I'd like some cheese please

 

I posted yesterday about K's cheese faces... this is one of them. Yes, he is smiling to have his pict. taken. Eye's squinted and all. You can't tell me he doesn't have personality!

We love gifts!

 

 

 

 

Nati has made out like a bandit. Gifts just keep coming and we LOVE it! He got the yellow outfit from one of our church friends. She had had it for a while and forgot to give it to us. She brought it over and said "He is 11 months?! This will never fit!" I assured her it would but she left a skeptical since it was sized for 3-6 months. Of course it fit perfectly and is one of our favorite outfits right now! We also got a really neat blanket in the mail this week. Someone from my hometown made & sent it to us and it even had fuzzy & furry animals. How clever and I am sure it took a long time to put together. It is really neat and has been a bit hit at our house. I leave it out on the floor and when Nati gets tired he'll grab a corner, lay down, look at all the animals, and then pets them. It's so cute!

Say "Cheese"

 

 

 

Nati has really started to enjoy picture taking and comes up will all sorts of cheesy faces! He loves to squint his eyes, turn his head to the side and smile funny. He also likes to suck his lip up to his nose and make other funny faces. It is hard to get a picture of him being "normal" now b/c he is always doing something funny. I enjoy pulling out the camera to see what kind of faces he'll give me!

Family Night

 

David's work had family night to celebrate safety at work. I forgot my camera and was really sad but someone took this picture for us. I think it might be one of the few that has all three of us!!!

It's Official!!!

 

Someone was a bit tired since we had to get up at 6AM to make the court date. We are waiting for our turn!

 

Proud to be an American.

We completed a last step of adoption yesterday, re-adoption!!! It was so neat and such a blessing for us. Nataga had an official name change and is a US citizen now! He even got a bear from the judge to celebrate with. There was another Gladney family there with a boy adopted from Ethiopia. Nataga LOVED seeing him and playing with him. Nataga was a PERFECT traveler and even serenaded us for part of the trip down. However on the trip back he was so tired he slept the whole 5-6 hours.

Happy 11 months, happy re-adoption day: This morning Nataga woke up singing again. He has the cutest little voice and his songs are priceless. I was glad to hear it and can't get enough of his singing. It is too cute! I went in to change his diaper and told him I loved him. He looked at me and says "I know". Then I put him down to play with some toys and in that sing song voice he says "I'm loved, I'm the baby". The things he comes up with I am ALWAYS blown away by. He is 11 months today and doesn't say things like other babies his age. They repeat words over and over. With Nataga it is a one time hit or miss but the things he says are amazing and make so much since that sometimes I wonder if he just "happens" to say things at certain times. He comes up with things I would never think of or think he would even know to say. He seems to understand though. I spend a lot of my time asking David "did you just hear that"? to make sure that I am not the only one hearing these cute things. Right now he is standing beside me, while I type, and just patted my leg and said "Momma!" when I looked down he grinned at me and said "Hi" followed by a giggle, and then said "meeeee big". I can't express how much I love this child and how amazed and lucky we feel to have him as part of our lives. He is an amazingly great kid. Who still demands to be fed the moment he is hungry, who is curious about his world and loves to see how things work, who is observant, and stubborn to do things only when he wants, smart as can be, sweet, funny, cute beyond belief, precious, has the best facial expressions you have ever seen, and wonderful. I don't think you can meet him without him bringing a smile to your face. We are so lucky to have him and are so glad the official became even more official yesterday!

The Glandey Center

 

 

Meeting Mary for the first time.

Fort Worth

 

 

 

Cousin Fun.

Nataga and his cousin are only 9 days apart. It was fun to get them together and watch them play!

The blog has kind of been on the back burner for a bit as we have had so much going on. If you scroll down there are pictures of what we've been up to (there are several posts b/c blogger only lets me post 4 picts a time).

 

 

 

 

Scroll down for more...

First time to meet family!

 

 

 

 

Nataga got to meet a lot of our family for the first time this month. When we got off of the airplane (from Ethiopia) we had a lot of family waiting to see us, but a lot of family lives far away and weren't able to meet him until now. My mom and grandma came down (sadly my dad had to work) first, followed by my grandpa and his wife, and then we went to Davids dad's and saw some of that family (pictures below)!

Cow-a-bunga

 

 

David's dad has a cow, chickens, etc. so we had to check out all of the animals!

There's more keep scrolling...

Family

 

 

 

 

On our way to Fort Worth we visited David's Dad and his family. Everyone loved Nataga. He even got some new PJ's! Nothing feels better than new PJ's, especially when your so cute in them! We had lots of fun!

Still more...

Time on our hands

 

 

 

 

While we were in Fort Worth we went downtown and of course had to stop at Barnes and Noble to read a few books (or should I say touch a few books Nataga LOVES touch and feel books). This Barnes and Noble reminded me of a store out of a Harry Potter movie. It looked like a castle on one side and was very fancy.

Jumper

 

 

One of the ladies from church gave us a jumper b/c Nataga is always jumping. He has already got lots of use out of it.

What a difference a month makes!

 

 

 

 

The first two pictures were taken 6-11-09 and the next two were taken 8-6-09 almost two months later! I can't belive how much Nataga's grown up!