New Pictures!

I was so surprised to find new pictures of Aiden when I opened my e-mail this afternoon! Isn't he adorable? And he and Jordan have matching haircuts! He is 22 pounds, 30 inches tall and has 8 teeth. He's growing up too quickly!

Jordan's Summer Haircut

I love Jordan's hair. I think it is absolutely gorgeous and am often jealous of him wishing I had such beautiful hair. But today we cut it all off. I hated to have it done, but his hair is so dark and thick that it makes him very hot in the summer. We didn't mean to cut quite as much off as we did, but because Luke had never used the clippers on Jordan before and because Jordan was extremely wiggling during the whole thing, he ended up with a very, very short haircut. I keep telling myself that it will grow back and that it will help Jordan feel so much cooler this summer. Even so, I am sad that it is gone!

When Luke started using the clippers, Jordan started giggling like crazy! He kept saying that it tickled and moved his head all over. That sure made it challenging to cut his hair!



In an attempt to keep him somewhat still and seated we told Jordan that he could have a chocolate covered pretzel when he was all done. He loved that pretzel so much that he held it in his mouth instead of chewing it up and swallowing it. This made it hard to snap a good picture of him sporting his new haircut. Although I'm not a big fan of the new look, Jordan loved it! He couldn't stop looking in the mirror and staring at himself. When he first saw his haircut he said, "Haircut just like Grandpa Tim!" I don't see the resemblence there. Maybe more like Grandpa Dave's haircut.



When it came time to hose off Jordan's booster, he was right there to help. His new favorite sentence is, "Let me try!" This was no exception. His shorts were soaked by the time he finished "helping" to clean off his chair.

We found out last week that we will be able to send a gallon ziploc bag to Korea with gifts for Aiden. When the staff returns from their trip they will have more pictures, another update, and another video for us. I can't wait! Although I was excited to send Aiden more things, shopping for this was hard on me. I bought him some soft soled shoes for beginning walkers and I suddenly realized that I will miss out on Aiden's first steps. I don't know why I hadn't thought about that before, but it made me pretty sad. Hopefully his foster mother will take lots of pictures of him when he starts walking.

Here are all the items I purchased for Aiden along with a gift for the foster mother.

And here is everything crammed into the ziploc bag. I am still hoping to purchase a little toy for him before I have to mail it out on Thursday. It's amazing how much can fit into one ziploc bag!

Disappointing News

This week we received some disappointing news regarding the adoption. Due to the quota system that is in place in Korea, we will not be able to travel to bring Aiden home until sometime in 2012. We were sad to hear this as we were hoping to travel sometime in October or November. Before when people would ask when we were traveling I would always respond by saying that we hope to travel sometime before Christmas. In my mind I thought Christmas time would be the very latest it would be. But now I am hoping that we travel before Mother's Day next year. The waiting is very, very hard but we have peace knowing that Aiden is living in a loving foster home. Here is the most recent picture we have of Aiden taken back in March. He looks so cheerful! His birthday is coming up next month so we will be able to send him gifts at that time and will hopefully receive more pictures. We are gearing up for a long, long wait but know that the end result will be very sweet!

Easter

Once again we went to our church's Easter egg hunt the day before Easter. It was fun to see how much Jordan has changed since last year! All week I have been preparing Jordan for this and have been telling him that he has to put the eggs in his basket really fast. I said this because last year he only put one egg in his basket and spent the rest of the time studying the eggs. I soon realized that Jordan has grown up quite a bit since last year! The first thing Jordan said when I went to get him out of his crib in the morning was, "Go on Easter egg hunt now!" Since he's an early riser, he had quite a bit of time to wait until we could leave for church. Once the hunt started, I realized that Jordan really took my advice to heart. He seemed totally oblivious of all the action around him as he focused on putting as many eggs in his basket as he could. I think he probably had close to 15 eggs in his basket in less than 5 minutes! Here is Jordan getting ready to go on the Easter egg hunt. He woke up at 6:30 on Saturday and we didn't leave for church until 9:30. It was a long 3 hours because he kept asking every few minutes, "Go on egg hunt now?"


Here is Jordan looking up at his pink balloon. About 5 minutes after this picture was taken, Jordan let go of the balloon and it flew off into the sky. Luckily for him, our pastor saw it all happen and quickly found another balloon for him. But even today, 2 days later, Jordan said, "Jordie sad about balloon going in sky."

We invited our neighbors along. The last picture we have of Jordan and Reily holding hands was taken on Halloween. Reily was eating a sucker in that picture too!


This isn't the best picture because you can't see Jordan's face, but you can see all the eggs he is putting in his basket.

Jordan was pretty excited when we opened all the eggs and found candy inside!

