before

My house is a pit, a mess, stuff is everywhere, but it's slowly coming together...slowly. 

I managed to snap a few before photos before our moving tuck arrived.  In good pre-makeover fashion the photos are not the best and I didn't wait for great lighting, makes the after photos look all the more lovely, right?


Upstairs

This is the room Oliver picked

 

Sweet Lydia's Room

Kid's bathroom

Hall with a sneak peek of Lydia's new paint
and the closet doors I ripped out of Oliver's room

Toy room, upstairs loft area
Is Oliver hanging a basket from the cord of the blinds, yes

Our room
That fan is so low, and I'm short!
It will meet a new owner soon.

Yes, I can see my toilet from my bed, that's going to need to change

View from our balcony

Downstairs

under the stairs storage area where the kids like to hide out
it's complete with lighting and electricity

Guest room/Office

Guest bathroom/laundry room

living room

tiny kitchen

dining room

Happy 6th Birthday, Oliver

Can't believe it, our boy is a big six year old.  In like 5 minutes he's going to be in full day first grade, and then high school, and college, and bam where did he go?  But I've gotten ahead of myself. 

Oliver is doing really well these days.  He knocked kindergarten out of the park, he's reading at the level he should be, gymnastics is still his sport of choice and he's got muscles for days, he loves to ride his bike, and run, and climb trees, play with his trains, beg for more TV time, pour over books, draw trucks and spaceships, swimming, and he's trying to figure out how one navigates dealing with a two year old sister.

Oliver is one of the most extroverted people I know, even more so than I am.  He feeds off people.  His energy sky rockets when he's around others (not always in the most positive way)

Conversation from two days ago...

Oliver "Why isn't anyone knocking on the door and asking me to come out and play?"
Me "Buddy,  no one knows you're here"
Oliver "No one knows me?"
Me "Not really, but soon they will"

Conversation from yesterday at the pool

Oliver ::taps on kid's shoulder:: "Can I play with you"
Kid "Okay"
Oliver "What are you playing?"
Kid "Pool tricks"
Oliver "I know pool tricks" 

Then he proceeds to jump out of the pool and do a somersault into the pool

Impressed kid "Let's do more tricks!"

He went on to get the little boys name and find out that he is also six.  Eventually there was a whole gang of 6 year olds playing at the pool, jumping in and chasing toys.  It was a sweet time.

It was a little hard that Oliver had to share his special day with the massive event of moving all our stuff into the house.  However, he did have a lovely birthday party with many of his favorite people before we left Kansas.  Today he got to open his family gifts, our neighbor brought him a cake and lunch, and he got to pick a restaurant for dinner, and sleep in his own bed...that seems like a success. 

------

Oliver's birthday is a lovely time to celebrate Oliver, and the boy that he is.  However, I also think about his biological mother.  The mother before me, the one that carried him in her belly, delivered him, and eventually realized that she couldn't manage in any longer and made the ridiculously hard and risky decision to place him in an orphanage and hope for the best.  I wonder if she knows he's not there any more.  He made it out like she hoped.  He's a family man, he's such a family man.  Does she think of him on this day?  Does she look through pictures of his first months? Pictures I wish I could see but were far before my time.  Above all these things I wonder if he has siblings in Russia.  If he does I pray they are safe and happy at home with their mama, because the odds of a babe making it out of a Russian orphanage are far less than they were a few years ago.

Our boy is awesome.  We look forward to the adventures the year ahead of us will bring.

His referral photo

Arches National Park

last day of Kindergarten

Kansas City - Oakley, Kansas

Our movers came yesterday and managed to pack and load all our stuff in about 10 hours.  This was our third cooperate move and these guys were my favorite, with the exception of them forgetting to pack my trash can and drawer full of mixing cups, just throw it in the trunk with a million other random parts back there.

This morning I wrapped things up at our place and loaded up our rental.  Lydia and I went to the post office to forward our mail and out to pick up a pizza.  We called the order in, popped into the post office, and stopped at the pizza place.  It was so busy, there was some convention of 10 year olds hanging out by the pick up counter.  When almost to the front of the line Lydia pointed to her mouth and grunted, that's her "I'm going to blow chunks in a second, you'd better get me a bucket" sign.  I had two choices 1. the bucket of lollipops 2. run for the door.  I picked 2 and stampeded through the mass of pre teens.  They all got emotional about Lydia's chunks and her funky smell.  I stripped her down in the parking lot, dressed her in the first clothes I found, PJs, and drove home, we didn't want that pizza anyway. 

