Vacation, House, Baby, Birthday

I’m way behind on blogging, so I hope this will do to get everyone caught up!

 

Vacation

Our trip to WI and MN was a blast. All six flights were on time, Felix did great, and we had lots of quality time visiting with grandparents. Felix was such a doll, calling out “Good night, Great Grandma” and then, “Good morning, Great Grandma” every morning. He helped me make meals, enjoyed picking through toys left at their houses, and discovered a love for the ‘tar. (guitar) When we got home, I had a photo book made for the Wisconsin grandma, and need to make one for the Minnesota grandparents as well.

 

5 AM flight out of Boise.

House

A few days after the trip, we moved into our new house. Everything went smoothly with that, as well. My mom came over to help pack and Felix was entertained by the moving company and their big truck. He’d follow the guys around asking repeatedly, “Guy, whatchyou doing?” And the guys would patiently answer almost every time, “I’m moving this box,” or “I’m unloading this box.”

 

Felix pushed around his little Ikea cart pretending it was a dolly, and even got to help load and unload a bit. It was so good for him to see the process and see my bed, his toys, etc. get loaded onto the truck. We followed it a couple of miles down the road to the new house and promptly unloaded. Felix still talks today about “Guys bring truck, take stuff new house!”

 

My brother spent hours cleaning up our willow tree, and it looks gorgeous now.

 

The most amazing rhubarb pie, made from a rhubarb plant in our new yard.

I hired my former roommate to clean the townhouse after we moved out, and I promptly posted For Rent ads on Craigslist and Zillow (which auto-posts to many partner sites, all free.) My email and phone went crazy with responses, and less than a week after we moved out, I had rented the place on a 12-month lease, rent and deposit in hand. It was such a relief to have that taken care of so quickly.

 

Today Felix still calls the house “ours new house” and he always asks if we’re going to “ours new house” after daycare or after running errands. He also asks about the townhouse on occasion. “Mom, no go townhouse?”

 

Baby

Two and a half weeks after we moved, I got a call from the adoption agency asking if they could show my profile that day. What?! Yes! But I hadn’t paid to be on their waiting list of parents, so I had to run home, grab a copy of my profile book which I’d saved for myself just in case, and rush it over the agency within the hour. I had to postpone a meeting with my boss and the president of the company to do so, but thankfully I’m in a very supportive environment and that wasn’t a problem.

 

The next afternoon, the agency called again to let me know I’d been selected! Ahh, no way! The baby boy is due on June 6^th right here in Boise. I’ll have separate blog posts with more exciting details about that day, how we announced it to family, and the general roller coaster ride this match has been so far.

 

They really should make soothing toddler swings.

 

Birthday

Felix’s third birthday came one week after being matched. The night before, I built a swing set for him in the back yard in order to surprise him in the morning. We he woke up I tried singing Happy Birthday, but he cried “Nooo!” and swatted at me. So I told him there was a surprise in the back yard – would he like to see it? He jumped out of bed and shuffled to the back door. I let him outside, he looked at the swing set and said, “Where’s surprise, mommy?” Sigh. The best laid plans…

 

He helped me attach the slide and teeter totter, then we had breakfast and headed to the zoo. I took him to daycare at naptime so I could get some work done in the afternoon. That night, I stopped by the store for a cupcake so I could light some candles and sing to him. It absolutely made his day! I might open with that next year and save myself the trouble of assembling a new toy. 

 

Happy 3rd birthday!

On Saturday we finally got to have a big back yard party. It threatened to rain but never did, so the kids had fun playing in the tent, boat (cardboard box) and on the swing set. We had light snacks and a pretty awesome-looking campfire cake with ice cream. Felix smiled and sang along with everyone. Unfortunately my round cake pans disappeared during the move and this big cake ended up pretty dry, but whatever. The kids all dug in for candy fire as soon as Felix blew the candles out. 

 

The next afternoon, we counted Felix’s birthday money and bought his first acoustic guitar. He carries it around carefully and is learning to pluck one string at a time to tune it. He also loves to make up songs about whatever strikes him. Most recently, it was “Mommy, come heeeeeeere, mommy, come heeeeeeeere…” I found a local rock school that starts guitar group lessons as young as three, so I’ll have to consider that for this fall.