Our boy is a trooper ... and 10 months!

So far behind .... will try to catch up the last couple weeks...

Two Wednesdays ago, we left to make our trip to Illiniois for my grandparents' estate sale. Amber's family is about 1/2 way to my parents so we decided to pit stop there for the night as it was a good point for breaking up the trip with Silas. Silas did pretty good on the 3+ hour trip up there. Amber's mom had surgery on Tuesday and was spending Wednesday night in the hospital (she's doing good by the way). We drove straight to the hospital to visit and Amber decided to spend the night there. That left me and Silas going to Amber's mom's house for the night. When we left the hospital, it was already past his bedtime. He fell asleep on the 30 min drive to her house which was actually great. It allowed me to unload the car. It is unbelievable the amount of stuff an 18 pound boy has to travel with. Man. I should have actually let him sleep more in the car and get his pack 'n play, etc set up but I wasn't that smart.

I get him out of the car and was going to let him play on the floor with his toys while I put the pack 'n play up and got all his stuff ready for his bath and then bottle and then bed. He wasn't having it. He let me know he wasn't happy about my order of events. So, I left the pack 'n play and got his bath stuff and it was bath time. He wasn't happy about that either. So, after a shortened bath, I got him dressed and figured it was bottle time. Well, in the 5 minutes it took to find his formula and make his bottle, he covered himself in alligator tears. Between being hungry and tired, he was spent. Amber's aunt called while I was making his bottle and asked if she could come see him (it was about 9pm at this point) because she had not had the opportunity to meet him yet. I knew it was going to be at least 30 minutes before I got him down for the night so I told her to come on over. I got the bottle made and he sucked it down in record time. Boy was pretty content at this point. So, it all revolved around being hungry. Guess I shoulda went that way first but my goal was to give him the bottle right at bedtime.

Amber's aunt and cousins came up and Silas was now ready to play. They had a great time hanging out and playing with him. This was great for me because it allowed me to get all the things done I needed to. They left around 10pm and Silas was in official over-tired mode. He did not want to go down. About 30 minutes fighting sleep, he finally went down for the night. I have so much respect for single parents and stay-at-homes that do this day in and day out. I was done by the time he went down. It was nonstop.

Thursday morning I got Silas ready, he ate breakfast, and I had to pack everything back up. Back up to the hospital to see Mammaw one last night (oh, and get my wife :) and then on to Illinois. Amber sat in the back with him to entertain him and he did pretty good on the ~4 hour drive with a stop for lunch.

We got to my parents house and we couldn't get into the house before people came up to us. My sister and her 2 boys were up from Texas for the estate sale so they came out to meet Silas for the first time. Of course my mom came out. Then my aunt stopped by and then one of mom's friends. So, 30 minutes later, we get into the house :) We visited in the afternoon, had dinner, and went for a walk around the mega-metropolis of my hometown ... a whopping 1500 people live in my town :) My nephews Chris and Jake went along for the walk ... we ended up at the park.

My 6 year old nephew Chris pushed Silas the full 2 mile walk.

Silas in his first swing ... he LOVED IT! I have a feeling a purchase will be in the future next summer...

After the park, we came home to play. You can see mommy's been working with him alot. He's close to standing up on his own without pulling up on something ... or maybe he just wants to do the bear crawl.

Friday I went to help my dad on the estate sale setup/organization/etc. He thought it was going to be a half day. Well, tt 6pm, we headed home ... amazing the amount of work for one of those things ... and I was only there to help for a couple days. I was definitely sore afterwards ... pulling hay racks all day will do that to a guy. Amber, Silas, my sister and nephews went to the town pool and swam for a bit.

Saturday was the estate sale. It's so hard to watch your family's stuff being sold for so cheap ... some things I wish we woulda/coulda bought. We did buy an old rocking chair so that will be good to pass down. It was hot, Silas couldn't/wouldn't nap, but he really did good all things considering. It was great to see the reaction of extended family to him. We loved letting them get to know him a little bit.

Silas with my cousin Joy at the sale. PLEASE pray for her dad/my uncle Dave. This week, he just started an aggressive 7 month course of chemotherapy for B-cell Lymphoblastic Lymphoma. Our family is agreeing that our Lord is a healing Lord and can heal Dave. Pray that Dave will keep his fighting spirit and that his wife (Margaret) will be an encouragement to him, that she'll be able to get rest while spending so much time at the hospital, and that God will heal Dave. Thank you!

