Let It Snow!

Yes it is snowing! Yea! and no work or school tomorrow - even better. It may be a few days late for Christmas but that is ok. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Our's was pretty un- eventful and relaxing.

We spent Christmas Eve day with my parents and brother's family. So Christmas day was just at our home. My parents came over for awhile( so I actually got dressed for them) but the rest of the house stayed in their PJ's all day and just played.

It was interesting to see how Micah was going to deal with this Christmas. Since his birthday was 8 months ago, I was not sure if he would get the whole present thing. I was pretty sure he did not get it when Santa asked him what he wanted for Christmas and he enthusiastically said "A CANDY CANE!"

So he did get a candy and many other presents but the excitement of anticipation that you see with most kids was not there yet. He would wait patiently as each child had their turn to open a present, would calmly open his present, and then again calmly state what he got and would ask us to take it out of the box. Normally I would say that it was just overstimulation but when he gets overstimulated, he starts bouncing off the wall, he does NOT sit calmly and go into shut down mode. So I am not sure if it was just a difference in dealing with overstimulation or that he just does not get it yet. Well, we have 4 months to build up anticipation for his birthday, and he has already asked when we are going to open more presents!

I do have to say that there was a little bit of my heart that was sad because their is part of our family that is not with us yet. Thinking of what she was doing, did she understand or even celebrate Christmas, was she happy? So many questions. We now have all our homestudy documents completed and will hopefully have our first homestudy visit very soon - getting one step closer!

Here is our beautiful crew ready for Christmas! We are so blessed! And Luc did not get his two front teeth for Christmas!

I ran across this poem from another blogger and thought it was so true and wanted to post it.

The Call

Every call has a beginning,

a quiet moment when God whispers

a promise to a mother's heart.

A holy place where a father bows and faithfully

accepts the journey set before him.

A miraculous morning that unexpectedly dawns...

casting its first light on a chosen threshold.

A gentle knock...a closed door opens.

A sacred invitation sent by the Father leads

to the other side of the world where lonely

heads stare out orphanage windows praying for

someone to care.

And then one morning, on an ordinary day, an

orphan's life changes...God sends them a

second chance...through you.

Author Unknown

Here is to a wonderful New Year and many more children finding their forever families!

The Upside, A New Look, LOI, PA!

Ok, I said during my last post that things had been up and down so here is the upside! As you can tell there is a new look to our blog to celebrate this wonderful news that we have ...... It's a girl! Yes, we are on another journey to add to our family and this time it is a girl so it is pink galore!
I have been wanting to tell you all for weeks now but with everything going on and then trying to go hyper-speed on the paperwork, I just have not had the time. So today I needed a paperwork break and thought it would be great to post and update the blog, I just love the colors, it has been awhile since pink has been a color that I get to look at much.

Ok, ok, so here are the details. We had decided to move forward with another adoption this summer but decided that Russia was just not for us this time. The last time, the stress was just unbearable at times and it seemed like they are trying to make it harder and harder to adopt from there. Also the travel was just way too much for all of our family to handle this time around. So with much thought, prayer and research, we decided to go to China. Now some of you who are familiar with adoption know that China's wait times are literally verging on 4 years if not more and that was not our plan, so we decided to go with the Special Needs program. China's special needs program includes older children, kids with medical issues both minor and correctable and more severe.

China adoptions are really very different then what we dealt with in Russia, especially the special needs program. So I have spent a lot of time searching the internet and joining yahoo groups trying to educate myself. We started the process to get our homestudy going back in August but I just put it off because frankly, I did not want to have to deal with all that paperwork. Ok, not a good reason to delay but I guess I was just not ready. I also know that God had our daughter all picked out and the time was just not right. The week I decided to get back on the papertrail, I started requesting info from agencies. China handles special needs in that they send out pictures and medical information to approved agencies on either a shared list( all agencies have access) or an individual list just to a specific agency. You can have access to these files and look for that one that you just make a connection with. So on Saturday November 14th, I got an email from and agency I was looking into regarding a little girl that was back on their list so I checked it out. I fell in love immediately and after Russ and I talked, I figured out how to lock her file and talking to doctors, we decided to move forward with the adoption( that is what the LOI is in the title), we wrote a Letter of Intent to adopt her. Next came the PA(Pre-approval) from China less than a week later. Now it is massive amounts of paperwork and trying to coordinate everything to get our dossier to China as fast as bureaucracy will let us. Once our dossier is logged into China(LID) we will wait for our Letter of Acceptance(LOA) and then our TA(Travel Approval). From looking at other's it seems that about 4-5 months from LID until travel, so the fast I get our paperwork done, the sooner we can bring her home.

