Isaac: 4 Years and 20 Questions

I am belatedly posting Isaac's rocking chair picture!  He said, "Mommy, I am too big for this chair!"  And, he's just about right...but he squeezed in for another year.  :)  

I asked him the same set of 20 questions that I used one year ago.  It was fun to see how many of his answers have changed.  

1.  What is your favorite color?  green & blue & red

2.  What is your favorite toy?  big horse and little horse...that's my favorite toy

3.  What is your favorite fruit?  pears

4.  What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?  pizza for lunch

5.  What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? pancakes with candles on it for 4 year old Isaac

6.  What is your favorite thing to eat for supper?  pizza

7.  What is your favorite thing to drink?  apple cider

8.  What is your favorite snack?  raisins...not raisins....cookie with frosting for 4 year old Isaac with I-S-A-A-C...that's my favorite snack

9.  What is your favorite show?  Christmas show with baby Jesus

10.  What are your favorite clothes to wear?  my shark one with the blue on it

11. What is your favorite animal?  orca whale

12.  What is your favorite song? "Joy to the World"

13.  What is your favorite book?  "Dangerous Book for Boys"

14. What is your favorite thing to do with Daddy?  go camping

15.  What is your favorite thing to do with Mommy?  going to the tubes

16.  What is your favorite thing to do outside?  play on top of the roof from my playground

17.  What is your favorite holiday?  What holiday?

18.  What is your favorite thing to take to bed with you each night? my teddy bear

19.  Where is your favorite place to go?  to the tubes

20.  What do you want to be when you grow up?  an astronaut

At four years old, Isaac is 46 pounds, 11 ounces (97th percentile) and 42" (84th percentile)s.  He still naps 3 - 4 days a week.  On the days he doesn't take a nap, he lays in bed for 30 minutes before I let him read books in bed.  Books are one of Isaac's very favorite things.  He loves when we sit and read with him, but he is also content to page through books on his own.  "Richard Scarry" books are his favorite!  

Isaac also loves playing little friends...and most of the time, that means Emma!  If he is upstairs playing and she's downstairs, he'll keep calling for her to come upstairs and play beside him.  Right now, Isaac asks a million questions about polar bears, grizzly bears, and Antarctica.   He also loves talking about scuba diving and ocean animals.  Some days, I feel as if all I do is answer his questions.  When I don't know an answer, he'll ask, "Well, why don't you know, Mommy?  Daddy knows all the answers!"  :)

He loves going to Bible Study Fellowship on Wednesdays and is always so proud to tell me when he had a good day.  "Mom, I was great today and didn't even have to go in the hallway with my teacher!"  His teachers tell me nearly every week how he is enraptured during story time and doesn't move a muscle.  In his BSF class, the teachers tells the Bible story without any props or pictures.  Isaac has become very animated in re-telling the Bible story for me after class each Wednesday.  Last Wednesday, he said, "Mommy, there was a man whose legs didn't work.  His arms didn't work, and he couldn't even TALK!  He had friends...four friends...one, two, three, four.  And they put the sick man on a mat and went to where Jesus was.  Jesus was in a house and it was SO PACKED they couldn't even get in the door.  So, they went up up UP to the ROOF!  And they CUT A HOLE!  And they lowered the man DOWN TO JESUS!  And Jesus said TWO THINGS to him. 'Get up!'  And HE GOT UP!  And 'go home'...and he went home!  HE OBEYED JESUS!  And, he was healed.  Now can we go to Chick-Fil-A?"  ;)  I couldn't resist writing that all out, because that's what I hear every Wednesday in my vehicle after BSF.  I absolutely love how Isaac is soaking in the stories from the Bible!  

 He also loves going to Keystone Church on Sundays.  Now that Isaac is 4, he is old enough to go to Funatics, which is a class for children of volunteers who are at church for two services over the weekend.  He is in there with older kids and loves playing with the bigger boys!  Our church is in the process of buying land in Keller to build a church building, and Isaac said he wanted to put his $20 from his birthday into his offering for the new church.   We had a baptism yesterday morning at Keystone, and Isaac wanted to be right next to the tank!  He was SO excited! 

Besides tomatoes and cilantro, there's not much this boy doesn't love at four years old!  And, there's no way we could possibly love this four year old more!  

Isaac is 4!

Our best boy turned FOUR yesterday!  I feel like it was just yesterday that he was born.  To say that we are thankful for Isaac is an understatement.  We love our son to pieces and are so blessed to be his parents.  

Isaac woke up extra early yesterday...he was so excited that it was his birthday.  He spied a birthday gift on the kitchen table right away.

