Fun in the snow - upside down snowman

Jacob really enjoys being out in the snow.  The cold doesn't seem to bother him, other than creating the lovely eleven drip from the nose, but with tissues kept handy in the garage, we're all good :)  

Running and jumping on sleds have been fun with his neighbor girl (almost sister :))  

This child is pretty fearless...this could cause problems later??  

While he was busy playing, I had fun creating!  This snowman is standing on his head and it was harder to build than a normal snowman!

Despite winter being my least favorite season, I must say we've had it pretty good this winter.  When the snow has come, it hasn't staying for months like in previous winters or snowed in feet!  We've overall had a mild winter, I think my students at school have only played inside a few times due to too cold of temperatures.  And now my husband just informs me that we're forecasted to get 5-8 inches of snow tonight/tomorrow and the weatherman on tv just said extremely hazardous conditions with poor visibility....guess I spoke too soon!  


That makes me sad because my beloved 3 year old is suppose to go on a field trip tomorrow to the Pizza Ranch, where Nate just happens to be working with his trainee tomorrow.....this may be the first time I pray for the weatherman to be wrong, that the weather misses us, so we can have school!!!!  (If there is even a late start I don't have preschool and Jacob doesn't have nursery school!)


Well, we are off to gymnastics, must go wake my son who has been asleep for 2 1/2 hours...who has most adamant that he was not tired and didn't need to sleep...mother's intuition!


More posts to come as I'm trying to get my life organized and caught up!  Perhaps a snow day would help me to do that though!  ha!

Snowball fight with dad!

Several weeks ago when Nate came home from work I made him finish shoveling the snow that I was too tired to finish.  Jacob went out to play too, which turned into a snow ball fight, so much fun!!!  I was watching from the window, smiling so big.  There is just something about a son having his daddy to play with - it's different then mom...even though we can have snowball fights too!  I couldn't stand it any longer, grabbed the camera, and caught some fun pictures.  


Can you imagine what it will be like in 2-3 years when there are two little boys attacking their daddy with snowballs!?  


Lately, I have been asked how Jacob is liking the idea of a brother and how's he going to handle it...let's just say that on Monday he was playing and making up his own songs (love that creativity!), I was in the living room, he was in his bedroom.  When I was able to faintly hear what words he was actually singing, I grabbed my phone to take a video.  He was singing something to the effect of this:  i love my baby, he loves me, me and my baby, me and my baby, my baby's my best friend.  I didn't capture all of it, unfortunately!  Of course, when I asked him to sing it for me again, he wouldn't.  If I can figure out how to upload it from my phone straight to the blog, I'll post it.  Not sure how the quality will turn out either.

It happened!

The date was October 13, 2011, the time was approximately 5:30 pm when the phone rang and it was our social worker explaining that we had been chosen by an expectant family.  The details were limited, including the due date, but I could hardly contain myself!  I was in disbelief at first (as if our social worker was going to call us with this information as a joke...) duh, she was serious!  I wanted to capture that moment on the camera (thankfully it was put away correctly - where it belongs) and was able to take a self-portrait receiving "the news"! 

I immediately tried calling Nate's cell phone (he was on schedule to work that evening), he didn't answer, so I immediately redialed, figuring he would see it was me calling right back and would answer.  Fail.  So I tried calling the restaurant phone number...twice...busy.  So I sent a text "You MUST call me!"  (Thankfully that bit of information was still on my phone as I could not remember just now.)  I figured that would get the point across.  It scared him, but he called!  It was so fun to be able to share that news with him, but so bummed it had to be over the phone and we weren't planning on seeing each other for several hours.  I had two events on my schedule that evening with a potential third....the third was now a must (gathering at Nate's parents with some of his family to celebrate his uncle's 60th bday)...but we HAD to share our news, there was NO WAY we were going to be able to keep it a secret, but we had to decide what we were and were not going to share - via text messages and Nate on one side of the phone giving generic answers as I talk freely on my end.  I was late to my 2 events - seeing family members at those or on my way to those and sitting in a room full of other adoptive or perspective adoptive families...including our social worker and I had to keep the secret!!!!  CRAZY!


