Holiday Wrap Up & Blog Name Change

I can't believe it's January and I find myself apologizing yet again for lagging in the blogging department. So NOT me! But, between getting ready for Christmas, being busy at work and battling yet another round of sickness (yes, it came back) the past few weeks are honestly a blur and the blogging had to be one of the balls to drop.

So, first things first - I figured that since we're almost approaching the five month mark of being home from Seoul, I should probably change the name of the blog from "Waiting for Wesley" to something that makes a little more sense. So, I'm testing out. . . "Life According to Wesley." I thought that this title was appropriate since our life pretty much revolves around him - in a good way of course :) And, I often times find myself wondering, "What does he think about all of this?" or "Does he think we're totally insane?" or "I wonder what is going on in that brain of his." So, we'll test it out for a bit and see how it does. Feel free to comment and let me know what you think.

Now on to the "Holiday Wrap Up." Be forewarned - this is going to be a long post, so if you're not up for it - stop now, I won't be offended.

Christmas Eve was spent at our house with our dear friends Jose and Shannon coming over to join in on some holiday cheer with Brian, myself, Wesley and my parents. After they left, the rest of us enjoyed a casual dinner and then enjoyed watching what we'll call "Phase 1" of Wesley's Christmas present opening extravaganza.

And so it starts. . .



Wow!!! Fake food! Wait, what do I do with this?

And, a sandwich-making set? COOL!!! Still, a bit random don't you think???

So, with all of this "fake food" that Wesley got from my parents, one might be wondering if there is something else in store. Well my friends and family -

THIS is what Santa left behind for our little peanut. . .

Here is our little guy in the morning after he "discovered" the kitchen.


Taking a break from the kitchen to chomp on his new favorite hammer (did I mention that he has a hammer fetish?)

Serving up some X-Mas breakfast for Mom & Dad (note the mustard on the top shelf)

Once we got done with "Santa" time, we actually opened some more gifts. We tried to split up the amount of gifts that Wesley opened on Christmas Eve as well as Christmas so that he wouldn't get too overwhelmed. Well, he still seemed to be somewhat overstimulated from Christmas Eve (sleep issues). But, we had a good amount of gifts from close family friends and family members that we wanted him to open on Christmas so we did that after Santa. He had a blast!

Wesley's cool new frog lunchbox from "Santa Santoro" :)

Wesley's first train set (Thomas the Tank) from his Aunt Beth & family

Dad and Wesley putting the train set together.

Christmas Day we went to my parents' house to celebrate. My brother and his family joined us. It was fun to have a house full of kids. My brother's son Brooks is 8 months old and his stepson, Jaden is 6 years old. Throw in a 19 month old and as you can imagine, it was an active house! All boys! My mom made an awesome prime rib dinner and we all had a wonderful time. Unfortunately, it was all too much for Wesley and the evening ended a bit early for us due a meltdown. Over stimulation #2. Two days of presents, people and excitement was just too much for the little guy. We felt awful but kind of anticipated it. Back-to-back events like that are still a bit much - and throw in the presents, etc. double whammy!

I did manage to get a picture with my adorable nephew before I left.

Here's a photo of my brother, Wesley and me right before we took off (we put Wesley in his jammies because it's about a 30 minute drive home).

Although Wesley had some tough moments during the holidays, and we felt awful about those times, it was a wonderful Christmas. By far, the BEST Christmas for me to date. When we were putting together our shopping list this year, Brian and I decided not to get one another anything. We felt so incredibly blessed to have Wesley home with us FINALLY and truly felt that HE was our gift. We had more fun spending money on the children in our lives (i.e. Wesley, our nephews and niece).

We've had two of the hardest months that we've had since we've been home. Wesley's been sick, I've been sick and Brian's been sick. We've had sleepless nights. We've been poo-ed on, pee-ed on. There's been multiple moments of barf. We've had moments of frustration, helplessness, confusion, anger, hopelessness and then with one little smile from our precious little boy it all goes away. That is the BEST gift ever. . .