1st Snow

The kids were very excited to see our first snow! It made me excited to see it too. :) It was barely enough to cover the grass, but that didn't matter to them. I guess I'm in the blogging mood, because I thought I'd share the pictures!

Christmas and Stuff

I realized when I logged in here that it has been months since I last wrote anything. I am such a bad blogger. It seems like I am so busy doing life that I don't feel like writing about it! For the handful of you who still actually read this blog, here goes...

We've had a really mild Fall and have spent every last chance we could get playing outside. I confess that I've never been a huge fan of winter, but now with my 2 small kids I actually dread it. Jonas has calmed down quite a bit from when he was a toddler and literally never walked... because... why walk when you can run? But he still has an extraordinary amount of energy that he needs to let out through rough and tumble play. Otherwise he tends to take it out on his sister by trying to tackle her, sit on her, jump over her, etc. Ava, for her part, is pretty used to his rough play and can take a lot, but we all reach our limits. One of his favorite activities last year was to pretend he was a race car and run laps around our dining room table with Ava toddling behind him. And yes, I gladly let them do it. I just needed to give frequent reminders to be a nice race car and to pass Ava slowly and carefully. With all that being said, now that the weather is turning colder I have actually found something that makes Jonas sit still for awhile. He loves any craft project with paint and glue. Ava really enjoys crafts too, and is old enough this year to know not to eat the paint and glue. So we have been keeping busy with crafts. I am really not a creative person, but I came up with a lot of project ideas thanks to some web searches. We haven't gotten very far down on my list of ideas though because the kids are having so much fun with popsicle sticks. You would be surprised what you can make with popsicle sticks (stars, picture frames, etc). ****** Spoiler alert for our family members***** We plan to give some of these creations out as Christmas presents!

Jonas likes putting googly eyes on just about anything....

Ava prefers fake diamonds. :)

Glue and paint!

We had fun picking out our Christmas tree. We waited until the kids woke up from their naps and arrived at the tree farm at 4:15pm, about 15 minutes before they were closing for the day. We had to walk quickly up to the trees and we picked the first one that looked good and was small enough for our living room. It was actually fun to pick one so quickly. When we went back to pay for it the kids were treated to some lukewarm "hot" chocolate and cookies, and they were each given a little jingle bell to hang on the tree.

The kids were "big helpers" with the tree decorations. OK, it was actually kind of stressful for me, but I didn't let them know. I could barely get another ornament out before one of them was back asking, not so patiently, for another one to hang on the tree. Many of the ones they hung wound up on the same branches. But in the end, the tree got decorated, the kids had fun, and Ray snapped some cute pictures.

Ava is too little to remember that Christmas involves presents, but this is the first year that Jonas definitely remembers. He reminds us often of the things he wants for Christmas. Lucky for us, the things he wants don't cost too much money. And, at the risk of sounding cheap, we actually get many of his gifts second-hand from garage sales, Ebay, Craigslist, etc. Our kids are too young to notice that their presents didn't come in brand-new packaging, it allows us to get them more than we could otherwise, and maybe even helps our environment a bit.

Ray and I have been talking a lot this year about the things we will do to try to get our kids' focus off the gifts they will get, and on to what Christmas is really all about. We want our kids to know that Christmas is about the birth of our Savior, and we want our kids to be generous to others as God has been generous to us. We have tossed around a lot of ideas of how to teach these things and have started to implement some of them. First, we explained to Jonas that many kids around the world don't have enough food to eat and then we looked through the World Vision gift catalog together as a family. We decided to buy a goat and 2 chickens to help 2 families in need. We also have a good old fashioned construction paper advent chain, and each day when we take off a loop we read the Christmas story from one of their Children's Bibles. I made these little cards on sticks (good old popsicle sticks!) that the kids can use as puppets when we read the Christmas story. Today Jonas grabbed Gabriel in one hand, and the Shepherds in the other and said, "Do not be afraid!" So I guess he is listening. :)

