Still waiting and Things

It has been a very long time since I updated my blog. I get stuck in my routine and don't seem to have a ton of extra time. I should be on the treadmill as we speak. Oh well it will have to wait.

Our fall is going really well. G is getting so big. He is officially in a big boy bed. He's been in it about 3 weeks now. He is doing sooo good.

He's still doing good at his in home daycare. The best part is he's been mostly healthy. A total 360 from last fall.

G is really looking forward to becoming a big brother. We unfortunately are still waiting. We have been waiting for 11 months. Hopefully we will hear something soon.

Here are some fun fall pic of our little guy.

Where has the month gone?

Wow it has been well over a month since I have given an update.

The summer is flying by and Garrett is keeping us very busy.

I can't even remember what life was like before Garrett. He bring so much joy to the day. Garrett has loved being outside this summer. I dread the winter. I never realized how long winter really was until I had a toddler running around. One of Garrett favorite things to do is run around the yard kicking a ball. I think we have a little soccer player on our hands. Really I think he is going to love all sports that involve a ball.

I'm really excited for the fall. Our city finally got there act together and realized they should offer some mommy and me activities in the evening and not always at 9:30 am on Monday- Friday. To help get us out of the house a little this fall Garrett and I are going to do mommy and me tumbling tykes. I think Garrett will have a blast. We were going to do swimming but decided to hold off until the spring for that one.

No news on the adoption front. Our agency has changed again what information they will share with waiting families. So we are in the clueless zone. I hope our phone rings soon. I'm really starting to get anxious. I know 4 families a head of us who are still waiting for referrals. So, when I hear good news from them I'll start getting excited. But, again everything is based on the medical checklist. Our phone could ring any day now.

In the mean time I got inspired by a friend to get started on the room. It'll keep my extra busy. Well when Garrett not keeping me busy. So, it's going to be a long project. I think we're going to prime the room this weekend and maybe we might get it painted. We're both on call this weekend so we're basically home bound. Fun times!

Enjoy our summer that decided to return

Garrett Turns 2

I can hardly believe Garrett is 2 years old. We celebrated his birthday last Sunday with the extended family and on Saturday we hung around the house and Garrett got to play all morning. Then in the afternoon we went for a walk and the out for a Korean dinner he loved it.

Here are some pictures from last weekend and this weekend.

Moving Up

We are officially closing in on the top 10 on the Girl list. Yahoo

We were #14 as of Tuesday on the girl list. Yahoo... We were 29 just 1 1/2 months ago. Let hope this trend continues and we have a referral soon.

We are still pretty far down but it great progress. I hope we have a referral by the end of the summer.

We did receive some unfortunate news in the last few weeks. The wait to travel after accepting our referral could be long. They are now saying up to 6 month wait to travel. Yikes. But,if we get a referral between Oct- Dec it could be 9 months to travel. I'm saying lot of prayers we get one by the end of Aug. I think we are on track for that. But this whole ride is unpredictable.


Stay tuned..

Memorial Weekend

Where did the weekend go? We stayed around town this weekend but did lots of fun things.

We went for our first long bike ride. We went around medicine lake. Garrett did soo good in his bike trailer. He hated it last year. We went to the to Como Zoo,had a couple of bonfires and did lot of BBQ.

It so nice to be outside. I look back and man the winter was LONG! I'm very grateful to have a fenced in yard. Garrett is always saying outside.

I was thinking over the weekend that this time next year we should have a new addition to our family. Our new little one should already be born or will be very soon. We finally got our I600A approval in the mail on Saturday. Yahoo! It took almost 3 months this time.

Here are a few photos from the weekend.

Mothers Day Weekend

Mothers day weekend was jam packed full of fun.

Saturday I got the whole afternoon to myself it was really nice. I got to do a little much need retail therapy. I purged my closet during the week and found I didn't have many clothes left after the purge. I hate shopping for myself. Whenever I go out shopping I end up buying stuff for G. So I ended up buying some work outfits. Not very exciting.

Before I left for my afternoon out I got an editable fruit bought from 'G'. It was so yummy. Then later in the day after my shopping excursion. I got another mothers day gift surprise. Mike and G took me to Penn cycle and I got to pick out a new Bike.

