One year ago

It was one year ago that we received the very first picture of Emenet. That was such an exciting time for us. Bill had just left for his long road trip for work and I was out shopping. I was not expecting a referral so soon from our agency. Caitlin told us we could look at the picture and decide if we wanted to except this child or not. Needless to say it was love say first sight. I could hardly wait to get home to look at the pictures. Our lives were forever changed! Fast forward one year... Today was our "re-adoption" hearing. Emenet is now "officially" ours according to the state of Pennsylvania. Your birth day is officially 10-15-2006 and your name has been changed to Emenet Elizabeth Richardson. It was a big day! We took so many pictures. After our court hearing we came back to our house and had a wonderful Ethiopian feast. She was so excited to have injera and Kik Aicha, Misser watt, and what I call beef watt. I made everything except the injera. Emenet ate till she could eat no more. It was nice to share this day with my parents sister and both sister-in-laws! What a great way to celebrate our referral anniversary! Now she can not wait till her birthday next month! She will be turning the four! Next week will be her first full week at preschool. She has turned into a busy preschooler!

It's nice to be home together as a family. Emenet and Nick were trying their hands at golf. Emenet loves to help us cook. Emenet and I made a dish from Nepal- Mo Mo's. They are dumplings, she loves to make them as much as eating them!!!!

We have been home from the hospital for over a week now. Christopher is slowly regaining his strength. He came home on IV antibiotics. We are still trusting that God will heal his facial nerve. I was so hoping Christopher would be well enough for us to go and visit our church family in Long Island, New York this weekend. Bill will be giving the sermon on Sunday and I miss seeing them. We tried to visit this spring but the weather had other ideas. I guess we will have to try again in the winter. Boy, I would just love to sit an fellowship with Pastor's David and Diane. Enough of the feeling sorry for myself! Missing this time will make our next visit even sweeter!!!

Emenet is doing great! We had our six month post placement visit while Christopher was in the hospital. It made it interesting. Our social worker is wonderful. Emenet has been doing good with talking to people she is meeting for the first time. She will actually carry on a conversation! She still is very guarded until we tell her it is okay. We had some endocrine/ growth issues with her. When we saw the endocrinologist she ordered a bone age x-ray. According to her bone age she is just turning 4. She acts more like a 4 than 5. But then there are days I feel like she should be turning 21. lol. She keep us all in smiles around here. You just never know what she is going to do or say.

We are getting ready for the start of the school year around here. The boys do not want to start school yet... I do not blame them... Mom does not want to either!!!! Emenet on the other hand is looking forward to starting school. She will be going to preschool 3 days a week! She can not wait to meet new friends. I think this will be our last year of homeschooling, Christopher is on a waiting list for a school that is for high functioning Aspeger's high schooler's. I think this would be great for him. Nick is wanting to go to high school. We are praying for wisdom as to where he will go...Lead us to the right place, Lord! We both think Emenet will be better in a traditional school setting. Praying about where that will be also. Life is changing...in so many ways...till next time... hopefully I will post more regularly....

Home

Well, we are going home from the hospital today. I never thought I would be spending this long in the hospital with Christopher again. He has been through a lot these past 12 days. My prayer is that this time we fixed everything and the placement of a shunt will prevent anything from happening again. I am excited to be heading home. It will be nice to be together as a family again. He has a bunch of recovering to do. He will have to be on IV antibiotics for 4 weeks. I am getting an education all over again. I know that God is faithful and He is mighty and He can heal Christopher's body. Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us. On to the next step of this journey....

