Where has the past month gone?

Where has the time gone?!?! I only have 2 months left at home before going back to work - will someone PLEASE slow up the clocks!! I can't believe we've been home for almost a month - craziness.

Things here are going GREAT!! We LOVE being parents and Jaxson, well he is perfect. I don't know how else to say it. Simply perfect. We're getting our routine down. He's sleeping & napping great now. He takes 2 naps a day and then sleeps about 11 1/2 hrs a night and only gets up once. Woot woot!! :)



I LOOOOOVE being home with Jaxson during the day, but we miss Tim and wish he was home with us. Jaxson said "dada" for the first time on Monday night and so Tim is in heaven because Jaxson says "dadadadadadadadadada" 24 hrs a day. It's fun.



Jaxson loves to be outside and going for walks. Now that the weather is finally getting nice, we are walking everyday. He likes to walk past the zoo and look at the giraffes. We also went to the park the other day and he LOVES the swings. He's changing so much already. He can lay on his stomach which he really couldn't do before and his leg muscles are getting so strong. I swear his hair grows every night while he's sleeping because there is more and more everyday. He LOVES to talk or should I say yell. He wants you to hear him and everyone surely does because he is not quiet. His smile is contagious and his laugh is sooo funny. When he gets belly laughing, you can't help but crack up. I wish you all could meet him because he is quite the character. We just can't get enough of him!





I haven't been getting much time on the computer, but I think it'll be better now that Jaxson has decided that naps aren't that bad. And it doesn't help that my laptop went kaput. I guess when your virus software expires you shouldn't keep hitting the "ignore" button. My computer now has 150 viruses on it - oops! So, it's off getting fixed for a couple of weeks. I have to steal Tim's work laptop to check my email at night. So, if you don't hear from me - that's why. Come on Geek Squad - hurry up and fix my computer!

jaxson in his jammies

I love love love when Jaxson gets out of the bath at night and he's all clean and lotioned up and in his jammies. Oh... he is just the best. Seriously. I love him so stinkin much it's not even funny.

The BEST Mother's Day Gift

Some firsts...

WARNING: some major cuteness in this post!! Don't say I didn't warn you!

Jaxson had cereal for the first time on Saturday night and he LOVED it!







We also went on our first walk in the stroller today. He was in heaven in the sun today. Poor guy misses the warm weather in Ethiopia. Welcome to Wisconsin Jaxson.

Tips for Traveling Families

For all of you families out there that are going to be traveling soon – this post is for YOU. I’ve had several families asking me questions for their upcoming travels, so I thought it would probably be helpful to just post a bunch of tips. If you have any other questions though, please feel free to email me at dawnprust@yahoo.com. Ok, lets get started…

~ We flew Emirates and LOVED it!! They treat you VERY well and we couldn’t have been happier. With Emirates you do have an overnight in Dubai, but we found that having the overnight there was really nice. When we arrived in Ethiopia we were refreshed and not exhausted like the other families. Trust me – you will not be disappointed. Jody will tell you the same I’m sure.

~ This tip is probably not going to be popular with AGCI, but I’m going to be honest. I would highly recommend going a day or two early. We arrived Saturday at 11:30am rather than Sunday night like AGCI recommends. We are SO happy that we did this. We spent that time walking around and seeing Ethiopia and experiencing the culture and interacting with the people. After Monday morning when you have your children – you can’t really go out much unless a parent stays back. There are some really neat things you can do and if you need suggestions – just email me.

~ We struggled with how much stuff to pack for Jaxson and this is what we did (with advice from Autumn)

- 40 diapers (this was more than enough)

- We brought 1 can of formula and it was NOT enough. And fyi – airports do NOT sell formula. Does not make sense, but they don’t. So, bring 2 cans of formula.

- All of the babies are on Avent bottles. We only brought 2 bottles. We brought a regular 9 oz bottle and then one of the Avent Tempo bottles. This is the bottle that you can use the disposable liners in. Those were so nice to use – so definitely get some of those. Bring several nipples though so that you don’t have to constantly wash those. We brought mostly size 3 nipples, but Jaxson was not used to a size 3 at all, so I would recommend bringing 2’s as well. We brought the Madela wipes to help clean them with.