Ok, The other great thing about working with China is that we have a picture and we know some things about her. Sophia is the name that we plan to give her. Her Chinese name is Lu Xin Yan, she just turned 5 in November and is currently in Foster care in a city south east of Beijing. Her special need is that she is post operative spina bifada but seems to be doing wonderful. She is a girly girl, loves pink and loves to be pretty( that means I can buy dresses again!). So without further delay here she is:
This picture reminds me so much of Micah

Doesn't she just melt your heart? That smile just gets me every time. I don't have much more to say except that we are all so very excited to add another little one to our family. It is so much easier to fight through the paperwork with a picture to look at and just dream. I don't know if I will get back to blogging before Christmas( trying to get a homestudy visit in before that - don't know if that will happen) so I want to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas celebrating the joys of Christ in your life. I know that I already have my Christmas present and I couldn't be more thankful.

Blessings to you all!

Rollercoaster

The past couple of weeks have been such an emotional rollercoaster for us. I will talk about the up side later but today I needed to post that my wonderful Grandma has passed away. She was an amazing 88 1/2 year old beauty that loved the Lord and I am so blessed that she was in my life. The past several years her health has quickly faded so her death is a blessing in the fact that she is not suffering and can now do all the wonderful things that she used to do but with the Lord. The hard part is knowing that all we have left is our memories, although they are quite wonderful, there are no more memories to make. But I have to not focus on myself but on the fact that she is singing and laughing and full of joy, something she has not been able to really do for awhile. I just pray for my Mom, who was her main caregiver for these past years. Her main focus was my Grandma and now that focus is gone, there is now a big hole in her life and we have to make sure we fill it up with her kids and grandkids. Thanks for listening.

My smiling Grandma and her pearls! She so loved pearls, kids and the Lord!

Halloween and Catch Up Time

Yes it is almost Thanksgiving and I am posting Halloween pictures but they are so cute that I didn't want you all to miss out on them. Micah was a puppy this year and got to wear a costume that I made for Olivia.

Do you like his guards?

What is nice about the costumes that I made is that they actually hold up over time and each kids has worn them. Great memories when you look at the pictures of each one in the same costume!

We also did our annual pumpkin carving where each of them get to pick out their own pumpkin. Micah's choice was unique as he is, he picked a white pumpkin, it was so cute listening to him say, "whi punkin"

It usually is a very long night because just getting the guts out of four pumpkins takes awhile and we usually have a loss of interest about half way through and Russ, Olivia and I end up finishing them up. So we decided to cut our losses and have Micah color his - it worked out great that is until it rained a few days later and the washable markers washed right off. Thankfully he didn't notice.

Last year Micah was able to go trick or treating but he really did not understand what was going on. This year, he understood, it was all about candy! Every time we went to a house, I would remind him to say, trick or treat and then thank you(which only family members can really understand). What was so cute is that some people would try to hold a conversation with him, like "So what are you dressed up as?" or "Are you having fun?" and his response to everyone, no matter what the question was was "TRICK OR TREAT". I think he was trying to nicely say "Hey people, just give me the candy".

And speaking of candy, that is our reward of choice for potty training. We are doing pretty good with it but some day I feel like it will never happen. Micah know that if he does things on his own or goes #2 in the potty, he gets a bigger reward. So when he talks about it, it goes something like this: " When I go poo poo in the potty, I gets lota lota lota lota lota lota lota lota lota lota lota lota CANDY! YEA!!. Can you tell he has a sweet tooth.

