First Day of School!!

Well, here we are on the first day of school! We can hardly believe Travis is now a First Grader! All I can think about are all the years I spent teaching that grade and now my own child is one of them. ;-) Daryle took the day off, he enjoys walking Travis to school on the first day. This year Connor got to come too! Daryle had a hard time taking his picture because of the sun, fortunately we got a couple at the school too. Lucky me, I had recess duty in the morning so I was available for a picture in the shade! Travis of course fell right off the monkey bars.....onto his back....and began crying....we are thankful there were no broken bones this year!! LOL As you may remember from last year Travis fell off the monkey bars in our backyard just a few days before starting Kindergarten so he started off the year with a cast on his arm. Poor little guy, I think he started having flashbacks because once he saw Daryle he burst into tears! After we calmed him down, one of his "girlfriends" came over and pulled him back onto the playground. Thank goodness that was short lived!! He had a very good first day of school, he even gets to be the line leader this week! He has a wonderful teacher, so I am positive he will be getting off on the right foot.

I seem to have a really nice class as well. Right now I have a sub for the next two weeks so I can stay home with Connor. Today we had a check up and he has grown an inch!! He hasn't gained any weight since our last appointment so we are adding some things into his diet. My poor baby, he also got 5 shots this morning!! Daryle got to come with me to witness how awful it can be. I also have to take him in for more blood work, I will probably try and do that tomorrow. I figured doing that today might be too traumatic for the little guy. Tomorrow we also go to see the Opthamologist to check out his eye area where his birthmark is. I am so glad I have taken off this time, it makes things a little less hectic for me!

It's Official!

Yesterday in the mail we received Connor's United States Certificate of Citizenship!! He is now a US Citizen! Now I can get him a Social Security number, ahh what fun that will be. I remember standing in a line around a building for Travis and I was so nervous going up to the little window. It ended up being just fine, just a long wait from what I remember. One more thing to check off the list, yeah!!

Calm Before the Storm!

First of all, I have been meaning to post these pictures since the weekend. I left to go to the store and while I was gone I left Daryle with Connor. He started feeding him lunch and when he turned around he found that Connor had fallen asleep in his highchair!! First he had his bottle in his mouth...After he took out the bottle he turned around and saw this! Priceless and so darn cute!

We have also had a few monsoon storms this week, here the boys are looking our our front window at the wind and rain. The next day or so we had a microburst, our grill blew over, toys flew across the backyard (literally) and we lost out power for about 2 hours. The neighborhood lost a lot of trees and several power lines went down, it was a crazy night for sure.Well, tomorrow is my "official" last day of summer. Teachers report on Friday and the first day of school is on Wednesday. I will be working until Wednesday and then I am taking some Family Leave time to be home with Connor. We still have dr appointments to attend and I am hoping to get him circumcised before I go back for good (poor guy, I know!). There are other appointments too plus I just want to have some time with just the two of us before I go back to work. I have the time, so why not? Even though it seems like he has been here a long time, he has only been home a month. I just know that once Friday comes I will be all consumed with getting my room ready and preparing for the new year and a sub for two weeks. I am so lucky that Grammy can watch the boys on Friday and Monday and then Daryle is taking some vacation days next week to be home with the boys too. So, tonight I thought I had better post the last of our "summer vacation" pictures for you to enjoy!

Here is Travis, still enjoying his police man Halloween costume from two years ago! He says he wants to be a police man when he grows up so he can get all the "bad people"... we shall see!

Travis made a "Target parking lot" on our floor...look how it is all lined up so neatly!! A little OCD? It blows me away that we are not biologically related...
Here is one of the ways Connor likes to sleep in his bed...being the baby brother can really tire you out!
Connor LOVES to eat!! He has a great appetite and eats just about anything we give him. So different from his big brother regarding food.

Mr. Travis shows off his new haircut, the barber even made it "spikey" for him. That always means trouble! The look on his face says it all!Travis thinks he is a budding photographer, so he wanted to take a picture of Connor and I as I was feeding him and putting him down for his nap. He didn't do too bad actually.

Connor just LOVES his Winnie the Pooh bear! His face lights up when he sees it. I found him napping like this the other day, so darn cute. Funny how most of my pictures of him are either in his crib or the high chair....those are the only places where he will stay still long enough to get a good shot! Well, that about wraps up our summer. As July quickly comes to an end August will be here and we will soon be celebrating 5 years since Travis officially joined our family. I can't believe how time flies! Daryle and I just celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary on July 2...I look back and we were just babies then! LOL On your wedding day you always wonder what the future will bring, we had NO idea we would be adopting our children from Russia. I wonder what we would have thought if we had a crystal ball to look into the future that day?? It would have blown us away I am sure!

Look to the left...

