Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year despite the fact that we were spending a second holiday season without little Aiden. On Christmas Eve a new video of him arrived which was like another Christmas present for us. We were glad to see that he appears very happy and healthy. But as we have been able to tell these past few months from his pictures, he is not a baby anymore. He is walking around easily and seems very much like a growing toddler.

Even though we were missing Aiden, Jordan sure made the holidays fun! He was so excited to open his presents! Here he is right before we began opening gifts.

Jordan continues to be extremely curious about anything new. Here he is watching Daddy put the batteries into the remote control for his new truck.

Here's Jordan trying out his new vacuum cleaner. He always tries to help me vacuum, so I knew this would be a hit. He's not easily fooled, though. He kept trying to find spots on the carpet that looked dirty and always noticed when the vacuum wouldn't pick up the dirt. Nothing gets past him!

Here's our happy boy after all the presents were opened.

Jordan's big boy room!

Up until about a week ago Jordan was still sleeping in a crib. When he learned how to climb out of his crib about a year ago, we bought a crib tent to cover his crib because we knew he was not ready to sleep in a bed. He was way too busy! And he has happily slept in his crib for the past year with no complaints. But I knew that once he turned three it would be time to make the move to a big boy bed. I was hesitant to move him for many reasons. I knew that once we moved him the nursery would stand vacant which would make me think even more about the fact that Aiden was not home. But mostly, I was worried that once Jordan moved to a bed he would have too much freedom and would start making visits to our bed at night. Thankfully I was wrong! After just a little training, Jordan has learned to stay in his bed without getting up while he falls asleep at nap and bedtime, and has learned to call for us when he wakes up. After one week in the bed, he has not once gotten out of the bed without permission. Horray!

This is what Jordan's new bedroom used to look like when it was still a guest room.

Here's Jordan the day his new bed arrived. He was so excited and ran to get his play dough scissors to try to open the box.

Here's Jordan's new bed all set up with Grandma Deena's quilt on top. He loves the quilt and his truck sheets!

We had to make sure to find a good spot to hang the Korean flag!

Success! Here's Jordan sleeping at naptime. He continues to be a such a good napper. He naps so well that I often have to wake him up from his nap otherwise he wakes up super early in the morning.

New pictures

We received new pictures of Aiden today. This is my favorite one. He is currently 26.6 pounds, 33.9 inches tall, and has 16 teeth. I can't believe that he is already 18 months old and we haven't even met him yet! Most days I feel like I can be patient with the wait, especially those days when Jordan is extra energetic. The hardest part for me isn't waiting; it's knowing that Aiden keeps growing and getting older. Only 2 1/2 weeks until 2012! We are hoping and praying that things start moving quickly once the new year is here.

Ziploc bag #3

I'm very aware of how long the wait has been whenever it comes time to send another gift to Aiden. When we were waiting for Jordan to come home we only waited long enough to send one gift to Korea. With Aiden, we are now on our 3rd ziploc bag and have sent one Christmas gift and one birthday gift. I've become quite the expert at fitting a lot of items into a small space with all these ziploc bags! Even so, I wasn't able to fit all the items I bought into the bag.

Here are all the items I tried to fit into the ziploc bag. Jordan always wants to be doing what I am doing. I was taking a picture of the gifts, so Jordan needed to take a picture with his camera as well. Pardon the bare legs- Jordan just woke up from a nap and does not like to nap with pants on!

Everything fit except this sweatshirt! I wish I could fit into the ziploc bag as well so that I could travel to Korea too. At least we are finally approaching the end of our wait. I am really hoping that we can travel in less than 6 months!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween was so much fun this year because Jordan understood it for the first time. He was so excited to wear his costume and was obviously mostly looking forward to all the candy! My boy has a sweet tooth!

Doesn't he look cute all dressed up? We thought he was absolutely adorable!!

At first he wanted Luke or me to go with him to the door, but it didn't take him long until he felt comfortable going up to the door without us. Whenever he said thank you for the candy he always stood there and kept repeating thank you until the person responded with you're welcome.

"Us going to more houses?" Jordan said this to me everytime we walked back down someone's driveway. By the end of the night he was so tired and had to ride on Daddy's shoulders. When we made our way back to our street we wanted to stop at one more of our neighbor's houses. We had to work hard to convince Jordan to go to this last house because he kept saying, "I want to go home and share my candy with Grandma and Grandpa!" Of course, once we got home there wasn't a whole lot of sharing going on.

Jordan was wiped out by the end of the night!

This picture was taken a few days before Halloween but I think it is so hilarious. One day Jordan decided that he wanted to give all his stuffed animals an airplane ride. I have no idea where this came from! He lined up all of his stuffed animals on the steps, gave them each a peanut (that was my suggestion!), put on Daddy's sunglasses, and grabbed his steering wheel. It was so cute! He even gave the stuffed animals turns being the pilot.

