FFF - The Letter M

 M stands for Monster...Snow Monster to be exact. Pea and Jason were building snow people the other day, which included turning pea into a snowboy. He thought it was hilarious! That is...until the camera came out. He did NOT want his picture taken and started screaming like a crazy snow monster. I showed him the pictures yesterday and he thought he was pretty funny. Go figure. Oh, you can't really see it very well, but pea is also wearing his monster hat that we recently made together. Perfect for the occasion!

On another note, my little snow monster continues to add more friends to his imaginary friend club. He now has a girlfriend named Denny. Denny is apparently a really fast swimmer, as fast as Lightening McQueen. Pea explained that he and Denny swim together every night. They race in the pool and, alas, Denny always wins. Denny also lives with his other buddy, Me-me.

Today, pea told me about Mr. Grayman. Mr. Grayman is a mean guy who only comes out at night. Mr. Grayman comes into Pea's bedroom at night and sometimes sneaks into his bed. Mr. Grayman is also a fireman. Hmmm...could explain why he wanted me to rock him to sleep last night.

Lastly, pea's "brother" has made another appearance. So, he is up to 5 imaginary friends. I am going to start losing track soon! I don't know where this stuff comes from, but he is quite creative and imaginative. It's fascinating.

Check out more FFF HERE.

Perfect Moment Monday - First Smiles

What could be more perfect than a sweet baby's first smiles? Carrot graced us with his first smiles recently and it is so wonderful to see his little eyes and face light up. He has even started to squeal! We stopped everything we were doing to soak in these precious first moments. Such a joy!

I just had to include this adorable tongue shot!! So cute!

Check out more Perfect Moment Monday at Write Mind, Open Heart HERE.

Highs and lows...life with a preschooler

Let's face it...life with a preschooler is both extremely fun and extremely frustrating! And, sometimes all in the same moment. On one hand, I LOVE this age! Pea is so full of energy, imagination, curiousity, and he is hilarious! On the other hand, he can also drive me CRAZY!

The fun side:

• Pea talks NONSTOP (okay, this could arguably be on the not-so-fun side, too!). He loves to tell stories and they are full of all kinds of adventures involving baracudas, sharks, whales, anglerfish, snakes, monsters, and the occasional fire truck and police car.
• Pea also tells stories involving his imaginary friends. You may remember he had an imaginary friend he referred to as his brother. Well, since carrot came home, his imaginary friend is now his sister. Hmmm...most recently another friend has joined his club: Me-me. I have no idea where Me-me came from, but Me-me sometimes sits at our table and sleeps with pea, but Me-me does not live with us. Like Pea's sister, Me-me seems to be a world traveler! Somedays he lives down the street from us, somedays he lives on a boat, and some days he even lives on another planet as an alien! Me-me and sister seem to find a way into almost every story. It really is fun listening to the tales pea weaves and hearing where his imagination takes him.




Pea decided to dump all the laundry and jump into it.


• As you may have guessed, pea is just a little obsessed with sea creatures...specifically barracudas, sharks, anglerfish, and whales. He would much rather watch National Geographical and NGWild than any other TV show. And, he would much rather look at "real" books about sea life than storybooks. At the library, he immediately runs to the science section to find books about various animals. He can name and identify several different whales, sharks, fish, and more. And, he requested a barracuda cake for his birthday. Yikes. I swear this kid is WAY smarter than me. It is a little scary!

• I love that pea can create fun in almost any situation. This week, our living room became the beach and he was running around in his bathing suit, all while it snowed like crazy outside! Hangers become swords, laser beams, and guns (ugh).





But, alas, there are also times that his little preschooler ways drive me NUTS!

• Pea can flip his attitude like a switch and he is so mouthy! He is definitely testing the boundaries right now. He says the craziest things when he is mad. "I want to kick all the people out of this house." "I don't want to look at you, mommy." "You are making me ANGRY, mommy." "You can't come to my (or his sister's or Me-me's) birthday party." Admittedly, sometimes it is hard not to laugh.
• Pea is a very HIGH energy little boy (which I love), but he also gets into EVERYTHING. He always has. It drives me crazy when I have to tell him 5 times to put something down, don't touch that, etc, etc.

• Pea talks NONSTOP. And he is LOUD. Even his whispering is loud. I swear he doesn't take a breath when he is talking. Forget trying to talk on the phone or watch a TV show with him around.

Well, I am sure you noticed that the fun list is definitely bigger than the not-so-fun list! In spite of all of the things that turn me into crazy mama, pea is such a fun, loving, smart, and easy going little boy and I love everything about him!! Every stage is definitely a new adventure.

Open Adoption...What I have learned so far, Part I

Open adoption is not that scary! I admit, a few years ago the idea of an open adoption really freaked me out. I wasn't sure that it was something I could handle, for many reasons. But, fast forward several years and now openness feels perfectly right. Normal in a sense, even though it is still a very new concept for us. As you know,a couple months ago, we opened our hearts to pea's birth family and now have a connection and a commitment to them. Of course, having an open international adoption is very difficult due to the boundaries of culture, language, distance, etc. But, it is possible it it's own unique way. It is just a matter understanding that openness looks different in every situation. Not to mention that technology and some pretty amazing people makes it possible for us to have this connection. It is incredible. Most international adoptees have very little to no information regarding their birth family so it feels especially miraculous to know we have found pea's birth family and plan to have regular contact with them, which includes meeting them the next time we travel to Guatemala (hopefully in 2 years). At this point, we plan to have contact with every 3-4 months thanks  to Victor!