We took the boys to JCPenney's today for some pictures. I hadn't had Travis' 6 year old pictures done and of course we had to have Connor's 1 year pics and some of both boys together. They behaved well for the photo shoot (I was worried, not about Connor, but of Travis. When we went at Christmas he got really goofy and they didn't turn out the best.) The pictures turned out pretty cute, of course I am not biased or anything (wink, wink!). I always pay for a Smiles By Wire and it usually takes at least a week to 10 days until I get the pics in an e-mail. Imagine my shock and surprise when I got home and low and behold here was the e-mail with the pictures from 3 hours ago! Of course I had to put a few of them on here, just look to the left and there they are. So Grandparents, you have to wait until the end of July for your hard copies, until then you can enjoy these ones!

Pictures

The other day my mom got these pictures from her camera put onto a CD for me, now I can put some of them on here to share. Here is the picture of my grandma, my mom, and me with the boys. Four generations! Amazing.

Connor absolutely LOVES swimming. In fact, he loves all water, even if it is the dog's water bowl or the toilet bowl...yes, we have to keep the bathroom doors shut now! This little guy is not afraid of anything, we have to be so careful with him. Fortunately he does have an older brother who usually "saves" him from danger!


Here we are all together at my mom and dad's house swimming in their pool. Don't we look refreshed?? lol

Reflecting

Instead of sleeping, like I should be, I have been messing around on the computer. It is amazing how many blogs are out there sharing other families adoption stories. I get addicted quickly to reading all about them. They are all so touching and uplifting. Many people also have quotes on there somewhere and tonight I just saw another one that really caught my eye. It says:

"Adopting one child won't change the world; but for that child, the world will change."
I can't tell you how that one statement holds so much truth that I see right here in my own children. Those of you that know Travis' history, who know how sick he had been before we got him, know that is world DID change. There is no telling what his life would have been like had he not come to our family, I don't even like to think about that. Now we have Connor. Our unexpected surprise that we didn't even know we were missing in our lives. His world has changed too, that goes without saying.

Now that Connor is here, it feels like he has always been here. In fact, I look back and I know that we have been praying and thinking of him since the day he was born. We knew he was out there somewhere, we just had to find him. He has been a part of our lives even though we weren't a part of his life until now. Last summer I kept telling Daryle that I knew our child had been born, I had this feeling he was born in the spring, some time around May or so. I was close, he was born June 15! When we had our first referral, I was a bit shocked and surprised because his birthday was in October. I thought, "Oh well, I guess I was wrong." And I was glad I hadn't told anybody so I didn't look foolish. I also think there is a big reason why I couldn't decide on the name of the other referral. He was not a Connor to me, he was a Matthew. This I knew, I just had to convince Daryle. Looking back, I now understand why I had such conflict with this. There was a reason I wasn't attaching the name to that little guy, our Connor was still out there, and he was born in the Spring. (technically anyway!) That quote means a lot to me, I don't know who to give credit to, but I really like it, a lot.

Sorry, no pictures today and sorry for getting all sentimental on you. I will try to put some pictures on this weekend. Right now it has been an up and down week around here. Connor is doing great, we are just dealing with a lot of jealousy issues. I knew this would happen, it is just difficult right now. This evening was especially hard. Daryle and I had a "Come to Jesus" meeting with Travis tonight. (My friends in Memphis always said that, I thought it was funny, now I understand it in a different way! haha!) I am keeping my fingers crossed and saying lots of prayers that what we said to him is sinking into his head as he sleeps tonight. Tonight Travis asked me if I would still pick him up and carry him around, like how I carry Connor around. I told him that even if I didn't have Connor to carry, that he was getting much too big for that. (He weighs 48 pounds for crying out loud!) We also discussed how first graders don't get carried around anymore. That seemed to put things in perspective for him, for now anyway. Goodness, we have issues! That is just one example of what is going on around here these days. I have my work cut out for me, that's for sure.

I always worried about bonding and attaching with my boys before I got them home....well, worry no more! These boys are attached to my hip forever, not to mention my heart!!

Feeling MUCH better!

Thank goodness Connor is healing quickly. The bumps and sores are fading away and he is quickly becoming my happy baby boy again. We had to go back to the lab today to get more blood for Mr. Connor. Since he is so small and they want to run every test under the sun they weren't able to get all the blood on the first trip. So, in we went this morning. The "good" part about going in for a "recollection" is that we got to bump up to be first in line. Finally, something goes our way! Then I took both boys to my classroom, we lasted about an hour. I need to find a way to get up there in the evenings when Daryle is home so I can get something done without having to clean up after two kids. Actually, Travis does pretty well now it is Connor that likes to open up drawers and cabinets and go "exploring"! It keeps Travis busy chasing after him, which is also a good thing. Here are two pictures I took of Connor yesterday, as you can see he is much more cheerful than he was last week!

