Birthday/one year extravaganza!

What do these 3 extraordinary people have in common...........Birthdays!

I know most of you who have been following our journey know that Nick having my Grandfather Carmon's birthday was what we feel like was a gift from God showing us who was to be our son on that Crazy, Wonderful day in February last year. My sister had been fretting along with us about how we would ever "choose" a child....how could you choose one and reject the other? So, before we left, she made a comment to me that she would just pray that God would give us some obvious or weird sign that we would know.....and she then said...."like Papa Carmon's birthday or something".....well, as you all know, that was the exact day Nick was born on and I was stunned. I remember saying what birthday did you just say for that little boy and she repeated it. I remember thinking well isn't that something and then boom, my sister's comment came rushing back to my jet lagged memory (which is saying alot!) and here we sit one year later, almost feeling that same extreme jet lagged feeling only its because we have been going for 48 hours straight while we celebrated our sweet little boys birthday and our one year anniversary of that momentous bonding period as we became a family.

We have had a great weekend but this is the point where Advil becomes extremely important! I hurt, Pat hurts, even Amigo hurts! There are definite benefits to becoming "older" parents but the fact that our bones and muscles just aren't as young as they used to be is evident tonight! We have been cleaning, moving furniture for the onslaught of toddlers everywhere, shopping, and standing on our feet for hours and hours but all well worth it to put our precious son to bed tonight (early!) and sing Happy Birthday (louder, louder as requested by our son) one last time and send him off to dream land as our newly christened 4 year old!

We started our festivities Thursday night as we filled his room with balloons for an early morning surprise (we borrowed this idea from a new blog friend!). You can't see him but he is snuggled down in his blankets and oblivious!

He actually woke up when it was dark and missed the balloons completely so once the sun came up, I sent him back to his room to his big surprise! He was very excited!

We got dressed and headed out to speech class which unknown to us because we had checked the closed school listings "too" early (was open when we checked) was cancelled due to the ice storm! So, we went to McDonald's instead.......I needed tea and a breakfast treat for making the effort that the whole school district was apparently unable to make! ;) So, we headed home and started opening the presents from all of his out of town family! He got some great stuff and has played with them all. Auntie Tracey scored big with the Pirate Ship! Because he knows of pirates from the veggie tale movie, Jonah. Jonah is also included in his pirate play. It is too funny! Jonah gets thrown overboard often by the pirates. We had a good day playing with all the new toys! Thanks everyone!

We then took him for his birthday meal at the "CC's"...funny story....You know how CC's can be used as code language for Chuckie Cheese when you don't want the always listening child to know where you might go eat because they would be beside them self with excitement. Well, I kept referring to CC's for our dinner plans and then a trip to Sam's and Wal-Mart for party food. My very sweet and very literal minded husband drove us straight to "CiCi's" for dinner. Another chain of pizza places that is close to Sam's also. I got a bit suspicious when he drove past the shorter path to "CC's" and took the long way......now, already in almost 5 years of marriage, I have learned to just let him go the way he wants because my way is not always the only way ;) so I was quiet but then had to laugh when he drove in the "CiCi's" parking lot. He was so bothered by the fact that he did not "get" the code word and yes, we went on to "the Mouse"...our new code word and had a great time but I just had to laugh at how different we think sometimes! We figure it is just a good thing that we laugh about these times instead of bickering.....goodness, we would be bickering all the time then! ;)

We did commincate well the rest of the evening as we shopped until we dropped. I, as usual, over bought but that is just the way we do things in my family. If a little is good, then more is best just in case someone hasn't eaten in 3 weeks or so!

On to the big celebration day......we dressed our little Kazakh up in his traditional outfit and he actually wore his hat for at least part of the day. He was sooooo cute. We called it his Kazakh Crown for his "special day".

Nick did fabulous for the whole day. I don't know if I mentioned how we celebrated all four of his birthdays but basically each hour represented the year birthday (1pm -we celebrated his first birthday, and so on) We had pizza, make your own sundaes, appetizers, and cake! We sang at each hour and he loved getting to blow the candles out. We had to combine 1st and 2nd birthdays so it looked like we were celebrating his 21st birthday! Hee Hee!

He also liked wearing this other hat which he got at school last week. He loved opening presents and would barely let his guests get in the door without taking his gift, dropping down into the floor right there and ripping with extreme passion every little piece of paper off of the gift. We really got some great gifts. We are so excited to go thru and play with all of them tomorrow after church. He did not get nap but did awesome and only had two "moments". One when his little friend Ben wanted to share sprinkles with him and proceeded to shake them all over Nick's ice cream which just about sent him over the edge as he is a true purest when it comes to ice cream.....vanilla and plain, no toppings, please! And, then he and his fellow Kazakh buddy butted heads over a great garbage truck toy but we resolved it without any blood flow! Our only regret is that we were so busy with our 69 guests (!!!!!) over 4 hours that we did not get as many pics as we would have liked. But, we have the memories and feel so blessed that so many of our friends and family wanted to share this special day with us. It was awesome! We even had two waiting families come play with us that will be going to get their kazakh cuties in just a few months! We are so excited for them and glad they like to come play with us!

