Fall Festivities

October was a busy month. We went to Cox Farms, went apple picking, roasted marshmallows and celebrated Halloween. JT had a blast and decided this year that going down the slide on his stomach was more fun at Cox Farms. Jonah went on his first hay ride and celebrated his first Halloween. They don't do any of this in Ethiopia. We had to explain to our friend Mulat in Ethiopia what Halloween is and what we do here. I am sure he thought it was strange that Jonah was dressed up as a turtle. JT and Gavin (and Kevin) figured out that climbing trees is fun and a good way to pick apples. JT who was afraid of fire now realizes that it will cook delicious marshmallows.

   A little update....

JT- loves school, will start swim lessons, yoga and soccer in January. Loves his brother and listening to Kevin read stories in crazy voices. Is learning to like to ride his bike, although he prefers to run.

Jonah- still visiting doctors, is climbing stairs and just started to pull himself up to stand.

Kevin- selling insurance, started going to the gym. (he wants to be buff!)

Erin- has official become a domestic engineer, aka- stay at home mom. Hard to believe I know but will go back to school in the fall. Has enjoyed her mornings with Jonah and is teaching JT the joys of riding a bike. 



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Soccer Star

This September, JT started his first season of soccer. He loved putting on his shin guards, cleats and kicking his blue ball. Kevin made up a nice song about JT being a soccer star and we sang it all the time. I wouldn't say he was a great player but he started out the season doing this.......

picking grass.


And ended the season doing this.......

listening to the coaches and

playing some soccer.

JT received his soccer medal.

Ran through the last tunnel of the season.

The best part was celebrating with a delicious cupcake.

One Hour Is A Breeze

     I am going to try to get caught up on the blog over the next few days. With all the Fall festivities this past October, we have been really busy. At the beginning of October, we took a trip to Rochester. Jonah got to experience his second plane trip, although this time we were only in the air for one hour, not sixteen. So, needless to say the flight was a breeze. JT of course was thrilled and had a great time on the plane.

     We spent most our time with Uncle Larry and cousins Madeline, Olivia and Sam. Jonah loved meeting his uncle and cousins. JT always has a blast with his cousins. Sam and JT have a special manly bond. Sam is JT's only male cousin, other than Brian who is much older. Sam and JT are loud and have a lot of energy. Boys! All the kids had a blast playing all the musical instruments. They created a great band. Olivia and Madeline loved taking care of Jonah and loved feeding him. Olivia got very good at giving JT airplane rides. They all had a great time together. We will see them again at the end of December.

     Enjoy the pictures. I know that's what everyone wants anyways!

Cousin Sam

     

 

The Heilbronner Band

Uncle Larry

One Month

Jonah has now been home for a month. Sometimes it seems like he just got here and other times it's like he has been with us forever. He has been wonderful. Sleeping and eating great and happy as can be. He is starting to crawl or trying to at least. JT loves him, they laugh at each other and entertain each other.

  Jonah has had more doctors appointments in the last few weeks than I think we have had in our whole lifetime. But he has been great through it all. Our house is a little nuts adjusting to having two kids but we are all doing great.

   We made a video for Jonah. We knew it would hard to make a scrap book for him, due to lack of time. (second kids gets shafted, we know!) so making the video was something we can give to him that captures our "Journey to Jonah." He will get his yearly photo album on his birthday just as JT has, but there was no way to get everything we have been through in the past three years in an album.

    Enjoy the video.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Coming to America

     An overview- we will go back and be a little more specific about our trip but for now here is an overview of how things are going...

    We are home!  We love the USA. We were in Addis Ababa for most of our visit and went down to Awassa (the south) to  meet Jonah's mom. Awassa is what you would think of when you think of Africa. Hut houses, herds of animals, African villages and naked people! We loved it there. There was fresh air and Erin had her head out the window like a dog the whole time. Addis is the city. It smells of diesel fuel and fire burning from all the cooking that is taking place outdoors. Erin was nauseous the whole time.

     We spent time at the Horizon house and spent time with the other families as all the families came and went on their birth family visit. The plane ride home was made fun with the two other couples we traveled home with. We took up the whole front row of the plane and had bassinets for the babies. The kids all did awesome on the way home. Jonah slept, ate and laughed until we reached Dulles. As soon as we landed Jonah was officially a US citizen. We couldn't have been more happy to be home. Unless you have been to a 3rd world country and to Ethiopia you have no idea how great the US is. Even the poorest person in US is so lucky. Ethiopia is in the top ten of poorest countries in the world. That includes all of Africa. There was a couple on the trip with us who had been to several places in Africa and she still couldn't believe how poor Ethiopia was. The people are wonderful but the surroundings are not.

     Estelle, Al, JT, Meredith, Kiara, Taliya, Roney and Alani all met us at the airport. JT was happy to see us and looked at Jonah in confusion. He knew him on paper but there he was in the flesh. He was real. JT stared at him and when we got home we all just hung out. Erin took JT to Panera to enjoy some fresh food and we all enjoyed drinking water and having drinks with ice.

     JT has been awesome. We didn't really expect that. I guess we don't give him enough credit! He loves to help out and loves giving Jonah his bottle and taking baths with him. Other times he just ignores him, which is fine too.

      Jonah has been adjusting well. Other than the lack of sleep we are all doing great. Jonah went to the doctor. He is using a nebulizer and otherwise in in perfect health. He is wonderful. He is eating well but we know he is missing his injera and Ethiopian spices! He loves to  laugh and wants to be held a lot.

