One Year Ago - Yesterday

One year ago yesterday we held our precious little man in our arms for the first time. I don't think we will ever be able to adequately describe the feeling of finally being a family. It's such an awesome force - even with the 3-4a.m. wake-up calls Serik has been gracing us with this past week. In fact, it was/has been such an amazing experience that we are in the middle of paperwork for baby #2. Kazakhstan again, but this time a girl. We will be fingerprinted for USCIS (Immigration) Friday and as soon as we get clearance for that our dossier can go in and the official 'waiting' can begin. We are hoping to travel sometime other than the middle of winter this time. Especially since Serik will be making the trip with us and we'd love to be able to let him run around outside and not freeze his bits off.

So here's the update:

In September 'school' started back for Serik and me. It's essentially a mommy and me class - where we separate from the kids for 45 minutes so the moms can chat about 'mom stuff'. Here in MN it's called ECFE (early childhood family education). We are also doing Music Together one morning a week as well - Serik loves to sing songs. He's always dancing, singing, and 'playing' various instruments in class. Also in September, I traveled to Newport, RI to celebrate )the impending nuptials of my brother to a wonderful woman) along with the rest of the bridesmaids. We hit the Newport Food and Wine Festival and made Maggie the bride-to-be wear the ever-so-tasteful veil out to dinner.

October brought more travel for us as we headed out to NH to celebrate Mike's wedding to Maggie. The day turned out beautifully. Serik provided some running commentary through the wedding: When Kurt and I were finished walking down the aisle and were up at the front of the church Serik said, "hi mommy, hi daddy" several times. He also said 'hi Mike' to my brother as he was waiting at the front of the church and 'more' when the bridesmaid processional stopped and we were waiting for the bridal processional to begin. Another cute thing he did was when the minister said ' now I bless these rings (or something to that effect - when Mike and Maggie were holding hands with the rings on and the minister's scarf thing was draped over there hands) - Serik said 'oooh'. Yes, loud enough for the whole church to hear.

In October we also went to Sever's corn maze and the maze part was a giant letdown, not what I expected - but sitting in the giant pit of corn kernels, seeing exotic animals and listening to some Dixie land was much more fun and entertaining for Serik and us.

He also has picked up hockey and notice the 'smile' he gives us now every time he sees a camera.

Trick or Treating was a first this year and Serik was a lion. It was cold and the costume was warm and cozy. He figured out how to say 'trick or treat' - "tri, tre" but over the course of the evening it became "bla,la,la,la treat".

This pic is from his our ECFE Halloween party.

The beginning of November brought the time change and along with it bronchiolitis for Serik. His sleeping has been cruddy - sometimes up from 3:30 a.m. until 12noon before he goes down. We're attributing to the meds he was on and hoping that he's slowly getting back to a normal sleep schedule. Thankfully Nana (Kurt's mom) has been staying with us and she's been a life saver - especially with Kurt on the road so much right now. We also went to an apple orchard and had a wagon ride behind a tractor which he loved.

Best to all - Happy Holidays - more later.