- Blankets – we brought 5 with us. We didn’t need all of them though. 4 would probably be fine. Bring some thin ones and a couple thicker ones.

- I highly recommend bringing a pacifier. We were hoping it would help with Jaxson’s ears on the plane and it really did. We introduced it to Jaxson on Monday and he really loved it. It was comforting to him and seemed to help with take off and landing too.

- I often read to bring warm clothes because it gets cool there. That was not the case at ALL for us. It was HOT and I felt like Jaxson was constantly sweating in what he was in. Definitely bring short sleeves (its not inappropriate) and some lighter pants. It does get a little cool at night, but you are only out at night for the cultural dinner. We brought 8 outfits. 1 for each day and then 3 extra. Then like 8 pairs of pj’s. Bring plently of bibs. We had the Union wash some for us. Seems like a lot of the babies are at the teething stage so a lot of drooling going on.

- Pack lightly for yourselves. The Union can do laundry for you and you don’t need to waste the room in your luggage on that.

- When packing – use oversized duffle bags. We found that the average piece of luggage weighed about 15-20 lbs without anything even in it. The duffles worked great. Then when you come back you can fold up the bags and not check as many bags. We were able to bring lots more donations this way.

- Donations: I think their biggest need is diapers. Almaz told me that they have plenty of clothes, so I wouldn’t bring too many of those. There never seemed to be enough soccer balls. The kids were always running for them and fighting for them. We brought 2 balls and deflated them for packing purposes and then brought a pump & needles for them too. The boys LOVE LOVE LOVE spiderman. Anything spiderman you can bring – they will love. Tim bought spiderman masks in the party section at Walmart and the boys went crazy over them. Tisha gave us a Bumbo seat to bring and they really loved getting that. If you can squeeze a Bumbo seat – bring one. That means less babies laying in bouncy seats, which is always a good thing.

- Gifts: I know AGCI tells you that you can bring a gift for Danny & Johannes at HH, but we found that there are more than just those 2 guys there. There is a guy that sits at the gate and also plays with the children a lot. I wish we would have brought more than just 2 tshirts. I would recommend bringing 3 of whatever you bring. For the special mothers we brought each of them a small photo album filled with pictures of Jaxson. They LOVED it. They opened it and kissed each and every pictures. It brought tears to my eyes. I would definitely recommend doing this.

- There is a little boy named Danny that lives across the street from the Union. You will see him sitting on a rock all the time just waiting for someone to walk out of the Union. He loves to just walk with you and talk with you. He’s not looking for $ or anything like that. He just loves to walk and talk. He is a VERY sweet boy and you will fall in love with him. We gave him a soccer ball, some books & dolls for his little sisters and some candy to share with his friends. Pat & Jody gave him a shirt on Saturday when we got there and he wore it every single day until we left. If you wanted to bring a little something – I would recommend some clothes – around size 10. Oh and if you talk with him - please tell him that Tim & Dawn say hi!

- One thing we regretted was not bringing some small gifts for the staff at the Union. They are AMAZING. They want to serve you 24/7. They are just a wonderful bunch of people and we wished we would have brought stuff for them.

- When you go on the shopping trip – if you see something you like – buy it. You only have a short amount of time and if you don’t buy it you might regret it. Just buy it.

- AGCI told us that Jaxson was on Similac formula, he was actually on Target brand formula. Kinda the same.. but a little different. So, don’t be surprised if it’s a little different than what you were told.

- Jaxson weighs 14.25 lbs and he’s wearing 3-6 mos size. 3-6 mos pj’s seem to be too small though. His feet are kinda smooshed, so the Carters 6 mos pj’s are perfect. Everything else is 3-6 mos. Pants can kinda be long on him and the waist is a tad big.

Alright, well that’s all I can think of right now. But, like I said – if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to email me.

And since I can’t do a post without a picture of mr. you know who… here you go.

Update

Hello everyone! We are still alive over here, just adjusting to being new parents. I think we're getting pretty close to some sort of schedule. We are LOVING parenthood. It's AMAZING!! Jaxson is doing really well. He is attaching & bonding and we couldn't ask for anything more. Tonight he laid on me and just looked in my eyes and smiled at me for about 45 minutes. Nothing feels better than that.

