Jolynn and Rich's Russian Adoption Story

We had a great summer! Jacob turned three and time is flying by so quickly. Growing leaps and bounds and he has almost caught up with his big cousin. He loved playing with other children at summer camp so much that we decided he should return for preschool. His time in school has been wonderful, he is adapting well (so is his mommy) and really enjoying himself.

Been thinking about two years ago in Russia. Sort of distracting (in a good way) all this reminiscing and I have so much to do. Maybe if I write about it I will be able to get stuff done. We had a very rough start to our week. Due to a paperwork snafu the judge would not grant us permission to adopt. She asked that we stay until the paperwork from another region was delivered to the court. Already we had been in country for six days and we only had necessities for that week. Everything was running low our money, clothes, toiletries and medications - well we had nothing left. Changing flights was a nightmare, the folks in charge kept setting the date for the 2nd court hearing back almost everyday. At times it seemed that it would not work out and that we might lose the baby we had fallen in love with. It was a true test of our resolve to stay there and put up with all the rigmarole for another eight days.

We decided we are in this, we can stay and everyone back home was super supportive. So we bought more of everything we could, including some vodka and orange juice for me. Watched the same four movies over and over again. Went sight-seeing, ate out and fixed sandwiches in our room. Skype'd with folks back home, read books and visited with Jacob (best part). In order to not smell too nasty I washed our clothes in the bathtub. It was rainy and damp and it took forever for things to hang dry. Rich needed socks and they where all wet so I placed a pair over a lamp-shade. As you can see they uhm got burned and melted. I was embarrassed but we needed the laugh to lighten the mood. He put on those warm and dry socks, turned down the holey top and we went sightseeing.

Tractors are one of Jacob's favorite moving things. Last October Auntie Jennifer got married to Uncle RJ in a pumpkin patch. It was a wonderful day. He talked about this for weeks. And all the john deere tractors made him so happy. For Halloween he was a wolf. Best costume ever because it was so chilly that night.

We are doing super fantastically wonderful!! Our little guy is 2 1/2 and WOW he is growing so fast. Daily we work on mastering the potti, learning letters and numbers - oh and shapes and colors too. I am quite sure that he is smarter than me and knows how to manipulate me for whatever he wants. I of course have spoiled em a lil - just a lil.
I have so many pictures and would post them all but....
One for St. Patrick's Day, a lucky charm. The other was taken at Auntie Jennifer's house the weekend she got married last October. Jacob was a cute ring bearer. He got tried half way down the aisle and took a seat - too funny!!!

Jolynn

Jacob is getting so big. Last month he turned 2 and had a wonderful Birthday Party. Some of his favorite things are Diggers, Backhoes, Dump trucks and Big Rigs. Airplanes are also on his list. When he sees one of these wonderful moving objects he says "Wow, Wow it a ______." Rich and I have to acknowledge that we see it too or he will repeat himself over and over. So cute, to hear him so excited. I think his best friend (other than his Mommy and Daddy) is Elmo. His b-day cake had Elmo, Mr. Noodles and Dorothy as decoration. He Loved It! He has moved to the big boy bed now. Still potty training but that is just fine with us.

Everyone is doing Great! My sweet sister had a baby this past week and he is so precious at 5 lbs and 17 1/2". Just a lil peanut and so loved. Hope everyone is having a great Summer!!! Can you believe it is August already?

I haven't posted for a while so I thought I would check in and say hello. We bought a new video camera - a Flip. It's a pretty cool little gizmo. We can shoot 2 hours of footage and it's in HD. Well sort of. It's highly compressed HD but for the cost and ease of use, it's a fair trade. I'm glad we bought it because now we can have something on hand without having to mess around with batteries and videotape etc etc. So, here is a video of Jacob and his Grammy playing a balloon game:

Had my first Mother's Day! I really like being Jacob's Mommy. So much time was spent on waiting to become a Mom and it was all worth it! He is growing up so fast. He is starting to make decisions on what to wear and eat. And talking so much.

Tonight he tinkled in the big baby potty. We decided to teach him about it but not to push it in any way. But here at 21 months old he is starting. We three got so excited - I wish I had the "flip" out and turned on. The cowboy boots are a gift from Grand-daddy (who he calls P-daddy) in Texas. He wanted to wear them with his PJ's.

Thank you God for this gift!