Our Family

The Four of Us
Our kids.

We had our family pictures taken back in October and here are a couple of my favorites. I made the mistake of letting Madelyn take a nap first and of course the first 30 pictures or so she would not smile. They turned out well anyway, Joshua loves to have his picture taken!

Must tell you about our wonderful son, once again! Sunday night at Church was our fellowship Thanksgiving meal. After the feast, our Pastor opened the message to anyone who would like to give thanks for anything. After about 15 minutes of those giving thanks, he started to close when Joshua rose his hand. There were about 150 people in the fellowship hall and my heart starting beating hard....what was he going to say? Pastor Rick asked him what he was thankful for this year and he simply said "My sister"........ok so tears started running down my cheeks...and many others I might add, they even started clapping for him. What an amazing six year old son we have, can't begin to say how proud of him we are. And he is so right, we are very thankful for this past year and for God allowing our daughter to be home with us for her very first Thanksgiving and our first with her. We have been looking forward to this for almost three years now!

Madelyn's lip is healing more each day. It is more becoming more evident that at least one plastic surgery is going to be needed to rebuild the lip portion that is gone but really she looks just great! The pictures above were taken before the accident, by the way!

Joshua has been battling broncitus for about a week and last night Madelyn decided to wake us up numerous times coughing and crying.......seems the medicine works immediately so I am thankful for that. If it wasn't for her coughing you would never know anything is wrong with her, she is such a tough kid!

Thanksgiving is at our home tomorrow and we'll have about 14 for dinner. Looking forward to the Turkey and all the fixin's. Joshua's favorite is pumpkin pie with cool whip so he is excited to.

Wishing all of you a very happy and safe Thanksgiving.
Matt, Jennifer, Joshua and Madelyn

GOOD NEWS!

Madelyn saw the plastic surgeon Monday morning at Childrens and he says in amazement that her lip IS Healing on it's own. THE POWER OF PRAYER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We will go to see him again on December 3rd and he should be able to tell then just how well it is going to heal and cosmetically how it will look. We are still looking at the possibility of some plastic surgery but nothing to the extent we thought! Thank you for all the Prayers....as you can see she is walking proof that Prayers are answered! Now, to stop her and Joshua from fighting........hummm.........

Wonderful Weekend with Friends!

Joshua and Olivia
Joshua's first day at Panther Basketball Camp

The whole gang.

Heather, Mysty and Olivia along with

Matt, Jennifer, Joshua and Madelyn

I know it's early but Santa was uptown at Hallmark. Maddie wanted nothing to do with him, this is as close as she got......you see Joshua had no issues though :)

Playing at Giant City Park, Joshua, Madelyn and "livee" as Maddie called her.

Yes, they can be sweet............... sometimes........

We had a wonderful weekend! Our friends from Mississippi came to stay with us. Mysty and her husband Anthony and their three boys, Zachery, Cameron and Chase adopted Olivia Denae-Li Langley from China on August 20th of 2007. Mysty and I met two years ago on our adoption chat-group. Our families were both in Group #237 from America World. Since Matt and I chose Madelyn who was special need we traveled just abit before our regular group but Mysty and I talk weekly either via phone or e-mail so it was so exciting to meet them in person ( well 1/3 of the family). Heather traveled along with the girls to keep them company and Joshua seemed to take a liking to her right away :0). We had a great weekend filled with lots of talking and eating and just hanging out. After they left today and drove off Joshua turned around to me with tears in his eyes and said "It's sad they have to go home already". He really enjoyed our new friends as did Matt, Madelyn and myself. They felt like family..........we can't wait to visit with them again, hopefully soon!

Joshua also started Panther Basketball camp on Saturday. He goes each Saturday throughout the month of November. He went this summer too and he really likes it. He just picks up the ball and knows what to do. He loved our guests getting to watch him as well!!!

Maddie sees the plastic surgeon tomorrow so hopefully I will post some good news tomorrow night. Her lip looks fabulous!!!