Gideon reading with cousins Ava and Miriam over Thanksgiving.

Steven Curtis Chapman Concert

Back in November, the T's teamed up with the Debrey's (another adoptive family from our church) to go to the Steven Curtis Chapman concert in Davenport. SCC has been very involved in the adoptive community, and has adopted multiple children from China. He also set up a ministry called Show Hope. In applying for a grant from Show Hope, the Lord provided $3000 for our adoption of Gideon.

Needless to say, we think SCC is awesome! And we most certainly wanted to support him and his ministry. Here is one of the pictures from the concert.

Simone

Up until now, Kathee and I have had no idea how to take care of Gideon's hair. We have kept it short from the time we got him, as that what was easiest. As he's gotten a bit older, I want to see what he looks like with longer hair.

For those of you who don't know (and if you are Caucasian, you most likely don't), African and African-american hair is WAY more difficult to take care of than Caucasian hair.

And not knowing any black people, we were a bit nervous about how to take care of his hair. Sure, Kathee could have read from other adoptive families and whatnot, but we wanted someone who actually knew how to take care of his hair.

And the Lord provided Simone. She attended our church once last summer. While there, she met up with a girl who attends my youth ministry. That girl, Caitlin, invited Simone to come to our weekly supper and Bible study that we host at our house. So Simone started coming, and has been coming consistently for a few months now. By the way, as a super-cool aside, Simone has also been bringing another young lady, who's mother is a refugee from Liberia. As another way cool aside, Simone and Victoria have a teacher at Rock Island High School who is adopting an Ethiopian sibling group (so we called her and will be meeting with she and her husband after our Baby Hope is born).

Anyway! So one night we started asking Simone about how to take care of Gideon's hair. The next week she showed up with a whole bunch of product and has been teaching us how to take care of Gideon's hair (he now sleeps in a silk sack, will be getting a durag shortly, gets hair grease once a week, etc, etc).

See his hair is SUPER-DRY. We were washing his hair at every bath, now we wash it once every week or two. Well, I won't bore you with the other hair care stuff. Suffice it to say, we are learning a ton and loving it.

So now Simone comes over early on Thursdays and takes care of his hair (and teaches us). She lined me up with a barber for him and we'll be taking him there shortly too. Simone is a fantastic young lady, and so cool how the Lord brings things about.

Hump Yard

Like most boys his age, Gideon is all about the trains. When we are at church (which is in downtown Moline), every time Gideon hears a train going by he gets all excited and says, "Papa, train!"
A few weeks ago, we took him to the hump yard in Davenport. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a train yard. At one end of the train yard is a hill of sorts (thus giving it the name, hump yard). Below the hill are a bunch of different tracks. This is where they build the trains (this train car goes on that train, etc) until a full train is build and then off it goes.
The great thing is that it's normally really noisy! So the engine with all the cars goes passed the hump. Then a guy releases the train cars one at a time (after he's switched the track so each car goes to each correct train). I know this sounds confusing... reckon it to my inability to explain it well. If you saw it, it'd make sense immediately. Then the engine pushes the car over the hump, and gravity takes over. The train goes rambling down the hill and slams into the other cars, and it automatically connects with the car, and so on and so on.
So Gideon loved it. And we watched them do this for a while. Here are the pictures.

We were able to get really close to the trains as this, apparently, doesn't seem to be a huge destination point for most people.
Gideon chillin watching the trains being built.
Upon returning to the car, we found Moma chillin, too!

Thanksgiving in Buke!

Okay, so it's Dubuque, but Gideon pronounces Buke. Here are some pictures with his cousin. It was pretty cute watching them play together all weekend. Here they are checking out Grandma's moving picture frame. They LOVED watching it! Might have something to do with many of the pictures on it were of them?!

Here Gideon is waiting for something. Seems unimpressed about having to wait!

Keeping Up With The Jones'

The last few months have been rather hectic for the T's and Jones families. Tonight was one of the first nights in a while we've been able to go hang out with them. We went out, had supper, made Christmas cookies, and had a great time catching up.

Gideon absolutely loves Anavah and Asher, talking about them all the time. So it was pretty neat to see them playing together tonight in the play room while the parents caught up on things.

I thought this was a pretty cute picture myself. Even nicer is the fact that Anavah colored the picture and gave it to Gideon.

A Note From the Secretary

So Sally, the church secretary, notified me the middle of last week that I have been falling down on the job with my blogging. She shared that she has even received phone calls of that nature, and that I best get back in the saddle and do a better job of updating it. So I'll get going here. Thanks for keeping me on the ball. See you shortly!