The next day or two were complete blurs!  We made phone calls to immediate family, entrusted them to secrecy and prayed and made a couple of preparations.  We didn't know if this child was to be born in 2 weeks, 2 months....etc.  I washed some "immediate" things, cleaned up a few items and lavished over the tiny baby clothes again!

I did decide to call the social worker back on Friday to ask a few more questions, clarify and get my emotions under control!

Saturday we were able to get a few more details - mainly that due date wasn't until MAY!  Wow, we have a long time to wait, but are thankful for this time for sure.  Gives us time to adjust, figure things out and let it all soak in.  We are going into this cautiously excited, thrilled and looking to God to guide us through each step of this journey.  It's hard to wait  not knowing any information, but it's hard to wait knowing information too!  Things could all change and we pray that God may be at the center of all decisions and the child's best interests are taken into consideration.

So the next 30 or 29 or 31 weeks...whatever it may be...will be challenging.  We ask that you pray for all involved and that the Lord's will be done.

The cat's out of the bag

With our news out of the bag, there is more information to share as well!  Today we celebrated Nate's moms birthday, so we made a cake from her grandchildren.  The bottom middle child is the "unknown gender" baby.

They noticed something special about the inside of the cake...

It's blue!!!  It's a boy!!!!  Jacob is so EXCITED to be and have a brother!  He still occasionally says "she/her", but we're trying to get the correct pronouns.  We're very excited as well - I loved most of Jacob's clothes and kept them, so unless the baby grows like his cousin (super fast), we shouldn't need a ton of clothes, and the other blue things we have will work!  I'm excited thinking about my boys sharing a room, having bunk beds together, playing football/baseball/whatever together in the backyard.  Boys are boys and those of you who have boys know that boys play different from girls and I'm excited that they will have each other :)  Ah!  Be still my heart!  I love it and the next 3 months...100 DAYS TO BE EXACT (TIL DUE DATE!!!)  will be filled with such anticipation.

Since we've known about this for awhile, and you're just finding out (some of you have known for awhile), but it's old news for us, but exciting to share!  There's always questions people have for us, and it's perfectly fine to ask us questions, but just please understand that there are some things that we have decided not to share about said child's history/information.  Here's some of the basics....the baby's expectant parents live in Iowa, due date May 15, boy, in case you missed it.  Can they change their mind? - absolutely.  Is that their right?  Absolutely!  There is nothing in writing until post birth.   Does that scare us?  Absolutely!  Does that keep us from getting attached and loving this baby and his biological parents?  NO! 

All adoptions are different, and obviously this is completely different than Jacob's story, to which we are very glad.  (Not that one is better than another, I'm just glad they will have different stories.)  We have met expectant parents of the baby and have enjoyed having time getting to know them and building relationships with them.  This is not an easy journey for any of the parties involved and so we ask for prayer!  God is in control, PRAISE HIM!  Amazing.  Honestly, God's hand was in this from the beginning and we know and trust that His will will be done with this child and our family. 

Over time, we will probably go "private" with our blog until after finalization (the court hearing that happens 180 days after placement that is the final step in the adoption process).  When we decide to do that, you will have to email us your email address to add you to the "list".  I haven't researched that at all yet, but I think it's something like that...I will post instructions for how to do it, once we decide to go that route.  Why do we plan to do that?  To protect the child, us and the biological family.  If we didn't go private, we wouldn't be able to post pictures on here of the child - and I'm guessing especially family will want to see pictures of the dear one since we live so far away!  

So...that's our goings on of lately!  Ha!  We hope that you can share in our joy and excitement.  Thanks for following along on our blog! 

Fun in the Snow

 We have been busy playing in the snow the past couple days around here.  And for some reason, that makes me extremely tired!?  I've been awake for 13 hours today, and I'm exhausted.  The house is quiet, Jacob's asleep, Nate's at work, I'm in bed typing on the laptop falling asleep. 

Yesterday (or was it Monday?  See, I told you...I've worked one day this week, they're all running together and I can't keep my some what busy life together) I had a great idea to put food coloring in spray bottles and we could spray the snow and it'd be fun.  It was!  I wish I had 4 spray bottles so we could have done all the colors at once, but yesterday Jacob settled for yellow and red.  Maybe the yellow will keep people out of the yard?!  ha!

