Last But Not Least!

This marks our half year mark since we've been a family of 3! I can hardly believe it! This will also be our final post on our adoption blog! What a journey it's been! However, we are loving and cherishing this side of the process more than we ever thought possible! Thank you to all of you who have followed our journey and given us encouraging words and prayers along the way. You have been/are such a blessing. I still find it amazing how this "blog" opened up such great opportunities to meet so many families experiencing the same miracles! I feel so priviledged to have "met" you! I feel like I've known you for years even though we truly haven't met! We would love for you to follow along with our family journey at our new site Meet The Kochersperger's (James came up with this title! I thought it was kind of cute so we're going with it!)

As a fun way to end this journey, we thought we would share with you our adoption video. We made this to use in our adoption presentation I gave at our local Right To Life prayer service. If I can brag just a little, I think it turned out really neat! Many, many thank you's to my dad who helped me with it and spent many hours on it! Thank you Dad! I hope you all enjoy it (it took 3 hours to download, BIG file)!



If you are finding our blog for the first time, please feel free to look back in the archives. We started our process in January 2008. Our trip to pick up our son occured in the months of July-September of 2009. Blogs are a great resource and we hope ours will help you on your journey!

God Bless!

From Baby To Big Boy!

BJ had his two year old portraits taken! This was one of our favorites!

BJ's Dedication at our church with Pastor Ron

Our little Pastor BJ (Doesn't he look so deep in thought?)

That's right buddy, you "hide His words in your heart!"

Our sweet boy on Dedication Day Jan. 17

It has been awhile since I last posted and so much has happened! BJ was dedicated at our church in late January. Most of all the family came from far and near (pictures above) and mommy (Melanie of course) even sang a song to him entitled "Jesus Here's Another Child to Hold." The dedication was beautiful! He is growing (well maturing, hasn't really grown at all height or weight!) by leaps and bounds! His skills are up to par with his age and his language understanding is phenomenal! It's hard to believe that he's only been in the U.S. for 5 months and he's already picked up on so much! We are so proud of him! We do have some speech concerns, although this is fairly normal for a "second language learner" like himself. He tries to repeat everything, but really struggles with getting it out. We are in the process of getting him evaluated to see if there are any issues we should be concerned with. In all, we are overly pleased with his progress and we thought it would be fun to make a top 10 list of his milestones! Yes, I know I'm bragging, but I'm just so proud of him!

10. Can walk, jump, run (hysterical to watch!), climb and dance! (Which is all amazing since he just learned to "crawl" last June!)

9. Feeds himself with a spoon without spilling anything!

8. Can undress himself and tries hard to "dress himself" (also very funny to watch!)

7. Can stack blocks higher than himself without knocking them over!

6. Loves simple puzzles!

5. LOVES CARS! Can make any car and train sound and knows how to push them all over everything and ALL OVER THE HOUSE! (Funny tidbit of info: BJ will not watch much T.V., but will sit and watch Nascar for a 1/2 hour. What's wrong with my child! LOL!)

4. LOVES TO SWIM! He can put his face in and blows great big BUBBLES!

3. LOVES BOOKS! BJ will grab a book and climb onto my lap to be read too! He sits patientely until I'm done reading the page and then turns it! He is such a teacher's child!

2. Has finally taken to a soft blanket! For so long, he wanted nothing to do with anything soft, just hard plastic toys. Now, he falls to sleep clutching his bear blanket or rubbing mommies hair! So Cute!

BEST ONE BY FAR!

1. LOVES TO GIVE KISSES and CUDDLE! BJ is such a loving little boy and has for many months been blowing or giving light little pecks. However, just recently, he's been grabbing our faces, turning them, and planting big, juicy ones right on the cheeks. Then he turns our heads and gives the cutest little peck on the lips! It completely melts my heart and I can hardly get enough!

With this being said, adjusting to being a "working mom" has not been without it's challenges! I struggle with being away from him on a daily basis. I feel like I miss so much and wonder how I'm supposed to do all my motherly duties when I only see him for 3 hours before I have to put him to bed! I must say, I felt prepared for almost everything, except for this. I feel like I'm being selfish and I do have it the best I could (since grandma and grandpa get to watch him), but "I" want to be the one with him all day! Let's just say, it's been a lot tougher than I thought it would be!

Finally, this will be the last update on this blog. We are leaving it "as is" to be used as a resource for our family and other perspective adoptive families. Our next post will be a link to our new family blog, which is still a work in progress. I will also have a video posted that we made (for a presentation I did on our adoption) displaying our journey with BJ from start to present! It is called "Bringing BJ Home!" and is simply adorable! BJ especially loves to watch it and that in itself makes me cry! We hope to post again very soon!

Love you All!

A Very Busy Month!

Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday, what a month for BJ! December has come and gone and left us with a 2 year old boy with lots of toys! LOL! BJ had a great Christmas and was able to enjoy the experience 3 times. For Christmas day we visited daddy's family in Jeffersonville, IN. He was able to meet Uncle Brandon, Aunt Theresa, Uncle Steve, Alex, Dakota, Luke and Laura. He was overwhelmed at first, but quickly warmed up to everyone. Christmas day brought some fun times as he loved opening up the gifts. BJ's only problem was that he wanted to play with everything he opened. He even become captivated by the pictures on some DVD's he unwrapped! I love it! I just hope he always stays so sweet as to where he appreciates everything he gets.

