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!

4 going on 14 and first play!

We are still finishing up summer here since preschool doesn't start until the 9th. Nick has been asking when he can go back so that is a good sign. He starts speech up again tomorrow with the public school district. We have the same therapist as last school year and we love her and are looking forward to big progress this year as he will have a full school year of therapy.


We attended Nick's first play on Sunday and he did great! We were a little worried at first because it started with alot of dialog but once the kids started singing and dancing, he really enjoyed it and sat still! His cousins were a part of the cast (Sebastian the crab and a shark). They did a great job! Our camera shutter got stuck so the pics of the kids did not show up.

We ate dinner at a renovated old time drugstore. It was yummy! Nick would eat ice cream 24/7 if you would allow him which would just horrify the baby house Doctor....NOTHING COLD! He was loving the swirly chairs at the counter and the man behind the counter was quite amused at his energy and enthusiasm for life (that's our Nick!)

We have had several good playdates lately and Nick is really starting to actually play with his friends. He has forever done his own thing but as his english skills and social skills have improved so has his interactions. He loves to pretend pirates and swashbuckle, run from ghosts, lifeguard, put out fires, and cook. We played with his friend Libby today at a huge indoor play place. They had a great time climbing and playing games and even set up housekeeping with a little "house" in the toddler area with big foam blocks. His big accomplishment today was going down the "fire" poles without help and without falling! I am so amazed at his ability to learn physical tasks so quickly. He is very coordinated!

They played a mean game of air hockey and Libby squashed him quickly as Nick thought it was fun to put the puck in his goal so he could get it out the bottom hole. Libby did have some smashing shots though! :)

Nick, ever the character, was impressing Libby with his standing flying skills. She of course thought he was hilarious especially when he chose to just step out of the plane in mid-flight....not sure that one will work for ya in real life bud! ;)

Nick is constantly making me laugh at the goofy things he does (gets this from his father!) and he decided that his rabbit hat was a ghost hood but he still needed his glasses to see. LOL!

Pat and I are amazed that somehow 4 is the new 14! He is a teenager way before his time. His attitude lately is so hard to discipline because we usually are laughing our heads off.

His new phrases as of late are:

- roll eyes...."OK "sigh "what-eveh!

-I guess he has heard us say I told you "X" times that you may not do that so now he tells us...

"I told you 3 "days", I in charge!" We are not sure where the days comes from but it is hilarious!

- I may have mentioned this before but when he wants us to do something and we say no.....he sighs real big (think teenager disgust) "you're not listening to me, I told you "insert demand"! So funny.

It scares me that some of his inflections may be learned from that person with which he spends the most time with.....ummmmm, Amigo? ;)

On our bad days, I get so discouraged that I am not "parenting" perfectly....All those books I read before and still read give such great speeches for such and such occasion. ( I am not convinced these people are really parents!) I want to so badly say all the right things so that he will not be scarred for life AND I have been able to pat myself on the back most days because I always go to the bible first for my not so perfect reactions......"Thou shalt not Kill!" Yes, that is about all I can muster in those moments.......especially when he has decided that after a year and 1/2 of no interest in writing that he wants to try making "letters" with a permanent marker on the sofa. Yeah, book learnin did me no good on that day! ha! I think I said something to the tune of "you are killing me, child".....of course this probably made no sense to him but he understood the attitude as later that night at dinner he proceeded to say to his father after daddy said no to something....."You're killing me child, dad!" with such exasperation. We just cracked up!

Our pastor just finished up teaching on James and one week he spent talking about our "tongues" and the dangerous tool that they can become....oi! have I got some work to do! :)

A day in the life of a future Olympian.....AKA "My first dive"

Preparations started early as team USA warmed up in the practice pool. Fellow team mates helped Nick prepare for his Gold medal day. (Matthew reminds me of a famous statue in Belgium.....the name in belgian was something related to boy peeing! hee, hee!)

Nick continues his pre-dive rinse down with giggles all around!

Tension is high as the diver prepares his platform and directs "the coach" to get out of the way...he wants to do it "all by myself"........

Silence abounds as the diver prepares for the jump. Notice his concentration, his attention to the end of the board.......

The crowd gasps as his perfect leap off the diving board takes him one step closer to the gold!


Perfect lines as he performs the feet out, bottom drop Kitzman......Wow!

Look at that entrance into the water.....barely a splash....could this be the one? It looks like Gold for the youngest diver to ever prepare for the Olympics!

Celebration abounds! Who would of thought........the perfect Olympic story......a diver who barely one and a half years ago hated to take a bath now wins one in the water for his New country!

The Olympian returns to Olympic village but is shadowed by adoring fans who sleep outside the compound just waiting for the diver to rise for another day........

First Movie, First trip with Mom only, and First "real" doctor's appt.

We finished off July by going to our first movie....."The Pirates who don't do anything". Pat took off work as it was a free movie offered by one of our theatres during the day. We thought the movie would be a crazy fun event because of Nick's love of pirates AND veggie tales. As all of our first usually go, not so much.......crazy yes, fun ......well, you decide. Nick was super excited to go in the theatre as seen below pulling dad to get inside.

He was adorable with excitement and amazed by the big seats and big screen and wow, popcorn too!? Things were going well at first......

