Happy birthday, Nick!

Today we celebrated Nicholas's third birthday at a super fun gymnastics academy in Burnsville. It was great seeing the birthday boy and his family as well as getting lots of running and tumbling and jumping time in. It reinforces the fact that we need to find more opportunities to be active and have some fun even though the temperatures outside have been less than pleasant.

The birthday boy...

and all of his friends.

The obstacle course was great!

Eating Erin's yummy cupcakes was even better, though.

Any guesses who picked out the superhero themed birthday gift?!

We had a fun afternoon celebrating with you, Nick. Happy birthday!

Thank you, Charlie!

We bought our house because we fell in love with all of the storage. We walked through too many houses that had a great layout, but lacked the needed closet space to actually live there. There were bathrooms with no cabinets and entryways with the smallest closets. I remember walking into our house for the first time and immediately falling in love with a big entryway that had a big walk-in closet. I could imagine our future children coming in from playing outside and having plenty of room for everything.
It was perfect and I was sold.
Our living room even had a cabinet with storage.
However, it was a bit awkward and a poor execution of space.
The four doors opened up to a big space of nothing.
No shelves.
No real rhyme or reason or purpose.
We ended up using it for games, crafts, books and other random junk with the hopes of creating something better someday.

After five years of living in our house that someday is finally here. Our friend, Industrial Tech teacher, and amazing craftsman, Charlie, drafted and created a built in that finally has purpose and is much more pleasing to the eye than the old existing doors to nothing.

Anthony's favorite part of this whole process was when the doors came off and he was able to have a night full of drawing and practicing his letters on the walls.

Almost there...

And.
It's.
DONE!
The cabinet is BEAUTIFUL
and functional
and so much better than what was originally there.
It's a piece of art and we love it!
Thank you so much, Charlie!

Looks like Mark's two week trial period of having a television in the upstairs living room has turned into something that will forever be there. :)

Beef Pot Pie

This is the perfect recipe for a blistering cold winter day all bundled up at home for the weekend. It takes some time to put everything together, but it's worth it in the end. This will now be put into the rotation of a must have, warm-you-to-the-core meal.

Ingredients
1 pound sirloin steak, cubed
salt to taste
ground black pepper to taste
1 (14 ounce) can beef broth
3 large carrots, diced
3 potatoes, cubed
1 cup frozen green peas, thawed
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/3 cup water
2 (9 inch) refrigerator pie crusts

Directions
1. In a saucepan over medium heat, brown the pieces of meat on all sides. Pour in some water to almost cover. Bring to a boil and reduce heat. Simmer until meat is tender and falls apart easily; about 2 to 3 hours. Transfer meat to a large mixing bowl. Shred the meat slightly and add salt and pepper to taste.
2. In another 2 quart saucepan over medium heat, pour in beef broth and add carrots and potatoes. Cook until almost tender; about 15 to 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
3. When the carrots and potatoes are done, transfer to the large mixing bowl with the beef; leaving the liquid in the pan. Combine the peas with the carrots, potatoes and beef.
4. Dissolve the cornstarch with the 1/3 cup of water. Pour into the saucepan of beef broth, stirring constantly. Bring to a simmer and reduce heat; cook for 5 minutes.
5. Line a 9 inch pie plate with one of the pie crust following the package directions. Place the beef mixture into the pie crust. Pour the gravy over the top of the mixture, then cover with the other pie crust. Bake in a preheated oven until the crust is golden brown; about 25 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.

