2008

2008. Well, it's been a good year. Joshua turned 4 in April and Timothy was born in May. My mom was able to be here when Timothy arrived and my sister Sarah and Dad also came through that week to get to meet him. Then Michael's parents were able to come in the following week. It was certainly nice to have family around and the meals our church family provided for us made the transition time much easier.





Timothy was born with club feet (his feet were turned in) so during the first few months of his life we made many trips to Chapel Hill to see his orthopedic doctor. He had casts on his legs and feet for 5-6 wks. The casts were changed every week or so to gradually work his feet out to the proper position then he graduated to "the boots and bar." At first he had to wear the shoes almost around the clock. Then he only had to wear them 20 hours a day and now we're at 16 hours. The goal is to move to 12 hours a day by 10 months then I think he'll continue wearing them at night until he's two or three. We are so thankful for skilled doctors and that his feet are very correctable. Doc Henderson says that he'll run and play and wear normal shoes just like any other child. The bar doesn't seem to be slowing him down much. He crawls with it and is learning to flip it around so he can sit himself up and he's even starting to pull up with it on.


Uncle Daniel stopped by for a quick but fun visit in June.

Kathleen turned 6 in July and shortly after that we were able to go for a visit with Michael's parents in TN then on to my folks in AL for my sister Sarah's wedding. Kathleen fell while climbing back into her bed the night before we were to leave early the next morning and broke her arm. We didn't know it was broken, however, until a few days later when we took her to the doctor in TN. That extended our stay a bit with Mike and Karla and she had a beautiful purple cast for the wedding. We were all very pleased when the day after we finally got back to NC, Kathleen went with Timothy and I to his ortho doc and he asked her if she wanted to take that cast off. I thought that was quick but he assured me children heal fast and said the x-rays looked good.

This fall the children and I had the opportunity to go back to TN and spend 2 weeks with Michael's parents. Part of that time his grandmother was there and we really enjoyed our extended visit with Nanny. We tried to make it down to Forest, MS to visit Michael's Granddad, too, but I got sick - then the children got sick en route and we only made it as far as my parents house in AL. It was nice to get to see my folks but that stomach bug was a doozy. Fortunately we were better by Monday and the trip back to Mike & Karla's went much smoother.

When we finally got back to NC, we hit the ground running and have hardly slowed down since. I made jam for the Seminary's annual craft and bake sale, helped host a baby shower and prepared for Thanksgiving. We enjoyed sharing Thanksgiving with a friend from our church care group who wasn't able to go home and a Korean family. Then Christmas was upon us and I taught Kathleen how to use the sewing machine which she used to make doll pillows and blankets for all of her cousins. And Joshua learned to use a hammer and nail to make tin punch ornaments for Christmas gifts. The children and I have also been homeschooling (more or less faithfully) this fall. They have been able to participate in one 9-week session of gymnastics and enjoy going to AWANA at our church every Sunday night.

Kathleen and Joshua are great helpers with Timothy and he adores them. Now that he is mobile, he trys to be everywhere they are.

In the middle of everything else, we finally got renters in our house in GA in September and asked them to move out by late November. That story is full of drama and we now have a house in need of many repairs. Thankfully we were able to take care of most of that in December when we spent a weekend in GA on the front end of our Christmas trip. The up-side to that is that my sister Daisy came up from Auburn to help babysit and our children really enjoyed the extra cousin time.

It was nice to be able to spend close to a week with each of our families this Christmas and while we were there we got to see all of our siblings and nieces. One of the highlights for Kathleen and Joshua was building a "lilypad treehouse" with Uncle Charlie.

We got back home to NC on the 26th so Michael could have one day to get ready to leave on the 28th for a mission trip to Amsterdam which is where he is now.