Then on December 26, BJ celebrated his 2nd Birthday! Grandma and Grandpa Kochersperger threw and fun party for BJ! He looked so surprised when we sang happy birthday to him. He sat perfectly still and silent and just starred at everyone. After the song BJ attempted to blow out his candle! He really did great! His favorite part of his birthday was definitely his big blue frosted cupcake! Has you can see from his pictures below, the frosting was everywhere and he enjoyed every little bit!

When we got home from Indiana, daddy, mommy, and BJ opened gifts at the house. BJ was a pro by then and ripped through his presents. He did of course have to play with each gift so once again it took us as while to get through all of them. How do you take away something you just gave him so that you can move on to another?

We then had another birthday party for BJ at Papa Joe and Grandma's house. We invited BJ's friends and had a lot of fun! Finally, on New Year's Day, we celebrated Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa Oliver. More presents! Let's just say, BJ is well loved!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Make a Smilebox slideshow

It's Christmas Time!

Wow! What a year! I can't believe Christmas is here already! We've been waiting to celebrate this beautiful Holy day with a child for about 5 years and it is finally here! I've added some pictures that we put on our Christmas card that I thought were pretty cute (of BJ at least)!

BJ is completely loving the lights, glitter, and excitement of the season! In fact, I have to say that it hasn't necessarily brought out the "best" in him. I suppose the time was coming, "the "fun" two's!" He is growing every which way by leaps and bounds and we are relieved to see that yes, he is a typical two year old toddler! His birthday is the day after Christmas! (fun party being planned) He literally grew an inch in 1 1/2 months and is back to sleeping 12 hour nights and 3 hour naps. My little boy might out grow me by 5 years old! LOL! He is picking up skills lightening fast like putting on his shoes, taking off his shirts, walking backwards, running (very cute to watch, he stays motionless for awhile almost like he's thinking about his getaway plan, then he picks up his legs like in slow motion and eventually begins to "run" giggling the whole way! It's hysterical!), climbing (on everything if can do it without mom and dad watching), and pushing toy cars all over the house! It's been amazing watching a baby turn into toddler in 3 months. Oh yes, did I mention he's getting into EVERYTHING! There is nothing that compares to being parents to a toddler! I love it and we are really excited about Christmas day and his birthday. He already had some early Christmas presents and let me just say, it didn't take him long to learn how to open those presents! Of course the wrapping paper and boxes were more exciting then the present inside!

With all this excitement, I have to admit that Christmas so far, hasn't been as beautiful and sacred as I was planning on it to be. As most of you know, Christmas has become somewhat of a "rat race" in our country. It disheartens me as I know this is what God never intended for it to be like. In fact, this is the complete opposite of what should be going on right now. There's nothing like the stress of life to remove the pure and miraculous joy of this season. This year I have noticed it more than ever before because things don't get done as timely and in an orderly fashion like they used to. Yes I know, welcome to motherhood, right?! But it isn't so much that as it is all the "hustle and bustle" that seems to be grabbing our attention and stealing our joy. All I really want grabbing my attention is our precious miracle child. Just by looking at him, he reminds me everyday of our blessed Heavenly Father. So this Christmas Season, we have decided to relax, not worry about gifts, "to do" list, bills, etc. (why worry about them, it's not like they're going anywhere right?) and just immerse ourselves in the amazement of life and be grateful for our health, family, and everything we do have. After all " From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given to Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ!" John 1:16-17 Who am I to argue with this?! From our family to yours, may you all have a blessed and RELAXED Christmas season as we truly reflect on the real meaning of the Holiday. God Bless You and Merry Christmas! Love You All! James, Melanie, and BJ

Praise The Lord! Another answered prayer!

"Give thanks to Him and praise His name! For the Lord is good and His loves endures forever, His faithfulness continues through all generations." Psalm 100:4-5

We feel completely blessed in that today we received GREAT results back for two of BJ's major tests. The first was for the possible "premature" fusion of his skull. Although the records from Poland stated that everything came back negative our pediatrician wanted to make sure. She felt that his head was shaped odd enough, to warrant some concern to have it checked out. So we made an appointment with a cranialogist, had a CAT scan done and today found out that there is NOTHING wrong. In fact, the doctor said that his head shape was fairly normal and that it would eventually round out as BJ grew! He even said his bossing (protruding forehead) would even itself out over time. This is GREAT news!

Another test he had done was for his cardiologists (remember, the one who speaks Polish! :). In BJ's Polish records it read that he had some slight atrial flutters. So BJ had to wear a "halter" for 24 hours. I was rather upset about this because supposedly there is no such thing as a "child's halter." So BJ had cables 2 feet long waded up under his sleeper with a pack the size of a large cell phone attached to a belt around his waist. I felt so bad for the poor little guy, but he was a trooper. You would've never known he was all wired up. He never tried to pick at it and did not cry or fuss a bit. I was so proud of him! Anyway, his cardiologists called us today and said everything came back completely NORMAL! This is also great news because it means his heart is perfectly healthy. Is our GOD great or what?!

This is all such a relief! The Polish reports were 100% accurate! So why did we have to go through all this to figure that out? Oh well! At least we have peace of mind! Blessings to you all and enjoy this Christmas season! I know we will and BJ is just loving all the lights and will experience his first snow fall tomorrow. I'll post pictures soon!