Do you think he's excited about his new horses?

"Look what I got, Emma!"

I'll let the next picture speak for itself, but let's just say that Emma was just a little bit upset that Isaac had a new toy and she didn't....  

But, Emma recovered quickly when she saw pumpkin pancakes for breakfast!

birthday pancakes! 

The four candles on Isaac's pancake made one giant flame which Isaac had to huff and puff to blow out!  (Don't you love how the new horse is closely watching?)

After breakfast, we went to BSF.  I told Isaac he could take his new horses to play with in the car, but he didn't want them to get lost.  :)  Isaac had an especially great day at BSF because he was the line leader, which is very exciting when you're a preschooler.  :)

After BSF, we usually go to the park or the Milestone Tubes with other moms and kids from BSF.  I made two cookie cakes to share.  It made me laugh how all the kids laid on their tummies to watch Isaac blow out his candles.  Even Emma copied what the big kids did and laid down.  :)

We're so thankful for these sweet friends who were so excited to celebrate Isaac!  Isaac told everybody, "It's my birthday and now I'm FOUR years old!"

Emma mostly liked licking the frosting off of the cookie cakes. :)

Isaac got to open some more presents last night.  Isaac's Grandma Debbie sent this awesome camping chair for Isaac!  Both Isaac and Emma loved sitting in it.  

I think Isaac was just as excited about the boxes that Grandma Debbie's gifts came in as he was about the gifts themselves!  :)

Happy Birthday, Isaac!!

My parents and Great-Grandma Dolores joined us for dinner last night.  We had sloppy joes and acorn squash--two of Isaac's favorites.  But, he was mostly excited about eating cake and ice cream!

It takes a lot of breath to blow out four candles!

Isaac loves licking the frosting off of each candle...it's hard to hold him back from licking the candles at other birthday parties!

My parents gave Isaac an entire wardrobe of dress-up costumes!  My mom found them all at a children's consignment shop in Utah, and she hit the jackpot!  Now Isaac can dress up like Thomas the Train, Percy the Train, the Man with the Yellow Hat (from Curious George), a doctor, a tiger, a jungle explorer, a fireman, or his favorite--an astronaut!

The fireman giving his little sister a ride in the fire engine!

Isaac ended his birthday by snuggling with Pop and reading new birthday books.  (Of course, he was still wearing one of his new costumes.)  Then, Isaac got to hear a "boy named Isaac story" from his daddy over the phone.  (Daddy's stories are much better than mine, so Isaac loved this!)

We love birthdays, so Isaac's birthday celebrations are continuing tonight when Papa and Nana fly in from Colorado!  We love celebrating our big four year old!

Isaac David: 3 Years & 20 Questions

Three years old!  How did this happen so fast?!?  Wasn't it just yesterday we were holding this newborn baby boy?

Newborn or three years old--we just love this boy!  He is full of life, energy and laughter!

I'm starting a new tradition with Isaac of asking him the same 20 questions each year on his birthday (idea from here).  I asked Isaac this list of questions the other day while he ate his snack of apples, which might be why several of his answers involved apples.  :) Some of these answers made me laugh, especially the last one!

1.  What is your favorite color?  green

2.  What is your favorite toy?  big really tall dinosaur (rrrrrooooooooooaaar) like at Lochlyn's house.  Mommy, there's a really tall dinosaur at Lochlyn's house.

3.  What is your favorite fruit?  apples 

4.  What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?  hot dogs

5.  What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? hot dogs

6.  What is your favorite thing to eat for supper?  (giggled really hard) Ummmmm...just coconut

7.  What is your favorite thing to drink?  (looked puzzled, then pointed to his cup of Crystal Light) that one

8.  What is your favorite snack?  apples

9.  What is your favorite show?  a dinosaur show because I really like dinosaurs, Mommy

10.  What are your favorite clothes to wear?  cowboy shirt, cowboy pants

11. What is your favorite animal?  big elephant trunk  (right now, Isaac pronounces "elephant" as "en-e-phant")

12.  What is your favorite song? "Jesus Loves Me"

13.  What is your favorite book?  dinosaur book

14. What is your favorite thing to do with Daddy?  play horsies

15.  What is your favorite thing to do with Mommy?  play horsies

16.  What is your favorite thing to do outside?  play in the rockbox

17.  What is your favorite holiday?  What's a holiday?

18.  What is your favorite thing to take to bed with you each night? my baby bear

19.  Where is your favorite place to go?  Colorado--far away

20.  What do you want to be when you grow up?  play instruments  (I asked, "Don't you want to be a workerman like Daddy?")  Yes, I'm going to be a workerman like my Daddy and wear dirty clothes .  I'm going to go to work and then come home with dirty clothes and then I'm going to need clean pants and shirt.  And then I'm going to sleep in my mommy & daddy's big bed and wake up and go to work." 

