What's New with the Hite Family

Preston and Janelle...
Last weekend our parents kept our kids and we headed off to Rome, Georgia. In Rome is a wonderful retreat, Winshape, owned and operated by Truet Cathy (the Owner of Chick-Fil-A). Preston gave me this weekend as a Christmas gift. The amenities were incredible, the food delicious, and the scenery gorgeous. We also were privileged to hear Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn who wrote "For Women Only" and "For Men Only". We had lots of free time to explore the 26,000 acres and 40 miles of hiking trials. We had an incredible time and hope we can get away to Winshape once a year.


Nathan:
As always, Nathan is loving life.
In order to help his legs become straighter he is now sleeping in casts. He does not seem to mind them. He does have one for each leg, though this picture only shows the left.Nathan is working really hard on prop sitting. He is doing really well.Nathan spends some time in his stander a few times a week. This helps him strengthen to be able to stand. He does not mind it at all, especially when he can play with his favorite toy.
Owen:
Owen is as happy as can be and doing well too. He is really developing in the speech area. He really seems to understand a lot too! It is so nice to see his communication developing so much. Owen is also doing well in his gait trainer now. Owen loves to sit and play his piano. He was sitting nicely until he saw me start taking pictures, then he just wanted to turn into a ham.

Logan:
Logan is doing very well. He loves school and has particularly enjoyed the unit on Space (see the museum below). He has picked his piece for his piano recital (April 21 at Dawson) and can't wait until next Thursday when he can go to Ms Amy's art class. This week is spring break for him. We are looking forward to some relaxing time at home (and still some therapy for Nathan and Owen). We are also planning on taking a trip to Huntsville to the Space and Rocket Center, a small spring break party for those friends who are in Birmingham next week, and a trip or two to the zoo.

RDS Space Museum

The kindergarten classes at Logan's school held a Space Museum for parents last night. The teachers took the first part of March to teach the kids all about space...and boy do they know a lot. Logan has really enjoyed learning about space and drawing pictures of it. Right now we even have all the planets hanging from the bottom of his top bunk bed.The kids performed two space songs. I was so proud of Logan for singing so well and knowing all the motions to the songs."Mars is close to Earth". Mars is Logan's favorite planet. He plans to go there some day. He also has decided to be an astronaut so he can take the first garage door in to space.

The rocket ship the kids made.
Logan's earth
Using a balloon as the rocket booster to make it fly up the string.
Astronaut Logan

Logan playing in the Sea of Tranquility.
Some more of Logan's space work.
Logan enjoyed showing us a funny moon video.


Logan made space food for us to eat out of playdough.

Our Treasures

We feel God is asking us where does our treasure lie. Is our treasure in the STUFF we have here or is it in what He treasures. We are currently renting our house in Vestavia. We knew our Homewood house was just too small, but we weren't sure how much longer we would be living in Birmingham. So, a little over one year ago we decided to rent and see where the Lord led us. Now that our lease will be coming to an end it is time for us to make some decisions. As for now, we are still in Birmingham.....

This is a picture of a home we could very realistically afford. It is by Logan's (hopeful new school...Westminster...can't say new yet because he has not gone through testing, etc.). It provides plenty of room for our family. Has two great garage doors that Logan would LOVE!!
By every account of the world we hear, "go for it", "you deserve it", "your family needs that room because your kids have special needs". We decided to listen to what God had to say about our stuff/treasures.... In Matthew 6:19-20 we read, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." So, even though that house looks so beautiful we have never even set foot on the inside because we know that is not where God is leading our family.

So, where is God leading our family right now. Yep, back to our old house in Homewood. The one that was way too small for us before. This time we are strategizing everything that will go back in there. If we don't need it, it won't return with us. (Yes, there will be a huge garage sale soon). We are also buying some new furniture that will fit the space better. I am personally so excited to be living with less. Now, I will say we are planning to list the house and when it sells we plan to buy another small house in Homewood, Chicago, California, China...where ever God leads us in his timing.

So, how does living in a much smaller house allow us to focus on God's treasures. We will now free up a lot of income to be able to give more. We can focus on giving more to our friends in Cambodia who are working every day to free children from the sex slave industry, we can give to our friends who are planning to go on mission trips all over the world, we can give some to friends who are working on adoptions, we can just give to everything that God lays on our heart.

We also feel lead to be more selective on our purchases. We want to focus on buying only fair trade coffee and chocolate. As we begin to learn more and more about fair trade, we will continue to add more fair trade only items to our list. Why fair trade? We want to honor those in the industry that are working hard to provide humane conditions to their workers.

Just a little fun

Here are a few cute pictures from the last few weeks.

This is one of Logan and Preston at the airport when we picked him up after his trip to Liberia. Logan was very excited to see his Daddy!!
There is a new park in West Homewood. The other day we decided to go over there to play. Nathan and Owen loved taking turns on the swings while Logan loved climbing on all the equipment.




On Friday night, before all the storms hit, we had a family dinner outing to Village Tavern. We all had a great time together.

Celebrating Nathan and Owen's 2 yr corrected birthday

Just for something fun to do we celebrated Nathan and Owen's Corrected Birthday. For those of us in the world of micro-preemies corrected birthdays mean a lot. These corrected birthdays often come into consideration for developmental testing. Nathan, Owen and Mia were due March 2, 2010 but decided to make their appearance on November 14, 2009...quite a big difference.

We had a great family party. My Grandma and her friend George were down from Michigan and Ranae and Cooper were up from Enterprise. My parents and brother were also there. My Grandma took us all out to dinner at O'Charley's and we had a Mickey Mouse cake (Nathan and Owen have become quite fond of Mickey Mouse).

Burn-out = Change of Heart

Our family is very blessed to live in a time and city that provides wonderful medical care for our family. Every doctor and therapist the boys need to see are readily available to us. We run across many families who travel hours to Birmingham to receive their therapy. The boys see three physical therapist, two occupational therapists, three speech therapist and a special education instructor. They also see a pulmonologist, ENT, pediatrician, neurologist, physiatrist, eye doctor, audiologist and probably a few more I can't think of now. Some times it feels like all this great care is just too much but at the same time I look at all the progress the boys are making and I know it is because of all the care they are receiving.

I was talking with one of my good friends over the weekend about feeling burned-out over the amount of appointments we have in a week. She provided me with some words of wisdom that are really sticking with me. Being a parent to kids with special needs is totally unique. If you are not a parent of kids with special needs you cannot comprehend the uniqueness (trials, success, victories, emotions, etc.) of our lives. The enrichment of our family's faith in God and seeing His hand work so miraculously in the lives of our boys is incredible. There are several families that we come across every day who do not have this hope, peace and comfort. We are in a unique position to be able to share God's love with these people who are in a similar situation. So, instead of feeling burnt-out from all the medical appointments we attend every week I am going to see each of these as a divine appointment from God to share a bit of His love, peace and comfort with these families.

As we go through our appointments every week I will blog about some of the conversations God puts in front of me. I am excited to share the wonderful story He has given us with others, to help them turn to Him.

Owen's expanding vocabulary

Now that Owen is hearing normally his vocabulary is really expanding. He is now saying Mama, DaDa, BaBa (Logan), Owen, hi there, bubble, ball, more, Oma, I love you, bye bye and PaPa. He is also babbling A LOT!!!