Three Months Home - Where have the spasibas gone?

Today marks the three month anniversary of the kids being home in the United States. So many things have changed.

Papa has become Dad or Daddy

Mama has become Mom or Mommy

Babushka has become Grandma

Spasiba has become Thank you

Nyet has become No, Nope, or Nah

Da has become Yes or Yea

Sobaka has become Dog (Most of time)

Kushka has become Kitty (Most of the time)

Some things haven't changed.

The kids attachment to their big brother - they love him.

They still will not eat ice cream.

They don't like green beans. (imagine that...)

They love their dogs.

The kids truly amaze us everyday. We were told Kristina was a slow learner and would have problems learning new things. Well just last night, she did an entire math page of addition and totally amazed her dad and I on how smart she is and how quickly she is learning new things. Her teacher is so impressed with her that she is now starting to work with her on specific letters, sounds and not just working on saying and learning different words. We were told John had a speech development delay. You couldn't tell that now. He is coming up with new words everyday. Right now you will hear him say at least once a day........"Daddy my car (truck, train, toy) needs batteries." Keegan thru all of this has been wonderful. He really loves his brother and sister and enjoys being with them and playing with them. He even makes sure that he helps Kristina with her homework at least once if not twice a week. He always makes sure he does a project with his little brother at least once a week and always helps him with his train. Thru all of this Keegan has kept his grades up and made the honor roll not only for second quarter but also for the first semester. We are super super proud of him! Actually we are super, super proud of all three of our children. Right now, we wouldn't change a thing!

We know that our family has been blessed and we are truly grateful for what we have.

The kids first train ride - December 27th

We left from University Park and took the electric line to the end. The kids had a blast and looked out the window most of the ride.

The kids looking at one of the store windows at Marshall Field's......ooops sorry Macy's.

Kristina riding a bull! A cold steel one at that!

The boys at the garden at Nay Pier.

After walking thru the gardens we went to the Winter Wonderland that was being held in the exhibit halls of Navy Pier!

The Russian Santa Claus. He sure is beautiful!





The kids riding the carousel!

John is smiling!

Kristina loves the ride!

The kids riding the mini ferris wheel!

The kids had a blast! We all did! The Winter Wonderland was a carnival indoors. They had kids rides, a train, a dinosaur ride, a big ferris wheel and a mini ferris wheel, a hang gliding ride for the big kids, and lots of jumpy things for the kids to climb on and jump in and slide down. The kids enjoyed it a lot. They were not scared of any of it. Maybe that should scare us a little bit, but we like rides too! After the Winter Wonderland, we had dinner at Bubba Gump's on Navy Pier. The kids don't like shrimp, but that's okay there was plenty of other things for them to try. They got their lunches in paper boats that had to make the trip home with us and are now on their dressers. The train ride home was uneventful and when we got the kids in the car to go home they were very tired, all three of them. The ride home was about 30 minutes in the car and I believe all three were sleeping within 5 minutes of leaving the train station.

Christmas Day

Our stockings!

Kristina with a game for her Leapster!

Keegan got a basketball jersey!

John opening a present from Santa!

A girl and her dog, Bruister! She loves him!!!

Kristina wearing our nephew Rob's storm trooper helmet!

John finally putting the helmet on! He was a little scared of it for a while!

John just being cute!

Christmas Day is spent at our house! We wake up and open presents and play for a while! Then in the afternoon, my side (Gloria) of the family comes over and we have Christmas dinner and a gift exchange. After that is all over, the ladies play a dice game in which we roll dice to get doubles and win presents. We play for about an hour and the presents get taken over and over again and we laugh a lot and make a lot of noise. The boys like to watch us and put in their two cents about which gifts we should steal and which ones they would like to have.

We know that this Christmas was extra special for our family and our gifts were truly gifts from God and we could not be happier! Merry Christmas (a little late) from our house to yours!

Christmas Eve

My sister in law Sue gave the kids matching pajamas with their names on them. So all three of our kids wore them to bed on Christmas Eve. We were able to take a few pictures before they headed off to bed.

Christmas Eve is spent with the Duda Family at Kenny's older brother's house. We all get together and exchange our gifts and have a wonderful lasagna dinner prepared by my mother in law. This year we had to do things a little different. Kenny's sister and her family are in Germany. Our brother in law is in the Army. So this being the case, we were unable to see the kids open their gifts because Germany is 7 hours ahead of us, but we got to see Sue and Don and baby Grace over the computer using Skype. It was different, but at least they still got to be part of the celebration. It was very nice, they got to see all of the kids open the gifts from them. Like I mentioned above, they sent us the monogrammed pj's for the kids. I loved them and even started to cry when they opened them. The kids as well as us were spoiled by the family again. We loved each and everything we got.

Christmas Party - December 20th

Kristina right before leaving for the annual Duda Pre-Christmas celebration!

Our boys on the way to the party in the car!

Our big guy has always loved the "big guy"!

Kristina loves Santa! She thinks he is really cool!

Well John is another story..............Santa is okay because he brings him presents but he was not having anything to do with sitting on his lap.

We had a blast at the party and the kids got to meet some new people. Friends and family both. The kids were very excited about all the presents and getting to see Santa two nights in a row. When going to bed that night, Kristina asked if Santa would be here tomorrow. (Most of the question was in Russian). I had to explain that Christmas was not for a few days yet!

A Christmas Party - December 19th

The kids before we left for a party at our good friends, the Veerman's house. The kids had a blast and a special person made a guest appearance and the kids were quite intrigued.

Been a while

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Happy belated New Year to everyone. We all hope you have had a great holiday season, especially all of you newly adopted children out there (and their parents of course). Although we have not posted in a while we have been busy living through new experiences with our kids. What (mostly) fun we have had! Kristina's first english sentence while shopping at Sams Club "I like Pineapple." to Johns mimicking of everything we (especially his big brother) say, from "Oh My Gosh" a couple of weeks ago to the latest "BEEEEEE Careful!". Their first time Sledding this past Saturday to trying to explain that Santa will NOT be Coming every night! Kristina bringing home paperweights for each of us from Secret Santa at school with a different character from Dora the Explorer. Watching them develop favorite shows on TV...Dora and Penguins of Madagascar along with their moms favorite (JK)...Spongebob Squarepants. Kristina has started Gymnastics at a local gym on Monday nights and is really catching on, she works so hard she left the gym last night and looked at us and when PHEW! PEET? (drink) and chugged down some water. Shes having a lot of fun. It works out good for JT also as there is a play area at the gym for the kids who are not taking class and he is getting exposed to playing with other kids and learning how to share toys (which is a challenge at times due to their past experiences at the orphanage). We have a ton of outings planned for the next few weeks; an FRUA/CHEER Grandfather Frost celebration in January as well as a trip to see the Monster Trucks and the Moscow Circus. Keegan is in the middle of finals right now in school and we are proud to say that it looks like he will make high honors for the 2nd quarter! Hopefully he will do well on his finals and make it for the semester also. So we are all very busy and are just enjoying life. Hope you all have a great new year.

Kenny and Gloria.