And...a few pictures from Isaac's birthday!

#3 pancake for breakfast!

Waiting for Daddy to come home for a birthday supper!

Skyping with Papa & Nana in Colorado so that they could see him open the gift they sent...

...a new horse, which Isaac promptly named "Bilbo!"

and, a pedal bike from Mommy & Daddy!

Happy Birthday, Isaac!

Emma's Backstory

With Mother's Day coming up this Sunday, I wanted to take a few moments to write "Emma's Backstory"--or, at least, what I am calling her backstory!  There are some more personal details in this, but I believe that they show how God is always working, even (and especially) when we can't see His plan.

Last summer, after losing both babies' adoptions, I had surgery that we hoped would help us conceive.  My doctor was very optimistic about the results and told us that, statistically, the highest chance of conception after a surgery like mine was in the first 6 months.  For the first two months after the surgery, we did unmedicated IUIs.  The sadness I felt in December, which was the sixth month after my surgery, was so heavy.  Often, our infertility is still very hard for me, and we had been very hopeful that this surgery may have given us an opportunity to grow our family through pregnancy. 

After New Year's, David & I began praying more earnestly about how God would have us grow our family.  At that point, we had been waiting with Adoption Network for exactly a year.   Adoption Network didn't have statistics on what the average wait for consecutive adoptions is, but they did tell us that it would be significantly longer than their average wait time of 4 months for first adoptions.  In January, we called our adoption counselor and asked her what we could do to possibly get a match more quickly.  She offered several solutions.  We talked and prayed through them--some were easy, obvious choices to us and others were difficult.  We ended up changing a few things on our profile at Adoption Network, but we also prayed that God would show us other ways that we could grow our family, since we had no idea when we'd receive a match from Adoption Network.

In January, a lady at my parent's church contacted my mom about two brothers, ages 3 & 5, who were just being released from the foster system and were available for adoption.  This lady knew our story and wondered if we might be interested in adopting them.  My mom wisely talked to David about this situation without telling me about it--she wanted Dave to handle this how he best thought.  One night, I was telling David all about my friend Amanda's adoption of Brody from Ukraine.  Up until that time, we had never envisioned ourselves adopting an older child or sibling group.  Dave interrupted my story about Brody and asked if I had talked to my mom.  All of a sudden, I knew that he was about to say something BIG....he started to tell me about these two boys and I just started sobbing.  We talked about this possibility for a long time that night and both loved the idea!

The next morning, David called the boys' case worker.  We thought we would be eligible to apply for adoption of these boys since our home study was current.  The caseworker explained that we needed to be licensed as foster parents to adopt from the foster system.  We asked if there was any way we could complete the 30 hours of training necessary to be licensed.  The case worker was very sweet and said that we could try, but that the boys would likely be placed by the time we could realistically finish the 30 hours.

Even though we were disappointed that these brothers were out of reach for us, we wondered if this was God's way of opening our hearts to adopting a sibling group out of the foster system.  We contacted two local agencies that work with children in the foster system and began praying specifically about this option.

At the same time, we felt like we should go back to our fertility doctor.  We hadn't been back to see him since the winter of 2008/2009, but we wanted to discuss the surgery I'd had last summer and see what he thought of our options.  Given my age and several other variables, he gave us a great percentage for a successful IVF, which is one fertility option we hadn't previously done.  We had never before felt that God was leading us to do an IVF cycle; but, after meeting with our fertility doctor, we began to feel more open to it.  We'd always had some ethical questions about IVF, so we ordered this book.  David and I both read it in a weekend and together felt like we could do an IVF cycle that would not compromise our beliefs.

We prayed and prayed...God, should we begin training to be foster parents?  God, should we pursue IVF?  Both seemed hard, for very different reasons, and we knew that we couldn't move ahead with either one until God gave us both direction. 

A verse that I clung to and prayed over many days during this time was "Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it.' " (Isaiah 30:21).  I can't explain how sad, and at times, frustrated, I was that God wasn't answering our prayer.  I felt like I was slowly surrendering my idea of what my family would look like and how it would grow...both David and I were ready, with open hearts, to move to the right or to the left with whatever God showed us.  But, we didn't feel like God was showing us anything.  Night after night, we'd talk about this...and all either of us could say was, "I just sense that God is saying 'wait'." 

