Dear Family & Friends

We leave in One Week!!!

As we prepare to travel and bring home Mamush we wanted to give everyone a "heads up" on what to expect when we come home. Please try to put yourselves in Mamush's shoes... for all of us this is a happy exciting time but, for him it is another scary transition. He is entering a whole new culture, language, and family. To him we are complete strangers. Yes, we sent him photos and a voice recorder so he could hear our voice, and he has also been working with a social worker who is helping to prepare him. But, at almost 3 years old nothing can prepare you for such a HUGE life altering change. So, in order to help us bond and attach with Mamush (and allow Mamush to get used to us and his surroundings) we are requesting that we not have any visitors for at least 2 weeks.
Trust me it is not easy for me to turn away family and friends who come with kindness in their hearts to our door, but I have to protect my son. I have to put that mama bear mentality in action. After the 2 weeks we will re-evaluate where Mamush is and update everyone on how we will move forward. It very well may be that we sort of stay in incubation for anywhere up to 6-8 weeks.
However, if you do not want to wait that long to see Mamush's sweet sweet face in person we are inviting family & friends to meet us at the airport to welcome Mamush home when we arrive on May 7th. We are asking that everyone gives Owen and Ella a chance to see and meet their brother first, but after that we will all be excited to see familiar faces and share our new son. I can't promise we will hang around long bc I am going to base it completely on Mamush. If you want details you can leave a comment or send me a facebook message.

Easter 2010!!!

Happy Easter!!!

Today was jam-packed with Easter festivities. We were fortunate enough to celebrate with great friends (both new and old) and family. Exhausting... but beautiful. I love celebrating holidays with family and friends. Today was a GREAT day!!!

The Call!!!

Above are a few pictures from Tuesday night... I had no idea how the kiddos would react... yes we prepared them for this day, but kids can react funny in these types of situations. I could not have asked for better responses. Camden ran in the house to click on sweet M*'s picture on the computer and begged me to chase down his teacher in the parking lot to show her a picture yesterday. Owen is going through his drawers trying to find clothes that he can pass down to his brother and Ella told me tonight that she is going to protect her sweet M* in case he is scared (we cannot publicly post his name until we pass court, so that is why I put M*)

We are so excited and can't wait to bring our boy home!!!!!

Sunday Morning!

Open House

Cam had open house last night and he was so excited to show us all the projects he had been working on. This kid amazes me... he is an excellent student and he loves school. Let me brag for a second. He is ahead a year in math and still consistently comes home with 100% on each of his tests. He also gets 100% on the majority of his spelling and vocab tests and he goes to a Classical Charter School that is known for their tough curriculum. He is also well rounded. He loves his art class, music and french. Although, it did take him awhile to warm up to the french class. He has been begging me to sign him up for theater so I think we will add that next year. But, seriously this kiddo is a smart cookie and I am a proud mama.

Owen is also doing great in preschool and he was very excited to check out the kindergarten classes last night. I can't believe he is going to be in kindergarten next year it seems crazy!!!

Ella is funny as ever. This girl has learned to wrap her brothers around her fingers and gets most everything she wants from them.

So, there you have it a little update on our everyday life. Have a Great Friday!!!

Sweet Sleepers!

Tahoe

We had a blast in Tahoe for New Year's. All 3 of the kids absolutely LOVED the snow.
Ella once again surprised us when she loved going fast down the tubing hill and she also liked to go backwards- don't worry she always went with mom or dad. The boys enjoyed snow ball fights with dad and going by themselves superman style in the tubes down the sledding hills.