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

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.   

Fun times

I typically start off my journal by writing:  "It's been awhile since I've written"  The same is true for this blog.  It's been awhile since I've posted anything.  But don't let that fool you, we have been busy and are doing well.  I will do a quick recap and then let the pictures tell the rest.

•  Christmas:  I had every intention of writing about Christmas, but as you can see time kept marching on and then it seemed like it was old news.  But to Jacob, Christmas is not old news.  In fact, before going down for his nap today he had me read him his Curious George Christmas book.  Also, when we first started potty training him he brought us his little potty and said, "Ho, Ho, Ho, Merry Christmas", and then sat down and left a little present.  Thanks  :)  Anyhow, so back to Christmas.  We had a lot of fun, Jacob enjoyed opening his presents.  He loves cars and trucks and got a whole bunch of them.  It was a fun day.  I love that he is getting old enough to really enjoy it. 

• Jacob is doing great.  He is talking a ton, and he says the funniest things.  I was with my friend and Jacob wanted to go swimming in a fountain he saw.  I told him he couldn't go in, because it was too cold, and so my friend told him, "In the summer you will have to come to my pool to swim."  To which Jacob just matter of factly and very politely replied, "Sorry, I can't swim."  It was too funny.   I had never heard him say he couldn't do anything.  Another thing he always says that makes me laugh, especially because it is completely out of context is: "Be careful, don't choke."  He gets his pronouns mixed up a bit.  He likes to use my bathroom to go potty.  So if he is dancing around I will ask him, "Do you want to use my potty, or your potty."  To which he will reply, "my potty" (meaning mine).  It is funny.  Or if he breaks something he will say, "he broke it"  rather than "I broke it". 

• Jacob loves to laugh.  He is usually laughing when he wakes up from his naps.  He will just be saying a random word or sound and think it is so funny.  One day he was shouting "nut face" at the top of his lungs and then laughing hysterially about it.  He also loves his sandbox and can spend hours outside shoveling the sand and moving the wood chips around the yard. 

•  Easter:  We had a very nice Easter weekend.  Jacob's birth mother came to visit, and she brought eggs filled with confetti and candy for a little egg hunt in the backyard.  It was really fun, and Jacob loved it.  I had fun watching Jacob dye Easter eggs.  He looked like a scientist dropping the eggs in the dye and then watching them turn colors.  He had a fun time that weekend eating tons of Easter candy and playing with the toys that were in his Easter basket.  He got Woody from Toy Story from his grandparents and loved pulling his string to make him talk and also taking his cowboy hat off and having Woody say, "Where's my hat?" 

• April Fool's:  It was a successful day.  I tricked Rob and he didn't trick me.   ha ha ha.  I always like to just do one harmless but pesky prank.  On April Fools, while Rob was showering I moved his car out of the driveway and around the corner.   Then when he went out to get in his car to drive to work it wasn't there.  I was watching from the window, and I wish I had gotten a video of it.  It was great.  He looked around and was all confused.  Then he came inside and said his car wasn't there.  I was having a hard time keeping a straight face, and I needed to tell him April Fool's before he figured it out or else he would pretend he wasn't fooled.  So all I could get out was, "really, you're kidding me"  Before I shouted April Fool's.  He admitted I got him good.  It was fun.  :)

   That's my recap.  So life is good, I am happy it is spring time, and I am looking forward to a fun summer.  

 

We went on a Santa run.  That was a lot of fun.

 Christmas Eve

 

 Christmas morning

 

 Jacob loves to stack

 and stack

 He loves helping me in the kitchen.  This can make cooking a bit challenging at times :)  But we had fun making pizza together

 We go on runs together.  On this run, we ran to the donut shop and got a treat. 

 Jacob loves tortillas.  And until we finally moved the bread box and secured the kitchen chairs, at least twice a day I would hear him say "tortilla" and then hear him moving the chairs over to grab one.

 sandbox fun

 

Dying Easter eggs

 Easter with my little boy

 Cracking the eggs open. 

 I love this little guy.