I'm still playing catch up on emails and haven't had time for the blogs, but I'm trying. My days consist of feeding Jaxson, burping Jaxson, wiping Jaxson's butt, playing with Jaxson, staring at Jaxson, rocking Jaxson, bathing Jaxson, etc...etc. He consumes my day, but I love every minute of it.

I want to post about our trip soon, so stay tuned for that because it's coming. But, I'll leave you with a few pictures of my beautiful boy.

Introducing... Jaxson Kyin

Day 3 of Being a MOMMY

We are doing GREAT!! Jaxson is bonding with us really well and he is just a very happy baby. He seems to think that 4am is the time to wake up for the day, so we need to work on that but otherwise things are so good. I can't wait for you all to meet him - he is just the sweetest little baby. He loves to cuddle and stare into my eyes... oh man being a mom is the BEST!!

Kim - we are praying for you today & that court is successful!! We've seen "F" and he's SO cute!! :) I can't wait to tell you about him.

I've seen lots of your children and they are all doing great!! They are so adorable! The special mothers are awesome - they love these babies so much, just thinking of it makes me tear up. Please know that your babies are being loved SO much! We love spending time at HH. The boys LOVE Tim - I think we might be taking a few extra home! ;) ha.. just kidding... kinda.

Alright... we're off to HH for the day to love on all your children!!

He's PERFECT!!!

Today was the most amazing day of our lives. We met Jaxson today and
he is absolutely perfect. I don’t know any other words in any
dictionary that could describe the way we feel right now. Going to HH
and seeing, touching, holding, and kissing Jaxson all for the first
time was truly a dream come true. He is everything we imagined him to
be and more. When he saw us for the first time he smiled and truly
just melted our hearts. He is one of the happiest babies and always
smiling and so very content. We are overwhelmed with ALL sorts of
emotions and feel truly, truly BLESSED. What more could a NEW PROUD
Dad (and Mom) say. Dawn is loving every minute of being a mommy and
Jaxson adores her already! We can’t wait for you all to meet him –
you will fall in love just as we have. We are going to wait until we
get back to share his ADORABLE face, but we’ll leave you with this one
picture…haha their picture didn't work so you get nothing!!! :-)

From Dawn...

Hey everyone...Its Jenna blogging for Tim and Dawn...I've been out of town so I haven't blogged for them yet but here they are...Enjoy!!

We made it! It feels SO good to be here. Ethiopia is BEAUTIFUL!! We are
about 2 blocks from Jaxson right now – crazy huh?? We know that we can’t
see him until tomorrow morning and we are ok with that, but just a little
part of us wants to go and beat down that gate and scoop him up. But, we’ll
wait. J Today is Easter here and this is their biggest holiday of the year,
so lots going on here. We are going to get up and get ready and head out
for the day and come back when the other families arrive tonight. Autumn –
we had dinner with Emily last night! She’s great!! Ok… I’m off to figure
out the shower and attempt to not get ANY water in my mouth… wish me luck!!

They made it!!!

Hey everyone!!! Dawny and Timmy made it to Ethiopia safely with all their luggage! I'm still waiting to hear more about how things are...but just wanted to let everyone know that they are there and will soon be holding baby Jaxson.

Dubai... here we come!

We made it to New York!!! We are about to board the plane in just a few minutes!! We met up with Pat & Jody and had dinner and onto the 3rd plane we go. From here on out - my friend Jenna will be posting updates through us - so check back! We will get all of your comments though - so feel free to leave us some love!!

Thanks Tisha for the coffee!! :)

