Almost one year!

 Visit from 'baby Jake'.  Hannah loved being a big sister and took great care of him

 Ivan loves to climb on anything climable. Even the Panda at the National Zoo

 Baking applie pie

 Crafts at the Sinterklaas celebration at the dutch embassy

 Our monkey

 At girls night out. Dinner at Chilli's

Ivan loves to help cooking too.



Last Sunday was exactly one year ago that we left Baton Rouge to travel to Vladivostok for our March 4th court date.  It is hard to believe that it is already a year ago and at the same time, I can't imagine Hannah and Ivan not being in our lives. We truly have become a family of 4 and love being a family.

Since I wrote on the blog last time, we celebrated our first thanksgiving as a family and the whole family pitched in on making the dinner. We went to the dutch embassy to celebrate sinterklaas and both kids had a ball.  Hannah participated in the christmas concert at school and we went to Marc's family in Dallas for christmas and had a visit by baby Jake, the 6 month old son of friends of ours. Marc started his new job at NIST in Gaithersburg on February 1 so we have become a full-time family again the everybody's delight.

Hannah and Ivan are still doing great. They both have grown like a weed and Ivan is now on the 35th percentile for height and 50th for weight. He was at the 5th percentile for both at his first visit to the pediatrician almost a year ago.  Hannah is at the 90th percentile for height. She was always tall and started at the 75th percentile at her first pediatrician visit.  They are both very healthy and in spite of a cold winter we have not had to deal with anything more than a runny nose.  They both got a clean bill of health again. 

Both kids love their school and are thriving.  The classes are small and the teachers very nurturing.  Hannah is learning her letters and numbers and can recognize most.  She is also has an hour of spanish and... russian per week.  Ivan actually has a teacher from.... Vladivostok and she still speaks Russian to him.  Their back up babysitter is also russian so both kids are still very much exposed to russian and Marc and I are both tickled by that. We signed up to attend the easter party at the russian embassy in April so hopefully we'll get connected with some other russian adoptive families in the area.

Hannah has matured enormously over the past year. There is little left of the toddler girl we brought home a year ago. She is very helpful around the house and loves to care for her brother.  The teachers at school love it that she checks up on her brother a few times per day.  She has become very verbal and her vocabulary amazes everybody.  I tell everybody that she should become a politician. She can talk herself out of anything.  She loves to color and do crafts and also loves to help me cook.  Lasagna and apple pie are her 'specialties'. 

Ivan is still the active and funny boy he was when we brought him home last year but boy has he grown up. He is speaking in sentences now although his speech is still slurry and hard to understand.  I requested the paperwork to continue his speech therapy so we'll see if he qualifies (he has to be 25% delayed).  He is doing great in school and is learning colors. His fine motor skills have improved tremendously as have his social skills. He is also learning spanish and Marc and I went to one of his spanish classes in January. Ivan was the first to call out the word almost all the time (whether right or wrong) and was so proud that he knew spanish words. His teachers say that he shows the same enthousiasm in every class. He is also very sociable and caring. The school also helped us getting him potty trained and he is doing great in that area. He still has to occasional accident but is completely out of diapers during the day. He is still all boy and very physical. He pulls up his nose for the playground designed for kids 2-5 years old but climbs the highest ladders, slides down the highest slides and freaks out his mama on many occasions. Trucks and cars are his favorite as is his cuccle (tricycle). 

So.. we are still doing great. We love living in the DC area and enjoy the possibilities it gives us especially now the weather is getting nicer again.  We became a member of the national zoo and often go there just for a walk.  Both kids love to go swim and we try to do this as often as we can and swimming lessons are on the schedule for the summer. 

I'll post pictures later since I am writing on my new laptop that has no pictures on it (yet).