Home from Montreal & Birthday Celebrations!

Well Nathan and I arrived home last night from a 4 day trip to Montreal. It was a bit of a whirlwind! We had 2 days of doctors appointments and then 2 days of travel! So unfortunately it left very little time for shopping and enjoying the city. We had all good news! (That doesn't happen very often) Nathan's bone density has increased an icredible 9.5% in the last year, which is huge! His strength is increasing significantly and he does not need hip surgery this year! Hooray! We met some lovely families this trip to the hospital all with children with brittle bone disease. One family in paticular really encouraged me this trip and I hope to keep in touch with them as they were a wealth of knowledge and seem to be living for the Lord!

We are waiting for a refferal from the special needs list, we are still holding out that Xue Ying (Addison) will show up on the list but we haven't been given much hope that she will show up. We have been told we are near the top of the list for refferal, hopefully next month will be our month to see who God has wanted to place in our home! I trust him and his will, wherever that leads us.

Today is Nate's birthday! He is our oldest and he turns 11 today! I feel like I blinked and now he is in Grade 5! He has been such a blessing in our lives. We have seen him through many health issues and somehow he still seems to keep a positive attitude and sense of humor. Had someone told me before Nate was born that he would have brittle bone disease, I would have said I could never do it......but we don't know what we are truly capable of. I am so thankful that God blessed Howard and I with Nathan, he has changed our lives for the better! I am a better Mother, Wife, Friend and Person because of Nathan. I don't know if we would have accepted Jesus as our personal saviour if we hadn't had Nate. He changed the course of our lives, and for that I will forever be grateful. So Happy 11th Birthday my beautiful, funny, stuborn, strong, music loving son!

Hope

What a month this has been! I can truly say we are starting to see the sunshine in our lives again!I am not sure what God has in store for us, but I know that my hope is in Him and Him alone, so I will have patience and trust his good a perfect will. This last month has flown by, we were blessed with a visit from my Mom and Dad. I was thankful that my Mom didn't pressure me to be some super hostess:0) I think she knew I wasn't capable! She was such a great help with looking after the kids and helping me keep on top of the house. A couple days before my Mom came to visit our family was in a little fender bender and fortunately the kids and Howard were not hurt, however I hurt my back! Crappy timing but it was nice to not have to leave the house for a few days so that I could recuperate! I am feeling much better! I have been reading like crazy, and forgot how much I LOVE getting lost in a good story! To my astonishment I have read 15 books since the end of December!!! Nothing of substance just some good old suspense/ romance books:0) The weather here has been amazing so much so that when all the kids are at school/preschool I have been able to get out to the walking trails! We have even had many days in a row in the plus numbers! Our snow has turned into rivers of slush and ice and mud. I pray that we won't get another burst of winter, however we are not usually safe from that threat until the 3rd week of May. In the mean time I have been enjoying the sun and fresh air. The kids have been doing well... Howard has been working away ALOT I think he was gone for 20 days in February! This is not our normal, usually he is home every night, but lately he has been working 3+ hours west of our home so its too far for him to drive back a fourth. All this to say that having him away so much is affecting all three of the kids..... not in a positive way! I am trying to be understanding and pour more of myself into them, however I know its not the same;0) Nate and I will be heading to Montreal near the end of March to see his specialists at Shriners hospital, he has been doing water therapy one day a week and dryland physio 2 days a week, in hopes that it will help strengthen the muscles in his legs that have weakened so much in the last 2 yrs we will find out if all his hard work has paid off soon. I have been trying to talk Josh into trying ski lessons so he and I could go up skiing once in a while but the lad is hooked on snowboarding and I do not know how to snowboard! He needs quite a bit more practice on the board before he could even hit a a green run etc. His instructor said he needs to practice steering quite a bit more before he takes more lessons so I will leave that to Howard who use to love snowboarding! Riley is flourishing in preschool, she will be starting speech after Spring break as she has been stuttering quite frequently. I believe its more emotional than anything else because it always gets worse when Howard is working away. My Sister and Mom will arrive for a week visit on Sunday, and then my Dad will arrive on Thursday for 3 days. I am looking forward to see them all now that I am starting to feel like myself again! Its Spring Break here and it started today! Yahoo! Also our community is hosting the Arctic winter games all this coming week. So I would like to take in some of the events with kids like dog sledding and maybe skeleton. It would be neat for the kids to see some events we don't usually see or know too much about.

Howard and I have a few decisions to make about our adoption whether we wait to see if Addison will show up on the shared list before she reaches the age 2 ( as thats what we are approved for) or to allow our agency to start looking at referrals for us? We want God to lead us in this decision. Right now its hard to hear anything from our Father, but I have faith that he knows what he is doing. I want to thank all the wonderful friends and bloggers who have left comments or sent emails with words to inspire and prayers for our little family! I sure am thankful for you all and you each made my day a little brighter with your notes:0) Wow I was nervous to blog with such a large break in between! I thought it was going to be alot harder then it was! I actually found this comforting! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!