Happy Easter!

Easter greetings to all!

We have had a great time preparing for Easter this week. Alex really got into coloring Easter eggs. He thought it was pretty cool to see the colors and the eggs in the water. He did a good job with the eggs. They sure will taste good tomorrow.
Today we had a an easter egg hunt with Alex's friends Lucas and Theo. It was neat to see them wonder around the yard looking for eggs. They got better at it after finding one or two. After the hunt was over, they figured out how to open the eggs and saw that there was chocolate inside. Of course, then every egg had to be opened to see what goodies were inside! The three of them played well together.
This afternoon, Alex got his Easter present, his very own sandbox. He dug right in and we had fun trying to get all the sand off and out of him at bathtime! We think he's going to like it.
Tomorrow we go to church and then we have two Easter meals. Hopefully we'll have time to squeeze in another egg hunt.

The egg master

This is fun

Watch me Maman

Alex the farmer

Look! An egg!

This basket is heavy!

Hide and seek

Lunchtime

My new sandbox

Weekend in NE

We spent last weekend in Nebraska visiting Oma. We had a good time playing with her and eating lots of good food. It was a quick trip and we even got to see more snow. (We hope for the last time.)

Alex had his second meeting with our Parent as Teacher mentor. We completed a survey of his skills to this point and Alex is doing great, except with speech. He is starting to spit out a lot more words, but so far just single words and not two word sentences. We are not too concerned as he is processing two languages simultaneously, but we plan to contact a speech therapist to see if we can help him communicate better.

Healthwise, Alex is doing great and eating lots of food. He has had a cold the last week to 10 days, but it looks to be clearing up. Today will be Alex's last swimming lesson. So far he has enjoyed them, especially jumping into the water!

Help! I'm stuck

Aunt Emma learning about trucks

Alex and Oma

Winter Wonderland

All of Kansas City was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the blizzard of 2009! Well, we did get some snow, but only about 4 inches. It sure looked pretty Sunday morning. Alex had fun playing in the snow. We bundled him up more so he would not get wet, than for the cold. He had fun making a snowman, and throwing snowballs. He even found a puddle to jump in!

Snow at the Jantzen's

Alex the Explorer

On a snow chair

Alex and dog

6 months together

Alex...6 months later

Ok, who would have thought 6 months could pass so quickly?? Sunday was the 6 month anniversary of Alex's adoption and yet it seems like just yesterday we were in Vietnam.

We went up to Nebraska to celebrate Alex's Oma's birthday (a week late) but also got to celebrate his gotcha day anniversary with Eric's family. We had a wonderful Pho Ga Saturday evening and ate out at Valentino's (pizza) on Sunday. It was great to be with the family and to see Alex play with his cousins. He is such a happy, go-lucky boy and we can't imagine life without him.

Alex after the G&R ceremony

Alex Cool in the park

A busy week

This past week was action packed! We stayed with our normal routine, but added a few events that made the week fly by.

Alex made it through his second week of swimming lessons. The lessons are 3o minutes twice a week. Unfortunately, by the end of the lesson, he is usually shivering! The water isn't really that cold, but when you don't move much, it is. Still he wants to go back for more. He is learning to blow bubbles, float on his tummy and back, and kick his legs. By far his favorite activity is to jump off the wall into Daddy's arms. He's not quite brave enough to put his head under yet. (And if he was, he would drink a lot of water because his mouth is always open!)

Our social worker from Holt stopped by Thursday evening for a our 6 month report. Hard to believe it's almost 6 months since gotcha day. (Sunday's the anniversary) All went well. She says Alex is on target for his age and appears to be doing very well.

On Friday, we went to the Auto Show in the morning. Alex LOVES cars and trucks, so I thought he would have fun at the show. Yep, he had a great time. He enjoyed the commercial / construction trucks the most, but also liked looking at the convertibles. The best parts though were being able to open and close all those car doors and to see the lights on the cars.

Saturday we celebrated Tet with the Holt support group in Kansas City. Most of the families adopted children from China, but it was good to get together. Alex had a great time and we got to finally meet Eli and his parents. Eli is also from Binh Duong. Alex and Eli got along well together. We will need to get together again in the future. The party fell during Alex's normal nap time, but with a 15 minute cat nap before and after the party, he made it through the day without a big meltdown.

Alex eating his "chicken"

Swimming is fun!

This is nice.

I like trucks.

Dad, I want this one!

Alex and Eli

Alex taking part in the Dragon Dance.

Dad, I cleaned your truck.

"Let the little children come to me.."

Today we celebrated another milestone with Alex. We celebrated his child dedication in church this morning. As Mennonites, we believe in adult baptism, but feel it is important to commit to raising our children knowing the love of Jesus Christ. It was a special ceremony and we were one of four families to celebrate this event today. Alex was a trooper. He usually will not sit still too long, but he did really well today. He decided to save his meltdown until the celebratory lunch after the service! Still it was a special day. One new thing for Alex is to take a diaper wipe and start cleaning everywhere. He could do this all day if we let him...(maybe we should?) 

What?!? Another picture?

Pastor Robert Kaufman performed the ceremony.

Child Dedication

 

Child Dedication

I like red (Go Huskers!)

Mr. John Deere

Our new cleaning staff member

Who ordered snow!

We wake up Saturday morning and what do we find? Snow! As it turns out, our biggest snowfall of the season, about 6 inches. We are so on Alex time, that we kinda missed that it was coming. At any rate, Alex had fun for the 5 minutes he was in it, until he got some snow on his face!

Here are some pictures from the week.

Look at my tower

Reading my truck book

I like my letters

Snow is fun

Wow, that's a lot of snow