A couple weeks ago, we received even more pictures of pea's birth family and we now have a picture of one of his aunts! Pea was actually very excited to look at all of the pictures we have received, especially pictures of his brother. His face lit up and he said

"this is so cool, mom! he looks like me!"

That alone makes it all worth it. Pea is now very proud that he has a little brother AND a big brother. What a gift!

As I wrote earlier, we had always intended to search for pea's birth family, though we had planned to wait a little longer. But, it happened when we least expected and the timing was perfect. Isn't that always the case in life?!?! For awhile, we debated on whether or not to wait and allow pea to decide when he is older if he wants to search. After much thought, we decided that finding them was not just about pea, but also about us. We wanted to make that connection for our own personal reasons as well.

There are still questions we will never have the answers to, there are limits to our relationship with pea's birth family, and we don't know how this relationship will evolve, but it is a huge weight lifted knowing we have found them, that we have pictures and more information than before and knowing that this will help to fill in the gaps to pea's story.

Coming next...Part 2, Meeting carrot's birth mother

Madly in love

Little carrot is three weeks old today and did not waste any time completely stealing our hearts! It is so amazing how perfectly we have all been settling into our new family of four. Most importantly, pea has been handling this HUGE change remarkably well. It probably helps that carrot is not trying to take his toys, yet!

So far, carrot is a very calm baby though I keep waiting for that to change...he rarely fusses or screams, only when he is ready to eat or when his pacifier falls out of his mouth (grrr!). Of course, the biggest question EVERYONE asks is if we are getting any sleep! Honestly, I can't really complain. He wakes up about every 3 hours and goes right back to sleep after his bottle. We have only had one really bad night in which he was up every hour so we count ourselves lucky. But, I realize it can all change very quickly! 

We are doing great. Honestly! Surprisingly great. I really expected to have some rough transition issues, but that hasn't happened...yet. :) So, we are enjoying every bit of this new little love in our life and I am especially enjoying this time off of work. Initially, I had this crazy idea that I was going to get all kinds of things done around the house, little projects, organizing, etc, etc. Silly me. What was I thinking? So, instead, I decided to only send pea to school 2 days/week and spend the other 3 days with both my boys...doing whatever we please.

Life is Rough

Snoozin' on the couch. He looks big in the pictures, but he is itty bitty.

Snoozin'...again.

OH! He is awake!!! Carrot is more and more awake now and actually enjoyed playing with some toys.

And...back to snoozin'. Playing is hard work!

FFF - Hibernation

This weeks FFF theme is hibernation. Aside from the recent winter storms, we have an even better reason to hibernate...bonding with little carrot!

Jason and I have been off together this week and I have the next 12 weeks off work to do a lot of hibernating...and snuggling...cuddling...cooing...

Carrot has been sleeping A LOT...like almost 24/7. But, each day he keeps those little peepers open longer and longer and it is so fun to watch his eyes literally open wider and wider each day.

 Snug as a bug

 My favorite boys. My heart just swoons looking at this picture. I think I am the luckiest gal around.:)

 Me and my boys. I just LOVE saying that!

Life is so good right now! We are madly, madly in love with the new little man in our lives. Pea is handling this huge change very well, though he is definitely still trying to figure this all out. For the first couple of days, he primarily ignored carrot and went about his business playing as usually. Though, he always let us know if carrot was crying. He gets very concerned when carrot cries. He also told me that it made him a little "nervous" to get too close to carrot since carrot is so small. There were also a couple times when we were all leaving the house and pea said "is he coming with us?" But, pea has started to come around more the last couple of days and has initiated wanting to feed carrot and he has been talking to him more. It takes time, but he's getting there.

Overall, we are doing great! I feel so blessed.

Check out more FFF HERE.

Another Miracle!!

On Saturday, January 8th, we were blessed with another son and a little brother for pea!! Zander, aka little carrot, was born on January 4th. He was a healthy 7lbs 7oz and 21" long.
We received the call about carrot on Thursday afternoon (1/6/11) and he was placed with us less than 36 hours later. Needless to say, it was quite a whirlwind and so exciting!

Initally, carrot's birth mother was not interested in meeting us and did not even have any intention of looking at our profile. By, Friday evening, however, she had a change of heart and we were so incredibly lucky to be able to meet her on Saturday. We spent a couple of hours together getting to know one another, cooing over carrot, hugging and crying, and discussing the future of our relationship. What started out as a potentially closed adoption quickly evolved into a open arrangement and we could not be any happier. What an amazing gift.

We knew we could potentially have a very quick placement, but...WOW...it was fast and so surreal! All the way home, we kept looking at carrot in complete disbelief that this precious, perfect little boy was our son! Just awesome. We are truly blessed

Christmas Day!

Christmas was super fun this year! Pea was so excited during the whole holiday season and we kept ourselves busy with lots of activities: lights at the zoo, Christmas crafts, baking cookies, watching lots of Christmas shows, and spending time with friends and family. It always seems to be crazy busy and goes by so fast, but we had fun.

Pea was also super spoiled this year. Yes, I admit. He was spoiled rotten. Santa must have thought he had been extra good this year. ;)


The calm before the storm
















His very own "READY!!!" AKA...tape measure. For some reason unknown to us, pea named the tape measure "ready" and is obsessed with it!

The one gift pea REALLY, REALLY, REALLY wanted. Santa came through!

And...mass chaos. Pea also added to his Geotrax collection and it has officially taken over our house. Isn't this ridiculous?!?! But, it has already provided hours and hours of fun!