Happy Birthday... again??

Well a princess deserves several birthdays right?

First was her actual birthday - November 3 - we had her little school party.
She had a great time until we lit the candle. Seems littlebit is a little bit afraid of fire!
Cooper came to her class to help her celebrate.

Watching us with anticipation....

Here's the very pink cake- even princess Barbie's skin is pink!

Then when we got home, we had our little family celebration - her favorite meal, a nice little cake and she opened her presents from us.

Her main present was her trike which she can finally ride!

Her 3rd party was the big one - a jumpy party at The Ruckus Room with 19 of her closest friends.

The staff there was fabulous! Everyone had a great time - they jumped, ate pizza and chips and of course had cake - an AMAZING cake by Melissa Costanzo. Here are some pics of her other creations. The girl makes the best cakes in Houston. I personally chose an almond flavored cake with a chocolate ganache filling.... mmmm soooooo good!

There were friends to greet...

big bouncy things to jump and slide on...

balloon-animal-makers to watch...

and of course, the fabulous cake to eat!

After naptime, it was time to open all of the thousands of presents!


of course, Steffi had to get in to the action

Stef wowing over the gifts!

Kara's showing Fritz her new toy

This is one happy three year old girl!

Happy 3rd Birthday Kara!

On November 3, 2006 a beautiful little baby girl was born in a remote village in northern Russia.

On November 3, 2006 a nice couple named Jane and Jim were just beginning the process of adopting two children from Russia.

After 2 years, 102 gagillion pounds of paperwork, a gagillion dollars, a ton of emotions and a lot of tears (some good, some not), the little baby and the nice couple were brought together by the grace of God.

Happy Birthday to our sweet, beautiful, smart Russian Princess, Kara.

Halloween

Kara and Cooper October 2008~

First of all, do you remember these kids? I barely do!

The policeman turned into Spiderman and Elmo turned into a princess!

What a difference a year makes.

Last year they had only been in America for 8 days - they were a bit bewildered about the whole proces but this year... different story. After every.single.house Kara would say "More!" and Cooper would say "Are we done yet?".

Every Halloween, there's a parade of sorts in our neighborhood with a real fire truck leading the way. The fire truck (Fireman Sam as Cooper calls it) sounds it's horn and that begins the 'parade'. Cooper totally remembered it from last year and couldn't wait. All the kids and parents walk along the street to the end of the cul-de-sac then the firemen pass out candy then all the kids go trick or treating. It's small but fun for the kids.

Pics in our back yard before the festivities: I'm hopeful that next year I can get them to match somehow.

Here's Kara's reaction to the firetruck horns:

Coop loves the firetruck, noise and fanfare, Kara hates it. Always opposites in every way.

Trick or treating. Yes, they remembered to say thank you!

ZooBoo

We had a great time at ZooBoo in Houston. The kids got a chance to wear their costumes and were so excited- Cooper was Spiderman and Kara was a Fairy Princess.

How did they choose their costumes you ask? Well, Cooper knew from the beginning that's what he wanted to be and never deviated. We went into one of those huge Halloween Expre$$ stores and showed Kara several different options. She would walk past something, take a slow look and say no. We showed her cute puppies, bears, lions, raggedy Ann, etc.

She walked up to the Fairy Princess, stopped and declaired "MINE" and walked straight to the register! It was too funny - the girl knew!

We met Susan and Artem and Amy (her sister in law) and baby Charlie at the zoo and had a lot of fun! Artem was an adorable little train conductor and is seriously the best behaved little man there.

As always, check out our pics - I'm sure Susan has better ones - my camera bites AND she's a great photog!

Kara, the prairie dog

Cooper the prairie dog

Artem the prairie dog

Kara very gentle with the goat

They actually posed for the pic!

Cooper finally enjoys a ride on the carousel 'horse' that goes up and down! He said, Mom, I not scared, it fun!!

Cooper loves the goats - and actually kissed this one on the head!

Picking out a pumpkin to paint

1 Year Family Day Anniversary

October 15th was our 1 year anniversary as a family!

We celebrated by having Russian Stroganoff and watching the video of our trips.

It's unbelievable that it's been 1 year already~It truly feels like the kids have always been with us.

They are right on target with everything as far as development except Kara's speech is about 6 months delayed but improving daily.

Cooper is still a crazy/smart/funny little boy who makes up stories all the time.

Kara continues to LOVE her baby dolls and treats them so delicately, it's truly precious.

We went to see Thomas the Train in Rusk, TX this weekend and the kids had a ball. It was a great experience - I recommend it! Kara was NOT fond of the loud horns and it was a little chilly so she could have skipped the train ride but loved the jump houses and eating and tatoos, etc. We stayed with my brother who lives about an hour away and it was great seeing him. Here are some pics from our little weekend trip:

Cooper, brother, Kara (yes, he's my brother - 19 years older!)

Kara NOT enjoying riding on Thomas!

Cooper loved it!

The happy family of 3 and Kara

Sweet kids on the way up - holding hands for the pic (UNprompted!)

Keeping up the naps

Ok, you really thought I wasn't serious about keeping up with the blog right? Fooled ya!

Just when we thought nothing else could happen it did.
Kara again.
She awoke at 12:30 last night screaming and writhing (seemingly in pain) and soaking wet with sweat. She continued to scream/cry until 1:15 - STRAIGHT, NON-STOP. Then it continued throughout the night. Nothing would soothe her. She kept screaming, NoNONONONO... slapping her hands, kicking her feet - all over the place.
We put her in the bed with us and tried to comfort her. She would fall asleep for about 1/2 hour to 45 mins then the screams would start again.
I thought she had to go to the bathroom - possibly constipated.
At one point during the night we were convinced she was possessed!! kidding!
She was not responsive at all. We kept asking, Where does it hurt? Where's the booboo?
Nothing. Just screams and kicking. It was like she didn't even know we were there.

She finally went to sleep soundly around 5:00 am - I had to get up for work at 5:30 so needless to say, that didn't happen.
She awoke around 7:00 with a smile on her face and normal as can be.

We spent the day together and she's been very normal. I've been scouring the internet trying to figure out what was wrong with her. After my research and talk with my bud Teri, we have decided that it was night terrors. Of course, we did everything wrong - you're not supposed to bother them at all. She didn't have a nap yesterday and sleep deprivation is one of the causes of night terrors.

I always knew naps were important but here's just another reason.

Here's the link to what I've found: http://www.babycenter.com/404_why-is-my-toddler-suddenly-waking-up-hysterical-at-night_1292621.bc

Hope this helps anyone else with this problem.

The stories just keep on comin'

I've really got the goods on these two when they're older...

Here's another story:

It's 3:15 a.m. Jim hears noises and tells me to go check.

why HE couldn't go check I'll never know since I was sound asleep...

So I tip toe down the hallway and peek ever so quietly into Kara's room and a small voice from below says, "Here, here!" She was in the bathroom on the floor, her face (including her eyes) was covered in De$itin, her diaper was off and she was saying, "boo boo, boo boo".
While I was wiping her off and putting her diaper back on I discovered that she was really hot. Her temp showed 102.8F.
Poor thing just wanted to try to make herself feel better.
We put her in the bed with us and she finally went back to sleep around 4 a.m.

As per the Doc, she has a common virus- not Swine or any other flu - and the fever is gone.
This all happened last night...
See I'm getting better at blogging with my stories on time!

New pics soon!