"How big is Connor?" He raises his arms up and we say "Sooo big!" However, Daryle is quickly teaching him to say "TOUCHDOWN!" Either way, it is pretty cute.

I think he is getting more hair, thank goodness! We still need to do something about the "baby mullet" growing in the back. ;-)

Can you believe it was one month ago today we left to pick up this little guy?? It feels like he has been here for months, he has only been home in AZ for 3 weeks! Amazing how that works. I still look at him with awe and wonder at how he came to be part of our family. We count our blessings every day for both of our sons, we are one lucky family.

Have a great week!

Connor's first antibiotic!

We were told that Connor has eczema, so I didn't think too much when he started getting some little red bumps on his neck. The day we picked him up at the orphanage he had a sore on his neck, we were told it was from being hot and sweaty and his clothing must have rubbed up on it. The medicine we were told to put on it didn't seem to be working, then all of a sudden more and more red bumps began appearing. Then, he got these same looking sores on his upper leg area, only they were bigger! I thought it was due to the heat, I kept putting the medicine on him. Well, yesterday I noticed they were more like open sores and they seemed to be "wet" looking. So, today I called the doctor and they told us to come in this afternoon. Imagine my shock when I was told he has infentigo/impetigo (I looked it up, there are two ways to spell it)!! The doctor was very calm and said he just needs an oral antibiotic. From what she said, I think he got some type of bacteria in that open sore on his neck and since he does have eczema his skin is more susceptible to these types of things. So, we gave the poor baby an oatmeal bath tonight, put different medicine on the sores and started the antibiotic. And here I thought he was cranky because he is getting a tooth!! My poor baby!! I really hope this weekend he begins to feel and look better.

Connor is walking!

Here are two short clips I took today of Connor walking. I can't believe how well he is doing, each day he walks better and better. Not long now before we are chasing him everywhere! LOL
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Becoming Brothers

One thing I have enjoyed over the last three weeks is watching Travis and Connor bond as brothers. Of course Travis has been excited about becoming a big brother for the last year and all that time Connor has been clueless about what was in store for him. I keep thinking that I am so happy we brought Travis to Russia with us. I think it was very important for the two of them to have that time and for us to be together as a family from the very beginning. Here are the two of them on the Fourth of July in our front yard.These are matching shirts they got from Rose and Gil and their family. I took their pictures in them today. Travis is so proud to wear his shirt! We have such nice friends that Travis has two more big brother shirts and Connor has one more (thanks to Travis' godmother Stephanie and my other good friend Deanna). The funny thing is that each one is different. We love them all, thanks for thinking of the boys!!

Here they are walking on our front sidewalk. I wanted to get a picture of them with the names on the back. I don't want them to grow up, I want them to stay just like this!

Settling In...

I think we are all finally starting to get settled in here, which is a good thing! Connor is on a schedule now and Travis is adjusting to his new role as a "big brother". I never knew a six year old could have so much "love" to give! haha! Seriously though, Travis can't keep his hands off the little guy and most of the time Connor does well but then at times he has had enough of being the baby brother. Tonight as Connor was heading to bed, he actually leaned in and gave Travis a kiss, that made Travis' night!! Travis said, "Mom! He gave me a kiss all on his own!" It was so sweet.

Today at Target I found a math workbook in the dollar bin, I thought it was time we worked on some school work this summer....I know, it stinks having a teacher for a mom sometimes! LOL Actually I have been feeling quite guilty that we haven't done as much as we should to be ready for First grade, but then again I am also one of those teachers that encourages having some fun over the summer too! Well, I think we have had enough fun, school starts July 29 so we had better get a move on! Here is Travis working on his new math workbook.

Connor has got to be one of the MESSIEST eaters ever! Last night he started trying to eat the spoon as I fed him, so today at the store I bought him more foods that he can feed himself. He loved everything I gave him, carrots, peaches and toddler ravioli. He ate all of it and I must say 95% actually made it into his mouth! Now we need to figure out that sippy cup...

" Whoa, look at all of these cars!!! My big brother has such cool stuff for us to play with!! WOOHOO!!"

"Look! I even have a dog and he lets me sit on him, poke him, prod him and even crawl under him! He loves hanging out by my highchair because sometimes I drop food down there! We are quickly becoming best buddies."

"Most of the time I look like this, happy and content! So glad to have found my family too. ;-) I think I love them and will stay here forever!" (Doesn't it look like that is what he is saying??)

The other day I was on the floor hanging out with the boys, we were having a great time as you can see. I wonder how many more years we will be able to pile on top of mom like this without killing her??!!

I think that is all for now. We are looking forward to seeing some fireworks tomorrow, I hope Connor makes it up that late to see them. If not, there is always next year! Happy Fourth of July to you all!