We talk a lot about how Christmas is Jesus' birthday, and I am planning to make a Birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas day. Jonas gets a bit jealous about the fact that it is Jesus' birthday because he tells me he wants it to be his birthday. But I remind him that we celebrate Jesus' birthday by giving gifts to each other, and that seems to make it OK. The other day though, Jonas told me, "I don't want Jesus. I want Santa Claus!" Ray and I have never really talked to Jonas about Santa, but he knows who is he and what he is all about. I don't want to keep my kids from having fun. I grew up believing in Santa and it was magical and exciting. But at the same time, Jonas' statement really hit me. I mean, if you were 3 years old, would you choose the jolly guy in a bright red suit who uses magic and flying reindeer to bring gifts to kids or a humble savior in a manger? And if Santa is the focus of Christmas, what about generosity? Why would kids need to even think about giving gifts to the poor if giving gifts is Santa's job? So I told Jonas that Santa is fun, but that he is pretend, just like Lightning McQueen, Spiderman, and Curious George. We can still leave cookies and carrots out for Santa and his reindeer and visit Santa at the mall, but I want my kids to know that Santa is just a fun character, and not the real deal. A couple of coworkers scolded me when I told them this. Maybe I am just a big meanie, but this is the decision that Ray and I have made and I think our kids will survive.

Before I end this long post let me just give a quick adoption update! We finished all our home study paperwork (phew!) at the beginning of November and waited excitedly for a phone call from our social worker to start our home visits. Instead, our home study coordinator called to tell us that our social worker will be on medical leave until mid-December. At the time I was a little disappointed, but it is already almost mid-December! So sometime soon we should be able to get those 4 home visits out of the way and then we'll be able to finish up our dossier.

We've started the paper-chase for our home study and dossier! The home study coordinator wants us to gather all of our home study documents and mail them to him before he will schedule our 4 home visits. So it will probably be mid-October before we even meet our social worker. There seems to be a little more required this time for the home study (such as a vet exam and vaccinations for our cats), but so far it doesn't seem to be too difficult to get together. Many of the documents needed for our home study will also be used for our dossier. And I found out some GREAT news! This time we only have to get 2 documents certified at the county and state level for our dossier. Certifying everything is what seemed to be the most time consuming and annoying last time. We also found out that we can use the criminal background check that we need for our home study for our dossier. Last time our home study provider couldn't request more than one copy and we were required to get fingerprinted a second time and pay a separate fee. So maybe the paper-chase won't be too bad this time! It also helps that we put the Adoption Tax Credit and the First-time Home Buyer Tax Credit directly into our savings for this purpose. So we have the money we need to at least submit our dossier, and then we will have time before we need to make any more payments.

I think I am also less stressed about the process this time because I am not aching for this child to join our family YESTERDAY like I was with Jonas. This time I have 2 wonderful kids to keep me busy. Here are some pictures of one our recent adventures; a treasure hunt!

Notice that Jonas is wearing his winter boots. He found them that day and literally wore them ALL day. He even asked me if he could wear them during his nap (stinky feet!), which I allowed. He was quite upset when I did not allow him to wear them during his bath that evening or to bed that night.

Jonas decided that they needed to dig for treasure too.

Treasure hunting is hard work, so we had to stop for a juice break at Grandma and Grandpa's

Then we made a Treasure chest

And filled it with treasures!

Just don't tell Jonas that I had to throw the treasure and treasure chest away today. I noticed some little white wormy things crawling around inside the box (maggots???!!!).

Adopting Again!

I am excited to announce that after much thought and prayer, we have decided to begin the process to adopt from Ethiopia again. We applied to our agency 2 weeks ago, and received a call on Thursday that we were accepted into the Ethiopia program! Soon we will begin our Home Study and the paper-chase for our dossier. We plan to request an infant (0-18 months) of either gender. This most likely means that we will be matched with a boy, because the waiting list for girls is much longer than for boys. We prayed about adopting an older child this time, but in the end we felt it would be best for our family to stick with the already established birth order. That doesn't mean that we won't be open if God should lead us in another direction as we move forward though.

Here are some questions we have heard that I will try to answer, in case you have the same questions:

1) How long will it take? The whole process will probably take about 2 years this time. It will take 4-6 months to get our dossier together. Once our dossier is in Ethiopia, our agency estimates that we will wait about 10 months for a referral. But my experience is that the wait time always increases as we go through the process. So I'm guessing we'll wait about a year for a referral. Then we will need to travel to Ethiopia twice. The process has changed since we brought Jonas home, and now families must be present for court in Ethiopia. So we will travel once for court, and then a second time for an embassy appointment and to bring the baby home. The wait time between the court date and bringing the baby home will depend on whether or not we pass court (it is very common not to pass at first. If that happens, they can pass us later without us in-country).