Mica is also growing like a weed. When we brought him home he literally wore a 12 months pants( at 2.5 years old!) so this summer I was wondering what he would be wearing once he was home a year.......... 3Ts! Can you believe it, now they are slightly long but still, he grew in 1 year what kids normally do in two. So back in October I took his measurements and compared them to the ones taken when he was home one week - he grew 4.75 inches and gained 10 pounds! Man, no wonder my back is aching all the time! I really try to do everything to not have to carry him anymore( no I love to hold him, if he lets me but sitting down is the preferred method).

I love how 3 year old minds work. They get something in their head and that is the way that it is. My wonderful niece sat for the kids a few weeks ago and ever since then, I get the question from Micah about "Where is Christmas?". Now her name is Christa, but for now and forever, in Micah's head - she will be Christmas.

Well I have to leave you with the wonderful picture of the week in our house. It is of our Toothless Wonder - Luc. We know what he will be singing for Christmas this year!

Have a blessed Thanksgiving!

Gotcha Day One Year

Well, actually I am six days late but that is the theme lately around our house. We have had sports out the wazoo and I am ready for things to slow down so I can catch my breath before we start the holidays. Before I talk about Gotcha day I have to say "GO WILDCATS!" That is Olivia's volleyball team. They just played most of a tournament today. Her team was 7th seeded and are now going to play for 3rd/4th place. They were so amazing!

Also today is my wonderful and amazing hubby's birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY! We all love you so very much.

Gotcha day was on September 29th but it did not seem right to celebrate it on that day because it was just Micah and me. But October 4th was the one year anniversary of us coming home. So this was the day that seemed right to celebrate our new family since we were all there with all having memories(except for maybe Micah). What is so amazing is to think that one year ago I went in and wisked Micah from the only place he knew as home. And I when I say wisked, I really mean it. It was a busy morning and my translator needed to get to class, so we had enough time to sign the documents, have the caregivers change him and we trotted out the door as fast as we could, I almost felt like if we did not hurry, they might change their minds and take him back. But then the fun began, seeing his reactions to everything, some with confusion and a little fear( like trying to use the large toilet in the room) and some with excitement and awe( like realizing that he could just run and have fun).

It has been an amazing year. There have been great adventures, exciting firsts and giggles. But there were also frustrations and "pulling your hair out" moments. Even though I would like to say it has been all thrills and giggles( and that is what I wanted it to be), it has not. But I have to say that I would not trade this past year for anything. It has grown me in a way that I did not know I needed to grow in, it has made me love a little more like God loves us all - unconditionally. I still have a looong way to go but my eyes have been opened to something God is trying to teach me and that is thrilling beyond description.

I can not believe that God has blessed me with such wonderful and amazing kids - I love them so very much. What is been really interesting lately is that Micah will talk about Russia. I am not really sure if he remembers or if he is combining things that he has seen in pictures and things that I have told him. Like the hat he has on below. When we went to talk his picture in it he said- " I wear this in Russia. I cry in Russia but Mommy take me home and I watch Dora." No matter what he says there is always a theme of him crying in Russia, which makes me sad, but on the upside, that means he is happy here. And that is what it is all about.

Thanks to our friends Kyle, Greg & Grace (whose Gotcha day was the same) for the idea - I have a picture from that day of Micah and myself and another one of us on our 1 year anniversary Gotcha.

September 29, 2008

September 29, 2009 ( The hat barely fits)

If you would love to be a part of making another little child happy, Check out this link. I talk about this family below and they only need about $3000 more to bring home a precious little boy when he is born, which is any day now. There is no other family that wants to adopt him and if they don't raise this money, he will go into foster care.

Blessings to all!

