Saturday, August 25, 2007

We've been home a year!

Wow. No way has it been 365 days since the picture below was taken of four very tired people getting off the plane at the Kansas City airport. What an amazing year it has been!



We're nearing the end of a very hot August, and have been surprised to find that the boys seem pretty impervious to the heat. It is so hard to find interesting things to keep them occupied all day in the house, so we are really looking forward to cooler weather! Conner is becoming a major bookworm, and asks for new books all the time. Carson has a more limited attention for books, and frequently asks for his new favorite, the big fire truck puzzle.



Cute picture of Conner, not so much of Carson. No, we haven't been brave enough to already take the boys to Disney World. These are little M.M ears that Mummy's friend Jana got for them while we were still in Russia. Very important to note that both boys' names fit the Mickey Mouse song: c-a-r-s-o-n...m-a-r-s-h!



Lucky Conner gets a ride on Grandpa's lawn mower!! The boys can't get enough of tractors, bulldozers, fire trucks, you name it. Last week, they got to ride a real, live choo choo train in Baldwin, KS. Loved it! That same day, they were introduced to a real drum set. You get two guesses whether they enjoyed that or not.



Here is Carson with a decent choke hold on his older brother. He is definitely not a submissive younger bro. Both boys seem to take turns being the leader and the follower. They also take turns being the enforcer of family rules. One will chastise the other for throwing something or standing on the couch. But they do seem to encourage each other to break those rules more often than they enforce them...



Kickin back on the lazy bear chairs, holding hands during a special private viewing of Elmo's World. We've been trying to get the boys into a two-mornings-a-week preschool, and Fall has begun without a spot opening up. We'll keep our fingers crossed that they can still get in. It feels like a long time before school starts for these guys, but it certainly isn't too early to get them started.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

It's Gotcha Day!


Hey everybody! These are two Jayhawks with mohawks celebrating the one year anniversary of the day we became a family! On August 8th, 2006, Mummy and Daddy went through a harrowing court proceeding that concluded with the Russian government's blessing to bring us home to Kansas.




Here is a picture from the window of our Siberian hotel room the morning after Gotcha Day. If you look closely, you'll see a rainbow, which we decided meant it was more than the Russian government who was blessing our new family. Today is a day the four of us will celebrate the first year, and look back on the most amazing adventure of bringing Carson and Conner home.





These are some before & after pics of the boys. They kind of speak for themselves. We were so lucky to have been sent to an orphanage that was well funded. And you can see from the Kras picture above that this was no small village. We believe that the secrets to this success story were being well prepared and being very lucky. We may have been one of the last families to receive two young, healthy, unrelated children from Russia in one trip. We squeeked through the process just as major changes were sweeping through the international adoption scene.




This is a chart Daddy used for a presentation to his Rotary club. It doesn't do justice to the major changes in the international adoption process this year, and the shrinking numbers from the three primary countries. For several months this year, Russia shut down its intl adoptions completely. It has recently restarted, and its numbers for 2007 may be only half of those from 2006. It makes us that much more thankful that we brought home Conner and Carson when we did.




So, we are smiling and holding hands as we sing Happy Gotcha Day to each other. The first year of familyhood has been such a challenge. Couldn't have done it without supportive friends and family. The boys are still quite a handful, but our toughest days now are not as bad as our average days were a year ago. They are truly brothers now, we are truly their parents, and the bond continues to grow stronger by the day. It's Gotcha Day!