The Adventure Begins Again.

You may have noticed that the title of the blog has changed. We have have decided to take to plunge again. We are embarking on the crazy, nerve wracking, wonderful, amazing journey to bring our new daughter or son home. We have just recently began the process and will hopefully be getting started on our home study soon. I thought this Matthew West video of "One Less" was a fitting into to our second adoption, because hopefully sometime on 2014, there will be one less orphan and he or she will be our child.

One year a Family

It doesn't seem possible that we have been a family of three for an entire year already. It seems like yesterday that we were handed a very weak, delayed and scared little boy. He is simply amazing at times. He has come so far and he still has a ways to go, but he is a fairly typical 2 year old. He likes to run, tickle, snuggle and most of all play with the ipad. We have to begin to ration ipad time, because we believe it could quickly become an obsession. As I write we are on our first family vacation and Carsen is finally taking a real nap for the first time all week. Here are a few recent pics.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARSEN!!

Today we celebrated Carsen's 2nd birthday and first birthday home.  He didn't really get the whole birthday thing, but we had fun anyway.  He of course enjoyed the eating and the balloons.  He just stared at eveyone when we all sang "Happy Birthday".  Cousin Emma assisted him in opening his presents.  We go for our 2 year old check up on Tueday, which will probably result in a visit to the ENT due to reoccurring ear infections.  We had our six month post placement visit a few weeks ago and it went really well, she was very impressed with his progressive over the past five months.  He continues to grow and do new things all the time.  We are very blessed!

Six Months as a Family!

Where has the time gone?  It seems like only yesterday that I thought that wonderful day in September would never arrive and now we have been a family for 6 months already.  It seems as if we have always had Carsen.  He is so amazing and I am so blessed to be his mommy.  He has come so far in that short amount of time.  He has gone from a very scared little boy to a happy, loving little boy.  He is now walking and almost running, climbing on the furniture and doing most things almost 2 year old little boys do.  We are just amazed at the progress he makes on an almost weekly basis.

Our First Christmas Together

This was our first Christmas as a family of three and we have enjoyed every minute of it!  Carsen wasn't really into the presents this year, but that's okay, we still had fun buying them.  He played with a few of the toys, but most of them were cast aside for things he already knew how to work.  The tot shot basketball was a hit and hopefully his tricycle from Nana and Papa will be as well if it ever gets put together.  The tricycle came in a millon pieces.  Carsen has been a good traveler the past couple of days.  We went to Arkansas to visit my family yesterday, back to home last night and then up to central Missouri to Jamie's parents this morning.

We have so much to be thankful for this year.  First of all we are thankful for Jesus and the salvation he brought, because without His saving grace we definately wouldn't be the family of three we are today.  We are very blessed that 2011 brought us a referral of a wonderful little boy, named Shen Kai Zuo, who we now call our son, Carsen.  We are very thankful that his heart defect has so far been less serious than we thought it might be.  We are looking forward to 2012 and what it will bring.  We are excited to continue to watch Carsen grow and develop into a wonderful little boy!
The link below is to an article our local paper did on our adoption for Christmas.
http://www.dailystatesman.com/story/1798306.html

Good News from the Cardiologist!!

Today we made our first visit to the cardiologist.  We were a little anxious about the visit, because based on the size of Carsen's VSD from his referral paperwork we thought it would probably need to be repaired surgicallly.  Carsen did very well during the visit and sat pretty still on my lap for most of his echocardiogram.  Jamie entertained him with the iphone while I held him.  The echo was the only test he had to have, other than vital signs.  The news is that his VSD is now considered small and there is a good pressure gradient betweent the left and right ventricle.  This all means that for now we do not have to start preparing for surgery!  He does have some left ventricular enlargement, which means at some point in his life his left ventricle has worked harder than it should to pump oxygenated blood out to the rest of his body.  The doctor believes that this probably occurred earlier in his life when the VSD was larger.  So for now we go back in six months for another echo and hope that everything stays the same.  So our prayers that we have been praying since last January for no surgery have been answered and we are so thankful!!

Home Two Months!!

It's hard to believe that we have been a family of three for only two months, it seems as though it's always been this way. Carsen is continuing to grow and catch up on all he's missed out on for the first 17 months of his life. He has grown 1.5 inches and gained almost 4 pounds since we got home. We have been to the doctor, had shots, been to therapy...all the fun stuff. But he is always a trooper and gets over trauma of shots and people poking and prodding him very quickly. He is becoming more vocal and is close to saying a few words. He is starting to stand alone and is close to walking on his own. He has learned to feed himself, drinking from a straw and learning to use a spoon. He has not yet had his VSD evaluated by the cardiologist, but he will on Tuesday.

Learning to play in the grass.

Carsen has found his shadow.

First Halloween, dressed as Truman Tiger, but he was not very happy that night and especially not happy about the costume.

Daddy and Carsen headed home from Nana's one day after work.