Spring & Summer 2011

The month of March was fairly low-key, spending time waiting for the lovely winter to end. We did get together with Laurie's mom's family for a going away party held for Laurie's cousin Jesse (he moved to California for a new job). It was nice to see everyone as they had never met Andrew yet! We also attended a birthday party for Laurie's cousins Ben & Sara. Andrew had lots of fun running around playing for everyone and we were even able to bribe him with M&M's to perform "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and his "ABCs" :)

April brought more parties and lots of rain. We had Nini's (Laurie's grandmother) surprise 80th birthday party. We rented out a room at Springfield Grille and surprised her with a big family dinner (that was her requested birthday activity). It was really nice and as a gift to her, a photographer came to take family photos.

April ended with Andrew's first Gotcha Day (the anniversary of when we took him out of the orphanage) on April 27. John took the day off work and we surprised Andrew by giving him a Mickey Mouse "doll" and a battery operated Jeep for him to drive. We took him to a special breakfast, gymnastics class and then closed the day with a pizza party for friends and family - it was a truly special day!

In May we celebrated Mother's Day, took Andrew to the zoo for our adoption agency's 18th annual reunion, had Andrew's first gymnastics show and took a road trip to Chicago to celebrate John's birthday with his family. It was a really fun and busy month! Andrew had an awesome time showing off his gymnastics skills at his show and earning his first medal. He had a great time in Chicago too and loved playing with his cousins! :)

June started off with the 6th Annual Wil Morrow Memorial Bowling event and Andrew had a blast. Maybe he will grow up to be an awesome bowler like his uncle :) We had our first traumatic injury on June 5 playing outside. Andrew was wearing his Mickey Mouse sunglasses when he tripped running out of the garage. The sunglasses slammed up into his forehead requiring 7 stitches in the ER. The doctor numbed his forehead, they strapped him down in a papoose restraint, Laurie layed over top of him while he screamed & cried and John sat in the waiting room (didn't think he could handle watching his baby get fixed up). Laurie took Andrew to a plastic surgeon the following day who said the stitches looked great and to come back in 5 days for them to be taken out. Andrew now has his first scars (that are fading nicely thanks to Mederma cream) and mommy & daddy are only still slightly scarred by the experience :)

July began with a weekend of birthday parties - a surprise 50th for Laurie's Aunt Deb and first birthday parties for Andrew's friends Carson, Nick & Ben. Andrew had his 2 1/2 year check-up at the pediatrician's office where we found out he grew 6 inches since his last visit in December! We attended the Relay for Life in honor of our family members who died of cancer and for Laurie's uncle who is currently battling it. We also hosted our 4th annual summer picnic with the Maschak family - it was fun as usual! John's sisters Jen & Chris made a couple of visits to our house before and after their vacation to New Jersey. It was so great to see them and for Andrew to spend time playing with his cousins!

Our summer ended with a fun filled month of August. We had Laurie's cousin Courtney's birthday party and then we went on our first family vacation (just the 3 of us)! Our vacation took us to Duck, North Carolina and Andrew loved the beach. He was quite afraid of the ocean at first (which we were thankful for since he is usually fearless) but got a little bit more used to it as the week went on. Even though he was afraid of the ocean, he LOVED the pool at our condo (we had a pool pass for the community pool over the summer which he and Laurie went to every chance they had - so he became quite the little fish). We were having a really great trip until good ol' hurricane Irene got us kicked out 2 days earlier (at least we bought trip insurance).

So, since we were home Thursday night instead of Saturday night we made the most of it and planned some fun activities. Friday we took Andrew to Living Treasures - an animal petting zoo near our house which he LOVED! Saturday we went to Idlewild park with Laurie's parents. We all had a really fun day and Andrew was a champ riding all the rides! We were guided into September with the start of another year of gymnastics. It's the same "mommy & me" class that Laurie & Andrew did last year (same teacher too) so Andrew is a "master" of all the stunts :)

The ball is rolling....

