Pure Grace...From God: 2011

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Our First Gotcha' Day!

May 30, 2011

June 2, 2010

Today commemorates the very first "Gotcha' Day" for Catherine Fujuan Krol! On this day exactly one year ago we received our precious princess from the Beijing Children's Welfare Institute in China. This past Sunday, we celebrated this awesome blessing with friends and family with a party and by watching our video and slideshow of the occasion (produced of course by our incredible tech guy, Peter Krol)! I think we all felt transported to China and that first incredible moment of seeing our new daughter! Tears flowed freely (again!) by all of us watching, and it seems incredible how frail and vulnerable little Catherine Fujuan appeared as she timidly embraced her new family for the first time. Today she is such a rambunctious and radiant four year old who loves everything pink, purple, and princess. We are just taking joy in the gift God has given us in our sweet girl!

Chocolate Cake!

Smile

Friday, March 25, 2011

Catherine's Fourth Birthday

We celebrated Catherine’s (Fujuan’s) 4^th birthday last week (March 17th). I think she fully enjoyed the event with the cake and candles and presents. Catherine is into Princess everything, as most little girls seem to be lately, and she was "the little princess". It cracks me up how she knows about this stuff since we watch very little TV and what we do watch is usually DVDs and usually educational.

Personally, it felt joyous but a little strange as this was Fujuan’s (Catherine’s) fourth birthday but it was her first birthday as Catherine Fujuan Krol. With our other children, Christina and I were there at the beginning and we remember the days each was born in vivid detail. We do not have that with Catherine and it is reminder that she had a 3-year history of which we know very little.

In our day-to-day, we lose sight of that fact that Catherine has only been with us a short time as it seems she has been with us all always. We hardly think of her as “adopted” anymore. It is only birthdays or when I have to fill out forms that I think about it much (or when our social worker comes to visit). We may not have a memory of the day Catherine was born but we do have “Gotcha Day” forever etch upon our minds and hearts. And we have Catherine with us every day in her forever family.

Blessings

Stan

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Spring is Coming!!!!

February 27th

Hello Again from the Krol family in sunny Ellicott City today :) We are SO happy to finally see the sun shining after this crazy-long winter! Last week was especially miserable as we battled the stomach and respiratory flu. We are all on the mend, praise God, and Catherine didn't succumb to any of the germs floating around (must have built up some powerful immunity in the orphanage)! Christmas was a joyous time here although we did miss traveling to Roanoke to see my (Christina's) family. We haven't figured out yet how we are going to deal with the 5 hour trip as Catherine tends to get car sick, sometimes even on very short trips. Possibly an Easter trip is in the planning as the boys get a week off their wild swim schedule for Spring Break.

Yesterday was our 9 month post-placement visit with our wonderful Bethany social worker, Debby. We had a nice visit, and she was quite impressed with Catherine's progress. I guess the biggest news is she is potty trained! She still needs to have a urology consult, but as far as we can tell, her development in this area is completely normal. Also her gross motor skills have improved exponentially...she is running, jumping and climbing like an old pro. A joy to see!

Other news from the homefront: Peter is now 13!!!! Eeek! It is very hard for me to believe we are now the parents of a teenager. Where does the time go??? He continues to be enamored of anything technological but also enjoys reading and listening to Christian radio dramas. Pray for us as we begin to navigate these years of challenges as well as opportunities. The other boys are getting along well in their school work and love being best buddies. They all have plenty of time to rile up, annoy, and LOVE on their new sister as we continue to home school. It is so much fun to see the way their relationships have developed over these months. I am blessed, indeed, to be at home with them as they learn and grow! Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we endeavor to teach them (and remind ourselves) to love the Lord and serve Him faithfully above all else!

PS Our next step medically is a post-op MRI to be scheduled soon (she will have to be put to sleep) and then a visit to the orthopedic surgeon in May to determine the need for a rod in her spine to correct the scoliosis.

God bless you all!