge reality when we brought home two very verbal children. Each has their own personality and lots of adjustment to make. They came with lots of challenges and our lives will never be the same. Don't get me wrong. We love them both but some days weren't so cushy....actually it took at least a year for us to really get adjusted.

Andres was in love with the acreage and me right away and told us all what he thought. Aaliyah however I believe hated me. She wouldn't speak to me for more than a couple months and only hung on Dan. These are two kids that were expected to just jump in and be our 4&6 year olds ...to us complete strangers.

As time went on everyone adjusted to each other. Aaliyah took a switch and started to lean on me and

rejected Dan. Andres threw us for several loops with his raging behaviors. Though his behaviors are like a grizzly bear and he goes hot and heavy but when hes done in about an hour or two its like nothing ever happened, and turns back into his little teddy bear personality. Miss Aaliyah is like a cat scratching the chalk board. She didn't hit as hard but kept a grudge and purposely irritating us for up to days:0

How time has evolved!

As I walk downstairs where there bedrooms are I scan over the room and realize all the destruction these two kids have done over the years. Andres doesn't have any dressers anymore since he trashed them to no repair. The wall between the kids room has been repaired from a hole they both dug  into the new plaster for a peak hole between rooms. The family room light fixture has been replaced after they decided to hang from it with their monkeys with Velcro hands. We have a different set of couches as the others have been beat up. My recumbent bike seat has a tape repair as somebody or..."Nobody" sliced through it. Our big screen TV hangs on the wall but we haven't watched it for sometime. We don't want to wake them when they go to bed. Somehow "nobody" broke the power switch on it lol.

Andres initially did not want to talk to anyone new and would lock himself in his room if anyone new came over. He is now a very social young man. Aaliyah used to talk to any stranger on the street and start a big conversation but hate to talk to us. Well she's still kind of that way. LOL

It has been an adventure and continues to be every day. We have gone through lots of medical issues with Aaliyah. Some weren't expected but then we expected the unexpected with these two.

Tons of adjusting meds on our little guy and doctor visits.

We thought we knew basically how to raise kids before these guys came home....after they got here we learned we knew nothing lol.

NeVaeh was a completely different experience for us. She had developmental things to work on but she didn't challenge our sanity.

When these guys came home she took it in stride. When the going got rough she ran to her room and was happy.

These guys have grown so much in the past five years. We can have peace some days. Their behaviors have improved and transformed into different ones. We all as a family have learned how to live together with a bit of sanity. The kids are getting smarter and do fair in school. The love between these two are inseparable. They have the normal love hate relationship between siblings but they stand up for each other...right or wrong. Keeping these two together has been invaluable.

Would we do it over again...Of course!! We love our kiddos and every child deserves their own family and a home they know will be forever. Will we do it  again??

I want to but Dan said we have enough lol. I guess. then probably no.

How time fly!! This is our normal crazy family!

PHACE awareness week

This week every year is PHACE awareness week.

Miss Aaliyah has PHACE Syndrome. She also has Moyamoya disease which is a vascular disease secondary to her Moyamoya.

In order to spread awareness here is what she has endured.

She has a large hemageoma over her left eye. She also has one eye smaller than the other which years ago needed surgery due to it being a weak eye and crosses. Despite the surgery she still needed eye drops to blurr her vision of her right eye to strengthen the left. Her vision greatly improved by doing this and now has 20/40 corrected vision in that eye. A couple years ago she had brain surgery to graft an artery on her left side of the brain.

She had 7 laser treatments to her hemageoma to try to reduce it. It is still visible but faded.

Her tests she's had are two angiograms to her brain. One before surgery to confirm the Moyamoya and one a year later to see the progress of her increased blood flow. She now gets yearly MRI/MRAs to check her blood flow to her brain and assure the flow continues to improve. She's down to annual eye exams, and neurology exams.

The doctor told us perhaps two more lasers would improve her hemageomas but right now she doesn't want them so I will wait on that for a bit, As she gets older she will wear a bit of makeup to cover them. I'm an anti makeup person but she deserves to use it if she wants to to help boost esteem. I plan to find a make professional when we beleive she's old enough to wear it because if I help her...quite frankly I will make her look like a clown.

She acts and talks like any other 9 year old. She loves to run, play and get into mischief. One would never know she has something so involved. That's the way she likes it.....being a normal kid!

 After one of her laser surgeries.

 The day after her eye surgery. Face is swollen.

After her brain surgery

Her cute dimples!

Spring Pictures

Here's the spring pictures....Good ones and bloopers.

I think they aren't doing as good of job messing up the pictures lol.

Some aren't good but I've seen worse LOL.