Things have changed a lot since I started this blog almost 4 years ago.  The biggest one being we have had another child.  Josiah was born May 10th, 2010.  He is our little sweetheart, the easiest two year old ever.  Far from perfect, but so much fun and very obedient for 2.  Although I never mentioned it on here before we have been foster parents for 6 years now.  I don't talk about a lot of details on line because of confidentiality reasons but is a big part of our lives.  So the title "Changing Family" works very well for us.  This summer we are planning on doing a lot of relief for other foster parents so the size of our family has already changed twice and the summer break has just started.  I find my self forgetting how many kids I have sometimes.   We just had two extras for 2 days, which put us at six as we already have an extra little one living with us.  I have to say it was quite fun for two days having 6 kids, thankfully Paul was home the whole time.  We kept ourselves very busy, but the kids loved having other kids to play with.   Jodi Lin specially enjoys it when we take care of little girls as she gets tired of being the only one.   

Both kids enjoy going to school at Central Baptist Academy.  Many times we have considered homeschooling again, but it is so hard with extra kids coming and going.  Dominic does have some learning difficulties and I try to work with him more at home, specially during the summer.  If I ever feel the need I will take him out of school and homeschool him, but the school has been doing great at getting him the help he needs and he does amazing considering his struggles.  Check out his blog for more on our miracle boy and all his challenges he overcomes.  God has surely been watching over him.  We have just had a couple of assessments done on him and are still waiting for the letter from the one pediatrician.  He is currently diagnosed with Apraxia of Speech and a Communications Based Learning Disability.   He also has some handwritting and motor difficulties and some anxiety.  He does so well though and we are so proud of him.

Jodi Lin has some struggles as well.  She seems to suffer from some anxiety and problems focusing sometimes.  Although these problems are clearly there she does great in school.  She worries a lot about her friendships and people not liking her, but she has some really good friends at her school.  We sometimes have some big behaviours from her, like full out temper tantrums still.  I hesitate to say it because these are not often but can be extreme.  She is very impulsive and when she is in one of her moods she is hard to talk to or reason with at all.  She is a drama queen, sometimes this just drives me crazy, but at the same time her acting can be so cute.  Not in the middles of a tantrum, but when she is pretending to be all grown up.  She wants to be grown up so bad, yet she still has some really immature reactions to things.  She has a real fear of being alone, that we will leave her and not come back or that someone will steal her away.  We try to encourage her to be the best big sister and set an example.  She is a lot of help.  She started changing diapers over the christmas holidays and loves to be able to help.  She will feed the baby, get the little ones dressed, put on their shoes or just entertain them for me.   We really need to get her some regular routine chores, because she loves to help as long as it is not cleaning up her room, or any of the messes she has made. 

Josiah is doing amazing so far.  His speech is a little delayed but he is so much further ahead than Dominic at this age, that we are very grateful for every word he says.  He now has atleast 200 words, but does not use them often together and needs to be encouraged to talk sometimes.  He is very polite and says his Thank yous with out being asked at all most of the time.  He also is great at saying sorry.  I think it is so cute when he walks by you and bumps you by accident and apologizes.  "Oh, sowwy"  he says.  I just wish the big kids would apologize so automatically.  He responds very well to consequences and if you remind him of what the consequence will be, he normally quickly fixes his behaviour or does what you asked.  Often he doesn't even need the reminder.  He does seem to have a problem with change and a fear of the unknown.  He doesn't like to get new shoes or coats. He will cry and ask for the old one, you have to physically force him to get them on.  He has meltdowns when I change his sheets and can be picky about what he will wear.  We had to take him 4 times to the hairdressers to get his second haircut.  His first one was at a year and a half and he sat completely terrified but quiet the whole time.  The second, third and fourth times he just cried and refused to even sit on my lap to get it done.  Today we took him again and I just had him sit on my lap until he began to settle a little, then the hairdresser started cutting.   He continued to cry but sat pretty still and we made it through.  He smiled at himself in the mirror when he saw his new do.  We managed to get a good amount trimmed off, but he still has some curls.  Josiah is also the cuddliest kid ever. Maybe it has to do with the fact that he was my longest nurser (16 months), but he will sit and snuggle on my lap for like a half hour with his "taggie" and his thumb.  I love this time with him.  I truly wish he would "Never Grow Up" and that is the song I sing to him each night when I put him to bed. 

I wish I could type more about the extra little ones who come into our lives, but like I said I try not to put much online.  But each child who has come into our home has a special place in our hearts and we feel that we are parents to many.  The little one we have now is a real sweetheart and absolutely adorable. 

Thank you for checking up on our family, I will see if I can keep up on blogging a little.  I definetly have lots of little stories I can share.  

Goodbye for now!