Emptying out the old camera....

We received a great new camera for our birthdays and so it is time to get all the pictures off of the old camera and start fresh with the new one at Kazapalooza! It is the downloading part of the camera that is broken so it requires Pat to take the camera to work and download off of the SD chip to a disc and then bring home to me to download into our My Pictures files....major pain! Very thankful for the new camera! So here goes with some random picture time!

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I've had this picture below for awhile but don't think that I downloaded it....Nick is all about his daddy these days and wants to do everything like Pat. This picture was taken after dinner. Pat had put his feet up to relax and next thing you know Nick pulled up a chair to relax also! Cute!



Nic has not been all that into puzzles. Pat and I love them. We did several in Kazakhstan on our long winter days. He received a pirate one for his birthday and he finally stopped long enough to work the whole thing with me one evening.....I was so proud and he was too!





Nick loves the How I became a Pirate books and we found out that the children's theatre here was doing a musical rendition of the book! It was fabulous and Nick never moved once.....he was mesmerized! So cool! We could not take pictures during the play but I got one before with his ticket!


As much as I hate to have my picture taken along with the fact that I am usually the photographer, I realized during our last post adoption report that it will take great effort to get pics of me with Nick vs. Dad with Nick so I am trying to make an effort albeit torture!





Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a picky cake eater. I am not big on sweets but I am very particular. I am mostly picky about icing. I hate the new fondant or whipped cream stuff...I am old school.....crisco and powdered sugar or butter cream types are my favorites. My friend Amy's mom made me my cake this year and it was FABULOUS. Thanks so much Mrs. S!
She had all these extra touches that made it so pretty and one of a kind. I think she might regret doing it this time.....she might be booked for years to come!








Nick continues to be my little creative genius. Last week, he decided that all his animals were going on a plane ride. He directed them all to their seats.........I love the little penguin sitting behind Mr. Moose....there are 5-6 moose riding the plane also. Can you tell it was a theme in the early days!? :)


And, then, pilot Nick gave the speech and proceeded to take off......to Mars! :)

Nick graduated from Preschool and we went for his little performance and reception last Friday. He was not all that thrilled to be in the performance this year but he made it thru without too much drama and we took pictures of his "diploma"! :)

More Creativity.....Nick and his friend Logan were Chefs and they wanted chef's hats which we did not have so they improvised.....hilarious. I love the look on Nick's face. Pure Kid joy!

We finished out the year at speech with our neighborhood elementary school. We love the office ladies and Nick has developed quite a friendship with Ms. Marie.....she lets him into her stamp drawer! Since we will be going to the Spanish Immersion school next year, we will not see them for Kindergarten. They were all sad and so were we.......

We were even more sad to say goodbye to Mrs. Hellard, our very special speech teacher. Luckily, she has a little boy just a year older than Nick and we are planning a playdate soon!

So many final visits this month. I have been quite emotional about his last Bible Study Fellowship class until first grade, his last preschool class, his last preschool sunday school class, and his last speech class at James Lane Allen. He has been very blessed to have the many of the same teachers for both of his first two years as our son. God was good to us. He had structure, consistency, and lots of grace and love from these folks. They helped us introduce many things to our son like God, family, love, friendship, school, fun, crafts, etc. Many days, I would drop off Nick at BSF or preschool exhausted from conflict and they would accept him with open arms and for that 2 or 3 hours, we both rested from the "changes" of new family life. I tried to make sure all of his teachers knew how much they meant to us in this first two years and they will forever have a place in our heart as our team Kitzman Most valuable Players!! I know he will most likely have many more special leaders and teachers but this group will always be special.....

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Kazapalooza is here.......see you all in a few days!

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(I have one more post from the old camera but waiting on permission to post pictures of the sweetest little boy and his family who we were honored to have dinner and park play extraordinaire with last Saturday night!) :)

What's been going on?

So I know many of you have been wondering (or not) what the "boys" did while we were on the Kcubed weekend adventure....well, they....


CAMPED IN THE BACK YARD.....

WENT ON THEIR FIRST FATHER/SON HIKE

AND ATTENDED THE UK BALLOON FESTIVAL! I think they had a great time while mommy was away!