2) Will it be easier for you since you have already adopted from Ethiopia? Well yes, I guess knowing what it takes to get the dossier together and the roller-coaster of emotions that goes along with adoption could make it a bit easier for us this time. But no, we get no special favors from our agency or from the government of Ethiopia to speed the process along. We have to jump through all the hoops, just like everyone else.

2) Have you tried to get pregnant again? No we haven't. To be honest, this one was tough for me. I wanted to adopt again, but I also wanted to get pregnant again and I couldn't figure out which I wanted more or first. I struggled with choosing adoption over pregnancy right now. Not because I feel a stronger bond to Ava than to Jonas, but because in my experience pregnancy was so much easier than adopting. Sure, I remember feeling tired and overly-emotional through much of my pregnancy, but for the most part I had it pretty easy. But adoption is expensive and the process can be so hard. ****First the dossier**** running to and fro collecting our life on paper (this time with 2 kids in tow), notarizing it and authenticating it a million times, and getting fingerprinted and then fingerprinted again (as if the prints change). ****Then the wait for a referral**** living every day wondering if our child is out there somewhere. Is he conceived yet? Has he been born? Is he getting the nourishment he needs? Is he with family or in the orphanage? Is he loved? When will the agency call us to tell us about him????? ****Then the wait after the referral**** Staring at a face in a picture trying hard to imagine the personality that goes along with the image. Wondering if he is OK, healthy, and loved. Hating that every day that goes by is another day that he will be cared for in an institution instead of with his family. ****And then coming home**** Teaching this baby we already love so much that it is OK to trust us and love us back. Feeling the rejection every time he pushes us away. Wondering if certain behaviors are his natural personality, just a developmental phase, or some emotional residue of his abandonment and lack of attachment in his first months of life. One adoptive mom I spoke with said that she feels like she needs to be a psychologist on top of being a mom. I have definitely felt that way at times.

So, now you might be wondering why we decided to pursue adoption instead of trying to get pregnant. Well, here's why:

- We believe that one of the reasons God created us and brought us together as a couple was to adopt children. Seriously.
-We believe that God does not want us to wait, but that He wants us to pursue adoption now.
- We want Jonas to have someone in the family that looks like him and with whom he can share the experience of being adopted.
-We know that the path of adoption isn't always easy, but that the blessings that come from adopting are so great they can't even be measured.

So we're jumping in with both feet, feeling absolutely certain that we are doing the right thing. Let the journey begin!

Birthday Boy

Jonas turned 3 years old this week!

He asked for a monkey cake, so I did my best.

Playing with a new toy. He loves all things cars and trucks lately.

Dare I say we really are finally moving out of the "terrible-twos"? Jonas still has his fair share of temper tantrums, but they are less frequent and less intense now(unless he's tired). His imaginative play is developing, and he can play with his toys by himself for awhile without finding mischief and trouble. He even will occasionally share toys with his sister without first being coaxed to do so. He says the funniest things and cracks us up all the time.

We are in the midst of potty training. We've actually tried on and off for almost a year, and after a day or two I always ended up concluding that he just wasn't ready. But this time we've seen some progress and we're sticking with it. He's definitely ready. Yesterday we made it all day with only one accident in his big boy underpants!

Happy Birthday to my big boy!

There are millions of orphans in Ethiopia. In a country the size of Texas, millions of kids would grow up without parents if it weren't for adoption. I count myself amazingly blessed to be the mom of one of these precious kids. We wanted him. We needed him. He is no longer an orphan. He is my son. And at the same time, in a perfect world, adoption would not have been necessary for Jonas. Gulp. As much as I don't like to think about it, things like disease and poverty would never have separated Jonas from his birth family. But because we live in a broken world, I believe that adoption is the best plan for kids that have already been orphaned. God chose Ray and I to become Jonas' best and I will be forever grateful that He allowed us to be a part of His plan for Jonas' life.

