Blind sided!

So last Saturday, Jacob decided after he peed in the potty that it was time to wear big boy underwear!  This was not something I had brought up with him for about a week - when we bought the sweet lightning mcqueen underwear.  In the morning, he sat on the potty, went, and on the way back to his room he said, I wanna wear big boy underwear!  I was shocked!  WHAT!?  Really?!  I'm not ready for this!  Nate looks at me in complete disbelief and says....uh...what do we do?  I said, we have to let him wear them!  And so the potty training begins!  He wore them for about an hour at a time last weekend, then after nap all week.  Yesterday he wore them for a couple hours at a time, and today, he went 6 hours staying dry!  With constant trips to the bathroom, persistence and patience (trying any way!) I am pretty amazed at how this morning/early afternoon went. 

Let me tell you, he's one happy boy in those underwear!  Even if they slide off his little bottom ;)  I was able to find some smaller, non-lightning ones - which was a problem for a day or two cause he ONLY wanted to wear lightning.  He also says, don't wanna get lightning wet....and usually when he says that that is our cue to get him to the bathroom.  It's funny how fast we jump up and run him off to the bathroom with those words. 

We'll see how this goes and hope for the best! 

I seriously stared at the blank screen for 5 minutes before deciding what to write...so I added a couple pictures figuring it would give me something to write about!  Almost 2 weeks ago we headed to a huge county fair to show Jacob the farm animals, huge equipment and to enjoy the beautiful day.  Which turns out those nice days are few and far between currently with the fun weather we are having.  Who knew at the end of September we'd still have to mow on a weekly basis!  The grass is a beautiful green and about half of my flowers are still flourishing.  We spend the nice days outside until the bugs get us, the mosquitoes are still going strong and those tiny little black bugs that people call "noseeums", I don't know if that is their real name or not. 

First time in a tractor.

Can you go to a fair without cotton candy?  Jacob had his first taste!  He didn't eat much and wanted more popcorn than cotton candy.

Jacob got some new sidewalk chalk for a birthday present and he's being very protective of it!  Check out his big belly!

See!  He's still holding the same chalks! 

My weekend is officially here and I'm very glad!  Our sinuses have been wrecking havoc on our bodies and I'm very happy for a few days to re-coop.  We also have had busy weekends since mid-August and are happy to have nothing on the agenda! 

Jacob and I were grocery shopping on Monday when we walked past the dairy to grab a gallon of milk.  Jacob points and says, there's brown milk!  Whoa, when did you learn the color brown?!  I was shocked and we had a little discussion about brown milk and I asked him if he wanted to buy some.  Of course he said yes, and I thought....ok!  Why not?!  Brown milk it is.  He also asks for it any time he wants a drink now, but he only gets it once a day, if that :)  Learning colors hasn't come easy for this boy - in fact I don't know that I've spent time on the color brown except for when we read it in the colors books we have.  Yeay Jacob!  A new hit book is Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?  It has sliding windows hiding the next animal to come and he is already reciting the book.  His favorite picture is the teacher (he wasn't influenced at all on this one!)

How's the potty thing going?  We finally feel like over the past month he has gained control over his muscles and can make himself use the toilet.  We haven't gone full force with the "potty training" thing yet.  This kid pees like no tomorrow and never has dry diapers!  If you have any potty training tips I'll take them and utilize them when we're ready to this thing completely!  This is one area that I feel very unprepared for!

Our family pictures went very well, there are a couple sneak peaks on my facebook page, but we haven't seen the bulk of them yet.  I'll post a link once they are up! 

Last week was one of "those" weeks.  Ya know, when things don't go right and the constant small fires that a mom puts out all day long and 'your' list of stuff doesn't get accomplished because you're playing and as soon as you turn your back to ....do whatever is on your list....things are out of hand.  Jacob decided to play with the phone (landline) - I was talking to Nate on my cell phone, Jacob was "all done" talking to daddy.  Our landline phone has a phone book in it and 911 is automatically saved in it.  Who would have guessed that by random pushing of buttons Jacob would have called 911?!  That's right, not only 911, but he thankfully pushed the speaker phone button.  I ran from the kitchen to the living room to grab the phone from him and kindly explain to the dispatcher that everything was indeed fine, there was no emergency while constantly apologizing for my just 2 year old son somehow calling 911. 

Then another day I went into the bathroom for hardly any time at all - don't even know what I went in there to get, but by the time I had returned, Jacob had moved a kitchen chair over to the fridge where he had a stacking cup (with holes in the bottom) that he wanted to drink from.  He pushed the water button continously (I'm guessing) until his cup filled up, which didn't fill up because it has holes in the bottom!  I'm just really thankful that I found this out when I did because there was plently of water to fill a fish tank.  Jacob just stands and looks at the water and says, messy.  I make mess.  I wipe it up, mommy need towels.  Ah, these are the days, right?! 

