Fundraiser to Support Nina's Kidney Donation

I'm really enjoying being an independent consultant for Tastefully Simple.  I get to play with food, try new recipes, and spend time with friends.  How fun!!  I also have the ability to help others through Tastefully Simple fundraisers. 

Let me tell you about the person that I'm helping with this particular fundraiser.  Her name is Nina Thompson and she's our case manager at Children's House International.  When our former agency went out of business in the middle of our adoption, Nina offered to take on their Bulgaria cases so we could all continue with our adoptions without many delays or extra expenses.  She made the transition as quick and easy as possible, and she's been a great support for all of her families both during the process and after the children come home.  She has a passion for helping orphans and works so hard to help them find their forever families.

So why am I trying to raise funds for Nina?  This amazing woman is donating one of her kidneys to a former Bulgarian orphan whom she helped bring home earlier this year.  You can read all about Gavin and help his family at http://www.gofundme.com/Gavins-kidney-fund.  Nina started the screening process back in August and the transplant will take place soon.  She will have many expenses associated with travel back and forth to where Gavin lives, medical expenses, and time away from work while she recovers.  All commission earned from this fundraiser will go directly to Nina's fund (http://www.gofundme.com/58bycg).  The hostess benefits (free food!!) will be sent to Nina to give her family easy meal options to prepare while she recovers. 

The holidays are coming up and Tastefully Simple products make great gifts.  Why not get some shopping done while helping Nina at the same time?  To order online, please use this link so I know the order is for Nina's fundraiser:

The fundraiser will be running through the end of the month, so be sure to order soon.  Thanks so much for your support!!

You can follow Nina's journey here: http://alittlepieceofmysoul.wordpress.com/.

Are you ready for some football?

Hey Colts Fans!!  Want a chance to win tickets to the Colts vs. Titans game on December 1st AND help and orphan from Eastern Europe find his family?  My friends Craig and Viviane are trying to establish an agency grant for this little boy so that a family who decides to adopt him will have some financial help in covering the high costs.  This little boy has CP and is currently wheelchair-bound, but he is very joyful and bright and tells his caregivers that some day he will walk.  Please visit their blog for more information.

 

http://martiniadoptionroad.blogspot.com/2013/11/nuggets-for-neal-are-you-ready-for-some.html
 

Tastefully Simple

I'm sharing this here for those of you who aren't connected to me via FaceBook.  I'm having an online kickoff party to celebrate my new Tastefully Simple business. I became a consultant because I fell in love with the products during our adoption fundraiser earlier this year and am hoping to raise funds to help cover our extra adoption expenses. This will be a Mystery Hostess event, so for every $10.00 that you spend, your name will be entered into a drawing to win some free products.  This event will end on Sunday, October 20th.

Use this link to visit my website for the Mystery Hostess party: https://www.tastefullysimple.com/secure/pomm/SpecialInvitation.aspx?pxid=3535206&key=da351198-8dce-47d8-a211-35a8262a940f.

I'll also be hosting an Open House in December where you can stop by and try some goods and do some holiday shopping. If you are interested in hosting a party (either online or in person) in October or November to help me complete my challenge, please contact me to set up a date. Thanks for your support!!

810 Days

810 days.

2 years, 2 months, 2 weeks and 5 days. 

This is the amount of time that Nikolas lived in Bulgaria as an orphan.  It's the amount of time that he was without his parents.  It's the number of days that we weren't there to take care of him.

As of today (October 11, 2013) Nikolas has been with us for 811 days.  He's been with us for longer than he's been without us.  He's been our son for longer than he was an orphan.

So thankful that we were chosen to be the parents of this amazing little boy.

Nikolas Then

Nikolas Now

Therapy Update

Community Physical Therapy and Rehab opened their new center at Stones Crossing in Greenwood in early September.  Our drive time has went from 12 minutes to 32 minutes each way, but Nikolas has really enjoyed all of the fun new things that are available for him.  Because he is in the afternoon preschool class, we had to switch to morning therapy sessions.  There is a quiet area for speech therapy that is away from the others areas and a fun sensory gym where the therapists can work on motor skills with the children.

With the change in his schedule, he did have to change to a new Occupational Therapist.  He enjoys working with his new therapist and is doing very well.  She retested him in early August and the results were absolutely amazing.  When he began therapy in September 2012 he tested at a 15-month level (5th percentile) in the grasping area and at a 23-month level (5th percentile) in the visual motor integration area.  At the time of the test he was 51 months old performing at a 55-month level (63rd percentile) in the grasping area and at a 49-month level (50th percentile) in the visual motor integration area.  With the new sensory gym he is able to work on body awareness and some upper body strengthening, which also helps with his gross motor skills. The plan is to wrap up his private occupational therapy at the end of the year.

He has also been making great gains in his gross motor skills during his physical therapy sessions. We have been working on improving his range of motion and exercising to improve his low muscle tone, as well as working on his gross motor skills.  He is tested every three months to see where he is.  As of the most recent test, he is in the 37th percentile for his age.  I don't exactly where he was when he started therapy last fall, but I'd guess his gross motor skills were less developed than his fine motor skills. Since he had surgery to correct his bilateral club foot, we've also had to work through those issues.  He had a huge growth spurt over the summer which caused his heel cords to become tight again and really impact his range of motion.  We've been doing a lot of stretching and are slowly getting him back to where he should be.  Our goal is to finish private physical therapy by the summer of 2014.  He's doing a great job!!

Speech continues to be his toughest area, but considering he only used a few words regularly at this time last year, it's obvious that he is greatly improving in that area, too.  His vocabulary is expanding daily.  Although it's often difficult to understand what he's saying, he knows so many words and tries his best to communicate.  He uses two and three word phrases when speaking now.  He will attempt to repeat all words and short phrases during our speech activity time.  His Speech Therapist is targeting a specific sound each week and we focus on that sound on home to help him improve.  Not only does he have a severe speech delay, he also has difficulty making his sounds correctly so that others understand him.  We're getting there, but we'll definitely be working with Mary for a very long time.  It's a good thing he likes her so much!!

I've been lucky to be able to sit in on his speech and physical therapy sessions from the beginning.  I love that his therapists include me in the sessions and show me things to work on at home.  He is really blossoming with the extra help.  It's so exciting to see!!