So if you were feeling pity on me driving my two kids half way across the country you can up your game now that you know Lydia has been puking for 5 days straight.  She went to the doctor and was prescribed an anti nausea med, but the problem isn't getting fixed, just masked..slightly.  Praying she feels better soon. 

We managed to hit the highway around 1:15, we didn't make it far before we were stuck in traffic, not slow moving traffic, but the put it in park kind of traffic.  Lydia slept and Oliver and I made friends by blowing bubbles out the window, who doesn't love bubbles.  A few stops, some playing, dinner, and we made it to our hotel around 8:00...it was only a 4 hour 30 minute drive, but we didn't rush. 

The next few days will be long, but plenty of fun.  I'm excited to hang out with my kids without all the responsibility of selling a house.  The last few weeks/months have been long and filled with endless cleaning, organizing, fixing, and more cleaning.  Now I just have to drive, play, and go to bed at 8:30pm, totally doable. 

park time in Salina

PJs and bare feet, so classy

moving on

A little help from Will Smith in his Fresh Prince days....

Now this is a story all about how
My life got flip turned upside down
And I'd like to take a minute
Just sit right there
I'll tell you how I became a mom in a town near L.A. 

Do you need a second to read that again?  You read that right.  We are moving.  Southern California. 


Let's recap for a second...

We left Boston for Jim to pursue a career with BNSF.  Leaving Boston was one of the hardest things.  I moved around a lot as a kid and felt a deep connection with the city and being on my own in charge of my life.  I loved my friends, our house, my job, and life in general.  It was comfortable, it was easy, it was fun.

We moved to Nebraska.  Before finding out I was moving there I couldn't even tell you where exactly it was.  Made new friends, got a new job, life was good.  Heck the welcome to Nebraska sign says "the good life."

Then BNSF moved us to Kansas City.  We moved to Kansas City at maybe the hardest time in our marriage.  Our house in Nebraska sold so fast, we were in the midst of an adoption that was falling apart, and we left everyone that supported us through the whole journey.  We lived in an awful apartment (it was fine, but we had NO furniture and 1 pot and 1 pan  and an air mattress and our clothes) while we searched for a house.  We found a church.  A good one.  A community of really really great people.  People that were there while our adoption got back on track, people that came to the airport when Oliver and I made it home from Russia, people that realized we are alone out here in the middle and always made sure we had a place to go for major holidays, friends that took Oliver at a moments notice and kept him for days while I was at the hospital having Lydia, and friends who just like playing games and eating my food.  Life is so sweet here.  Kansas City is truly a hidden gem...if they only had an ocean. 

But my silly husband is just too talented a railroader to be left alone here to plug along moving trains.  He is smart and talented and people take notice.  When people notice then it's time for a new job, a new challenge, and in this case a new state...California. 

First I must say that I do get the final say in these matters.  Jim fully understands the "happy wife, happy life" motto.  However, I know there are worse places the railroad could ask us to go...I won't list them but there are a TON of places I'm not willing to move to.  Is Southern California my ideal spot?  Ummmm have you met me?  Probably not ideal, but we are going to make it work.

A few positives....
*You can fly anywhere from LAX and lots of places are cheaper than Kansas City
*Closer to Hawaii
*They have an ocean...I haven't even been to that ocean yet.
*There are a ton of fun things in that area that I'm sure the kids would love and would guarantee us visitors.  Hello DisneyLand and Sea World and The Pacific Coast Highway
*It always looks like you're on vacation..I'm rallying for a house with a palm tree.
*Tickets to the Ellen Show!  Who is coming with me?
*I get to order a new state print form my favorite JHill Designs
*Lots more to blog about.

The negatives...
*These shall not be mentioned





The time line....
Mostly unknown.  Once our house is appraised and BNSF approves Jim for the moving package then he can start the job.  He will head off to California, buy a car (why did we sell our extra car?), find an apartment, and get to work.  I'll stay here as long as it takes to sell the house, then drive over with the kids and some things that the movers won't take...mostly kids and plants.  At some point we will buy a new house, then sometime in June I'm running away to Massachusetts with the kids for Jim's cousin's wedding....Jim is coming too, but I see us staying there a good long while (I should probably tell my in-laws) while we wait for our stuff to be moved into our house, nothing is known for sure at this point, but that's a guess.  Eventually, Oliver will go to first grade (August) and I'll try to find a new nanny job, but it looks like we are taking the spring/part of summer off to adventure around the country and settle our lives.  

