Gotcha Day Adventure Year 1

Thursday marks one year since they placed our son in our arms and we became a family.  We decided to celebrate each year by doing a family activity together.  This year we went to the zoo.  Yes, we went a few days early.  Camps start next week and even with school being out for the summer the level of activity at our house is pretty high.  Getting ready to move, getting ready for camp, summer athletic workouts, etc.  We already needed to visit a bigger town to get concession supplies, so we just made the zoo part of the excursion.  The camera battery died about a third of the way through the zoo, but at least you get some pictures.  We also took video, but that seems to take forever to upload on my tired laptop.  So, here a few pictures of our first annual Gotcha Day Adventure

Standing beside my favorite zoo animals, pink flamingos

Xavier climbing like a monkey in the children's area

A pygmy hippo yawning

Xavier with the "pretend" lions.  We didn't see the real lions.

Up close and personal with a tiger

Xavier and Daddy playing in the bamboo

We actually went to the zoo together in Moscow almost a year ago and I would love to post some comparison photos, but I guess they are all saved on J.J.'s computer.  Maybe another day.  We had a great time at the zoo!  Thank you Lord for a full year with our wonderful Xavier Aleksey Manning!!

"No!"

Xavier has decided the word no is a good thing to say in all occasions and to every person.  I was sort of waiting for this stage to hit (please let it be a stage) because every small child seems to learn and enjoy the power of the word no, but I secretly hoped we could just skip it.  Oh well!  I think about how Xavier interacted with us and with other people when we brought him home almost a year ago.  He would go to anyone.  He showed very few preferences or dislikes.  It took something major to make him cry.  Now he is full of opinions and ideas.  He knows exactly what he wants and he has discovered how to express it.  I am so thankful he is comfortable enough in his new world that he doesn't fear rejection for disagreeing with us.  Don't get me wrong.  When I ask him to say "Hello" to a friend at the grocery store and he screams "No!" while turning his head and growling I don't have any warm fuzzy feelings.  Or when we ask him to eat more bites at supper and he say "No!" while banging his fork on the table I don't gush with love and tenderness.  I just have to remind myself in quiet moments like now that this is normal and so much better than the silent, emotionless, little boy we first met.  But it is just a stage, right?

Big Changes

So after a long time of praying, and thinking, and discussing, and praying some more J.J. and I have made some big decisions.  We believe God has a different direction for our lives and our ministry.  J.J. will no longer be pastoring the Follett Chapel.  We made the announcement to the church Sunday night.  I was so nervous.  When we moved here 5 years ago and J.J. started filling in at the church we didn't imagine we would become the pastor, but we fell in love with the people and the community.  We couldn't see anyone else serving in that position so we agreed together to take on this new role.  J.J. had never been a pastor, although he is ordained, and everything was new for us.  The church has stood by and supported us through all the growing and changing and we hope we can give back some as the church transitions to new leadership.  We don't know what God has planned for the Chapel, but you can't make decisions, or not make decisions, out of fear.  We believe that if God has moved on our hearts to make this change that He will bring the right person to fill the role of pastor.  The interesting thing is that we are not leaving Follett.  God has not changed our heart for this place or these people.  We plan to stay here and see what new things He has planned.  J.J. will keep teaching and coaching at the school.  I'm going to continue staying home full time with Xavier.  We are looking to purchase a house in town.  I wish I could have talked about this for all the months that we have struggled over this decision.  It might have helped to write things down, but it just isn't one of those things you share until it's over.  We really don't know what the next few months will look like, but we just want to keep trusting the One who is never surprised because He already knows how things will turn out.

Re-Finalize Advice

We need to have Xavier's adoption re-finalized soon.  Our agency is changing some of it's post-adoption home visit criteria which basically means if we don't get things done by April 30th we will have to pay for an extra visit from our social worker.  I contacted the pre-paid legal service we use yesterday and they are working on getting a lawyer for us.  Does anyone have any advice??  It seems like a relatively straight forward thing, but I've never used a lawyer and we don't have time to mess things up or hit snags.  Thanks in advance!

An Easter in pictures

All dressed up to celebrate Jesus' resurrection 

The boys making silly happy faces

A family picture (Thanks Miss Cathy for stopping and taking our picture)

Finding eggs at the community Easter egg hunt

Getting some candy with Granny

Go speed racer!

Going down the slide

Dying Easter eggs with Momma

It says "X-A-V-I-E-R". I promise!

Ending the day with a stick (mop) horse ride with Pookie

Happy Easter everyone!  We hope you all enjoyed this day of celebration as much as we did.  Who's in the tomb? Nobody!!

Sometimes the best things happen by accident

I read about a fun outdoor water activity on this post from another super cool adoptive mom.  (which actually originated at this blog Play at home Mom)  Xavier likes all things water so it seemed like something he would enjoy. We've been having what I would call unseasonably warm days so we put our water gear on and headed out to the backyard to try it.  I had old guttering around the house so this "water slide" game was free, minus the cost of running water for extended periods of time.  I put a tub at the bottom to collect the water and showed Xavier how the toys and boats could go down the slide.  He never seemed to give the slide more than a glance.  He did enjoy splashing in the tub for a few minutes and then headed off to activities of his own choosing.  I called it a worthwhile, yet unsuccessful attempt.  Later this week he actually asked for the water slide.  I thought maybe we were making progress.  At least he remembered what it was called.  I set everything up and he spent even less time exploring.  Curious.  I decided to make some mud shapes/pies just for fun.  Xavier is still picky about anything sticky, wet, or slimy on his hands.  I did not expect him to join me and sure enough he started playing with bubbles.  Inevitably the bubble solution split and he asked for more.  I had to wash my muddy hands with the hose and that's when the interesting accidental thing happened.  Xavier suddenly was very curious about the water running out of the hose and over my hands.  He watched me intently, let me splash us with water, and did his own share of splashing.  Before it was finished he had spent a good 20 maybe 30 minutes holding the water hose while drinking, splashing, and watching the water flow.  Of course there are no pictures of our water exploration because I didn't plan it and it is very hard to hold a camera while being splashed by a two year old.  You'll just have to trust me that it produced many smiles/laughs and gave Daddy's grass a good watering.  I do have a cute video of him blowing bubbles.  Now that I've figured out the link tool maybe I can conquer uploading video.

Fat, calories, and other things you usually avoid

Thanks everyone for reading and responding to my last post.  I know I didn't specifically ask for advice, but I appreciate those of you who gave it.  We really sat down and looked at the food Xavier was eating and decided he actually might not be getting enough calories/fat in his diet.  It was sort of a foreign thought to us.  We have been working on eating low calorie, low fat food as adults who need to lose/maintain weight and Xavier eats what we eat. So, even though he was eating yogurt, it was non-fat and so on and so on.  Yesterday was our weekly trip to the grocery store and J.J. got to accompany us because he is on Spring Break. Hooray!!  We had to really examine the food we bought.  Believe it or not it is somewhat difficult to find higher fat yet still nutritious foods.  I guess I need to research foods with "good" fat, but I didn't do that before grocery shopping.  We just tried to substitute some of our normal low-fat choices with the more normal fat kind.  Does that make any sense?  So I am going to try to give more attention to Xavier's diet and see how that goes.  He ate a whole Nutella to go snack during church last night, so that is a start.  I am still open to more advice in the weight gain vs keeping healthy foods on the plate issue.  I think they can be compatible if we work at it.  I'll keep you updated on our progress.  Happy eating everyone!