Wordless Wednesday

Last days of summer...........

Here's our gymnast Jaymie with Will watching her every move. Both spend half the day on their heads and Jaymie has earned the nickname "flipper" in the house.

Ouch! I USED to be able to do this......

The dynamic duo............Will and Jaymie Claire!

Our little get away

Last Sat. we left for Naples to go to Jeffrey's awards ceremony with USBANK. We stayed at the Ritz Carlton and we had a great time! The weather was beautiful, although once a day it rained for about an hour... but no complaints here. I was so glad we brought the kiddos. We were the only ones who brought our kids, so we were quite entertaining when we were at the pool as everyone watched our kids having so much fun while they relaxed with their free drinks and conversation:)

I think Jeffrey needs to work on his tan..........Here they are in the Ocean. As I took this picture a school of Manta Rays swam by between myself and them. There were about 15 of them and they looked so graceful. They were all about the size of a dinner napkin unfolded. Very amazing to see that!

Here is lover boy smoochin his cousin at the beach. I think this photo is greeting card material.

Jaymie and Will digging for shells in the Ocean.

There was a sand bar out a ways that was filled with live sand dollars. Of course Jaymie wanted to take them home, but I did not want her to kill them. They have tons of little whiskers on the bottom of them when they are alive.

Our beach beauty

The girls rescued a coconut from the Ocean. It was floating by way out there and they swam to get it... As I was carrying their carry-on on the way home I was wondering why it was so heavy. Well, the coconut came home with us and is now in a basket in my kitchen. Leave it to Jacklyn, my collector of things....

Here is the fountain in front of the Ritz that greeted us. I took this pic. during a rainshower. You can see how it just downpours, and then an hour later.....sunny skies.

Jeffrey and I before heading off to the awards ceremony! Isn't he handsome in his tux? Just like they day we were married:)....

Here he is standing on stage waiting to get his award:) So proud of him. He is such a hard worker and so very smart. The conversations that went on while I was with him were way over my head! You think by now I would know what he actually does, but I still can't grasp it. Our careers are so very different. Heck I was assessing a K student this past Fri. and when I showed him the letter b and asked him what it was he said,"16". I've got my work cut out for me!

New arrival

http://adoptionadvocates.org/news/news_recent_arrivals.php

Check out our handsome little man on the "new arrivals" page of our International Agency's webpage. It is just the beginning of his modeling career.

Wordless Wednesday

One year ago today.........

I got the phone call that all parents who are adopting wait for anxiously ONE year ago today. I remember the moment like it happened yesterday and remember the tears falling quite quickly when our agency said they have a little 2 year old boy in their care and were sending us over his information via email to look over. Of course I was not near a computer when the call came in, but I quickly got home to open the email and see his sweet face. I knew even before I hung up the phone with the agency that we would accept this referral and we now had a son and the girls had a brother. In the picture below you can see Will in the orphanage in pink in the center background.

Now take a look at the little guy below... Could he have any complaints whatsoever?

I can't say enough about how much this little guy has brought to our family. Words can't describe how amazingly well he has adapted to his life here. For us, we feel so fortunate that his adoption was so smooth. There were a couple of small speed bumps like the blood draws and malaria meds, and some grieving/abandonment moments, but we got through them together. It is my hope that our experience will lead others to adopt as there is such a need to give these children families and love which is what they all deserve. I still continue to struggle with our gain was someone elses loss for reasons we will never know. When I watch Will enjoying life so, I often tear up thinking of wishing his birth mom knew he was thriving. Will is so unselfish. He never whines. He always wants to share his food. His laugh is contagious and he has a belly laugh that will have you smiling in no time just listening to it. His language in the 7mo he has been home is amazing. He has developed an amazing vocabulary and seems to understand everything we talk to him about. Just tonight I was carrying him on my hip toward the kitchen and he asked to stop to look at mine and Jeffrey's wedding picture hanging on the wall in the den. He pointed to us and said mommy and daddy and then he went on to say... "mommy you beautiful as he pointed to the picture" awwwwww, he must want a lightening mcqueen car!! Will also questions what things are and is a lover of books. He is also a snuggler and there is nothing better than curling up next to him at night and holding him as he sleeps. His nightmares have long been gone, and he even talks in his sleep in English. I guess we will always hold Sept. 17th close to our hearts as it was the day we were blessed with taking on the role of parents and big sisters to this amazingly wonderul beautiful little boy.

