Good Morning, Sunshine!

This is the happy face we get to wake up to every morning - life is good!!!

Fav Foto Friday

Walking to Daddy!

Thankful Thursday

Shea and I have been feeling very thankful for our little family of three - thankful that we get to spend our nights with the sweetest boy imaginable. Lately a lot of these nights have been filled with reading book after book after book! Truman has always loved reading, but now that he is getting more aware of his environment he loves it even more! We're so happy that he loves reading just as much as his Momma and Papa!

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Birthday Truman!

Wow - we cannot believe it, but today our baby boy turned 1 year old! How crazy is that?? These past 8 months have truly flown by. Everyday Shea and I feel so lucky to have Truman in our lives. It's such an honor to be his parents and watch him grow - our family is truly fortunate!!!

To celebrate the occasion, we bought Truman a "Birthday Boy" t-shirt (yes, kind of silly, but you only turn 1 once!) and Grandma B bought him a "Birthday Boy" bib (yep, we really do think alike :-) At daycare today, all of Truman's friends made him a birthday card, including everyone's hand-print and a message reading "We love you!" - isn't that sweet? We're planning on doing more of a celebration this weekend when Grandma B comes to visit (including 1-year old pictures on Saturday), though nothing beats just hanging around the house loving on each other :-)

Happy Valentine's Day!

We were lucky enough to spend our Valentine's Day night snuggling up to our sweet boy - nothing can beat that!

Daddy's Day!

Yesterday was Daddy's day to stay home with Truman, which meant that Mommy came home to a happy baby and some great pictures :-)
(And thanks for the great shirt, Grandad Bigsby and Nadine!)

Nuts about Grandma

We were out and about and saw this cute shirt and just couldn't resist! Truman certainly does love his grandmas!!

"Super Bowl" Boy

As you all know, yesterday was the Super Bowl. While we didn't watch even one second of the game, we did "celebrate" by dressing Truman up in this cute football onesie - thanks Grandma B!

Post-Placement #2

A couple of weeks ago our social worker came over to complete our 2nd post-placement visit. Just as with the first, it was pretty casual and everything went well. She just asked basic questions about Truman's progress and daily schedule, and then checked out his bedroom and such. She also asked us questions such as "What adjectives would you use to describe Truman?" - our answer: resilient, curious, sweet, funny, easy-going, perfect! "What do you think your role as a parent should be?" - our answer: to provide Truman with a safe, loving environment where he can grow and reach his full potential - also, to provide him with opportunities that will enrich his life (or something along those lines :-) Overall, it went well and she wrote us another very nice report, which we received at the end of last week.

Because Truman has now been home for 6 months (can you believe it??) and we have completed our first 2 post-placements, we can now readopt him if we choose. We kind of went back and forth about it, but after weighing the pros and cons we decided that we will complete the process (because we were at the court hearing in Ethiopia, as soon as Truman stepped foot in the States he became a US citizen, so we are not obligated to readopt him, though it will give us the opportunity to get him a US birth certificate which will make his life easier in the long rum - also, we'll be able to legally change his name to Truman when we complete the readoption). Anyway, we are now one-step closer to finishing our adoption-related obligations (apart from the once yearly reports that we will complete until Truman turns 18). And really, these 'obligations' are nothing compared to what we have gained - our perfect son who has completed our family and brings us endless joy each and every day!!!

Thought you all might enjoy seeing the pictures we sent in with the post-placement:

Truman's First Piano Lesson with Daddy

From guitar to piano - I think we may have a virtuoso on our hands!

Truman Practices New Sounds

FYI - the banging noise you hear in the background is Truman kicking his legs up and down - he does that whenever he gets excited :-)

Truman Walks and Laughs

Tonight while Truman was practicing walking he started cracking up with laughter - it was so cute!

Wordless Wednesday

Eating Peas

Lately we've been trying to introduce Truman to more and more solid foods (yes, we've been a little slow with it but when we tried about a month ago he was pretty unwilling to try new textures). Happily, in the last couple of weeks Truman has really started to enjoy the new foods. He's been eating small cut up fruits (like peaches, pears, cantaloupe, etc.) and has been starting to get into small vegetables, too. Tonight we decided to try peas and he LOVED them! At first he just smushed them with his finger, but then he started picking them up and seemed to really enjoy them. Yay!