Helping Adoption

I have been wanted to post about our Gotcha Day Anniversary but have been so busy that I have not gotten around to it. I will do that soon but I needed to post about a friend who needs help. She is a fellow adoptive mom that has a heart so big that I can not comprehend it. She has struggled through many failed adoptions but has such a love for the orphan that she continues after God's calling on their lives. Right now there is a baby who needs a home and they are willing to be this baby's parents, they just need the money to do it. Please check out her blog "Storing up Treasures" and if you feel led to support them, please do.

Thanks for any help you may be able to give.

Court Revisited

Yes, can you believe it! One year since our court date( the second one that is 9/18). I can remember that day so vividly. It was the perfect fall day( And I love the fall:). The sky was so blue with painted white clouds floating in their perfect places and a comfortable crisp day. It started out so stressful but after the judge came back in and gave us the wonderful news, you could not get the smile off my face for the rest of the day. It is hard to believe that it has been one year.

Last week while picking up Micah from preschool, the teacher's helper asked if Micah was here last year or if this was his first year at preschool. I politely said it was his first year but I was thinking - No he was in Russia last year, he did not walk very well and barely spoke! Can you believe it!

Anniversaries are great reminders of how things have changed. How much has been accomplished and how much more will be behind you in a year from now. So when the struggles of raising a 3 year old( or any other child at any other age) come rearing their ugly head - remind me at how much has been accomplished this year.

Micah has only been to preschool 6 days so far but it seems like it has been months. He absolutely loves it. In fact he loves it so much that I have to be creative with ideas to get him to leave school. And the teachers say that he is doing very well and has good days. He is learning the rules and doing a good job of following them. I am so happy for him and what he is learning. Now if we can just get the potty training taken care of....

Here are some pictures of my "big boy", as he likes to refer to himself.

First day of Preschool with his Diego back pack(I had to hide the pink Dora one at the store so he would not want to buy it)

My Big Boy with his adorable smile.

Don't you just love this one!

WHY?

Yes, that is the 64 million dollar question, or should it be the 64 million times a day question! We have now offically entered the "why" period. When he first started asking, it was great, he was progressing and hitting another milestone. But after a week, I was ready to move on out of that phase. I try to do my best to answer the question that he is asking but after about 5 whys in a row, there is no real answer left to give except " because " or " because I say so". So when I turn the question back to him - his response now is "because I say so". Such a great example I am.

The other major hurddle we are trying to cross is the potty training. I was utterly amazed when we started. I stripped him down, since it was early summer, but we still stayed in the house, and he immediately would stop what he was doing, even in the midst of playing, and go over to the potty( for both one and two!)!! It was great but getting him to do the same thing with his pants on was a whole other story. Needless to say we are making progress by the end of the summer but he won't quite have it by the time preschool starts - but hey - Progress!

Things are really going well over all and I have to say that I am really blessed. The biggest problem we still deal with is overstimulation, especially in new areas. He just loses all control and runs around having a great time but being disruptive to others. I am really praying that his preschool teacher has great patience because preschool will be so challenging for him to focus for while.

The end of summer was great, we went on our yearly visit to King's Island amusement park and had a blast. (King's Island will always be a little different because our trip last year was the day we got our court date!) We made some money at our garage sale and then just tried to enjoy what time was left. We also had our one year post placement visit( wow it is almost a year since GOTCHA). Our social worker was amazed at how well he was doing and could not believe his speech - she could actually understand him. I remember a time when I thought there would never be a day when we would understand what he was saying - to those who are there now - it will come, it will come.

It is sad to have the kids back in school and I miss them so but I look at it as great time to complete all the projects that need to be done. And now that the weather has considerably cooled in the past week, it does feel like fall is on the way - Oh how I love the fall!

Here are a few pictures of the end of our summer.

SLiding down Grammy's water slide

Look at the BIG Tractor Wheel!

MY absolute Favorite picture of Micah!

How cool am I!

Finally I get to DRIVE!

We all love Scooby Doo and so does Micah, even though it doesn't look like it.

My beautiful kids.

