One Year Ago...Gotcha!

So a year flew by. Sometimes we ran, sometimes we limped, but as a family of 5, I look back and I'm amazed at how wonderful it's been. It's not always easy, but it is always right...that we know for sure.

Katelyn has had many firsts in the past 12 months and Andy and I are honored that we get to be her parents. She has brought a bright light into our lives. Her personality has blossomed. Her sense of humor makes each day fun. She gets and uses sarcasm (which officially means we were meant to be related).  She bravely jumped into our family and together we found our way. I don't know when/if the adjusting will end, but we love our sweet, beautiful, funny daughter so much.

I've gone though a lot of pictures and we have been blessed with many photos of her early years. I can't help but share our beautiful girl using pictures.

 Baby Katelyn..approx 8 months old.

I cannot get enough of this sweet face!

 Love her beautiful long hair. She is about 2.5 yrs old. 

 

THIS is her personality. Cracks me up!

When she saw this picture she laughed and said "Yeah I didn't like taking pictures." 

 Pictures of her with her biological sister and brother. 

Our sweet, serious, beautiful girl.

 

 She remembered this picture and being mad at having to be in the hot sun. 

Katelyn with her 2nd Foster Family. These beautiful people cared for and about her until we could come bring her home. I will be forever grateful to them. 

Then we came into the picture. Below is the first photo we saw of Katelyn. I was immediately taken by her and knew this sweet face belonged in our family. I sometimes have difficulty making decisions, but God led us to her and I knew deep down that we had just begun a fantastic journey that would change our lives and hers. I sometimes thought He was crazy, or asking too much. Oh how wrong I was!

Referral photo, 4.5 years old. 

Our family, her foster parents, and the little girl who brought us together in one room that day. I think we were all quite nervous, but excited and hopeful.

May 28, 2013

 The sass and confidence exhibited here have served her well. She's one of the strongest, bravest people I know.

 

I couldn't stop taking pictures of her beautiful face that day! This was on the High Speed Rail back to Taipei. 

After returning from Taiwan, we spent a week in Oklahoma with family. Surrounded by all of these new people, she played, tried new things, and made the best of it. After about the 3rd scooter wreck, I actually asked her if she knew how to ride a scooter. She said "No but it is SO much fun!" She went through about 8 layers of skin on her knees in a matter of 5 days. We were definitely stuck on Bandaids for a few weeks. 

To her the question "Do you know how to swim?" apparently meant "Do you get in the water? because that answer is "Yes please!" Actually swimming was an entirely different answer! It was very similar to "Do you know how to ride a bike?" Several scraped knees/elbows/hands later, she admitted she had only ridden with training wheels. Once. 

On the way to our new home in Las Vegas, she saw a few things she had definitely never seen before.

Slowly we all got used to each other. She experienced summer in the desert, July 4th, and downtown Las Vegas. She informed me it was too hot to go outside. I knew we were meant for each other.

On Skype she had told us she could swim. With adults, a lifejacket, and my heart in my throat, yes...she could swim. 

First professional pictures of all three kids. 

Dental surgery in August.

Learning how to be the perfect younger sister. 

 Eyeglasses in September.

 

First time playing soccer. The girl is NOT shy!

 Gymnastics. She is coordinated...but not. Watching her take classes was entertaining.

Her first Halloween. She thought carving pumpkins was strange and gross. She breathed a sigh of relief when I explained that she didn't have to eat the insides. 

And I quote, "I wish it was Halloween every day so I could be a beautiful princess, but do you think the boys would dress as nice people?" 

Visit to the pumpkin patch complete with a ride on Daisy. 

Grandma and Grandpa came to share her first Thanksgiving.

December 11, 2013. Readoption day, She was finally officially a Shanahan!

Her first Christmas. That's the day she decided she liked Halloween, but actually wished it could be Christmas every day. She even suggested Jesus would like it if we celebrated His birthday more often. 

OUR first Chinese New Year!

April 5, 2014 Katelyn's 8th birthday. Beautiful!

A birthday swim party with her friends. No lifejacket or worry needed!

Mom and daughter mani/pedi day. She thinks "turning 8 is fantastic!"

