Mya and Luke- Both need surgery

Thursday I took Mya and Luke to see Dr. Standard,
our peds. ortho. surgeon who has treated them both.
This is a picture of both of them in May with their new
treatment, along with some pt to straighten their legs.
They would wear this only at nite.... quite frankly they
did not work well. Luke was used to wearing full leg braces
so he did fine but Mya found it very difficult to wear them very
tight... and every amI found her leg bent. Anyway at our appt.
yesterday we discussed other options. Luke will have surgery on
his r knee to put something like staples arounf his growth plates to steer his knee more straight.
In Dr. Standard's words it is just a "tweak to his leg". The other leg is doing great.

Now Mya is more involved . When we adopted her she was only 11 lbs.
at almost 13 months old. She was paralyzed on her l side- mostly her leg and foot.
She saw a ped. neurologist at Hopkins over a 12 month time and he finally diagnosed polio.
Mya has done phenomenally well with just intensive pt, serial casting and bracing... However the
last year she had reached a plateau and has been hoping on her r foot(very fast ) to get around. She loves to move and go fast.... So she has had gait studies, and an AFO and pt... now we are having to choose to do some surgery on her l leg to straighten the knee and lengthen her femur ( the long thigh bone) 3 to 4 cm. She has a leg length discrepency. It was 2 cm which was ok but now has gotten to be shorter. So she will have a similiar leg surgery to straighten her leg and be placed in an external fiixator for as little as 3 months or as long as 6 months. It will be a different type and not the rings that Luke had... but after going thru over 40 surgeries with our adopted children in the last 5 yrs.... including open heart surgery with Luke.... the ex. fixator surgery and months in it were the most difficult .... So I am heartbroken for our little Mya to have to go thru this.... It is tough and very difficult but the results are so worth it.... We are planning on taking her to Shriners ( they saw her and Luke before) in 2 wks to get their opinion but more as a connection for braces... they are fantastic and do not charge. We are planning on doing both of these surgeries this fall. Luke also will have another palate surgery. He also needs to have open heart surgery to replace his aortic valve.. we see the cardiologist every 6 months for the evaluation and the timing of this surgery..... Jonas will also be getting his eye surgery. A very busy fall for us. Please pray for our family as we walk thru the next months .... How sweet it will be to see the kids walking, talking and self esteem restoration thru the prosthetic eye given.

You just have to love him- Jonas- my one eyed boy

The other day Jonas brought me a reptile book we had just checked out from our library. He was showing me a picture of a one eyed lizard... he said with the biggest smile," Hey momma look, he is my brother." You just have to love a 13 yr old boy who can be self effacing :)

Jonas lost his left eye to cancer and will be having surgery to clean up the previous surgery and to hopefully give him a prosthetic eye.

Home now 8 weeks

How the time flies by. I think that bringing a child/children home in the summer is the best time of year to. At least for an older child... We have had so much fun just being home enjoying the pool, our trampolines, swinging, playing soccer, volleyball, basketball, riding bikes and eating outside on the deck... the kids play hard all day long. They eat well and sleep like logs.... I am so loving the summertime .... We don't start our homeschool until after Labor Day. So we have a few more days left....

We had our Sunday school class over Sunday afternoon. There were over 70 people here and we had a blast. We ate and ate, had a great fellowship and played and swam.... the pool was so dirty that I had to clean it today. Actually I did not get to it until about 5:30 and the kids were patient with me all day... they love to swim :) So while I cleaned the pool my older daughters brought out all the leftovers and dished out the 9 little ones dinner and we all ate on the deck tonite and then went swimming. We watched a gorgeous sunset too. I think if it stays warm we will leave our pool open into Sept. this year.

We are about three fourths the way finished with our house addition.... the drywall gets started this week... Yippe! We have all learned all we need to for now about how to build a house :) Actually the older boys and Cate have learned alot of valuable skills working along side of daddy and our contractor. Now it is time to move on though... if you know what I mean :)

swimming fun even when it is raining

Waiting for the eggs to cook

This is usually how we fix meals here... The kids were waiting for the eggs
to cook. Someone has a chore to fix the 10 little ones breakfast.
They have to pick a fruit, something dairy, and a grain- like bread,
cereal, granola bar. This is not all the kids just the ones in the kitchen
with me this am.. Usually we cook for a minimum of 23 and often
it is 25 to 27 with some friends over.... Tonite I made macaroni and cheese
for 31 .. I used the whole super large bag of noodles from Sams Club. We have a garden
and our cucumbers are doing well, tomatoes are so so... we also ate a "Russian" salad
with cukes, tomatoes, onions. olives, feta cheese in my biggest bowl, and 3 lg. jars of
applesauce... I have gotten used to cooking for this mega, super large family
now after 7 weeks home with the 5 new ones. It is like this for all 3 meals... People
often ask how we do this.... We eat a minimum of 5 fruits and vegtables and often it is
7 we have eaten by the dinner meal. We teach lots about nutrition here and work hard
for them to understand why we are eating this way...The ones who help cook or prepare
will often say we need 2 fruits or veggies....

Finally Mya and Luke

I love this one of our 2 youngest. You can tell how much they
love each other... both are an inspiration and have overcome
many health issues and they always have this beaming smile
for anyone....