I found one but they didn't have the right color or size at that store. They found one at another store and are having it transferred on Monday to their store. I got one of those hybrid comfort bikes. It's a Trek and I love it. My old bike is a mountain bike and not very comfortable and it's heavy and it was a pain in the butt pulling Garrett in his bike trailer. We're going to pick it up Monday night. Yahoo!

Sunday we went to brunch and headed to Mike parents. It was a really nice day.

Other news on our adoption. I found out a few weeks ago that we are about half way though our wait for a referral. A few weeks ago we were #29 on the list for a girl. That is still really far down but it's alot of progress. We started out some where in the 50's. We expect a referral some where between Sept and Dec.

Have a great week.

Easter

We had a wonderful Easter weekend. I had off on Friday since daycare was closed. I got to hang out with G all day. We had soo much fun. We colored eggs and went to the park. Sunday we went to my side of the family for Easter. Garrett had lots of fun eating grandpa omelet and then played the day away outside.


No news on the second adoption. Still waiting on our I600A approval. In been about 1 1/2 months. These days it taking 2 - 3 months for approval. I'm also not sure where we are on the list these days. I think I'll start checking in June.

Other news. Garrett has been doing so well at his new daycare. It's amazing. He went from missing 7 days out of a month at his old place to happy and pretty healthy at his new place. We love it.

Here are some photos from all our Easter activities over the last couple of weeks.

Gotcha Day

I can hardly believe it has been one year since we came home with G. It has been an amazing year. He has taught us so much. I remember the look on Garrett face when we got home. He was so scared. He had the look of what the heck are you guys going to do with me now? Today he is such a happy fearless little boy. He has grown so much.

We really celebrated the day last Friday since Mike had off from work. He is on call this week. We spent the day at the MN Zoo. It was Garrett first time. He had lots of fun.

Today we had really yummy dinner. Then we headed out to Toys R Us and Garrett got to pick a toy on his special day. We got somethings in Korea for him for future Gotcha days. We thought they would mean more to him when he starts to understand what his Gotcha day means. Then we came back home and had cupcakes. Garrett thought they were really yummy.

Here are a few pictures.

Just hours after we got him forever in Korea.


Last weekend before his hair cut.




Last Friday at the Zoo.


Last weekend we also celebrated our Gotcha day with the friends we traveled with. We hope we can start new tradition. The boys had soo much fun.


One last one. Garrett eating his cupcake tonight.


He didn't the whole thing tonight. Just a little of it. It was bed time and he was tired.

Jet plane 1 year ago

Wow how quickly a year goes by.

One year ago today we left on a jet plane and traveled half way around the world to meet our sweet, beautiful son. What an amazing experience it was.

We met some really great friends that morning at the airport. Over the last year we have become great friends. We were all wondering if we would beable to figure out who we were looking for. We figured we would not know who each other was until we got on our Korea flight. We had only exchanged email the night before and didn't know each other. The funny thing is it was not hard. We were the only two families sitting patiently at the gate several hours early watching the clock. OK, maybe we were not patiently waiting. Then all the business traveler arrived and it was time to get on the plane. That day the business travelers were not playing nice. You would think they could get off there cell phones for a 1 hour flight. We were already late in leaving the gate. They kept threatening to go back to the gate if they would not turn off their phones.
I was about to scream since we had such short window to get our connection in Chicago. All ended well. We landed in Chicago safely with just enough time to get our connection. The other family, Mike and I ran through the Chicago airport and hopped on the train to international terminal. We arrived with just a little spare time before our 13 hour flight to Seoul, South Korea.

I did not sleep a wink the entire 13 hours and I was so sick after such along flight. My head hurt and my stomach hurt. Yuck! But I look forward to doing it again.

Today I was in a meeting and I was wishing we were getting back on that plane again. I miss Korea. We had so much fun touring around Korea with our new friends. Meeting Garrett foster family and learning about Korea. I can't wait to take Garrett back someday.

Last couple of weeks

It's been a little while since I have updated.

