Officially Ours!!

Papa & Nana waiting for court.
We did it!!!

Yeah, says Michael!!
Readoption day was Friday, December 28th, 2007. Michael became ours forever in the United States law!! What does that mean? Because we didn't meet him prior to picking him up, he was only a resident alien instead of an American citizen. That is, he had a so called "green" card. So now he is a US citizen barring a few details to finish. Did we ever tell you we had to correct immigration because they had him listed as a female? Thank God they didn't charge us as it was "their mistake." Otherwise it was another 250 dollars had it been ours. That took another 4 weeks to get the correct one back. We also get a US birth certificate from the state of Minnesota and can apply for his US passport once we get all the legal documents. We also waited to apply for his social security number as to not confuse the US government by all of a sudden changing him to a US citizen in the middle of the process...now we can process that too!!

Nana and Papa extended their stay to celebrate with us in this joyous ocassion!! It was a wonderful show of support and greatly appreciated.

Anyway, it was a great feeling!!! We felt a family before but now as the judge says, "are you willing to accept him as a natural child, with all the legal implications it involves?" GLADLY, SIR!!!

ps. don't forget to check out below, I did a triple post in one day:)

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Good friends are made in Heaven!!!

Friends from the Heart!
Michael & Kaleb, Kami & John
The Kyrg Gang!
We were so blessed to get together with our fellow adoptive Kyrg family during the holiday week. We met virtually during our initial stages and it has been a God send!!! Through all our stresses, unknowns, and ups & downs during the process we had someone to share our hurts, heartaches, worries, and anger at times. Scott and Kami have become some of our closest friends because of all of this. We were able to hold their son and take pictures of him in the orphanage while picking up Michael, and held our breath as we saw unforeseen circumstances in their adoption of Kaleb. We are so happy to report that all went well and they have their son, Kaleb home with them now for 3 months. He is a week older than Michael. Hopefully, they will be moving here someday soon from Ohio, as Scott just got a job based out of Minneapolis. They have relatives here and were able to find time to come visit us and have the boys play and finally meet each other. It was so special!! I hope you enjoy these reunion pics!

Belated Christmas Wishes!!!

Michael's 10 months!
WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR
We want to wish all our blogger friends a wonderful holiday season. We are a little late in the wishes as we had 26 people over for Christmas dinner and 4 people staying at our house. I'm learning as a new mom that life isn't like it used to be. Which is quite alright, we had a good time celebrating with lots of help from John's side of the family! Michael had a good time, of course, the boxes and the wrapping paper were the most fun for him:) Didn't even have to wrap his other gifts:)

So to make this short, we hope that you had a good time celebrating Christmas especially those with new children and in the New Year for those of you waiting, all will go well and next time this year you'll find yourself in the same place we are:)

Kaleb and I've been tagged!

This is Kaleb. Our friends Kami & Scott brought him home from Kyrgyzstan Oct 10th. He is a week older than Michael and a doll!! He was Michael's orphanage buddie:)
Okay, Andrea got me. This is a new game for me. Supposedly, you are to write 8 interesting facts about yourself when you are tagged. Then when your blog gets 100 hits you're supposed to write 100 facts about yourself. Are you nuts? I can manage the 8 but I'll have to pass on the 100, I don't think I could think of that many...anyway, here goes...

1. I write upside down. I get many, many comments when I write. It's a good way for lefthanders not to get ink on your hand.

2. My husband says I need new plumbing.

3. My high school class voted me Most Likely to Succeed and Most Talented. I wonder what they would say if they saw me now.

4. I had 4 majors in college. It went from aerospace engineering to ending up being a nurse. Don't ask me how long I was in school.

5. I got so many speeding tickets once I lost my license for 3 months. My roommate at the time had a Mom who was a judge and she said if she caught me driving she would nail me. The town she is a judge at called her Hanging June!

6. I've been to 19 different countries around the world. And not once have I gotten traveler's diarrhea, knock on wood.

7. I'm a craftaholic. My husband said he could make a fortune on ebay selling all my stuff.

8. I treat my dogs as my children. So with the addition of Michael, I have 4 kids in the family. Take it as a compliment, Honey:)

Okay, I tag Hilary, Jamie, and Gretchen.

My Boy has hair!!

Michael's 1st experience with snow:)
It's ADVENT!
I'M DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS
It's cold, let me in!
I love being warm:)
We got our nine month pictures back so here they are. I was paging through the pages of pictures and was surprised to see how much more hair he has gotten!!!
The other day he woke up and he had a mohawk. It was rather humorous! I'll have to post pics later. I finally charged up my camera battery, now to find the cord to the computer. It's that pre holiday prep that's getting us. Michael has enjoyed the spritz cookies with us!!

