Tru’s birthday party was pretty fun. We had it in a nearby park and lots of friends and family showed up to help celebrate. Tru was digging all the attention, not to mention the cake! He got shirtless and went to town on his own personal mini-cake that his grandma made specially for him. He didn’t get too crazy though, just frosting up to his elbows and on his face–a little bit in his hair. Of course we’ve got the full-on photo documentary, I just need to prep it for the album, but it should be up this week…

Yep, today is Tru’s first birthday! We’re going to have dinner for the family at our house, then we’re going down to the park to have a low-key celebration with friends. I’m still planning on the mohawk, but Amy has convinced me to wait until after our final post-adoption visit from our social worker… 🙂

We had a little pre-birthday thing at the beach yesterday. We went because yesterday was Tru’s birthday in Korea (time difference), and the beach is the closest place to where he was born. We had a good time, got lots of pictures of Tru getting crazy in the sand. I paddled out to get a couple of waves and while I was waiting said some prayers of thanks for the courage Tru’s birth mom had for not having an abortion and the strength she had to give him up for adoption. I also was thankful for the Korean foster mom who gave Tru so much love for the first six and half months of his life–I’m certain that her love and caring were vitally important to him. When we got home from the beach, we went out for dessert at Outback Steakhouse with my dad and his wife. They got Tru some presents and we had fun messing up the place…

Scott and Jen were up here recently, and even though we didn’t go to the beach with them, Scott was able to get this picture of Tru getting ready to paddle out. Thanks Scott!

Sorry for the long wait… The new pictures are up on the album. Everything in there is new, so you won’t have to wade through stuff you’ve seen a million times.

The last picture is of Tru in his new tye dye t-shirt from the Portland Saturday Market (an open air hippie marketplace, as if you couldn’t tell by the shirt). Tru’s getting a lot better at understanding the things we say. We’re working on a little sign language with him, and that’s helping the communication too. It’s fun to realize that he understands something that I just said…

We want to go camping with Tru to see how he’ll do. We’ve got a “group” camping date already set for August and we want to be sure we know how to deal with a crazy baby out in the woods. We tried camping last weekend, but got rained out. Tru did pretty well in the hotel room though. We just set up a sleeping area on the floor with some blankets and he slept there without incident. Well, almost without incident. Amy decided it would be a good idea to take his blanket away while he was sleeping. This disturbed him enough that he woke up and rolled over. But he rolled over the wrong way and got his head and shoulder caught between the floor and the bottom of our bed. He was stuck and that really woke him up quickly! Fortunately he responds well to a little rocking, and he spent the rest of the night on our bed. He’s a bed hog. He sleeps all sideways and pushes Amy and me off the edges. I guess that’s why we don’t let him sleep with us at home…

We’re in Michigan for the week and Tru’s meeting lots of new people. He’s hanging out with his grandparents who have joined him in forming a mutual admiration society…

His nap times and eating times have been kind of messed up since we got here. Since we’re always out and about, it can be tough to keep him to a schedule. He’s generally sleeping ok at night though.

He’s been amazing lately–he’s initiating “peek-a-boo” games with people, and you can tell he’s thinking about things before he does them. It’s cool to watch his progression. I like being Tru’s dad…

These last couple of days, Tru has really been getting serious about walking…he’s cruising all over the place. Falls a lot, but he’s built Korean-tough so it doesn’t bother him!

We slapped a few more pictures up on the album…

Well, Tru inherited a little inflatable swimming pool from his cousin Benjamin and he digs it. Yesterday it was around 90&deg here, so a little splashing was a welcome relief. Apparently there are special diapers that are made for swimming…prolly need to get some of those. Just a note to those interested–regular diapers will not stand up to the rigors of an inflatable swimming pool…

Speaking of diapers, Tru’s cousin Benjamin is making the transition out of diaperland, but it can be rough. The other day he was running around naked in their driveway and decided to lay a brick (and by “brick” I mean…well, you know what I mean). Then he stepped on it. Ew.

Tru went running through the sprinkler today. He loved it! More pics on the daily fix…

Sorry for the lack of entries lately… Amy dislikes this color scheme, so it’s gonna change soon (since she’s done with school). Tru’s looking forward to spending days with her! They’re starting tomorrow morning by going down to the park with a bunch of other moms and kids–mom’s way more fun than dad…

Tru had a hard time sleeping last night–woke Amy up from about 2am to 4am with his crying. He felt hot when I fed him in the morning and sure enough he had a 100.8&deg temperature. We gave him baby Tylenol and Amy went to work. By 11am his temp had risen to 102&deg and he was not pleased. Fortunately he was also pretty lethargic and just laid on me and slept pretty much the whole day. He was perking up by the time Amy got home and be the time he went to bed this evening he seemed to be back to normal.

You might be noticing new colors on this page…you can thank Amy for that! Oh yeah, one more thing…the comments should be working now.