A little update on Isaac and waiting for baby #2

It's hard to imagine Isaac has been home for over 1.5 years, yet still it somehow feels he has always just been here. He is now 2.5 and full of life. I haven't updated in a while because, like all other moms of toddlers, we have been busy!!!
There is not a day that goes by where our house is not full of laughter...sure we have our days, but those days are nothing in comparison to the joy Isaac brings. Isaac talks ... non-stop...all day long...to everyone and anyone. He says the funniest things every day, I promised myself I would write some of them down because they are too good to be forgotten!!

Isaac will often ask for things, mostly having to do with sugar, so we sometimes need to say no. I usually say, "Not right now." He responded the other day with, "Maybe Tuesday Mommy? Maybe, sure??" I was laughing so hard and said that Tuesday he could have it. He then moved on and was totally ok with that answer. Now, instead of saying no we tell him maybe on Tuesday he can have what he is asking for. The big joke is that one day he will realize it's a Tuesday and he will cash in on everything in one day!

He also loves to talk to people when we are out in stores, he will ask people their names and then he follows with, "Where's your Mommy?" This is very cute but also very awkward when he asks the elderly people standing behind us in line!!! I'm trying to teach him to only ask children this question.

He is now speaking a lot of Hungarian and understands every word Arnie speaks to him. He likes to mix and mush his sentences with English and Hungarian...it's so adorable.

He loves music and instruments, mostly favouring the drums. His favourite thing to play with are things that resemble sticks. He loves his plastic knives and will often carry them around as drum sticks all day long looking for things to bang on. While this can be challenging (as he bangs on glass objects or uses his food covered utensils to bang on the table) I love watching him develop this love for music. I will be completely shocked if he does not play drums professionally one day!

I now tell people that I don't believe in "Terrible Twos", there is nothing terrible about two! Sure we have moments and times I could just bang my head on the wall rather than repeat the same thing over and over, but those moments are quickly masked by the funny and sweet ones that happen every day. The other day, he stuck a bowl on his head while completely naked running around with a spatula, and I had a moment of "I'm so lucky that this is my life". I have said I would like to have a 2 year old in my house for the next ten years...granted my energy level can keep up!!!

Isaac is full of kisses and hugs and is very affectionate. He doesn't cuddle very often but we still cuddle him to sleep every nap time and night. Don't ask how long we will do this...I could probably do it forever!

We are very busy with Isaac but we are also greatly anticipating baby number 2. Our hearts are beginning to long the way we longed for Isaac. As I pack up his baby stuff and only a little bit remains, I am careful to not move it far away in hopes I'll be able to bring it all out again one day soon! We often talk about baby brother or sister to Isaac, to try and get him ready. The other day we were driving and out of nowhere Isaac says, "Please I have a new sister and bring her to my house, to mommy's house and daddy's house?" I just about pulled over in shock of what he said! I said that I really hope one day we can but I'm not really in charge of that, he would need to ask Jesus if he wants a sister. He said he did ask Jesus and Jesus told him yes....I suppose only time will tell :) And so begin the "birth pains" of adoption. The long and painful wait for our baby, the unknown of how long it will take and the unknown of who our baby will be. It is honestly a roller coaster of emotion, one minute we are so happy and excited and then the next these anxious thoughts of waiting and "what ifs?". I wish I knew, but then again the surprise of Isaac is one that I could never have wished to be any different. The waiting and longing draw us close to Jesus, as there is no one else who knows what the plan is. We trust him with everything, He gave us our son who was perfectly hand chosen to be in our family, and I know he will also perfectly plan out the arrival of our next baby. So as I try to keep a little of Isaac's baby-ness around, or you see me gazing longingly at a stranger's baby, don't blame me, we have no idea how long until our next one will come. Jesus does know, and for now that will be enough. My Saviour, who created me, who knows me inside and out, will choose our child and will bring them home when He is ready and when the time is right...just remind me of that while I pack away Isaac's diapers and bottles ;)

He fell asleep with his bottle in his mouth, when I took it out he was frozen in this position :)

Playing with his bowl hat and plastic knives

All set up with his drums playing along to the classical version of Peter and the Wolf

Working with us in the garage, little did he know we were building his Christmas present!!