With that said, Ray and I have recently been talking a lot about adopting again. We would like to adopt from Ethiopia again, and we'd like to start the process in about a year. The more we talked about it, the more I started to think about this next child, and the more excited I got. Then, a few days ago, I found out some disappointing news. The Ministry of Women's and Children's Affairs (MOWA) in Ethiopia announced that, starting today, they would decrease the number of adoption cases they review each day from 50 to 5. That's a 90% reduction! MOWA made the decision based on some abuses in the adoption process. They want to give themselves more time to review each case. I have always respected the cautions that Ethiopia takes to ensure that the kids that are being adopted were truly relinquished for adoption by birth families. But a 90% reduction in cases would GREATLY increase wait times for adoptive families, and even worse, it means that legitimate orphans could spend years in institutional care while they wait for their case to go before MOWA. Jonas will be 3 years old soon, and if this ruling had been in effect when he was a baby, he could still be living in an orphanage. That is sickening to me. It seems so unacceptable.

Please pray for MOWA, the orphans of Ethiopia, and waiting adoptive families. Pray for Ray and I too as we try to discern how God would have us to move forward with our adoption plans! I've been reminded that God holds the perfect plans for my life and my family. When it comes to building our family, it never seems to happen the way I envision it (but as much as I can't see it at the time, God's plan is always better than mine!).

Ava's 1st Birthday

I don't know where the time went, but my sweet Ava just turned a year old! In some ways, it seems like just yesterday I went to bed with contractions, in complete denial that I was actually in labor! It was the night before my due date and going into labor that night would mean Ava would probably be born on my due date... and when does that ever happen? After trying to fall asleep for close to an hour and realizing that the contractions were getting closer together, I reluctantly decided to go to the hospital. And even though I had two contractions on the 5(ish) minute drive to the hospital I wouldn't let Ray bring my overnight bag inside because I thought they were going to send me home. I told him to bring the camera just in case, and his computer with the play-list of songs I wanted (but never got around to listening to). But the overnight bag had to stay in the car. A few hours later (on my due date) I was holding my newborn baby girl. It seems like just yesterday, and at the same time it seems like a million years ago. I'm a different mom now than I was then, more confident and willing to trust my mom gut and just do what feels right. God knew that our family would be incomplete without Ava, and He used her to help me to grow as a mom. I can also now say what I always knew and believed (but now have the evidence to back-up). Love does not come out of genetics. A family is not built solely by shared DNA, and my love for both of my children is equally deep. The fact that one came by adoption and another by birth makes them each wonderfully special.

Now back to the Birthday Girl... We had a princess party complete with pink cupcakes. Ava wore an adorable 1st birthday outfit that her Aunt Amy bought her. She LOVED her cake and dove right into eating it. :) Here are some pictures of our celebration.


We love you, Princess! Happy 1st Birthday!!

Merry Christmas

December has been a busy month, as it is for most people. This year I had a helper with my baking though.
Ok, so he wasn't really much of a help, but he sure thought he was. :) He loves to "help" me bake, and lately he has been waking up from his afternoon nap telling me that he wants to make cookies!




















He was in his first Christmas play with his preschool class this year. He started out sitting in the little chair he was supposed to sit in, but before long my exuberant extrovert took front and center stage.















I had so much fun watching him, and yet even as I laughed at his antics on stage, I held back tears. For so many years I watched little kids in Christmas programs at church and wished I had my own little one on stage. This year I did. :)

Ava started walking a few weeks ago and is having fun with her new independence. She has been quite tempted by the Christmas tree, and seems to think it's funny when we tell her "no no." But she is easily distracted by other interesting toys, and so far does not come close to Jonas' strong will. Hopefully (for my sanity) she will keep her rather easy-going and compliant personality!


Putting up the Christmas decorations has reminded me a lot of being pregnant. I was close to my due date last Christmas and I was full of anticipation for Ava's birth. For a split second I wanted to be pregnant again this year and experience those feelings again (a split second, I tell you!). As I was thinking about that I realized that thousands of years ago, another baby's birth was greatly anticipated, the birth of our Savior. So I will close this post with a quote from Jonas' Bible, The Jesus Storybook Bible, by Sally Lloyd-Jones.