OK, now the important stuff.....THE CAKE ROCKED! It was sooooo cute and oh, my goodness, good! I will use this lady forever! He loved his rocket cake and we did too!

I like this next picture of him from the back as a little Kazakh cutie eating a post party snack. An apple! He then ate a banana! He was making up for all of the "junk" that we had all day! Glad we ended the day with a more healthy choice! We all crashed on the couch and watched some Dora to get him nice and calmed down and then bathtime and bed, heavenly bed.....which is where dad is already gone and I am close behind.....We are going to be a sight to see at the early service tomorrow.

Thought I would leave you with a family photo! We only took one and I think considering how tired we are and how un-napped Nick was, we look like a pretty happy one year old family, don't you think!?

Oh, and I mentioned that even Amigo hurts....well, he is exhausted from obsessively running around under every table and chair, every room, etc. trying to find all of the dropped children's snacks. Crazy dog!

We are so blessed by this boy and can't wait to share many, many more birthday celebrations with him (maybe just a little less big and long!) LOL!

Nick's "story"

Nick has been trying to tell his story this week. He first started saying that he was "lost" in Kazakhstan waiting for us to find him after watching a few Diegos and Doras....they are always helping lost animals find their mama and daddy. So I guess he just assumed that this is what happened to him also. So, the other day, he was talking about us coming to "azakan" and calling it his "story". So Cute. So the video was an attempt to catch the story and as a typical 3 year old would do, he started being silly. After many takes, some with good parts and some with craziness. This one had the least amount of silliness. Ha! The remote is the airplane that mom and dad flew to come get him and somehow we flew to the rainbow also and when it sounds like he is saying "catch" ....he is saying "get"......I think you can figure most of it out. I just think it is so cute when he says he was lost. He usually is a bit more dramatic and he will also usually say that we came to get him at the "azakan baby house" but couldn't quite catch all of that in one video. We will continue to try and get the whole story! ;) We are still getting party ready...I am in a bit of denial.....whenever I have lots to get done, I usually choose to do nothing....life long problem.....and I have a 3 almost 4 year old that gets back out or messes up anything that I have just cleaned up! You all know what I mean!

As we are progressing down memory lane, I thought I would show some pics of Nick's sleeping transitions......we are enjoying the fruits of our patient/not so patient labor at getting Nick to feel at home and safe in his bed....It took us 9 months to get him to that point but it was so worth it to have him be at peace at bedtime.

This was probably the first or second day in our apartment. He looks so stressed even in his sleep. We had many stressful sleep issues in those first few weeks. Luckily, he only had Night terrors for 2 or 3 nights; the rest of the nights, he just didn't want to go to sleep.

This was in our last Zhez apartment and shows what our motto became....let him sleep where ever he lands and with whatever he has on. Clothes, no clothes, bed, floor, etc. Pat was amazed that you could actually dress a naked child once he collapses in exhaustion after screaming for hours.

We discovered this one a few days after we got home. I walked in his room to check on him and grabbed the camera. He slept so wild for the first few months. We kept him on a full mattress in the floor because all we could see was him flying off of a bed and getting a head injury. Although it looks like he could have gotten one here too! We had rails on the floor mattress after this episode. Cute though, isn't it!

Now finally after 10 long months of sleeping with him, trading turns getting up in the night with him, and basically getting little sleep......Here is our son, the sleeping cutie.....We found this pose last night....as if he was saying all is good in the world and I am just chillin out. He is sleeping great. We put him down with lots of hugs and kisses and routine, and he falls asleep with the door open and never calls out or gets up......occasionally, he is still awake when we head to bed and he will try and pretend to be asleep although the big grin on his face gives him away every time. But, it is good sleep for all now!

And, last but not least is a hard to read and belated Valentine's greeting to all!

1 year ago today......

We started bonding day number 1 with Nick on a Tuesday after we went thru the "blind" process of choosing our son on Monday. I have been reading back thru the blog and going thru all of the pictures so that I can do a video montage. I now have a new appreciation for anyone who has already done one of those....takes way more time than I thought but probably because I cannot choose between all of the hundred cute pictures to tell the story.

We are in prep mode for his birthday/one year anniversary celebration. Invites go out soon although most people know already. I am trying to get his cake ordered. I am extremely picky about cakes.....good icing is all that matters. I like the old fasioned crisco and sugar kind....none of this fluffy whip cream or fondant style. Yuck! If I can't secure the particular cake maker, then I will go to my favorite bakery and just get a plain cake and stick something on it. I have thought about just asking them for a big bucket-o-icing and making the cake myself! ;)

Nick is talking so much now. Not just words anymore.....full on sentences and they crack us up.