Mommy and son date to the muttart conservatory 

After stating their love for each other, I caught this kiss on camera!

Reading with his cousins!! 

Room for one more !!!

We have been keeping a secret for a few months now, but we are finally ready to share. We are adopting a baby from South Africa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are beyond excited to finally share this news! Our file landed in South Africa today so that means we are officially waiting. We were told it would be approximately 15 months for a match, so we still have a while to wait but we are so happy to finally make it official. 

We started in September looking into our options and after a lot of prayer and talk, we decided our next child is in South Africa. We signed up for the program in November and have been working on our file since. Our home study took a long time and we have been waiting on it for a few months now, but it is all done now! 

We have requested an age range of 0-12 months and we are looking forward to either a boy or a girl! Isaac will be a big brother!!! We have been talking to him about brother or sister in Africa and we regularly pray for them. He doesn't really understand but we are trying to start the conversation so it can be a smooth transition for him. We are not only excited to become parents again, but we are ecstatic that Isaac will get to have a sibling. 

Please join us as we pray and wait. The waiting is never easy, but we know that God always has a plan. As we parent Isaac, we are constantly reminded of His goodness and grace. We anticipate as we wait for God's plan to unfold once again. 

That's all for now, I'll write more about the process and why we chose SA next time, but for now I want to post some of the beautiful pictures my friend, Denise took for us! She is always the best and captures the best moments :)

23 and 24 months

My baby turned two!!!!! Can you believe it??!! The days sometimes seem long, but the years pass with a blink! This year has been the best. I was reminiscing about Isaac a few weeks ago. I was saying how much I missed him as a baby. As the day went on we decided to go for a walk. Isaac was so busy looking at everything and picking up pinecones. I was glad we weren't time bound so he could just enjoy himself. He kept saying "mommy look!" And running to me for hugs. He always says "I love you mommy" and gives hugs and kisses fairly generously... Somewhere near the end of the walk it dawned on me. When Isaac was a baby he didn't love me, but he does now. Why would I want to go back to that place of insecurity and uncertainty. Sometimes I would cry because I thought he didn't love me, but it's been a while since I thought that. I love that Isaac is 2, he is so confident and fun. I get cuddles that I didn't when he was smaller and he can tell me he loves me now. 

The funny things you say:

-you don't stop talking so it's hard to figure out what your new words are! There are so many! 

-you try to tell stories and often tell daddy about your day, the only way anyone would know what you are saying is of they had spent the day with you! You get excited and say some actual words and then start filling in with jibberish. It turns out to be one exciting story on your end and a very humorous one on ours!

How you play:

- we went to gymnastics drop in a few times and you loved it!!! Jumping, running, climbing, you could think of nothing better!!

- you are starting to play nicer with friends, specifically oli and jilly when it's just two of you. 

-your aunties bought you a jumpy house for your birthday and you have had many fun play dates on it!

-you like your push bike and are trying to figure out the peddles

-your favorite is helping daddy build the hobbit house outside. You follow him around with tools and pencils and he lets you help when you can!

The naughty things you do:

-I could go on and on in this section haha I'm learning that you figuring out your independence is not nesseccarily you being naughty. You want to try things and figure them out which often results in a large mess! 

-you still have a love/hate relationship with lily and like to try and put her in her place by yelling and flailing arms at her. You will always say sorry and attempt to give her a kiss

-you like pulling out the spices, dumping them out and then grabbing the broom to "clean up" for the record this is VERY annoying

-you like essential oils and have tried to pour them into my diffuser resulting in a large puddle of oils... Again very annoying :)

-you like banging the walls with your hammer, I'm thankful we have lots of distressed furniture that you are allowed to bang on!

