Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Whats New Pussycat??

Hello blog world....sorry it has been a while since I posted.
I have been busy trying to fit all of life in a tiny 24 hours I am given and making all ends meet somewhere. hehe

New job is great. It is easy going, I am learning alot and enjoying my time in the 'grown up world'. I do have to say, working in a guy only world cracks me up most days, they treat me well and I keep them in line.
Kids are enjoying their prospective care places, Nikaya at Alice's and Hunter, Demi and Kai at the YMCA. I love the fact that the afterschool program goes until 6:30pm. It allows me to pick up N and go home to change and fit a workout in before they are done with their activity. I am not allowed (according to the kids) to pick them up before 6 because 5-6 is fun time such as wall climb, swimming, dodge ball etc. When the kids arrive they get a snack and do homework and fit in reading time before fun time begins. This is so nice that once the kids come home, they are ready to enjoy family time, AWANA'S (Wednesday) and showers etc...very nice.

Mid October I have my referral meeting for Nik to see what test they are going to give her and when we can take it so she can begin Preschool. She is anxious to go and ride the bus and have lunch at school with the big kids. It breaks my heart that she will be morning Pre K andwill only get breakfast, not lunch...we wont tell her yet! ;-)

I had fights Saturday night. Fun times were had by all...maybe most, not all! Pretty mellow night with a few injuries and one pretty good concussion that required a ride to the hospital. The kid returned later feeling better, but still like he was run thru the washing machine on high speed.

I will be helping at a MMA Fight Oct. 18th. This one is free to the public and all proceeds from donations and table sponsorship as well as raffle proceeds will go to Make a Wish. I am excited to see our turn out and how much we can make for the Make a Wish group. So far there are 14 fights on the card (4 of them are women!!!...NONE of them are ME! ;-)))

Hope all is well with all of you out there. I have to head off to bed...these early mornings are killing me!

Monday, September 22, 2008

Last Fight Night..No Surrender






Here are some pic's from the last fight I did. I have another one coming up this Sat. night...the big ones i do at the Qwest Arena.

Here is one of my guys getting off the ground.











Here is my friend Jen, Me and the Ring Hotties. She was soooo mad I had us get our pic taken with them...she just knew we would look huge next to their skinniness...hehe Not bad if ya ask me! ;-)

















This guy was 6'9"...1" shy of being 2 feet taller than me. Whenever I check him I needed a stool...hehe
He asked me how tall I was and I told him "FUN SIZE!"




















One of my guys with a broken nose and concussion...he gave his all and I had to call the fight. His corner guy threw in the towel as well...he would NOT tap.

Friday, September 19, 2008

My New Life

Well, my first week of work went well...I didn't set fire to anything, get fired or embarrass myself TO much!
The office is pretty laid back. Where else can you be the Front Office Manager and wear T-shirts, shorts and sandals??? I answer phones, learning to invoice, do accounts payable and accounts receivable. I think I have it MOST of the way down, although it gets jumbled and I have to look at my notes sometimes. Sometimes I find that I skipped a step...oops...but I find my way back pretty good and fix it.

I have been stressed with so much to do. I feel so rushed, my day looks like so:

6am shower and get ready for work (pull myself together)
6:30am Kai and Demi up for school
Make breakfast
comb girl hair and lotion bodies if needed
make sure all homework is is bags etc (usually done night before to be more efficient)
I eat breakfast and make my lunch
7am: Hunter and Nikaya up
Hunter showers while I make breakfast for them
7:10 Kai and Demi on bus
7:15 Hunter meanders down and eats breakfast and gets lotioned, dressed etc.
Nikaya is usually done so I get her dressed and washed, lotioned etc. for the day.
Make lunch for Curt
7:45am Hunter on bus
Until 8:15 Nikaya watches cartoons while I clean up the kitchen, open curtains, potty the dog etc.
8:15 Nikaya to Alice's. Alice is our new daycare lady...SHE IS WONDERFUL! She is down the road, went to school with my dad (stepdad) and has kids from the school as well as Teachers kids...Nik fits in well there. She has a big Noah's Ark in the yard with slides for the kids to play on. Nikaya calls it a Pirate ship and says "aarrgghh" every time she sees it..hehe