Thanksgiving-better late than never?

It took awhile to recover from the food and festivities...We went to my sister's house. I even got my wish and there was snow!!! Now for the white Christmas:)
Anyway, Michael got his first taste of mashed potatoes and loved that marshmellow topped sweet potato stuff! Didn't quite know what to do with the turkey except smash it all over the place. My darling husband got to fry up the bird, we tried that william sonoma injection marinade and it was great, and spicy!!! We also had the traditional roasted turkey, what leftovers we had.
My niece did the fruit turkey, and fun was had by all. We were so happy to be a family this Thanksgiving, Michael made it so much better. We feasted on food, fellowship, and the many blessings we had this year. We want to Thank all of you who have helped make this year special to us. Especially Michael!!!

The Hat Fits!

I finally was able to find time to knit something for my little boy. My first attempt was too small(guess I miss those tiny days) and I ended up donating it to a newborn at our homestudy agency. This really makes me miss my Mom, she died a bit over 7 years ago of breast cancer. She was a fantastic knitter, could crochet those fancy tablecloths, and was a fantastic seamstress. Plus, she was a terrific Grandma and Mom. The kind who spoils and never says anything bad about her grandchildren, she would have been the one cheerleading the adoption! I love my stepmom and was super glad when Dad remarried, but she is just a totally different kind of gal. She came and cleaned my house like crazy when my son first came home but was a career woman and had different skills. At least my sister has some of her kid creations for her children that get passed down to me. When she was ill, she helped me start a blanket for my someday children, I have been having a hardtime finishing it. I was able to finish one I was currently doing but when she got too sick she did some of the one I was working on(I do far simpler things) and when I gave it to my sister on the birth of her son we cried, her needlework was much tighter than mine and you could tell which was her part. As the holidays approach it is always bittersweet, not as hard but always a wish that she were her, she worked hard at making them special for us....

Cheerios and Birthdays!!

The boys at the birthday bash!
Michael had his first taste of Cheerios the other day. At first he was happy, and then he wondered what happened to him. We also went to celebrate his cousin's 4th Birthday, sadly, she wasn't feeling too well but was up to blowing out her candles anyway.

Halloween, what fun & Excitement!

This is how thrilled Michael was with trick or treating, I think he made it to 2 houses! Bummer for us:)

Fall is our favorite

Here they are, some of the cutest fall fotos we took while enjoying the weather. It is our favorite time of the year next to winter, spring, summer:)

Florida Finale

I just had to post some last pics from our time in Florida. The timeshare we have takes "resort" photos and actually sells them to you quite reasonbly. I also used a few of these for the infamous post adoption update, which we are happy to say we don't have again until April!! Yeah!!!

8 months old Yesterday!!!

Okay, I'm one of those moms who takes portraits of her kids every month the first year. It's genetics, my mom did it of us four sibs. The way Michael is growing I have to, he's changed so much the last 3 months. Anyway, I finally got some where he was smiling and enjoying himself, so I got sucked into buying the cd. Might as well get my money's worth and post them since I bought the copyright. My husband said good thing we can write some of it off since I sell Creative Memories and it's considered advertising if I put them in my books. If anyone wants some products let me know, I give generous discounts to adoptive parents. I'm so addicted to scrapbooking and stamping, it's the one thing that's been hard to give up time on for my boy. We had a good time that day together. I also finally got the post adoption photos done, so those will be next.

Florida Fun

We've been in sunny, hot Florida the last few days. Michael was able to meet the last member of my family, my older brother in Orlando. Not bad for only being home for 2 months. He's been enjoying the pool, and walking around in the sunshine. Not to mention going to downtown disney. We'll have to save the parks for a later date. I'll post more pictures later, right now we have to enjoy the hot weather before heading back up to chilly Minnesota tomorrow.

Sleep is a good thing!

Yeah, I was able to figure out how to send these photos from my camera. Michael was suddenly quiet in his exersaucer, I went to check on him and by golly, he had fallen asleep. It beats the usual fuss for a half hour and then sleep for 20 minutes. Often he falls asleep while I have him in the baby carrier like yesterday when I was running errands. His sleep pattern is so funny. Down about a half hour after breakfast, then he takes his long nap around lunchtime(1-2 hours) then another 1/2 hour or forty minutes in the afternoon, and down for bed at about 730-8 pm. Hopefully, one day I can get him to sleep in the am and afternoon dropping the 3rd nap and not around lunchtime.

Of course I had to add the naptime of the 2 boys in my life. I love being a mommy and wife, my 2 best dreams come true!!!