Thankful Heart

November is National Adoption Month.  I think that is fitting because November is the month where we take extra time to remember our blessings and the things we are grateful for. 

Rob and I are so thankful for adoption.  We are grateful to Jacob’s birth parents for choosing us to be his parents.  Just knowing how much they love him and how they have placed him in my care helps us be better parents.  

I am so thankful they gave me the opportunity and blessing to be a mother.  The same is true for Rob in becoming a father.  Being a mother and having a family is one of my blessings that I am most thankful for.  My heart is always filled with love and gratitude when I think of Jacob’s birth parents.  And I am grateful for the opportunity to remember and recognize them formally for National Adoption Month.  Thank you for forever blessing our lives!

"When I count my blessings, I count you twice"  Irish Proverb

Jacob drew this picture of him and his birth parents.  (he is a baby in the belly on the right)

Jacob drew this picture of me on the wall this week. 

We are so thankful for our little big kid Jacob.  We have been blessed beyond measure.

My lovely life

Hello there.  I have been kind of MIA on social media of late.  But as I was loading these pictures (from August through October), I wanted to share them.  I am kind of bad about loading pictures on my computer and usually do them in a big batch.  It was so fun seeing these pictures and remember the fun times we've had.  

Jacob had a birthday.  He is 4 now.  Life had been a little busy and so we weren't planning on having a party w/ friends for him, but I knew he was kind of expecting one.  So one night just a week or two before his b-day we told him that we were going to celebrate his birthday just the three of us and we would have a lot of fun.  I then casually asked him, "how does that sound?"  Without missing a beat he said, "not good."  LOL  oh that boy, he makes me laugh.  Well, so not wanting to destroy his b-day dreams we had a small party with some of his friends at a local park.  We were glad that many of his friends could join him in celebrating his day and helping him feel special. 

Jacob is so big now and can do so many things.  He is so fun and I love him so much.  A couple of months ago he learned to ride a two wheeled bike.  

 Jacob had his first season of t-ball.  It was so much fun to watch.  I don't know who had more fun--me or him.  I loved watching Jacob run around, dig in the dirt, learn to climb a fence, make snow angels in the dirt, toss his helmet, you name it he did it.  It was great.

I will include captions for some photos...

 We did a number game--as you can see it was quite a hodge podge of items.  It was lots of fun.  And Jacob no longer skips numbers 7 and 8!  Success!

 For about a week straight Jacob wore this Mexican hat most everywhere.  It was hilarious.  I love when he gets into the music and also I love how he was using a plastic snake to carry his bucket and slipped his sword into his shirt. 

 My big kid ready for the 1st day of school. Preschool is going great.  He loves it! His teachers are great.

Jacob had so much fun with his grandparents. 

Ready to play ball!

Birthday time!

We didn't have a chance to open presents at the party and it was late when we got home, so we were going to open them the next morning.  Well, Jacob had opened them all before we woke up.  It was pretty funny.

Resting in his spiderweb.

Having fun at the pumpkin patch.  The weather was great and it was so fun to spend time there as a family. 

Ready for some kung fu with Kung Fu Panda

Hello

Hello there,

Yes, we still have a blog.  As you can see I need to dust it off.  With a busy toddler, it doesn't get too much attention.  I am much better at posting a quick picture on FB or instagram.  I have a few posts that I start, but then never get around to finishing b/c my time and attention is needed elsewhere.  

But we are doing well, having fun, and keeping busy.

The weather was nice today so in the afternoon we rode bikes up and down the culdesac.  I am so glad we got Jacob a balance/glider bike.  He is a pro on it.  We "race" down the street.  He says, let's race, and then says, "Mark, set, nine go!"  But leaves when he says "set" so he can get a head start.  He goes on his bike and I go on my scooter and halfway down as I start to pass him he shouts, "I win!"

Don't try to correct him by telling him to say, "I won!"  b/c he will then think you are saying that you won, and you didn't  :)

Since we are talking about funny things he says, I love how instead of saying, "never mind", he will say, "never my mind".  Rob will try to correct him to no avail.  But I like how he says it, so I let it be and just laugh.  And later tonight Rob started saying "never my mind", so Jacob was happy to hear Rob was finally learning how to say it correctly.  :)

Like I said, the weather was nice and we rode bike/scooters.  But unfortunately, Jacob came across a few fire ants while we were out--and they bit him pretty bad so he was hurting, but we raced home as fast as we could and I tried a home remedy trick I had learned (putting bleach on the bite as quickly as possible), and he hasn't complained of the bites since.  And fire ant bits hurt and burn, so I was glad that worked.  (of course, clean the bleach off the skin afterwards.  I looked up once about this home remedy last summer after hearing about it, and also tried it when he fell in a huge pile of ants and got bit all over.  He didn't complain even once about the 10+ bites he got after treating them this way). 

I know I have a bunch of pics and video of him riding his bike, but of course I can't find any at the moment.  Guess I will just have to take more the next time we go out!  But here he is "fixing" his bike.  :)

Later that evening we saw a lizard on the side of the house, and Jacob was pretty excited about that.  When I asked what we should name him, he said, "billy body".  That is his silly word for everything.

He has also been into saying peanut butter before every word, ie: peanu tbutter hat, peanut butter belly, etc.  there is no end to words you can say with peanut butter in front of, and it is silly and hilarious every time :) 

So there you go, a little home remedy for fire ants and some silly words to keep you smiling courtesy of Jacob. 