How do they (kids) know when you desperately need/want them to take a nap - early - because you need to leave before they usually wake up.  Or fall asleep in the car 5 minutes before you arrive at your destination when you've been riding for 45 minutes.  Can you tell I like [NEED] control?  Personality is good and kids need a little streak in them, right!?

Tonight we had Jacob's picture taken.  He was a HAM for the first half.  Absolutely hilarious.  We can't wait to see our sneak peek.  We were at a very fun location that Jacob loved.  Hope we got some good ones - but not TOO many that's it's hard to choose from ;o)

Oh, and he peed in the potty again!  It's been awhile since he had done this, so we were very excited for this to happen tonight before bed. 

Stay tuned for a sneak peek here, or a link to one. 

Jacob enjoys Lincoln Brewster at Lifelight

I don't remember how to post videos from youtube here, so this is a trial!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMGcYGhfy2M

Then and Now

First family picture together 2 year ago

First car ride - 2 years ago

Precious boy sleeping after his 2 year dr. appointment this afternoon - 2 years after we first met him!

A different angle :) 

Since it is naptime currently I'm trying to play a little catch up and get things sorted, organized....but I need to sit down and reflect on the now.  I just spent time reading our posts from Aug. & Sept. 2008 along with the comments.  I look back and just stand amazed at God's goodness. 

We had his 2 year check-up today - I had no clue where he was with his height/weight since we hadn't been to the dr. since his 18 mo appt.  He came in at 25 lbs 5 oz and is 32 1/4 inches tall.  He's just perfect. 

We look forward to some camping this weekend as we attend the Lifelight music festival.  We haven't used our tent since last year at the festival, so hopefully it goes well.  The weather sounds gorgeous and the music line-up sounds great too.  I am looking forward to getting away, but the packing pre and post trip are not the joys of my life.  I tend to OVER pack - on clothes, food, blankets.....but, it's a high of 75, low of 50, we're sleeping on the ground - not even an air mattress folks, and the food at the vendor stations is way over priced and we can't let dave down, plus, you just never know what J will decide he wants (or doesn't) want to eat, so variety is good.

And by the way, it's SEPTEMBER TODAY?!  wow. 

desperate words

Most people who know us do not mark today as a 'special day'.  It's not our anniversary, either of our birthdays, wasn't the day we brought Jacob home into our family, in fact, Nate probably doesn't even remember why this date is significant...this date marks the date 3 years ago that we were told some very desperate words, that we would not be able to conceive children.  We sat in shock in the dr. office, trying to hold our composure just enough to make it home.  I remember sobbing with each other on our bed wondering what God's plan for us was.  We were devastated.  Eventually work was calling, tear stained faces left each other because I had to go back to teach (I left one assignment a little early to make it to this appointment and would be back to my next appointment after lunch.)  Quite honestly we were blind sided by this news.  We had absolutely no clue this was the news we were going to hear.  It was only through God's strength that I was able to go back to school and teach that afternoon. 

We had already made plans to be away from each other that night - Lifelight was underway and a dear friend of mine and a couple young gals would be heading with us up to Sioux Falls, I couldn't cancel, plus Nate had to work.  It was an extremely difficult 24-36 hour time span.  Nate arrived as soon as he could and we carefully listened to what God was saying to us. 

Fast forward about 2 months - there had been a small glimmer of home - we decided to have a procedure done to see if that would allow us to have children, the procedure did not accomplish what we had hoped...another devastating dr. appointment.  It was some time in November that we had heard that news and proceeded to follow God's calling in our marriage and family...we both felt like adoption is where he was leading us.  We did some research, made some phone calls and within a month and half we were taking the step of faith and starting the adoption process. 

And, if you have been following our blog, the beginning of our blog starts and you know the rest! 

Jacob turns two tomorrow!  Amazing!  Crazy!  Beautiful!  We have the most amazing little boy and are in complete awe of who he is, what he does, what he knows.  This boy is perfect in our family.

So despite the hurts of what today stands for, there is a precious little boy who fell asleep in daddys arms this afternoon and it's so adorable; the childbearing pain, swollen body, the hospital wrist bands, cutting an umblical cord...ya know...the list goes on...we have stretchmarks in many other ways and we still have times where we long to be able to conceive and it hurts.  But we go on trusting.

We look forward to celebrating Jacob's official birthday tomorrow and praying God gives him many, many more birthdays to celebrate!

Happy 2nd Birthday Jacob!

So the real date is actually Monday, but we partied today!  He loves airplanes and adored his cake!  It's so amazing that 2 years ago we didn't even know about this child, let alone where we would be 2 years later with a very handsome, intelligent, energetic boy.  We are in awe of him.

Have a great weekend!  It's a little breezy here, but very sunny and a bright blue sky.