Welcome to the next part of the adventure. 

Happy 4th Family Day!

Some adopted kids talk about adoption.  They ask questions, they express previous loss, they have memories.   Oliver isn't one of those kids.  He knows he's adopted. He knows he lived in an orphanage and that orphanages are not as good as families.  He knows he hasn't always been with us.  He knows that Lydia's story is different than his. 

Right now, at this moment in his life all that just doesn't matter all that much.  It doesn't matter to him who is adopted and who isn't, it doesn't matter that his start wasn't ideal, and it doesn't matter that he didn't grow in my belly.  Oliver is too busy with a whole host of other things like; kindergarten, wiggly teeth, riding his bike, eating three helpings of pasta for dinner, avoiding chores, negotiating for more ipad or TV time, trying to find kids at the park that will play tag with him, gymnastics, sitting by the fire, reading, snacking, building train layouts, keeping Lydia away from his toys, drawing, homework, wondering when the next time we will be flying Southwest is, running, cheering on the Patriots, checking out 20 books about military equipment from the library, and demanding I read them all. He loves life, he's all in, and we are so lucky he's ours. 

Our favorite boy has been out of his orphanage for 4 years, and we can hardly believe it's been that long or that we've been parents that long...crazy. 

To celebrate his 4th Family Day he requested to..

-Go to the childcare center at the community center while I exercise (his exact words)
-Go to the indoor pool at the same place
-Have dinner at Chili's (last year he requested a fancy italian place, he's diverse)

He also used his Family Day leverage at Whole Food to get me to buy him some chocolate milk, "you say we can get it for special occasions."

Now a few adorable photos.  You've seen them before, but whatever.

referral photo
I wish I got to snuggle this little thing

first visit

waiting for Russia to let us come get him

 

February 7, 2011
Peace out orphanage

February 17, 2011

Oliver is awesome.  All the people that came around us before, during, and after our adoption...they are awesome.  Thanks for being wonderf

gene checking

My grandmother died from untreated breast cancer when she was in her 60s, and I was three.  My mother fought through breast cancer when she was in her 40s.  My odds seem high and that's super scary.  I'm young with two young kids, and breast cancer, or really any cancer, is pretty high on the list of "crap I'd rather not have to deal with."

This morning I'm going in for a blood draw.  A blood draw that will be used for genetic testing to see if I have the BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 genes which deal with breast and ovarian cancers.  Neither my mother of grandmother had this test so we are unsure if our family breast cancer is inherited or just a mutation that my mother and grandmother both happened to get. 

Basically, there are a few possible outcomes...

1. I have neither gene
2. I have one
3. I have both

One gene increases the risk of breast cancer and the other the risk of ovarian cancer.  There are a number of possible courses of action after the results of this test are discovered, but I'm not 100% capable of explaining them and plan on meeting with a genetic counselor to wrap my head around all the options...unless of course I don't have this gene then I'll skip off into the sunset and pray my normal genes don't start mutating and turning against me.   

So today's awesome schedule

blood draw
lydia's speech therapy
dentist appointment to fix my chipped tooth (randomly lost part of my front tooth while driving yesterday morning)

jealous much?

four years post court

Four years ago (yesterday) we crammed into a little court room and requested that a Russian judge please please allow us to be Oliver's parents.  I felt calm in my head.  I knew we did everything we could.  Jumped through every hope in front of us and all that was standing between us and Oliver was this judge.  My head was calm, but my heart was week.  I answered my questions in a voice I tried so hard to keep from shaking.  Over and over again I tried to explain why we were adopting and not having a biological child.  After 20 minutes, that felt like an eternity, the whole thing was over.  One moment we are not parents, and the next we are...that's just crazy.






Well, the judge said yes, so I suppose I was a parent then, but then I had to wait ten days...which was actually more like 13.  Thirteen days is a long time to be alone in Siberia and it's a really long time to be told you're a parent, but you don't actually have said child...sigh.   I slightly regret not requesting to stay in the town near his orphanage, but I didn't want to rock any boats.  I just went along with the plan and made the most of my time in Kemerovo. 

Had Oliver not been adopted, this is the year he would have moved from the baby house to the real school aged orphanage and there his odds would have dropped even more.  I wonder about those other kids in some of Oliver's orphanage photos, were they adopted by Russians, by others, or have they moved on to the big kid orphanage?  Who is loving on them?  Keep praying for Russia.  The adoption ban is totally lame.  There are hundreds of thousands of kids waiting to be adopted and the number is only growing.