For Cousin Dakota................

Dakota passed along his first "guitar" as he is playing the real ones now. Nick enjoys it and I thought everyone would enjoy watching. We have been trying for several hours to figure out how to compress videos so they will fit on blogger....anyone have any tips? I hate being just outside the "computer generation" and not being able to flawlessly flow with ease thru technology....I scrape and claw and somedays just turn the thing off. ugh!

Pat is hoping that he has a chance with the next generation Metallica......maybe?

and then there was the locker incident

We had a great week starting school and BSF. Nick was thrilled to go to both and went into his classrooms with great confidence and absolutely no hesitation. I have several friends that have first day of school traditions so I stole one for our family. We had pancakes made into a "P" for preschool. He thought they were fun and started his day off right with a good breakfast!
Last year, I could tell that many of his "art" projects were made by the teachers because Nick did not want to do crafts. Just in our first week, I can already tell that he is doing his coloring and gluing....very exciting!





We took our first day of school picture at the garden next to the school but he slipped and got water on his shorts so he was in no mood to take a picture. :)


We had a playdate with my allergist/friend Jody and her daughter Haylie along with our new friends Kim, Eli and Ava. We all adopted with the same agency and are, shall we say...."mature" first time mothers! Eli and Ava are the newest arrivals and have incredible stories of their own. We had a great time talking and Jody was a much better photographer and has pictures on her blog.( click here to go to her post)




We seem to post more often about our bad first experiences with Nick as he learns about new things but we have now started the adventure into the "second" times for several activities and we started with a great success. The school carnival was a disaster last year with screaming and biting/hitting as he was totally over stimulated and we had to sit in the car waiting as daddy finished our "preschool parent" duty at one of the booths. This year was awesome. He had a great time actually enjoying all of the activities.



My proudest moment was the waiting in line success. He stood with his friends and waited his turn and played the games with such 4 yr old maturity that I was almost teary because of the great strides he has made over the last year and a half!

Look how orderly he is......anyone who is around him for a minute knows that this took such inner fortitude for him to stand this calmly! ha!

I am excited to see how he does in more preschool activities this year. If he can keep from getting in trouble for talking this year, I will feel like we have had a fabulous year!

FUNNY NICK STORIES

Nick loves Pringles. When they have a good sale at the store, I will usually get him some. Dad bought some the other day and brought them home and Nick quickly claimed them as his own .....at least, in his head. Nick and I had gone to the pool for a swim and came home and Daddy was already home from work. We said our hellos and proceeded to throw some trash away. Nick immediately saw the can in the trash can and asked why the can was in there.....he remembered that there was still a few left from his last "snack". Daddy proceeded to say that he had finished them for a snack. Nick was so disgusted....."I told you one chip, not 5 chips" so daddy said I am sorry that I ate them all and Nick said. "I (for) give you, sometimes things happen"..... It was so cute! Although he continued to be a little obsessed about the fact that "his" chips were gone and proceeded to tell us that we needed to go to the store "tomayo" to buy some more.

AND THEN THERE WAS THE LOCKER INCIDENT

We were again at the pool. As we pack up our things in the dressing room, Nick always plays in the lockers. He loves to pretend that they are cages, caves, rockets, etc. I figure at least I know where he is...... I usually have a combination lock that he uses as his pretend clock and/or timeout timer. Tonight, we had daddy's key lock. While I was putting the towels away, he grabbed the lock and I really didn't think much about it but as usual, our son has been a little too observant and knew how to use it. In no less than 1 minute, he had put the lock on the locker and closed it, stepped in the locker and proceeded to pull the door shut with yes, you guessed, the key in his hand. He was laughing and having a grand ole time and I turned around to see the locked lock and said Nick, where is the key? "In here mommy" For some reason, I did not panic but felt compelled to tell the lady in the area with us what he had done as I proceeded to calmly walk out side the dressing room to the hall and tell Pat what "HIS" son had done and could he please go ask for the bolt cutters. So, I come back and start tugging at the door to see if there is a gap anywhere and Nick is telling me to open the door and I am trying not to get a big case of the giggles (what kind of mom am I?) Pat knocks on the door and hands me the bolt cutter and I proceed (with the other moms help) to break the lock. Nick is kind of confused inside but never really panicked. When we broke it loose, he stepped out and kind of hugged me and I promptly sent him out to his dad while I packed up our stuff. The other mom said wow, this is a baby book moment and I said yes, for us it is definitely a bloggable moment. We returned the bolt cutters and chuckled out the door to the car.

Life with Nick is NEVER boring! :)

2 Karens + 2 Kazakhs = one great day!

Finally, Finally we gathered in Cincinnati. My blog friend Karen has been following our blog since we were in Kaz and has provided tons of encouragement and yahoos! along the way. Well, she and her husband Glenn recently arrived home with her sweet Kazakh Max and of course we returned the favor by following along with required yahoos and "you can make its" also! Nick and I drove to Cinci on Thurs morning and had a fabulous day with Karen and Max (and Glenn, later in the day)! We tried to get first thing first pictures but even then Nick was ready to go and a little excited. Max was mesmerized by Nick! Here is sweet Max before we convinced Nick to take just "a few" pictures! ha!


Max is just the sweetest and cutest boy! He warmed up to Nick on our car ride around town and would just look over and smile at him. so cute. Below Max is wondering if he really wanted to spend quality time in the car with this loud boy! hmmmmm!


Max is telling Nick that he is going to have to keep it down in the car. Nick is saying yes, I know my mom says it hurts her ears and makes it hard to be a safe driver. LOL!


Surprisingly or not so surprisingly, I got very few other pictures while keeping up with Nick but Karen took a few others that we can share later. We went to Jungle Jims ( a huge international food store) to seek out R.ussian/Kazakh food. We did not hit the jack pot as there wasn't even a R.ussian aisle only E. Europe BUT we did go thru the asian aisles and find some noodles to bring home and some Juice in the E. Europe aisle that is very similar to our favorite juice in Kaz....it even tastes very similar (sour cherry and black currant) I took some pics.




We fortunately had long drives between venues and it gave us great talking time without chasing children. We had so many questions and topics to discuss, I dare say, we didn't finish one of them but it was fun trying. I can't wait for our next visit. We were able to look at a few of our videos while Karen's husband Glenn occupied the boys outside! Thanks Glenn!!



I am slowly but surely meeting my blog friends in person and it is such a thrill. The adoptive blogworld is so supportive and fun. We have "met" so many wonderful people and each time we actually meet each one, it is like catching up with an old friend. What a blessing!



Back on the homefront, we had a great first UK game day with the Livesays and Andersons. UK beat Louisville so celebrations all around. Nick, Libby and Peyton had great fun. Libby had a special UK cake that she shared with the boys!

Even after sugar overload, they settled down for 5 minutes or so (ha!) to watch some Thomas the train. How cute are they?!?

We visited Nick's preschool this week and met his new teachers for the year. He is excited to get started and didn't want to just visit, he was ready to stay and play. School starts next week and so does Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) so we will have a busy week. We are studying Moses this year and it will be fun to talk with Nick about how God had a great plan for Moses thru his own "adoption" story although I don't think Pharoh's daughter had to Apostille! ha!

Have a great weekend everyone!