He explains everything back to us...procedures, rules, anything. At night, he will get in bed and say his prayers "BY MY SELF" and then he will say something like...Monsters not outside, just a tree, mom and dad protect and God protect, not scary, Nick stay in bed, no shut door, mama daddy watch tv, Goodnight mama, Goodnight daddy! It is the cutest thing....we hear all kinds of variations but it is so funny how he recites everything that we tell him....boy, we have to watch what and how we say things because our little mimic can give it back to you in detail! Another new phrase this month is "big problem".....he will have a toy that he is having trouble with and come running to us and say, mom, have big problem! He also calls everyone little buddy because that is what we call him. It is so cute to hear him talking to his animals or his friends and say "come here little buddy, you OK little buddy". It is ironic that this month he has really started identifying himself as "son". Today we came home from swim lessons and he was running to the door saying "Dad, you son is home!" He still has the most incredible expressions on his face and we laugh all of the time......he loves to laughs and has really developed some great belly laughs.

To think that the only way we could get him to smile one year ago was to tickle him or make a loud noise. He would immediately turn back to his somber self and never say a word. It is hard for people who meet him now to believe that he never spoke during our visitations....hand signals and grunting were about all we heard. Now, we wish for a few quiet moments! I am practicing using the video blog button so here is the infamous green room....notice the size and imagine the door being locked and 80-90 degrees. Our visitation room was extremely small compared to many of the other ones I have seen but we survived! You can see a bit of Nick in the early days and see how quiet he was. I will have to get some recent video of Nick so you can compare in another post.

We still get random acts of orphanage living like these shoes all lined up. Don't know when he did it but it was so cute....even in order - daddy's, mama's, and Nick's!

His lates creative flair was a shopping cart made from his fire engine and a hospital pan. He went around picking up toys and talking about shopping. He cheesed big for the picture!

We are so blessed by all of the friends that we are able to have playdates with on any given week. This week we played with Logan, Judd and Owen (and baby Wyatt who the moms played with....adorable) and we got this great shot of all of them quiet and calm. The were eating and (gasp) watching tv and don't even think about asking what they were eating...No comment! I can't even begin to count how many "We will never...." rules that we have broken in just the first year.

Be patient with us as we walk down memory lane for the next few weeks/months......we have until April 20th (our return to the states) to ponder and remember!

And then there were more FIRSTS!

We have been busy with doctor appointments, school evals, swimming lessons, etc. Today was the first day of Swimming! We did not know how he would do but he actually participated quite well although mama had to stay right at pool side. He was very excited afterwards and wanted to swim more so that is a good sign!

We watched the Superbowl on Sunday and were actually glad that the Giants won so the Packers loss did not seem so bad....I guess! Pat cooked up some Wisconsin Brats and Nick had his FIRST Brat (I think?....might have had one up north but we couldn't remember) He ate it like a Kitzman! Excuse the bad hair moment....not sure what kind of electrical current was going thru at that moment! ;)

We went back to the eye doctor today.....gee, it was only an hour plus this time versus the usual 2-3 hour wait.....BUT, she said that Nick is continuing to improve with his eye sight so still does not need patches. I think he is better than they think because he simply gets so tired of waiting and then reading all of the lines that he just won't answer them.....so next time she said we would try the weak eye first before his tolerance is gone!

Saturday was a bit warmer and Nick kept asking us to go to the park so he could sing the bunny song. He didn't care what else we did as long as we ended up at the park so he could sing. He has been cracking us up with The Bunny Song from Silly songs with Larry video (veggietales). The singer is a giant pickle who sings with a deep voice like James Earl Jones (Darth Vader). Nick gets into it so much that we are trying to figure out how to get it on video but for now we just have a few still shots of him at the low soulful notes and the intense finish of the song....He even HAD to take a "microphone" with us to the park. Click on the photos to enlarge to get the full effect....he has his eyes closed and everything.... our boy has so much SOUL! Hilarious!

We are starting to get ready for a 1st anniversary/birthday bash for Nick. We are going to celebrate all 4 of his birthdays....his first birthday will be celebrated at 1p, 2nd at 2p, and so on. Of course he will have his big birthday cake at 4p for his real 4th birthday but I couldn't pass up on celebrating all the ones we missed (we were there for his 3rd but they wouldn't let us bring a cake for him.....that sweet allergy thing) We will have an open house so we can have more people coming and going as they can. I doubt we will do such a big blast at further birthday but he deserves a big one along with his 1st year with us celebraton! I am going to try and do one of those video montages with music for his year celebration....if anyone has any tips...feel free to chime in on the comments!

Nick had his final assessment with the school district last week. The only thing that I think he will qualify for is speech for obvious reasons. We may decide to get speech at his elementary school but continue him in our current preschool because they have been so great with him. I just can't say enough about his preshool (Little Elks). We are probably going to let him stay with the 3 year olds again next year as we still have many basics to improve on.......some things he is learning so fast but then others like using scissors, colors, crafty type stuff could use some extra work and I really see no reason to push him and as his teacher says " He really just likes to play and is always full of joy and excited about everything".....I think that is good progress for the first year! (Although my competitive, had to have all A's side did come out for just a second when we discussed what to do for next year....but I quickly jumped back into reality and realized just how far he has really come this year!)

Hope everyone is having a great start to February......countdown 7 days until that momentous first bonding day with Nick Nurik, private eye! ;)