"Everything was ready. The moment God had been waiting for was here at last! God was coming to help his people, just as he promised in the beginning. But how would he come? What would he be like? What would he do? Mountains would have bowed down. Seas would have roared. Trees would have clapped their hands. But the earth held its breath. As silent as snow falling, he came in. And when no one was looking, in the darkness, he came. And there, in the stable, amongst the chickens and the donkeys and the cows, in the quiet of the night, God gave the world his wonderful gift. The baby that would change the world was born. His baby Son. Mary and Joseph wrapped him up to keep him warm. They made a soft bed of straw and used the animals' feeding trough as his cradle. And they gazed in wonder at God's Great Gift, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger. Mary and Joseph named him Jesus, 'Emmanuel'- which means 'God has come to live with us' Because, of course, he had."

Merry Christmas! May you be blessed as you celebrate the birth of Jesus, and may you truly experience Emmanuel, God With Us.

Fall

I just realized it has been awhile since I've blogged. It seems like I've been pretty busy lately, and I haven't really had anything interesting to write about. But I know some of you read this blog for updates on our family, so I'll do my best to fill you in on what we've been up to!

The kids are doing great. Jonas is getting to be so big. He talks non-stop (mostly real words, but sometimes he makes up jibberish when he runs out of things to say), he still runs constantly with endless energy, and he LOVES going to preschool. He still likes pointing out the letters of the alphabet and can read both upper and lower case letters. He likes books about Curious George and lately he has been obsessed with pirates. He also really enjoys painting, coloring, and doing crafts. Recently at preschool each child was supposed to paint a leaf with their name on it to put on a tree in the room. His teachers noticed that Jonas was really into the project and they let him paint to his heart's content. He ended up painting ALL of the other leaves that don't have names on them on the tree below. To give you an idea of how many that is, there are only 7 other kids in his preschool class.

It is such a joy to watch him grow. In a couple of days we will celebrate the 2 year anniversary of "gotcha day", the day we met him. Time flies when you're having fun. :)

Ava is a baby on the move! She loves crawling around, playing and exploring. She seems pretty close to walking too! She learned how to pull to stand and cruise furniture a couple of months ago. Now she likes walking behind her push toys, and can walk holding onto only one of our hands. Jonas was so much older when he started to do these things, so 9 months old seems much too young to me!
I think the last time I wrote about her sleep habits, she was close to sleeping through the night in her own room. That is not the case anymore! At some point she stopped being able to settle herself to sleep, and then a couple months later started waking almost every hour all night long. I'm not a cry-it-out mom. I don't think it is bad or neglectful to train a child to sleep by a little crying, but I just can't do it. I know it's only supposed to take a couple of days of crying, but I hear the crying and everything in me tells me that I need to respond and console my kids. So that's what I do. I started bring Ava in to sleep in our bed, but I have to admit I was stressing a lot about it. She used to sleep well, so I felt like I must have done something wrong as a mother. We co-slept with Jonas, but for some reason I thought it would be different with Ava. I know other moms who rock or nurse their babies to sleep, and those babies still sleep all night. So I felt like I must have really messed up somewhere along the line. So finally, a very wise woman (my mom) said to me, "Lisa, I think you need to take the stress out of bedtime. If Ava wants to sleep with you, let her." She actually leaned over and whispered that to me in church, and it was weird because I had just been thinking about Ava's sleep. I was thinking about the verse "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." As I thought about it I wondered if letting Ava sleep in my bed was actually a way to deny myself and serve God by serving my kids. Don't make me explain my theology here, it's just what I was thinking. So, ever since then I actually like having Ava snuggle next to me all night and I feel well rested every morning when I wake up. My sweet husband (who happens to be a wonderful father) said to me the other day, "You know, I really like that our kids sleep with us." So, there you have it. It works really well for our family!

In other news, I am almost finished with training for a new job as a WIC Breastfeeding Peer Counselor. It is only going to be a couple of hours a week, so I am doing it in addition to my other job right now. The nice thing about it is that the hours are very flexible, and I can do a lot of it from home by phone. Plus, I love the idea of being able to help other moms with questions and concerns about breastfeeding. I'll have to see how the job goes, but I am already thinking that if I ever go back to school I think I would like to become a Certified Lactation Consultant! But school is the last thing on my mind right now. I probably wouldn't be ready to go back until my kids are in school, and by then... who knows what I'll feel like doing! :)

A Picture Outing

I took the kids to get their pictures taken at Target today. The pictures are cute, but I have a feeling that years from now I will look at them and smile, remembering what it was really like to get them taken.

