1st Week in the States

Grandpa and Grandma Isaacs With some new cousins Alaina and Christian Grandpa Bud and the Zekemeister
Aunt Janet snuggling with Zeke. Aunt Chris helping Zeke in his favorite activity.

With Aunt Stacia and Hayden
Uncle Tim

Here is Zeke with his friend Chloe. Chloe and Zeke were in the same toddler group at the orphanage in Taiwan. Chloe lives in Topeka with her forever family-the Cogswells.
Here are the Isaacs and the Cogswells (minus R.D.) and the 2 special kiddos from Taiwan.

Well, Zeke got to meet many family members and many friends in his first 6 days back in the States! He is doing very well. Had his first doctors appointment and it went well. She wants him to see a pediactric lung specialist to really see how his lungs are.

He is very close with Jennifer, always looking to see if she is around. He loves his brothers as well!

He caught a fever a couple of days ago, maybe from exhaustion, or too many people around, but he is doing really well.

Everyone seems to be getting back on track with sleep schedules, so that's working out well.

Here's one more picture that has to be posted.

P.S. I think we will keep him ;)

Home at Last!

One of the signs amongst family and friends that welcomed us home!

It was a long trip for everyone, including big brother Joshua (with Zeke on his lap)!

Finally, back on American soil! Mom and her boys introducing Zeke to an American pool!

Family and Friends at the airport

Grandma Stein and her newest grandchild.

Mommy rocking Zeke in his room for the first time!

Welcome home Ezekiel Lin Isaacs!

We are officially home! We slept in our own beds last night, which is always good to do after being gone for a while. I slept until about 9:00 this morning, which made me extremely late for the church golf tournament, but I wouldn't have been able to help a team anyway:)

Since the last post, we have been flying, eating, not sleeping much, and enjoying our new addition. Thank you for all the prayers for travel. Ezekiel did wonderful on all 3 plane trips. He didn't cry once the entire way. (I never want to be that father/family that has the screaming kid that makes the trip miserable for the other passengers!) The boys did well too. We left Taipei around 11:30 p.m. on Thursday night and arrived in San Francisco at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday night. After getting our bags, our shuttle and checked in, we got to the hotel room about 9:00 p.m.--we were wasted, but wanted to make the most of our last night. The boys swam, we ordered pizza to the room, and it took forever to get the boys wound down. We finally got to bed around 11:45 p.m., only to have to wake up at 4:30 a.m. to get cleaned up-packed up and to the shuttle by 6:00 a.m.

The trip home was relatively uneventful, which we will take. The worst part about the trip home was that lunch in the Denver airport was $44.00 for some sandwiches, a couple yogurts, and a bowl of soup. If you know me, that was very hard to do, but we had resigned to the fact that the boys had been eating too much junk food and our bodies were out of whack.

We arrived in Wichita on time and were greeted by family and friends who came out to meet our new little guy! We got home around 5:00 p.m. and had an amazing barbeque dinner waiting for us. We have 2 more meals that have been prepared as well, and we are looking forward to devouring them as well. Jennifer's family was able to come over and eat with us and then help start getting things cleaned up from our trip. Another blessing. Our yard was mowed. Brandi, our housesitter, deep cleaned the house before she left. We have received blessing after blessing from our families and our church family who have been so supportive of this adventure.

Jennifer and I can't tell you how much we have appreciated every prayer, every thought, every deed, every gift, everybody who has helped make this all possible. We love you and thank our God for you!

If everything goes according to plan, we will have Zeke at church on Sunday morning to introduce him to the church family. He is still a little sick, so we won't be passing him around much, but can't wait for you to meet him.

May God bless your love and kindness shown to Ezekiel and his new forever family!

Jeff and Jennifer

Brother From Another Mother

This afternoon Joshua busted us up by saying, "Now we really do have a brother from another mother!" Leave it to Joshua to keep us laughing. The morning started with Jennifer and Caleb taking Ezekiel to his doctor's appointment. The doctor said he was looking good, and then prescribed 3 more medicines. They have him on 7 different medicines now, but we are not giving him all of it. The orphanage had us purchase an oxygen tank, but China Airlines said it wasn't the right kind so we can't take it. The doctor doesn't think Ezekiel will have a problem breathing on the plane. We leave here at 10:10 a.m. Central Standard Time and arrive in San Francisco at 9:30 p.m. CST.
We then had to finish packing up from our makeshift home at the Holiday Inn. We checked out and then headed to the orphanage where Zeke has lived for the past year. We got pictures of his room, his friends, and his caregivers, but due to privacy issues we cannot post them. Zeke got to play with his friends from his floor on the orphanage for awhile, and showed off to his caregivers that he could walk.
At 3:00 p.m. we met Zeke's biological mother, grandfather and grandmother. That was pretty emotional. They didn't want to give Zeke up, but had to due to financial reasons. They had tears as they saw how big he has gotten and they all held him for awhile. They had a ton of questions about our family, our community, and what we were able to offer Zeke back in Kansas.
We are now sitting in the Taipei airport waiting for our flight. We had dinner in the airport at Burger King of all places. Now, to make sure we don't miss our flight, we are here 5 hours early!!!!!!

We are excited to see everyone when we get back, but due to all of the stuff that they have Zeke on (including Pretazone that weakens his immune system) we are not going to be passing him around for everyone to hold. We hate that we can't let everyone hold this little bundle of joy, but have got to put his health first.

Thank you for all of your prayers and support!
Jeff, Jen, Caleb, Joshua, Eli, and Zeke (our brother from another mother)!