      We have enjoyed having visitors and we are not being too crazy about who holds him and other stuff. Some say to lay low and not to leave the house but that is not possible for us. Jonah and Erin enjoyed their first outing to the doctor and to Panera on Monday. We decided that the only thing we will be anal about is that we will be the only ones to feed him. We need him to know that we are his parents and even though it seems like he is easy going and we know he will go to anybody that is not good for kids who are being adopted. They need to know who their parents are and realize they are stuck with us forever!

      Enjoy the pictures.......

Jonah enjoying his first plane ride.

JT meets Jonah and says hello to Daddy.

Our Journey To Jonah at OneTrueMedia.com

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Ocean Isle/Trip #2

We just got back from our annual trip to Ocean Isle Beach, NC. JT was great in the car both to and from NC. We had a chance to stop in Raleigh and visit with Cindy, Ben and Carter. Teresa and Emily joined in for a pizza dinner. It was nice to see everyone. 

The beach was great as usual. The first day there as we were unpacking, Taliya informed us that "JT was doing something bad." As JT came out of the room he sported his new hairdo. He got a hold of Kevin's clippers that he left sitting in the bed. JT took it upon himself to shave his head. JT said his hair looked pretty and seemed happy with his work.We went crabbing and our skills were never lost. We caught 27 crabs in less than 2 hours and Jason cooked them as always and we all indulged in eating the crabs. JT improved on his swimming skills and after a few days decided it was fun to jump over the waves. He loved collecting shells as well. Hopefully next year he will enjoy the beach a little more. Kevin and I also had fun, although tired from having JT sleeping in a room with us and a tap on the shoulder each evening around 4am. He has not done that since we have been back home. We look forward to next summer and having Jonah join us.

Kevin and I head back to Ethiopia on August 14th. Our Embassy apt. is August 16th. At some point during the week we will visit Jonah's birth mother and family. We will be back on August 21st. 

JT has been wanting to "see" Jonah on a regular basis. (looking at his pictures) He kisses him. He will talk to us and say that we are going on a plane to Africa and Jonah will come home and sleep in the baby's crib. Kevin and I try to talk about Jonah a lot and JT helped me put some clothes in Jonah's dresser. As much as we do these things we both know JT doesn't really "get it." I don't have a big belly and we left him for a week and will be leaving him again. He did great with Estelle and Al but it was hard for him. He won't be visiting in a hospital to see a baby and we will step out of a plane with a 1 year old in our arms. Again, after leaving him for a week. He has had a hard time with Kevin and I leaving him now. That was never an issue for him. So we hope that this will all pass and once we get home and settled in, we can return to somewhat a normal life and JT will adjust as do all siblings. I do think leaving for a long time makes things very difficult. I have read many blogs and they seem to say the same thing and their older child adjusted after a few weeks.

We will be staying at the Horizon House for this trip and will not have Internet access. We will be in touch after we get home with Jonah!

Ethiopia- Days 5 and 6

The last two days were spent just hanging out at the HH. On Wednesdsay we had to check out of the hotel, so we spent the day at the HH and went out for lunch. At lunch Kevin and our new friend Victor, took a picture of our vaccine banner. The place where we got all of our shots is trying to get pictures of their banner all over the world. So it came to Ethiopia with us. We now get free vaccines for a year. When we got to the HH on Wednesday a lot of the kids, including Jonah, had been taken to get their vaccines. So when we pulled in we saw all the babies outside laying on the floor. Yonas stayed and hung for a awhile. Everyone at the HH loves the kids.

You can see in the picture there is one really sick child. He is 1 1/2 years old. He looks like a 2 month old. He has heart failure. If he were adopted when he first came to the HH, he would have been fine. He needed surgery and now it may be too late. A US doctor was going to be coming in the next few weeks and was going to see if they could get him back to the US to do surgery. At this point, he may be too weak to go through surgery. They take such good care of him and love on him just like all the other kids. Ethiopia does not have good hospitals and no one can afford the surgery. Hopefully they can get him some help.

Mulat came at 7:30pm to get us to the airport. We had a 10:30pm flight home. We said good bye to Jonah and left. The plane ride home was long and uneventful. We got back here at 8:30am. Estelle picked us up from the airport. We came home, got JT from school and went to Ruby Tuesdays for a much needed salad. We were not allowed any fruit or salad on the trip. JT seemed surprised to see us. We told him all about Jonah. He even tried on his new Ethiopian clothing.

We had a great trip. We just got a call yesterday from Wide Horizons saying we should expect to be back in the middle of August.

Jonah turned one on July 19th. We had pizza and cake in his honor. We can't wait to get him home!

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Ethiopia- Day 4/ Court Day

Day 4 was Court Day. You don't always pass court. We were told that the birth parents had all been to court a few weeks earlier. We knew Jonah's mother had shown up and relinquished her rights to us. But, if one little piece of paper is missing or not signed, you don't pass and then you wait again.

Mulat picked us all up. We were not allowed to have cameras so we have no pictures. We were told we could be in court all day. There were 10 families that had to go through. We saw a few couples from another agency sitting in the waiting room. They told us some of the questions the judge asked. When the first family was called in, they came out 3 minutes later. That was it. 3-5 questions and they were done. So then they called Yonas Ararso and in we went. She asked us the questions and that was it. We were officially his parents. The questions.... Why did you want to adopt from Ethiopia? How will you deal with a mixed raced family? Have you met Yonas? Do you understand that this is irreversible? That was it, we were parents of two little boys.

It took 45 minutes for all of the families to get through. We were amazed. Mulat took us all back to the hotel. A group us wanted to do some more shopping. Mulat came with us and took us to a "mall" and then we went for lunch. Then back to the HH for the evening. We spent time with Jonah and Kevin enjoyed playing some soccer with the guard.