Preschool Eve Photo

OK, Here he is the night before preschool as I knew I would be too teary eyed to take his picture today. Will was going back and forth on his wanting to go to preschool or not. He would sometimes say he wanted to go and other times say he did not want to go. Well, I'm happy to say he made it through the day (3 hours). I was very teary eyed and he looked up at me and said mama don't cry and then he started to know that I was going to go and he got clingy. He did cry for me as I exited the door. That was a nightmare for me! I had to go to work though, so I had no choice but to keep going. I only was at work for 2 and a half hours and then I returned to pick him up. The school called me at 9, as I left at 830... and told me he was doing fine.. no tears. He had fun, and it was so good to see him when I got to him at 1145. The teacher said he did fine and was even the leader for the dance moves! Leave it to Will and his groovin! So this mom is happy to say that preschool for this little man went well. I hope it goes just as well on Thurs.

Preschool Open House

Will found his way to the legos when we went to his open house at his preschool today. He kept a close eye on me the whole time I was there with him. I did stay with him the whole time as it was just a meet the teacher and drop off all your supplies kind of thing... I sure hope he looks forward to it on Tuesday. Im taking a half day off so I can pick him up after his 3 hours on Tuesday. I don't think I could survive at work not knowing how his day was. I thought this was suppossed to get easier with the 3rd child. Not the case for me. I had to hold back the tears today.

My handsome 3 year old preschooler outside his preschool building. I won't ever forget he was 3 in this pic as he chose his "3" shirt to wear today. Smart little guy!

Mini golf

Yesterday Jeffrey took the kids mini golfing for a little daddy kids outing while I got some time to myself! They all had a lot of fun. Jeffrey didn't bring the camera to get some live action shots, but I was informed that Will got a hole in one on the mini golf course! Will tried to explain to me his adventure of mini golfing. He is getting quite good at using charades to explain things. He will use all the words he can and then act out the rest of what he is trying to say. It is quite comical. Jacklyn and Jaymie had great first weeks at school which is always a relief! Both like their teachers. I am really happy with the language arts teacher that Jacklyn got as I heard she is very good and Jacklyn loves reading and writing. She also got a 3D art class instead of choir :) yippee! Her interest continues to be architecture so I think she will love this class. Not all students are lucky enough to get their first elective and many are put in choir. Not the case for this lucky girl. Jaymie starts up her gymnastics class this week again. I swear this girl is upsidedown half the day on her hands doing flips and handstands and walkovers all over the house. In that area, she is a mini me, as gymnastics was my sport:) We are changing clubs for Jacklyns tennis. There are several pros at this club that Jeffrey is scouting for Jacklyn. Of course, he will continue to coach her, but his time is limited! So our routine life is about to begin:) WHEW!

Night out with mom and dad!

Here's our little hoopster getting ready for anyone who will take him on one on one! Actually he got all decked out in his duds and Jeffrey and I took him out to dinner as Jacklyn and Jaymie were at some friends houses for the night. So he had mommy and daddy all to himself. He got a train table today from my brother who came down for a visit. We have been putting in some time on it using it as a lego table. We are big into these legos now. He loves to create patterns with the colors! Anyone up for a game of one on one with this cutie patootie?

Wordless Wednesay

First photos

I was browsing through our Ethiopia files and found these photos. They are of the day we met Will. I thought the one above was just priceless of Will and Jeffrey bonding. They connected very quickly and were a match made in heaven.

This one is too cute too. I'm not sure if he understood here if we were the ones taking him home or not, but he sure wouldn't let go of Jeffrey!

Family photo shoots

Here is Mr. Cranky Pants not wanting to pose for our 6mo home family photo that we need to send in to our agency.

He is pretending he is sleeping and will not open his eyes. Thank you "Mr. Cooperation"

Ok, so our first 2 photo sessions were not a success, so we had to have Will take a time out and then tried again later in the day to see if "Mr. Photogenic" would show his true colors later in the day.

It's not my favorite photo, but it will have to do. As you can see, the time out worked and Will showed his cute little smile for our snapshot. I hope this pic. that is sent off to the Ethiopian government shows that Will is a happy little guy and is adored by his whole family, even though it took 3 photo sessions to get him to smile. What a little stinker!

Happy 6 months home

Happy six months home little man! Yep, that's right, he has already been home for six months. He has grown in so many ways in just this short amount of time. We just had our six month home study with our social worker this week. She was quite impressed with Will's adjustment and communication skills. As she left she said to give her a call when we were ready for our next adoption...hmmmmm now where is her phone #?
Yesterday the kids and I spent some time in my classroom. Will had a good old time with all my reading manipulatives and the girls stayed busy on the photoshop program on the computers in my room. I still have a lot to do to get ready for the new year, but I have a good jump start. I head back to work on the 26th and the girls start on the 1st and Will starts preschool on the 14th. It's going to be back to a routine life instead of these lazy days of summer!