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Nick loves to read with us. I have trouble keeping our book budget in check because I always think that he needs to hear that story, or he would crack up at that, or he would love to talk about that character, etc....so he has LOTS of books....he actually calls his area to put his books "the library" and yes, there is THAT many! He rarely stops for long but for a book he will sit for very extended periods of time. One afternoon, Pat had offered to sit and read to Nick and told him to go pick some books.....Below, is what he came back with and proceeded to stack on the table!! ;)

Yes, those are all bibles in their various "kid" forms.....and he does want you to read them page by page..."all of the stories!" Do I see Seminary in his future, professor in higher education, a librarian perhaps!?! (by the way, if you have never seen the series called The Librarian with Carter from ER, you have missed a great show!) Carter's Librarian is actually how I see Nick!

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Nick's preschool had their end of the year performance. He was a silly clown.....how true, how true. He did a great job!

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You know how I love to look at how much our boy has grown and changed. Lately, he has just seemed so more grown up. The baby is all gone. We didn't get much baby at all but there was so much vulnerability and innocence in that first year....much like a new born. All those cries and screams you don't know what to do with but then you slowly learn what this cry means and what that action represents. I miss his sweet babyish face but I love my big boy too. Most days, we can communicate on a big boy level.....even above that at times. Yes, he regresses and it is painful but even the regressions are less baby, kind of more teenager (ha!). We came home a few Sundays ago from church and several people had commented on how old he was looking and I have to concur..... I will let you compare. There are 2 pics taken on May 5th, 2007 and the other two almost exactly 2 years later to the date....on May 6th 2009! Amazing and so handsome!

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Pat and I are celebrating our birthdays this week by going to dinner and Star Trek tonight. We may do a Brat-fest(the big greasy sausage not the gathering of children) on his actual birthday and a new recipe on mine. I am going to veer away from my usual Magee's obsession for my birthday cake and have the privilege of my good friend Amy's mom do the honors this year. She makes the best cakes and has spoiled me this year with little treats that she has made once she knew that I loved her ICING! She rocks and I am so excited. Only 3 week left til Kazakh adoptive families converge onto the poor unsuspecting Opryland hotel. I cannot wait! I feel like I know so many more families this year and we are praying that Nick will be just one more year down the road of tolerance of over stimulation....prayers appreciated! ;) Cincy Karen and fam will be there (Minnie, we will miss you so much!) and I am finally going to meet my Canadian (via Ireland) favorite cheerleader, Mary and family! She has followed us almost from Day one in Kaz. She sent us lots of humor and encouragement thru our 10 week stay in Kaz and has the one and only 2nd Kazmanian Devil, Orin. It really will be scary when all of the Kazakh energy collides on the 5th...If in Nashville on that weekend and the lights dim, Kazapalooza has begun! ;) As Nick has been saying lately, Let's get Rollin'!

THE KAREN KAZAMOMMY WEEKEND 2009

In this part of the post, please start humming the B.rady Bun.ch The.me song..........

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Here's the story of three lovely ladies......

Lexi/Karen


Minni/Karen

Cinci/Karen

who found each other in a very special way
All of them had been named Karen
By their parents
The chance of that is rare

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Here’s the story of a site named bl0g.ger
which brings together those with stories of their own
Their sons were born and living in Kazakhstan
And they were all alone….

Lexi/Nick

Minni/Garrett

Cinci/Max

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Til the one day as we learn from their true stories
The courts declared them a forever family
Thus these K’s were all connected by adoption
And that’s the way we all became like family

The kcubed bunch, the kcubed bunch, that’s the way we became the kcubed bunch

Da,da,da,da,da,da,da,da,da!

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In honor of Mother's Day, I thought I better get this post finished before people forgot all about the big hype of the Karen Weekend.....Needless to say, It was FABULOUS. It is always a bit nerve wracking to plan a get-a-way for friends especially ones that you have not travelled with before and one you had never even met "in person". I must say they are the best travel buddies ever. We talked and talked and talked and talked. Even though we all walked different Kaz journeys, we are somehow bonded by that so intensely that it was like we had been friends for years. Minni and I both adopted "older" boys....Nick at 3 and Garrett at 5 so we share some very similar post-homecoming stories. We cannot wait to get them together although it will probably need to be a very wide open space with earplugs available! :)

I spotted this Inn online several years ago while searching for Pat and I but we chose another instead. So, I decided it would be a great place for a girls weekend. I am always very nervous to go somewhere I have not been with friends who may have high expectations. Thankfully, It turned out to be a great place even without TV! We had good weather for some of the time and had the luxury of just sitting on the porch and talking along with an afternoon hike to the nearby Hocking Hills State Park where we saw a cave and a beautiful falls area. The Karens were VERY easy going so I had no worries about anything. Before we left Cincinnati, we ate lunch at this great outdoor patio and had Thai food. It was the best start to our great weekend. We have great hopes of doing another weekend again and maybe invite some more Kazamommies along. I am so thankful for these girsl. What an awesome gift to get in addition to your very special gift of a child thru adoption. You cannot believe the ways God will bless you when you take the journey to adopt. I highly recommend it!