Another Milestone

Besides the fact that I am posting only two weeks after the last post, Today is another wonderful day to remember for our family. It was one year ago today that we got to see(face to face) and hold our little boy. It was a fairly smooth morning and we got to get our referral and get to the orphanage before lunch. When I first got to see him, one of his caregivers carried him in to a room of about 12 adults, most of whom he probably never saw. He was so unsure of what was going on and once they handed him to me, he began to cry. I only held him for a minute or two in that first meeting, and then they wisked him out of the room. We did get to see him later that day, after his nap. He was still unsure but no crying. He was cautious but was too excited to play with the toys we brought to let that hold him back.

Here he is that first day:

By the end of the day we knew that he would be our little boy.

It is so wonderful this time of year to start the many anniversaries of our adoption. What is so amazing is to see how things have changed since then.

Here he is today telling me how much he loves me:

He is so sure of himself now and so a part of our family. I was thinking as I tucked him in tonight to bed and he looked up at me and smiled and we did our bedtime routine, one year ago tonight, someone else was putting him to bed, he had no real routine except they put him in bed. He had no hugs, no kisses, no family to love him. It breaks my heart to think that he had to go through that. But we came to get him and now there will be no more nights like that, he can always wake up to a mommy and daddy.

Another great event this weekend was that 5 families who adopted from Astrakhan in the last year all gathered at our house for the weekend. It was such a great time to see each other, to see how the kids have grown and remember and share our journeys. I will write more about that later but you can check The Beadle's blog for her update(she always is so great at posting).

Here are a few pictures from the weekend:

 At the zoo with all those adopted from Russia( one from Kaliningrad, the rest from Astrakhan) minus one.

Later in the weekend minus three( just love how Micah and Grace are trying to hold hands.)

Where oh Where...

have the Canestraro's been? Well, everywhere - almost!  It has been so busy since I last posted that by the time I get the kids down to bed, I am too tired to post. So here is what has been up.

We have had two more birthdays to celebrate

Happy Birthday Olivia! Oh, what a beautiful young lady she is.

And Happy Birthday Dominic! How handsome are they!

We also had the end of school, many doctor appointments, a vacation to the beach and finally a mini trip to WV to visit family for the 4th.

I am still amazed that after 9 month, I still can see so much changes in Micah(OK, I am tired of using initials so I am finally going to start using their names). Mainly in his speech, he just continues to amaze me in what he is learning. It will be interesting to see how much more he will learn once he is in preschool. And speaking of preschool, our summer project is potty training. Kind of hard when you are on the go all the time, but for the effort we have put forth - He is really doing very well - Candy is a good motivator.

The highlight of the past few months has been our vacation to the beach. I knew that Micah would love it, because he loves water, but I was not sure how he would handle the waves.

Here he is evaluating the situation:

Here he is after the waves knocked him down a few times:

I think he likes it! Here is his first attempt at surfing!

I am sure with his energy, he will be great at it someday. There is not much that scares this guy, but we did find something on vacation - a macaw. THere is a bird in a gift shop that we go to that talks to you. I thought he would like it - Oh no. I don't think he has ever clung to me as tightly as he did once the macaw started talking. I would even turn around so that he could see that it would be ok and he would just turn his head. He also did not like the loud noises from family setting off fireworks so I think that it has a lot to do with the loudness of things.

After the episode with the fireworks at our families house, I was not sure how he would handle the big fireworks, especially since we happened to be so close to them( family lives right next to where they are set off). But with a special set of ear plugs, he was just fine.

He daily talks about the "Boom,Boom,Boom!"

The biggest event for us(Russ and myself) was that on June 27th 2009, it was 1 year since we saw our first picture of our little boy. Here is the first glimpse of him:

And here he is today(playing in the sand this time):

It's like he is not the same child! The change still amazes me. These kids are so resilient, if just given a chance.

