Say "CHEESE"

Today is Nikolai's Sixth Gotcha Day. We were officially declared his parents on June 18, 2002, in Donetsk Ukraine. I posted some pictures at our other website of him when he was adopted

http://itsagirlseyler.spaces.live.com/

Here are some more classics of the kids in the summer of 2002. Some were so funny I just had to share.

Just for fun some typical baby pics of Nik at 15 mos:

(AYY captain)

(Look ma no teeth)

(a future in the Army recruitment corps)

Check these out: Vitaly went through a phase of when he said "cheese" his smile looked like this..

And for the grand finale.. this is what mom and dad think of chuckee cheese too!

surgery

My poor little girl. We went to cleft clinic in May. While we were there, the oral surgeon grew concerned with a bump on her cleft/gumline where the repair had been done. So yesterday, I took her to the Oral Surgeon for an xray. She has an abcessed tooth that is IN her closed cleft! Ouch!

So that means she will go in for outpatient surgery, at the beginning of July. If her soft tissues get infected prior to that, she will need to return back to the Oral Surgeon. He said he has rarely seen it happen. This will make her third surgery they want to do on her this summer-fall!

The little girl with the blue dress

I had a dream..

The dream was of a little girl with brown hair and blue eyes.

She looked to be around the age of two and a half or three.

She was wearing a blue dress with a white bow in her hair. She had a small special need with her hand and face.

Who is the little girl in my dreams?

Is this little girl waiting for me in Ukraine?

Is she meant to be the sister that Oksana does not have?

I told Oksana about her. She asked me her name. I told her the name I called her. It was Natalie.
Could she be the final chapter to building our family?
We will see...

The plunge

Today I did the big plunge..

I let my boys swim at someone's pool without me present.
I almost feel like an awful mother.
I cannot let them out of my sight, in these kind of activities. Still, I know that one day they must be boys and I must trust other parents to be responsible. Well, today is the day. I am praying and hoping that it will be just find and they will come home with lots of stories. The stories that little boys will carry thirty years from now.

So I wait, do housework, post on the computer, cook for three and pray that they are just fine.

The mud buddies

On Tuesday night, we had many awful storms with lightning, thunder, tornado warnings and sirens, hail and huge winds. They lasted ALL night. When they were over, I had gotten four hours of sleep and so did almost everyone else....

When we got home in the afternoon, our wonderful water filled yard had turned into muddy water puddles just calling for little feet to explore. Here was the end result.

BUSTED~

Two very dirty mudpals. (and this was after a wash off)

Stop It NIK!

Your Turn~

Muddy hair

THE END~

Welcome Summer!

Today is the last day of school for the boys. Vitaly will be in summer school for about five weeks at the end of June. It will help him in retaining information over the year. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find anyone to take him to the school and back. The school is not providing transportation, but are wanting him to go to summer school. Go figure.

Our vacation this year is planned for mid summer. We are going Hershey PA and attending the Ukrainian Angels reunion. We love the reunions! They are so much fun and the kids are always adorable. The kids are SO excited! Unfortunately, I will be leaving that Saturday night to head to a conference in Orlando, that begins on Sunday. Why anyone schedule a National Conference on a Sunday morning I have no idea. It truly makes no sense to me, but it is not my decision. The silly thing is next year the UA reunion is in Orlando!

Other summer activities that we have planned include: visiting with my brother and his family who will be visiting from Germany; possibly visiting my cousin in Michigan and going blueberry picking; and taking the kids swimming a lot!