First Days Home

Just wanted to post a few more pictures of our first days home with Justice. I mentioned yesterday that once we got home from the airport Justice was practically glued to his bike! After awhile he began a full investigation of all our numerous and random toys! He found these animal figurines and set them all up and wanted me to take his picture.
However, the biggest hit by far was the NERF GUNS! Once he found those he went crazy the rest of the night shooting everyone and running around the house. After the first few days with Justice we have learned that he loves the 'rough and tumble' boy stuff like toy guns (water & nerf), wrestling, playing with the toys that make the loudest noise, wrestling, any sort of electronic games, and oh, did I mention wrestling? :) He isn't much into sports yet, but I think JJ may rub off on him a little bit! By bedtime on the first night home JJ and Justice picked up right where they had left off in June.

JJ and Justice have such different personalities, yet they get along SO WELL.....I am sure you can see it from the pictures. Jayla has also let Justice into her little world.....slowly.....but she is really warming up to him being around. Justice likes to pick Jayla up and hold her hand and tries to help her with things, but Jayla is just not a touch person so she is usually pushing him away or getting mad at him for trying to help her. She just likes to do things herself, but Justice is SUCH A HELPER so he sweetly keeps trying to win her over by looking out for her and doing big brother things. :)

Since Justice loved his bike so much, we took a quick trip to Walmart to get him a bike that fits his tallness a little better. No training wheels on this one though.....so this will be Daddy's first big task....teaching Justice how to ride a bike. So far they've only had 1 practice session and Justice was very scared.

I think it will just take a few more practice sessions and hopefully he will get the hang of it. For now he says "I want to drive my little bike because I can go very fast!" So far, the past few days all he has wanted to do is ride his bike. We are out in the driveway by 8:30am each morning so he can roll along his little sidewalk path. Whenever we go anywhere in the car he asks if he can put his bike in the 'boot' (trunk). He wants to take it with us in case he gets the opportunity to ride it! He even wanted to bring it to the gym yesterday!

Justice's English has been so impressive. Back in December when we first met him he knew hardly any English words and answered every question with 'yes'. Now he speaks in full sentences and can communicate easily. This undoubtedly is because of his time living with Nana and Esi as they speak English in their home. The transition of changing his name from Samuel to Justice has also been very easy. While we were in Ghana, we still were calling him Samuel because everyone else there knew him as that. But I kept telling him on the plane that once we got to the U.S. airport in Atlanta we were going to start calling him Justice, and we did. It seemed so awkward at first, but once we got home and all of our family and friends were also calling him Justice it went pretty smooth. After one day he was answering to his new name, and now a few days later when I look at him my mind says Justice instead of Samuel. :)

The transition of bringing Justice home has really followed exactly what I pictured. For the past few months when we would go places I would always picture the day that Justice would be home with us, and now that he is, it just seems normal and how I thought it would be. :)

I hope that through these pictures you can see the fullness of JOY that lives in this little boy. After all the change that he has gone through over the past 10 months, to have a spirit that is this light-hearted, fun-loving, and resilient is just amazing! I think our entire family can learn something from Justice. :)

And now, with Justice home we all can finally figure out the 'new normal'.

Tomorrow I will post some pictures of our time in Ghana.