Jayden's Adoption Book

Here is the Adoption Book I made for Jayden. I love how it turned out! And I love that he will always know the story about how he became our son!

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Here is Michael's book, if you want to look at it. And yes, they are very similar!

Our Foster Care Adoption Journey

Here is our Foster Care Journey video I made. Enjoy!

It's Official!!

As of today, July 31, 2017, it is Official!!

Let me introduce you to our son, 

Jayden Thomas Wolff!!

We are so excited to be finishing up this adoption journey! It's been a long time coming! 

Total days with our family: 469

Total days in Foster care: 748

9 Months with Baby J

Baby J has been home for 9 months, and unfortunately we are no closer today, then we were 9 months ago to adopting him! Maybe someone is reading this, hoping to get more information about foster care adoption. If that is you, my first piece of advice to to be patient! Everything goes SLOW. EVERTHING!! But we are persevering, and hoping that one day, he will share our last name, and I will finally be able to share a picture of his precious little face!

In the past month, J has experienced his first Christmas with us and his first snow with us! Christmas was so much fun! He loved all of it, except for Santa!

He also loved the snow! He loved rolling around in it, and jumping in it! He and Michael had so much fun playing on the trampoline in the snow!

He loves bath time! He will stay in the bath for an hour and just play and play! His favorite toy in the bath is a cup! It really is the simple things!

We also started watching a new baby this month, who is only 2 months old. J does get a little jealous when I am feeding the baby, but that's the only time. He likes looking at him, and talking to him, but when I am feeding him, he tells me to put the baby in his bed! It's going really well though!

J has decided that going pee-pee on the potty is the most fun thing ever, and asks to sit on the potty all the time! And every time he sits on the potty, he actually goes! So, I take him potty, but am not starting to potty train. If he thinks it's fun, then we will do it, and maybe by the time I do potty train, he will be really easy to train! He also loves to flush the potty! When anyone goes to the bathroom, he runs in, so he can flush when we are done. He also cheers for me when I use the bathroom, and says, "Yay!! Mommy!! Pee-pee! Candy!" (He gets candy if he goes pee-pee on the potty)

Michael and J have really found their groove as far as getting along and playing well together. I think Michael being home for Christmas break really helped. They have so much fun together and Michael is doing great playing with him. It took him a while to figure out what to play with him, and how to play with him, since he is so much younger. But they love jumping on the trampoline together, and J loves riding with Michael in his go-cart! I love watching them together. So many answered prayers!

"I still remember praying for the things I have now!"

Hopefully we will be moving closer to adopting him by next month, but if not, we will keep on going. In our eyes, he is our son, and we will move mountains to make it official!

8 Months With Baby J

Today J has been home for 8 months! Here is what he has been up to:

He growing like a weed! When he came home he was in Size 12 month everything. Now he is in 18 month and some of those are even getting too short. We are having to move up ton24 month pajamas now. He has grown almost 5 inches!

He is eating great! Trying lots of new things and loving a lot. He eats the most during dinner and usually just snacks the rest of the day. But if he is eating a good dinner, I'm not too worried about how much he eats the rest of the day. He is drinking mostly milk, but does love juice! We limit his juice intake, and try to get him to drink water, but he isn't a big fan.

He is sleeping great! A few weeks ago, there were two nights in a row where he slept 14 hours!! Must have been a growth spurt. We can tell if he is having a hard time emotionally, because his sleep will be off. He will either not go to bed good, or not nap well. He had a major regression a couple of weeks ago, and for about 4-5 days he did not go to bed good and also did not nap good. We are getting back into a good schedule this week, so hopefully that will stick.

He is NOT a fan of Santa! We have tried twice, and both times he is not at all excited and starts crying. I'm not one of those moms that is going to plop him on santa's lap just to get a crying picture. I think that is just horrible.

And my boy has had enough trauma in his life, he doesn't need more. So both times I will hold him and talk to santa, but he still does not like it. But that is ok. Maybe next year...

He loves books! He will sit and bring me book after book to read to him. He really likes Sandra Boynton books, and so did Michael. They are fun, rhyming books with fun animals.