One other anniversary that has passed, was the one year of our first trip to Russia in May. If you go back and check our blog from June 2008, you will see that we had basically had to turn down a referral of two wonderful children that we wanted so much to adopt. Their grandparents, even though they had turned down once to adopt them, did not want them leaving the country and we were told the courts would never grant us rights to be their parents. We were also told that the grandparents were going to adopt them now. So at the time, we were at peace with the whole thing. However, as time passed, and I continually checked the Russian database, they were both still on it. Month after Month, I was so upset that they were still in an orphange, but finally in May, I checked and they were not there any more. I am not sure if they are with their grandparents or another Russian couple adopted them, but they are with a family and that is what is wonderful. The other good news is the little girl we turned down because of FAS is not on the database any more, so she is hopefully in a loving family also.

So as busy bees we continue to pack as much fun as we can in before school starts back. I hope it will be sooner before the next post. Until then, I leave you all with a picture that describes Micah better than any words.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Yes, Can you believe it! Our Little M turned 3 yesterday and what a great day it was. Besides going all out for his birthday we also had him dedicated to the Lord at our church. I do have to say it was so joyous!

Here he is with his cake.It is hard to tell from the picture but there is a little icing left on his face from where he stuck his finger in the icing right after I sat it down. I am amazed he did not try to grab a handful!  It took him a few times to get the candles blown out but he was so happy and was ready to eat "CAKE". He ate two large pieces. He loved all the presents but I think the most excitement of the day was having balloons! Even this morning when he came down stairs he was so thrilled to see the balloons.  Daddy and M with his new toy.

The dedication went amazingly well also. Usually we dedicate infants and a little crying is usually the only disruption, but with a now 3 year old, I could only imagine the tantrum he might have if he did not get to go over and play with the drums. But, he was GREAT and held our hands and had the crowd eating out of his hands. It felt like a completion of sorts to our journey. We started this due to the prompting of God and we wanted this entire adoption to glorify HIM. So to finally stand in front of our church and commit to raising M in the Lord, was such a fitting piece of the journey. 

Here he is being the perfect, charming little boy:

This weekend was so great that I am hoping that it is a starting point for a long stretch of happy times for our family. The past 6 months have been very sad for our family. We first had to deal with Russ' Mom's sudden diagnosis with cancer and then her death in January. After that His Dad, who has been battling cancer, started to go down hill quickly and unfortunately passed away in April only 91 days after his beloved wife of 51 years. With their deaths and the adjustments we have been going through with bringing in a new little one into our family, we are all ready for a long stretch of boring, not a bad boring but a boring that just consists of a regular routine that we can enjoy each moment not rushing from one thing to the next.

To touch on a few more highlights over the past month. We went to see the Harlem Globetrotters, in which the kids really enjoyed. Then M had his first dentist appointment. He is such an amazing little boy, he was such a tropper and did everything the dentist asked. They were going to skip the x rays because they did not want to push their luck but when he saw the chair, he jumped right up and was ready for the pictures! Then there was his first Easter Egg Hunt! He was not sure what to do at first but once he realized there was candy in the eggs, there was no stopping him.

All these great moments just make me love him more with each one and that is a wonderful feeling. There was a time I wondered why I just did not love him with all my heart but love takes a relationship and a relationship takes time and now I can say to all of you who may feel like I did several months ago, time changes things. And after almost 7 months of having him in our lives, to stand up in church and dedicate him to the Lord and celebrate his first birthday with a family and to feel the emotion of love that I felt, well I just have to say, PRICELESS!

Six Months

Yes, that is how long it has been since I whisked our new little boy out of the orphanage. It is hard to believe that it has been that long already but as you look back and see all the changes that have happened, I am amazed it has not been longer. Here is a picture of M the day I picked him up:

And here he is today:

WOW! One of the most noticeable change is his speech. I mentioned in the last post he was getting evaluated by the school district for a special preschool to help with his speech delay. We thought he would get some type of assistance, BUT they said he was just below on qualifying so no assistance from them. At first I was a little frustrated because we has been waiting and doing testing to get him in this but as it sunk in, HE DOES NOT NEED IT!, I started to realize that it was a good thing. He has progressed so much that just putting him in a regular preschool will probably get him up to speed by Kindergarten. An example of how well he is doing... We were getting in Russ's SUV to go somewhere and as Russ was putting him in he said, "Papa's truck, Mama's van" point to each vehicle. Wow that just floors me when I think of how he has changed.

