Lucky for Jeremy and Joshua, Santa came early to Grandma H's house. He came by while we were at Christmas Eve church service. So Jeremy got his Wii and Joshua got his rattle (squeaky) toy that Jeremy asked Santa for. Santa will also visit our house tonight, as we didn't bring our stockings to Grandma's. So the boy's will get additional presents from Santa. We had our Christmas with Grandma H. tonight after church, too. Everybody got lots of great gifts. Now Jeremy is teaching Di how to play Wii!! I should have taken a video!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!!

Here's some pics of the boys and our little K-Stater, Joshua!!

Our friends Susan and Laura came to our house to visit for Christmas on Saturday, and to see the boys. Everybody got to hold Joshua. We had a great time visiting and opening presents!! Jeremy thinks it's pretty special that he gets to open Joshua's presents, too!!

Here's some pictures of Joshua taken today. He certainly fills out this outfit better than the last picture he had taken in it. He is doing so good! He is sleeping 3 or so hours at a time, most nights. It seems like he is starting to pay more attention to movement and voices. Jeremy is more and more willing to take care of him, feed him, change him, etc. It is fun to watch him with Joshua. I think Joshua has a great big brother!! Last night Joshua got to go to Jeremy's Christmas program at church. I think Joshua was the hit of the church. He had a lot of the attention, anyway! The kids' program was very good.

Everybody take care! Happy Holidays!

Hi All!

Joshua is 2 weeks old today! He had his 2 week doctor's appointment today and weighed 7 lbs. 7 ounces! He gained 17 ounces since we left the hospital! He is 1/2 inch longer and his head is 1 inch bigger. All good indications that he is doing well. Dr. Jacqi said he's doing great. I'll post some pictures later, right now he's sleeping! It snowed about 5 inches here today. Hopefully it will stay till Christmas! There's nothing like a white Christmas!!

We had Di's extended family from Minnesota, Di's Mom and Jackie's Mom here for graduation. The bottom picture is of Sandy, Joshua and Susan.

Here are some visitors this week, Connie, Tami and Zeph stopped by.

Diane received her Master's yesterday. Here she is with her two sons, Jeremy and Joshua, after the ceremony. We have had lots of company, with family coming for Di's graduation. And they all love the fact that Joshua is here as well so they can spoil him!! Here's Joshua with his Grandma T. and his Grandma H.

Joshua is continuing to do great. He seems to be eating well and is sleeping about 3.5 hours at a time at night. We are very lucky!!

Here's some pictures from the plane ride, Joshua getting a bath from Jeremy and just relaxing at our house.

On Tuesday, we arrived home. Now I'll tell you the rest of the story. We got around Monday morning, went to visit Satya and Jan one more time and then left for Portland. On our way to Portland, we received the call that we could go home. Yippee! So we saw our lawyer, went to visit my cousin Tori and her family and my Aunt Mary, and we got on a plane on Tuesday at 10:00 am. We got home about 7:30 pm. We left a fairly nice day for snow and a north wind that blows straight through you!!! Everyone is doing great. Joshua was up late due to the time change, but when he did go to sleep, he slept for 3.5 hours. I got up and took Jeremy to school and when I got back Joshua wanted fed. Then he went back to sleep for 2.5 hours.

Here's Joshua and his big brother, Jeremy.

It's Sunday night and we have had a good day. Joshua is doing real well. Yesterday we had the privilege to join in on the Holiday party for the Eugene area Open Adoption and Family Services families. There were adoptive families, birth parents and the OAFS Staff there. We met a lot of wonderful people and had a great time. The host family, invited us back for a visit today so that Jeremy and their daughter could play together. They are close to the same age. Jeremy was very excited to have kids to play with!! We also figured out last night that K-State Men's Basketball was playing here today. What a coincidence! We didn't go though!! This is a picture of Joshua and Satya, our adoption case worker. She is a wonderful person.

We got to leave the hospital Friday afternoon. The staff thinks he is doing great. Before we left the hospital, we were informed that Joshua's birth mother was willing to meet us. So after discharge, we went the to the Open Adoption and Family Services Office and met with Pamela, Joshua's birth mother. We had a good visit with her and her friends. We agreed to send her pictures and updates now and then, and we will try to come and visit every 3 years or so. We believe Joshus's life will be truly enhanced by knowing who his birth mother is. After the meeting we brought our family to the hotel and hung out. Joshua had a great night and we got some sleep, believe it or not. He's such a good boy!!

Catching everyone up

As you can see this blog was started a few days after Joshua was born. I'll use this post to review highlights of the past few days and get everyone up to date.

Tuesday night and Wednesday were absolutely crazy days. But there are no words to describe our feelings when we walked in the room to meet our new little boy. Prior to that we hadn't even see a photo. We stayed with him for a couple of hours and then Jackie and Jeremy went to the hotel. I stayed at the hospital with Joshua. He was awake on and off throughout the night. The sweetest thing about him that I remember is that he didn't really cry he mostly squeaked. So we set up a pattern, he would squeak and I'd get up and hold, feed or change him.

The day and a half between his birth and the time we showed up the nurses at Sacred Heart had sufficiently spoiled him. During our travels I was very concerned that he wasn't being held like he should be but after the parade of nurses who stopped by the room to see how he was doing and talk about their part in his life, it became very clear that he was a special little boy to all the staff and that he had spent much more time in someone's arms than he did in bed.

When we arrived the one thing we really noticed was how alert he was. His eyes would follow everyone who held him. At that point it wasn't eating very much formula at a sitting. Jackie and Jeremy came back to the hospital at 8:00 a.m. Thinking back now the day is really a blur. We mostly, just sat in the room and held Joshua.

Jeremy is pumped about being a big brother and quickly took on the role of his protector. Any noise from Joshua promted Jeremy to either stuff a pacifier into Joshua's mouth or he would bark at Jackie and I to do something so his little brother stops crying. He quickly learned how to make a bottle and often would hold Joshua to feed him. When he wasn't watching out for Joshua, Jeremy wsa able to play game cube.

Welcome to the World

This blog is established for Joshua Andrew.

Joshua entered this world 4 days ago on December 2nd at 4:51 a.m. in Sacred Heart Hospital, Springfield, OR. Joshua weighed 6lbs 9oz. and was 20 inches long. Joshua's birth mother selflessly gave him up for adoption via Open Adoption and Family Services.

Our family received a call at 7:30 p.m. CST. with the news of his birth. Less than 12 hours later we were packed and heading to get on a plane to fly into Portland. By 7:30 p.m. PST we were meeting our new little man for the first time. He was absolutely beautiful.