Tuesday, April 2, 2013

An Altman Update

It is hard to believe that 4months have gone by since we arrived home from China with our daughter, Jaelynn. It's is hard to believe that she hasn't always been here. She seems to blend in so well with all of the family.
Last month Jaelynn had surgery on her feet. One of the purposes of the surgery was to correct her feet so that she will be able to wear shoes, something she has never been able to do. We are so excited to go shoe shopping! Another purpose for the surgery was to possibly get her up on her feet. Since she has no feeling in her right leg it means getting her up on her left leg. We are not sure yet if this will happen, but we are taking things one step at a time and praying. Though she will never be able to walk like you or I, we have been encouraged to hear the doctors talk about the possibility of her using some type of walker and leg braces to walk with. We will know more about whether or not this will happen as time goes on and as she continues to recover from surgery. Please pray for her as she will be getting both casts removed in two weeks.
Jaelynn continues to LOVE Sunday School and is learning stories and songs and making friends. She loves to have her nails polished and wear dresses, especially pink ones. She likes to eat cheese grits, pizza, spaghetti, and ramon noodles and enjoys drawing and writing her letters as well as play with dolls and barbies. She likes Disney Junior, all the Disney princesses and Taylor Swift's Red CD. She is looking forward to starting kindergarten in the fall, we even visited her school to show her around. I really like kindergarten in our city. It is a separate school from the elementary schools, so she will be with all small children her first year of school.
Show Hope will be celebrating their 10th Anniversary in May with a big picnic and concert in Nashville. We really wanted to go and meet the many people who have been such an encouragement to us throughout our adoption, but had decided that financially it was not feasible for our family to make the trip. However, God miraculously provided and we will be going to celebrate. We are so excited about meeting so many adoption friends and for Jaelynn to get to see her best friend from Maria's Big House of Hope. It will be so sweet to see those two together again. There will also be others there that she spent time with in China. A special thank you to those of you who helped put this trip together for our family, you have no idea how much it means! Thank you for being such a blessing in our lives.
It's hard to believe we are entering the final weeks of the 2012/2013 school year and that our son Matthew will be graduating from high school. Such mixed emotions as he prepares for the future. Matt will once again be working at Camp Grace in North Carolina this summer as a media specialist and counselor. He has been accepted at Clearwater Christian college for the fall semester. He is still praying about what the Lord wants him to major in. We are so proud of him and his desire to serve God and others and for the hard work he has put into his school work. He will be graduating at the top of his class (number 32 out of approximately 340 students).
Abby is finishing up her fifth grade year and will begin middle school next year and I don't want to talk about it!She is growing up way to fast but she is still a little girl. She is enjoying the role as big sister to Jaelynn and she is finishing her final year in Awana at church and is working toward her Timothy award.
Katie is finishing her sophmore year at Clearwater Christian College. She did her sophmore year on then internet at home so that she could be home for Jaelynn's homecoming, but she will be back in Clearwater in the fall. If her schedule works out the way she is planning she may be finished with her senior year in about a year and a half.
We would appreciate prayers in the coming months as Jaelynn continues to have medical tests and treatments.