Other changes include not focused so much on food. I used to be able to use it to get him to do something - I know not a good idea - but now things like playing and going outside are more interesting. The one negative thing is that he is starting to have more temper tantrums - or more like crying fits. THe worst was a day he had to come in from playing outside for an hour. We needed to get dinner ready and he just kept crying about going outside. No matter what I did he kept crying. Finally after 30 minutes he calmed down. I told him after we eat, we would go outside. So after 2 bites at dinner, he was done and ready to go outside. 

The other big milestone since I last posted, was we went on out first family vacation.  It was one of those busy ones that you need a vacation when you get home but we did have fun. Our daughter had tried out for a National Youth Choir that was performing at a conference in Washington D.C. SO we decided to spend the week walking around the city. And walking we did! Little M was the luckiest because he got to ride in the stroller a lot.  He just took it all in and of course wanted to touch everything! The hardest thing was when we were in the basement at Mount Vernon on a tour. We were not suppose to touch the walls or anything - it was like trying to hold on to an octopus trying to keep him from touching anything. I know he did not appreciate where we were  ( But he sure LOVED riding the metro - a.k.a. train)but it was wonderful to know that he was visiting our National capital as an American citizen. Here are some pictures of our trip.

Before I leave, I need to ask for a prayer request.  As I mentioned earlier in the year, Russ's mom passed from cancer. His dad has also been battling cancer for awhile and unfortunately things are not looking good. So please pray for peace for his father and strength.

God bless you all

God's Promises

Ok, as I checked my blog, I realized that I only had one post in February - Oh I am such a bad blogger! So here is my March post(hopefully there will be more then just one).

Things are improving on a regular basis and if I were to type this yesterday, I would have said that things were great - but today Little M has been a testing mode - testing to see how many rules he can break before Mom explodes. So I just count it off as growing pains and make sure he gets down for a nap a little early.

But really, he is doing so much better in so many things. His speech just amazes me! He is now saying 3 word sentences! For a kid who barely said 10 words 5 month ago, I am so in awe. Yesterday we had our evaluation from the school district for speech. He will get into either just speech therapy or be entered into their special preschool program - either would be fine with me I am just anxious to get him some more help. He is speaking so much now but it is still hard to understand what he is saying - which is frustrating on everyone's part. The only concern that I have now is that they called today to get me to fill out a behavior study, so now I am wondering if they are concerned about his behavior yesterday. I know that he has some issues but overall his behavior seems pretty standard - so we will see what they say.

So what has been the highlights of the past month? First it is Micah trying to climb out of his playpen(successfully) and falling on his head. He also got his first official haircut since he was home - He did great, however the other 2 yo girl did all the screaming for the both of them. So far we have only been hit by a minor bug in our family ( only two kids down for 1.5 days), I am so thankful he has not been sick since we have been home. We are at epidemic proportions where we live right now and I am hoping that we can make it through the season with no more illnesses.

One thing that has happened that has saddened me some is an encounter we had with a lady from Russia. She is a seamstress that I use periodically and she got to meet Mfor the first time. SHe was great and so excited to meet him. The thing that was sad was that she would talk to him in Russian, and he did not understand her. It is a reality that I knew about since I have not spoken to him in Russian for 4 months, but none the less, it is his first language and now it is gone. 

However, with something being lost there is always something that is gained and the big new thing for M, is that he likes to cuddle! Now not all the time, just before nap and bed time. I started rocking him and signing to him and as the weeks would pass, the time got longer and longer. And finally, last week, he came up to me during playing and asked to be rocked! Wow! that was wonderful to hear. He has also started to day "I love you" with no prompting and out of the blue. Those are moments that just melt your heart!!!!

And speaking of melting hearts, I have to say that little M  is starting to feel more like my son now. I knew that it would come, and there was no one thing that made a difference, I think it is just time. There is still more that needs to develop but it will come too. I now can't imagine a time without him in our family. Drop down below to see the latest pictures.