J loves going to speech every week, and has made a lot of progress. He still has a long way to go, but he will get there. He has started trying to repeat what we say, where as before he wouldn't even try. He is also answering my questions with real answers. Where's Michael? "School". Where's daddy? "Work".
Where is you milk? "Floor"
He has trouble remembering the word "yes". He always answers no, and I always say, yes? And if he means yes, he will say yes back, but if he means no, then he repeats the no. Our new goal is to try to get him to say 2-3 word sentences. He does that some, but with only a few select phrases. "Where's Michael?" "Where's J" "There he is."

He still loves to play with balls. He kicks them, throws them, and hits them with a bat. And any long stick like object can be a bat. He is also really getting into toy cars. Michael has loved cars forever, so there are a lot around the house. So he plays with the hot wheels race track a lot.

He loved peek a boo. He plays in the car, behind a chair, under a blanket, next to the Christmas tree, behind his hands, anywhere or anything he can hide behind he will.

He has turned into a little charmer with me. It mostly happens in the grocery cart, but has happened a few times at home. Anytime I have to tell him to stop doing something , mostly trying to stand up in the cart, he will look at me, say "mama" I'm the sweetest voice and then give me the biggest hug. And it works every time. He knows he's got me!

We are so excited about celebrating Christmas with J this week! We had prayed for two years for another baby to share Christmas with, and this year he is here!!
Thanksgiving 2014 we decided to adopt again and Christmas 2014 we told our families that we would be adopting again! 2 years later and our prayers were answered!!

We are so thankful that we get to be his family!!!

What a blessing he is to our family!!

7 Months with Baby J and 22 month update

7 Months with Baby J and 22 month update

Well this post is very late! Thanksgiving vacation got me distracted, and then. Last week I was busy getting back to normal life. So here I am, 2 weeks late posting his update. So I decided to just combine the two. 

J has been doing great!! Sleeping great, eating great, playing by himself good, branching out to new toys for longer period of times, sitting and watching a show for a short period of time. 

He is just doing really well. Growing and changing all the time. He is getting taller and gaining weight still. 

He still doesn't say much, but he tries. Speech therapy is going well still and he loves Ms, Gina! He also loves books!! 

We spent a week at the beach during thanksgiving week and it was incredible! 

We had the best time and J did so well. He did great in the car on the way down and slept so good while we were there. 

The only thing that did not go well was our visit with Goofy and Donald Duck. They were at the resort taking pictures on thanksgiving. J freaked out!! Screaming and crying and holding onto me like they were the scariest things he had ever seen. So, needless to say, no pictures with the characters! 

So, this is a super short post, but I'll be back in a few weeks with the next month's update. 

6 Months with Baby J!

I say this every month, but I can't believe it has already been 6 months! J is doing great!

We have had a busy, fun month! We took A trip to Strawberry Hill to see the animals, and also took a trip to the pumpkin patch in Hendersonville. 

We are working on helping J to not be so grumpy and whiney and think the root of that is sleep, or in his case not enough sleep. So, he has been going to bed an hour earlier, but he still wakesup the same time. That extra hour of sleep seems to be helping! He is sleeping better and longer and is happier most of the day! He also taking better naps too! 

He is eating a little more these days, but still would rather run around then stop to eat. 

    (yes, he is drinking salsa from a straw!)

He loves when Lucy comes to play, and gets so excited when she gets here! He is going to miss her when she moves next month!

      (Yes, that is a pig, in my front yard!)

He had a checkup at the ENT, and actually had the start of an ear infection. We got some antibiotics and stopped it before it had a chance to bother him! 

He loved the cows at strawberry hill! 

He Loved all of the pumpkins! 

He sits for longer periods of time playing with one thing now. Still not extended periods, but longer than before. He really likes his little farm. 

When I am cooking, he has to be right next to me. So, he gets his little chair and brings it in to stand on. 

I also let him help with mixing stuff up! 

After making cookies, he sat right in front of the oven watching them bake!

He had a blast at the pumpkin patch! 

Riding the cow train. 

Checking out the giant bear!

Trying to pick up the pumpkins. 

Seeing how big he is!

It will be neat to see how much he will grow by next year!

His favorite person is Michael! He asks about him all day and is so excited when it is time to go get him from school. When I show him pictures of Michael drying the day, he yells his Name and laughs! He loves his brother!