I have to be to work by 9am and get off somewhere between 4-4:45pm. I then rush to get Nikaya and the kids at the Y so we can be ready of we have evening activities.
Mon-Demi Choir
Tues-Mom Choir
Wed-AWANA
Thur-Nothing
Fri-Nothing....yeah
Sat-Cheer
Sun: Church and Choir

WHEW...I am glad it is the weekend!!!

Older kids are enjoying the YMCA. We were able to get a membership so the kids could go after school and then Nikaya could go and play while I work out. I have had my first meeting with the Trainer in the Wellness For Life program so I am hoping to get going in the next couple of weeks. I try to fit this in on days that we don't have anything after school and work or if the kids want to spend a little more time playing there.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Tomorrow is My Big day

Tomorrow is my big day...the first day of my new job. I have all sorts of feelings inside..excitement, fear, nervousness, happiness..that I cannot put it into one definite feeling.
My OCD is starting to show quite a bit today, as I have gotten the kids clothes for the entire week set out, the entire house vacuumed and cleaned and snacks all put in baggies for the whole week...I would probably pack lunches for the week if they wouldn't ruin on me...hehe

Please, prayers for me as I being this new journey I am on!

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Matt Damon in Haiti

Story from Associated Press, check http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iFBcwZNj9Zs8d0zycBhQ6kt77J6QD9365TBO0
for photos!

Matt Damon, Wyclef Jean help Haitian storm victims

By ALEXANDRA OLSON – 4 hours ago


CABARET, Haiti (AP) — Matt Damon kept his cool as he helped distribute food from a truck that got stuck in the mud in a western Haitian town where Hurricane Ike left hundreds of people homeless and hungry.
He arrived with Haitian-born singer Wyclef Jean to hand out rice, beans and cooking oil in Cabaret, a town that saw 60 people die in flash floods when Ike grazed Haiti last week.
Things got rough when the truck carrying 300 bags of food ran into a ditch, forcing the rest of the caravan to stop. Hundreds of Haitians mobbed an SUV carrying the celebrities, chanting "Wyclef!"
"I want to see Wyclef because he is my artist," said Jean Sadrac, an unemployed 25-year-old. "I want Wyclef to help me with money or water."
Jean clambered onto the roof of the SUV to calm the crowd, while bodyguards helped Damon make his way toward the truck with the food. He reached it easily; nobody recognized him.
Damon said he enjoyed being in a place where few people have seen his movies.
"It's nice, it's really easy to move through a crowd like this," Damon told The Associated Press, grinning wryly as he watched Jean talk to the crowd.
About 20 people from Jean's Yele Haiti charity formed a barrier around the back of the food truck, which leaned perilously to one side. The distribution took place right there. Damon tossed the bags to Jean, who placed them on the heads of women as they approached one by one.
Outside the human chain, one young man jumped up and down, waving a DVD of "The Bourne Ultimatum" that he had retrieved from his house after finally recognizing Damon, who laughed and nodded.
The two stars then walked to a nearby church where about 600 people were sheltered. They knelt to talk to an emaciated, elderly man lying on the muddy floor before they began serving food. Damon poured red vegetable sauce over plates of rice that Jean handed out to people.
Damon and Jean encouraged more people to help the United Nations raise more than US$100 million for an estimated 800,000 Haitians in need of aid after four devastating tropical storms and hurricanes since mid-August.
"What I'm doing, I'm doing from the heart because I love Haiti," Jean said.
Jean, who moved from Haiti to Brooklyn as a child and leapt to fame with The Fugees, has often brought his famous friends to draw attention to the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt visited with his charity in 2006.
"Hopefully we can make enough noise that people will pay attention," Damon told reporters earlier at a news conference in the capital, Port-au-Prince. "I truly believe in the people of my country."

