Eleven Months As A Family

Yesterday our (new) social worker from Lifeline came and completed the 1 year post placement report for Noah.  She was at our house for about 4 hours interviewing Luke and I and observing the children.  We've gotten to know her pretty well in the past few months as she works for the agency that has Sadie's file so she has written our (new) home study in Florida.  And I'm happy to report that after 11 months we did finally leave Noah (for 2 nights) with paternal grandparents and he had a ball.  He didn't slow down enough to miss us and had no trouble going to sleep at night. Here are some shots from their adventures-

 He has only experienced one night terror lately and we are seeing much less self-soothing (sucking fingers to go to sleep).  He is proud of his fish and looks forward to feeding them each day.  He loves the new trampoline outside and continues to ride his bike often.  Preschool is going very well and we anticipate he will have no trouble adjusting to a full day of (free) VPK this Fall at the elementary school his big sister goes to.  Noah loves the church we attend in Florida (City Church)  but does still ask about Browns Bridge-what a testament to the foundation that was laid thru volunteers in his class.

Noah is excited for Spring and has asked to play a sport-likely t-ball or soccer.  He continues to enjoy household chores and be so helpful it's really just amazing.  He loves doing puzzles, Play-Doh and Legos too.  He can recognize almost every letter in the alphabet and numbers 1-12 on his own.

I would describe him as an eager child.  He's happy and joyful everyday.  This summer we plan to move he and Beckett into a room together as we prepare for Sadie becoming a part of our family.  It's hard now to talk about one without the other, really any of our 3-they are thick as thieves and although it can be very chaotic and there are still fights-our children are so much more compassionate because they have each other.  I plan to update again at Noah's one year anniversary of joining our family in February and then either transition this into a family blog or focus solely on Sadie's blog (http://givehopeforsadie.blogspot.com/)