-and while I realize these things aren't really naughty per say, I'm trying to find a balance of allowing you to explore and not allowing you to trash the whole house!!! Well welcome to having a toddler I guess!!

You are the joy in our family and we continue  to praise God for placing you here. Your everything we could've hoped for and even more. You light up a room with your presence and we continue to fall in love with you daily. Watching you grow has been the biggest blessing in our lives. You are our sweetheart :)

As far as your relationship with daddy goes, I'll have to get him to write you a letter... The two of you are glued together. He texted me yesterday and said "if I could take him everywhere with me, I would" he also said "I'm not sure why everyone said parenting would be so hard, my life has only been better" I hope you always know how much you are loved!!!

22 months

This entire month has been spent in Hungary, it was weird that he left canada at 21 months and came back 23 months old! I can't believe he is almost two! Isaac has grown so much over this past month, he is turning into a little boy... He's not a baby anymore!

At 22 months you say:

- you officially don't stop talking! You love to talk to people and tell stories. You use English and Hungarian interchangably and also like to throw in some gibberish! 

-you talk to mommy and daddy the most and say all kinds of things to us, "mama watch!" "Dada sit!" "Mama fix" "dada help" but the best words you said just two weeks ago, "I love you mama" melt my heart!!! You say it to us many times a day. I always got on your level and looked you in the eyes when I said "I love you Isaac" so sometimes when I look at you and catch your eyes you will say it to me first. 

-your using so many words now, since we were in Hungary you picked up a lot of Hungarian!!! We were laying in the bed when you looked out the window and in Hungarian said , "the pigeon left!" I put a shirt on you from the dryer and you said "melag!" Which means warm! You understand everything daddy tells you in Hungarian. Everyday I sit there and say, "how does he know that word!!!??" 

-you also memorize names. You have a lot of family in Hungary and you learned about 30 or more names. You'd meet people one time and remember their name the next time you saw them. You won over everyone's heart by learning not only their language but also their names. They couldn't stop talking about how smart you were! 

-you also like to sing, you have learned many songs and like to sing in the car, your favorite songs right now are "Jesus loves the little children" and " the wheels on the bus"

- I'm teaching you the beatitudes, you have the first one down and are working on the second. I'm hoping to have taught the entire passage to you by the time your 3... I think you'll learn it a lot quicker than that though!!

The way you sleep:

- you have blessed us with the way you handled travelling and an 8 hour time change. You took it all in stride and did the time change both ways within two days!!

-you slept in out bed and I always made sure to be around when you woke up

- when we say it's bedtime you never cry. You go around and say goodnight to whoever is there, take your bottle and my hand and walk to bed. We lay down and you have been falling asleep within ten minutes!

At 22 months you play:

- You finally got to go outside after a nasty winter at home. You played everyday outside and loved it!!! 

-you played alone in the sandbox for about 15 minutes on your own...it was amazing!!

-one day I stuck a warm bucket of water outside for you to play in and you had so much fun in it

-you played with all your cousins and loved when you could boss the older ones around to do whatever you wanted.

-you splashed in puddles, fed chickens, rode on a plastic tricycle, pulled around a tracker and played in tonnes of sand!

You had a lot of fun this past month and I loved watching you play and run around!! I didn't have any distractions and could hardly talk to anyone so we spend a lot of time together, I wouldn't trade that time for anything! You grew very attached to daddy and would throw a fit if he tried to leave the house without you. You would grab you boots and run after him. You loved being carried around by him and riding on the bike on his back. You really became the best of friends over this month together. I loved watching you guys from the side lines, and I'm so happy you had all this time together! You two play nonstop, no one can make you laugh like your daddy can!!!

You are almost two and becoming a big boy. We are trying to be the best parents for you by loving you and disciplining you so you can grow up feeling safe and confident! Can wait for month 23 :)