12 Months Home {one year ago}

Can you believe it? We hardly can. One year ago Scott and I walked into a dark dreary building in Zhengzhou, China and met Dong Sheng. He was scared and definitely in shock. He made no noise, stared forward and barely moved his eyes or head. He was completely bewildered by us and seemed lost and confused.

Scott and I put together a memory box for Mason in honor of his gotcha day. In it we included his orphanage clothes, a jade necklace which was a present from his orphanage director, pictures of his friends that he lived with for the first 20 months of his life, a toy rattle that was given to Mason by one of the shopkeepers on Shamian Island and some other personal papers. Hopefully this box is comforting for him as he grows.

You can go back and read all about our gotcha day here.

Twelve months later he is a vibrant, energetic, happy, sometimes naughty :) two year old. Our lives are forever changed by him. He fits. His brother and sisters adore him and sometimes get really mad at him, especially when he turns off the television or takes a toy from them and runs. He continues to learn new words and is starting to count. 1,2,3,4.....8,9, 10! His favorite toys are definitely cars and trains. He spends lots of time scouting out trucks and buses as we drive to and from school and activities. He really likes to run everywhere but will occasionally use his walking feet :) It is hard to remember or even imagine a life without him in it. We are truly blessed by this sweet chubby cheeked boy.

Happy Gotcha Day Mason! We love you! Momma, Daddy, Samuel, Alice and Paige. xoxoxoxo

Sledding

Today we spent most of the day sledding in Divide at the John Wesley Ranch. Every summer we spend our church retreat at the ranch. This year, our church decided to add a sledding day. It was a ball! Getting there was a bit hairy as we got a few inches of snow over night. It was really foggy on the drive through Woodland Park but cleared as we entered Divide. Sunny and bright. A perfect sledding day. After many spills and 6 sore bums, we are home and all the babies are sleeping soundly. Thanks to Kent and Vic for a fun night hanging out and watching the Olympics. Yes, we are really hooked on the Olympics.

Momma and Paige getting ready for the first ride of the day.

Sam and his big buddy John heading down the hill.

Daddy and Alice making snow spray!


Paigey looking oh so cute!



Mason really enjoyed eating the snow, all day long.

Sam taking a rest at the bottom of the hill.

I hope you all have a great weekend. We are heading to Breckenridge tomorrow for a day in the mountains. Looking forward to that awesome mountain air and some more beautiful scenery!

Love, Jennifer

My Girl

Home sick.

Yucky cold.

Still the diva.

Isn't her hat adorable! I just ordered these for my girls. Congrats to Summer for being the first to comment on my Near Completion post. She just won an adorable hat from briar.clair. Summer, send me an email and let me know which one you like and I will send it out to you. Summer just so happens to be one of my awesome college roommates and has three adorable daughters!

Have a great day!

Jennifer

Weatherman Sam

Sam's class went to one of our local television stations today and had a tour from the weatherman/news reporter. Their class is studying weather and air in science so the kids had fun asking questions regarding weather. They mostly wanted to know if they would be on t.v:) I was very excited to go along as I don't do too many field trips with 2 little ones still at home. Here is Sam doing a minute or two of weather. The program manager was having fun up in the station booth while Sam was trying out the green screen.

Near Completion.

After many stops and starts (and I do mean many) we are oh so close to completing our master bedroom and bathroom mini-remodels. Okay, so the bedroom is done. New paint, new bedding, pillow, drapery, chair, mirrors and picture. The bathroom is close. Close counts, right? After months of pondering colors, we bought paint, in October. And that is where the remodel began....and stopped. In January, while we were having a door put on our office we had the construction guys take down those pesky mirrors in the bathroom. Those giant ceiling to counter to wall mirrors that were liquid nailed on. Those came down in January...and the remodel stopped. Finally, we decided that there just wasn't enough time in the day for the kids, homework, jobs, laundry and all the other day to day activities that fill up our time. We had someone else do it (hang head here). New paint, faucets, lighting, hooks and blinds. Ironically we are still waiting on the mirrors. Oh yeah, I still need to add the girly touches to my very masculine bathroom. I didn't take before pictures. Just picture beige walls and gold everything and that pretty much sums it up.

