Sorry I was MIA!!!!

Yes!!! I was missing in action from the blogging world for over a month! I do not know where my days go or went over the last month but I just realized that I have done nothing with my blog since July and it is now almost October.

Updates:

Vladimir is doing great. We just had our 6th month post placement report and then found out the news about CHI - Chicago's branch office closing. So I am terribly sad that we will lose our social worker! She has been with us for 3 years completing post placement for Natalya and had hoped she would be stuck with us for 3 more but that will not be the case.

Vladimir is just doing wonderful. He is saying about 30 plus words and is getting the hang of potty training. I can honestly say potty training a boy is much harder then a girl. Vladimir got baptised last weekend and was so well behaved. Although during the baptism he recognized one of his teachers in the service and was yelling and waving "HI" to her.

Natalya is growing into a little girl everyday. She is going to start cheer leading soon. Luke wanted her to play soccer but she cried at that thought as she would much rather cheerleader. Not sure where she even heard about cheer leading but she "ra ra"s every chance she gets.

We are already taking about Halloween in our house. I just can't believe it is almost October. I have some pictures to share for all of you who may be interested.

Hope everyone is doing well! Congrats! To all the Astrakhan families who have had successful court dates!! I follow many of your blogs and love re-living all the exciting times!

Natalya and Vladimir at the IL State Fair riding a Cho Cho train. As you can see Vlad was not too excited.

Vladimir's Baptism : Pictured Luke sister, Luke, Natalya, Vladimir, Me (mom) and my brother. Doesn't Vladimir look so cute in his little outfit!!

Below: Luke, Natalya, Me and Vladimir.

Updates and 4th Birthday!

It has been a really busy busy JULY and glad to see that August is around the corner!! We had a great 4th of July celebrating with the kids. Attended a local parade in the morning and it didn't take very long for Vladimir to catch on to the candy that gets thrown from the floats (Little Prince is Vladimir- I have decided it is just easier to write Vladimir & Natalya vs. LP's). At night we went to fire works and had a great view from the office building I manage. Vladimir and Natalya said "OOH and WOW" a million times over and over!

Then on the 12th we attended the CHI reunion picnic. We had a blast hanging out with our friends and fellow Astrakhan families. There is one particular family that we still meet up with and spend extra time with as they were the family that traveled with us on both trips while we were adopting Natalya in 2005, so we love catching up with them as often as we can!! At the actual reunion picnic there were a least 10 kids from Astrakhan which are the families who attend every year - so it is AWESOME to see how they change in a years time!!

Natalya turned 4 on the 23rd!! It was such a great day for her and a little sad for me as I find it so hard grasp that my first baby is 4. I always say time flies but seriously - these past 3 years flew faster then a rocket ship!! Natalya got up at the crack of dawn so excited! I let her open one present early and she picked her new Barbie Swan Lake ( if you haven't noticed by my pictures I post Natalya is the most girly girl you will ever meet). She doesn't leave the house with out a purse, jewelry or a baby to tend to. So Barbie is her new THING! Every thing is all about BARBIE! YIKES!! So the theme was Barbie.!! I ended up taking a half day at work and surprising her by picking her up early at school and taking her to the local water park ( Vlad too came along)!! Then we came home opened more presents, ate pizza (her choice) and had Barbie cake!!

Vladimir is doing GREAT!!! He is progressing so well. "Yellow" was the new word of the day yesterday, so everything is yellow. "Alrighty" is also a very common word he uses and the great thing is he knows when to use the word. Like if I ask him to clean up he will say ALRIGHTY!! He is growing for sure more so taller and he is slimming out some. I think he is officially losing that baby chunk - if he even really had that. He received his first incident report as school the other day! Apparently he was goofing off at lunch and was told to stop and threw a good tantrum. Mainly the the teacher wanted to let me knew that he is catching on well at school and is starting too mimic behaviors from the other kids good and BAD! HAHA!!

So that is the update for July! Below is pictures of the kiddos!! Enjoy!!

Ready to watch the parade! Again another picture where I can't get both to look at me and say cheese at the same time!!
Natalya ready to catch the candy!

Waving!! Hey Candy OVER HERE PLEASE! HAHA



Happy 4th of JULY!!

My 2 cuties! A picture together on Natalya's 4th Birthday!

My Princess if 4!
Happy Birthday!

O'man no presents for me???

CHEESE!!

LONG LONG TIME !

Yes, we are still alive!! HA-HA It has been forever that I have posted and I know everyone is looking for new pictures and updates. We have been all so busy enjoying the beautiful weather outside, swimming, gymnastics practice, baseball games..........the list could go on and on. I can't believe June flew by so fast and July is expected to zoom by as well.

