16 months, Adoption Day, and Daddy's biggest fan

This has been a very special week/weekend for us. On June 22nd, it was Alex's 16 month birthday. It was also one year ago that we got on a plane heading for Ethiopia! Yesterday (June 24th) was Alex's Adoption Day. We celebrated by giving him gifts in the morning and then we went to an Ethiopian Kids Community event at Hyland Park in Bloomington. There were lots of Ethiopian adopted families there, and several of the children were at the Care Center the same time as Alex. I brought cupcakes to recognize the day. After we put Alex to bed (an hour early, as he was completely exhausted) Grant and I both sat down and wrote Alex individual letters. We will continue to keep writing these letters every year and then share the letters with him some day when he is older. Today, Grant had a triathlon (placing 1st out of all the age-groupers and 16th overall!) and Alex LOVED being there. It was a bit difficult to keep him out of the water while all the athletes were starting the swim (a few tantrums took place), but once he was able to get in the water, play in the sand, run around the grass, pet the dogs, swing, slide, make friends with everyone he saw....he had a great time!

This months accomplishments:
- Alex has mimicked vehicle and animal sounds for a while, but now he is starting to mimic talking sounds. This morning, I went through almost the whole alphabet with him imitating each letter.
- He also "counts" things, like his goldfish on his highchair tray. I'll ask Alex to count his goldfish and he'll point to each one and he'll make sounds like, "na, va, ta, ba..." You get the idea.
- He loves, loves, loves the water. There are geysers at the community center where we go and he runs right through them with no fear.
- Alex has learned that it is really funny to hide and scare us. He has decided (with Grant's help) that his scary noise is a "baa" like a sheep. Sometimes he doesn't even need to hide. He just looks at us and says, "baaa!" and then, of course, we act terrified. You'll need to ask Grant why Alex has decided that sheep are something to be afraid of.

This past year has been an absolute blast! I know I've said it many times before, but God has blessed us abundantly by allowing us to be Alex's parents.