Happy Mother's Day to our moms and all my friends especially those celebrating their first Mother's Day this year!

The Springbreak that wasn't.......

We had a mere 3 days to get back and recoup from our great weekend with Pat's folks and then get ready to fly to my folk's in Dallas. I cashed in some FF miles and decided to semi-surprise my family and make a long springbreak trip to hangout with my sis and family as well as stay the longest time span that we have had in a long time. We could stay 11 days because we decided that Daddy could stay home and get some grant work done and get a little break since mommy gets girls weekends occasionally.........This apparently was our downfall decision! :)

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Nick was so excited to go see his cousins. He talked about the trip constantly. The day we left he got his backpack ready and strapped on his "cup holder" so he would have a drink on the plane. I love my boy's creativity!





He is probably going to invent something great someday or come up with the next Wonder Hanger (story to follow)





This boy loves to travel. We are so blessed. He was so thrilled to be on the airplane (first ride since Kaz).

We had an uneventful trip with the exception of the hour circling of Dallas and a very, I mean very windy landing. We almost ran out of gas and had to divert but thankfully they let us land...crazy! Nick slept thru it all!


Nick was so happy to see his cousins Zach and Lyndsay. We had a great playdate at the park with Conner and John Ross who happen to be the grandchildren of friends that my mom went to high school with in Oklahoma! Small world! Their son and daughter in law are close friends of my sister and Brother in law. We also had a great time at John Ross's birthday party towards the end of week. It was science-themed with experiment stations. Nick loved it! He still talks about the magnets. Below, all the boys are trying to help Nick get into the baseball spirit.

We have finally convinced Nick that he is too big for the baby swings but he still is learning to pump his legs for the big swing. Good thing cousin Lyndsay was there for the push!

Nick went with Gma and Ata to their friend's farm to see the baby chickens and another place to visit a baby goat. Their neighbor and church friend's grandson also attended this particular field trip.

As you can see by the boys' coats that we did not have "typical" TX weather for springbreak. It was cold and windy, windy, windy!

Toward the end of the trip, when I was about worn out from all of the conflict, we had a great playdate of sorts with my friend from STL and college, Mary Kay and her girls. They are older than Nick but they are going to make some Rockin Babysitters! Reagan and Kamryn ran him all over the park and he carried on running dialogue with them that just cracked us up. Kamryn being the younger of the two girls was especially tolerant of the gabbing. Nick proceeded to tell her all of the opposites that he knew.....big, small, open, shut, etc, ad nauseum. The moms got to talk for quite a stretch although we were freezing to death! Just wrong in TX!

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So now on to a more narrative interpretation of the trip.......UGH! that is the short story, the long story is as follows:

1. Several days into the trip, Nick began exhibiting very poor behavior. Hitting, biting, screaming, unrelenting attacking of the mama, etc. We had not seen some of these behaviors since early homecoming days. Around this same time, he started making comments about missing his daddy. Heart wrenchingly sad statements every morning when he woke up like " I miss my daddy", " I dreamed about my daddy, I miss him so much", etc. He was not sleeping well at all and was crying that he was scared every night. He usually doesn't sleep well in a hotel but we hadn't really had problems at the grandparents house before then. He talked to daddy everyday but this did not seem to help. He was cranky and bossy with his cousins at times and generally was very unpredictable. I had to cancel all plans to see college friends, work friends and other cousins. I just was afraid to go out alone. He was very hard to handle in stores and even threw a few fits in the car. It was very hard on both of us as well as my poor parents. We had just been home for Christmas and he did awesome so besides daddy not being with us, we couldn't figure out what was triggering this behavior.