A few months ago my parents bought the kids matching outfits and my mom mentioned that she thought it would be cute to have their picture taken together. I decided about a week ago that I needed to get that picture taken soon, before the summer was over and they grew out of the clothes. Ray is preaching tomorrow and was going to be working on his sermon this morning. So I decided that today would be a good day to take the kids somewhere to get their picture taken. It would get us out of the house and allow Ray some quiet time to work. I looked online to find a nearby portrait studio with the best prices. Target's site had a big coupon for a free 8x10 with the purchase of a $7.99 portrait package (1 8x10, 2 5x7's, 4 3x5's, and wallets). Perfect! I love a good bargain and I figured I couldn't beat a $7.99 portrait package. I couldn't do it that cheaply if I took the picture myself and printed enlargements. I don't have a printer so I couldn't print the coupon, but I decided I didn't need the free 8x10. So I called Target and they had openings for appointments today. I was hoping for an 11am appointment because it would interfere the least with the kids naps. Just my luck, they had an 11:20am appointment open. 11am would have been better, but 11:20am was close enough. When I asked for the 11:20am appointment the girl asked me if I would be able to make it on time. I wondered if she knew what it was like to get out the door with 2 small kids, but I was determined I would be actually be 5 minutes early.

So, Ava wakes up from her nap, I get the kids dressed and we're out the door. The only problem was that Ava wasn't interested in eating before we left, but I figured she would be OK at least until the pictures were done. Then, if I had to, I could feed her in the car. I had an ounce of expressed milk in the fridge that I decided to take along, just in case she wanted to eat a little in the middle of the photo shoot. It would be enough to hold her over, I thought. So, we get into the store so far so good. The outfits are still clean, and Jonas doesn't object when I strap him into the shopping cart so he can't run ahead of me. I get to the portrait studio area and wait a bit while they are helping other customers. Jonas starts getting antsy, and I realize that Ava is getting hungry. Not good. I take out the bottle I brought and offer it to her. It was the first time I had given her a bottle since I was trying to teach her how to take one before I went back to work. I was surprised at how quickly and easily she drank from it now. Much too quickly. She drained it fast and I didn't have any more. Finally the photographer tells me that they are running about 20 minutes behind. Not good at all. I contemplate canceling, but I got the kids dressed and out the door. We could stick it out. I decide to take the kids to the restroom to feed Ava. She hates eating under a blanket, so I usually end up feeding her while standing in a bathroom stall when we are out in public. When we get into Target's restroom, I find that the handicap stall is actually large enough to push the shopping cart into it and close the door. But my luck ends there because it's too loud and Ava is too distracted to eat. I'm sure much of the distraction came from Jonas who thought that sitting in a shopping cart in the bathroom was great fun. He kept excitedly shouting "go to the potty!" and screaming for the fun of hearing his voice echo. So, back to the portrait studio area we go. It seems the ounce I gave Ava is holding her over for now.

Finally we get to go in to get the pictures taken! See cute pictures above. I think the photographer felt bad because we didn't get a lot of great shots. Jonas was too excited to sit still for long, and by the end of it Ava was trying to eat the mini-couch she was sitting on. I thought we got some great ones, considering.

But now we have to order the pictures and Ava is starting to cry from hunger. I tell the girl that I want the $7.99 portrait package. Apparently the coupon (that I didn't print) for the free 8x10 with $7.99 package is the only way to get the $7.99 package. If I had read a little more closely I might have understood that I could only get the portrait package for $7.99 with the coupon. I think it was a little misleading though. Why didn't the coupon just say it was for a $7.99 portrait package, and list 2 8x10's as part of the package? And anyway, I have a 2 year old and an almost 7 month old who has just started to crawl. I don't have a lot of time to read things closely.