With that said, however, it has been a very difficult 5 months. Just the fact that I did not have these special feelings towards M, has opened up an entire can of worms for me, issues that I have never had to deal with. It felt like everything in my life was becoming a struggle and I was having difficulties handling it all. My response to it all was to go to God, to pray and to see what His word said. However, things were no getting better, that is until this weekend. We were studying the feeding of the 5000 in John Chapter 6. Something I had read many times before and several more just in the past week, but something the writer of the study said hit me like a brick wall. After the miraculous feeding, the people are seeking Jesus the next day and find Him, His responds to them in John 6:26 is"... Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate the loves and were filled." It was obvious that they did not want Jesus but what he provided. The speaker(Kay Arthur) asked, "Are you seeking what the Lord provides or the Provider? When I thought about it I had to say that I was seeking what the Lord provided. Now, I was not seeking for Him to make food appear on my table with no work or that I would win the lottery( that I never play) but I just wanted to be more like Jesus. More loving to others, more kind, more patient, less selfish... things that He tells us to seek in the Bible. The problem is that I was still trying to do it myself. I had bible versus everywhere, trying to following them and remind myself how I was to be. I was asking for help in my prayers but not doing much praising of the Lord. I was reading everything I could on the problems I was struggling with. I was trying to work my way into being the way God wants me to be and I was not just wanting to be with Jesus - fixing my eyes on Him. I was not letting Him and Him alone be my bread of life. I know that some of you may read this and not get it - I did not get it the many times I read that verse, but it has made such a profound impact on me I just had to share it. I know there are many of you out there who are struggling now and I hope that this will help you. It may or may not but remember to stay focused on Jesus. I kept doing my bible studies and going week after week and there were so many times I just wanted to stop, because they were not addressing the problems that I was having but God used one little verse and a wonderful women to open my eyes - to point me back to Jesus. I will still be doing my bible studies and reading and learning versus but my emphasis has changed, it will no longer be on me but on Jesus.

 Loving from big sis
Big sis "girling" me up
 A FULL rainbow - Remembering God's Promises

Tummy Testing

And I am not talking about food. Sometimes you just wonder what in the world is going through their minds. As I was washing dishes the other day, this is what I saw:

 Now I was wondering what had happened? Did he fall? He is not crying. And then I watched as he got up and did this:

Instead of using his hands to feel the different temperatures of the heating vent and the cool tile, He was using his tummy. Only a toddler!

The past few weeks we have our ups and downs but things are getting better. Tonight was actually great. It was just Little M and myself and it went very well. There was a moment, when it was time to clean up for his bath, that he started pushing my buttons. Now he gets a massive amount of toys out during the day so I am usually helping him and asking him to do certain things. Well, he was not being difficult but he was being manipulative so instead of getting more frustrated, I got up, told him to clean up, and walked out of the room. Whenever he called for me, I told him to clean up and believe it or not - HE CLEANED UP THE QUICKEST I HAD EVER SEEN HIM. He was so proud of himself and came to get me to show me. He was happy that I was happy and things went great the rest of the night. I am not expecting this approach to work all the time but it is something to remember.

Unfortunately, I can't say I have much more exciting news than this. The days seem to go by so fast and I am so tired in the evenings that they all seem to be a big blur at times. However, one great thing that did happen this week. I got a call from a fellow adoptive mom that I met in Astrakhan on our final trip. It was so wonderful to hear Kathy's voice, it was like we were back in the Korvet hotel. It is amazing how you meet people on your adoption journey, if only for a few days, but because of the bond of adoption, you just feel like you have known them forever.

I love pictures and so I will leave you with a few of my favorite this past week. First is our play time in the snow and the last just cracks me up. It is morning hair for Little M( normally his hair is so fine that there really is no morning hair - but for some reason this hair would not go down) it reminds me of those penguins whose feather stand up on their head, or for us older folks, Alfalfa from the Little Rascals.