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Happy Father's Day Chuck !  You are The Best Dad in the world and have three beautiful children that all agree !! Our yard got rolled.  We made the boys clean it up (they instigated it). More of Maggie's silly personality that we love seeing !   She's getting pretty good at smiling for the camera   And she loves to imitate how her mommy stands - hands on hips with a little extra Maggie attitude !

Please take a look at these beautiful children that are on the shared list (or will be on the shared list soon).  They all have a special need of hearing loss and are so cute.  I can't stand it ! Hearing loss can be a scary special need at first, but there is so much technology now that enables children that have all levels of hearing loss to hear. For example, Maggie wears a BAHA hearing aid on a soft band and she has wonderful hearing as a result.  There are also cochlear inplants that will allow a deaf child access to the hearing world.  Amazing ! This cutie's SN is deafness. Her file is being prepared, if you see her pop up on the shared or an agency list, please comment and let us know! She is in Love Without Boundaries foster care in Qiandongnan. This is "Sophie" DOB 11-9-08 and it  appears  she has the same Special Need as Maggie - unilateral microtia/atresia of the left ear. Sweet Anna is 3 and 1/2 years old and has hearing loss and may be deaf. This is Riley

Maggie's age is a little complicated and here's why.  We know for sure her birthday is right, that's not what I am talking about. She has several ages that have to do with being adopted, her hearing age, her emotional age and her cognitive age. She received her BAHA hearing aid in August 2010.  So, that makes her hearing age about ten months old.  Meaning she would be expected to talk like a ten month old because she has only been hearing that long. Maggie's communication is beyond ten months for sure.     She has a   growing list of words she can say and she can communicate with sign language very well.  The picture above was taken on the day she got her BAHA and she was so happy to hear !!! We adopted Maggie when she was fourteen months old, but she was more like an infant.  So really, it was like she was one day old when we adopted her.  Her life experience up to that point consisted  of a crib, bottles and a walker. She was not in foster care and it was obvious she

Her referral only mentioned one word to describe her  personality - active.  That's all we knew about our little girl.  Then, we met her and she was not active and had no personality. She was not silly, she did not dance or hop, she didn't giggle or smile spontaneously. We could tell she was a sweet girl and smart, but that was about it.  We couldn't wait until the day that Maggie showed us her real personality. And boy does she have some !    Silly sometimes.  Quiet and contemplative.  A wild dancer. A melt your heart sweetie. And bubbly and happy. I think she has personality now.   It just took a little bit for us to see it and for her to show us. It is amazing what the love of a family can do in the life of a child.

How's that for a title ?  This is what Maggie thought of the IRS audit !  The government has a wonderful adoption tax credit for qualifying adoption expenses.  So, we kept every receipt, cancelled check and statement that had to do with Maggie's adoption just in case we were ever audited.  And this was the year the IRS decides to audit almost everyone that has adopted recently. Which is funny to me because after you have gone through all the paperwork, Hague, governmental,adoption, jump through hoops yah yah  - you just kind of go with it. I think it is safe to say that if you have adopted Internationally, you are pretty organized now with records and paperwork and the IRS is not so intimidating.  Let's pray they think my record keeping is as good as I think it is ! And then if the IRS wasn't enough, Will had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Last Monday he went to a farm with Chuck and a friend. Then two days later we noticed two ticks, but three bites.  We extracted the

Summer is officially here and we are loving the pool !  My children live in their swimsuits these days and are brown and hungry from all the swimming.   They built a huge "tent" in Walker's room.   I think they used all the blankets in the house ! Maggie is riding  this summer at Storybook farms. I finally got Maggie's hair in some pig tails.  So cute !!!  Let's see them one more time. Some quality game playing. Just keeping it real !