10 months old...

Ian is 10 months old today. Time flies. He is starting to get the hang of crawling, but prefers to scoot. He also loves to stand, with help. He is having a good time experiencing new foods as well. His favorites so far are steak and macaroni and cheese. He is still practicing picking up food by himself.

Ian is starting to enjoy sleeping in his crib. He has slept through most of the night the last few nights. When he does wake, he usually just needs either a diaper change or to be topped off with a bottle.

Merry Christmas

We reflect upon our Savior's birth and the long journey that Mary and Joseph took before He was born.
We spent Saturday and Sunday trying to fly out to Oregon to spend Christmas with Dana's mom and step dad, Bruce. Since we knew we wanted to spend the holidays with them and Mike and Allison and the kids, we bought tickets in April. People frequently make comments to us about always flying standby and the chances we take trying to get from one place to another, including overseas travel. While we enjoy the thrill of travel and always having a backup plan when we fly standby, there was some relief to having paid tickets, including not having to dress up for our flight. We all took the opportunity to wear jeans on the plane, a luxury we don't have flying standby. We did not get out of Milwaukee on Saturday due to fog. This is a nightmare situation for airlines to have bad weather during one of the busiest travel times of the year. Each flight that is cancelled means lost revenue for them. We were rebooked on a flight through Chicago, not our first choice but the only one we were given, for Sunday. We arrived at the airport with over an hour to spare. They were not able to give us seats together, but at least we were on time, or so we thought. We waited at the United gate and started to get nervous when we were about 20 minutes from departure time. The crew from Skywest, that was flying the United Express flight, came to the gate looking for the agent to board. They asked us to tell the agent they were ready for departure and just needed the passengers on board. Well, at departure time, the agent finally showed up and boarded. We were about 15 minutes late leaving. The captain came on and told us since we were late, we missed our landing slot into Ohare. We would have to wait 30 minutes to leave. We had a short connection in Chicago to get to our Portand flight, so we asked the flight crew 3 different times to check on our connection. No luck. We finally arrived into Ohare and no ground crew to bring us in to the gate. We finally got off the plane to discover our flight, which had already been scheduled to depart, was delayed and scheduled to leave in 5 minutes. Well, we were in concourse C and our Portland flight was in concourse B, needless to say, we did not make it. We stood in line at customer service to find out there was no other flight that we could be confirmed on. We could stand by, but the agent stated that we would likely not make any of the flights due to heavy overbooking. Being tired and frustrated, we were told our bags were in Chicago and to go to Baggage Services to get our bags. Upon arriving there, we were told that since our bags were checked through to Portland, our bags were going there without us on the next flight. So we were without a flight and without bags...and all 3 carseats! We finally made it home via bus to Milwaukee and Madison (with a carseat we had in our van thankfully). Still no word on our bags other than they arrived in Portland on Sunday. We are hoping that we will get some word on our bags and carseats soon. We are making the best of a disappointing situation. Time with our family and bonding with Ian at home.
Wishing you and your family a Merry Christmas and we look forward to seeing you in the new year!

Home for the Holidays....

We are looking forward to the possibility of traveling out tomorrow to Eugene, Oregon to see Dana's mom and step dad for Christmas. We tried to fly out of Milwaukee today, but due to fog, most of the flights were cancelled out of the Milwaukee airport, including ours. After battling the crowds and getting in line to rebook, we are now planning on leaving Sunday afternoon. Thankfully, Dana was able to take care of the rebooking while Justin drove around with 3 sleeping kids in the car. We are praying for smooth travels tomorrow and not the snow predicted that could delay or cancel us again. Who would of thought that after buying tickets we would not be able to fly????

We received a nice gift from Rosie, a co-worker of Justin, which included a Simply Said book called Congratulations on your Adoption. In it there is a nice part in it that touched us, it reads...We know at times your journey seemed long...and the wait never-ending, but when you look into your child's eyes, you know your dear one was hand-picked in heaven's timing.

We celebrate this Christmas with 3 blessings from heaven! We are thankful to God for His timing in this, though it was a tough journey, we praise Him for bringing our children into our lives.

Doctor Visit

We had a challenging time at the doctor yesterday. We arrived at Ian's first official physical with our pediatrician, Dr. Yu. Ian is very healthy and the ear infection is gone...hooray! The visit went well until we found out that he needed 2 more vaccines and a TB skin test, which is part of his routine adoption checkup. Ian just fell asleep and in came the nurse to do the TB skin test then another nurse to help with the two injections. Needless to say, we had a VERY unhappy baby. To top things off, we had to get blood drawn, 7 vials of blood, and a chest x-ray. Not a fun afternoon. Thankfully the kids were able to be at school until 3, so they did not have to be at the doctors office with us. It would have been hard to keep them occupied and happy for 2 hours.

