PARTY OF FIVE: Almost one month home!

Next week will be one month home with Grant! We still can't believe we spent 2 months in Korea and we are home only half the time we were there. Sometimes we miss things about our life in Korea, mostly the sleeping in until 8:30am and having no household responsibilities, haha, but it is definitely nice to be home. Grant is still doing great overall. Since he showed signs of potty readiness in Korea I've been trying to potty train him this week at home with the "pant-less method" that I started Auden with. He is pretty much potty trained when he is naked at home and always goes in it when he has to. Unfortunately he has outsmarted me because he figured out if he goes a little bit every 15 minutes he gets more M&Ms as a reward instead of just doing a big pee once an hour! We are definitely not there once we put underwear or shorts on yet so we will see where this goes. No pressure since he is only 27 months old but we are pretty proud of him for going in the potty while he's a naked boy at home:-)

He had his first doctor's appointment this week. They were so impressed with how much English he knows and how he already knew how to point to all his body parts on command (English comprehension). He was so cute for them and was so excited to show them how smart he was! Unfortunately he had to get some shots and bloodwork at the end so that was torture for both Grant and Mommy. We just got a call last night that one of his levels from his blood work came back highly elevated which they are hoping is just benign because in every other aspect he looks good and he is growing well but it could be an indication of rare liver or bone diseases. We need to get an x-ray of his wrist to rule out rickets first (which they doubt but just want to make sure). So please say a prayer for our little guy that this is no big deal because that was definitely not a phone call I was expecting last night. We also had our first post-placement visit with our social worker and she was also astounded to see how much English he understood and was already speaking in 2-3 word phrases:-) She was so glad to see how well adjusted and happy he was after a bit of a rough start in Korea attaching to Mommy.

Now for some pictures! This last week was full of fun with visitors, playdates, birthday parties and outside fun! Mommy and the boys are definitely enjoying maternity leave!

Auden did two lessons last week with a lifeguard at our pool and he is getting his freestyle stroke down! He just needs to learn to breath on the side instead of forward. We are so proud of him, such a little fishy!

Daddy's dream- Auden meeting him on our street to do the last 50 yards of his commute home from work with him now that he can ride without training wheels:-)

My childhood friend Kerry stopped through town last weekend and slept over with her family to break up her trip from going back to New York after being in the Outerbanks. Her little guy is only 2.5 months younger than Grant and they were exactly the same height and weight:-) Grant was actually pretty good with playing and sharing with Henry too, which is usually pretty hard for him with kids his own age. We had a great night together!

Then we had a little visit with my old college friend Angie and her two kids because they were in the area visiting other friends. It was great to see how big both her daughter and son have gotten, they are so sweet. Unfortunately it was right after Grant got tons of shots at the doctor's so the visit couldn't be too long before he was out for a nap.

This past Thursday we got to have a playdate at our friend's house that live on a private local lake 15 miles away from us. We had a great morning and Grant LOVED his first boat ride and swimming in the lake. I didn't even have to get in the water, he just jumped right in and started floating and kicking in his puddle jumper. And then after watching Auden jump off the roof of the boat Grant jumped off the side of the boat 5 times (because Mommy wouldn't let him go to the roof after trying to climb the ladder!). We are so lucky to have these friends, we met them at an adoption expo in November 2010 when we both were exploring options to adopt our second child after having our older sons that are only 4 months apart. They did the domestic route and have beautiful little Tayo and now they finally got to meet Grant! It felt like we both finally came full circle to grow our families after meeting over 3.5 years ago.