One, Two, Three Reasons to Love Jack

Jack has returned to his preschool this month. (We had taken him out before the surgery because he was getting sick quite often. He needed to be healthy for several weeks prior to surgery.) Now that he's back in school he's been learning his numbers. In tribute to his counting, I will recount just three of the thousands of reasons we love Jack.

1. He is filled with delight 99% of his day. He wakes up happy and heads to sleep with a smile. I cannot imagine a life without the joy this little man brings to our family.


2. He's incredibly strong and brave. He shows us what true strength is every day as he works so hard to learn to communicate with us. He has been through so much in his life, but hasn't let it dampen his spirit or lessen his enthusiasm.


3. He's brilliant. During a recent evaluation for speech therapy he underwent a series of tests. One of them was similar to the shell game where he tracked a fuzzy ball hidden under a cup. He got it right every time (even when I wouldn't have). When we teach him a sign he remembers it on the first try. His sign language vocabulary has become quite extensive. And, he's pushing us to teach him more signs and help him turn the signs into sentences.

Since, he's only up to showing us three fingers I will stop there, but we have so many more reasons to be grateful to have Jack in our lives.

We love our little guy!

Jack and Olivia: The Reunion

For those of you who follow both blogs, you've already seen some of the pictures of our New Year's Eve festivities. We are so fortunate to have shared one of the most important moments of our lives with such warm, down-to-earth, good hearted people. Getting together again in Orlando reminded Craig and I just how lucky we were to travel to China with the Mansens. Jack and Olivia, who started life as Fu Nong and Fu Tan, have acclimated so well to all the changes in their lives. If you ever needed evidence of that, check out the two in the heated pool at the Mansen's townhouse in Orlando...


New Year's Day we headed to Downtown Disney where the kids spent hours at the Lego playground and building area. Jack and Olivia were sliding buddies... remember this time on the slide.

Jack has developed a love for the Little Mermaid movie, although, he calls it the boat movie (at least in sign language that's how he asks to watch it.) Craig found these two stuffed animals from the movie in Downtown Disney. I was lucky enough to capture his reaction.

Another Jack favorite - TRAINS!

Moms love bangs

or at least that's Craig's theory. (He qualifies this statement by saying, "Moms don't like hair anywhere in the eyebrow vicinity on their children")

Last weekend we made a trip to visit our travel family the Mansens, but first I wanted Jack to get a little trim around his ears. We took him back to the kids salon that had given him a good cut before....

It started out well compared to our last visit where Jack was fairly upset. With help of a banana lollipop Jack sat still and calm.

This was one hairy lollipop.

He even had fun, but...
He ended up with nearly the same haircut he had as the day we met him in China. It certainly wasn't the little trim around the ears we'd hoped for, but we thought it might help Olivia recognize him.

(I will post pictures of our reunion soon. I have to get them from Craig's camera because my camera battery died.)

***And, anyone who has seen our blog and The HAWK, knows that this mom doesn't love bangs! :)