Who is Perfect?

This is something that I have been meaning to do for a long time but have just now gotten around to doing it. I don't know what prompted me to do this now but here it is. It reminds me that none of us are made perfect. Some of our imperfections are more obvious than others but none of us is perfect. I have to admit that I am sometimes hard on Coy. It is not because he deserves it, but it is because I believe that he is capable of so much that I expect much out of him, just like I do our other two children. I hope that he realizes that I don't expect him to be perfect. I definitely don't want to exasperate him. I do my best to quick to praise him abundantly when he does do the right things and I try to shower him with touch and kind words at every opportunity but I have to admit that I am not perfect. I am not the perfect father. I try to be the best father that I can be but I make many mistakes. I am so glad for grace and the fact that no matter how many mistakes I make as a father, that God's glory and grace and can do great things through me, despite all of my shortcomings.

This picture was taken when Coy was about 10 months old or so. He had his first surgery in Ukraine when he was 11 months old. We guess that the picture that we saw of him in the SDA office was taken shortly after his surgery was performed. The picture that we saw at the SDA was a bad angle of his face and it made his nose look even more distorted than it actually is. I am so glad that God didn't allow our shallow attitudes towards appearance to get in the way of putting another very beautiful, wonderful boy in our family.

Underwear

What is it about running around the house in your underwear that is so exciting? I am not sure that I quite understand it but I can tell you this, it has to be the highlight of the week for three year old boys when their mom and dad let them run around the house in their underwear. Coy even wore underwear (and other clothes too) to school today and he apparently had the same pair on when Stacey picked him up this afternoon. That is about 6 hours of staying dry and clean. He has been going to church and CBS in underwear for a while now because that is only 3 hours and if someone knows to take him, he can pretty much stay dry all day. He hasn't really come to tell us too much that he has to go but he does stay dry. He has had lots of success staying clean lately too. He does a good job of telling Stacey when he has to go but he doesn't do so good of a job telling me. I watch his body language and try to guess when he is going. If he is outside and having fun, he won't stop what he is doing to go inside and take care of business. Either way, he really loves to run around the house in his underwear. It is priceless to see the smile on his face. I am not sure what that food is on his face, but whatever it is, I am sure that he enjoyed it.

His favorite foods tend to be yogurt, pizza, peas, green beans, and anything that you can dip into Lee's honey mustard sauce. He doesn't clean his plate everymeal but we don't have any problem getting him to try any food that we put in front of his face.

Coy was the spotlight student today at school. He took a picture of himself on Grandpa's tractor and he took a toy school bus. He lives for watching Katie and Caleb get on and off the school bus. In the afternoon, Stacey has stopped going out too early because when they go outside, Coy doesn't play, he just sits in his chair and waits for the bus to come. He loves to sing the song about the wheels on the bus. You can ask him what the babies on the bus do and he can tell you. You ask him what the drive says and he says "move on back." It still helps if you know what he is trying to say but it is getting easier and easier to understand what he says.

One of my favorite times this week has been watching Caleb, Katie, and Coy all playing together. They have been playing this game where they run through the kitchen and then into Katie's room and just before Coy gets to Katie's bed, Caleb will push him and he jumps on to Katie's bed. He laughs and laughs and then they do it all over again. We normally wouldn't let them run through the house but they were having such a good time, that we allowed it. The best part was later that night during our prayer when Caleb thanked God for allowing him to have that fun time that day with his little brother and sister. Thank you God for giving me each time with all of them and Stacey too.

Happy Birthday

Well, we had a big day, that is for sure. The biggest bummer is that I didn't do a very good job of capturing the day in pictures. Hopefully somebody that was here will send us some good pictures for me to post.

The day started out with a soccer game at 10. Then after the game, we had lunch with some of our family. At about 1, people began to show up to enjoy the bouncer that we had rented for the day. It was one that had an area to bounce, a slide, an obstacle course and an indoor basketball goal. The kids really enjoyed it. At about 6, we ordered pizza for everyone that was still here. Stacey and I did a rough count of the folks that came by on our way to church this morning and we counted a total of 80 folks that came by. It was almost 8 PM before the last ones left.

Coy had not been feeling good the last few days before Saturday. He had a respitory infection and was coughing a lot. He did pretty well on Saturday and actually feels pretty good today.

We really didn't know how many people may come by on Saturday so we had 2 cakes the size of this one in the picture. A few families brought cakes and cookies too. We were able to eat all of this one but there was a ton of the second cake left at the end of the night. We pushed the cake as hard as we could but there was a lot left.

Our kids were dragging today after the big day yesterday. We just sort of hung around the house after getting home from church. We all went out a couple of different times to enjoy the weather.