'

While we were running around playing, he plopped into the snow and started making a snow angel.  As I was taking a movie of him, I asked him what he was doing, he said, "I'm making a snow angel, I love it!"  It was so cute, and such a good snow angel I might add as well.

Today, Wednesday, I didn't have school!  We had some ice in the night which caused some travel problems and schools to call for late starts, which results in a snow day for me!  After getting some work done inside during the morning hours, Jacob wanted to head outside this afternoon, which was a great idea.  We prepared the spray bottles with green and blue this time, put all of our gear on and headed out!  It was a glorious day, warmer temperatures to make the snow excellent packing snow!  While we were making a snowman Jacob shouts, SNOW BALL FIGHT!  And pelts me with snow :)  It was awesome, we had our own little snow ball fight, with lots of laughing, tackling and throwing snow!  If you ask him, he won!  I'm not sure what causes him to think he won, but he's got quite competitive nature to him.  (which definitely has it's pros and cons.)  The following pictures are a progression of a portion of our snowball fight...

The gathering of snow...

The handful of snow...

The wind-up...

ahhhhhh!

the follow through!  And proud that he goes his mommy.

Our snowman!  However, it's missing something, I realized it after I took the photo that we weren't quite finished.  Afterwards, he wanted a kid-size snowman, this was after he asked for a snowman as tall as our tall bush at the corner of our house.  By the way, we built our snowman to face our house, so we could look at him out our front window.  So the street gets his rear side.  I guess we could have made him two sided, but who likes a 2 faced person?

So I made him a kid size snowman, cause let's face it, he did nothing to build these guys except pelt them with snowballs!  He got to spray his snowman in his own artful way. 

 Do you think he liked it?!  You betcha!  Perhaps tomorrow we'll have to go out with some red and yellow to spray on the snowman and make him even crazier.

Truth is, I wasn't sure how the food coloring bit would go, I would say success!  I'm not sure if it stains - thankful for black and brown snow gear!  So if you have light colored snow gear, I would take caution, but otherwise, I just filled a spray bottle with water, then diluted it with food coloring.  I probably got this idea from pinterest or something, I'm not sure, can't remember - that's my state of being lately.

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On another note, Jacob and I are enjoying a morning at home - the schools had a late start, so I don't teach!  Hooray!  He's looking forward to playing in the snow. I am going to try to gather some spray bottles and mix water with food coloring and he can color the snow!  I may regret this later, who knows, but it sounds like a good idea!  I'll post pictures if it turns out.

Snowy Day!

We *finally* got an actual snow fall!  We had one back in early December, but nothing worth it since, just dustings of snow.  I never did hear a final accumulation amount, but my guess is 4-6!?  So, 5?  I didn't get my measuring stick out, but maybe tomorrow.  Or not, it's suppose to be quite windy and COLD, temperatures below zero.  By the way, I'm ready for the swimming pool season.  If you got our Christmas letter, we frequent that place a lot in the summer and I miss it!  (I'm living in the wrong region.)

Today was quite cold as well, but when the sun came out, it did warm up to go out for awhile.  I was able to move snow around for awhile and Jacob had fun playing in it!  

I love his playful look here.

Copying the neighbor running and sprawling out onto the sled to go sliding down the drive way (not into the road of course).  

After our time outside we warmed up with some "warm cocoa" as Jacob calls it.  He loves to help make things in the kitchen, for breakfast we made scrambled eggs together and then his cocoa.  Such a helper.  I took a picture on my phone to send to Nate, I suppose to I could put it on here, but it's not the best quality photo and it looks similar to a previous picture in a post where he is drinking his cocoa.

I'm secretly(guess it's not a secret any more) hoping the next snowy day falls on one of my school days :)  It was my day off today so I didn't get the thrill of waking up to a no school notification.   I am also hoping to get to enjoy a Saturday of sleeping in - bring it on!  I'm a night owl (hence this is my 3rd post tonight), prefer staying up late to accomplish things than to arise early.

Have you noticed a few blog changes?  I'm enjoying the traffic notice - we've seen people from Hawaii, California, Minnesota, Illinois, Colorado, small towns around here that we don't know people in....interesting!  We're quite curious as to who you all are and how you have found our story. (Obviously we do have family in some of those places listed, but not the specific towns that's always coming up!)  Leave a comment or send us an email!  Thanks for checking in.