A Whole Month in One Post!

I can't believe I've put off blogging for a month. This will be the condensed and very random version of the past month (bullet style)! I think the kids might enjoy reading about our family life someday so I hope to be a better blogger in the future.

• The last weekend of September the kids and I went with my parents to a Carrell family reunion in Huntington. It was a 10 hour car trip one way so pretty tiring. It had been 4 years since I'd been to a reunion so it was wonderful to catch up with all of my Dad's family again. I was also proud to show off Valerie! She and Blaine had a wonderful time. Blaine got to meet and play with his cousins and caught a crawdad at Uncle Earl's house! Valerie got tons of attention and everyone let her eat off their plates!


• We've been to several volleyball games to watch Shelbi play. She is a middle hitter and is awesome! The Lady Lobo team is great and it looks like they will be District Champs. Can't wait to watch some playoff action! Valerie claps her hands and says lolo (lobo) and ay (yay).


• We conferenced with Blaine's teacher and he is doing great in 1st Grade. He made all A's on his first report card! He is reading better all the time and is starting to take Accelerated Reader tests on the computer. In Blaine's words, "Mrs. Coldewey is cool!" She lets them do the smarty pants dance when they do something good. I've got to get some video of this!


• Valerie has started going to Children's Day Out and loves it! She cried the first couple of days, now she runs ahead of me to get to her classroom. She is SO social! CDO has had visits from the fire truck, police officers, and EMT's this month. Most kids were afraid of the loud sirens. Not Valerie, she danced to it!


• We celebrated my brother, Bryan's 33rd birthday on October 6 and Todd's 36th Birthday on October 20!


• Todd's Aunt Martha passed away at the end of September. We really miss her and pray for Bruce during this time. She loved Blaine so much and was already crazy about Valerie in this short time we've had her. Martha was a special lady!


• We have had Valerie for 4 1/2 months including our time with her in Khabarovsk. Since June 2, she has grown 4 inches and gained 5 pounds!


• We have met twice with the Early Childhood Intervention team. They assessed Valerie last Friday and she does qualify for services with them. She will get Speech Therapy twice a month. This therapy is really training for us to learn how to work with her to improve her speech, especially her articulation. She is consistently saying more than 50 words but she is very difficult to understand. She seems to understand most of what we say. She is a bright little girl and we are so proud of her!


• We had a ball at the Heflin's Annual Pumpkin Carving Party. We made a jack 0' lantern with TONS of teeth! Blaine is big enough now that he can help carve. Valerie enjoyed sticking her hands in the slimy seeds! It's so fun to line everyone's lighted pumpkins up outside and admire the creativity.


• Todd is going to be changing jobs and we are really praying for direction and guidance. He is a super smart guy and a very hard worker so I know everything will work out fine but I don't like times of unknown. However, I do know Who holds the future!


• Valerie and I went to the Sandhills for a playdate with another group of moms and kiddos from church. After she learned to not eat the sand, she had a great time and even went down the dunes on a disc.


• Blaine is going to be Batman for Halloween if he doesn't wear out his costume before then.


• I'm not sure what I've been doing this month but always seem to be busy and tired! I think it has something to do with the 2 year old.


• We are also following our football team who is having a great season. Blaine's teacher's son, Kevin is on the team so Blaine has a new hero to look up to. I love to go to the games but usually feel a little beat up after holding Valerie through the whole thing.


• My friend, Donna, gave me a gift certificate for a massage way back before we went to Russia but I never was able to use it. I finally got my massage last week and it was WONDERFUL! I could do that once a week!


• I finally got Blaine and Valerie in to get some pictures made. Valerie doesn't yet know how to pose. I would get her situated, tell her to smile pretty, and she would say, "no", get up and walk over to me. I think we got one good one of her when we made her laugh and several of the two of them together. She doesn't understand smile, but if I say "show me your teeth" we get a little fake smile. They should be in tomorrow.

Like I said, random and abridged. Almost all of those bullets should have been a post of their own, complete with pictures and this was just the things I remembered off the top of my head. Here's a vow to do better. Hopefully.

Russian Adoption Playdate

One Saturday evening recently Blaine, Valerie and I met up in Odessa with 3 other families from this area who have adopted from Russia. Mary was there with her beautiful little Kenzie. We met Dede and Rob and their lively little Liam after following their blog since before we traveled on trip 1! We were also excited to meet Marsha and Brad and their super cute sons Sasha and Dimitry. Sasha has been home from Russia for several years. We met at McDonald's, let the kids play and had a great visit. It was wonderful to chat with people who know exactly what you're talking about when you tell about all the ups and downs in your journey. Each of us had a unique adoption story but we all had smart, beautiful children to show off and share with each other! We had such an enjoyable time and all agreed we need to get together again sometime soon. It's exciting to me that there are other families living so close that have also adopted from Russia!
We worked so hard to get all the kiddos in one picture but it was like herding cats so here's a few different groups. I never got little Dimitry. He was way too fast!

Blaine, Liam, and Valerie in the slide.

Valerie, Kenzie, and Liam trying to be still!

Sasha, Valerie, Liam, and Kenzie

First Day of First Grade!

What a handsome young man!

Posing with Mrs. Coldewey on Day 1!

