I love bubbles!

Lots of Bubbles!

Mesmorized by Barney

And a chocolate chip cookie!

Still Smiling 4 the Camera

He understands, "Smile!"

We Miss U, Jack

We hope you are having fun with Oma!
We know you are cause she does the Wiggles WITH you. :)

He smiles 4 pictures now :)

Happy Easter!

Jack LOVED the bunny!

The grass was the best part of the Easter basket! Better than the candy. :)

Don't I look cute in my outfit? :)

Our King!

It's so hard to believe that it's been one year ago tomorrow that we met this little guy!

Before last March, we so worried about how we'd have a child, then scared about which child we'd get. Our lives seemed paralized and nothing seemed fair. But looking back, we know we were led in a perfect direction. We were taken care of. Sometimes it's hard to have faith in the middle of hard situations, but we've learned that sometimes when it seems like the universe is throwing you a curve ball, it's really just leading you down a different road. It was difficult to see at the time, but things were indeed working out perfectly. :)

So tonight we've been reminesing. A year ago, we were anxiously sitting in the hotel room in Kotlas having a beer. We ate those "jelly donuts" that turned out to have WHOLE FISH in them. (Well, I took a bite, screamed, and threw it after seeing that fish face staring at me. :) ) The next day we met with the doctors and walked down some hallway to a room and they opened the doors and there was Jack, looking up in his pink outfit with a princess on it...looking up like he recognized us.  Perfection. :)

Jack in the Box

C'mon... You KNEW that was coming at some point! :)

Hot Dogs

FLORIDA!

We just got back from our first vacation together as a family.

Jack busy at the Beach in Florida:

Jack really enjoyed Florida. He loved, loved, loved the beach and the pool. He as no fear of the water. :) He probably would have even stayed in all day, every day if we would have been willing. Jack and his cousins, Michael and Joey, had fun playing together every day. Jack was also happy to spend some time with Papa and Dada. Jack loves men. It's funny - it's like he really gets a kick out of Erik's friends or his uncles.

No fear....

Jack did really well on the plane and started to watch DVDs (or should we say A dvd) just in time. We swore we'd never let our kids watch Barney - but here we are .... watching it as I write! :) (It's the ONLY video he'll sort of watch as he runs around.) Erik had little patience for Jack pushing buttons on the DVD player and the 'engineer' in him came out. (see below :) )


Michael must be thinking, "Dude ~ what's wrong with your DVD player?" :)

It was a nice week and especially nice to get away from both houses! (Yep, STILL both. :( ) ...but at least we don't have any more work to do with the old one. Thank you to everyone btw who helped us move things around! Especially Todd and Kenny - we really appreciated your help!!

Anyway, it was great to get away and get some sunshine! 

Here are a couple other pics:

Cousins messing around at the airport:



Jack and Cousin Joey

Back in the cold!! (Jack was shocked at the cold after a week in Florida! Part of the reason may be the fact that he came home in shorts. Poor guy threw up for the first time all over his jeans once we got to the airport in Sarasota to come home. He must've thought no jeans = no cold! Have to stay in Florida if all I have is shorts to wear.) Hmmm...I wish it worked that way! 
Our baby is really starting to look like a little boy! 

A Year Ago...

Getting SO BIG!

Happy New Year!

Just a little video of what we've been up the past few months. Hope you like it...

(P.S. Please excuse the "bugs". We just got a Mac and we're still trying to figure everything out. :) )

bject width="425" height="355">

Merry Christmas!

How Do We Spell Relief?

S-O-L-D

Yes - you read that correctly! We had our home inspection yesterday. Now we have this in our front yard:

What a great feeling!! All this from some woman who was walking by and not looking for a house, but then decided she just had to have ours last Monday! (We were happy to oblige.)

We don't have to be out until January 11th, but the plan is to start to move soon....today? Tomorrow? We want to be out (and in) by Christmas and to FINALLY be able to be 'normal' in the new house. Today was our FIRST day NOT for sale and we are taking full advantage! You should see our living room. We've made NO effort to put ANYTHING away today. Jack's toys are still out...it's so much easier to have a toddler and a house not for sale. Today we didn't even cringe if he touched the dishwasher or fridge or got food on the floor because....we can clean it L-A-T-E-R... when we want to because nobody is coming over today - at least nobody who doesn't already know us. The 'real' us. :) And get this...we may even have FISH for dinner!