Dear Jaxson,

We are coming! I wanted to write you this letter so that one day you can look back and see just exactly how much you were loved before we even met you. I have so many different emotions swarming around inside of me that I have never experienced before. I don’t know how to put it all into words, but I will try. Your daddy and I have started dreaming about you many years ago… and next week we will finally be together as a family. Our journey to you was not an easy one, but worth every tear and every heartache and every bump in the road. It’s such a strange feeling to have never held you, but my arms feel empty without you in them. You definitely were the missing piece for our family. You have made my heart whole again. We know that God hand picked you to be our son and we would go to the ends of the earth for you. I lay awake at night and think of what it is going to feel like to hold you for the first time and it gives me butterflies, much like the ones I would get with your daddy when we first started dating. I can’t wait to look into your beautiful eyes, see you smile, hear your giggle, count your toes, and just hold you and know that you are my son and we are a family forever. We got a few new pictures of you today and you have grown so much, we can’t believe it. You are the most beautiful baby we have ever laid eyes on and every time I look at a picture of you, my heart melts and I can’t help but smile. People say that you are a lucky little boy to have us as parents, but your Dad and I are the ones that are blessed. There are so many things that your dad and I want to experience with you and teach you. I know I won’t be a perfect mother, I know I’m going to make mistakes – lots of them. But, one thing I know for sure is that I promise to love you and protect you always. My son, I want you to know that you are loved more than you can possibly imagine. And tonight as you sleep, feel the breeze on your skin as I’m blowing you kisses in the wind.

Love, Mommy

Help!

Did you think I was kidding when I said that my living room looked like a tornado came through? This is what it looks like when you are trying to pack. And apparently a certain someone that just so happens to live in the same house as me thinks that I'm a bad packer. So, I am now on supervisor duty.

Update Update!

Ok people, I have LOTS to update you on! I have been SO busy that I haven't had much time for blogs. We got the call on Friday with our travel dates and we just booked our flights yesterday. We leave next week Thursday... travel through 5 different airports (no that is NOT a typo) and arrive in Addis on Saturday at 11:30am. We are going to take a little extra time to see a little more of the city and experience the culture. We will then leave on Thursday night and travel back through 5 airports again and arrive in Milwaukee at 4:50pm. We can't believe we have tickets booked to pick up Jaxson! Wow. And we are so excited to see everyone when we get back, it sounds like we will have quite a bit of family and friends at the airport to welcome our new family home. :) We even have a very good friend flying in from Australia to see us walk off the plane... now that's LOVE!!

So..... we also got a little update on Jaxson on Friday too. No pictures, but we learned a little bit more about his routine. He wakes up around 6am, eats every 2-3 hrs, has 2 baths a day, lays out in the sun for about 2 1/2 hrs, likes classical music lullabies as he's being rocked to sleep, oh and he gets up 3-4 times in the night. Yikes! We will be trying to fix that part for sure. They say that he is a very content baby and sweet (well that part I already knew).

We had a busy weekend with our nieces sleeping over, good times with friends, and trying to start packing. Remember how I told you all that my house was super duper clean and everything was just perfect. Ha! Well, my livingroom looks like a tornado came through. We have donations GALORE! We have received an amazing amount of support from everyone - so thank you thank you thank you!! We started to pack up the donations tonight and weigh them and well we are going to have some problems I think. We have TOO much. We are trying to get creative and see what we can do. Otherwise we may be spending big bucks to get this over. We may have to leave some donations back and send them with other traveling families. Cass & Jess, I may be calling you.

I also had a little surprise baby shower at work today and they made a donation to HH in our name. I thought that was SO very thoughtful!! So, thank you to all of my co-workers!!

Well, the dryer just dinged. I just did my first load of baby laundry!! Woohoo!! I get to go fold his little jammies and roll his ridiculously cute little socks.

Oh Happy Day!

