Archive for August 28th, 2012

Fourth of July

Tuesday, August 28th, 2012

Our fourth of July this year was a pretty quiet one. The biggest adventure was a long bike ride, just the three of us. We road all the way out to Gresham and had dinner at Red Robin. One of the best things we did this summer was getting bikes for all three of us and now that Jayme has his training wheels off, the sky is the limit for him.

After our afternoon nap, Jayme and Anthony made Ice Cream; Chocolate, vanilla, and Key Lime Pie. This process looks a lot like Jayme giving instructions and then watching TV while Anthony does the work. But if you ask Jayme –  HE made it all by himself.

Following our pattern from the year before, we setup our launching area in the street outside of our front door. Anthony set up the chairs while Joshua and Jayme opened all of the fireworks and arranged them by size. Joshua was  again our pyro-master of the evening.

Last year we had two of the neighbor kids come over and join us. This year we had 7 kids come over and watch the show. This was a great Forth of July and we can’t wait till next year to do it again!

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Last day of school (and work)

Tuesday, August 28th, 2012

 

This past school year just blew by. Seems like we just did Halloween cupcakes for the class and now it was June and the school year was over and done… and so was Anthony’s job. Anthony got laid off to make payroll room for the boss’ son (who’s unemployment had run out) to come back to work. At first it was a huge panic and emergency. But then we realized with Anthony being at home it meant Jayme would not have to enter a speical behavioral day care ($$$) for the summer. So the normal feelings that come with losing a job of 10 years, kinda didn’t really manifest. It was almost the best thing that could have happened.

Anthony’s last day was the week before Jayme’s, so with lots of new extra time on his hands, Anthony volunteered to help out for the last day of school. First we donated the supplies to make edible gardens. Oreo cookies, chocolate pudding,  several bags of gummy worms and other gummy bugs, green colored coconut grass and a whole bunch of fake flowers.

Anthony arrived about 12:30pm and got to watch the class work on the gardens. It was a lot of fun watching Jayme’s class make their little pudding gardens and then in 5 seconds destroy them and devour them all.

After garden time there was a planned fire drill. Anthony got to follow the kids out to the field for the last fire drill of the year. One funny/not funny moment happened at the end of the fire drill. All the kids were told to sit down and watch a little flash mob the teachers put together for the school. During the show one of the kids in Jayme’s class had ant’s in his pants and could not sit still or sit down. This was to be excepted as all of the kids in Jayme’s class have some sort diagnosis that would normally explain why a kid would have ant’s in his pants. The funny sad part took a few minutes for the staff and for Anthony to notice but the kid had quite litterly ANTS in his pants. It seems he sat down right on top of an ant hill… the poor little guy.

After the show and all of the ant’s and been removed the class broke up for Field day. Anthony was assigned Jayme and one of Jayme’s little classmates who they both knew well from Jayme’s birthday party and a play date at home. So the three of them headed around the field to all the different activities. First was the blow up slide, then we just had to go get bubble gun flavored snow cones, then a squirt bottle fight area, then it was throwing wet sponges at targets (Jayme’s head), T-ball, and then a rainbow parachute game (which reminded Anthony of Mr. Cronk and his own elementary school days). We ended with a potato sack race… and then the bell rang.

The end of Field day was a bit too much for Jayme who kinda fell apart and started crying. His classmate was ok but really wanted me to find him another snowcone. We headed back to the classroom and rejoined the class. Jayme’s teacher thanked Anthony for helping and told us both that we could sneak out early, which we did.

Summer here in Oregon has been a wet and cold one. It’s only now in the first part of July we have started to get some really nice weather. Each morning Anthony wakes up early, searches an applies for jobs, then makes breakfast for the Jayme. We then do 2 hours of homework, our goal is to get Jayme reading before school starts and we are really making progress. During the day Anthony drills him on sight words and at night Joshua reads books with him.

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ADOPTION DAY – JUNE 12th 2012

Tuesday, August 28th, 2012

The big day was finally here. After over 3 years of waiting for Jayme to arrive and over a year waiting after he did; we still found ourselves not prepared for finalization.

First the cute suit we picked up for Jayme last year for Shiloh’s wedding was way too small for him. This became a bit of crisis as we headed back down to the Burlington Coat Factory, where Jayme’s first suit came from, but they had nothing. This became a theme as everywhere we looked we couldn’t find anything in Jayme’s size. Right now he is too small for boys’ suits but too big for the little boy suit sets. We spent the day in Clackamas Town Center looking and then had to go out again Monday. The solution? Why the softer side of Sears of course! We found him a nice black suit shirt and cute tie.

The night before the big day Joshua washed and ironed all of our shirts, then he steamed each suit. When Jayme woke all exited the next day he found a fresh suit and a special breakfast waiting.

After breakfast, each of us showered and dressed in our suits. The three of us looked AMAZING. Clearly, we clean up well! With our suit’s donned we climbed into the car and got ready for a long drive out to Hillsboro.

We have mentioned this before to friends, we all had signed off on the adoption emotionally a long time ago, Jayme especially. As the court day got closer and closer people would ask if we were excited or nervous and our answer would be “Not really.” which really got us some weird looks. When the day came only Anthony seemed to be worried, not about the adoption but that we would not have some sort of form ready. Anthony spent the night before pulling doc’s and creating a huge folder which he hid in the car. You know just in case the judge needed something.

Once we got the court house we walked through the medal detectors into a very small waiting room. We were the first’s to arrive but were quickly joined by Jayme’s caseworker and two close family friends Scott, Suzanne and our former adoption clinician who helped us find Jayme.

The court session itself was pretty quick. Jayme’s lawyer was still out on leave so a very nice substitute lawyer read a very nice letter from Jayme’s lawyer to the court. Jayme’s caseworker then spoke unscripted and said some nice things as well. Anthony spoke… Joshua did not as usual, and got a small ribbing from the Judge. He best moment of course was when Jayme spoke. “I LOVE MY DAD’S AND I CHOOSE THEM TO BE MY DAD’S!

We posed for photos with the Judge and then Jayme’s caseworker handed out cookies. Jayme clowned around and wanted to touch the gavel and talk in all the microphones. We in fact spent more time eating and playing with the judge then the official on the record session took.

The important thing is we left with the official paperwork stating Jayme was 100% ours and we 100% his. And that was a pretty great thing!

 P.S. photos up on Shutterfly if you want to see!

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