We are settling in and getting into a little routine now. He is teething, so there is still some discomfort with that. He is enjoying having a sister and brother (at least most of the time). We are looking forward to Christmas and New Years. We hope to see family and friends over the next few weeks so that we can introduce Ian to the many people that have been praying for him.

Settling In

We're starting to settle in. Ian is sleeping during the night rather than wanting to play. Last night he slept from 8pm until 2:45pm, drank a bottle, then slept until 7am. I'm not sure he's still 100% comfortable with us, but he's adjusting well considering the upheval in the last two weeks of his life. He seems to really enjoy Ben as he smiles easily when he comes over to play with him. I also love it when he smiles when I come in the house. That's the best part of coming home from work - having the kids yell excitedly "Daddy" and then to see Ian smile at me. I know it sometimes makes Dana feel bad because she spends all day tending to them so she doesn't get the exuberant entrance. But she is a wonderful mother and the kids love and appreciate her deeply as do I.

I'm back to work full time now. Last week I worked less than 20 hours - I could get used to that, but it probably won't pay the bills. Tomorrow Ian has an "adoption checkup" doctor visit so I'll skip out of work on a long lunch for that.

Yesterday, we introduced Ian to our friends and church. Until that point, we'd stayed pretty close to home trying to give him time to get used to us.

This weekend, we're going to test that bond as we get on an airplane and head to Oregon for Christmas with Dana's parents. We bought the tickets (yes, we actually bought tickets) for the trip back in April and thought we'd have Ian home for a couple of months by this time. Oops, so much for planning in advance. Now I see there is possible snow on Saturday. We'll just take this one day at a time.

Tonight I'm working on our Christmas letter, hoping to get it out to everyone before Christmas. Thank you to everyone who has sent cards and letters and commented about the blog. We're glad you've been enjoying it.

Survival Mode

We have been in survival mode these past few days as we adjust to a new baby and readjust to the time difference. We are happy to be so tired knowing that our son is finally home with us. We are blessed to have several meals in our freezer from our friends, Kris and Jason, who dropped them off at our house while we were in Korea. Justin's parents came on Friday and have made us wonderful meals and also helped as we continue to unpack and organize. Ian continues to do well. He is such a loving little boy. He is still getting use to having a sister and a brother. Ben and Cami love to help feed him, change him, and play with him...sometimes more than Ian can handle. He is use to peace and quiet in the home of his foster parents, who were in their 60's. Having a sister and a brother is something to get use to.
The kids enjoyed having Grandma and Grandpa to play with this weekend as mom and dad tended to baby Ian and tried to get some much needed rest. They even got to open a few Christmas presents early.
As Justin's parents leave tomorrow we realize that we will be on our own tending to all 3 kids and also all of the meals, etc. We are excited to see Ian continue to adjust to us and will be excited to introduce him to all of you as we feel he is able to handle new people. We know that you will see as we do, that he is a sweet and loving little boy. We thank and praise God for this wonderful gift he has given us. He is a true blessing!

First Night At Home

We made it through our first night at home. Ian and mommy slept on and off from 1am to 3:30am. Daddy took over for a while. We had a doctor appointment at 9:45 am and woke up about 15 minutes before we had to leave. The kids were still passed out and Justin was still sleeping, so Ian and I headed to the doctor. He is in good health with the exception of an ear infection. This explains why he was still fussy during landing even while drinking his bottle. We had a casual afternoon. Mommy and Ian slept from noon until about 5, still on and off, but in longer increments. We took the kids to their swim lesson tonight. Ben LOVES going to swim. This would have been Cami's first lesson, but she fell asleep on the way and slept through the whole lesson. Oh well.
Ian had his first bath tonight. He seems to like the water. Cami helped wash him up and get him ready for bedtime. We have found that he likes vegetable baby food and Veggie Gerber Graduates crackers. He is not fond of fruit baby food. It is fun watching him try to pick up the veggie crackers and put them in his mouth. Clothes are fun. He does not fit into Ben's old winter baby clothes. He is much longer than Ben was at this age, so he is already in the 12 month clothes, unlike Ben who was in 6-9 month clothes until his first birthday. Thankfully we have a few things that we picked up before we got him to have in case.