Prayer request

Nate's grandpa passed away yesterday morning, we are leaving for MI today, funeral Monday.

Hopefully Jacob travels well, he did when we went to Chicago, but that was at one month old, now he is 6 months! He is also cutting 2 bottom teeth so he is a little more fussy during the day.

We'll return home on Tuesday.

green beans, rashes and other fun stuff

So my ear infection has turned into some other type of cold/infection and I feel terrible. The past three nights I have broke out in some nasty rash that itches constantly! The result of it being the weekend, the dr. office being closed, not feeling necessary to go to the ER - I'm not short on breath or anything super freaky that an allergic reaction might do. But it's definately something to look into and figure out and make sure I don't go on that antibiotic again! Also might I mention that how weird that it only happens at night! Somewhere around that 8 o'clock to 10 o'clock hour and beyond! I am pretty sure I fell asleep scratching my itches last night.

Friday night Jacob had his first taste of green beans...

I think he's hanging on for dear life wondering what his mother gave him here!

We didn't go too wild trying to make him eat a lot. It was enough of a taste test for him. We tried again Saturday night and Jacob finished off the jar Sunday night.

He ate much better the 3rd time around! Not too many weird faces. That'll come with the next food change in a couple days...peas perhaps?

Something exciting this week is that we have our final 'post-placement' meeting with our social worker. We're not sure what all we'll talk about with her, Jacob is definately growing! We're assuming mostly finalization info. For those of you not familiar with how adoptions work (or maybe it's different in the state you live in...) Jacob (or other babies/children in Iowa) must be in the home for 6 months before steps towards finalization can occur. (meaning he officially becomes ours in a court hearing and a birth certificate will be printed with Breen, and we can claim our adoption expenses on tax forms...you get the idea) Our adoption agency will send the necessary paperwork to our attorney, who will then prepare some other paper work to present to the court. That paperwork has to be in the courts hands for 30 days before a hearing can take place. (Sorry if I lost you, but this is my general understanding of how it works - some of you know the technical terms - hopefully I am on track with this)

Basically, it's a pretty big deal and we're excited for steps toward the finalization to begin soon!

It's off to bed for another busy week lies ahead!

N, MB, J

baby gathering

The three babies got together. Jacob is a bit more mobile than the other two. Wanting to pull their clothes, ears, hands, whatever he could get his hands on!

Jericho - born Jan. 13, Jacob - born Aug. 30, Faith - born Dec. 20



Jacob and Faith telling Jericho to come back and play with them. They'll try not to pull his clothes or try to eat his hands. They both look very concerned for him.



Aren't the baby feet so cute!?

The babies got hot and naked baby pictures are always cute! We didn't dare take the chance of no diapers though! Jacob was a little monkey rolling into the other two babies. Check out Jericho's thighs to Jacob's thighs!

Tag, you're both it!

This blanket was SO soft! They loved laying on it.

This little photo shoot was a bit crazy. There were 8 adults with the 3 babies in a small room, along with 3-4 digital cameras, plus a video camera! It was rather interesting. Hopefully the babies enjoyed their first playdate.

On a little different note, I have been sick with an ear infection since Tues. morning. It certainly does not feel good. I am looking forward to it healing. Hopefully a good nights rest will take care of it. (The naps during the day didn't!) I'm pretty tired and look forward to the warm, cozy bed. Jacob has been in bed for an hour now, hopefully he rests well. At this point I plan to go to school tomorrow (I haven't been all week, with Mon. off and Tues/Wed being sick days).

Jacob has stayed pretty healthy this winter, yeay! I hope that continues. Both Nate and I have had the pukey flu (nate twice), now I have this ear infection. Please pray that he continues to stay healthy.

We are truly amazed at who we find out that reads our blog. Thank you for being our faithful blog followers. I love reading other peoples blogs as well. There are some families that are waiting in the adoption process - some domestically (baby unkown), others internationally that are waiting for their travel dates to be set to go meet their child - I ask that you pray for those families. It is so difficult to wait for the child that you don't know yet, but I think it would be even harder to have pictures of your child, to have the court in that country name you as the adoptive parents, and just wait for travel to happen. God is mysterious, we don't know the reasons behind the details, but he has them worked out. In the end, we look back and say, yes God, you knew, thank you. (But oh for those of you WAITING...it's SO hard!) We're praying for you!

Yeay for Presidents Day!

Because it means no school! Sleeping in (til 8) was a treat! (Although I know of a few schools who did have class today, mine did not.) As I mentioned in an earlier post Nate's brother (& family) from Michigan were coming. Nate, Jacob and I were able to see them for a few hours today and enjoyed a lunch with them. It was so great to meet the little baby, hold him, love on him and remember when Jacob was that small.

Nate and Jacob got mommy some flowers for Valentine's Day, they smell beautiful! Jacob and I got Nate a few of his favorites - Mt. Dew and Chocolate Chip cookies and Jacob found a DAD photo frame, around the word DAD it says, Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad (or something like that). Here's a picture of Nate and Jacob opening their presents together.

Jacob loves sitting in his Bumbo chair and playing with his toys.

Baby Jacob and Jericho meeting each other for the first time!

