Check out the new undies!

Potty training has gone well this week; today we bought his first set of boxer briefs.

Could he be ANY cuter in them?

Nolan's Been Home 5 Months Today!

Here he is on Gotcha Day! What a look of uncertaintly.

And just last week, meeting cows for the 1st time.

Now he says, "Cowsss.... oooooo." He can't quite get the "m" on there.

In some ways it seems like just yesterday, on the otherhand, it seems like he's always been with us! What an amazing 5 months! God is SO good!

TN Vacation Pics

We just returned from TN where my parents live. While I am totally a "city" girl, I love that the kids get to experience so many things they miss out on living in the city. (I have often said I don't want to live anywhere I have to say I'm "'goin' to town today.")

Nolan did great once the traveling portion of the trip was over. Riding in the car, well lets just say this is the first trip where I SERIOUSLY contemplated turning the car around and going home. We actually had to stop the car a few times and I do not remember EVER doing that with my older 3. LOTS of crying, LOTS of whining, lots of noise on top of the other 3 trying to watch movies and the new Steven Curtis Chapman CD all swirling around the car at the same time.

We learned 2 important lesson about Nolan on this trip: he does not nap well in the car and it is IMPOSSIBLE for him to be quiet. He must be making a noise at all times.

Okay, we learned one more thing... He grinds his teeth at night. Some nights were worse than others, it did seem to improve when he was feeling more secure; but what an awful noise!

Another trait that reared it's ugly 2 yr old head on this trip was his determination not to obey... He decided that he did not have to obey, and gave us a run for our money to see if we could find a way to make him obey! This has started to go away now that we have been home for a few days thankfully!

I've been working on this post for few days and have had trouble adding pictures. They are not all here. I will try to add more later.

This pic is of Milton & Landon jumping off a rock at a river nearby, (or should I say swimmin' hole). The water here is so cold, when you go under, it takes your breath away. Daddy is such a good sport! He jumped twice.

Here's Landon in his element.

He loves every minute he can get out in the water no matter how cold.

Summerlyn REALLY wanted to jump (she did it last year)

But decided it was just too cold! (Mama's Girl!)

Lorelei on the other hand shocked us all this summer by doing so many things she was scared to do in the past. She jumped 2x before deciding it was too cold.

It's hard to judge the height from these pictures but it's a pretty good jump.

That's right, no sign of Mama here, water too cold ! I went shopping with my Mom.

Nolan playing King of the Mountain at my brother's house which is currently under construction. He loved every dirty minute of it.

down at the creek with Papa

Not too crazy about Warheads...

Cookies on the other hand... he held this one for awhile clearly pleased to have it. We don't normally eat in the car like this.

Tough Day for Nolan

Nolan has been doing so well that today caught me a bit by suprise. The best I can figure is that all the packing I was doing (for vaca tomorrow)made him feel very insecure. He was so frantic all day and could not be left alone by me or any of the kids either. He would fall apart if we left him behind in a different room. So hard to know exactly what he understands but I tried to reassure him.

I just have to remember that it has only been 4.5 months, still a long way to go.

Nolan grows 2 inches in 4 months!

Here he is pointing to his marks on the back of the laundry room door. Our Dr. told us not to expect much growth or weight gain right now because of his age. He hasn't gained more than a couple of pounds even though he eats likes crazy; But he has grown like a weed.

All the kids have grown of coarse, but he is in the lead on this growth spurt!

Finding Time to Post..... Finally

Landon mows for the 1st time! He was so excited to be able to do this. Hopefully his enthusiasm won't be too short lived, he's got many years of mowing ahead!

Summerlyn gets bangs! It's a style we both agreed on that is fringed around the face with a FEW bangs. (Definitely NOT the bowl cut bangs that Mama dislikes.) It's very cute and she is thrilled to have a new style.

Call the fire department! Landon 's cooking! He decided he wanted to cook Ramen noodles for snack today.... And wow! Just like burned popcorn, our house is going to smell for days! Lorelei says, "Can I have some rotten noodles Mommy please?"

Nolan's first 4th of July as a US Citizen! Eating corn on the cob.

Yea for Watermelon!

Summerlyn's Summer tip #2 How to keep from getting watermelon on your shirt.

Keep watermelon off my shirt? That's no fun!

We are having a great summer. Nolan continues to adjust and settle in. This week is VBS at our church so I have left him while I am working. As soon as we arrive at the church he says, "no thank you." Which means he does not want to be left in the nursery. But he only cries for a very brief time and them he gets busy playing.

Over all he is doing remarkably well. We just passed the 4 month mark! So hard to believe it's only been 4 months. Nolan's language skills are impressive -he is speaking in sentences, and is trying his best to sing too. Emotionally he seems to be doing well also, much of the grieving seems to have passed now and he's moved on to being an all-American 2 year old! We are loving our newest addition, he's such blessing.

Summer Fun!

Nolan didn't quite get the "Smushy Face" concept here...

We are having bad mosquito issues this summer. When I tell Nolan I am going spray him with bug spray, he puts up both hands like he's under arrest! It's the funniest thing. (The face he's making is because he doesn't like the bug spray!)

Cruzin' in the bug!

I Luv Doritos!

Hangin on Mama's curtains.... A BIG No No!

Summerlyn picked out this book to read to Nolan, Adopted and Loved Forever.

So sweet!