3 Weeks Home & The Start of Fall

For the record, I'm a day late.  I was supposed to write this post yesterday as that is our actual 3 week home anniversary and the official start of fall (yaaay!!....fall decorations and candles are making their way out!!), but the day just got away from me.  Reason being?  Well, my lovely dog tracked his own poo-poo into the house and up the stairs. Uuuugh!  So gross!  And even worse when you have a baby who crawls on those floors.  Cooper, I could have killed you if I wasn't so dang crazy about you!  So we (really Kasey) had to shampoo the carpets late afternoon/evening, while also managing to keep Maddyx off of them.  Which is not an easy task.  So there you have it!  Now that I got my excuse out of the way, on to the post.
Three weeks.  It honestly feels like it's been so much longer.  I have to say that this past week has been so different.  We actually feel like a real family that has real routines and we are so happy.  Each day with Maddyx gets better and better.  He is such a great baby and we feel so blessed to be his parents.  I am falling more and more in love with him every day and being his mom is feeling more like a reality rather than a strange fog.  Everything just seems to be falling into place.  We've moved up a step in the sleeping department.  I no longer have to hold Maddyx until he falls asleep.  I now put him in his crib with his bottle and he falls asleep all on his own.  Wow, this is a LUXURY!  Bedtime is easy.  We read books and rock, and then he just goes to sleep. No fuss.  Most nights we get 8 hours, and some nights (like last night) we get 11 hours.  Naps, not so much.  These are still hit and miss.  Sometimes 15 minutes and sometimes and hour and a half.  At this point, we just take what we can get.  However, no matter what, he has to go down.  Whether he sleeps or not is up to him.  Yesterday he just folded the blankets in his crib for 35 minutes and never slept.  But he was content, so I left him! 

I think he recognizes his American name now.  Actually I'm pretty positive he does.  He responds and looks at us whenever we call him.  We also think he's said "Cooper" (our dog's name) in his own sounds-like Cooper way, but other than that  he mostly just babbles and laughs, oh and yells.  Except he does say "ba" a lot, which makes me wonder if there's a Korean word that he knew that resembled that?  Hmmm, not sure.  He's not walking on his own yet, but he's walking around using the tables and pulling himself up, so it could be soon!  Not sure if I'm ready for that yet. 

He's also had a chance to meet all of his grandparents and even his Great Grammy this past week.  She's been waiting a really long time to meet this little Angel!  All in all, like I mentioned earlier, we feel so lucky and blessed to have been brought into his life.  We wonder, how did we get so lucky?  I'm not going to question it, I'm just going to embrace each and every moment we have together.

Here are some fun pictures recapping our third week together as a family!  I have to admit that I am just a bit OBSESSED with taking pictures of this child.  OK, a lot obsessed.  Cooper is probably so happy to have a break from the camera.  But seriously, he is so beautiful how could I not take pictures of his every move?!?  I mean, really?

The red chair.  Great idea in theory, but the execution of the shot was much more difficult then I had anticipated.  Oh well.  We tried!



The photo shoot. (not a real one, just me trying to stay busy (fill the time) while I'm home during the day in my new "stay-at-home-mom" role!):