Baby Jericho is not sure about Jacob!

Jacob was enjoying being tickled!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Jacob can't write yet, but we can make his feet look like a heart! So here is Jacob's valentine out to all of you! (We couldn't make enough to send out to everyone, so this is the next best way, right?!)


The red paint on his feet in the earlier post is because of this little project. Jacob wanted to send his Aunt Sarah in Washington D.C. a special valentine, he misses her babysitting him and wanted to send his love!


We were able to make 2 other copies as well - one is proudly hanging in our kitchen on the fridge - Jacob's first artwork! The other will be going to his birthmother. We wanted to send something special to her as well. We continually pray for her.

I was also busy this week with another little project. I wanted to make my valentine's for my students this year rather than find some store bought ones...so here is what I came up with:

It was rather ambitious of me. Glitter was scattered throughout the kitchen, with a few sprinkles remaining around. They turned out pretty cute! I found this in an idea book for teaching and it recommended the students making it for their parents for v-day - boy am I glad I did not try to tackle this project with them! It was difficult (& messy) enough for a 26 year old, let alone a 26 year old trying to get 7 preschoolers (or 12 Kindergarteners!) to make it without making too great of a mess!

Speaking of preschool - we had a fun morning! It was Muffins with Mom day, so of course we enjoyed muffins and then we made sock puppets! (This was something I wanted to do with them, but not alone! A perfect day for such an activity.) The puppets are absolutely adorable and so unique from each others. Maybe I'll try to crop the pictures so take the people out so you can see them!

Well, it's another Friday night of Jacob and I home alone (we did spend a few hours this afternoon home together). Nate almost always works Friday night. (This really helps our daycare bill!) I'll have to try to get some cleaning done, tax documents ready for our appt in a few weeks, laminating to cut...I'm sure there is lots more to do, but that's my goal for tonight - we'll see what Jacob has to say about it all!

We look forward to meeting Jacob's cousin from Michigan this upcoming week. T, T & baby J are coming on Monday! The 3 Breen babies will all get to be together for the first time!

Have a fantastic weekend!

pictures, news, life...

Wow, a lot has happened since our last post - but to remember it all is a different story!Jacob loves standing up (not on his own) in his exersaucer or on someones lap. He is becoming a wiggle worm and loves arching his back on the changing table, thus making the diaper changing process become interesting. He is close to being able to sit completely on his own.

He has always been quite aware of what is going on around him, but he's learning to manipulate things to change his environment - his gym - the rattles that hang down, or the musical star that lights up and plays music, the exersaucer has many toys he's learning use. Everything goes in his mouth lately as he is working on teeth too.





Jacob also enjoyed his first superbowl party last Sunday. He was very well behaved and although he wasn't cheering for a specific team, mom and dad were cheering for the AZ Cardinals.




Earlier this week Jacob asked us to help him with a project. This is a sneak peak of that project. It was certainly adventurous and I'm so glad I had Nate's help. The last time I use paint with Jacob I did it solo and that was a mistake! So - we put our old clothes on, Jacob was stripped down to his diaper and away we went!


To the bathtub to wash up! This lil fellow LOVES bath time! The giggles and splashes are so fun to watch.

So those little baby towels don't do the trick any more for Jacob! We were given several (real) towels that had little hoods sewn on them, some with ribbon, duck heads, and this one with his name stitched on! They are super cute, and we're glad we went to the bigger, more absorbant, warmer towel. If you happened to be the giver of one of these to us, THANK YOU!

Spring training is just around the corner. Nate and Jacob are decked out in their cubs gear (I had my STL cardinals shirt on too). We had fun teasing each other about the others team. Who knows which team Jacob will like - perhaps he won't even like baseball!

Here's another shot. Nate's pretty excited to cheer on another season of his cubbies.

The past several weeks we have been taking a financial class called Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey. The goal of the class is to become debt free and 'live like no one else so we can live like no one else'. We have never had an official 'budget' before, but this month we are really hammering down. At the beginning of the month, this is what our refrigerator looked like:

Now, we did have food in the cupboards and such, but our fridge doesn't look too much different 10 days later. Are we eating?! Absolutely! Are we being careful what we buy at the grocery store? Absolutely! We only buy what we're going to eat for the week. That means a lot of food that goes in the freezer - burgers, chicken breasts, chicken nuggets, french fries. Then things like spaghetti, cereal, mac n cheese that go in the cupboard. Last week our food cost at the grocery store was $37.85! Yesterday I spent about $40 (my budget was $55!) I'd say so far we're doing good in that area.

The class lasts 13 weeks. The average family pays of $5,300 is debt and saves $2,700 in the first 91 days after beginning the class. We are enjoying the class and are SO glad we are in it. If you EVER have the chance to take a Dave Ramsey class, do it! It is so completely worth it and we look forward to being debt free.

If you want more info about this or have questions, let us know!

Here's a note from Jacob:

7vv75b5554zrcgtezgtzC scbvvbb 7u by6trtthujhh hh dfkk

Sorry it's been so long since we have posted, if you made it this far, way to go! It got pretty long, huh. We'll post Jacob's project picture at a later time! Blessings in the week ahead!

~N, MB, J