Samuel is 8 and doing great!

Samuel is in second grade and absolutely loves school!  He is very social and likes to play with his friends.  We got a bunch of snow yesterday and he played outside for hours with the neighbors!  He is very excited for Thanksgiving to see his Nana and Grandpa and his uncle Gary and Penny and cousins Maya and Alex!  He is also very excited for Christmas!  He has been asking for a Nintendo Switch for Christmas for some time, so this should be a very exciting Christmas for him!  He is also asking to learn more Spanish, so we are looking into finding him someone to teach him some Spanish.  We hope to one day bring him to Colombia when he gets a little older to see where he was born and spent his first 2 years and 9 months of his life at.  He sometimes asks about going there.  He is still a very happy boy and brings a lot of love and laughter to our lives.  We couldn't imagine life without him!

Two Years Later.....

In just a couple days it will have been 2 years since we first met Samuel, he is still happy as can be and always giving us lots of hugs and kisses.  He is doing great and is enjoying preschool on Tuesday/Thursday mornings at Living Lord Preschool with his friends.  Today at school it was his friend Audrey's birthday and he went on and on about it being her birthday and she is now four like he is and she had a birthday hat and she couldn't have the cookies for snack because she can't have milk and they sang Happy Birthday to her...he repeated all of this about 20 times today.  This may not sound like a big deal, but considering 2 years ago he only knew a few words in Spanish we are very pleased with his progress.  He has PT and OT for an hour on Wednesdays and Speech for an hour on Fridays at Quail Ridge Early Childhood Center and this has been very helpful for him.

 He saw his ophthalmologist a few weeks ago and we plan to talk with a pediatric ophthalmologist and get his opinion on when to have his next eye surgery (he has had 2 corneal transplants and will need a third, since the first two were unsuccessful).  Although this surgery will make his eye look better cosmetically, the main reason is for giving him vision out of his right eye, because he can not see anything but maybe shadows from it now.   Fortunately his left eye has perfect vision, therefore he does very well and if his other eye did not look different you would not even know.

Now that he is talking more and learning more he is starting to notice more and more too.  He remembers Colombia and talks about how he wants our whole family to go there.  We do plan to go back when he is a little older, so I tell him when he's bigger and he is excited for that.  He knows his colors now very well and he keeps saying Samuel has brown eyes, mommy has brown eyes...etc.  A few weeks ago he was telling me he had a brown arm and when our friend Justyn was here he excitingly said "Justyn has a brown arm too!".  It was really cute.  Today he was telling me he had a brown arm and I told him "I love your brown arm" and he said "I love mommy's white arm".  Anything I say he basically repeats it with Mommy, so if I say Sam's silly he say's "no, Mommy's silly".  Dalton and Amelia are both really good with him and it makes me happy to see how well they play together and read him books before bed sometimes.  Pictures below:                                                  
                                                                                                             

  Our family pictures then & now

                             

 

Langley's Fall 2011

(before Samuel...he would have been a year old).

 

 

Langley's Summer 2013

 

 

Langley's Fall 2014

 

 

Amelia 9, Dalton 6 and Samuel 1 (not pictured;)

 

 

Wow...what a difference 3 years makes!

Dalton 9, Samuel 4, Amelia 12

                                                  

Samuel's 1st Gotcha Day!

I haven't posted in this blog in sometime, so since it's been exactly one year ago today we met Samuel's smiling face I thought I should do so.  So much has happened this year I don't know where to begin, but we have been very blessed with Samuel and it is so amazing that God knew that he would be a perfect fit for our family!  It has been a lot of doctor appointments to his ophthalmologist and 2 corneal transplant surgeries.  Tomorrow morning he has yet another appointment and each time we pray we will hear good news that it is healing and showing no signs of rejection.  Aside from that he has slowly liked American food more and more and sleeping better than he was the first several months, but still not as much as an average 3 year old...lol.  He is a happy boy and loves his big brother and sister.  He has been such a joy to our family and friends.  We have had wonderful support and we are excited another family from our church is planning to adopt a little girl from Ethiopia and it will be so neat to see their journey as they wait to be matched with her!  God is so good and the more I think about it the more I realize all the reasons He chose us to be his parents.  He needed a mom that didn't work so she could take him to all the ophthalmologist appointments and put multiple drops in his right eye, multiple times a day and test her patience as she stayed up until 3am some nights just praying he would please go to sleep.  He went beyond when He answered my prayer for a loving child, because he gives me more hugs and kisses than I could have imagined.   God knew he needed a big brother and sister and two wonderful cousins, aunt and uncle and the best grandparents a little boy could have!  We are so very blessed and although some say they can't believe it's been a year, I honestly feel he has always been with us.  God placed him in our hearts long before we actually met him one year ago!  Below is the link to a slide show with music by Audio Adrenaline called Kings and Queens and I love this song because it reminds us every child deserves to be loved!

