James 1:27 says, “Religion that God accepts as pure and faultless is this; to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” God desires for orphans of all nations to be loved, cared for, and adopted into Christian families-ultimately so they can become saved, and be adopted into His eternal family through Jesus Christ!
I had a doctors appointment on Thursday, May 3rd so I took the day off and after my appointment Isaiah and I had all day to spend together. Friday, May 4th was our 2nd Family Day, but since I had to take the 3rd off I didn't also take the 4th. But we realized while eating Spaghetti Factory dinner on Thursday evening that based Korea's time zone change it was actually our Family Day in the US on May 3rd. Our first meal after getting Isaiah in Korea in May 2010 was Italian food and we happened to eat Italian food again this year (not positive what we ate last year...guess I'll have to see if I blogged the details-hopefully Italian food)!
AND Children's Day (a holiday celebrated in Korea) is May 5th, which we wanted to celebrate too! On Saturday Nonna and Pops picked us up and we went out to lunch and then we parked at a transit station and rode the MAX (which Isaiah LOVES) to meet Elise and boys at the zoo.
On the MAX with Mommy
Waiting to go into the zoo
Looking at the bears...which he loved last time we were at the zoo. The bears weren't as exciting today.
The big boys walking hand in hand!
It is so difficult to get a good picture of all three boys, but they loved playing in the barn.
Greyson was supposed to be riding in the stroller, but he wasn't interested and since Isaiah was having a wandering day we used the stroller some to keep him close to us.
Daddy and Isaiah enjoying the elephants. Isaiah totally did the elephant call!
The boys loved playing music!
Isaiah was not interested in holding still to have his picture taken with the lions.
The boys getting a few last laughs with each other before heading home.
Elise and her boys loaded up in the van.
Walking to get back on the MAX.
Waiting for the MAX to come
I love these family photos on the MAX! Maybe our next family photo shoot should be planned to take pictures on the MAX.
We had such a great weekend celebrating with family! Hard to believe that Isaiah has been home for two years now. We love our boy so much and are excited for many more years and memories together.
Oh...potty training! The topic of many conversations at our household. Is Isaiah ready? When should we do it? How should we do it?
Isaiah has always been pretty willingly to sit on the little potty we have and just recently he had "another" (our 2nd) success. Although, now I am not sure he meant to have a success, but none the less, it was a successful pee in the potty. Since Isaiah is so smart I am sure he could figure this all out, but if he isn't interested yet I don't want to be the one doing all the work.
I recently checked out several kid books about potty training. Wow, the selections in this topic area are not that impressive. At least we got them from the library and didn't buy some of these crazy books. I was hopeful that his love for books might help him love to go potty on his little potty. We did find a favorite: Diapers Aren't Forever that we read many times before it was time to return the book. However, no additional success after reading the Diapers Aren't Forever book. I think he just liked the book because we have another book from the series called Hands Are Not For Hitting (this book has been helpful in reducing unloving hands).
As I am writing this blog post Isaiah is playing on my i phone. The app is he is currently playing is a letter flashcards. This app was recently updated and changed some of its features. One of the updated features is that it now reads a sentence after saying the letter. For example "U: Underwear are useful clothing." Perfect or what?
We thought we would do a trial run with underwear just to see what would happen. Well, the underwear only stayed dry for about 10 minutes! Luckily he was outside playing so the first accident (of many I'm sure) wasn't too big of a deal. Other than the mommy clean up was still involved. So..wait to potty train or mommy train?
However, I do think undies of this boy are pretty cute...
Isaiah is still really enjoying the rocks in the backyard and LOVES being outside...so I still have hope that this summer we will master the skill of going potty on the little potty and not in our diaper or underwear.
Isaiah was going crazy running and counting from 1 to 20 while he was trying out the underwear. Maybe all the activity is what made him pee in his underwear, probably not though.
We had warm weather again on Saturday, April 28th! We took advantage of the nice weather and continued working on improving our backyard. After redoing bark and hazelnut shells almost yearly for the past six years...we have finally decided to pick something that won't need replacing...rocks!
The previous weekend, April 21st and 22nd, we had warm weather too so we had already begun the improvement process by picking up all the old hazelnut shells and pulling weeds. This weekend we laid down the black fabric weed barrier and then laid rocks on top. Each bag of rocks weighed 60lbs. Our CR-V could only handle ten bags at a time, so we ended up taking four trips to the landscape center and we ended up buying 35 bags for a total of 2,100lbs of rock!
Isaiah LOVED helping put the rocks on the black. He did a great job putting the rocks in the corner places. Now he LOVES walking on the rocks every time we take Sophie outside! It was such a good decision to make this change...we love our "new" backyard!
Monday, April 23 we had nice weather...so I took full advantage of it and vacuumed out my car and then washed it. Isaiah "helped" me vacuum out my car by hanging out in the front seat and playing with all the fun dials and compartments on the dashboard/front part of the car. My hands were busy with the vacuum so I didn't take pictures of the process, but by the time we were done my boy was VERY hot and sweaty so I brought him inside to cool off and then take a rest. While he rested I went back out front to wash our very dirty car. I snapped these pictures while he was cooling off before his rest...I think he is "a little cute" as Nonna loves to tell him and Isaiah loves to repeat back to Nonna!
Saturday, April 21st we got together with family for a pre Kiara's getting dedicated celebration dinner!
Sunday, April 22nd was Kiara's dedication. Kiara had lots of family at church this morning praying that someday she learns to love the Lord and live her life serving Him!
On Sunday, April 15th (I know...how am I month behind...AGAIN!) we went to McMinnville to watch our nephews. While we were there we decided to get the older boys and us ice cream treats from Dairy Queen. Poor Greyson missed out on the yummy treat, but we will do it again when he is old enough to eat his own ice cream treat.
Travis took Campbell to pick up the special treats...Campbell thought it was pretty cool to ride in the blue car and get one on one time with just Uncle T. Isaiah loved staying and having all of Campbell's toys for himself- well I guess he had to share a little with Greyson.