Friday, September 12, 2008

Fight Pic's and a Haha Story


Me with my friend Jen, who helps out with my supplies, and Doc Rohm our new Fight Doctor...we have a blast..ALWAYS! :-)







I have to tell ya a funny story about the pictures below. Last fight in July, the Ref and I made a call that NO ONE liked. This poor fella was hit in the chin 2 times before his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground. He recovered pretty quickly, but he was not 'with it' so the Ref called the fight. His corner erupted into yelling telling the Ref and Judges to let the Medical Team look at him. I already was pretty sure of what my answer would be, but gave the kid the benefit of the doubt and went to him. After taking one look in his rolling eyes I agreed with the Ref and called it for sure...the crowd started yelling and screaming and booing. I giggled since I have been booed by about 6,000 people before, so the crowd of about 1000 was nothing...hehe
Low and behold everyone was telling me "he slipped, you are penalizing him for slipping.." I explained that I SAW what happened and that was NOT a slip....the call stood. I became a very popular person that day and gained MANY new names for myself that cannot be put in print..haha
Well, the 2 pic's below are from the fight I did on Sept. 5th. The kid fought again and made it to the 2nd round. He got hit on the chin button again and fell like a log...totally unconscious. I got into the cage and woke him up. When he came to, I looked him and his corner guy in the face and said "____can you hear me?
"Yes." he replied...
"____, DID YOU SLIP?"
Anyone in earshot busted out laughing, including the Doc who said he could NOT believe I just asked him that...hehe...I was on a roll that night! ;-) Corner guys started laughing and hugged me afterward and said they thought I was pretty OK...another fan..what ever shall I do?!
Here it is for your enjoyment (please, ignore the wonderful shot of my hiney!!!!)


Thursday, September 11, 2008

I Got A JOB!!!

OK.. This post may ramble, be totally incoherent etc so please bare with me!

I got a J.O.B. I have not (other than working from home with adoptions) had a job outside the home since 1996...YIKES!

First let me tell you about yesterday.
I met the boss, Hugh, yesterday for an interview. I was so freaked out....I think I did OK in the interview, but I will be the only woman in the whole office. Not a big deal, since I think that offices full of women can be catty at times...hehe and the boss thinks it is crazy that I get into a cage full of fighters :-) During the interview he told me that the hours would be 9-4:30pm i thought I would vomit on his desk...what about my babies? Who would watch my babies? I have never had any of them in daycare...EVER.....I came home and had a good cry..searching for the good in the situation listing the pros and cons (the OCD side of me came out big time) hehe

Today I ran around looking at the ONLY daycare I would consider putting Nik in, a church daycare where my Grandparents attend. They Will have an opening the end of the month when a child moves, so I lucked out there! Until then, my awesome Aunt Pam is going to watch Nik during the day until the daycare is ready for her.
I went to the local YMCA and petitioned for reduced fees so I could afford to send Kai, Demi and Hunter there to the after school program on the bus that leaves their school everyday....managed to qualify for 40% discount...PRAISE GOD...all kids will be taken care of.
One final thing was to talk to the new boss and explain the 1 day a month for Teacher Collaboration that I would need off. He was good to me and said we would work on what is needed...1 or 2 days a month was nothing in the long run. YES..GOD IS GOOD TO ME AGAIN!

I am 50% excited, 50% frightened out of my mind and looking forward to my new start date of Sept. 16th @ 9am....Pray for me as I leave the kids, something that I have not had to do before and thank you for the prayers so far in help getting a new job!