We've gotten much, much neater as a household through this ordeal, and we don't intend to let the pendulum swing completely the other way and turn into utter pigs... maybe just on Sundays, but it is liberating to be able to sit in this mess and not care. :) I know we'll put it all away later, but we can actually go to the grocery store tonight and leave everything as is because we won't have a showing while we are gone.

And...get this - another bonus came with selling the house, last night we actually got to go shopping. Since we didn't know what house we would be living in (and oh yeah, two mortgages and adopting from Russia made things just a little tough. ;) ), shopping had almost become nonexistant for the past year except for maybe a stop at Kroger....how I've missed shopping....for things other than food....

Last night we bought mirrors for our new bathrooms. Doesn't that sound exciting?? Actually it was great fun. I think even for Erik:) (Okay, I just reread those 2 sentences. Do I sound old or what?? - did I actually just say it was fun to shop for bathroom mirrors on a Saturday night??)

Wow. :)

On the way into the store, Jack was in his first snowfall. He looked up at the sky and opened his mouth. He thinks snow is great fun!

One thing Jack does not think is great fun is getting stuck in the toy box. Earlier today we heard crying by the toy box and after rounding the corner, we were greeted by this sight:

Of course we helped the poor guy out.....(giggling the whole time to ourselves.)

The Christmas Card

Having a baby brings a whole other element to sending out Christmas cards. In the past, we've just looked for humorous or cute cards. But now that we have a child.... he should be on the card, right??? And it should be easy. Just take a cute picture. Put it on the card. Kids always cooperate.............right???

Well we found out the hard way that it's not quite THAT easy, but Jack was a trooper for the most part. After three DAYS of pictures, we proudly present picture number 57 - FINALLY a keeper!!! :) I guess once we have more kids we can multiply that number by 2 or 3 or 4....???? :)
Scary!

Here are some of the pictures that didn't make the cut:


"What the Heck Are You Guys Doing?"

Amish Santa

Gandalf Santa (Lord of the Rings)

Neil Diamond Santa - (a.k.a. - Hairy Chest Santa - all I need is a gold chain)

Shaving Cream Santa

That's It! We're finished! It's Attack of the Crabby Santa!

So after a lot of effort we took finally got the "perfect" spontaneous, candid picture - this is the kind of stuff people only do with their 'first' kids, right? :)

Putting on Dada's Shoes

Sharing Toys

Someone Knows Who to go to for Food

Jack's Baptism

Jack's baptism was today. Just a few pictures from the day:

1. Jack, Mom, Dad, and Godparents Uncle Todd and Aunt Amy.
2. Out to eat with my grandmas
3. Being Silly with Cousin Michael
4. Getting Tired
5. What a Party!

Happy Halloween!

Look at all this candy! Yum!

Jack's New Friend Waiting For Crumbs

Did you know cats will eat string cheese and beg for bologna?

Jack's Lifebook

A lifebook is a book that celebrates the life of an adopted child before he joins his forever family.

Making Jack's was an interesting process....it made us think, REALLY THINK, about what we should or should NOT put in it. We found ourselves wondering - How do we explain his biological mother? What kind of pictures do we include of Russia? Do we put nice pictures of Russia (what if he wants to go back?) or do we include pictures that will make Jack want to stay here when he gets older? I know that sounds silly, but that was a consideration!

In the end, we decided to just put pictures that truly reflected our experience and text that we could expand upon later. We have more information about his family history, but that history would be hard for a young child to understand. Instead we elected keep the story simple and brief, leaving room for conversation as we go through it when Jack is older.

We ordered the books from Kodak and they turned out beautiful. They look like real picture books. These pictures do not do it justice. Some of you who are adopting emailed us asking about the lifebook and so we decided to post this here. It's just our version and remember, there is no right or wrong way to do it.

One last tip - we ordered TWO copies of the book. One that Jack can play with now. (The cover already has food smeared on it!) and one copy safely put away for later in his life.

Click here to view the book:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9lpb16g7.4efgculj&x=0&y=-tpes3h

All clean!

Welcome Lucy!

So we went to the Humane Sociecty and got Roy another friend to play with. It's not Archie and we'll miss him lots. Leroy purred when he saw her. Cats are supposed to hiss. She's super friendly and her and Jack will pass a ball back and forth. Jack is pretty curious about this new kitten and she's equally curious of him. He's the first cat that has actually come up to Jack! :)