6 Years Ago today...

Outside the courthouse in Irkutsk

after entire day spent in a tiny courtroom in Irkutsk, Mike and I became the parents of a beautiful 20-month-old boy named Skip. The little boy we first held in our arms some 9 months earlier was legally our son!

As tradition dictated we left the courtroom and celebrated the occasion at one of only two restaurants in the town where he was born: Angarsk, Russia. Hours later we returned to the small but cozy apartment that we'd call "home" for the next 2 weeks and began our new life as a family. We would spend those next few weeks bonding as a family and exploring the town where he was born as our facilitator and translator prepared the paperwork  necessary for us to leave the country with our new son. Here are some pictures from that memorable time in our lives:

First official family photo

Father and son

Bath time...learning to enjoy the tub, one inch of water at a time!

Sharing ice cream with my momma (nothing compares to Russian Ice Cream!)

There's a new Captain on this ship!

Playing with the toys kept in the apartment

Momma is teaching me to fish (cuz she's the best at it!)

Hmmm, what can I get into next??

You can make me nap but you can't make me lie down!

Momma just got back from  the grocery store but just who is babysitting who?

Since he learned pretty quickly how to climb out of the portacrib, this was his bed for the remainder of our stay in the apartment: a walled off area of the bedroom.

One happy boy

Tickle time

Learning to brush!

Visiting one of the many villages along Lake Baikal

Mommy's time to tickle

Who needs a spoon? I'll just use my hands.

Momma was right, eating my food is giving me muscles!

Life is good! A walk in the park, my cheerios container, and a flower for my Momma!


Life was indeed simple but good, and since then time has passed so quickly!   It's hard to remember  when Skip wasn't in our lives yet not a day goes by I don't thank God for entrusting us with such an amazing little boy.

Sometimes you lose one...

...and sometimes you already have a spare waiting in the wings...

Such is the case for Harry who today, 2 weeks short of his 6th birthday, lost his first tooth. Ever since Skip lost his first tooth last winter Harry has been wiggling his teeth daily to see if his were loose - so he could score a few bucks too.  It had been loose for about 6 weeks and today he was playing with it and it started to bleed. It freaked him out but I told him it was just because it was really loose and would soon fall out.  He tried pulling it out himself to no avail. Skip tried pulling it out for him (after two teeth, he's a veteran you know) but that didn't work either. He asked me to try. {Ugh}

Anybody who knows me knows its one of the things I detest doing. It gives me the creeps, quite honestly. I never pull them out - just ask my grown kids!  Anyway, I do generally give a tooth a token pull, just to say I tried, so I told Harry I would try - ONCE.

And so, he opened, I lightly grabbed the tooth {ewww} and pulled ever so lightly. What do you know, it came out. I'm not sure who was more surprised - me or Harry.

But the story doesn't end there. You see a few weeks ago we noticed that the permanent tooth was already poking through his bottom gum, right behind the wiggly one. So today, Harry lost his first tooth, but if you look closely you'll see, he already has a new one about 1/3 of the way out.

Notice the new tooth sitting right there behind the others!

Although the Tooth Fairy exists no longer in our house, I did assure him that if he put under his pillow he'd have something waiting for him in the morning.  I suppose it's only fitting I helped him "lose"  his first one!

"Life is what happens...

...when you're busy making other plans" - from John Lennon's "Beautiful Boy"

And that's my defense, and I'm sticking to it! For the past 6 weeks I've repeated planned to post, but, in the mentime, life just kept happening. Boat weekends, swimming with friends, family time, housework, laundry, reading (lots of reading), biking, VBS, sick kids, Mike's hectic work schedule, gardening, etc. etc. Life, short and simple. Well not always so simple but you get the idea. 

Today however, on the last day before we start school again (don't panic folks - we don't consider our summer over yet - IT will be over on 28 September in our book, but more on that later) I've decided to get back into the groove. Perhaps it's the reality that this house in general has to begin to become "structured" again so that we can get through another school year, or perhaps it's the cooler (but quite nice) weather, or maybe I'm just done being lazy. In any case, I'm back, like it or not.

And being the OCD person I am, in order to keep this blog chronologically close to accurate, I'll start posting about some of our recent life events, in that order. That means my first post will be a follow-up to my pre-fourth video, with the story of how we spent the 4th of July weekend.   

Of course in between this post and the July 4th, I still have to get out to the garden, make lunch for the kids and make a trip to Target.  But I'll be back today. Really.