Quota

I just wanted to write a quick post about the quota in Korea for those of you I forgot to tell. A couple months ago we found out that Korea passed a policy stating that they would expedite all adoptions to Korean heritage families. We were hopeful that we would be able to travel to Korea to bring Aiden home this fall because of this. However, a couple weeks ago we found out that the quota has now been met and that this policy is taking a long time to implement and probably won't affect our case at all. We were very disappointed but are just taking this time to enjoy being a family of three before the craziness of bringing home another child begins. I typically hate winter, but I am actually looking forward to January this year because that's when things will start moving in Korea again! We would appreciate your prayers that things will move quickly once the new year comes. Our baby is hardly a baby anymore. The last update stated that he is now 33 inches tall, 26 pounds, and has 16 teeth! I try not to think about all the milestones I'm missing!

Apple Orchard

A couple weeks ago we went to Crane's Orchard. The weather was beautiful! It felt more like August than early October. When we arrived we looked all over for a cart that we could use to transport our apples. We couldn't find one anywhere. But then all of a sudden Jordan came walking up pulling this cart. Leave it to him to find anything that has wheels!

Jordan only picked a couple apples before his shoes got wet from the grass. He can not stand it when his shoes have even a drop of water on them and has to take them off immediately. I told him that if he took off his shoes he had to ride in the cart. That was fine with him! He enjoyed being pulled around while eating an apple.

Here we are on a hay ride. Jordan loved this and kept wanting to stand on the hay so he could get a better look at the tractor.

Here's Jordan getting ready to go for a ride on the cow train. I thought he might try to get me or Luke to ride with him but he showed absolutely no fear or hesitation about riding alone.

Jordan spent a long time playing on this little tractor when we stopped for cider and donuts. For once he was more interested in something other than his food!

Here's a little sneak peak at part of Jordan's Halloween costume. It's not hard to guess what he is going to be. He is so excited!!

Truck Show

On Labor Day we brought Jordan to a truck show in Holland. Despite the cold weather, he had a wonderful time. No surprise considering there were tons of trucks for him to look at. He even had a chance to sit in some of them.

The first thing Jordan wanted to see was this flat bed trailer. Here he is eating fruit snacks while standing on it.

Jordan and Daddy climbing up the back of the fire truck.

Jordan pretending to drive the fire truck.

When I was showing Jordan these pictures I told him that this was a picture of him standing on the garbage truck. Immediately he corrected me and said that it is actually a recycling truck. Jordan sure knows his trucks!

Here is a picture of Jordan at home wearing a lei right before my school Luau. I had to include this picture because of his cute smile!

Jordan's 3rd Birthday

Last night I told Jordan that the next day would be his birthday. His first question was if he would be taller when he woke up in the morning. When I told him that it didn't work quite that way he said, "When Jordie eat birthday cake then I get taller and taller and taller?" Then I said that he wouldn't get taller from eating birthday cake but would get taller from eating all his vegetables. So this morning when Jordan woke up I reminded him that today was his birthday. His reponse was, "Did I eat all my vegetables?" I didn't realize Jordan was so excited about growing taller!

Here is Jordan checking out his excavator cake that I made. He was thrilled when he saw this cake but then said, "Mommy make an ice cream truck cake now."

Jordan was so, so excited to receive a package in the mail from Grandpa Tim and Grandma Deena. So Luke had the idea to save the box and put some of our presents to Jordan in the box. Then when my parents came over for his little birthday party, Luke told Jordan that the mail truck came during his nap and there was a present for him outside the door. Little does he know that the mail never comes on Sunday! He loved opening up the box and seeing all the presents inside!

Jordan received trucks for his birthday. Of course! That child never tires of getting new trucks!

Here's a shot of Jordan's birthday cake. Of course it had to be a truck cake!

Jordan couldn't wait to eat his birthday cake! Jordan is typically a pretty good eater but he finished his dinner in record time tonight because he couldn't wait to dig in to his cake.

Jordan was allowed to have his pick of the candy on the cake. It's rare for Jordan to be able to eat candy to his heart's content, so he was so excited. He ended up not eating much of it, but did take at least one bite of all the different types of candy that was on his cake.

Here's Jordan playing with the moon sand that my parents bought for him. It was messy, but Jordan loved it and used it to set up his own construction site.

Playing outside all day with Daddy + No nap= Falling asleep at the dinner table

Minnesota

We recently returned from our annual trip to Minnesota. Jordan survived the 10 hour car ride with very little whining. He did much better than last year thanks to a large supply of movies and my dad's DVD player!

This picture was taken at home, but I had to include it because of Jordan's cute smile. He loves eating nectarines!

Playing a game with Aunt Emily.

Playing with his cousin Alexa

Jordan's cousins Alexa and Logan

Jordan had so much fun with the Ford cousins!

Playing with his birthday present

This is a perfect birthday cake for Jordan!

Jordan's favorite thing to do at the cabin was driving the pontoon boat!

He also spent a lot of time swimming in the lake.