He is in the terrible twos and it is wearing me out. Temper tantrums, throwing things, hitting, biting! It's a lot, but we are working through it all just one melt down at a time. 

He makes me laugh and brings our family so much joy! 

5 Months with Baby J

Wow! This month has flown by! It feels like I was just writing his 4 month post! 

He is getting so big and turning into such a big boy! No more baby! Anything the big kids can do, he wants to do! 

He loves the drums! And everything is a drum to him. He also loves to dance. Every morning he wants me to put on some music and he "tells" me that by shaking his butt! It is so cute! 

J loves when Lucy comes to play! They play really good together, until they don't! Then they each need a little time out. 

He loves to be outside! He also loves his daddy! So when Andrew was working on his truck, J loved being right there with him! 

He is getting a little picky and finicky about what he will eat. So when he decided that he liked ranch dressing, I let him dip stuff in it. I never thought he would go face first licking it off if the plate! 

He is so busy, and never stops moving! 

He loves speech therapy! He has so much fun playing with Ms. Gina! And he is doing so well! 

He is happiest when he has a ball in his hand! If he can't find a ball, any sports equipment will do. He also turns everything into a bat, and will try to hit all sorts of balls. The other day he had a small bouncy ball and a drum stick, and he was doing his best to hit the ball with the "bat". And he actually succeeded a few times! And he can throw a ball incredibly well! We will have to sign him up for baseball as soon as he is old enough. 

He is adjusting wonderfully to being in our family! He still has major separation anxiety when I leave, but we are working on it. 

Every morning he asks where daddy is and where Michael is. He misses them both so much during the day. He gets so excited when it's time to go get Michael from school. And whenever my phone rings, he yells, "daddy!!" And anytime the dogs bark at a car outside, he does the same thing! He can't wait for daddy to get home from work! 

We are blessed to have in our family! 

And just a note about the adoption,  we have a visit each month from his social worker, his adoption worker, and his guardian ad litem. Each month I ask about TPR, and each month they don't know anything. They had originally told us to expect a year for everything to be final. Well, it's been 5 months and NOTHING has happened! So, we aren't holding our breath. We are just ready for something to happen! 

2 Months with Baby J!

It has been two months since baby J came home and things are going great! 

We went on our first family vacation this month and it was great! Definetly different than what we are used to, but still great! You forget what it's like to have a baby on vacation and it is not relaxing at all! Michael had just gotten to the age where he was happy to play in the pool with other kids, with us just watching from the side. Now we are back to holding a baby in the pool and making sure he doesn't run away or drown himself. 

We went to the ENT a couple weeks ago to get baby J's hearing tested. His pediatrician was worried about how little words we was saying and wanted to rule out his hearing first before we tried speech therapy. Well his hearing is perfect, but he does need allergy medicine every day.

So now we will go to the speech therapist for an evaluation. I really don't think he will need it, since he is talking a lot more now then he was at his doctor appointment. 

He is still sleeping great! 12+ hours at night and a two hour nap during the day. When we were on vacation, that schedule got a little messed up, but he was happy to be back home and sleeping in his own bed. 

He is still eating great! He is a watermelon eating machine! He loves the stuff!! He also loves grapes, Cheerios, Greek yogurt, grits, applesauce, oatmeal, peas, crackers, cookies, French fries, noodles (all), and just this week he ate some cheese and didn't spit it out! That was a first! He's still not a big fan of meat, but we try. 

He started calling me Mama this week!! He has said it a few times in the past, but this week, when he wants to get my attention or wants something from me, he says, "Mama, Mama, Mama,..." It is music to my ears! 

He is learning to play independently and also to play with Michael. He isn't needing me to to be with him every second of the day. He will walk around the house finding things to play with, and then will come check on me and make sure I'm still here. He has also started to play with cars, just like Michael. I'm sure that has something to do with that! 

He is getting more and more comfortable with Andrew being the only one here at times. When we are all home, he loves Andrew and runs happily screaming "dada!" But, Sometimes I have to work late, so Andrew will come get the boys and take them home, feed them, and put them to bed. J was not a fan of this arrangement, but is getting much better about it. 

It's been a great month! Less adjusting and more fun! We really are so blessed to have this little guy in our family!