The drive home

Jacob and I had a fun day at a museum downtown and on our way home we had a fun conversation.  We talked about cousins and family and being a daddy.  (I just use the first letters of the names of his cousins.)   

J (Jacob): Is B my cousin? 

Me: Yes

J: And C and K?

Me: Yes

J: Are they my friends?

Me: Y

A minute passes

J: Can we talk about my cousins again?  Who are my cousins?

Me: I list off all of his cousins: B, C, K, B, T, M, K,C,

J: Who is C?

Me: He is your cousin.

J: Where does he live?

Me: California

J: Oh

Me: You have a few more cousins, N, & I.

He repeats their names

Me: You also have a cousin E

J: E is my cousin

Me: Yes, and L

J: L? is Carolyn my cousin (his friend Carolyn has a brother with the same name as his cousin)

Me: No, that is your friend and neighbor, you have a cousin L who lives in California

J: Oh, is that Henry’s L? 

Me: No,that is a different L. 

J: Oh, cousin L is a different L?

Me: Yes. 

J: Oh.

Me: And you have a cousin T

J: Are my cousins my friends?

Me: Yes, And A is your cousin

J: Oh, A is my cousin. Is S (A’s mom) my cousin?

Me: No, she is your aunt

J: Is she my friend?

Me: Yes

J: Is Grandma my cousin?

Me: No, Grandma is your grandma

J: Is she my friend?

Me: Yes, your Grandma is your friend

J: Is my Grandpa my friend?

Me: Yes

J: Is my great grandpa my friend?

Me: Yes.

J: He’s a good guy

I laugh.  Me: Yes he is.

J: Can we talk about my cousins again?

Me: Sure, why not. 

And on it goes. He lists their names, stops when one is similar to a friend of his and figures out if it is his cousin or not.  Talks about where each one of them lives, etc.  If only I could capture his cute little voice rattling all of it off.  It is just awesome.

Next little conversation:

J: Are we going home?
Me: Yes.

J: When I get home I will be a daddy

Me: Ok, what will you do as a daddy?

J: I will get married. 

Me: Then what will you do?

J: I will work and hmmm I will go to a meeting. I will go to a class and exercise. I will cook food. I will buy food. I will be a daddy

Me:I just smile and laugh

I loved talking with Jacob on our drive home today.  He makes me laugh.  I love seeing the world and life through his eyes.  It is so simple to him.  Cousins are friends and friends are friends.  And Jacob wants to be a daddy.  I have no words of wisdom to add to what Jacob said.  All I can do is smile.  Jacob is a special boy and brings so much happiness to my life.

 Jacob at the museum.  I also love the massive pile of coats behind him.  There were lots of school groups with us on this cold day.  Hope nobody lost their coat :)

Special moments with a future big brother

I absolutely love it when our son Jacob talks about adoption.  I don’t know what it is about it, but when he mentions adoption, it just touches a special part in my heart and I am so happy that it is a part of his life and everyday vocabulary.

Yes, I know it’s been ages since Christmas but I still want to share this sweet story from Christmas.  We had a secret elf who every evening would ring our doorbell and leave a small piece of a nativity set.  It was so fun, and Jacob loved seeing what new nativity character we got.  And I must add, our elf was so sneaky—we couldn’t catch him/her—and we tried.  :)  Anyhow, on Christmas eve, Jacob had already gone to bed by the time we discovered that our sneaky elf had left us our last piece of the nativity set, so on Christmas day after he had opened his presents we told him that the “elf” had brought him one more piece to the nativity.  He got so excited and as he unwrapped it, he discovered it was the baby Jesus.  He looked at it and said, “it’s another Jesus” (b/c of course we had our own nativity set and he had been surrounding our baby Jesus with all of the new pieces of this other nativity set he had been getting, and so apparently he hadn’t realized that every nativity set comes with one).  I replied, that “yes, it was another baby Jesus”, and he said, “Oh, He’s adopted!” and then wedged that new baby Jesus in with the other one for the rest of the members of the nativity set to look at and admire.  It was so sweet.  And my description here really doesn’t do it justice, but I just loved hearing him think out loud as to why there would be two baby Jesus’ in our home—of course it would be because we had adopted another one. 

Another fun moment we had was about a week ago.  Jacob had woken up from a nap and I met him at his door as he was coming out of his room.  He turned and walked backwards to sit in my lap (I just love how he does that) and as he sat in my lap we were facing his room and looking at it through the open doorway.  I asked him “how was your sleep?”  He said, “good”.   And then I mentioned how he was getting pretty big and soon would need a new bed (he still uses his crib—with just the front taken off so he can get in and out, so it is essentially a toddler bed), and then I told him that when we adopted another baby he would get to give his bed to the baby.  He wasn’t ready to give up his bed :)  Stating the “baby was not quite big enough for it”.   But he got so excited thinking the baby would be sleeping with him in his room and right next to his bed.   He got up and showed me where the baby would sleep—maybe right by his bed, or maybe where his rocking chair was, so we needed to move it to make room.  He also chatted on and on about how he would show the baby where the bathroom was and help it go potty in the night, and how he would be so nice to the baby and help out.  It was sweet to catch a glimpse of how magical and fun it will be for him to have a sister or brother and how excited he is for that to happen. 

And then today, out of the blue he was running around the house saying, “I’m going to be a brother!”  It was awesome.  Just like Jacob, I can hardly wait to have another little one in the house.  It will be great to see Jacob running around so happy and excited to be a brother.  I know he will be such a great brother and he and his siblings will have a great time together and have a rich and lasting relationship.