Keeping Busy

Is life actually returning to normal? We're all feeling a lot better, yay! Lots to do today. We finally put away our Christmas stuff. NJ was so enthusiastically helpful with taking off the ornaments. He did a great job, he kept asking to do more. 

My ornaments from this year's adoption ornament exchange (I think this is all of them). We have three years of them now and I probably won't remember next year. So much fun to be connected with other adoptive families!

"Something's on my hand!" Oh my, always so concerned with dirt. He was helpfully picking lemons and brought bags to Ah-ma when she needed them. 

Our trees are overflowing with lemons! After eight bags, it was onto tree number two. I lost count, but there were at least another four or five bags full. 

How cute, my boys both building legos together. 

"Why it's all different now?"

I forgot to take a "before" picture, but these are two that I found...

And this is after...

We swapped shelves with one we had in our room. After the flood of toys from his birthday and Christmas, it was all too much! It was such a cluttered mess on that shelf, so we tried for a cleaner solution. Plus it gave us a chance to sort through his toys and put some away. 

In one of his bins were these three boxes of lego sets. This morning he came in to proudly show me how he had put them all neatly in a big ziplock bag. Definitely my son, who tries to organize and clean. Except that I had to refrain from flipping out about the fact that he just mixed three different sets of legos! I spent the rest of the morning looking at each of the instructions just to sort them to it's proper place. (I'm a little crazy and obsessive like that). I should have known better. I couldn't get upset at him though, he showed me so proudly trying to do something good. Then we spent the rest of the day trying to put them together! Ugh. I'm so happy he likes them so much though. 

Belated Party

Bubbles! Most of the kids loved the raining bubbles, it was fun to watch them run around chasing them. NJ started to get really concerned about his hair and clothes getting wet from all the bubbles.

So many people!

Just like Mama, doesn't like the attention. He didn't even want to sit in the big chair. I wouldn't either! 

We finally got him to turn around for a photo or two.

So much to do and NJ spent a lot of time playing with the trains.

At the ball pit, his favorite is still the slide.

All lined up for the car coaster ride.

His first time down and I totally missed it!

I heard he flew head first into the padded blocks and didn't want to go again. That was until me and Baba got to talk to him. We didn't want him to be scared and asked him to try it again. He kept saying no, but when he went again he was fine and had fun. 

All lined up by height to take a swing at the gigantic angry bird! So cute. 

The little ones were the cutest, so unbalanced holding the heavy stick. And the older kids were ruthless and so strong! It lasted two rounds until the powerful, strong last two girls broke it open.

A whole two months later and we are finally celebrating NJ's birthday. What a sweet boy he is for being so patient and waiting. He knew we were supposed to celebrate his birthday back in November. We talked about getting ready for the party and once I went into the hospital he kept asking, "When is my birthday?" and "When we having the party?" I felt terrible for being the reason for postponing the celebration, but I'm blessed to have a sweetheart of a son who is so easy going. It turned out to be not that big of a deal at all.