More milestones

Thursday was six months since Jake's surgery, and things are looking good. He has come such a long way, and his speech is getting better. Still few sentences, though, but his pronunciation of words is better, and he seems to expand his vocabulary every day.
He is growing up, which is frustrating because it seems his waist just gets slimmer. He was in a size 12 pants the other day that was too big for him in the waist and approaching knicker-length in the legs. LOL I hope the elastic was stretched. Actually, he fits well in most 18 month clothes but they are getting high-watered.
Today we made our last home study appointment. The 12-month home study. We are fast approaching our year anniversary, which is Oct 6, adoption day in China.
So much is happening these days it seems a whirlwind, and at the center of it all is Jake, our son.

Well, here is a picture of us piddling around outside one night:



and one when we were at Salt Plains this past weekend:

A place of honor

We learned in our journey to adopt that in China putting a child on Daddy's shoulders is the place of honor, so of course when we got Jacob he was riding high on Baba's shoulders for all the population of China to see.
Jake's always liked to ride on Daddy's shoulders and occasionally will ride on Mommy's, too, though her hair tends to get in the way.
This morning Jake ran into his room to get his big Elmo pillow Grandma and Grandpa got for him and spent some time with him riding on his shoulders, so of course I had to get the camera.
Violet

Let 'er rain

Jake is fascinated with rain, loves umbrellas and hates showers. So we found a compromise.

One happy family

Jake sat down with his crayons today to draw a picture.

After a few minutes he came to me with his paper. "Daddy."

I looked and he pointed to the right side. "Daddy."

I pointed to the middle and said, "Who is that?" "Jake," he said.

Then I pointed to the left and said, "Who is that?" "Mommy," he said.

We never looked better!

Kevin

One happy family

One year ago ...

... we received our TA (travel approval). It was a great day.

Little did we know then that through a variety of reasons we wouldn't actually get to travel to be united with Jake for nearly two months. We found that news out for sure on Aug. 13, 2008. It wasn't such good news that we had to wait that long, but it all worked out for the best.

Little did I know then, too, that one year later I would find myself sitting on the floor of the local mall watching Veggie Tales on a big screen TV with my little man. You know what, though? I wouldn't change that for the world!

Kevin

Jake loves his Veggies

On Saturday, Ruth's Christian Bookstore in the mall in town had several special screenings of the Veggie Tales adventure "Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah's Umbrella."

Jake lately has been really into Veggie Tales. So, we headed into town to catch the 1 p.m. showing. They had goodie bags for the kids and free popcorn. We sat on the floor in front of the rows of chairs they had set up and watched the big screen. It was Jake's first time to eat popcorn (unless the grandparents snuck some in and didn't tell us) and he liked it. He did pretty well watching the movie, switching between Violet's lap and mine.

At the end of the showing, two special guests showed up — Larry the Cucumber and Bob the Tomato. It was wonderful to see Jake's reaction when Larry rounded the corner and Jake saw him. His eyes got big, he broke out into a smile and pointed excitedly. Then, he jumped off Violet's lap and hustled over to Larry, even giving Larry a hug. He was so excited. He also got curious and had to peek into the arm hole of the costume to see who was inside.

Then, we got a few pictures on Violet's cell phone of Jake with Bob and Larry. Sorry we don't have any posted, but we are cell phone challenged and don't have any way to get them off the cell phone and onto our computer. However, one of the store owners had his camera (we really need to remember to take ours with us everywhere) and snapped at least one shot. He's going to e-mail it to us, so we will post it when we get it.

Of course, the little ham was mugging it up when he was getting his picture taken. He looked so cute, and all the adults around thought so, too!

He's also the proud owner now of two Minnesota Cuke adventures: "The Search for Noah's Umbrella" and "The Search for Sampson's Hairbrush." (They had the 2 DVD set on sale.) With them came a free green Veggie Tales umbrella. Jake can't wait for it to rain! LOL

Another fun day for the family.