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

More Haiti News


Please pray as I have found out that many have died in Kai's hometown area of Mirebalais.
Cabaret-Area near Port-au-Prince, Haiti








Officials in Haiti continued aid operations in the flood-stricken town of Gonaives, devastated by flooding from Tropical Storm Hanna.
Forty-seven people perished in the Haitian village of Cabaret, near Port-au-Prince, in flooding caused by Ike, officials said Sunday.
"Many homes were destroyed in Cabaret, and we have seen some bodies of children in the water," a journalist for UN radio who spent the night on the roof of his house told AFP.
Ike late Saturday plowed across the low-lying Turks and Caicos as a powerful Category Four storm, causing some injuries and extensive damage on the British territory and tourist haven, before weakening somewhat to a Category Three.
The hurricane also raked the southeastern Bahamian island of Great Inagua, toppling trees, blowing off roofs, causing an island-wide power failure and forcing many of its one thousand residents to seek refuge in shelters.
But the greatest concern was Haiti, where a humanitarian crisis deepened after four storms in three weeks left at least 600 people dead and hundreds of thousands in desperate need of food, clean water and shelter.
Hundreds of bodies were found in flood-prone Gonaives, a town of 350,000 in northwestern Haiti, after a five-meter (16-foot) wall of water and mud engulfed much of the town.
UN peacekeepers on Saturday evacuated several thousand residents from Gonaives, a local official said, but thousands more are still awaiting relief.
Some 650,000 Haitians have been affected by the flooding, including 300,000 children, and the task of delivering crucial aid has been complicated by dismal transport conditions, according to UNICEF. Officials said 200,000 people have been without food and clean water, many for four days.
"What has happened here is unimaginable," member of parliament Pierre-Gerome Valcine told AFP from Cabaret, 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of the capital Port-Au-Prince.
Massive flooding over the past week in the poorest country in the Americas has triggered a humanitarian crisis that was worsening by the day -- and prompted prayers from Pope Benedict XVI.
"I want to remember the dear population of Haiti, greatly distressed in recent days by passing hurricanes," Benedict told pilgrims on the Italian island of Sardinia.
Continuing stormy weather hampered relief efforts Sunday, when heavy rains led to the collapse of a key bridge which severed the only viable land route to Gonaives.
The bridge gave way overnight at the town of Mirebalais in central Haiti, forcing three trucks loaded with emergency supplies and bound for Saint-Marc, where thousands of desperate flood refugees from Gonaives were crowding into shelters, to turn back, according to a World Food Programme official.
Many bridges in other areas of Haiti have also collapsed, homes have been washed away and crops ravaged.

Hurrican Photos

Please check out the Rescue Centers blog for pictures of Haiti...sad, the devastation is unbelievable!


http://haitirescuecenter.wordpress.com/

Rain Soaked Haiti

Please pray for Haiti. Demi's Birth Family is from Les Cayes..mentioned here as hard hit by Hurricanes and suffering large death toll numbers.



In Rain-Soaked Haiti, No Identifying The Dead
September 9, 2008 in HT News, US News
By JONATHAN M. KATZ

