9 weeks home

Jacob has been in the US for 9 weeks now. He celebrated his first Thanksgiving yesterday. He loves mashed potatoes. His preschool teacher sent a note home with him on Wednesday letting us know that they had their own Thanksgiving feast and that he sat there feeding his face for 50 minutes. No surprise there. This little one LOVES food. Praise God for little boys.

Halloween

Well it is getting harder and harder to post information only about Jacob when his life is so intertwined with the rest of our lives. I guess it is almost time to develope a family blog site. haha Here are a couple of pics of Halloween this year. Jacob thought it was a blast to get all dressed up and put pretend wiskers on his face. We went to church for a harvest festival. The kids had a great time. Jacob is doing so well. He has already gained 2 cm and 1 pound and 4 ounces. It doesn't sound like a lot but for his size it is huge. He is already out growing his clothes. He is learning English quickly and has no trouble letting us know his wants and needs. This past week was the absolute best week ever. Jacob and Annabel are really becoming great friends. There was a lot of jealousy the first few weeks which caused a lot of stress between them. But we are seeing less and less of that happening. Annabel will now let me hold Jacob without getting too upset. And they hug on each other freely when one of them gets hurt. We praise God daily for Jacob being in our life. He is such an incredible joy.

Pumpkin Patch

Today we took Jacob on his first Pumpkin Patch trip. We waited too late in the season to go. With all the nice weather we have been having it was clear that everything was dried out. Oh well. We really just wanted to take some fun photos. We finally got a photo of all 6 of us looking at the camera at the same time. Yea!!! Hopefully it is the first of many. I had to laugh when I looked at the photos. The four of us tower over the two little ones. haha

Home almost one full month

This Saturday will be the four week mark since we returned to the US with Jacob. He has been such a delight to get to know. I feel his adjustment and bonding has been wonderful so far. Annabel has had trouble adjusting to another child in the home but Jacob seems to take it all in stride. He started preschool last week and absolutely loves it. Today was his first day on what we call the "short bus". It is a smaller version of a regular school bus that transports children in early intervention preschool back and forth to school. It is an absolute gift from God. If it weren't for the bus that transports both Annabel and Jacob at different times during the week I would feel as though I live in my car. It allows me to get them the services they need while keeping somewhat of a nap schedule going for the one not in school at the time. It keeps everyone happy. He didn't like getting on the bus today but 5 minutes into the ride the driver said he was fine and when he arrived at school the teacher called me to tell me he was all smiles. Praise God. It has taken a few days to get adjusted to school but he loves it now. He has made a new friend and comes home attempting to tell me about his day. He jibber jabbers away telling me something. I am not sure what, but he is smiling while he tells us about his day. He sleeps great. All night without ever waking up. Now if we could just get Annabel to do that we would be doing great. Thank you for all of your emails asking about how Jacob is doing. It has been a huge adjustment having another preschooler (mostly on Annabel's part), but we absolutly love him to pieces. He constantly tells us he loves us and offers hugs and kisses. My kind of guy. It doesn't get any better then that.