The previews started and the boys were hilarious at their immediate attention to the large screen. The picture below doesn't do justice to their AWE! The parents were also equally awed but for a different reason. Whispers abounded at the "older" theme of the preview cartoons?? Well, come to find out, they started the wrong movie and previews were for an "older" audience...OK, accidents happen. I don't think Nick's brainpower is forever stunted but apparently the movie theatre personnel's were.....they decided that it would be easier to move the whole packed to the max theatre instead of simply changing the reel????? They said it would take longer? Oi!

So we finally got into the other theatre and the appropriate movie started with big happiness from all and Nick proceeded to get up and leave and state that he wanted to "turn it off" and upon realizing that you could not do this....then "I want to go home". Yes, he was not liking the movie experience whatsoever. If we had not had plans after the movie then we would have gone home. We proceeded to stand in the doorway for the next hour as he thought he would watch it and then he was scared again. Peek and Run were the words of the hour. He would listen for no scary music and then walk up to the front of the aisle and then if scary music came on he would run down the walkway to the door and beg to go out. No, this was not disturbing anyone as the movie was loud and no one could see us unless they were actually going out to the bathroom.


We finished up the movie day with a picnic lunch at the park and had it not been way too hot, the boys would have had a fabulous time but the mom's had maxed out their ability to "just deal"! :)


The picture below is for Aunt Julie! He took out this bunny hat the other day and just played and did the funniest thing with this hat that she gave him. I didn't get the funniest pics of him because he would run away but this was a calm moment looking at flash cards!

We ended the month with a trip for Mama and Nick to St. Louis to visit some high school and former Ky friends and their families. I was horrible with the camera (too busy keeping up with Nick) and did not get but one picture from the whole weekend. We visited my friend Christine and her family and did a big swim date and then pizza from my most favorite and memory laden pizza place, Pirrone's! We had a great day and the boys had a great time.

We stayed all night with Pat's PT school friend Laura and her family. Their daughter Olivia (and Laura and Heath) were amazed and awed at Nick's ability to never sit still and talk all of the time! ha! We had a great Saturday at the Park. It was a new all wheel chair accessible playground which was awesome. It had a huge castle, pirate ship, swings, water feature, and really great mushy comfy turf to walk on (or fall on)!

We spent the remainder of the long weekend with my friend Michele and her family. She has two teenagers and a 4 year old. It was a fun mix. Nick was especially enamored with Michele's sweet 13 year old daughter. She was his "girl best friend"...he could not remember all of the names of everyone that he had met. He would wake up and say, "Where's my girl best friend".....too cute. Two other close family friends came to dinner one night. I spent many an hour at my friend Karen's house growing up and it was good to play games and talk about the good old days......"the 80's!" Karen's mom even joined in on the Wii at 75! too fun! We have all decided that the fact that Karen's son is 17 means that we are officially middle aged ...BUT somehow when we are all together it still feels like the same high school chums that drove around north county for hours on a Friday night singing to Kool and the Gang and The Bangles......

Driving around my old stomping grounds brought back so many memories. I could have never ever in a million years imagined that I would be in Ky married to a professor with a sweet sweet kazakh born son! God is the God of adventures and definitely the Unknown!

Now back to the sweet Kazakh son who has grown soooooo much this year. We had his first real doctor visit for his 4 year old check up. All his other ones were so adoption related or catching up on immunizations related that they didn't even count....well, Nick probably remembered them but for me, it was a joy just to have a 4 year old annual before school check up like everyone else. And, he is very normal! Praise God! Growth has been crazy and our clothing and shoe budget took a big hit this last year. I took the picture of his shoes just to show again how much he has changed in one year......from size 7 1/2 to 11w is quite a jump!

We were in St. Louis 2 years ago on the same exact weekend as Nick and I were this year. We had just started the adoption paper chase and we were picking up some documents in St. Louis to start the process.

1 year later, we had a cute sweet boy who loved to swing......

AUG 2007

another year later......we have a cute kazakh boy who continues to grow and has already lost his sweet baby face from the previous summer. "sigh" But, he now takes on the exuberance (boy does he) of boyhood with a passion and fervor that keeps us laughing, active (always active) and always ready for the unknown.

AUG 2008

pics for Grandma Martha

Grandma Martha is itching for swimming pictures so here are a few. I am still too paranoid to take the video camera to our public pool so we may have to wait until we get back to a private pool setting before I will venture out with the vidcam.

Nick swimming towards the ladder.


Then back to daddy..........



then back to the ladder.......


His new thing besides hurling himself off the edge of the pool (sorry, mr. lifeguard) is to climb "down" the ladder underwater and sit on the bottom or do assisted flips underwater. I worry about his ears since he has never told us when he had ear infections.....fever is our only symptom but he seems to have no trouble at all with the underwater experience. Now, I am thinking Navy Seal or Blue Angel....he says Blue Angel but we shall see....hate to see all that underwater prowess go to waste! ha!


We had a great time at our Kaz family party! By the look of things, we shall have many more Kaz cuties this time next year. Lots of waiting families here in the area! But for now, the current cutie pie kazakhs.....Nick (doing his yo-ho pirate), Wyatt, and Brenna! They had a great time playing together and we had a great time visiting with everyone. Wyatt's and Brenna's families are in the process of adopting a sibling for them! Exciting times!