Garrett has been in his new daycare for 2 weeks today. Things have been going really well. Garrett is starting to get more comfortable and the drop off is getting easier for him and for Mike. Garrett is eating and sleeping really good. I was totally shocked. Sometimes she gets 2 1/2 hour naps out of him. That was pretty much unheard of at his other daycare place. Garrett had lots of fun with his new friends. He will be the youngest until later in the summer. We feel so lucky to have found her.

Mike and Garrett get to have fun together next week. Garrett's daycare is closed for the week. Mike took one of his weeks off. I'm soo jealous. If things slow up a bit next week at work I may take a day off. I can't let Mike have all the fun.

Other fun news about how our second adoption is progressing.
Mike and I got our CIS fingerprints done this past Saturday. Yay! Now we are done with all paperwork for a really long time. We just have to wait for our approval to show up in the mail.

I had a few questions for our social worker this week so I sent off an email. To my surprise she had checked to see where we were on the list. I have not been checking since I know it's going to be a really long wait. I figured I would start check after 6 months had past. We have been waiting for 3 months now. I found out we are #40 on the list. I 'll start getting excited when we have broke in to the top 10. We're still pretty far down still. We started out somewhere in the 50's. I also found out about where they are for matching people. The longest a family has been waiting is since 5/2008 with a very conservative medical checklist. The next longest is 7/2008. So it looks like we are still on track for a 9-12 month wait.

New Daycare

Garrett started his new daycare on wed. He did 2 half days and went all day today. His first day he came home exhausted. He took a 3 hour afternoon nap. Then he was ready to go to bed early that night. Tues was much of the same. He did really well and really enjoyed playing with some of the older kids. Garrett is the youngest for now. There will be a couple of babies starting this summer and fall.

Today Garrett had a little bit of trouble with the drop off. He didn't want mike to leave today. It only lasted a little while. We were really worried about today since it was his first time there all day. We were worried Garrett would not take a nap and would scream at the top of his lungs. He totally surprised all of us today. He only whined for a few minutes and then slept an hour. He woke up for a bit scared because he didn't know where he was and whined for a few minutes. She went in comforted him and he fell back to sleep for another 1 1/2 hours. Yahoo! I hope that trend continues. I guess we will find out next week.

Oh other good news. We sent in our I600A last week for processing. We waited a few months since we know we will be waiting a long time. We didn't want our fingerprints to expire. We have now been waiting almost 3 months for our baby girl referral. Garrett is keeping us BUSY! Time is flying. Here is the real surprise we already have our fingerprint appt. We got a 1 week notice. We go March 7th for our CIS fingerprints. We're going to have a busy morning that day. We have to be to our fingerprint appt by 8:00 am and then at 10:00am we are getting our taxes done. Yikes!

Here is picture of our happy boy from this evening wearing my hat and Mike's gloves. He was having so much fun.

Play Time

We had a fun morning. Garrett had a play date with some of his friends. Garrett was in the baby hospital with them in Korea before being placed with his foster mom. It was so fun to see them. Due to the holidays and we couldn't get out schedules all worked out. Any way our three families we're all in Korea at the same time last year. It's amazing how big they have all gotten.

Oh where Oh where is Spring?

I'm so done with winter. I have the worst spring fever..

It has been a fairly calm couple of weeks in the Scott house. I'm just getting done with my on-call rotation. The weeks just fly by. I blink and I'm on call again. Oh well, I'm just grateful I have a job. I'll get to more about that in a minute.

After a rocky start to the week we had a fun weekend. Garrett has stayed healthy with the exception of a runny nose for 2 weeks. So,were due for something to strike again soon. I'm crossing my fingers that we make it to our new daycare with out him getting sick again.

Mike and I had a great weekend. We got to go on a date day on Saturday. We saw a movie and went to dinner. Garrett spent the afternoon at Grandma and Grandpa Scott's house. He was having so much fun he didn't want to take a nap. He was so tired. On our way home we didn't even get to the end of their street and he was out like a light. He slept all the way home and then slept until 8:00 in the morning. It was nice to sleep in a little. That's very unusual.


Mike and Garrett get to have a little more one on one time over the next few months. Mike's company is cutting back a little. They have to take 2 weeks unpaid time off. But we are grateful for now he still has a job. It works out good. Our new provider is taking off a week in March so Mike going to stay home with Garrett. We were trying to figure how we were going to work that week. Then he will most likely be the one that stays home with Garrett when he get sick until he uses up the last week.

