Twas the Week After Christmas...

Christmas Cousin Fun!
Happy Birthday to Jesus!
Matching Christmas Morning PJ's(malaine acting like the hamsters w/ her cheeks stuffed full of breakfast!)

And all through the house, there are toys to put together, and we now have a MOUSE! Ok, so it is a hamster, 2 hamsters to be exact, but they definatly have a mouse looking quality about them. Especially when they get loose from their cage and scurry around the room. Why add hamsters to this chaos? Why not? ;) If the hamsters survive that is. They are chinese(of course they are!) dwarf hamsters, and though they are "supposed" to get along, they don't . So we now have 2 cages, one holding a bloody hamster! But the kids are THRILLED and think Santa is the best to bring them more pets! All about making happy kids that is our motto!
What a different Christmas for us this year. Last year we ached to hold Sage, this year our arms are full of her! She is definatley not all that impressed by the mountain of gifts that had her name on them, but we sure are impressed that God allowed us this gift of His children. All 4 of them. More Christmas pictures coming soon...

Merry Christmas!

Our prayer for this Christmas Season is that we can all step back and enjoy the gifts that God has delivered to us. And most important that we will remember the Greatest Gift of All, Jesus. May God Bless you and your family. Have a VERY Merry Christmas!

The Cuteness Continues at 13 months!

Cute Christmas PJ's from Megan & Shannon. Not sure about that hat!
The smile that lights up the room and melts our hearts!
Walking like a big girl! Look at that concentration.
All ready to go in my coat from China!



Sage is now officially over a year old, and has developed quite the personality! We are having so much fun with her and we all agree, she is the most amazing baby in the world! Sage stuff for 13 months...

• She is 19 pounds. I am hanging on for her to stay under the 20 pound mark, I love being able to use the infant car seat still!
• Her hair is growing, it lays down as much as it stands up now.
• She is CRAZY with no fear at all. Her favorite game is to sit on the couch and dive off headfirst in a flip. I tried to teach her to climb the stairs, she just throws herself down them. Same thing off the bed, etc. And then she just laughs and laughs!
• Favorite activity is still a bath. She stays in till she is shivering and blue and I have to force her out while she loudly protests. Still loves to go under, bathtime is an adventure.
  
• Eats anything you give her. Is most happy to feed herself, though still does eat baby food good for us. We are slowly switching to milk, very slowly. She still enjoys bottles before going to sleep, and I am keeping that up for at least another 6 months for bonding.
  
• Totally attached to pacifier. Sigh.
• Is a snuggle bug! The cutest thing she just started this week is reaching up to be held and then laying her head on my shoulder and patting me. Love it!
• Taking about 5 steps now. It is a fun game to practice walking. About half the time she just throws herself at you counting on you to keep her from crashing to the ground. It is so funny watching her do the "munster" walk, stiff legged arms out.
  
• Continues to sleep pretty well overall. We have alot of night wakings needing the pacifier and last week had alot of wake ups with uncontrollable screaming. She is still trying to get a top tooth in, so we are praying that once it is through, she will sleep better. She is still in our room and we are debating making the move to her own room. I wanted to wait till summer, but I know I wake her up w/ my bath at night.
  
• Her communication has been the most amazing thing to me this month. We have been working on a few baby sign language sign's w/ her, but when I teach her the sign and say the word, she mimics the sign and says the word w/ me! Here is what she can now say..

1. Uh oh
2. Dog
3. Dada
4. Mama
5. Ball
6. Football(mark was pretty pleased w/ himself for teaching her this one!)
7. Bye bye
8. Night night
9. Bear
10. Papa
11. More (and the sign)
12. Bath
13. Ouch(she always rubs her head when saying this, she constantly bumps her head!)
14. Uv oo(love you) my favorite of course, and it is done w/ a tilt of her head back and forth, CUTE!
    

Since we have had Sawyer in speech for 3 years now, I am really excited to hear her saying so many words, especially for not hearing anything but chinese for 9 months of her life! If I say night night, she knows where her bed is and says bear. If i ask her if she wants to eat, she will crawl to her chair. If I say want a bottle, she knows where they are kept. See, isn't she amazing? ;)
I am still in awe of her. We all are, especially with Christmas upon us. The kids daily say, remember last Christmas when we thought Sage would be here? Yes, I remember very well. But we are also reminded that if we had a baby last Christmas, it would not have been Sage and so we are all thankful that God made us wait! Mark can't help but always add, Isn't it amazing, God actually is smarter than you are! Thanks for the reminder honey!
13 months old and 4 months since Gotcha. Time flies when you are having fun!

What a Difference a Year Makes

A Glimpse of Our House at Christmas

Look Who is Using a Cup!

We are trying out the sippy cup and Sage is doing great! So far just using it for juice, I still enjoy feeding her a bottle when she needs it. Doctor said she could start making the switch to whole milk, but we are holding off this week since she is on antibiotics yet again. Diapers are "interesting" enough without anything else new. Cups, real milk, taking steps, what is next? Our girl is getting big! And sadly, we see fewer hair days like this too, it is getting longer!

Sawyer Lost a Tooth!

