Our Journey of Love to Astrakhan Russia: July 2008

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!!