On Sunday we went to church for Easter and Jordan thought we were going on another Easter egg hunt! He turned out to be a pretty lucky boy. Of course we didn't have another egg hunt at church but my parents set up a little egg hunt for him in their backyard. They also bought him a tee ball set for Easter. He was conflicted then because he couldn't decide if he would rather hunt for eggs or play with his tee ball set.

Jordan was very interested in seeing how Grandpa put the tee ball set together.

Minnesota

We recently returned from a short trip to Minnesota to visit Luke's family. The plane ride there was quick but a little stressful as Jordan was NOT happy about staying belted in on the plane! I saw a few people turn around in their seats to check out who was throwing the big tantrum. We were better prepared on the way home and kept feeding him Starbursts to keep him happy. I'm not one to permit junk food, but I was desparate! Jordan is a much better traveler in the car than he is on a plane! Other than that, our trip was wonderful! Jordan had so much fun spending time with his cousins. Even though the weather was a bit cold, we stayed so busy we hardly even noticed. It continues to be challenging to take good pictures of Jordan as he is always on the move! These were the best I could do. Here is Jordan with his cousin Jade. She was so good with him. She would play with him and would make sure he didn't get into too much mischief. If Jade lived near us, I think I would often be asking her if she wanted to come over and play with Jordan!

Here is Jordan with Jade and Isiah. I couldn't get Jordan to look at the camera.

We spent one morning at the zoo which was a lot of fun. This was the best picture we have of Jordan with all the Ford cousins.

Aunt Emily quickly became Jordan's best friend because she brought Wheat Thins along. The way to Jordan's heart is defintely through his stomach!

One afternoon we brought Jordan to the pool at Grandpa Tim's gym. I forgot my swimsuit, but Jordan had a lot of fun swimming with Daddy!

Notice how Jordan's swimsuit is coming off. There was a mandatory 10 minute rest period while Jordan was swimming. He thought that meant he was all done so he immediately tried to pull off his bathing suit. Luckily, we were able to distract him with this toy until it was time to go back in the water.

We also spent one morning at the Mall of America. Jordan loved it there because there were so many things to "drive." He loves arcades because they usually have these types of games. We never have to put any money in. Jordan is content just to pretend to turn the steering wheel and drive.

We also took Jordan on 3 rides at the mall. We learned that Jordan isn't afraid of speed as some of the rides went pretty fast. We were the only ones riding this little car ride. Jordan loved every minute of it!

Here we are waiting for the train ride to start. Jordan insisted on sitting in the front seat of the train because then he thought he was the one driving the train.

Jordan also loved riding on this little truck ride. He turned the steering wheel and honked the horn the whole time.

I had to include this picture because it shows how playful Luke is. Most adults sat in the back of the trucks and looked fairly bored. Luke was smiling and honking the horn the whole time. He sure is a fun Daddy!

Aiden Update

Today we received an update on Aiden. We were sad to hear that Aiden's finger was recently caught in a drawer while he was playing. Apparently, he likes to empty things out of drawers when he is playing. Sounds like another little boy I know! Anyway, his finger must have been caught pretty badly because the whole fingernail on the second finger of his right finger came completely off! The fingernail is starting to grow back now, but that's about all we know. It's hard knowing that our baby was hurt so far away from us and we are unable to comfort him. But we are so thankful to know that he has a loving foster mother to provide him with the comfort he needs! Here is some more information we received in the update:

• He likes to bathe


• He crawls on his knees and sits on his own


• He babbles a lot and is loud!


• He laughs when he is in a good mood


• Along with formula he has started to eat solid food. One food he likes to eat is rice wrapped in seaweed. This is so interesting to me because Jordan just loves seaweed! He requests it at every meal (no exaggeration!) Maybe he was fed seaweed as a baby too.


• He goes to bed at around 11 or midnight. I don't know what is up with that! That is way past my bedtime! We'll have to make some adjustments to that schedule after he comes home.

Although we were concerned to hear about Aiden's injury, we are so glad to hear that he is happy and healthy. It's been over 2 months since our paperwork made its way to Korea, so now we are down to a 6-10 month wait. It's hard being separated from our son, but we know he will be worth every minute of the wait!

I600 approval!

On Saturday we received a notice in the mail saying that our I600 has been approved! We were surprised this came so soon because we were just fingerprinted on March 4. With Jordan, it took much longer to receive this approval. So this means that until it is time to issue the visa, the U.S. side of things is basically done. Unfortunately, we are still in for a long wait as the Korean side of things is progressing very slowly. The next thing we are waiting for is EP (emmigration permission) but don't expect to hear that Aiden has that until September at the earliest.

When we went to get fingerprinted we told Jordan that we were doing it so that we could bring baby Aiden home. On the ride home from the appointment Jordan said, "Baby Aiden at Jordie's house now?" Ah, Jordan, I wish it were that quick and simple!