We are a family that does everything together, so we'd best learn to get along with one another!
My name is Addie Larkington. I live in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, with my husband, Adam, and our five children: Adelaide (14), Austin (12), Amelia-Grace (9), Ashton (6), and Anissa-Hope (3). I am a homeschool instructor/stay at home mom, and my husband works for the local school district.
Our children are our world. We would do anything possible for them to keep them happy. Not easy to do in this crazy, mixed up world of ours, but we do try our best.
Our children are also disabled, which is one of the reasons I chose homeschooling in the first place, especially in Ashton's case. Ash has to breathe with a ventilator because at birth he had all sorts of serious problems with his breathing, and he kept having one complication after another. Doctors didn't think he'd survive, but by a miracle from God, he did, and he is still with us. Ash requires a lot in the way of care and upkeep.
Besides Asthon's respiratory issues, we also have to deal with Down syndrome (Adelaide and Anissa-Hope), severe allergies/asthma (Amelia-Grace), and cerebral palsy (Austin). We spend a lot of time at the doctor's office or at physical/occupational therapy with the children. It's a pain, but it's necessary in raising a brood like ours.
When things are going great, we're as cozy as a cloud; however, when kids get sick or end up in the hospital again, that's when things get a little sticky. We rely on the prayers of friends/church family to get us through, plus we ourselves have a strong, unshakable faith in God above. If it were not for God, we would not be where we are at in our Christian walk, and we don't know what we would do without Him! We cannot imagine what our lives might be like if we didn't have God in it!
When you see our children, you know immediately that they are adopted. The three oldest are from the Ukraine; the two youngest are from here in the United States. Ash is from Connecticut, and his sister, Anissa-Hope, is from Ohio. We couldn't have kids of our own (we tried, several times, but without success), so we turned to international (as well as domestic) adoption to build a family.
It was the best decision we could have ever made as parents.
We cannot imagine our world without Ashton, Anissa-Hope, Austin, Adelaide, or Amelia-Grace! There may be many challenges as a result of their disabilities, but our kids make being parents fun and full of adventure!
Well, Ashton's vent is going off again; hopefully it's another false alarm. It has a tendency to do that (and scare us in the process!); it's highly annoying!! I gotta see what's going on. I will write in here again soon; you haven't heard the last from the Larkington family of Kingfisher, Oklahoma!
Until later, this is Addie saying so long and God bless!
~Love, Addie. :)