A man pulls the body of a person floating in floodwaters with a rope in Gonaives, Haiti, Monday, Sept. 8, 2008. Four storms have killed more than 300 people in Haiti in less than a month.
GONAIVES, Haiti –
Nine people died at shelters, including two children, even as floodwaters from Hurricane Ike receded from Gonaives and a U.S. Navy hospital ship equipped with helicopters and amphibious boats arrived in the capital to deliver food and water to cities still marooned by flooding.
But with most roads across the country still impassible, Haiti - and the world - still lacked a complete picture of the destruction, and desperation was setting in among people who have spent days in the floodwaters and mud.
A Red Cross truck trying to reach Les Cayes on Haiti’s southern coast had to turn back, one of many international aid efforts still struggling to leave the capital.
North of the capital, shelters across Gonaives sustained nine deaths on Monday, according to Daniel Dupiton of region’s civil protection department.
It was not immediately clear what caused those deaths. Provisional shelters have been set up in schools, churches and homes on high ground, many with scant supplies or supervision.
“We cannot confirm that they died because of hunger,” said Vicky Delore Ndjeuga, a U.N. spokesman for the mission in Gonaives. “We need to make an examination to make sure it was because of food.”
The national death toll - which government officials said stood at 331 people in four tropical storms in less than a month - is sure to rise as more bodies surface in the mud.
Two more bodies were found Monday in coastal Cabaret, where 60 people died as mudslides and floods unleashed by a swollen river crushed homes in the middle of the night. Sixteen other people - mostly children reported missing by their parents - were being searched for in the wreckage, Cabaret civil defense director Henri Louis Praviel said.
Late on Monday, authorities confirmed 10 more deaths, five attributed to Ike and five to Tropical Storm Hanna.
There was still no word from many cities and remote areas cut off from contact.
In Gonaives, Police Commissioner Ernst Dorfeuille said his poorly equipped force - 15 officers for the city of 160,000 - has buried dozens of badly decomposed and unidentifiable corpses in graves outside the city.
“After three days, those bodies could not stay,” said Dorfeuille, adding he witnessed the burial of five people.
It wasn’t clear how these bodies fit with previous tallies of the dead, but Dorfeuille denied reports citing him as giving a death toll of nearly 500 in Gonaives.
On one city street, a man used a rope to drag a bloated body through the floodwaters.
Lines of storm refugees trudged down from denuded hills Monday to the wreckage of their homes and stores.
“They told me it was destroyed but I wanted to see for myself,” said Evos Chayot, who slogged through water up to her thighs to find her corner shop filled with black mud and debris.
Broken pews were scattered across the mud-smeared floor of the Gonaives cathedral, where about 50 people now live in the choir balcony. They gathered around a small cooking pot, stirring some goat meat and cornmeal to share.
Meanwhile, inmates at the city’s jail clamored for deliverance from the overpowering stench of filth and sewage, and supplies for jail staff and U.N. peacekeepers as well as the 224 inmates were perilously low, said Dr. Manvoor Ahmad, a Pakistani member of the U.N. mission.
All across the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, desperation was evident.
“People are starting to move back because they have nowhere to go,” U.N. development official Eric Mouillefarine said Monday. “They want to protect their homes from looters.”
The USS Kearsarge was arriving in Port-au-Prince Monday after it was rerouted from a humanitarian mission to Colombia. With eight helicopters and three landing ships, it can deliver cargo and equipment all over Haiti, providing much of the logistical support needed by aid groups that have not been able to get through on land.
Some of the helicopters flew ahead to find dry places large and secure enough to offload, and the amphibious boats can reach places where even helicopters can’t land. The Kearsarge also has four operating rooms and 53 hospital beds, which may come in handy once the ship reaches the hard-hit cities of Saint Marc and Gonaives.
“We can deliver several thousand tons a day. It’s not what we can do, it’s how it can be done,” said the mission’s commander, Capt. Fernandez “Frank” Ponds. “We can’t just land them anywhere, so we’re doing assessments. We have to make sure they can land safely.”
One of the helicopters delivered rice, beans and cooking oil from the World Food Program to the town of Jeremie on Haiti’s southwest peninsula. A woman who cares for 110 children at the Haiti Gospel orphanage was among about 50 people asking for a share.
“My garden was destroyed,” said Yvros Pierre, who had just two bags of spoiled bread mix left. “My food is finished. My boss told me to see if there were any Americans coming and ask them for help.”
Aid groups are appealing for donations to sustain a lengthy response, warning of a secondary disaster caused by waterborne illnesses and other problems in the weeks ahead. Even areas not destroyed by the storms need food, and Haiti’s main farming area in the Artibonite Valley was threatened again when authorities had to open an overflowing dam on Sunday.
Some Gonaives residents gave up on the city altogether, walking barefoot across mountains to reach Haiti’s northern coast, which suffered less damage. Racine Presume in Cap-Haitien said he got a desperate call from a group of a dozen relatives gave up along the way - and he was trying to find fuel for his truck to reach them.
“They are waiting for me. I said, ‘Can I bring you a bed?’ They said, ‘Don’t bring a bed because we don’t have a house. Bring food, bring clothes, bring shoes, bring lots of water,’” Presume said. “They are dying of hunger.”

