My Ebenezer

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FINALLY!

We should be going to finalize Mathew’s adoption on Wednesday. I say “should” because we’ve gotten the run-around a few times now and I will believe it when I see it.

It’s not even a big deal to me – I wish they’d let us do the paperwork here and have it notarized or something. I mean, he has been ours from the beginning. The day I celebrated his joining our family was the first time I held him in my arms. I never doubted whether he would eventually become ours legally – I knew it was just a matter of time. For me, he was ours then and now it is just a formality.

I guess to me what happens in our hearts is far more important than what happens in court.

Speaking of Mr. Mathew, the little dude is standing on his own now! the other day he was digging a toy out of his little bucket and when he grabbed it, he just stood right up and held it to his mouth so he could chew on it. I about fell over.

Dear Mathew,

Are you kidding me? 10 months old today? How is it even possible? I cannot believe time has gone by so quickly. It seems like just yesterday we were praying for your safe arrival….okay, so maybe I was also stalking the hospitals. But I would have walked to the ends of the Earth to bring you home – you were ours from the moment you were conceived and we loved you from the beginning.

Here are some fun things you are doing (and I’ll include the last few months since I haven’t tracked it very well):

-play peekaboo

play patty-cake (although you do it with your hands most of the time, you LOVE to do it with your feet and think it is the funniest thing in the world)

you don’t walk in your walker very much – you are usually running in it, going through the house looking for Carter and Gracey and trying to work your way back to the AC vent so you can strum it with your fingers

Bath time is another favorite – you often bathe with Gracey and she loves it but “tells” on you for too much splashing

You’ve been pulling up on things for quite some time now and have started to “cruise”

you also think it’s hilarious to hold onto my hands and walk

You the sign for bottle and have gotten pretty good and doing it at the appropriate time – we’re working on the sign for “more” but mostly you just bang your tray when you want more

Just like Gracey was, you are the happiest baby I know and are almost always smiling – you have a very sweet disposition and are so good about sleeping. We put you in your bed and give you your little puppy head with a blanket and you grab onto it for dear life and roll over.

Whenever people hear our story they almost always comment on how lucky you, Gracey and Carter are. But we are the lucky ones – the blessed ones – in fact, I tell Carter and Gracey all the time that I am the luckiest mommy in the world. When i ask them why, they both say, “because God gave us to you!”

I love you and wish time would just a bit slower.

At the dinner table tonight:

Carter: know why I need to eat all of my food?
Me: why?
Carter: so i can get big and strong and be Ironman when I grow up. But I’m going to live here forever.
Me:You’ll with us forever and ever?
Carter: Uh huh
Me: Are you going to get married someday?
Carter: Yes
Me: and you and your wife will live here?
Carter: YES! of course.
Me: who are you going to marry?
Carter: You, mommy!
Me: awww, you are? yay!
Carter: yes (smiling sweetly) I love you the best, Mommy. so I should marry you.

This morning, Mathew played “patty-cake” – well, he clapped his hands, with no gestures from me. I just sang the song and he clapped. LOL The things we mommies get excited about! He can also do the sign for Bottle. He hasn’t actually used it to ask for a bottle but he does the sign when i say ‘bottle’.

Carter fixed his hair mostly by himself this morning and did a great job. Gel and everything. He also announced that he would be fixing it himself from now on.

And all I managed to do this morning was knock a brand new box of tampons into the toilet.

We FINALLY went to take our family pictures on Saturday and I’m happy to report that it wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected it to be. In fact, it was painless for the most part. Going into it, I just knew that Mathew would be the easiest – he is such a smiler and always so happy. I was worried about Carter since he seems to do everything he can to avoid pictures these days and he was FANTASTIC! He smiled on cue, sat where he was asked to and was just so sweet!

Gracey did fine but she’s at that age where it’s hard to get a genuine smile and when you do it usually isn’t facing the right direction. And Mathew? The little turkey wouldn’t smile! At all! I think there were 2-3 pics out of all of them where he was actually smiling. Little stinker!

We did get a good family portrait and that’s what is was all about anyway. so i guess all in all we had a good session. In looking over the proofs, I think the photographer kind of sucked. I mean, most of the photos of the kids were shot from above them. It was wierd. Anyway…. I put them in the gallery.

Dear Carter,

Happy 5th Birthday! It is amazing to me that you are fiver years old and so grown up. Ever since your birthday, you love to tell people you are five and are constantly saying things like, “5 years olds do it this way…” It cracks me up.

These days you are all about the “big boy” toys. Transformers are at the top of the list followed closely by Legos. You still like Monster Trucks and race cars, tools, dirt and everything outside. Your climbing has slowed down – at least the jumping part. Finally, I think you have discovered that thing called gravity. That’s not to say you don’t climb – I have found you with toys that were up at the VERY top of the cabinet….ones That would have required me to get a chair and then still climb on the shelf a little. You must be part monkey.

One of my favorite things is to watch you laugh and play. It’s incredible how much you use your imagination and create all these different scenarios for your transformers. I love to listen to that play time but nothing compares to watching you run and jump and play hard – you can’t stop yourself from smiling when there is lots of action and my heart explodes when I’m lucky enough to catch those beautiful smiles.

A couple of months ago you began to express an overwhelming interest in books and reading. I bought “hooked on phonics” and you are definitely hooked. In our very first lesson, you read a series of words with very little help from mommy: “at, cat, hat, bat, sat, fat, rat, etc…” The look on your face when you read that first word ‘at’ by sounding it out and with no help from me – it was worth it all. We have our “lessons” usually 2-3 times a week and have been at it for only 2 1/2 weeks. You’ve read two of the HOP books with the rhyming 3 letter words and last night you read the second one by yourself. I helped a lot on the first one but you didn’t need that help yesterday, even though there were more combinations of words. Your reading list now includes ‘an’ (fan, can, man etc…), ‘ap’ (gap..), ‘at’ (cat), ‘ag’ (tag…), and maybe one more that I can’t remember just now. You LOVE that you can do it yourself and are very excited about learning more.

You love going to school but Daddy is still your favorite person in the world. While you don’t care much for getting too close to Mathew (he might put your toys in his mouth) you enjoy plaing with Gracey! In fact, one of my favorite things to do is listen to the two of you play together. Even when you’re arguing and picking at her you miss her if she goes to the other room and beg her to come back. It’s also sweet how you try to keep her out of trouble, most of the time.

You bring us more joy than you will ever know.

So Carter turned 5 on Sunday.

Insert Birthday Letter here

I can’t believe my son is five. Wow. He had a blast at his jumping party and was thrilled with all the transformers and legos he received. I have lots of great pics I guess I need to upload – I’ll work on that tomorrow.

it’s funny. It seems that everyone is having a blog slump. Even the ones I read who are usually the most consistent have really been slacking lately. What’s up, blogosphere?

"Samuel took a single rock and set it upright between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer (Rock of Help), saying, This marks the place where GOD helped us."

1 Samuel 7:12 The Message

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