Click on the link below to see Samuel's first year with us!

Samuel's first year with us!

Family Pictures

 

So we finally got our family pictures with Samuel!  Of course he fell asleep on the way to Faust Park, but atleast he woke up and we got him to smile on the swing.  We were waiting for the weather to get nice for outdoor pictures.  I can't wait to pick up the prints so I can frame them and display them in our new home soon.  We have had a nice summer so far visiting family, going to Minnesota with my parents, brother and sister-in-law and niece and nephew for a fishing trip.  The weather was a little cool, but we all had a good time anyway.  We just celebrated 4th of July in Kansas City and Samuel loved the fireworks!  He also loved playing in the sprinkler with Dalton.

 

Samuel was sleepy in this picture, but we were able to get him to smile on the swing!

 

 

Happy at the park!

 

  

 

 

Samuel 3 years old

 

                                    

 

Amelia 10 years old

 

Dalton 8 years old

Cousin Maya and Amelia

 

 

 

                                     

 

                                               

 

 

 

Bennett Springs and Graham Cave State Park

 

 Last week we spent the weekend in Bennett Springs.  We stayed in a really neat cabin and although we go there every year it was Samuel's first year and he had lots of fun!  He loved feeding the fish, playing in the water and everything else.  Dalton had fun fishing and starting the camp fire.  On Memorial Day we went to Graham Cave and although it was wet and not too sunny we still had fun.  We also recently went to one of the kids favorite parks Indian Camp Creek and I'm sure we will be there even more this summer.  Samuel is always happy and full of energy.  Amelia and Dalton enjoy having a little brother and Samuel loves giving hugs and kisses.  He also makes friends everywhere he goes, he has a smile that just makes people want to smile back and talk to him:)

 

 

 

                                           Cuddling with Samuel.

                                          Bennett Springs

                                                     Feeding the fish with Papi

                                        Samuel fishing and playing in the water.

                                             

                                      

 

                                                    Graham Cave

                                 Samuel's first time at Indian Camp Creek

Easter Fun with Family

We spent time at my parents house with my brother and sister-in-law and niece and nephew right before Easter.  The kids had a lot of fun!  Easter Sunday was a beautiful day so after church we went to Quail Ridge Park and flew the kites the kids got for Easter and then they played on the playground.  The weather is finally getting warmer, so the kids love it and so do we!  The kids all got chocolate Easter bunnies in their baskets and Samuel loves chocolate!  They had a lot of fun playing together and flying their kites.  It was such a nice day!

 

Samuel's favorite thing in his Easter basket was the chocolate bunny!

 

Cousin Maya laughing at Samuel in his bunny mask.

Silly Bunnies!

 

Samuel had fun flying the kite he got for Easter.

Samuel's eye looks great!

Samuel had his eye surgery (corneal transplant) a couple weeks ago and the ophthalmologist said it is healing nicely!  I can tell it is doing better everyday, it was very sensitive the first two weeks.  His eye will continue to heal with time, but already looks so much better.  He can see better and that will improve with time too.

Samuel tuvo su cirugía ocular (trasplante de córnea) un par de semanas y el oftalmólogo dijo que está sanando bien! Puedo decir que está haciendo mejor cada día, era muy sensible a las primeras dos semanas. Su ojo seguirá sanando con el tiempo, pero ya se ve mucho mejor. Él puede ver mejor y que mejorará con el tiempo también.

Samuel's eye before surgery

Samuel's eye after surgery and still healing