Waiting

Waiting....There has been a whole lot of it going on here in our lives. Our oldest son Christopher is having some problems lately. On July 16th he started to leak fluid from his ear. ( he did not tell me this until Monday morning). The last time we had this is when he was 6 yrs old... it turned out to be spinal fluid, and he had to have head surgery to fix it. I took him to the pediatrician and they treated him for swimmers ear with the recommendation if the leak gets worse come back... needless to say it became worse and by Thursday we were back to the pediatrician. This time I called the doctor who fixed his leak the last time. We saw him Friday he admitted Christopher and scheduled surgery for Saturday morning. Not exactly the weekend I had planned. How quickly we all feel to our knees in prayer. Surgery lasted about 6 hours. He was not a "typical" case. The doctor, whose specialty is repairing these types of leaks, said he has never seen one like this. He is stumped. Why is it happening? We do not know. They are thinking he has high CFS pressure. When they measured the pressure, after leaking a good bit of fluid for a week, his pressures were in the high normals. The repair went well...we stayed in the neurological ICU and have just been transferred to the neurological step down unit. They were very concerned about hearing loss. The neurosurgeon said that the signal for hearing stopped during surgery then started somehow towards the end. I know how....thank you God and everyone who was praying!!!!!! Christopher says he can hear from his ear. The facial nerve that controls his facial movement is not working. I believe God can change this too. Christopher is upset that he has lost movement of half his face. I think I would be very upset if it were me. I keep telling Christopher God is in control...let's wait and see what He can do. Please pray for Christopher, this is a lot of stuff to handle for a 15 year old. Sorry for the length of this post... it helps me to put words to the many things happening. Please continue to lift Christopher up in prayer. He has an extensive tough road ahead of him... also please pray that our Heavenly Father gives the Doctors wisdom and knowledge of what to do for Christopher. We are looking at a future of many spinal taps and possibly a spinal shunt. As God has proven over and over He has a plan and a future for Christopher...He is faithful....He loves this child more than I do... He is in control! Needless to say I miss my other kiddos very much. They have been staying with my mom. We will have to do something about all the spoiling. I have been talking to Emenet and Nick by phone a couple of times a day. Now that we are in step down maybe they can come for a visit. Off to do some more waiting...and praying...and waiting....and praying....

Where does the time go?

Where does all the time go? It goes by way too fast. I can not believe it has been over five months. Emenet has been having fun! She loves to swim! She is fearless!!! She just jumps right into the pool. Her Uncle John came to visit us and He brought Rita's Italian Ice. Emenet decided she was going to feed us all our treats. She kept feeding Nick so fast he had a major brain freeze!! Last week we had lunch with a group of fellow AWAA people. (thanks Gina for arranging the lunch) We were glad to meet every one. Emenet loved seeing her friend Winnie from Ethiopia. After the lunch the two of them went to playground and played together. Emenet still has not stopped talking about it. Winnie was so kind and brought a little gift for Emenet. Bubble gum tape...she is treasuring it. She shares little pieces with her brothers but is keeping a close eye on it.( her oldest brother has a big sweet tooth) Thanks Winnie and Abigail. Next month we will be having our six month post placement report. Wow! Emenet has brought such joy to our lives. I can not imagine life without her. We are blessed!!!!

It has been way to long...

It has been way too long since I had a chance to post on here. Bill is finally back home! We spent the weekend at a birthday party for our nephew Tristan! He loved his cake!!! Emenet did very well playing with the babies and meeting so many new people. She has been coming out of her shell around others. She loved staying at the hotel. She loved that we are all in the same room sleeping so close. She kept telling us all to go to sleep. I warned the boys that sooner or later she would be telling them what to do. It has been a very busy time here since Easter. We are trying to finish up the school year...look at new possibilities for school next year...my Mom had major back surgery... she came through the surgery...just a long recovery...got back into to working on my business...did two art and craft fairs...one was great and the other not so great. I did get a chance to talk about adoption with the promoter's son. (very curious about adoption). Looking forward to meeting one of our travel buddies, Gina, this week. It is so hard to believe that it has been four months since we were in Ethiopia. Can some one tell me how to slow time down...I just want to slow it down this time...I can not believe the boys are as old as they are! Bill is getting ready to go and help with disaster relief in Tennessee. I knew I would not be able to keep him back from this. God has placed such a strong desire for helping with disaster relief, widows and orphans...I know that the Lord is calling us to change what we are doing and get back out there in FULL time ministry again...Now if we can get our monthly support up to were it needs to be....here comes living by faith. Emenet is having such a wonderful time playing out doors these days. She wanted to plant a garden. We gave her a couple of flowers to plant and she has been taking good care of them. she is such a hard worker...we can not do any type of work with out her saying...me want to work too. She jumps right into the work. She loves to help with the cooking and cleaning too. It is sweet to see how she is adjusting to her new life here. Her language skill are getting better everyday...you just never know what she is going to do or say. Every time we call her a little nickname we are told..... I'm Emenet....sweetie not. She has brought such joy to our lives. I will try to post more often now that Bill is home and school is coming to an end!!! Yeah!!! I do not know who is more excited...the boys or me. I think it is me!!!!

Easter

We had a fun first Easter together as a famliy. We spent the Friday with Great-Grandma Mary abd Grandma Virginia and family. Emenet ran around finding as many eggs as she could carry. She was not to excited about the chocolate but the money eggs, that was a different story. We spent saturday with Mawma and Pap and all your cousins. Emenet sat at the cousins table... and even talked!!!! She loved her dress for Easter morning! She looked so pretty!!! Today she was signing as she was swinging... rrrow, rrrow you bloat, gentty dlown the sleam, mary, mary life is drleam. She is starting to come out of her shell.