So the girl is going through her sales pitch trying to sell me pictures for over $100, Ava is crying, and Jonas (thankfully) is sitting quietly in the cart eating a peanut butter sandwich I had packed for him. Ava is so hungry she decides it's worth it to be covered up and gives up and eats under a blanket. I breath a sigh of relief and finally focus on looking at the pictures. I tell the girl I want to keep it pretty basic, and I end up ordering 1 8x10, 2 5x7's and a 4x10. The total comes to over $60. Yikes. So much for my bargain. But I walk out of the store feeling pretty good about things. Yes, it was more expensive, but I have thought of ways to cut back on some other spending to make up for it. Ava and Jonas have eaten and are in good moods. They will fall asleep on the ride home and Jonas will be tired enough to go back to sleep for his full nap when we get home. But my relief was a bit premature. After I put the cart away I tell Jonas that I will take his little bowl of crackers that he is carefully carrying with both hands so that I can hold his hand until we get to the car. I tell him he can have it back in the car. But seeing me put it in my bag sent him into a meltdown and he threw himself onto the pavement in a temper tantrum. Finally, we make it to the car and head home. It was so stressful, but I am already finding the humor in it. Just a day in the life of this mommy.

We Love Summer!

Summer has always been my favorite season of the year. Growing up and living in Western NY, I have always cherished the few months of the year that I can walk outside without a jacket and just enjoy some sunshine. I have great childhood memories of long summer days spent swimming, bike riding, playing at the playground, having picnics in our front yard, camping, staring at the clouds in the sky, and playing with friends. As a mom, I love spending time with the kids outside, watching Jonas delight in the same things I enjoyed as a kid. Jonas would spend his entire day outside if given the option. He is such an active little boy, and we all go a little stir-crazy if he can't get out and burn off some energy!



Coming soon... Ava turns 6 months old in a week and I'll be starting her on solid foods. She's growing up too quickly! She has learned that she can get where she wants to go by rolling around, and I wonder if she is going to start crawling soon. She got up on her hands and knees and pushed backwards several times today. She can't wait to get moving and follow her big brother around. I can hope they decide to move in the same general direction, can't I? :)
Also, we are approaching the 2 year anniversary of the day we got Jonas' referral. I can't believe it's been 2 years already! God has blessed us so much!!

Memorial Day

A year ago on Memorial Day we found out we were pregnant with our little girl! I wish I could say I was as elated at the news as I always imagined I would be when we were trying to get pregnant. But I was mostly just scared! Jonas hadn't even started to walk yet, we were still working through some attachment issues with him, and he was still waking several times a night. Sure, he was 14 months old, but he had only been with us for a few months, and I felt like I was cheating him to add another baby to the family so soon after he came home. And I was EXHAUSTED! Jonas had just started to crawl, was getting into everything, and was (and always has been) more than a little strong-willed. I realize now that I was tired because I was pregnant, and not because I was an incapable mother. But I didn't make that connection at the time. I also worried about how others would react to the news of our pregnancy. I can't explain it well, but I felt like people would think that the child I carried in my womb was somehow more MY child than Jonas was. I don't know why I worried about what people would think because it really doesn't matter. Jonas couldn't be any more my son than he already is, and other people's ignorance about adoption can't change that. I guess I was just feeling over-protective of him. So I was scared about how a new baby would fit into our lives, but underneath those feelings I was also scared that I might miscarry and never meet this new son or daughter growing inside of me. You see, even though I was scared, I always WANTED Ava. I started "mothering" her right away, suddenly thinking very hard about everything I ate and everything I did to make sure I took care of her from the very beginning. It was something I never got to do for Jonas. When I was "expecting" Jonas I couldn't take care of him, but I often prayed for the health of his birth mother. I enjoyed being able to take care of Ava from the very beginning.

This Memorial Day, it was nice to celebrate Ava's life without any of the fear I had last year! Jonas has grown up so much in a year. He is well adjusted, attached to us, and he loves his little sister! He sleeps through the night consistently now (in his own room), and even falls asleep on his own. Ava is healthy, beautiful, happy, and social. I love being greeted by her huge smiles when I pick her up out of her crib in the mornings. I've adjusted to taking care of two children, and our family somehow feels more complete now than it was before. We are Mom, Dad, Brother, and Sister. I'm so glad that God has planned our family he way that he has. I don't believe that He is finished with our family yet. We want to adopt again, and I'd kinda like to experience pregnancy and childbirth again. Ray and I have talked about what that might look like and when we'd like to see it happen, but I won't pretend anymore that I know what God's plans are for our family. We'll just keep seeking Him and go along for the ride!