Her first Easter Sunday.

Playground time!

Playmates, siblings, friends.

A visit from Grandad in May 2014.

Which brings us to our 1 year anniversary with Mom.

And dad.

And brothers.

So one year later Katelyn is reading and writing English, loving/playing with/tormenting her brothers, and blossoming before our very eyes. We are so very blessed by her. I look forward to the future...all of it...sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's so amazing, you sit back and just praise God. I find myself doing that more than anything else. Life. Is. Good. 

May 28, 2014. First anniversary of Gotcha Day.

Homeschool

If asked a few years ago, I would have confidently said we would never be a homeschool family. I've encountered many homeschool families that didn't seem to do much school. I really looked down upon them and felt bad for the kids. And as a former teacher, I didn't feel that most parents could really TEACH their children.

Then as life tends to do, I learned a few things as I got older. More and more family and friends around me seemed to be homeschool families. And their kids were smart. And educated. And well behaved. And learning. And I began to view it differently. I saw that it COULD be a good thing, and the kids could really benefit from it.

I homeschooled Nathan for half of his kindergarten year. We weren't happy with his teacher and saw his reading level recede. We pulled him out in December of that year and absolutely loved it. I loved the time with Nathan each day. He learned kindergarten stuff, and I learned that homeschool could definitely be a positive way to educate your child.

Fast forward to our move to Vegas. We learned two things very quickly. 1) the middle school was nearly as big as the town where I grew up. and 2) the elementary school wouldn't be able to help Katelyn as she learns english or give her 1 on 1 help.

Then we learned about the implementation of the Common Core Standards. I could talk about that for days and the many reasons that we so strongly oppose them, but they are driving the curriculum here in Nevada. That was the nail in the coffin.

So I researched (and researched, and decided, and researched some more, and re-decided) curricula. I made myself crazy but finally chose to use Sonlight for our homeschool.

When those boxes arrived, I felt like it was Christmas morning. We are having SO much fun! Matt does a lot of independent work. His placement test in math said he was ready for Algebra. I decided to go with pre-algebra. He just doesn't need to push it and if it mostly review, that's okay. He's reading novels that match the time in history that he's studying (World History from beginning of time). He's studying Bible, science, and language arts..all 6th grade level. And he loves it!

The littles as I call them, are doing 2nd grade math, Bible, and handwriting together. Nathan does 2nd grade language arts, and Katelyn is doing kindergarten language arts. We work for 3-4 hours a day straight through and generally we're all done by lunch.

It's amazing when you don't have to stop for specials, or announcements, or discipline, or bathroom breaks for the whole class. My kids grab a snack when they want it,  read curled up on the couch or sitting on my lap, take breaks when needed, talk about God and the Bible freely, master material and move on at their pace, don't have any homework, and can devote time to things that they need to work on more. We have the freedom to do field trips to the nature preserve and the children's museum. We read novels like Charlotte's Web and then watch the movie together.

It's just plain fun and I literally look forward to it each day. I know there will probably be some days where I'd like to drop them all off on the front steps of the school, but we're moving right along and I'm really proud of us. Shanahan Academy is in session and it's awesome!

First Post-Placement visit

After you complete an adoption, it's typical that you have several post-placement visits from a social worker. For us we have to do these visits at 3, 6, and 12 months. The social worker's job is to make sure the child and the family are doing okay, offer help and guidance if there are any issues that need attention, and they send a report to the placement agency.

Before the social worker N arrived, we explained to Katelyn that a visitor would be coming by, that she would talk with all of us, ask some questions, and maybe walk around the house, etc.. We told her that the social worker just wants to make sure everyone is doing well and see where we live. Of course we also told the boys. We didn't prep them in any way (and oh my word, we should have), but we just reminded them of the home study and the questions and told them to be polite and well behaved.

Next time I'm giving them a script.

N arrived and was very nice and easy to talk to. She asked the boys about changes in the family since Katelyn arrived, their likes and dislikes of having a sister...all pretty benign and expected questions. She asked similar questions of Katelyn. But as the visit went on, I realized that all of their responses (all 3 of them) had something to do with wrestling.