Finally, after being loose forever, Sawyer allowed us to pull out his first tooth! (This happened right before the icestorm, trying to get caught up on my posts!) He was pretty excited about the toothfairy coming to visit, especially about the fairy dust she left behind! Makenna wanted to know why he got more $ than she did for her first tooth(who can keep track of that!) and why the tooth fairys handwriting looks so much like Santa's! hmmm...

Weekend Fun

Depsite the ice and snow, we headed out to Kansas City this past Friday. What should have been a 4 hour drive, turned into 24! The roads were pretty clear, we thought we were making good time and then they shut down the highway, right in front of us! So we rerouted through the backroads, and I saw more of Missouri than I needed to for sure! We stayed the night in Jefferson City, the kids were done w/ the car and were not going to make it another 2 hours. Had lots of fun with Sage at her first swim! This child is a fish. She honestly thinks she can swim, she has no fear and going under water is no big deal to her. We laughed and had such a good time watching her. We have to find a good floatie for her though, she is hard to hold, she wants away!
The kids had a blast in KC w/ all the snow! St Louis does not get alot of snow, so they could not wait to get out in it. Isn't their snowman cute?
We were able to see the Christmas Pageant at my brother in laws church, the reason we went. I should say the rest of the family saw the play, Sage does not sit through anything at this point, she is BUSY!
So despite being in Kansas City less than 24 hours, and spending more time in the car than not, it was still fun to visit with family and get away!

PRAISE FOR MYER MASSEY!!!!

I took this post off of Myers website just now.. If you did not see my prayer request please scroll down. "How Great is Our God, Sing w/ me, How Great is our GOD, and ALL WILL SEE..."

December 06, 2006 at 04:43 PM CST

All Glory to God!!!! It is a MIRACLE!!!! More than we can hope or imagine!!!!

The last few days Doctors have been coming in and scratching their heads... "Its not making sense"... "its not adding up"... more tests... more speculation. All the while we've been praising our Merciful Savior, Healer, Redeemer!!!!

The geneticists doctor came in today after looking at the last MRI and confirmed that it IS NOT MITOCHONDRIAL DISORDER!!!!!! It is Encephalitis cause from Influenza B. Encephalitis is inflammation (irritation and swelling) of the brain, usually caused by infections.

We are hoping to bring her home next week and begin rehab. She has lost major milestones… walking, eating, etc… its still hard to tell at this point. Therapists looked at her today and will continue their assessment this week. However, she took a bottle for lunch!! No feeding tube!!! Myer sat cuddled in Ally’s lap and quietly looked around. (Picture soon to be posted!!!)

There is absolutely no doubt that this was the work of our Jesus!! Our Yahweh Rapha!!!

When you share this testimony God gets ALL THE GLORY!!!!! This is HIS WORK!!!! This is not about Myer Massey, but the amazing way God draws us closer to Him. Please join us in praise and worship to our most loving God. Our hands are lifted, are hearts are full of gratitude and are smiles reach from ear to ear!! Whoo-hooo!!!!!
More to come on the expected rehab and recovery…

One Year CheckUp

If you did not see the post on prayer for Myer, please scroll down to my next post...
Sage had her one year dr visit today. The doctor is not her friend! Everytime she goes in there she gets a shot or her ears dug in! Today being no exception. Our baby girl is growing! She is now weighing in at 19 pounds 4 oz, which puts her in the 20th % for weight on American charts. She is 28 inches long, putting her again in the 20th-25th% for height. She is actually bigger than Malaine was at this age! The great news is, she is developmentally right on target now for a 12 month old baby! The doctor was very excited with her progress, as are we! She can now start switching to whole milk, which really makes Mark happy. This is our first experience w/ formula, it is expensive! She did have 4 shots, which is always horrible. And they were having a hard time getting a good look in her ears, had to dig out lots of wax, not fun. She said 2 more teeth are about to come in, which is probably the cause of her never ending runny nose. Overall a good vist and our Sage is a healthy girl! By the way, she can finally wear her first squeaky shoes, aren't they cute? She thinks they are so funny!

Prayers Needed

This is Myer. Her family traveled to China in our group, but Myer was in another province. Myer is very sick and their family is asking you to pray with them for a miracle. She was admitted to the hospital a week ago, and is still there. So many things, I can't even pretend to understand, so I am going to link you to their site. Go here www.carepages.com You will have to register, which is very painless, I promise. Then it will ask you to enter a care page name and you need to enter Myer.
There are things in life I don't understand, and this situtation would be one of those. We waited for these babies for such a long time, we fell in love with them before they were even born. We traveled around the world to bring them home and now here they are. It is hard for me to comprehend that it might have been God's plan to have this little girl here for such a short time. However, I continue to trust Him. And I continue to pray that He would do a miracle here and allow her to be healed. That He would send his angels down to hold her and her family in his arms. That He would prove to the doctors that He is bigger than genetic things, sickness, coma's and that He holds the Truth.
My heart hurts for them, I look at Sage and my eyes just fill with tears. She is mine. The thought of her being taken away just takes my breath away. While I don't know Myer or her family well, I do know that she shares a history of China with us. I ask that you would please be on your knees for this family. And if you can't get into her site, just e-mail me laxton@htc.net and I will try to help you out..