Elephant Paints Self Portrait

I don't think this was meant to be funny, but I must just be in one of those moods where everything is funny.....This just cracked me up. I kept trying to figure out if it is an arm disguised as an elephant truck, but....I think it's the real thing! Absolutely amazing.....and hilarious. (Grab your kids!) P.S. Liesel says, "It doesn't really look like an elephant, but it's still pretty good."

John took Ava and Simeon to Bass Pro Shop. He just sent me this photo from his phone. For some reason it was really funny to me. She looks SO uninterested, but it sure makes a cute picture!

Ava's surgery....

Well she did great! No tonsils, no adenoids, and now she has some handy dandy ear tubes to help drain the accumulation of fluid behind her ear drums. She'll be able to hear so much better now! One cute story....When Ava was first being admitted and the nurse was trying to get her vital signs....She asked John to hold her arm steady so she could get a blood pressure. The nurse said something like, "We don't want her to wiggle". The minute Ava heard "wiggle", she grinned real big and showed off her latest wiggle dance! Of course the nurse did not appreciate the wiggle dance even a FRACTION of how we appreciated it!

I couldn't resist taking this photo. It looks like Ava is thinking, "It's going to be OK Papa, don't worry about me.....I'll be just fine."

The oxygen was history the minute she woke up. She did not want that thing on her face!

All done! She feels great!

I'm not sure if the kids were more excited to see Ava or the helicopter landing pad outside her hospital window. Hmmm......

John stayed the night with her (He was pretty excited that he got to watch basketball too) and I came home to put the rest of the crew to bed. When I laid with Hope tonight she said, "Mommy, I'm so so so so so so so sad." I asked why she was said, and she said, "Because Ava isn't here with me."

You can follow John's blog ........

for Ava's T&A surgery progress today. It will be an overnight stay, and he'll be staying with her tonight.

I totally forgot....Please say a prayer for Ava tomorrow bright and early. She's getting ear tubes and having her tonsils and adenoids removed. I know she'll do fine, but it's always nice to know someone is praying. Thanks!

Something really special happened today. I got a call last week from my husband's cousin's wife's mom....(confused?)....I don't see her very often, in fact it has probably been several years. She called to congratulate us on Ava, and then she said she wanted to come over to bring a "gift" for Ava and our family. About an hour later she was in my living room (along with my husband's cousin's wife...i.e. her daughter.....even more confused?) with a gift bag full of cards and a big check. Turns out, she is in a Beth Moore Bible Study through her church, and the ladies were studying the fruits of the spirit, and it happened that the week they were talking about "love", the article about our family adopting Ava had came out in the newspaper. One of the ladies brought the article to show as an example of the love of God, and this group of ladies so graciously and generously, in turn, took up a "love offering" for our family. When I opened the envelope, I was quite surprised and humbled to see the check, but it wasn't until they left, and I had a chance to read all the cards, that the tears began to flow. There was so much love in the words of these ladies, and heartfelt prayers for Ava and our family, that I really couldn't contain my emotions. I was glad I was by myself. Anyway, they invited Ava and me to come and visit, and that is just what we did this morning. They let me share a little bit about our adoption, then they circled the two of us and sang a beautiful song and prayed for us. It was so touching, and I am so grateful. I love how God brings people into our lives, even maybe ones we don't know, to lift us up in prayer and surround us with encouragement when we need it most. I hope they don't mind me including their picture on my blog, but it was just one of those things I really had to share.

Good news and Bad News....

The bad news is....We had a follow-up eye dr. appointment yesterday. The glasses didn't help a bit. So she needs eye surgery for her strabismus. We decided to go ahead and get it over with, because I know I would procrastinate for years otherwise, so we scheduled it for April 11. Thankfully the surgery is quick and painless, and we should see immediate results.

The good news is.........Guess who sat up for two whole minutes yesterday?!

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Another video you'll love

Ava seems to respond to her name now, and I'm not sure if she understand 'mama' or 'papa' or any other words yet, but we did discover one word she understands! "Wiggle". I've been trying to teach her that she CAN move her body, her legs, and we've been doing some modeling for her. When I showed her "wiggle" a few times, she imitated me. And she did it again, and again. Now she will wiggle just to the command without imitating anyone. I couldn't be more ecstatic, to know that she can hear me, and she can understand and follow commands. This was HUGE.

Sensory issues

I have taken my senses for granted. I guess I knew that our senses are very important, but I have never appreciated sensory input like I have since having a little daughter with special needs. The problem we have on our hands, is, we have a little girl with the potential to scoot, crawl, and eventually walk....but not until we can help her learn to tolerate new sensations she has never experienced before. For example: her hands. She has probably never touched with her hands anything but her own skin and maybe the crib railing. So carpet probably feels like sandpaper to her hands. Most of the pictures we had seen of her she had her hands clasped together, like she was praying. The kids liked to think she was praying for a family with lots of brothers and sisters. But in reality,  the feel of her own hands clasped together brings her comfort I think. She still clasps her hands together when there is a lot of activity or stimulation. We have been trying to get her into the crawling position so she can start to bear weight on her hands and knees, and it almost seems excruciating to her when you force her palms down on the carpet or the mat. She cringes and cries and resists that kind of stimulation.