Almost a full week at home

I cannot believe we have been home almost one full week. It feels like we just got off of the plane. It was a busy week of catching up. Annabel started Preschool. She loved it. Amber and Joey started back to their classes. I am so grateful they don't have classes every day because they have really needed a lot of time to make up for work they missed while gone. I think they are just about caught up. Mark started back to work. There is always a lot to do there to catch up. I have been working on getting us unpacked and trying to get life back to normal. It has taken me this entire week to recover from our trip. Not only the jet lag but getting use to our foods again. It's amazing how eating so differently for 2 weeks can put your immune system off balance so much. I got really dehydrated while over there. So I am trying to get myself rehydrated. As for Jacob????? That's who you really want to hear about, right? Well it is just so simple. 3 little words. HE IS AMAZING!!! I cannot believe his adjustment to us. He is so happy and so eager to learn. He asks us the name of everything in front of him and repeats everthing he hears. He gives hugs and kisses freely and absolutely loves receiving them. God definetley prepared him for this adoption. He went to the dentist yesterday. I wasn't sure how he would react. He did great. They cleaned his teeth and took x-rays. He never fussed at all. He got a clean bill of health. No cavities. Yea!!!! He is totally potty trained. He is great about telling me when he needs to go. He is sooooo proud of his Superman underwear. I had him in pullups this whole time we were in China because he had some accidents due to the food changes. He is now on track and not having those accidents. When I told him last night he was a big boy and needed to be in underwear he was beaming from ear to ear. He ran out of the bathroom and unzipped his pj's to show Joey his new underwear. He still sleeps with his shoes on during nap time but some times he does allow us to take them off at night as long as we place them right next to his bed. There are still some insecurities there. He is a great sleeper. Everyday this week except for one day when I had a friend stop by, he has gone down for a nap and slept for 2 hours. I actually have Annabel on the same schedule. It has been wonderful. So if you call or stop during nap time you probably wont get me. I am enjoying my naps too. haha I need them to catch up with this jet lag. I get quite emotional when I think about the fact that less then 3 years ago we sat in a Steven Curtis Chapman concert and God spoke to our hearts about adoption. It seemed like such a crazy thing at first. To step out on faith and travel around the world to adopt a child you have never met before. I myself certainly didn't have the courage to do something like that. How can you do that without God in control of it all. For those of you who have walked in my shoes you know exactly what I mean. To think that God didn't have each and every step of this process in His complete control would be so silly to think about. He knew from day one this would be our journey and my graditude cannot even be put into words. All I can say is I feel overly abundantly blessed. Not only that He has given me Mark, Amber and Joey to share my life with but that He loved us and Annabel and Jacob so much that He made the decision we would share our time here on earth together. Once you meet Jacob you will see what a complete joy he is. His personality is magnetic. He has a joy for life that I have not seen before in a child his age. For that matter I have probably not met many adults with that type of daily joy either. He wakes up with a smile on his face every single morning and afternoon. It is like he is saying "Ok God, what new blessing will I experience today?" We can all learn a wonderful lesson from Jacob. We sometimes allow ourselves to get so wrapped up in our problems. We forget to just live and be thankful for each day we have. He is a child who is clearly a "glass is half full type of person." I know he is too young right now to really understand about Christ and what He did for us. But I have no doubt in my mind that Jacob will be one of those men who's light shines for everyone around him to witness. I am so blessed beyond words that I will have the joy of watching that unfold. For those of you who haven't met him yet...I can't wait for you to meet him. No matter what kind of day you are having I promise he will bring a smile to your face. My faith has been stengthened so much over the last 3 years. I know the bible instructs us to have faith that God is in control of our situation. He knows what is best for us even if we don't. I use to really struggle with that because I wanted to be in control of it all. In reality I had reservations with both of our adoptions. There were times I was scared out of my mind not knowing what to expect. Not knowing if I could handle having a little one again in my home. What if I never bonded with them? What if Amber and Joey resented them? What if it never felt like I was their parent but rather a babysitter? Would I be able to handle their special need? The list of worries went on and on. But one thing stood firm in my mind. With both adoptions there was a crystal clear moment in time when God layed it upon our hearts that this was His plan and we were to just obey. Don't think about it. Just do it. That was a huge and I mean huge step of faith for me. I did not feel like I was in control which is what I was so comfortable with. I am so grateful I don't desire to be in control any longer as I did in the past. Thank you Lord for taking the wheel and knowing exactly what we needed in our lives even when we didn't. We serve an amazing God and I wouldn't want to change anything in my life right now. I just pray that when I start to take the wheel again Lord that you gently nudge me and remind me that You are in control and not I. Thank you for all four of my children Lord. Thank you that they all bless our lives daily. I cannot imagine life without them. I pray you pour your blessings out on their lives and that each of them desire to serve you while they are here on Earth.

Home Sweet Home

As Dorothy would say, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home". At 4:30 am we received our wake up call to start our long journey home and 28 hours and 30 minutes later we walked through our front door. I have never been so happy to see my house before. I won't post much now as I am exhausted as you can imagine, but I will let you know that everything went beautifully on our return trip. Annabel and Jacob never cried on our long 11 hour flight home and actually slept a lot. Our first flight was another story for another day. But praise God for happy endings. I am off to bed. God Bless!!!

12 hours-but who's counting

12 hours and we will be sitting on a plane headed on our way home. We have had a wonderful 2 1/2 weeks filled with many wonderful moments. Our kids have toured places they would only have read about in school books and we have really enjoyed this time together as a family. We were able to experience together the moment we saw Jacob for the first time and have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know him. But our time here was also filled with some down times in which I needed to feel Gods presence so much. 6 days ago I sat in church and cried my eyes out because I was so home sick and saddened because Annabel and Jacob were fighting so much. I asked my self if things would ever calm down between them. Would they ever love or even like each other. Amazingly enough the sermon that day was on FAITH and how if we just have faith God will keep pouring out His blessings on us. I found it so amazing to sit in a Chinese/English service in which so much was unfamiliar and familiar at the same time and hear something that touched me so much. I took that to heart that day because I knew it was meant for me. God is never too far from us is He? Even half way across the world He knows what we need. It is amazing how things have turned around this week. Of course they have their little preschooler moments, but they have really bonded to one another in so many ways. If only they knew how much they had in common. I believe in my heart one day they will cherish the fact that God brought them both from across the world to live together as brother and sister in a home with a family who not only loves them but who are committed to raising them to know and love their Savior. I pray they both one day know just how special they were to be on this journey. I use to feel so saddened that they would never know their family history, but the more I think about it the more I realize it was ordained by God that this would be their path in life. All I can say is God must have some amazing plans set in place for them. Thank you so much for following our journey to China and for your wonderful comments and emails. It felt wonderful, especially on those homesick days to know that we had friends and family praying for us from a far. I have valued each day I was here and loved getting to know the Chinese people and culture. We have been treated wonderfully and will do all we can to raise our children knowing and loving their Chinese heritage, but I will tell you without thinking twice though that I am more then ready to come home. I miss everything about home. Please pray for our safe return home and especially for the weather. We are being hit tonight with very strong rain and lightning storms. We are praying it is past us by morning so our flight will not be delayed. The next post from us will be from our living room. God Bless!!!!!