RAD - 233, Hanson Family - 0

For those of you who
know us,
love us,
care deeply
and check in with us often
please pray.
Now.
Often.
HELP!
RAD is a funny acronym for most of you.
I'm sure it's hard to understand and truly comprehend what an attachment disorder even looks like. You might even think it's just another childhood disorder and label that's been created, but holds very little meaning.
For Mark and I RAD is the constant elephant in the room that demands attention.
The volcano ready to erupt spewing hatred.
The tsunami that comes trying to destroy the foundation we've set in place.
It's hard.
Painful.
Trying.
Isolating.
And so very, very sad.
It's awful to see your little boy who you love so dearly be in so much pain and confusion. The trauma he experienced seeps out into our daily lives to a point of it being unbearable at times.
Times like this week.
I honestly don't know how many more
I hate yous,
I want you to die,
I want to hurt you,
I never want to see you again,
just go away momma
comments I can hear.
And that's only the beginning of what he has to say.
His words combined with the anger he feels comes out in a torrent of physical aggression that leaves me feeling bruised, baffled and so sad.
It's heartbreaking.
All of this anger and burning hatred - hitting, spitting, biting, kicking, slapping, scratching, etc - is juxtaposed with a want and a need for affection. He will ask for more morning kisses, he wants you to play with him, he comes into our bed to be near us at night and the list goes on. How confusing and hard and wearing this must be for him to constantly feel our comfort and love, but not know what to do with it. His pain and trauma truly runs deep; it's way more than what we originally thought.
So how do we reverse this pattern that has been set so deeply within his brain?
I have always believed that our love, patience, understanding and gift of a family would be enough to help him guide his way back from where he's been and continues to be stuck at.
But is it?
What if it's not enough?
What if we always fall short?
What am I not seeing that we could be doing?
I write this completely distraught with worry for our family and still so in love with the little boy we have been blessed with. I feel defeated and deflated wanting, begging for the help Anthony truly needs.
So please
love us,
care for us,
pray for us
even if you don't understand everything surrounding RAD, our A and what our life truly looks like behind closed doors.
Right now we need the support.
Right now I need hope that everything we are doing will matter and that one of these days all this darkness will be behind us.
I need the strength to get through another day.

Our Break

Overheard today:

A: Mom, when is Delly coming over?
M: She's not. Remember she's sick and her baby sister was just born?
A: Oh. Well I miss her.

A: Mom, call Jenn to see if Ry and Cam can come over and play.
M: Remember Ry and Cam are visiting their grandma and papa for a few days.
A: They've been gone forever and I miss them.

A: Let's have Asher over today. I want to play with him.
M: Remember Grand Rapids is a long ways away.
A: That's okay. Uncle Damon and Auntie Manda know how to drive.

A: I really like Nicholas.
M: I really like Nick too.
A: So let's call him up and tell him to come over.
M: Bud. We'll see him in a few weeks at his birthday party.
A: Oh....

A: What do you think Emerson is doing today?
M: Probably hanging out with his mommy and daddy.
A: Do you think he would want to play with me again today?

A: So you think Asher is coming to see me?
M: Sweetheart, remember Ash lives far away?
A: But I still want to see him.

A: I wonder what Popcorn Girl is doing today?
A: Do you think Andersyn would play with me?
A: Mom, call up Lola and have her ask Baby Amalia if she would like to come over.


Our Christmas was great, but having a week off at home has been just as wonderful. Anthony and I have been busy going on adventures everyday and trying to find different ways to have fun while being at home. It's been relaxing, non-stressful and such a good change of pace from the typical race of everyday life. We've spent time having "battles" on his bedroom floor with good guys vs. bad guys, we went sledding on a beautiful 30 degree morning, we became fish for a night and spent a good chunk of time in the pool and going down Becker's finest water slide and we even made it to Yogi Bear with daddy yesterday.
I've loved every moment of our break; however, I realized today that Anthony is missing his social interactions with friends at daycare and school. He's itching to play with someone and have some fun. I'm positive that when Monday rolls around he'll be excited to reunite with friends and jump back into the daily routine while I'll be a bit more sad to see this wonderful week behind us already.

A-n-t-h-o-n-y

I'm learning new things every day as a parent.
It really is true that kids will let you know when they're ready for something and it's useless to push anything until they get to that point.
I've been trying to get Anthony interested in letters. He loves doing shapes and we worked on them throughout the summer. So I naturally thought he would be ready to learn letters too.
He wasn't.
His interest level was nonexistence.
Within the last week or so, though, he's become interested. He's wanted to know what an "A" and "H" looks like. Last night he asked me if we could work on "J" so he could know all the letters of his name.
Today he asked to practice his letters once again and wanted to write his whole name out. Clearly some letters are better than others and we have to work on the concept of writing in a straight line with the letters by each other, but this is a start.
A great start!
The love of learning (which sometimes is a bit dormant or nonexistence in some 7th graders) is so fun to see with a four year old. After creating each letter he cheers and wants me to check it out. He wants to keep practicing and learning more, which is fun to see too.
I wish there was a way I could bottle this and take it out during the inevitable times he'll struggle with wanting to get homework completed vs going outside to play. Maybe I should start video taping A creating letters tomorrow so I have proof.

Welcome, Andersyn!

Adele's a big sister!

Andersyn Kundai Changamire
Born 12.27.10 at 1:59pm
Weighing 7.5 pounds and 18 inches long

Miss Andersyn is beautiful and perfect and such a little cuddler. (And her momma is quite amazing too!) It was great being able to meet her in the hospital and welcome her into the world. I'm looking forward to more visits and cuddling time as well as watching her grow and be a part of her wonderful family.