Merry Christmas

It's been fifteen months, since the boys came home with us. This will be their second Christmas in the states and a lot has changed since the first one.

Jake continues to be the goofy child. Looking back on my first impression of him from this blog, his personality really hasn't changed. Here's what I originally wrote about what I called our little brute, "Jake is not fat, but is stocky. He apparently has a bottomless pit for a stomach and is always smiling. He's not as much of a climber as his brother, but can kick a ball nearly as far as Riley who is four years older. He's got the makings of a linebacker, I guess."

Jake has grown a lot in those fifteen months and is a lot leaner, but other than that - he's much the same. He's really good at soccer (he's a natural team player and plays position well) and is starting out in Upwards basketball with his first game after the start of the year. Jake's the tough one of the two and it won't be long before he's bigger and stronger than Riley. He's a video game nut (only on weekends), likes to play any board game, look at comic books, and play with his action figures. Interestingly, he's more of a strategist than his brother when it comes to playing games. It's fun to watch him think through his moves and he oftens wins in any strategy game we play.

Riley is also a lot like we originally perceived. "Riley is a bit short for his age, very lean but amazingly fast. He climbs like a monkey and seems to be very active." He's still fast as can be and lean. He's also a really good soccer player - in the spring he didn't seem to get the concept of team work and was more of a ball hog. This past fall, it clicked with him and he's ended the season as one of the best players on his team. Riley is also getting started in Upwards Basketball at our church. Riley is a big time movie fan and will watch about any movie you'll let him watch. He's also an avid reader, since he's got English figured out. He was also a surprisingly good reader in Ukrainian. Interestly, he can remember how to speak Russian somewhat, but can't read it all any longer, since learning the English alphabet.

Both boys are doing well in school and Riley recently took the ISTEP testing and he's right where he needs to be with his skills and his grades are very good. Jake is showing a huge interest in "learning" this year and is working on the alphabet and spelling. Riley has also joined Cub Scouts and we have been enjoying that time. The big event this fall was a fall campout in a fort on the Boy Scout property. We camped under a roof and had a tarp on one side and a wall on the other. Otherwise, we had only our sleeping bags to keep us warm in the nights. It was below freezing both nights. Pam and Jake were thinking about going to the campout until she heard there wasn't any running water or bathrooms!

I'm still working for Verizon and as always, this time of year is more hectic for my group than any other. And for four years running (or is it five?), we are short handed for the holidays. Our center got hit by some downsizing, so I guess I shouldn't be complaining. I live for the weekends so I can spend more time with the boys. We play games, watch cartoons, throw around the football, go on scouting activities and spend lots of time at practices and games. One of my favorite things with the boys is their questions. While they often have oddball questions (who would win between a power ranger and a jedi knight? That was actually a good question), they also ask some pretty interesting ones. We've been doing a lot of talking about astronomy, reading books and looking at pictures on the internet about the universe, the solar system, the moon, etc.. All in all, life is good.

Pam keeps busy taking care of our family and trying to keep up with our hectic schedules. She takes Jake to kindergarten every day at 12:30 and is happy to have some time to get things done in the afternoons. She volunteers at the boy's school and is the room "mom" for Riley's class. She is busy planning the Christmas Party for his class next week. She is still doing some computer consulting work for two businesses and has recently started working with a realtor creating web sites and virtual tours of the realtor's listings. She also likes to work on her scrapbooking when she can and attends "scrapbooking night" once a month at our church. And of course, she still spoils our dog Sasha!

Here's a link to some new pictures: http://mysite.verizon.net/res08a93/rayandpam/id38.html

Hope you all have a great Holiday Season and a Happy New Year! Ray

It's been a year already!

Here's our little warrior boys enjoying a summer afternoon in our back yard! I was worried about how to keep them busy all summer and then all of the sudden it was time for school to start.

August 30th was our one year anniversary for adopting the boys. Ray and I were both amazed a year went by so quickly and still in awe of how well the boys have adapted to their new situation. Jake has grown six inches and Riley has grown three inches since we adopted them. All in all, I think we have done really well adapting as a family and the boys love their Grandma and Grandpa's and all of their cousins.

We did a lot of fun things this summer including camping, boating, swimming, festivals, Bible school, an amusement park, a 4-H fair, and trips to the zoo. The boys started off their summer vacation by taking swimming lessons at the community pool. They both did great and can swim under water. They also went to a gymnastics day camp and a sports day camp through our parks department. We read a lot of books from the library and played with our neighbor kids, Jenna, Jake, and Madison.