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2. Funny now story #1 -- after one particularly hard bedtime where he was refusing to stay in his room and screaming at me like crazy, I had to walk away for a minute. So I went to the family room. He was still pitchin a fit but hadn't followed me which he usually did. Mom and dad had just come home from church I think (nice welcoming environment) and Mom had sat down with me to ask what was going on. It had quieted down at this point (which is also scary) and I hear him coming thru the kitchen but he doesn't enter the FR. I see his little hand come from around the door with a picture of the three of us from Pat's sisters wedding. He just sits it on the floor. At this point, I am about to burst into tears because it really seems that he is traumatized because he does not have his family unit and it is all my fault (you know, mother guilt) and he proceeds to grab the picture, power run into the room and stand right in front of me and scream/preach at me about how he wanted me to look like in the picture (we are assuming he meant the family and even the smile on my face). So, he rants at me for what seemed like 10 minutes. Pointing and screaming, Screaming and pointing. He said I had "ruined his sleep time" and he wanted me to be happy like in this picture. It was quite a site. My mom and I got so tickled ( I was half crying) and we were trying not to let him see us but I was just speechless. He put Ky backwoods preachers to shame. It was so disturbing and so funny at the same time....weird! Needless to say, I took him to his room and gave him lots of extra hugs and backrubs to try and calm him down and then in the morning, "I miss my daddy so much" and towards the end of the week, "I want to go to my house" started coming out.

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3. This is a quick one but he is intrigued by infomercials. I can't recall the place (probably the car) but it was still out of the blue that Nick announced that we REALLY needed some Wonder Hangers so we could hang up our clothes and we needed the automatic toothpaste dispenser. It took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about because I had not really realized he understood and/or cared about commercials but yep, he is going to be a target audience for QVC! He said another one the other day but if I don't write this stuff down immediately, I can't remember it by the time I sit down and blog or FB.

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4. Our last funny now story from Springbreak happened on our way home. The Atlanta airport is one I usually avoid like the plague but frequent flyer tickets do not care where you prefer to fly so we arrived at the airport for our layover at the end of one terminal....of course, we needed to go to another. So basically we hiked over to the next terminal and ate dinner. We arrived at the gate to see that we had been moved to the far end of another terminal. We arrived at that terminal and waited and found out we would be delayed. The captain came on the speaker and said we would not wait further for this plane but that he and his crew were headed over to another terminal (the one we arrived in) to take another plane. AND, yes, it is bedtime by now and Nick doesn't want to walk to another terminal. Thankfully, a dear nurse friend of mine from the working days saw us on the underground train and was happy to help me coerce/pull/ drag (literally) Nick across the airport. Thanks Temi! So they board us and we get to our seats where Nick proceeds to Yell LOUDLY to the flight attendant who was still helping everyone get seated. HEY! LADY!, HEY! LADY, HEY LADY, I NEED SOME WATER, I AM THIRSTY, HEY, HEY, and on and on. So as I tried to quiet him, he proceeded to grab my face in a pinch/grab hold that I could not extricate myself from without blood and so I just let him squeeze until he gave up. Being a mother is hard ...that's all I have to say about that. I knew that he was so exhausted that some how I just calmly got him to gain control of himself ( I know everyone around us was panicking about what was ahead) but as soon as I calmed him and the plane began to taxi out to take off, he fell asleep! I think I was probably shaking at this point but I held it together. The Flight attendant brought water by and you better believe I held onto that water until we began our descent. I woke him up and gave him that water before I had to give up the cup and prayed that we had diverted any other meltdowns. He was so excited to see his daddy that nothing could upset him once we got off the plane. You never saw such a happy boy....Daddy, Daddy, I missed you so much! as he ran to greet him. Pat was almost strangled by the hug hold! We were BOTH really happy to see daddy! As we drove home, he was exclaiming, my home, my home! I have a great home! Good to know we have definite attachment and a sense of family and I will never go anywhere without Pat again! I felt bad for my family because I really didn't want to do anything with him acting like he did. Luckily, he loved hanging with Auntie Kelly and she was able to keep him so my folks and I could go get shopping done. It was a good shopping trip overall but quality fun time was limited .....bless his little heart. It has taken him almost 3 1/2 weeks to recover from the change in schedule/event?? He is finally sleeping thru the night again and not talking about being scared and he has been behaving well (most the time) and seems to be back to our "normal" little 5 year old. whew!

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5. A few quick funny Nick-isms that I Facebooked but wanted to blog here for posterity's sake!

- In the car... Mom, do you know Jesus? He is the son of God!

- sitting at the table.... Mom, tell me about your childhood.

- outside playing little tikes baseball (me pitching, him swinging and missing ).....MOM! you need to take lessons on how to get the ball to hit here (pointing to the bat)!

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Wow, sorry this was a long one....so much to catch up on! Mom, Dad, Kelly and Family...we love you so much and promise we will be back soon but not without Pat. Thank you for trying to make it a good springbreak for all! :)