Associated Press Writer Alexandra Olson, with a helicopter crew from the USS Kearsarge, contributed to this report.
Source: MiamiHerald.Com

Friday, September 05, 2008

Clarification

Wanted to clarify something. The fees I owe for our adoption are not for 1 adoption fee....the adoption fees were less when we adopted our last two, so it isn't equivalent to an adoption fee now of $9,000... less is owed than that, and I had made payments during our process. Just still owing some is very stressful, but I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Haiti Floods..Please Pray

Haiti's death toll from Hanna doubles to 137
Some 250,000 people are affected around country's fourth-largest city

updated 7:52 p.m. MT, Thurs., Sept. 4, 2008


GONAIVES, Haiti - The government on Thursday more than doubled to 137 the death toll tied to Tropical Storm Hanna, while floodwaters frustrated efforts by Argentine peacekeepers to distribute food at marooned orphanages. They hunkered down in their base as desperate people begged for food and water outside the gates.
A Haitian politician struggling to gauge the extent of the damage in Haiti's fourth-largest city helicoptered into the U.N. compound and said the situation is critical.
"If they don't have food, it can be dangerous," Sen. Youri Latortue said Thursday after arriving from Haiti's capital. "They can't wait."

Half the homes in the low-lying city of 160,000 remain flooded in Hanna's wake, estimated Lt. Sergio Hoj, spokesman for the Argentine battalion.
Some 250,000 people are affected in the Gonaives region, including 70,000 in 150 shelters across the city, according to an international official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
Hanna finally moved north with near-hurricane winds on a path toward the southeastern U.S. coast. But there was no way of knowing how many people might be dead in the chaos, or how many had been driven from their homes.
Ike could hit next weekAnd forecasters warned that Hurricane Ike could hit the Western hemisphere's poorest country next week.
Gonaives lies in a flat river plain between the ocean and deforested mountains that run with mud even in light rains. Hanna swirled over Haiti for four days, dumping vast amounts of water, blowing down fruit trees and ruining stores of food as it swamped tin-roofed houses.
Many of the thousands of people who fled to rooftops, balconies and higher ground have gone without food for days, and safe drinking water was in short supply as the fetid carcasses of drowned farm animals bobbed in soupy floodwaters.
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Hanna floods HaitiStorm-weary country devastated by more wind, rain.
more photosBusinesses were closed — both because of flooding and for fear of looting.
People in water up to their knees shouted to peacekeepers to give them drinking water, and women on balconies waved empty pots and spoons.
The Argentine soldiers have plucked residents from rooftops that were the only visible parts of their houses, but had little capacity to deliver food and water.
"It is a great movement of panic in the city," Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime told the AP from a U.N. speedboat.
The Gonaives area accounted for most of the 2,000 victims of Tropical Storm Jeanne in 2004. Some residents said the current flooding was at least as bad.
"This is worse than Jeanne," said Carol Jerome, who fled from Gonaives on Tuesday.
Rescue convoys blockedHaiti's government has few resources to help. Rescue convoys have been blocked by huge lakes that formed over every road into town. Associated Press journalists rode in with the first group of U.N. troops to reach the city aboard Zodiac boats.
The U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince declared a disaster situation, freeing $100,000 in emergency aid, spokeswoman Mari Tolliver said. She said hygiene kits, plastic sheeting and water jugs for up to 5,000 families were expected to arrive from Miami on Thursday, but the biggest problem is reaching the victims.
Food for the Poor managed to get a shipment of food and water to Gonaives on Thursday, and expects to distribute rice, beans, clothes, boots and generators in the next couple of days.
"The situation in Gonaives is catastrophic," Daniel Rouzier, Haiti chairman of the Florida-based nonprofit, wrote in an e-mail. "We, just like the rest of the victims ... have limited mobility. You can't float a boat, drive a truck or fly anything to the victims."
He said waters have receded in some places, leaving behind an almost a 7-foot-high wall of mud.
"Please note that thousands of people have not had a sip of water in 36 hours," he wrote.
That includes about 1,500 people huddled in a shelter nicknamed the "Haiti Hilton," where Jezula Preval was caring for her healthy baby boy, born Tuesday night after floodwaters swallowed her house. "I lost everything, even the baby's clothes," she said.
The situation was dire elsewhere in Haiti as well. Floodwaters swamped a hospital near southwestern Les Cayes, and nurses moved patients to higher floors. At least 5,000 people in Les Cayes were in shelters, said Jean-Renand Valiere, a coordinator for the civil protection department.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Scary Stuff For Me