And she won't be able to eat solid foods until she can get used to the feeling in her mouth of new textures and tastes, and learn to want to put things in her mouth. It is all so foreign to her right now. So I am learning now why occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech therapy are all dependent on one another and go hand in hand. One of the experiments we tried the other night was "pudding therapy". Sounds fun huh?.......She HATED it!!! We put the pudding on her high chair tray, and she reluctantly reached for it. The minute it was on her fingers she pulled away and screamed, like she was being tortured. Eventually she rubbed it in her hair, thus the reason for the hair in the next video.....John tried warm water next. She liked water SO much better than pudding!

Dinosaur Valley State Park-Glen Rose, TX

This was so fun!! A perfect example of my earlier post, that sometimes the cheaper things are far more fun! There are dinosaur tracks in this state park. The problem was, the tracks were across the creek, and because of the recent Texas flooding we were in for a little surprise....






We had to cross on these rocks to the other side of the creek to see the tracks. I wasn't too happy about it at first, but we drove an hour to see them so by golly, we were going to see them. I'm glad we did, because crossing the creek made for a really fun memory!

Lunch with friends

We met up with Jill, an online adoption friend, who welcomed us to her house for lunch. They have 7 kids, 4 of whom are adopted from Russia, China and Columbia. Three of their children have Down Syndrome (and they are expecting another little one from China soon). What a great time we had with their family. When it was all said and done, the kids voted that this was their favorite Spring Break activity of all. Of course it was, with 7 other kids to play with....

The Fort Worth Stockyards

We went to the Stockyards in Ft. Worth but didn't stay too long as one of the kids had just barfed all over the backseat during the one-hour drive there. We weren't sure whether it would happen again or not. Fun times.....

Everybody is watching Simeon, who is obviously not the one who got sick in the car, ride the mechanical bull

I took this picture for John because I'm sure he didn't notice these ladies walking in front of us.....hee hee

The Galleria Mall in Dallas

We obviously don't get out much. The kids were fascinated by these half mannequins hanging from the ceiling.

Escalators are one of the best ways to entertain our children for really cheap!

We made the mistake of checking out the American Girl store. That is all Liesel can think about ever since. Have you seen the price tags on one of those things?! Good grief!

Cow Town

The only one brave enough to attempt the mechanical bull ride was Simeon. Good thing, too, considering it was $5 a ride. I will say I was pretty tempted to try it out myself but I quickly realized that a pregnant lady riding a mechanical bull would look pretty bad.

We're back!!

We are back from Ft. Worth and boy was it fun traveling pregnant with 5 kids!!! We had two blowout diapers...in the carseat, two episodes of vomiting: one in the car and one in the bed (no bucket available), an accident in the pants, and two emergency pull-over-to-the-side-of-the-road bathroom stops. It always cracks me up that  the guy who can engineer his way out of almost any situation suddenly finds himself helpless and clueless when it comes to cleaning vomit or other body fluids. HA HA. Sure is fun when fighting morning sickness too.

I'll post some fun pictures tomorrow. We really did have fun despite the above paragraph....At least we didn't lose any kids. Ava is a great traveler, and every time we vacation we realize again that the most fun things in life really are free (or at least real cheap). 

You can see John's blog for a preview.

Ava's first road trip

Come with us to Dallas TX.

Get ready for a photo blitz! Stay tuned.

Easter....An Adoption Story

I probably won't have a chance to update our blog for a few days, because we'll be leaving for Texas in a few hours. But I wanted to wish all my faithful blog readers :) a Happy Easter, and share something real quick that has been on my heart. We have a bumper sticker on the back of our Suburban that says "Adoption Creates Families". I have been passionate about adoption since I was bringing stray cats and dogs home in the first grade. I always thought that adoption was the right thing to do. It wasn't until I heard a series of sermons by our pastor, though, that I realized how much adoption is on God's heart too. Of course it is. How many times in Scripture has he commanded us to care for the orphans, the widows, the foreigners. His heart is for the lonely, the weak, the distraught, and He depends on us, His children to care for them! 

We were all orphans, separated from God by our sin. He made a way for us to be a part of HIS family, his kingdom through ADOPTING us! (Eph 1:5 In love He predestined us to be ADOPTED as His sons through Jesus Christ). We are ALL either orphans or we are adopted into His family. Adoption isn't Plan B, it is Plan A.....I am adopted and if you are a christian, you are too.