These pictures are from Blaine's 1st day of school. That was 2 weeks ago. I'm just a little behind with my blogging! We are so busy and have so many things going on that I'm always too tired at night to sit down and blog about it. Blaine is really enjoying school. He loves his teacher. He has several good friends in his class. His favorite thing is the playground (of course). Our only real problem is getting him out of bed in the mornings!

Splish, Splash, Dump!

Valerie just loves her bath! My bathroom floor is always wet. She kicks, splashes, and loves to dump water over her head. Anytime we walk into the bathroom, she starts pulling her clothes off and yelling, "Bath, bath!" I'm just glad getting clean is so much fun. If only Blaine thought so!

31 Words!

In Valerie's orphanage Russian was the only language that was spoken. We took her out of the orphanage on June 5. That was less than 3 months ago and she already has 31 English words that she can say! I'm so proud! Some of these she says perfectly, many are not real clear but she says them the same way every time and in the right context. Here's the Big List!

ball

bath

bite

Bubba

bye-bye

cookie

cough

cow

cup

Dada

diaper (sounds like bye-bye but points to her diaper and says it when she needs a clean one!)

duck

eye

hat

hot

hi

ice

Mama

Mamaw

moo

Nana (Todd's grandmother)

nana (banana)

night-night

No (this is definitely her most used word!)

nose

num-num (yum-yum)

out (as in "get me out of this highchair, carseat, etc.")

Pa (sounds like ba)

quack quack

up (as in "pick me up")

Yay! (while clapping for herself!)

I realize I'm a little biased but I think this is great progress for only being exposed to English for less than 3 months. She can also point to lots of body parts when we say "Where's your ______?" She knows eyes, ears, nose, mouth, teeth, cheeks, hair, feet, and hands. But her favorite thing to show off is her belly button. She jerks her shirt up with the biggest grin on her face! It is so cute! She seems to understand so much of what we say. She follows directions when we say, "Get your shoes, Throw that away, Give me a hug/kiss, etc." We are trying to talk, talk, talk all the time to help her language acquisition. Narrating every move you make can get kinda tiresome! "Do you want a banana, Valerie? Yes? You do want a banana? Ok, Mama will peel this banana for you. It's a yellow banana. Can you say banana, Valerie? Good girl! Take a bite of the banana. Yum-yum. Bananas are sweet, aren't they? Mama likes bananas too. Hold your banana...... and on and on all day long!

Happy Birthday Valerie!

Valerie turned 2 last Sunday on August 17! Here is the birthday girl all dressed up for church in her pretty pink dress! She had no clue what all the fuss was about or why Daddy, Blaine, and I were all singing a funny song to her but we celebrated anyway.

I have been so happy to finally have this precious little girl! However, Sunday, I felt a little bit of sadness. I so wish I could have been there on the day she was born and seen her teeny tiny little hands and feet and held her. I guess I just was thinking about all the things we missed in those first 22 months of her life. But we have her now and she is 100% ours and we have a lifetime of birthdays and celebrations and everyday memories to make! Thank you, Lord for my precious little Valerie. She is perfect for us!

My Mom was out of town so we waited until Monday night to have a party. Here Valerie is with Nana as we lit the candles and sang "Happy Birthday". She didn't really get it but managed to sneak a bite of icing. You can see the evidence on her lip!

She REALLY loved the cake and ice cream! She had a plate and then finished off a few other people's also!

She had a good time opening gifts. Blaine and Jenna gave her a hand while Grama looked on. This little girl needed absolutely nothing but she enjoyed it nonetheless and got some really neat toys, books, and a little cash for the college fund.

Mamaw showed Valerie how to feed her new baby doll. This baby laughs, cries, blinks her eyes, and goes to sleep. Valerie loves to play with her babies. She covers them up, pats them, and says, "night, night". So sweet! Happy 2nd Birthday, Valerie!!

Fishing with Pa!

Dad took Blaine, Valerie, and I fishing at Lake Amistad this weekend. We had a great time and it was really nice to get out of town (but not out of the country!) for a little while. Pa had plenty of help driving the boat! Valerie wasn't scared of riding in the boat at all. She seemed to like the wind in her hair. We haven't found much she is afraid of! She kept trying to climb out of the boat the first time we went out on the lake. I just knew we'd be fishing her out before the weekend was up, but we managed to keep her on board the whole time!

The weather was nice, hot but with a nice breeze. We fished hard and tried lots of different lures but didn't catch very many fish. I think it was just too hot. Valerie stayed happy as long as she was eating! Blaine continues to improve his casting. Pa is so patient with all of us, rigging up our poles, getting us free when we get hung up, and not getting upset over spills in his boat!

Pa actually hooked this little bass and told Blaine he needed some help reeling it in. I love the look on Blaine's face. So proud!


Pa let Blaine drive a couple of times and he had a ball. It made me a little nervous!

We went out each morning, fished, swam, and had a picnic lunch in the boat. Sandwiches never taste better than in a boat! We went in for an afternoon nap and then came back out on the lake until dark. Fun times! Some of my best childhood memories are of going to the lake every summer. I'm so glad my kids are getting to do it too!

By Sunday afternoon, this was one tired little girl! She slept about 3 hours on the drive home.

I can't believe we've already been home for 6 weeks. Valerie will be 2 years old next Sunday!