One month home and doing awesome!

Praise God, he has done such an amazing thing by adding our lil guy to our family.  He is a perfect fit for us, and we for him. He has gained over 3lbs since we have been home and is much more active and talkative. Bonding is going terrific, lots of eye contact, people preference (mom & dad, then siblings), and he is exploring toys. His teeth have come in a bunch with the added nutrition and you can tell very clearly the line of decay from not having them cared for before we got him. The tops of his teeth where they were through the gum line are decayed to tiny sharp nubs. He's eating like a champ and is taking things by spoon once in a while. We just love him to bits. My only regret from the whole thing is that we did not bring two children home. But God has a plan and I am quite sure our family is not finished expanding.

Here are a few random photos, though none are terrific since my good camera stopped working just after we got home.

(Snoozing in his swing after playing for a bit. 1 week home)

(2 weeks home. Playing on his playmat. video capture)

(Meeting one of the ponies with a few of his sisters. 3 weeks home)

(Playing is hard work! 4 weeks home)

He has gained a lot of muscle control so far. He scoots around on his blanket on the floor, tries to roll over, and holds his head up side to side (front to back is harder). He loves being tickled and flipped upside down like any 2 yr old boy. He's started to do things he thinks are funny, like scooting across the floor the second I get his diaper off for a changing, or tossing his head to one side when he's sitting on me and I move it to the other side. He gets a smile on his face when he does it. He's a goofball and it's fun to watch him grow and show his personality.  He's very sensitive as well and if he's not happy, he will let you know. When we got home he pulled a killer pouty lip face quite often. Now he does not do it as much, and he's gotten better at vocalizing. He's not speaking words yet but does make a wide variety of sounds so I am sure we will get there eventually. His hair has grown a ton since we got home as well. It sticks up in the cutest whirl at the front on one side. I'm not sure if we will just let it grow out a bit or if we will trim it to some sort of faux-hawk.

Well back to 'work' now for me. Writing blog posts does not help the housework or art get done!

OH and since we are done funding adoption stuff for the time being, I want to give you some options for my friends to help with their funding!!!

I LOVE this family!! Their kiddos are just home a year and they are going back. Please support them! They ROCK! The fudge is amazing and I now have a super cute "Feather Man" in my art studio as an inspiration.  http://butbygraceitcouldbeme.blogspot.com/

Home at last!!

We are home!! It was a grueling 29+ hour journey but we made it. We got home at midnight on the 12th and are still catching up on sleep and adjusting but things are going well.

He had his 'just home' doctors appointment and weighs 17lbs 7.5 oz and is 31.75" long. Our doctor loves him and is as excited to see him grow and progress as we are.

He's ours!!

We had court on August 20th, and the paperwork became official on August 31st! On September 6th we had Gotcha Day!!

"Jacob" is an orphan no more!!

Gotcha!!!!

Thank you to everyone that helped make this possible!

Puzzle pieces all in place!

We leave very soon! YAY 

We have a date!!!

It's coming up on us quickly and in the next few weeks we will finally be meeting our new son. AHHHH So exciting! So much to do before we leave! I was TOTALLY calm before that call. Now we are all crazy. HA

Please pray that we can get what we need to get done actually finished or taken care of. Lots of accommodations for critters and such.

It's bizarre how real everything becomes even when you thought it was 'real' before.

If you see me running in circles, just let me burn off the energy. lol

Fully Funded!!!

It is with great excitement and happy tear filled eyes that we announce that we are FULLY FUNDED! This experience has been so humbling. You can make all the plans you want about how you think things will unfold, and where the money will come from, but in the end only God knows. He provides, and rarely in the ways you expect. We had donations of items to sell, cans to return, anonymous donations to our RR grant, people gave above what they need to at our sales and bought things for far more than they were probably worth. We received the gift of a working vehicle from some friends, so that we could continue to use our funds for getting our boy home, instead of trying to resurrect our dead car or buying something else. This last bump to meet our goal came from some very WONDERFUL young ladies that asked for donations for us on their Birthday invitations and raised $400! This gets us to our goal for bringing home Jacob. At this time we believe that we will be bringing home just him. We do plan to donate diapers (which we will purchase while in country) to the orphanage. Any funds raised beyond our fully funded number will go towards that or helping other families in their journeys to bring home their kids. Thank you all SO much for all of your support!! Please continue to pray for our little guy and for us. We should be travelling in August.

PS I still plan to try to sell more of the stuff from the garage sale this week to raise money for the orphanage. The rest of what is left after this weekend will be donated to the local homeless shelter/rehab center for their thrift store.

We have been submitted!!!!!

OK so for those that don't know what that means, it means that our dossier (packet of priceless paperwork) has been submitted to the government of Jacob's country. Now we wait while they process it and get our appointment date! Travel has slowed down a bit this Spring though so we are anticipating August now instead of July like we had hoped. All in God's timing though. I am sure it will all work out fine but it does make the start of the kids' school year a bit more tricky. School supply shopping is such a chore, and I hate to leave that up to whoever is watching them, so we will need to get started on that soon.

That's all the news for now I guess. We do still have several fundraisers going to help us get finished up on our funding. Puzzle Pieces ($5 sponsorship per piece, donate to Reece's Rainbow through our link), Owl prints through my Etsy shop, Equine sculptures (also in my Etsy shop), and I plan to open the garage sale one last time as soon as the weather cooperates.

Thx a bunch!!!