Lately I have been doing some scary things in my life.
1. I have joined a church and attended regularly
2. I have now joined the choir....had the first practice last night and just realizing that I would be sitting in the front row in front of all the other people kind of freaked me out.
3. I have applied for a job as the Nurse Assistant at the school District my kids go to.

Not that these things are all around scary for most, but they frighten me alot.
I have never been to involved in a church...liked going, but was never regular, let alone joining a choir...if you join the choir it means commitment...
Alot of people have jobs...I have not had a job outside of the home (other than doing adoptions from home) since 1996...yep, 12 years.....scary prospect of putting myself out there for rejection is very mind blowing for me.

Other Stuff:
Took Nikaya to get tested for Preschool since I was concerned about some of her learning, or lack there of. So far it looks like she has qualified for Pre K based on low scoring in concepts. This means that she has difficulty processing different concepts like colors, shapes, telling you if things are in front of, behind or on an object. This does not surprise me since I had already been quizzing her on my own.
I am not sure how quickly she will pick things up. She is pretty quick with most things, English came pretty easily, but as the Preschool Teacher said, we are dealing with 18 months of her life in a home that was probably not stable, and life in an orphanage until she came home at 2.8 years old. At the age when most kids are getting the proper nutrition to wire their brains the correct way, stimulation to fulfill that wiring and proper diet to help out, she was lacking in all of those things. Now, don't get me wrong. The Orphanage that Nikaya was at was AMAZING...however, it is still an orphanage. Her Birth family LOVED her tremendously, however they still could not feed her or teach her things they themselves did not have or know.
I have felt pretty lucky to have 4 amazing children and not many long term effects of their prior life in Haiti. I do know that it is something we have planned for in case, knowing there is never a promise how a child will do once they are home...unknown genetics, no health care prior to orphanage life, lower stimulation etc.
It is just nice to get some beginning answers from someone and not thinking it is all in MY head that she needs help! ;-)
Over the next couple of months, they will test Nik some more and let me know what she needs more in depth, and when she can start Pre K....I will definitely have to post a photo of her first day on the beloved school bus (her favorite part of the prospect of school) here!

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Help Save Derek Photos



Here is the pictures to go with the Help Save Derek post.

This is my Brother-In-Law Derek. Derek is 28 y.o. and needs help DESPERATELY!!!
Feel free to put his photo on your fridge for prayer time, as well as visit http://www.helpsavederek.com/ and make a donation of any size to help fund his life saving liver transplant.

We love you Derek...Lover of The Dodgers (even though I know nothing about them or baseball), friend to many, Uncle to 6 and an all around great guy!






































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Monday, September 01, 2008

Help Save Derek

Please take a minute to check out the new web page being created for my Brother-In -Law Derek. Derek is one of Curtis younger brothers.

Derek has Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis and is in desperate need of a liver transplant. Derek has been part of my family since I began dating Curt when I was 14 going on 15 yo...making Derek roughly 7 yo when I met him. I have watched this young boy grow into an amazing, intelligent and handsome young man and now he needs help desperately.
Insurance has been denying him coverage and is now telling him that they will cover him IF he waits to go on the donation list for a new liver in DECEMBER. I am not 100% sure that Derek has until December to get a new liver.

PLEASE, take a few minutes to check out the site that was made for him and see a picture of this handsome guy and help any way you can whether it be a prayer or a donation of any size.

http://www.helpsavederek.com/