Here are the after pics.

I know, I know.

You were all waiting on the edge of your seats for these pics.

All ten of you :)

If you do read, thanks! Let me know you are out there. I love comments. Hint, hint. Hint, hint.

Have a nice evening. I am going to sit in my new chair and enjoy my bedroom's new do.

It is the little things.

Aquarium

The kids were all off school yesterday and Scott had a day that he needed to take before Friday so we got around bright and early and headed to Denver to the Downtown Aquarium. We threw out a few suggestions for the day beforehand but Sam requested the aquarium and everyone else agreed that it was a great idea. It was Mason's first trip to the underwater adventure and he was completely in awe. After the aquarium we had lunch a couple blocks away and then hit the big REI flagship store. We made it home just in time for Alice to make gymnastics. We ended the day with a little Olympics and stories. Scott is rounding out his last week at his current j.o.b. and starts the new one Monday morning. Please keep him in your prayers as he starts this new adventure.

Life at the Wescott house continues to be busy. Sam and Scott are enjoying their karate classes, I am thoroughly loving my photography classes, Paige and Alice are still in gymnastics and Mason continues to grow and be a sweet and crazy 2 year old. We are all so excited for our trip to California for spring break. Can't wait to wear my flip flops and feel the sand between the toes. We are also looking forward to seeing some awesome family and friends! Disneyland, Legoland and Sea World are also, of course, on our list as planned activities. Going to be busy but tons of fun!!!! What's new, right?!?!?

Have a great day!

Jennifer

Chinese New Year~ The Year of the Tiger

Have you ever admitted to someone that in one sitting you downed a box of peanut butter and chocolate Girl Scout cookies and had them look at you in bewilderment? Well, I did today. Admitted my cookie binge, that is. The actually cookie downing happened yesterday if you are interested. My first thought was, did I really just say that out loud? Okay, I had to get that off my chest. I know there are others of you out there that like the Tagalongs as much as I do. What can I say, I like me some girl scout cookies.

Anyhoo, back to my original post. You know the one about Chinese New Year. Happy New Year! Yesterday we attended the New Year's Celebration downtown. Fun was had by all. Especially Sam. He learned tai chi, enjoyed the lion dance and all the martial arts demonstrations. The kiddos donned their traditional Chinese clothes and looked pretty adorable, if I do say so myself.

The lion dance was really awesome and there were actually about 5 or 6 of the giant puppets. I tried to photograph all of them but the light was really low. Yep, I am blaming my lack of pics on the lighting. I can do that because it is my blog and in reality my photos were all pretty bad.

On another note, Happy Valentine's Day! I am hoping to get the kids outside today for some red shirted pictures but my darling two year old is throwing a whopper of a tantrum as I am typing so I am not sure what is the likelihood of a group shot. Just guessing.

Have a great day and kiss the one you love.

Jennifer

LOVE is in the air.

Valentines are signed.

Candy hearts are displayed.

Red shirts laundered.

Can you feel the love?

11 Months and 1 Day Home.

It is so hard to believe that we are one month from our year anniversary of arriving home from China with our sweet Mason. I have had fun looking back at the monthly posts and seeing the changes in our boy. He has surely gone from a baby to a toddler in this fast year he has been home. He has gone from a bottle to a regular cup, unable to walk to running, a crib to a big boy bed, being fed to using silverware, diapers to potty trained, getting up throughout the night to sleeping through, signing to speaking. And those are just the obvious changes. There are so many more emotional and inner changes that have happened in his short time with us.

11 months

and 1 day

Home.

Forever.

Haircuts

So True

Tonight while waiting for dinner to cook I started a show that I had DVRed the day before. It was a program on families (due to lack of sleep and 4 kids, I cannot remember the name) and how all families are made differently. During one of the commercials I started this dialog with my three older kiddos. Sam took the bait, or so I thought.

Mom: Have you ever noticed that our family looks a little different than other families we know?

Sam: Yes, it looks a lot different.

Mom: How does our family look different?

Sam: Well, we are all really short and most other families are taller than us.

Of course. How obvious. Why hadn't I thought of that.
Aside from our height issues, our family looks like, well, a family.