Happy Birthday Zeke

Zeke LOVES his baths! We have given him one every day that we have had him. He splashes like this every time.

Here is the Birthday boy!

Here we are at McDonald's for his birthday party. He had his first taste of chicken nuggets and fries ( we are assuming ). He wasn't happy when he was done. He didn't like the cupcake very much, he just wanted more nuggets.

He loves his book. He hasn't put it down, except when he threw it at Joshua's face!! We are still laughing at that one.

Today has been a good day. We stayed in except for going to McDonald's. The boys are just crazy about him. Today he seems to be even more comfortable with us because he is letting his personality show more. He smiles all the time. Well, most of the time. He has shown us his temper today. When I tried to help him eat his cupcake he got mad at me because he wanted to do it himself. He also signed the word "more"! We are going to teach him some sign language to help him communicate and we started with "more". Now that he has that I think we will teach him the word "please".

Tonight we are going to be packing and visiting with some friends that are arriving in Taipei tonight. They are related to friends at our church and are in Taipei for the weekend. It will be nice to visit with some people who speak English!

Please pray for all of us as we are very tired and some of us aren't feeling that great. We are so excited to get home and back into our normal routine.

Tomorrow we will take Zeke to his check up at the hospital, meet his biological family, see the orphanage and then head to San Francisco. We will stay over night in San Francisco and leave to come home early Friday morning. We can't wait to introduce our new little one to each and every one of you.

Love to you all!

Jennifer

Tuesday Night in Taiwan

Well, we have had quite a day with the Isaacs clan. We are officially 6 now! We have all of the legal documents in place and we got his visa processed and we will have it in hand tomorrow. The boys really didn't like waiting in the American Institute (Embassy) for over an hour, but they behaved real well. Zeke did not feel great this morning, but praise God he got better and we didn't have to go back to the hospital. His case worker, Ms. Anne, said that he looked better this morning than he had before. She said, "He looks different. I have never seen him so happy before." Who knows if they get paid to say that, but we ran with it as yet another confirmation that the one God chose for us last June was/is Ezekiel Lin Isaacs.

After the visa issue was settled we took a taxi down the street to Taipei 101. One of the tallest buildings in the world. (6 yrs ago it was the tallest) The boys and I went up the fastest, or second fastest, elevator in the world. (89 flights in 35 seconds!) Jen and Zeke stayed below trying to feel better.

We got back to the hotel in the afternoon and Zeke was upset for about an hour. I won't go into great detail, but today's post could have been called-Ezekiels log (not blog)!

Tomorrow is his 2nd birthday, and we plan on staying at the hotel for most of the day and celebrating!

Thanks again for your prayers! Jen is starting to not feel well. (I think she went a little crazy on the kissing the new kid with strep when we got him. Hopefully she is just worn down and has a little sore throat.

Well, until tomorrow...

Have a blessed day!

Jeff and Jennifer

Zeke's Breathing

Ezekiel was showing off how well he could walk from person to person!

We are getting ready to go to the American Institute to get a visa for Zeke. We are a little concerned this morning with his breathing. It is more labored than it was yesterday. This is the first night in a week that he has not been sleeping in an oxygen tent, so that could be a lot of it. We are just praying that he continues to improve and not digress. Would you please pray for his breathing? We think that it is due to our over stimulating him yesterday afternoon and evening, but we want to be covered none the less.

I think he is getting very used to us, though he is probably wishing all of these "crazy" white people would give him more space. The reminders that keep coming from Jennifer and I are--"Calm down around Zeke," "Stop arguing over who gets to do what with Zeke," and "Back away from Zeke!" It is cute to see the boys want to be such a part of EVERYTHING he does.

Here we are in our hotel leaving to go get him as a family of five.

Here we are leaving the hospital and heading back to the hotel as a family of six!

Here is Zeke after having a bath. He loved his bath!!

I have had these jammies for months just waiting for the day I could put him in them. They fit him perfect. He was sooo sleepy.

He snuggled right up to me and fell fast asleep. What a joy!

We all can't quit looking at him.

Well, today was the day! We got to bring Zeke home!! Our home is the hotel right now but it sounds so much better saying we got to bring him home. It all feels so perfect. He is amazing and the boys absolutely love him. The doctor released him this morning but we do have to go back for a follow up visit Thursday morning before we leave. When we got to the hospital there were three women from the orphanage there so we got to meet a couple more of Zeke caregivers today. We are so thankful for them and how much they have cared for and loved on Zeke. They said he is such a good and easy baby. Once we left the hospital Zeke sat on my lap in the car and we snuggled. Have I mentioned how wonderful he is??? We got back to the hotel and gave him a bath. He didn't like going in the big tub so we did it in the sink. He was hysterical! He soaked us all because he kept slapping the water. He LOVED it! We got him all lotioned up smelling like all my other babies did. We put him in some cute jammies and now he is fast alseep. I could tell he was getting tired so I picked him up and he layed down on me. He was asleep in no more than a minute.

This day has been all we thought it would be. God is good!!

Jennifer

Here is Zeke in his oxygen tent. He stays in it and doesn't try to get out.

Zeke and his daddy!

I got to feed Zeke his lunch. The boys and Jeff each gave him a couple of bites too.

Here we are at 3:30 in the morning and all of us are up. We are so backwards on our sleep schedule. We all fell asleep by 6pm last night and were up around 2am. Crazy! We hope we will be able to bring him back to the hotel with us today. We will keep you all posted!