Look who has discovered legos

When Will came home with us 6mo ago, he didn't have the interest in Legos yet....so I got them out again today to see if he was ready for them.

As you can see........he has an interest. Now I have to get used to legos being all over the floor, and hold back when he has made a creation to not tidy up and put it away, as I know he will want to marvel at it for a while

Right now I have a large snake like looking thing laying across my computer room floor. He must have worked on it for a half hour last night. I better leave it there until he decides he wants to create something new when he wakes up right?

Gotta love the boy toys...

Wordless Wednesday(posted on Thurs) ooops

WILL

You gotta love when you hit a sale at gymboree and they have an adorable shirt like the one above on clearance in our little mans size!.. Will is all set to go to a lobster boil.......

Here's the backpack, which also makes him look old just like the lunchbox!

Here is Will giving us his professional modeling pose!

Still wondering if I should cut the fro.....I just keep gelling it to keep it slick and not so puffy!

Cousins

Heres Jacklyn and her cousin Maddie. I had a photo shoot with them before we left for WI. They had a great 2 weeks together.

Isn't the color swap on my camera cool. I love my Canon!

Sittin on a rock in the Carolina pine forest in Maddie's front yard!

Jacklyn and I returned home from NC on Sunday afternoon. Both Will and Jaymie stayed alive with Jeffrey and the house wasn't in too bad of shape when I returned. I did spend some time on the kitchen floor and in the bathrooms cleaning when I returned though! Will was so excited to see Jacklyn as she had been away for 18 days. Jacklyn commented on how much more
Will was talking since she had left. Every week he makes great gains with his vocabulary. He got a backpack from my sister and he has been walking around with it on his back a good portion of the morning. He filled it with his school supplies. It has Thomas the Train on it...:)I'll take a pic of him with it as it is so cute on him.

What..............

was I thinking? I left for NC yesterday without my two babies! Jeffrey is in charge of child patrol of Will and Jaymie. I had to go to NC to pick up my oldest from her cousins house. I'll be returning with Jacklyn on Sunday am. So far Jeffrey said Will is doing fine. This is my first time away from him overnight since we got him in our arms. I had trouble sleeping last night not having my little one curled up close to me. The flight to NC was a breeze. I couldn't believe how fast it was. I guess compared to flying to Ethiopia....any flight is a short flight now. I'm just hoping now I return home with Jacklyn and my children have not had any trips to ER.
We are starting to get things in gear for returning to the new school year, which of course means my wonderful life of staying home full time ends.... I go back to 3 days a week. Will will be going to preschool which he seems pretty excited about. "Little Bill" goes to preschool so that show has helped him understand the concept of what preschool is all about. His preschool is 3 hours a day 3 days a week and I am so lucky to have 3 people who love Will to pieces picking him up each on a different day after preschool so I can get all my work hours in. How awesome is that? I am so thankful. He may just get a little too spoiled and not want to come back to me at days end! Will's interest in books and letters has really perked this last month. He loves the letter "W". He recognizes characters in books and can recite simple word books that have been read to him! Hooray, I have a little reader on my hands!

wordless wednesday

Our dog whisperer

Here's Will with "the pack"

Yes, those are little pony tails in his hair. His sister got a hold of him and pulled his curly hair into little pony tails.

Look who is the pack leader now!

Monkey Joes Bouncy House

Yesterday we went to Monkey Joe's to burn some calories. I had a coupon for buy 1 entrance get one free, so it was a cheap play date. You get the coupon when you sign up for Monkey Mail at the Monkey Joe's website. Anyhow, Jaymie and Will had fun bouncing away. Monkey Joe himself made an appearance and Will was very interested in the big purple monkey. He wanted me to carry him and follow the monkey, but if the monkey got close, watch out! Will wanted nothing to do with him. He was trying to be brave, yet figure out what exactly the big purple monkey was. His phrases to me were......Monkey Joe scary? I want to see Monkey Joe. Where did Monkey Joe go? Does Monkey Joe bounce? One particular bounce house had a line and I was very impressed at how Will waited in line with Jaymie. His ability to figure out how things work is impressive. It has been a long time since I have gotten bit by him:) That is progress. It is also interesting when he knows he did something wrong.........like slamming Jaymies fingers in the basements french doors......he will go off and kind of go to his "happy" place which could be anywhere, but he kind of curls up and really thinks about what just went wrong. Then he snaps out of it and all is fine. It is kind of like he is just taking it all in and figuring out right from wrong. Enjoy the photos below of Monkey Joe. Watch out for Monkey Joe, he is a little scary!

Monkey Joes

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