Barton Is Almost Home!

I know a lot of people have been wondering what is going on with Barton. He and my husband have a flight scheduled to come home on Wednesday! Finally! They have had their final embassy appointment so they have his exit visa!

Here are a couple photos from when Barton first left the orphanage. He was able to come earlier in the day instead of later when they planned, so he came to the apartment in orphanage clothes that they returned the next day.

He loves juice so one of the first things he wanted to do when he got to the apartment was have some juice with a snack.

Here he is changing into his very own clothes. He was completely in love with the shoes. He kept saying how they were so much softer and more comfortable than the ones he had been wearing. He was very happy with them.

He is eating dinner with his car (machina!) on the table. He likes to savor his food and is a very slow and thorough eater! It is getting better as he is beginning to realize that there is plenty of food at every meal and he can eat as much as he needs.

These are some gifts from his cousins! He will be so excited when he finally gets to meet them. 

We were keeping quiet on the details while things were getting worked out, but we did have another delay in country. Yeah, seriously. Enough already with those delays, right? Hopefully we are finally at the point where no more delays are possible. The tax office made a mistake changing his documents, so his passport was printed incorrectly the first time. Those little details like having an accurate passport are kind of important to the embassy and immigration, you know? Even worse, getting the fixed passport took even longer than getting the first passport. That doubled the amount of time my husband had to stay in country, and the amount of time that I was here by myself with all of our other kids.

And how are the other kids doing? Awesome. They are doing so well. We had a fever and cough come through while my husband was gone. I was worried it might be the enterovirus that has been on the news, but apparently it was just a virus going around. They had to stay home from school for a couple days, but they were complete champs. Theo and Orion were much more upset about missing a trip on the bus than they were about being sick. Look at their smiling faces! I promise you I never look that good when I am sick.

Evan has been doing well in therapy. He still gets very easily overstimulated, but he was comfortable enough to practice biting marshmallow peeps in speech last week. He is doing better at home at accepting a couple spoonfuls of food before spitting the rest on me and demanding his bottle instead. It is amazing that he will eat the same thing out of a bottle that he spits out from a spoon, but that is what happens when you are never given the chance. Things are looking like he will eventually be able to move way from the bottles which will be an amazing milestone. Here are a couple photos that show how big he is getting! He has gained 12 pounds since he came home 3 months ago. He is so amazing! The photos in the red shirt are new.

These other two photos are from after we brought him out of the orphanage and our trip home. I can't believe how much he has changed already! The really shocking thing to me is that I remember when I took these pictures I thought they didn't accurately capture how small he was, how obvious his bones were, how hollowed his skin looked when you were up close in person. Now I look at the difference between those pictures that don't even show the real depth of his condition and his pictures now. Wow.

He has been such a blessing to us. Everyone should be lucky enough to have a child just like him and his brothers! So many of their friends are still waiting for families of their own if you think there might be a child out there waiting for you.