"So what's the best part of having a new sister?" and Nathan replied "Well, when I fight and wrestle Matt, she's here to help me defeat him."

"So do you like having brothers Katelyn?" and she said "Yes because I can wrestle with them and together we get Matt."

"Matt is there anything you don't like about having a sister or how things have changed?" to which Matt of course said "Well, it's hard now because when we wrestle they work together...but I can still get them down."

So, so, proud.

And if it wasn't wrestling, it was video games. These three little people play at the park, walk the dogs, build extravagant lego creations, have dart gun wars and target practice, play board games, play hide-and-seek, ride bikes and scooters, play soccer, etc... but you'd never know. It's as if we're running World Wrestling Federation or a video game headquarters.

"So what kinds of things do you do during the day?" and Nathan says "oh, play video games, and Wii, and Minecraft, and etc...

Oh. My. Word.

The crowning moment was this little gem. She asked Katelyn if she liked having brothers and Katelyn replied "Yes because boys drool, and girls rule."

And Nathan very adamantly added "oh yeah, well boys go to college to get more knowledge and girls go to Jupiter to get more stupider."

Seriously, either they get a script to follow or we're employing duct tape next time.

Thank the Lord N has a sense of humor. She did keep asking lots of questions and eventually got some answers that were more accurate and appropriate. But you can imagine Andy and I giving each other the oh-my-word-please-Lord-make-them-stop-talking looks.

N was really sweet and we are so happy to have found her agency to do our post-placement visits. We are very confident that Katelyn is really adjusting well and that we haven't seen any big issues that can be common with international or older child adoption. But it's always nice to have an outsider lay eyes on the situation and offer guidance if needed.

I'm off to hide the XBox and talk about sunshine and rainbows with our three lovely children.

Three and a half months later...

Wow, I'm not sure what just happened, but I haven't blogged since June. Well, I guess I do know what happened, we added a 7 year old Mandarin speaking girl to our family and moved from Alabama to Las Vegas, NV.

So much has happened and I'll come back and fill in the gaps but, here's a general update on everyone.

Andy's job is awesome. His boss is a great, Christian, family man and he and Andy get along very well. Andy respects him a lot and we're both very thankful that we ended up in Las Vegas again.

I am homeschooling all 3 kids. I absolutely love it and it's one of the best decisions we've made. It's definitely a challenge, but I'm incredibly thankful we have this choice and that I'm physically able to do it. I keep telling Andy it's great except that they never leave during the day. Ha!

Matt is playing soccer and his skills have definitely improved. It's awesome to watch! I love his sense of humor. I kind of am okay with his longish, Beiber hair. Andy is not. He plays with and torments Katelyn like any good big brother. He's adapted really well and we're both very proud of him. He's just a nice kid and I love him dearly.

Nathan is playing soccer as well. We're not so impressed with the coaching, but he's having a blast and that's what matters. He's sort of a beast on the soccer field and it's pretty fun to watch. Games start in a few weeks and I predict at least one yellow card this season. He too has adjusted well to his new sister. He has a really sweet heart and I see it nearly every day when he's helping her with something. He's also hilarious and I can't keep from smiling at his big front teeth and little giggle. It gets me in trouble. I  do think at times it's difficult since N and K are the same age and both of them are naturally competitive. I knew we were in trouble when I found them racing to finish their milk and both of them almost got sick. Ah..siblings.

Katelyn is playing soccer as well (yes we live at the soccer fields). She talks smack on the field and races anyone and everyone, and usually wins. We haven't used a translator tool in well over a month. She understands nearly everything, except when she's being funny and she very seriously asks "what's that?" to every. thing. I. say. She's funny, competitive, sweet, and very smart. There are a million things to update on her but you get the idea for now. She's very, very girly and loves to clean...it's obvious we aren't genetically related.

Vegas is treating us well. We found a great (though very large) church. Matt is enjoying the middle school youth group, and we've joined a small group that meets once a week. We're just dipping our feet in the water but so far so good. The people have been very welcoming and they all seem great. And I really, really miss my Alabama peeps. It's hard to walk away from what we had there.

Anyway, that's us in a nutshell. We continue to see blessings in our life every day and time is flying by. :)