Well, we did it - we started the process again! This time for a little Russian girl! :) Our application was mailed and received late last week and we already received a call from the agency's new coordinator, Sarah, (the one we worked with on Andrew's adoption, Amy, is no longer there - much to our delight as we didn't care for her at all) that she is looking forward to working with us!

The process starts again with all of the paperwork, background checks, physicals, fingerprints - EVERYTHING all over again! We are very excited to get underway with expanding our family and making Andrew a big brother - with a little sister :)

January & February 2011

Well, 2011 began with a fun surprise party on January 1st for Laurie's Uncle Tom's 50th birthday. Andrew came decked out in his personalized Pens hockey jersey (in honor of the Winter Classic game that evening) and everybody had a really fun time at the festivities. The next weekend we had our last family Christmas gathering. Andrew had a great holiday season and had so much fun at all the parties!


Andrew FINALLY had his MRI done on Monday January 10. It was kind of a rough morning - starting with us being up at 4:30 and in the waiting room at Childrens Hospital at 5:50am. We were both with Andrew while he got his IV put in and Laurie was able to stay with him through the whole experience. They were almost done with the scan (they were just starting the last 10 minute scan) when he woke up in the MRI machine. Laurie was told that they were just doing the last of a couple of additional scans that the radiologist wanted when Andrew woke up - they said hopefully they got what they needed or else we would have to come back!

Laurie carried Andrew to recovery while someone went and got John in the waiting room. They warned us in the pre-op room that some kids have an opposite reaction to the sedative meaning they get aggressive and agitated when they wake up....well, that happened to Andrew on the way back to recovery and in the recovery room. They ended up calling a doctor and anesthesiologist to come in and give him more sedative in recovery...he fell asleep on Laurie for about 40 minutes until they made us wake him up...he was barely awake enough to drink some juice so we could go home. He kept the juice down so we left the hospital, dropped John off at work and then Laurie took Andrew home. He slept the entire way home and was pretty loopy/high from the medicine (couldn't even walk) when we got home....Laurie gave him something to eat and then he fell asleep for over 2 1/2 hours....when he woke up he was totally fine :)

We were told that the doctor (pediatric ophthalmologist) would have the results on Wednesday. Laurie called his office Wednesday morning and they said that they would see if they had the results and get back to her. A nurse called back early Thursday afternoon and said that the MRI was fine and that we could just follow-up with the doctor in August (for Andrew's yearly appointment). We decided that we weren't satisfied with that response (because the problem is still going on and we want to know how to correct it now that we know the optic nerve is fine) so Laurie called back and they took a message for the doctor to call her back.

The doctor called Laurie and said that everything with the scan was great – completely normal. He said that the radiologist called him and said “what’s up, why are we scanning this kid – we don’t see anything wrong”…so, that’s why they were taking the additional scans because they didn’t see anything wrong.

He said that because everything with the nerves is fine and anatomically nothing at all is wrong, it means that the problem is weak eye muscles. We are to start patching again but he said that unless we notice a severe increase in the crossing, we don’t have to be crazy about it if Andrew doesn’t co-operate….he said that if it does happen to get worse then we might want to look into a cheap pair of glasses (with the prescription he gave us in May) but because he thinks Andrew is only slightly far-sighted and the glasses would really only be used for the crossing issue, there is a good chance Andrew won’t wear them.

Laurie told him that it seems to be better (and we even have other people commenting on how it looks better) but we do still notice it happening – especially when he’s tired….he said that’s great and not a surprise because Andrew is now getting good nutrition which is a huge help as well as increased stimulation since being home with us….he said it makes sense that we notice it when he’s tired because the muscles are going to be weaker when he’s tired. He said to just do what we can with the patching and come back in August…..he said that it may be something that Andrew just grows out of eventually.

Other than playing in the snow lots - helping daddy & mommy shovel and sled riding with daddy, the rest of January was pretty uneventful which was quite nice after such a busy busy December!