Ok, so let me fill you in on how yesterday went. Actually I’ll start with Monday. Monday morning was great, we were getting excited for our court date that night. Monday afternoon… not so great. I really do not know what happened, but something did and suddenly the wait was not so easy. Tuesday got even worse. Everyone and their mother was asking “have you heard anything… have you heard anything?” I know that everyone meant well, but it all got to be too much. I hit the wall and the “unknown” was enough to drive me crazy. Tuesday night was complete MELTDOWN. It was not pretty. I was doing the ugly cry – you know the cry where you can’t stop? Yeah… that one. When I get real stressed I get anxiety. So, I had a pounding headache, chest pain and no sleep. Yesterday I woke up and went to work and by 9:30am the headache hadn’t gone away and I already cried twice, so I just went home. I wanted to go to sleep and not wake up until Friday because that’s when I thought we would get the call. I got home and got right into bed. My phone was buzzing and I looked and it was Jody. I knew that she was calling to tell me some good news and it WAS! So, I hung up with her and thought ok probably Friday we’ll hear something. Little while later the phone started buzzing again, I looked and it said “Julie – AGCI”. My heart stopped and I started crying. Surely this is way too early and she is calling to tell us we didn’t pass. I let it ring a couple of times because I contemplated not answering and just having Tim call Julie back because I didn’t want to hear the bad news. I decided to just answer. Julie said “Hi Dawn…. do you have a couple of minutes….for some GREAT news!?” I said “Julie – I have ALL the time in the world!!” So, then she told me all the scoop. Wow – TOTALLY was not expecting that. Want to talk about a roller coaster of a day? I went from the lowest of low to the highest of high. I called Tim and he came home right away. There was a smile plastered on my face the rest of the day. Later that day we were invited over to a tea party hosted by my lovely nieces Bayli & Ava. We went over and there were decorations, signs, balloons, cupcakes, cookies, Tim’s favorite pie, gifts and they were wearing some cute little dresses for the occasion. They poured us some milk… oops I mean “tea”. They were so cute and loved celebrating with us. I'll post some pics later. Then we went to dinner afterwards to do some more celebrating. So, that was the happy day yesterday!

So… onto travel plans. The agency is working on getting our embassy appointments scheduled, but it looks like we will travel in 2 weeks! Of course I have a million things running through my head and adding stuff to my list hourly. I still can't believe that we've made it this far. We are ACTUALLY going now. Ahh!! Off to pack!

WE PASSED COURT!!!

And our hearts are happy!!

yeah... this pretty much just sucks...

So, that post yesterday about being at peace and all that hooey phooey??? Yeah.. you can just disregard that. This sucks. I don’t know how else to say it. I have done really well with this wait from referral to court (or at least I think I have). I woke up yesterday feeling good and even wrote that little post. Well, I don’t know what happened, but something did and that’s all out the window. I am tired of waiting. I’m tired of missing out on another day of Jaxson’s life. I'm tired of people asking when we are going to get him and my answer being "I don't know". I want to know. I want the wait to be OVER. I think it’s that we are SO close now. So close. The decision is now made and I just pray that we hear something soon. It was a rough afternoon & night, but I feel better knowing that the decision has been made. I just want my boy.

Court Tonight!!!

The closets are organized, the exersaucer is put together, everything has been dusted, the carpets have been shampooed, the cabinets have been cleaned & organized, the highchair is put together, the pack n play is put together, etc, etc, etc, and it’s done. The cleaning is done and I have wore myself out. I’m exhausted. The house is completely clean. You could come and lick my floors if you want, or my bathtub or my kitchen cabinets. They are THAT clean. So, just throwing it out there.

At midnight tonight the courts will open and while we sleep (well, I’m sure I won’t be sleeping) a judge will decide if Jaxson Kyin will be OUR SON. OUR son. AH! How does one sleep when they know that type of decision is being made??? I did not sleep last night – Tim and I both tossed & turned all night long. So, I can only imagine what it’s going to be like tonight. I am not nervous… not at all. I’ve never once been nervous about not passing court. I’m just anxious. VERY anxious & excited. I don’t know why, but I’m very much at peace about the court appt and that we won’t have any problems passing. IF for some reason we do not pass… well, I will be heart broken, but I’m choosing to remain completely hopeful that all goes well and we will be traveling in a couple of weeks with all my friends to pick up our children! We won’t know right away if we pass or not. They wait until they have a court decree in hand before making the phone call, so we are hoping to hear on Thursday or Friday. There are 4 other families that have court tonight as well, so if you could PLEASE say a prayer for all of us before you go to sleep tonight we would all REALLY appreciate it!!

Now I’m off to find some caffeine… and maybe some chocolate…

Nursery Pictures

Ok...I know I've been promising these pictures for quite sometime now, but alas HERE IT IS PEOPLE!! Here's Jaxson's room...








This is artwork that Tim & I painted when we were little. I thought it would be cute to hang & put in Jaxson's room. You can't see it, but the picture on the left... Tim painted that in 3rd grade and it's a tree house that says "The Cool Club - No Girls". hahaha...so cute.


The closet that Tim built... he did a great job!