Happy Birthday, Ryan!

Fifteen years ago my son was born to a young girl who felt she wasn't ready to take care of a child, no matter how much she loved him. She had already decided to place him with another family to raise and had chosen us from a book of prospective families. Three days after that he went home with a wonderful foster mother. He was her 100th baby and her children bought her a license plate to celebrate that fact.

Six weeks later we were told about Ryan on a Friday evening. We couldn't believe that they finally had a baby for us, 5 years after our name had gone on the list, and not only did they have a baby, but it was already born! We had the weekend to chose a name and get ready to bring him home.

This was taken the day we brought him home - October 28, 1994.


Fast forward to now and we have a 15 year old son. He's amazing. He's full of surprises. He has an outrageous sense of humor and always has us laughing.

Remember this?








He has Aspergers so there are certainly his trying moments, too. Believe me. Lately he has been helping me and around the house without needing to be asked so much and when I do ask him to do something he does it without complaining. (He says he doesn't mind doing housework if he can wear his headphones and listen to music!) He loves old people and little children and is great with them. He has nice manners. We have quite a good and open relationship so that we can discuss what is important in a girl, where to draw the line, what makes a good husband/father, what God expects from his heart, and so on.

I feel very fortunate to call this 15 year old my son.

They love me, They love me not, They love me...

The other day our pastor's wife brought over a meal and these pretty flowers. Fresh flowers have such a way of brightening your day and, in this case, letting me know they care. Aren't they pretty?

 

 

I've been feeling much better the last 2 days. Today I have a little more swelling, but I know it's from the medicine in the tissue so I'm not terribly worried about it. When the nurse comes she squeezes more out of the incision and then it feels better for a day or so.

My CF nurse talked to Patient Affairs at Vanderbilt about my experience. She had gone up to the hospital floor I was on and talked to the nurses about accessing my Port and being trained so they are able to do it in the future. She had a less than favorable response from the head nurse, so she decided to approach Patient Affairs. I'm hoping that when this is said and done that Vanderbilt will help cover my extra expenses.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the weather we've been having. It's HEAVEN outside! Not being able to leave the house to go anywhere makes it mean even more to be able to lounge in the hammock on the deck and it's been running around 80degrees with no humidity, slight breeze. I'm on my last book, though. :-(

I've been desperately trying to find Adobe Photoshop on eBay for a good price, but so far I haven't been able to. I just miss my price limit of $180, but I'll keep trying. I'm trying to learn all about HTML codes and such so that I can design blogs for some extra money, and from what I've heard I will need Photoshop when I do that.

Awesome GiveAway

Amy B. at Our Daily Blessing is having an AWESOME GiveAway. I have been soooo needing a new bag because mine is very obviously stained. Maybe I will win one of these!


Visit Amy's blog and follow the rules of the GiveAway there.

Anyone know?

I'd like to learn more about designing blogs/templates. Does anyone know of a site or two I could use to learn?

Grammy on Adoption Day

I was looking through some of our scrapbooks at pics of Grammy this evening.

This is part of a 12x24 layout of Ryan's adoption day. Grammy came to visit for the special event and it was so sweet to watch her sit and interact and read to Ryan. (And isn't Ryan adorable? Under that hat is a head of tight curls!)

 

Click on image to enlarge.

Edited: The scrapbooks are all centered around Ryan and his life, but of course Grammy was a part of a lot of that life and pictures. This entire layout said "Bee" Ours and I sprung off the "bee" play with words. There's a large honeycomb behive at one place and lots of little bee's flying around. The background page is actually a very pale grey, which didn't show up well from the scan. Looks more pinkish!

Help Me God/Grammy

I just love Kathy Troccoli's voice and looked up some YouTube video's on her yesterday. (Some of you may have seen them on my FaceBook)

This was especially meaningful to me right now.


My grammy went to be with the Lord during the night last night.

She was 95 years old and the sweetest, most wonderful grammy and I have such wonderful memories of her. I never heard her say an unkind thing about another person, which you can't say about a lot of people. She and my gramps always taught Sunday School and Grammy would have Back Yard Bible Clubs at her place ALL of the time. She was the adopted Grammy for her neighborhood when she lived in Maine and I remember all of the kids just dropping in for a hug and cookies and attention and loving and hearing about Jesus. Her door was always open to them and she would NEVER turn them away.

Grammy loved her coffee and would have her thermos of coffee with her no matter where she went in her house. I can just hear her voice "Boy, that's good coffee!" and she'd smack her lips a little.

Good-Bye, Grammy!

And the winner is....

This morning I put all of the Entrie's names into a crock and Ryan shook them all up.

 

Here he is JOYOUSLY selecting a name. Can you see his excitement?

 

What? We can't see the name!!!!!!

 

That's much better!

 

Congratulations, Corey!!!! Corey has a great blog called Living and Loving Every Minute of It! She's a fantastic photographer - visit her site and check out her beautiful pictures.

Corey, would you email me your mailing address at debrahow@gmail.com so that I can get your package out to you this weekend or next week?