February started off with Andrew's first Super Bowl. How exciting for us that our team, Pittsburgh Steelers, made it to that game again. We went over to our neighbor's (Andrew's buddy Lucas) house for the game. Even though our team lost we had lots of fun - every single one of Lucas' toys were played with by the kids...what a mess by the end of the night! :)




The following weekend we were supposed to go to a birthday party at Jumpin Castle for our friend Ava, but unfortunately there was a head lice incident at the babysitter's house (nobody other than her daughter ended up with it thank goodness) so we didn't want to take our chances of spreading it until we were sure that we didn't have any. We did, however, take him there to play the next weekend with his friends Ty, Reed & Lucas. Everybody had a good time so we will definitely go back there to play sometime. Andrew also celebrated his first Valentine's day with us during that time and received lots of hugs & kisses from mommy and daddy :)




We had our second post adoption visit with our social worker, Rita, on the morning of Saturday the 26th. She said she is always amazed at the changes from the 6 month visit to the 1 year visit and Andrew was no exception. His language has exploded and as anyone who spends a day with him knows, he rarely stops talking :) After chatting with us about a few updates since the last visit, Rita followed Andrew into the playroom where she sat at his kitchen while he made her some coffee and eggs. She said that he seems to be adjusting wonderfully and was very impressed that he can spell his name, say his full name, count to 10, say most of the alphabet and knows his colors. She will send us her report soon and it will be sent to Russia for our 1 year anniversary of the adoption (April 27). She won't have another report due for us until April 2012!

Andrew's friends Ty & Reed had their 3rd Birthday party on February 27. It was a Toy Story themed party and there were lots of kids there to celebrate. The weather was beautiful and we had a very hard time keeping Andrew inside with the party as he just wanted to be walking around outside. It was a great way to end a fun month!

October, November & December 2010

The month of October was quite busy. It brought Andrew's first trip to Florida! Andrew got to meet John's sister Kim and her family. He LOVED getting to meet more cousins (he had already meet Catherine when she came to our house for his baptism) as well as his Aunt Kim & Uncle John. We took Andrew to the beach (he got to swim in the Bay) and to hit golf balls for the first time. It was nice spending time at John's parent's house and we got our last fill of sunshine for the year 2010.

We also took Andrew to a pumpkin patch near our house. He got to pick out pumpkins, play on a wooden tractor, pet some animals and go on a hay ride - he loved it! His friends Ty & Reed were there too and he really had a lot of fun playing with them.

There were 2 trips to McConnells Mills State Park in October. A friend of Laurie's from high school is a photographer and we set it up for her to take family pictures outside with the beautiful leaves. The first day we were supposed to meet, it was raining so we rescheduled for later in the month. We had the opportunity to go there (the weekend before our rescheduled appointment) with Laurie's parents to get some pictures with them. This turned out to be a very good thing because the following weekend when we were meeting Laurie's friend, Andrew was sick. We still had her take our pictures, but because he wasn't feeling well Andrew didn't really cooperate and we didn't get many good ones that day.

Andrew's MRI (to check out his optic nerve) was scheduled for Monday October 25 but because he was sick the weekend prior (with a fever that reached 104 degrees), we had to reschedule. The new date was set for Wednesday December 1.

The month of October ended with...yep, Halloween!! Andrew dressed up as a tiger. We didn't think that he would enjoy being in his costume, but he actually didn't seem to mind it. Laurie's parents came over to our house and her dad stayed at our house to pass out candy while we went around the neighborhood to Trick or Treat. We walked around with Andrew's friends Ty, Reed and Lucas - what a crew of boys! We think they had a good time and while Andrew didn't really "get it", he was a trooper :)

November was a fairly uneventful month. It was around the second full week that Andrew's hands and feet started peeling...this led to two things: 1. We diagnosed what was most likely the cause of the mysterious fever/sickness during a weekend in late October - hand foot and mouth disease and 2. he stopped sucking his thumbs!! It took us about a week to realize that he wasn't doing it anymore! We figured it was going to be a habit that we struggled to get him to stop some day but he stopped all on his own at 22 1/2 months old!!