I got to have a few hours to myself today so I went window shopping. I couldn't buy anything tho. :-( I have to figure out the spring budget. Man was that hard. I LOVE shopping. I had a hard time not buying all sorts of spring stuff for Garrett. I think he's going through another growth spurt. He's been an eating machine. I think I'll wait another month before I buy any more. I have such a weakness when it comes to little kids clothes. I'm going to have the worst time when when we get our baby girl referral. There are soo many cute girl clothes. I can usually find cute boy clothes. But,I think it's just a matter of time before Garrett is telling me what he wants to wear. So I'm having fun picking out cute clothes while I can. :-) He's getting big fast. I can't believe we are just 1 1/2 months away from our Gotcha day and Home Forever day. We have 2 days since we got him forever the day before we left Korea.

New addiction

So I have this new addiction. I don't have time to dig out my scrap stuff every time I have a half hour. Now I can just do it on my computer and print them out through an online site.

I'm just figuring it out. But,I had fun doing this one. It was my first one. It's kinda boring.

Some good news

Well we got half of Garrett test back today. We are still waiting on the rest. But the good news is he doesn't have cystic fibrosis. That was one concern since he has had two pneumonia's in 6 weeks. We should have the rest back early next week. We are really struggling with moving Garrett to the new daycare. We really don't want him to go through another transition. On the good weeks we love where he is at. On the bad weeks we hate it. But I'm sure Garrett will like either place.

I have been trying to start digital scrapbooking. I created this collage. I hope to send something like this for his file in Korea.

Getting so big!

I have been slacking on Pictures lately. Here are few new ones.


Garrett loves hanging out in his toy box.


Garrett loves going to the indoor park.


Garrett loves playing with uncle Alex's cell phone.

What a week

Well our weeks are not getting any better.

Garrett woke up with 104 fever last Saturday morning. We waited though the weekend hoping the fever would break. He still had it on Monday morning and was breathing fast and hard and was very miserable. I took to see his doctor on Monday afternoon. They got him breathing better with a nebulizer but it didn't do a whole lot for him. I then insisted on a chest X-ray. I have pretty good instincts. I had a feeling Garrett had pneumonia again and I was right. It was in a different spot then last time. Garrett doctor was convinced he had Pneumonia caused by RSV. They did the RSV test and sent us home with an RX. Garrett was basically miserable still on Wed and not getting better. I took him back to the doctor and they checked him out again since it sounded like he was breathing through Velcro. They gave him another breathing treatment and checked his oxygen levels. The breathing treatment still didn't do anything for him. :-( Garrett's oxygen levels were OK a little above 90. I guess 90 and less you have to go to the hospital. Garrett RSV test was not back yet but his doctor was convinced the RSV was causing the problems. By late Wed night Garrett turned a corner and was walking around the house giggling. Thur we got the results of his RSV test. They were negative.

Garrett doctor had told me if the RSV result came back positive then this pneumonia did not count against him. I guess if they get more then 2 pneumonia's in a year then they start to worry and start looking at other things. Well Garrett Doctor keeps chalking everything up to daycare. "Daycareitis" He was not concerned. That was not very comforting for me to hear. I heard the way too often when I was pregnant with Gavin before he was diagnosed with Potter's Syndrome. That seem to be their way of trying to make you feel better. I was fed up with that. So I spent 2 days trying to get Garrett doctor on the phone to ask more questions. Mike took the call when the results came back. Mike and I are really concerned since Garrett has had two pneumonia's in 6 weeks and he has pretty much been chronically sick since he started daycare last June. Every week he seems to have something. Only one other boy in his class is also sick alot. Others are not sick at all.

So after finally getting Garrett doctor on the phone and asking questions. I got him to agree to a more active approach since we have no family history. Instead of waiting to see if he is going to get Pneumonia for a 3rd time this winter he agreed to run some test. I'm taking him on Tuesday for a blood draw. They going to check his immune system. We do know he immune system is working since the U did titers to see if his immunizations from Korea were working. He had all the antibodies. But he could still have a some part not working properly. So were going to rule that out. Then Wed we are going to Children's hospital in Minneapolis for cystic fibrosis test. That is one thing they worry about when children get multiple pneumonia's. This will help us start ruling out if something more underlying is causing him to be sick all the time. It does sound like CF is very rare in Asian children. More common in Caucasians.