On Sunday, we went to church, breakfast at the little family restaurant, packed up and headed back down to southern Indiana. We stayed with Amber's dad with a pitstop at her mom's to check in on her and meet the newest little cousin ... little Brennon is just a couple weeks old. We thought Silas was tiny compared to other babies around his age but he was a giant compared to his newest cousin. :)

Before we left, we had to get a picture of Silas with his cousins ... if only the cousins weren't so 'tough' and would smile :)

Silas sleeping on the way to Indiana with his monkey that has been to Ethiopia and back

Silas' newest cousin Brennon, Mammaw, and Silas

Monday, we got up, had breakfast, hung out with Amber's dad for a bit and headed back home. Pulling into a driveway late afternoon, a hayfield awaited me. So, I unloaded the car, unpacked, and got out to mow and got 1/2 of it mowed. And then it was back to work Tuesday :(

Wednesday, our boy turned 10 months ... that is so crazy in so many ways. We met our boy in a picture for the first time when he was 1 day shy of 4 months. We've been together over 2 months. I don't feel like it's been that long since we've been in Ethiopia but been much longer that we've been with Silas. We started his vaccinations on Wednesday ... he had to get 4 vaccination shots ... and we gotta go back in a month for his next round ... boy was a trooper though ... cried hard for a minute and then he was fine.

OK, I'm stealing the Top 10 list from Amber's journal for Silas that she wrote on Wednesday...

1) Your 2 bottom teeth and the top one poking through - too cute!
2) the way you crawl everywhere on hands & knees now
3) how you love to play the "where's Silas?' game (the boy will sit and put his head down between his legs and we'll say "where's Silas?" and he'll raise up all smiling :)
4) the way you eat a variety of foods with no fussing
5) your adorable curls that get very tight in the Tennessee humidity
6) how you say "ma-ma" alot now (Troy sidenote: he did say dada first and for *some* reason, he doesn't say that much any more ... hmmmm ... could it be his mama walking around all day saying mamamamamamamama??)
7) your curiosity about anything motorized
8) your flexibility in adjusting to new environments
9) the way you keep your hands together when we pray before meals
10) how you distinguish mommy & daddy from others.

We had nothing planned for most of the weekend which was real nice. After dinner at the house on Friday, we went to a local outdoor mall and walked around. Of course, we had to get some ice cream since it's Silas' favorite food, I think. The boy would eat a whole cone if we'd let him. Saturday was the day of errands and *trying* to get a little organized around here. Church in the afternoon, a much needed purchase, and a Walmart grocery trip. Boy held on like a trooper again.

Sunday was our local African Fellowship group ... it was the first time we went and it was flat-out outstanding. Kristi and Will hosted and did a great job. She documented the night well so I'll leave most of it to her. We did meet a family that lives like 2 minutes from us that is just starting the process with our agency. How GREAT is that?! God is orchestrating some amazing things around us.

This is the youngest daughter of the family 2 minutes from us ... Silas has a new play buddy. :)

He's just started doing this ... it puts his head back and looks at you ... cracks me up.

Here is Will (Kristi's hubby), Lucy Lane, Silas, and Amber ... together 8000 miles away, together again and live only 40 minutes away from each other. Crazy cool story they will be able to tell as they grow up ... Kristi has mentioned wedding bells on her blog :)

ok, some more cuteness from this past week...

He is pulling up on everything now. He can pull up to look out windows which he loves.

Momma figured he'd just enjoy being in the rubbermaid with the toys

We had to get a new coffee 'table' because the one we had with a glass insert was not going to last long with him pulling up on it and slamming things into the glass. This is his taste approval.

Having fun playing inside the ottoman

"huh? not me..."

Just a cute kid

love his smile

This is the face I see when I walk through the door from work. He looks at me for about 3 seconds, thinks 'I like this guy ... it's DADDY', smiles, screams, and crawls to me ... there is NOTHING better!

love his expressions

He switched from orange to blue shirt due to a diaper "malfunction".

happy boy!

"why you keep taking my picture ... enough already!"


Playdate with 3.5 year old buddy Jesse ... they went swimming and then hung out. Jesse's mommy told us that for Jesse's nightime prayers, Jesse said "God Bless Silas" ... how sweet is that!?


Playing at a playarea at our local mall.

Well, that was shortened summary of the last couple weeks. Honestly, I just can't find the time to keep this up. I hope it will get better but I'll try to at least keep pics/videos coming. I'm not going to do any crazy promises like NellAnn.

Have a GREAT weekend!