It has been 3 months since LP has been home and still everyday we admire him in amazement. LP is doing better then great! He is saying more words - I am pretty sure it is up to about 22. The new one this weekend was bite, as he was wanting a bite of my cinnamon roll - He kept patting my leg saying "Bite Mama Bite" . He is loving all fruit. He is not a big fan of meat? Which I am thinking it is a texture thing but I fight him just to eat a couple bites of chicken. Not even hamburger. When newly home he would eat just about anything but now he is picky. Not sure what exactly to do but hopefully this too is just a phase. . His favorite right now is strawberries. HE LOVES STRAWBERRIES The other day we bought some strawberries at the farmers market and once home I washed them and placed some in a bowl on the table. LP was eating them whole with the green leafy part!! He was popping them like M&M's

LP is doing great at school, and of course gets all the attention. Although the teachers say he hates being babied. I guess all the girls in the 4-5 yr age group won't leave him alone and it drives him crazy. He is a lot smaller then all the other 2 year olds but he thinks he is king at school.

I can officially say now that LP has NO FEAR of the dogs. In fact he acts like they are not even there. Right now the only issue is LP feeding the dogs off his plate. LP thinks it is hilarious, ME not so much.

LP is the shadow of his sister. Were ever she is he is sure to be behind her. They have their moments where they don't want to be bothered by the other but those are few and far between. Little Princess loves to tattle on her brother and does so at every chance she gets. For example this weekend she gave LP a red crayon and of course he colored the doors, walls and my coffee table all while she sat and watched him. I was down stairs for maybe 5 minutes changing out the laundry. So in 5 mins. LP made a wonderful masterpiece in my living room. THANK GOD for washable crayons and markers!!! I keep telling her that one day all that tattling will come back to haunt her!

On the health front, LP is up to 25lbs which is a 4 lb gain since being home and grew 1 1/2 inches. All his blood work and lab work came back normal and the doctor is more then happy with his adjustment. It is amazing what TLC will do for a kid!!

We are going to attend the CHI reunion picnic on July 12th and hope to see lots of families there! At last I will post pictures!!

Eating outside - buddies.


On this day LP got pooped on by a bird at school, so he had to wear his back up clothes which just happen to be sweats on a 85 degree day. Then to come home and prance around in mommies red high heels. Get a closer look at what his shirt says!! HA- HA
Please mommy! Pretty pretty please!
Daddy and kiddos
See MOM the dogs aren't so bad!! Let me just tug at it's hair.
Sure doggy eat what ever you would like off my plate!!! HA- HA
Father's Day gifts
Another father's day gift. I had to special order with their names, but I LOVE IT.

Cake for Daddies Birthday! YUMMY!!

Cake for Daddies Birthday!

Partner's in Crime!!

1 month home!

WOW!! I can't believe that LP has been home for a MONTH! Where has the time gone? Although it seems like forever ago that I was in Astrakhan, dying to be home. LP has made a tremendous amount of progress since we arrived home and I am so lucky he has transitioned well. He is still a mama's boy at heart and usually that is the first word of the day from him. Last night Luke and I were laying in bed trying to fall asleep and LP was laughing and saying Mama in his sleep. Just too cute.! He understands WAY more then we give him credit for and surprises us daily with something new. Both the LP's are doing well together and the sibling rivalry/jealousy is slowing calming down and they are enjoying being playmates. We finally got more boy toys in the house as Luke was getting tired of seeing LP carrying purses around the house ( his sister has way to many purses - just like her mommy) and/or trying to wear headbands like his sister. Right now he loves hammering with his play hammer and dinosaurs. He carries this dinosaur around and will growl. He also loves to mow the yard (pretend - with his bubble mower). He just gets a kick out of doing something daddy does. The sandbox is his FAVORITE!! He could play in the sandbox for hours. I could go on and on but I will spare you those details and post some pictures.

You would never think that a month ago this kid hated the water! He is an official water bug just like his sister.

MOM............enough already with this picture stuff.!! HAHA

CHEESEBURGER.....CHEESEBURGER! At the ballpark.

Finally a picture together and they both are smiling! TOO CUTE!

My Princess at the ballpark.

Mom and the kiddos! Family fun at the ballpark! HEY BATTER BATTER!!

Update

As usual things have been busy......I guess this will be my life now with 2 kids. Although I can't complain as I love every bit of being a mommy to 2 great kids!

Little Prince had his 1st doctors appointment yesterday - the great news is that he gained 1 lb 7 ounces and grew a 1/2 an inch since we left the Embassy Doctor. So he is at 3% on the weight growth chart, 1 % in height and 42% on head circum (if you saw the rest of the family and how big our heads are - he fits right in- HAHA). Of course we have tons of lab work to get done and I have to collect stool samples (so fun - HAHA) to check for giardia etc. So no shots this visit but we go again on June 9th to see what shots needed and results of lab work. The doctor said overall LP seems to be doing GREAT and looks pretty healthy. The doctor was happy to see that LP was doing great in the attachment process. He said he sees a lot of kids who struggle with attachment and was surprised to see LP making such huge progress already. I am pretty lucky in that department because both of the LP's really didn't have too many attachment or bonding issues.

Little prince's vocab is growing. Below are the words he is currently saying:

Woof.......woof
Done
Mama
Papa
Dada
Talya (for his sister)
ball
Wawa - his version of water
No No
yeah
Yum Yums
and of course the one we hear the most:

Ka ka - (which I don't even now if I am spelling right - hopefully you get the idea)

Tantrums are few and far between anymore. Our biggest issue is still the dog and now LP has become a really picky eater. Which is a surprising change. Other then that we are all doing well!! Playing out side a lot and exploring new a lot of new things!