Of course, we had no idea that a beautiful birthmother, L, was deciding to place her baby for adoption.  At one of L's prenatal appointments, she talked about her adoption plan with her OB.  L's doctor told her that his daughter and son-in-law were infertile & asked if she would consider placing her baby girl with them.  L was very open to this, since she really respected her doctor and later told me she would loved the idea of placing her daughter with this couple.  The OB told L that he would bring his daughter's adoption profile to the office with him the next day and that she should call his nurse to get it.  L called her OB's nurse the next day and explained the situation.  Apparently the nurse looked everywhere and couldn't find the paperwork that was supposed to be there.  At her next appointment, L's OB asked if she had changed her mind on adoption.  She said no, and then he asked why she had never called to pick up his daughter's profile.  L told him that she had, and that the nurse had said couldn't find it.  He said it had been sitting on the nurse's desk ever since that morning.  In the meantime, L had found Adoption Network in the yellow pages.  She called and said that her only specification was for her daughter to be raised in a Christian family.  Adoption Network has many Christian families waiting for babies, but through God's providence, our profile was one of only six that they sent to L.  She chose us...and you know the rest of the story.

I am confident that the months we spent waiting were not wasted.  They definitely weren't what I envisioned, and there were many days that I cried for the babies whose adoptions we lost and cried that my surgery didn't have the result we'd hoped for...but God has used that time to show me that He will show David and I the way to walk--even when we have no idea where He is leading us.  We were convinced God was going to show us to begin training to adopt from the foster system or pursue IVF, but He didn't.  However, these opportunities were not wasted, and we believe God may use either of these options to grow our family in the future.  But for today, my heart is full with the realization that my God is faithful!  Even when we couldn't see an answer, He was still working.  And, His answer was beautiful!

On this Mother's Day weekend, I echo the words of Psalm 113:9:

"He settles the childless woman in her home,

as a happy mother of children.

Praise the Lord!"

"What God wants for you is never less than anything you have wanted.

You'll never come up short. And when He answers, in His time and in His way,

it will be richer, deeper, and far more meaningful."

~Anne Graham Lotz

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

See this little guy's smile?!?  I love it! 

To say that he is excited about anything and everything Christmas is an understatement! 

This is a (small) sampling of what I hear each day:

"Mommy, Christmas tree!  Mommy, more Christmas tree!  Mommy, snowman!  Mommy, big snowman!" :)

My mom taught Isaac how to build "trains" out of kitchen chairs.  A few weeks ago when I was at work, she texted me a picture of all her kitchen chairs lined up.  My old dolls, bears, and stuffed animals, and Isaac were all sitting on the chairs.  :) She taught him to give each "passenger" a ticket (aka--Post It notes).  :) 

One morning last week, I came out of my room to find that Isaac had pushed our kitchen chairs into a train, too.  It was adorable.  Santa, reindeer, a Christmas moose, and our Elf were the passengers.  Isaac even found his mitten clips, which he calls "seat belts" and had placed the "seat belts" on top of some of the passengers.  :)  My favorite part is when he stands up on the back chair, like in the picture above, and yells, "Hi people!  Hi people!"  This is one happy Christmas train!  :)

On  Sunday, Isaac and I baked sugar cookies.  I didn't have an apron for him, so I put this bib on him and then tied a white dish cloth around his waist.  As soon as I did, he started pointing at himself and saying "An angel, Mommy!  An angel, Mommy!" 

The next day, Isaac decorated them with his little friend, Ellie. 

Let's just say he spent just as much time eating as he did decorating!  :) 

I was so excited about doing Elf on the Shelf with Isaac this December, too.  Between how much I was at school this month combined with December's general busyness, I just haven't done it as much as I'd planned.  But, Isaac does get very excited on the mornings I do hide the Elf.  It's so fun to see him look and try to find him.  ;)  (Here's the Elf "hiding" on the train.)

A new tradition for our family this year is our Advent Calendar, which we've tried to after supper each night.  My sister and I grew up doing an Advent Calendar each December, and it's sweet for me to now do one with Isaac.  Each day's pocket has a short sentence from the Christmas story in it and also a character or animal that Isaac puts up in the stable.   I love hearing Isaac say the names of all the Christmas characters, but my favorite is how he says Joseph ("Jo-shesh"). 

Speaking of the Christmas characters, the other day Isaac put all his Fisher Price Nativity characters and animals in a line and told them to say "cheese!"  (Maybe I take his picture a bit too much?!?)

One more picture of this sweet boy...he truly does give David and me so much joy!