In the mean time we have been meeting with lots of in home daycare providers. Man are there some scary ones out there. We have one more interview on Monday and hope to make a decision on Monday night. I have found on lady I really like.

Say a few prayer for G this week. He hates his blood drawn. The CF test is not going to be fun either.

I hope we hear all good new and it really is "daycareitis". If that the case hopefully getting him in an in home daycare will help cut down on the illness a little bit. In January alone. Garrett missed 8 days of daycare.

Annette

Looking foward to spring.

It has been a long weekend in the Scott house. Mike, Garrett and I are all climbing the walls. We thought we were on a role last week after Garrett got better from his stomach virus. Garrett made it all week at daycare with no problems. We were all looking forward to going to the indoor park in Edina for our monthly Korean play date. We haven't seen anyone for a while since it was the holidays. Garrett was completely fine when he went to bed on Friday night. Well about 3:30 in the morning Saturday Garrett woke up screaming. I thought he was having rough night since he didn't sleep well at daycare on Friday. Well instead he had one of his crazy high fevers. It was about 104. Yikes! I got him some Motrin and water and he went back to sleep. So we are on day 2 of his fever and some long nights. It goes down with the Motrin and Tylenol but always goes back up. If he wakes up in the morning with it still we'll be heading to the doctors to see if he has an ear infection again. We do know other kids at his daycare were being sent home like crazy last week with fevers. There was one on Friday. At least we made it 5 days straight at daycare.

We did interview another in home daycare on Thursday. I think Mike and I agreed that was not the right place for Garrett. All tho right now we wish it would of been a good place and he wouldn't have to go back to the center. So the search continues. That was really our only lead. Seems like more places would be an option for him when he turns 2.

Other news on our other adoption. Mike and I are going to send in out I600A this week. We have been holding off a bit since we knew we were going to have a long wait. We don't want our fingerprints to expire. Also our homestudy didn't get written before our SW went on vacation for a month.

That all for now. I know I'm slacking on pictures. I'll get some up soon.

Gimpy Stomach Virus

I just realized I have not posted an update lately.

This is kinda of Graphic post. But you might find a little humor in it.

We had a good past 4 to 5 weeks. Garrett stayed healthy for the most part. But he was home for about 2 weeks on winter break. We had lots of fun. We went to indoor parks,did art projects, went shopping, tried out the new sled. Lots of fun. But all good things must come to an end. Garrett made it a week and half at daycare and got sick again. Fun times! Tuesday I picked him up at daycare after work. He looked really pale. He screamed the whole way home. Once we got in the house I thought he was hungry. He usually is right after daycare. He was sitting in his high chair and then the fun began. Vomit,vomit and more vomit. At one point I was just sitting on the floor covered in vomit waiting for Mike to get home. Garrett didn't have any on him it was all on me. He didn't want to move and fell asleep. So I sat in vomit for about 20 more minutes until mike got home. That just the beginning of our fun. Then about 3 hours later and 4 time of vomiting all over me. He was running around like nothing ever happened. Go figure. He slept though the night and had no issues. I thought OK he must be fine now. He had no fever and was happy on Wed morning, Well then more fun. This time Mike got it. Hee hee. Poor guy has a yucky stomach virus. I'll be happy when it goes away. I think it going around. Mike has had to really hunt for the pedialyte.

I did start calling some in home daycare providers in our area. Most of them are full. I do have interview set up for next week. We'll see how it goes. Everyone I talk even the nurse line I called tonight says " Sick now or sick later" :-( I'm soo sick if hearing that. I just want Garrett to be healthy for more then 3 weeks.

OK that my vent.

Ok on to some fun news. Garrett's newest thing he likes to do is sit in he's toy box. I'll post a picture when I get them uploaded.

Also we have offically been waiting just over a month list. Only 8 to 11 more months to go until we get a referral

I hope everyone is staying warm.