Anyway, last year on Easter Sunday our pastor started a series on adoption. It seemed like an odd choice of sermon topics for Easter Sunday until you realize Easter has everything to do with adoption. If you consider yourself a follower of Jesus, a christian, or even if you don't, I would like to challenge you to listen to these 4 sermons. Even just the first one will change your life. 

I was so grieved when I learned there are over 140 million orphans in the world! That number sounded so overwhelming. But then I learned (thanks Google) there are over 2 BILLION christians in the world. Way more of us than there are of them. I'm not a math whiz, but I know 2 billion is a LOT more than 140 million. The numbers don't make sense. If God commanded his followers to care for the orphans, and there are so many of us, why are there still so many of them? I don't believe everybody is called to adopt, but I do believe everyone should do something. I hope you'll listen to at least one, if not all of these 4 sermons on God's heart for the orphan....Click here and see what God would have you do to help the one that is dearest to his heart...the orphan.

Try, try again

You guys are going to love this video!!! Ava is trying so hard to sit up (or not?) and it has been hilarious to watch her. I can't help but think, and I always start to tear up when I think of it, that she may well already have been on her way to Torez; thinner, weaker, sad, scared, alone. Who ever would have taken the time in her lifetime as an orphan to teach her the simplest skill of sitting up? We have been called "saints" and "heroes" more than once, even just today in fact, somebody commented on "what good people we must be" to adopt "this" child into our home.....If they could just be a fly on our walls they would realize that "this child" is not a burden at all. Sure, our lives have slowed down a bit, we have had to make some changes in our budget to afford the medical bills, we have eliminated a few of our extra activities, but if those people who pity us could be a fly on our wall and see how much fun we are having, they would see that "this child" has been nothing but a joy and a blessing to the Urban family and we would do it all over again in a heartbeat!

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Proud Mama

I just want to say how proud I am! We had another doctor's appointment for Ava today, a follow-up on bloodwork, some vaccinations, and a weight check up. Ava has gained 4 pounds since her first doctor's visit a little over a month ago!!! She was 18.5 pounds, and now 22.5 pounds. I was so happy! She is looking chubby, and pink and healthy too.(Of course I am gaining right along with her, and I'm not so proud of that, however, I guess I do have a pretty good excuse). Anyway, I want to thank the special person, if you are still reading this blog, who donated so many cases of Pediasure. As you can tell, it is working! We have a few bottles left, and the nurse today said that there was another case donated by their drug rep. Thank the Lord for providing! He does care for those who care for the orphans, He said he would!

Banana Sushi

A couple people asked how to make banana sushi. You take two pieces of bread, squish and flatten them together with a rolling pin, spread peanut butter, place a banana down the middle, roll it up, cut it into one-inch slices....and Voila! Banana Sushi! My friend Cherish came over yesterday and made them with the girls, they were such a hit that we made them again today. I enjoyed them too.

I forgot some pictures......

(Spring Break photos) What coordination! Playing Scrabble one-handed


Hope drew a picture of "the baby in mommy's tummy".....and then she asked, "Do you REALLY have a baby in your tummy or are you just trickin' me?"



Family sleepovers upstairs by the fireplace. FUN.

Spring Break Fun

Here a few of the things we've been doing over Spring Break so far....

Dressing the dog up like a princess....

Baking and decorating cookies.....

Playing with airplanes....

Making apple crisp....Notice Hope grabbed her own apple and her own knife and decided to pitch in and help

Entertaining Ava with bubbles.....

Making "banana sushi" with friends...

What else do you do when it looks like this outside?!

Babbling!

Ava was in her swing while I was preparing dinner and she made her first babble! I guess she was trying to get my attention, and she wanted me to push her. Of course I pushed her, and then I grabbed my camera and this is what I got. Of course she had everybody in the family cheering her on in the background. Isn't it sweet? She looks so proud of herself, she made her first "b" sound!

So this is love?

I love the expression on Ava's face in this video. I wish I could know what she is thinking as she looks into her sister's eyes. It is almost as if she is thinking, "So this is what I've missed out on? This is what sisters do? This is love?"

Ants are our friends

I had flashbacks of my childhood today when Liesel got off the school bus holding two ants. She had rescued them from some "bullies" who were stomping on the rest of their family members after school today. I was reminded of the roly poly's I used to save from my brothers' cruel devices. Once they loaded their dart guns with lizards and shot them into the air over the street. I was too late to save them.


In our house we don't exterminate ants, we make them into our pets. We were not sure what ants eat but Liesel thought blueberry juice would be nice.

My cheerful helper

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When I asked for helpers last night to put the groceries away, I only got one volunteer, Hope. I had to grab the camera when I saw her happily placing all the items into the refrigerator: hamburger buns, chips, trash bags, shampoo, taco seasoning, boxed rice. Notice how she crams the hamburger buns into the produce drawer. How I love my little helper!