Every birthday is a blessing. Whenever any child in our family has a birthday, it almost always brings me to tears remembering how they have grown up and seeing how they have matured. This birthday was no different. Even though Coy has not been with us that long, he has grown a lot (mentally and physically). And when I thought back to what his birth must have been like and what his previous birthdays may have been like, I couldn't help but crying about that too. I would like to think that there is a lady and man in a small town outside of Donetsk Ukraine that remembers September 15 and wonders and maybe cries on this day too. We have no idea if they celebrated their birthdays in the orphanage or not. There were so many kids and they had so few resources that I know that they could not have had the excess that we had. Coy is a lucky boy but we are very lucky too. Not just because we have Coy, but because we have so many family and friends that have supported us through this and lots of other things too.

This is a picture of Coy enjoying his cake just minutes before he throws it all back up. He mainly just ate the icing and that , mixed with all of the mucus that he had been swallowing must not have sat well with his belly so up it came. It didn't seem to slow him down any but I don't think he ate any more cake after that. I am sure that if we had put it in front of him, he would have given it another try.

First Day of Pre-School

Coy had his first day of pre-school this week. As with most things like that, he did an awesome job. Being around other kids doesn't seem to phase him at all. Gee, I wonder why?? He does a good job of separating from Stacey which in most cases would be good but in his case, it is OK. The best part is how excited he gets when he sees her after she is gone for a while. He generally gets excited when any of us come back from being gone for a while but he especially gets excited about seeing Stacey.

Coy has a SSN# now. We have been going around and around with the Department of Homeland Security over his passport. It is a L O N G story so I won't go into it but the short of it is that they have lost some of his paperwork and they have sent some of it back to us and told us that we have to resubmit. The best part is that they don't take phone calls. The office that lost it is in New Orleans but the customer service number is not in New Orleans and when we call to talk (not complain yet, just talk) they tell us we have to write a letter to New Orleans. On the other hand, we were able to take some of the documents that they did send back to us and get his SSN# within a week. We would have loved to have done this sooner but we sent the paperwork we needed to get his SSN# off to the Department of Homeland Security to get his US passport.

Be glad if you are a 6-7 year old soccer player that you don't have to play this team. They won their first game today 6-0. Caleb scored 2 goals and Katie scored 1 goal. Every kid on the team did a great job. Normally, there will be one or two kids that you just can't reach but this team is full of really good kids. Most of them I have coached at least one year and a few of them I have coached for 4 years now. The parents are really good too. That is good.

This is Coy's version of "This Little Light of Mine" Of course it is only the "I'm gonna let it shine" part but it is pretty good stuff. He does such a good job of learning the songs and he loves to sing and do motions to songs.

We got some test results back in the last week or so that show that Coy still has his parasites in his intestines. The Dr. doesn't seem to be too concerned about them so I guess we won't be either. They sent us the test results in the mail and we looked them up on the internet and they don't seem to be too harmful so we don't think that there is any real need to worry. It is dientamoeba fragilis trophozoites. He also has entamoeba coli cysts and blastocystis hominis oranisms.

Don't forget that we are having a Happy Birthday/Welcome Home party for Coy on Saturday. NO GIFTS PLEASE!!!!! But please come by anytime after lunch and get a piece of cake and wish Coy a Happy Birthday. Also, if you are able to stop by, please PARK ON OUR GRASS. Our driveway won't be able to hold everyone and our grass is as hard as our driveway. Even if we get 3 inches of rain this week, our yard will still be plenty hard to drive on and the only thing you would kill would be the weeds.

This is Coy riding his big wheel down the hill, backwards no less. If we had a nickel for everytime that he has dragged that thing back up the hill and ridden it down again, we could just about pay for his surgery. He loves to do this. One of the best parts is that he still belly laughs everytime he does it.

Coy's speech continues to improve. He is really improving on his colors too.

Inside the Orphanage

Now that I have the ability to share video, this is one of my favorite videos from our trip to Ukraine. Unfortunately, the audio is not too clear. This is what the beginning of each of our visits was like. We would come into the orphanage and let Oksana know that we were there to pick up Coy. She would then proceed to go to his room to get him and bring him to us. This is the reception that we got from him most days. Watching this video takes me back there everytime.

Coy starts school on Wednesday. We think he will do fine. He is usually so excited to see Stacey after only having been away from her for just a couple of minutes. It is very sweet to see how well he has bonded with her. He has bonded well with the rest of us too, but especially well with Stacey. At night, he prays for all of us and Grandma. He doesn't say which Grandma, just Grandma. Katie asked him tonight about Grandpa, but he just laughed.

We are planning a welcome home/birthday celebration for Coy on Saturday, September 15. If you are reading this, then you are invited to come. We are going to have lunch for the family on that day and then everyone is welcomed to just drop in and have a piece of cake and share as much time as you can with us anytime on that afternoon or evening. There is no set time and we would like for anyone that can to just drop in. If anyone is still here in the evening, we can order pizza before the football game. We are working on having something for the kids to do and we are hoping for good weather on that day, although we could certainly use the rain. There will be more details to come but please consider coming if you can. We would love to see you, even if you think that you don't know us well enough to come to our house, if you have been reading this, you pretty much know all that there is to know.