It’s Farley’s World, We Just Live In It

It goes without saying that we are extremely thankful this year, even with Jake’s double ear infections, major teething and Jason having a cold, it is still the most thankful Thanksgiving of our lives.  This time last year, I was beyond depressed and Jason’s dad was undergoing radiation for his cancer.  Today, Bryan AKA Popsy is here with us with no cancer to be found and Jake is here to make us all laugh.  As with every holiday, my heart is heavy thinking about what Jake’s birthmother must be feeling today, I have thought about her often today and most days.

After sleeping until 8, it was time to get the day started

His newest trick, flushing the toilet- here is is getting busted

Good times with dad

The table is set

Time for a post dinner walk

And they are off... Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Even now, 10+ months after he became my son, I still cry often when he sleeps on my chest after his evening bottle.  They are happy tears, grateful tears, elated tears, joyful tears- I can’t imagine loving him any more, but then every day I love him more.  Cheesy I know, but dang I love him, how could I not?

Jake and Farley are best buds and it is precious to watch.  Jake loves to play with Farley’s toys and Farley loves to clean up Jake’s mess when he is eating.  It is a love love relationship for sure.

Look! I have Farley's toy!

Scratch that, he wants it back

I want that toy back

Classic

Our Two Boys!

Jake is a character, these days he peeks in the shower, claps his hands, crawls in and around and under and over everything and has this adorable squinty smile.  Here are some pics to show you what I mean…

Hey dad, how's that shower?

What are you looking at?

The smile these days!

This cracks us up and he knows it

Clap Clap Clap

Hey there loyal blog readers (all 3 of you!)- It has been a little while since my last post and of course I have lots of pictures.  First, more Halloween pics and some from this past weekend.  I turned 35 and other than my sweet 16, rockin 21st and awesome 30th, 35 took the cake!  Jake of course was the reason.  Jason and I laughed about last year (finally) when I spent most of the day crying! Not because I have a problem with getting any older, but it always marked another year without being a momma for my b-day.  Not this year and boy was I reminded that I was a momma!  We had a great morning eating breakfast, then I went to get a pedicure and coffee- ALONE while Jason and Jake headed to REI.  Jason called after my pedicure and said that Jake had been pulling on his ear and I said he had done the same yesterday.  Off to the doc we went and two ear infections were discovered.  We made a recovery and ended the day with two parties with good friends.  It was an awesome day and I wouldn’t of had it any other way. Jake didn’t fuss once with two major ear infections, the doctor was shocked that he wasn’t hysterical. That’s our boy, he is a tough cookie.

Finally, where is my baby?  Jake is a full blown kid now, it just blows my mind.  You will see in some pictures to come what I mean.  He is a hoot and is SO big.  He pointed to Jason on Saturday and said as clear as day “dada”.  It was awesome.  He claps, takes a step when he feels like it, babbles all the time, crawls faster than I can keep up, gets into things he shouldn’t, likes to climb on anything he can, laughs a lot, eats anything you feed him- oh I could go on and on!  He was 10 months yesterday, man I love him more and more every day!

I just loving being a part of this “club”, and by that I mean the club of adoptive parents.   With each passing day, I am convinced that this was the path I was destined to take. For that, I could not be more thankful each and every day.  I literally look at Jake every single day and appreciate him and feel overhwleming gratitude that I was chosen as his mom.  Back on subject, I went to a work lunch today and for some reason Jake came up in the first sentence, something about me having a 10 month old at home.  He said that he too has a 10 month old and that was cool enough.  Then, he said that she was adopted as was his oldest daughter (they also have a biological son).  When I then said that Jake was adopted, he about fell out of his chair.  With that, out went the business talk and we each told our story and it was awesome. I cannot wait to meet his family and for them to meet Jake, we plan to meet up soon.  Apparently, he and his wife have passions that we do with how we want to get more involved with adoption issues locally.  Not only this, but I work with some amazing people, two of my colleagues have adopted children and I depend on their advice, not only about adoption, but about being successful working moms and balancing it all.  In fact, we are all so open about it here at work that it is really a part of our culture here and the support we get is awesome.  I just had to mention these things while I was thinking about it…

I was going through the pictures on my phone last night and realized that the first pictures we have of Jake and us holding him for the  first time were on my phone.  Of course that made me panic because I am almost due a new phone and I don’t have these pictures printed or saved anywhere.  SO, I wanted to be sure to post them here so I at least have them electronically somewhere.  I will never forget this day for as long as I live and I will write much more about it on Jake’s first birthday, but this was an amazing and surreal moment.

My first time holding Jake and telling him his name

My favorite picture of Jason and Jake

Jake had a great first Halloween and as always was a great sport about his costume.  I think he kindof even liked it!  We had a weekend packed with parties and fun time with friends.  I just wish our families could have been here.  Even the little holidays are tough when family is not around.  We always had a big time for Halloween growing up and the tradition continues even today in our neighborhood in Memphis.  I saw pictures this morning and I was sad not being there with Jake.  Maybe next year?

Porter's toys are awesome!

Susanna, Ella and Annie

Good times

It was a cold and rainy night, unfortunately

Pics of Baby Elvis will be coming, I promise, but here he is in his Pjs this week…