One of the highlights this year was traveling to Oklahoma with my mom on spring break to see our relatives. It was a first "vacation" for the boys and Grandma was very generous to take us with her and spring for hotels with swimming pools! The boys loved meeting all of their new relatives and we stayed with my cousin who lives outside of Oklahoma City on a big chunk of land. The boys had a great time running around their property and playing in the woods. We wish Ray had been able to come with us but he wasn't able to take vacation time for spring break this year. Hopefully next year.

The boys experienced their first taste of amusement park rides this year and of course they loved it. I think they went on the roller coaster about seven times. These boys are amazing on how they aren't afraid to try new things. They just walked right in to bible school and day camps, ready to make new friends and try something new. We are so proud of them.

They were starting to get bored by the end of August and there seemed to be more fighting. It's just lovely looking out the back door and see them on the ground wrestling, and pounding on each other! I do think I am adapting to being a mom to boys and I am learning to deal with the "boy" stuff like fighting, burping, farting, etc. All the stuff that makes their papa proud....

School started on August 21st and this year they are going to a "magnet" school that specializes in communications. The school has it's own tv studio and produces videos and newspapers. It is not an "ESL" English Second Language school, but we think Riley and Jake will be able to keep up. Riley is in third grade and Jake goes to afternoon kindergarten. So far I am spending my "alone time" afternoons trying to catch up on all the things I let slide this summer!

We are now mini-van driving, soccer parents. Yes, we traded in our Explorer for a mini-van and we have soccer practice three nights a week and games on Saturdays. It's nice to have the van for traveling, and with two kids and a dog, we needed the room. Just that neither Ray or I were too excited about driving a van! Oh well, if you can't beat them, you might as well join them!!

Check out some new pictures from this summer at: http://mysite.verizon.net/res08a93/rayandpam/id36.html

Summer Update - from Ray

Long time no blog. The boys and life in general have kept us very busy.

It seems like we've had the boys for a long time now, but it is actually less than a year. We are coming up on Jake's sixth birthday this Sunday. Amazingly enough, Jake understands barely any Russian/Ukrainian at all. Riley still understands enough for me and him to have some simple conversations, but he forgets a lot of words and his grammar may be worse than mine. He can still roll his "R"s like crazy.

While the boys have become very fluent, they are still finding a lot of words they aren't familiar with. It is usually more complex and uncommon words that confuse them, but sometimes it's the simple ones that stump them. For example: They know the word "frosting" for what goes on cakes and cupcakes. I grew up with the word "icing" for that, but it's not what they first learned.

We are also continuing to have other firsts. This past weekend we watched some fireworks with the family up by Lake Wawasee. Before fireworks started, I pointed out lightning bugs to them. They jumped and ran down to catch them with no prompting whatsoever. I had talked to the boys about these strange bugs a long time ago and this was the first sighting of them. They are usually in bed before dark since daylight savings started. The fireworks were good. They had seen some minor fireworks in Ukraine, but nothing like this show.

On Monday night our neighbors got together and they lit some small ones off. On the 4th, they saw the big show down in Fort Wayne and that was probably one of the best shows I've seen. They really enjoyed all of them.



Also on the 4th, we got together with the Sugar Tree gang and the kids played on a slip and slide then had a bike decorating contest and parade. The decorating and parade were Pam's idea and the kids loved it.

I've also started loading some videos of the kids on Google Video. Here's one from the slip & slide action on July 4th.

Our First Christmas Together

(written by Pam)

Jake and Riley are pictured here on Christmas Eve at their Grandma Fenton's house. We had already been to church and this was right before we started to open the gifts. As you can tell, they were pretty darn happy!

Christmas morning was a lot of fun and the boys actually slept in until about 7:30 that day. We had been out late on Christmas Eve so they were tired. Riley was the first up and checked out the tree and went back and reported to Jake that there were presents under the tree and their stockings were full! We stayed home on Christmas Day and the boys played with all their new toys and never even changed out of pajamas the whole day. (Click on the photo pages link for Christmas Pictures)

We went to Ohio the day after Christmas and celebrated with the Stephens and Conway families. The boys had a great time playing with their cousins and they loved all their gifts from Aunt Linda and Uncle Bill and Grandma and Grandpa Stephens.

I think the most touching moment of the holidays for me was watching their faces as they sang "Silent Night" by candlelight at church on Christmas Eve. Their sweet faces were lit up by the candlelight and our hearts were filled with joy that they are our boys. Of course, by the end of Christmas vacation all I could think about was getting back to our normal schedule and shoving Riley out the door for school! Ah, parenthood.

Ray had a lot of fun playing with the GI Joe "Action Figures" and helping the boys build legos. Actually, he had fun with all of their toys! All in all, it was a great first Christmas with our boys.