Because of COVID-19, all of the kids are home and driving each other a bit bonkers. Their way to describe it is back to homeschooling without the Sunday School portion. It has been a long time since the last post and boy has a lot happened. Amanda has graduated college, completing her first year of full-time work and learning to "adult". Joel is going to be a senior in the fall and loving the college experience. Although he is no longer a teenager, he eats like a starving college student. Melissa is thriving in college and decided to stay longer to get a dual major. She has developed her love of baking to satisfy her sweet tooth. Geoff (now Dr. Akers) is staying up late to help his students understand engineering course materials. Amanda and Joel both say engineering classes are hard, so we know it isn't just Geoff making it difficult. haha. I am volunteering at a health clinic to fill my time. With three kids out of the house and one in 8th grade, I was going a bit stir crazy. Now-a-days I appreciate the opportunity to leave the house for work. Justin is now 14 years old! How time has flown. He made chicken noodle soup all by himself this week, and it was delicious. Justin (no longer "shorty" as he is taller than his sisters as of this month) has started his own mowing business, is doing well in school, and was running track before the pandemic. He refuses to take the dog because William gets too distracted. Overall the kids are growing up so fast and becoming intelligent young adults. So excited to see what God has planned next.

[Originally written June 2013] Greeting from Virginia! Our family is still adjusting to the area. Amanda and Joel seem to have found their place here very quickly and have some amazing friends. I just never expected to really like my kids friends and enjoy having them over. One of the things I love most about them is, they love to involve Justin and Melissa in all the games. As for an update on my little man. Since moving here, he has somehow adopted the name "shorty". Amanda gave him that name, and with Joel growing 4 inches in a year, Justin really does look short. We have Joel at 70 inches and Justin at 43 inches. He loves his big brother Joel. Joel, Melissa, Justin and Geoff are all taking Martial Arts. My boys LOVE it. You should see them at home practicing their forms and sparring. Justin was excited to pass up his dad in rank. He made it to the green belt last week. Justin still has speech delays. We haven't been able to find him a speech thearpist. A new discovery I made about Justin was that he doesn't know how to spit. Geoff and I have been trying to help him. Especially when it comes to brushing his teeth. We gave him some water to try with, and his reply is, "I can't stop it, it goes down my throat to fast". I am homeschooling Justin this year, he is doing well. His reading is improving a lot. He had me worried at the end of last school year.

Happy New Year!

I feel so bad that I have not kept up with this. It is fun though, going through the old stuff and remembering how things went. Justin loves to look at the pictures. He has changed so much.

We have officially completed our adpotion process with Justin. We completed our 4th post placement homestudy in October!

Justin has been diagnosed with Aproxia (speech). We have discovered that he does not have any muscle tone in his tongue. He is not able to lick the top of his lips. So we are doing tongue excerises with him. His speech is still very severly delayed. We go to speech thearpy 2x a week now.

He played flag football this summer and did very well (for being Justin). He came home one day and said "I was the best on the team". He really thinks very highly of himself. Honestly, he was one of the worst, but he loved it. Lets just face it, he loves sports and anything that is physical. He is starting basketball this weekend. I am anxious to see how he does.

Life has not been easy with Justin. He is very strong willed and some things just don't click in his brain. I have to keep reminding myself of how far he has come and how much better he really is. In January or Feburary of last year I was at the end of my rope. I was ready to call it quits and just leave it all behind. A good friend (Aurora Newton) just said "Go and get away for the weekend, I will take your kids". Geoff and I took off to a cabin alone for the weekend and really got away from all the distractions. Then we decided that I just needed to get some help understanding Justin. Justin and I started to go to counseling 2x a month. Wow, was that just what we both needed. To have someone understand and tell you why he was acting the way he was and why. We did that for about 6 months, and I am so thankful for it. Since then, I have been homeschooling Justin. He is a really smart boy. Yes, there are days we have BIG battles all day long. But overall, he is doing so much better. We are currently on a waiting list to get a mental evauation done. That was recommened by our counseler.

I do have to say, that Justin and I have bonded so much this school year with it being just the 2 of us at home.

On another note, Justin use to love to eat anything, well that has been changing some lately. This year he has decided that he can not stand soup of any kind. I personally think that has to do with the orphange (they had soup a lot). So we just take out the broth and give it to him on a plate. He loves it then. He is still very much afraid of water in his face. Geoff has been teaching him how to bathe and wash his hair laying down. So showers are still way out of the equation. I really want him to learn how to swim, just not sure how to go about it. Just getting him in the water and comfortable in a pool takes over 30mins.

Well, that is an update on my Russian boy. I will have to add a recent picture of him. He is 3'11 now and is very skinny boy.

Till next time,
Karey

Guitar Man

Youngs Dairy