It's Official!!

Well now that we have two boys (one, an infant), it's pretty much all I can do to keep up with posting once a month.  So it's about that time...
Our big news since my last post is that we went to court last week to finalize Jacob's adoption.  It was a very exciting time and we were glad to share the event with some of our friends from Adoption Ministry.

Liane and Debi- fairy godmothers 

(a.k.a social workers extraordinaire)

Dennis Casey- our attorney

It was a bit of a wait, but Matthew was very patient and was happy to have his friends, David, Drew, Tia and Michael to play with to pass the time.

Matthew got to play with the judge's gavel.  

Fortunately, he didn't break anything with it.

The judge told us that he once had a little boy smash his computer keyboard with it- oops.

Matthew got a little shy when the judge asked to shake his hand.  

I think he may have been a little afraid that he was going to throw him in jail.

In the end he did give him a high five :)

"This court stuff is very tiring"

We were very fortunate to have the Sobba's and Shaw's offer to join us.  It has been a blessing to walk this adoption journey with Danny and Diane and their kids.  They have kept us sane and talked us down off of the ceiling a few times : )

Jacob and Godmama-to-be

Other than that, it's been business as usual.  Matthew continues to be quite the ham.  He is loving the fact that summer has arrived in Western Washington.  He just completed a week at vacation bible school and is looking forward to a visit from Grandpa and Grandma from Florida.  

He has been a little blue that several of his friends are moving this summer.  So far, he has had four move already and our next door neighbors are moving at the end of July.  He's going to get very good at writing letters ;)

Jacob is growing and changing just about every day it seems.  He's now up to 17 pounds.  He babbles a lot and has had a few episodes of a good belly laugh.  He continues to love to be held facing outward so he can see all of the action.  And it really is amazing but he and Matthew are starting to look more and more alike.  

My boys : )

Here's some more pics from our Father's Day outing at Gas Works park and the Lake Union boat pond.  

Well, that's about all the news from our world these days.  We are just living life and thanking God for how He has blessed us so abundantly.  He is so good!!

Gotta run.  Take care : )

May 2012- Take Two

Take Two!  Blogger is not my friend these days.  I spent about 45 minutes on a post last week, clicked "publish" and watched the screen go blank and my post disappear.  Arrrgghh!!  I'm sure my neighborhood all heard my anguish.  I'm still trying to figure out the formating so this may be a little choppy and out of order.  Anyhow, here we go again...

Things continue to be busy in the Taylor household.  I'm slowly accepting the fact that this is our new m.o. for the time being.  Jacob is continuing to grow and change rapidly.  He is now up to about 14 pounds, and smiles and babbling quite a bit.  He had a few days that he slept through the night, but those were short lived.  No biggie though.  It's only a season ;)

Matthew continues to be a great big brother.  These pictures may be deceiving in that he doesn't really hold or feed him a whole lot.  But he did have one day a few weeks ago that he wanted to do everything for Jacob- feed, hold, change diapers.  I drew the line at him carrying him around the house.  It was a great time to snap a few pics of the two of them together though.

pretending to be daddy sleeping while holding Jacob

He also got a stuffed baby leopard as a gift from one of our friends.  It makes noises when you feed it and hold it.  So he wanted his own clothes, diapers and diaper bag for "Lemon Leopard".  He also wanted to take Lemon to the pediatricians office for shots with Jacob's appointment.  Lucky for him, Lemon never made it to the doctor's office because Matthew wanted to leave him at home that day.

We took a trip back to Michigan at the end of May for my dad's surprise 70th birthday party.  Our arrival was a surprise as well.  My parents were thrilled to meet Jacob and to spend some time with Matthew who had a ball playing catch and frisbee.  He also got to go shopping for some hockey gear since we don't have much here in WA.  

Jacob and Auntie Carolyn

Jacob with Uncle Gary and his granddaughter, Claire

Matthew playing baseball/tennis with Auntie Ellen.

Notice mommy in the street fielding the ball 

because he would smack the heck out if it.

Next it was back home for a little birthday celebration for the big boy.  Hard to believe that he's five already.  Where did the time go?  He wanted a hockey and a super hero cake, so we improvised (see below).

The birthday cake.  My favorite part is Puss-N-Boots in the face off.

And Batman would have made a better goalie blocking the net with his wings.

This is Matthew with his birthday gift from Grandpa Mike and Grandma Karen.

This Lego plane had hundreds of pieces and about 80 pages of instructions.  Don't worry Grandpa Mike and Grandma Karen, we're saving the jet plane for you guys to do with him ;)

Random pic of mommy and Jacob napping

One of the other big events of May was our first meeting (after the hospital) with Jacob's birthmother.  It was great to see her and she is amazed at how much Jacob has grown.  Liane and Debi, the social workers from Adoption Ministry, were there as well.  It was great to see all of these people that were there on that amazing day that Jacob was born.

Liane and Jacob

It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to the Guy's and Streby's this summer.  Jonas, Brodi, Mia, Summer (not pictured) and Matthew all had swimming lessons together when they were babies.  It has been great to stay in touch with them all and see these darling kids grow.  We will miss Mia and Jonas but they are off on new adventures in Kansas and Ohio.  We wish them the best and safe travels.

Another random pic.  This time- mommy and Matthew : )

Lastly, Nana came to visit for a few days.  We all had a lot of fun.  And I think Nana is now an expert at looking for particular Lego pieces in a pile of hundreds.  A skill every grandparent needs ; )
Well that's all the news from the Taylors for now.  I just added a couple more random pics at the end.  Hope all is well.  Take care.

Technical Difficulties

Well, this may be the end of our blog.  Turns out our browser no longer supports blogger and I can't download the new one.  I'm trying to do it in the old one and it's a little more complicated and takes forever for pics to download, so we'll see....

Anyhow, Matthew had first day of T-ball on Sunday.  He loves it!!  He has a great hit and throw, but needs to work on his catching skills a bit.  It's also funny watching a bunch of pre-schoolers play infield.  It looks a little more like rugby rather than baseball.  Here's some pics from the action (the pics are all in reverse order, since that's how the new format goes).

We had some very sad news last week.  Matthew's mom's morning out class suddenly had to come to an end.  He has known Erin and Kelly for almost 4 years now and has made lots of friends in their class.  We will miss our MMO time (especially now- yikes!!).

As for Jacob, it's true what they say about not taking as many pictures of the second child.  We will try to get more next time.  I think that our life has just been so crazy the past few weeks that we just haven't thought about it.  But he's doing great and starting to grow and change right before our eyes.  He's outgrown all of his newborn clothes and is spending some quite alert time just looking at things.  He's started giving us a few smiles and loves to be held facing outward so that he can see the action.  But the second pic really sums up most of our interaction with him these days.

Well got to run for now.  Hopefully I can get this browser thing worked out : )