Andrew and Laurie continue going to gymnastics every Thursday morning. Although he has his moments, he is definitely doing a lot better. He enjoys climbing over things and swinging from the bars.

We took Andrew to our local holiday "light-up night". He got to help daddy make a gingerbread house and decorate a cookie inside. Then we went outside and Santa rode in on a firetruck! Laurie & Andrew got their picture taken with Santa and John took Andrew up in the firetruck :)

The month ended with a huge Thanksgiving dinner at Laurie's Aunt Deb & Uncle Tom's house. Andrew seemed to enjoy all of the food (although that should come as no surprise) and have a really good time.

December was in one word - BUSY! December 1 was the rescheduled date of Andrew's MRI. BUT, he had a runny nose (with colored mucous) so Laurie called to find out if that was something that we should reschedule for again. The answer was yes...and, the first available date was January 10 - fingers crossed that there is no illness then and that the 3rd time is a charm!

John had 3 1/2 vacation days left for the year so he took a day off on December 8 & we went out to cut down our Christmas tree! There was a lot of snow on the ground where we went and Andrew insisted on being carried - it was Laurie's workout for the week considering it was mostly up hill to look at the trees and he weighed an extra 5 pounds with his snow gear on :) Later that day we took him to get his Christmas/2nd Birthday pictures taken and he did really well even though the studio was a zoo!

The next big event was Andrew's 2nd birthday party on Saturday December 18th. John's parents flew in for the event on Friday. The party turned out great and thank goodness we borrowed the Maschak family's bouncy house for the 24 kids that were there! It was a very special day for Andrew and we know he felt the love of all the friends and family that were there to celebrate his 2nd birthday.

Sunday the 19th Andrew's sitter, Becky, and her family hosted a holiday party for the families of the children she watches. Becky had a play planned for the children to perform which didn't exactly happen, but they all put on their costumes for a couple of photos.

John took Monday the 20th off so that he could spend some more time with his parents. They were able to visit until Tuesday morning when they flew to Chicago for Christmas. John also took a 1/2 vacation day that Thursday and went to gymnastics with Andrew & Laurie. Andrew loved having daddy there to show all of his tricks to.

The next big day was Christmas and Andrew's second birthday - all wrapped up in one day! We went to Laurie's church in Butler for the 10:30pm Christmas Eve service. Andrew stayed awake the entire service and we were able to wish him Happy Birthday after midnight. He slept in until about 9am and we were able to distract him with breakfast until Laurie's parents arrived around 9:30. We gave him his stockings (he got one from Grammy & BupBup too) and gifts from us before we took him into the playroom to see his kitchen from Santa. It was a huge hit and he LOVES playing with it! We hosted Christmas with Laurie's family and everyone came over around 11:00. It was a really great day - Andrew got so many fun toys and lots of love :)

On Monday December 27, Laurie took Andrew to his 2 year appointment with the pediatrician. He weighed in at 27 pounds and measured 32.5 inches tall. He has gained 7 pounds since we brought him home (an average of 1 pound a month) and has grown 1.5 inches! The doctor said he seems to be doing great and there were (finally) no shots needed!

The month ended with a couple of play dates with his friend Addie (a neighbor down the street) and his friends Ty, Reed & Julia. Laurie was off work for the last two weeks of the year and John took Thursday December 30th off as his last vacation day. We went out to dinner with our friends Andrea & Jon on New Years Eve while Laurie's cousin, Courtney, babysat the 3 (2 year old) boys - Andrew, Ty & Reed. She survived, the kids had a great time playing with Andrew's kitchen and it was a nice adult evening out to end the wonderful year that was 2010!!