23 Months Old!

Owen turned 23 months old today!  It is hard to believe that in 1 month he will be 2. I still get misty eyed thinking that we missed the first year of his life, but I think we have done a good job of making his 2nd year memorable:) At least he has for us anyway:)! 

He has really started putting words together really well for small sentences. In fact, tonight, he "read" a book with me. It was called "Swim duck, Swim!" The first page says "Hello Duck!" Then Owen would say it. We would turn the page. "Swim Duck Swim!" Owen would repeat it. We turned the page, "Hello Rabbit" Owen would repeat it. Turn the page, and "Hop rabbit Hop!" Owen would repeat. The final 2 animals were a dog and Monkey. I was pretty impressed that he said it so clearly and really in sentence form. He is just so smart! 

Seriously, he doesn't miss a thing. We try to "hide" things in front of him so he doesn't learn how to do them, but he watches our every move. He has been like that since Day 1 with us. If he saw us do something, he wanted to do it. If you moved and the floor creeked, he heard it and watched you to see what you were doing. I still can't believe how observant he is! 

I'm just so excited to be his mom!  We had such a wonderful Christmas. He really had fun opening his gifts, and he would play a little with each one after opening them. He also enjoyed passing out gifts to others, and of course helping mommy and daddy open their gifts. I loved watching him and seeing how excited he was:) 

I also felt very blessed holding him during Christmas Eve Mass. When we were waiting to adopt and then waiting to bring Owen home once we were matched, my biggest thing I looked forward to was having him in mass and teaching him about God. I would see the other mothers at church, or even be holding my nieces/nephews and thinking how much it would mean to me to have him in my arms there. Now I do:) Though some weeks are better than others in terms of how Owen will do, I still love having him in mass with me, celebrating God!  What better way can we show our appreciation as a family than in prayer, especially in God's house.

Now we're getting ready to start the new year and waiting to see what lies ahead for our family:)  I'm looking forward to even more memories, which include Owen's 2nd birthday!  Happy New Year everyone:)!

Meeting Santa!

So, we've been SOOOOOO excited for this holiday season, with Thanksgiving and Christmas, because this is Owen's first year home with us for the actual time period. Last year, we kept up our Christmas tree all the way to Gotcha Day and coming home with Owen. That way we were able to celebrate Christmas with him once we got him home. That happened to be in the middle of February, LOL!

This year, we've enjoyed having him home for Thanksgiving, and getting to spend the time with us and our extended family. It's been wonderful!  We had been trying to have children for about 4 years when we were matched with and given Owen as our son. Over those four years, my enthusiasm for Thanksgiving and Christmas, though still there, decreased with each year that we were wondering if we would ever be blessed with chidren. 

With Owen, celebrating these Holidays, have been extra special, and I think my enthusiasm is up more than it ever was before for this time of year!  We enjoyed seeing Christams lights with him, and singing Christmas music to him. Decorating the tree and the rest of the house with all our Christmas goodies! 

Yesterday, we took Owen to meet Santa for the first time. Now, we have been more focused on teaching Owen about Jesus and how it is Jesus' birthday on Christmas, and that he was born in a manger. We gave him a Little People's Nativity set that he can play with and learn about the story. He has told his grandparents and aunts and uncles about Jesus in the Manger, very cute;)  However, we hadn't exactly talked as much about Santa. So before we went out to meet him, I showed Owen lots of pictures of Santa, some cartoon, some real life, some with children on Santa's lap. I told him he was going to meet Santa and sit on his lap. Owen's response, "yeah!"

We got to the mall, luckily since it was during the week, it was maybe a 5 min wait. We got to see a couple other kids sit on Santa's lap, and Owen acted like he was ready. I sat him on Santa's lap, and quickly backed away. Owen just did a double take of the situation....looking back and forth from Santa to daddy and me. He almost started to cry, but I tried to make him smile, the elf taking the picture started making lots of noise,and Santa tried to tickle him. We were able to stop the crying, but no smile came. We were still proud and glad at how good he did. We got a pretty decent picture considering he didn't know the "strange man" holding him, LOL!   I'm soooooooo happy to be celebrating fully as a family and not from 2 different continents this year!!! We are super super Blessed, and I can't get over my amazement at the wonder of God's plan.   Here is Owen's pic;)

Ho, HO, Ho, Merry Christmas!!!!!!