I post again soon!

Pictures Pictures and more pictures!

LP loves this little scooter.....at first he could only go backwards but has recently figured out how to go forwards! Beep Beep!

Mommy had too much fun with the sidewalk chalk!

LP loved his first taste of chocolate! Cupcake....yummy! (yes he is wearing a pink bib......his sister insisted he wear one of her old ones - since he doesn't care what color it is yet - I just went with it)

Sister and brother tired of getting their pictures taken. To get them to smile at the same time or even look in the same direction is Misson Impossible!!

Long awaited update! Finally

I know it has been a while since I have posted but our lives have been a whirl wind since we have gotten home! I can't even tell you how nice it is too be home with our kids. They are amazing and I think I am still disbelief that LP is home.

Now about our travels home: Our flight left at 12:55 pm on Friday to JFK, so of course we were up at the crack of dawn to get ready, eat and leave. Of course the day I can't wait to leave there was tons of traffic in Moscow. It took us over an hour to get to the airport and by the time I got there the line for Delta was a mess. After waiting for a least 30 minutes with tons of luggage and a scared little boy we were at the counter. OF COURSE there was an issue with my tickets. If you remember I had to change them at the last minute and after the change I didn't have seat assignments so that was a concern. Well there was some issue with my tickets and they wanted to know why I didn't leave on Thursday etc. After a hour (they pushed us to the side to wait so they could deal with other people first - nice), we finally got our seats. I was so relieved because I was going to put on the water works if I had too!! I can't even EXPLAIN how thankful I was to be on that plane. I didn't care where I sat just as long as we had seats. I am not sure if this was planned but Delta had all the adoptive families in a section on the airplane, which worked out really nice. All the families were so nice and it was great to be able to chit chat. I regret not getting those families emails addresses etc as I would love to know how they are doing.

The flight was pretty uneventful. LP did great!! He ate a lot but what ever made him happy at the time. No major melt downs or water works, but he did only sleep one hour on that flight. Some of the other kids did cry and I felt bad for them because the other people on the plane didn't help the situation. I got pretty annoyed with some of the other occupants. They were staring and talking in Russian all annoyed (almost yelling). I just wanted to scream "Yeah we know he is crying...........it is a 8 hour flight and they don't understand - your gawking doesn't help anyone"!!! I just sympathized for those families!! It is not easy and people complaining at you just makes it worse.

But the Russian couple (who spoke English) sitting next to me at the end of the flight actually said that LP was such a good little boy and thanked me - that they could tell how happy he was with me and glad he was going to a good family. Which was so nice to hear because sometimes I sense the opposite reaction.

After being such a good boy on the flight I knew that was too good to be true. LP had a major melt down while going through immigration. MELT DOWN!! He was so tired - poor guy but we were able to cut in line in front of everyone else (I am thinking LP's crying and screaming played a part - HAHA). Then we were taken to the room for our interview which was a piece of cake. I got in and out in 30 minutes!! Plus the flight was early from Moscow, so I had plenty of time to catch my connection!!

The flight from JFK to Detroit - not so good. LP just wanted to sleep but couldn't get comfortable and he only wanted to be held etc...... I was on the verge of crying!! Thank goodness we were literally that last seat on the airplane and everyone else moved to the front - HAHA- At that point I really didn't care about anyone else comfort and enjoyment.

Our connecting flight to home was running late due to bad weather in the Midwest and I did some major praying that they weren't going cancel it!! But after 1 1/2 later we boarded the plane home! At that point - I was just so emotional. I could n't believe I was going home!! LP slept the entire flight which was much needed!! We arrived home about 10:oo pm and some really nice man helped me with my luggage until I got to Luke. Once I saw Luke and Little Princess I cried and cried. They were standing holding signs saying "Welcome Home Mommy and Brother". I was so relieved to be home and just exhausted!!

Honestly it was worth every struggle but it was by far the hardest thing I have ever done!! It was not easy traveling with Luke and I when we adopted little princess but to do everything solely by myself was so hard.

Both my LP's are doing really really well!! Little princess is having a tougher time adjusting then her brother I think. She is having some issues sharing mommies attention. To include her she is mommies helper and is becoming a little mother hen, but then she gets a little too bossy. She doesn't like sharing her toys and if he has something first she wants it etc. Little Prince ADORES his sister!! He follows her everywhere doing everything she does. He always wants to hold her hand or be around her - it is really cute. All these issues will take time and are works in progress. Little prince is terrified of our dog, which has been a struggle. I don't know how to make that better but slowing he can tolerate looking at the dog outside.

I can't believe we have been home for a week now as it all seems like such a long time ago!! I do want to THANK everyone who took the time to write messages on my blog. They mean the world to me and you helped me pass the time. Thank you!!!

A shout out to the Catherine!! Who heads to Moscow tomorrow!! Safe travels and I will be thinking of you!! Keep your head up!! We miss you!!! Almost home!!

I'll post again soon!! - I'll give you a break since this one was a long one!!