Happy New Year!

Have I been bad about blogging, or what? Life is good! It is so hard to believe Tori has been home for almost 8 months now. So much has happened since my last post. I will just give brief updates.....

Tori loved "trick-or-treating". It did not take long for her to figure out there would be candy given at each door. I had to remind her as she approached the door to not just walk into the house like it was her home!

She finally had surgery on both of her eyes the beginning of November. We just had a follow up appointment a few days ago and both eyes are aligned and look great. She told us for almost a week about how the doctor made her go goodnight and made ouies in her eyes. Though he made ouies, she loves that man. Even when we went for her most recent check up, she very loudly yelled, "Bye, I love you!" and of course blew him kisses as we were leaving the office.

We had our six month post adoption visit from our social worker. I really like him. He is so laid back and always makes me feel at ease. His report was glowing and I was proud to send it off to Russia. He commented on how well Tori has adjusted and on how outgoing her personality is.

Thanksgiving was very fun for Tori. We spent it with Grandpa and Grandma Jones. It was the first time family on their side had met Tori. She is not one to give others an option about interacting with her. She is usually open to interacting and playing with just about everyone she comes in contact with.

The holiday season has been fun, to say the least. She really did not understand Christmas presents and such until Christmas Eve. She opened a gift she really liked that night, a laptop. I knew this would be great for her because she is always trying to use mine. It did not occur to me that she would not understand the gifts were for her to keep. She kept telling me she wanted to take it home, I mean telling me repeatedly! I continued to remind her that it was hers and we would take it home. A couple of times she came over to me holding her laptop and saying that she wanted to go home now! She was very concerned! After more presents the next morning and afternoon, she quickly realized that it was okay to attach to a few other gifts. It really was a very fun time for all.

I am finishing up a 6 week break from work and have enjoyed spending time with my beautiful children during this holiday season. I am off again all of April, in time for Easter and hopefully a trip to Oklahoma to visit family. I pray you all have a wonderful year and 2010 is awesome for you and your families.

I think I have finally conquered obtaining a social security number for her after 3 visits to the office. I am expecting it any day now, really need it for taxes! If any of you have adopted your child again when you returned from Russia and have info about how to do that, please let me know. I do feel at this point it might be the best option for me, considering the issues I have had just getting her a ss#.

It has been nice to log on here and see updates from my friends that I have encountered along the way, great to see pictures on families and wonderful updates of lifetime memories. Those of you still waiting, I am thinking and praying for you. I know it is hard. I was reading a friends post that ironically lives about a mile from me, and whose older daughter attends the same school that I teach at. We connected here and found out we are practically neighbors! They have had their first trip and are having a tough wait for the court return. I am familiar with the wait. I had to wait six months before I could hold Tori again and finally bring her home. It does make the holidays tough, which I really just plowed through last year. Hang in there Shelly! All of the sudden you will get the call, you are in my thoughts friend! Love and best wishes to you all!

San Manuel Indian Pow Wow

First pony ride

Halloween

Thanksgiving

Boat ride to see Christmas lights.

Christmas Eve

Preschool

I have enjoyed the month off of work with my two beautiful children. I teach on a year round schedule, so every three months I have a month off. No big summer break, but I really do like my schedule like this. I will be going back to work tomorrow for meetings and prep., starting with students returning on Monday. My next chunk of time off will begin the week of Thanksgiving and I will return to work after the New Year, 6 weeks because of the holidays…NICE =)

Dylan went to Oklahoma for 12 days this past month to visit family. He really had such a great time and came home exhausted. I know this for sure because when he is over-tired he walks, talks, and does very strange things in his sleep! This month took the award of weirdness so far in his life. He had a really bad dream and decided to take on his furniture while sleeping. Furniture won, he ended up with a black eye! We spent some time the next day researching bad dreams, mostly because he needed some reassurance that he is not psychotic. Sometimes these dreams happen and we really are unsure why. He does feel there might be a relation to some of the things recently in the news that occurred her in CA. Happy to report we have all been sleeping fairly well since.

Tori is done with Dr. appointments for a while, I hope! She does have a follow up eye appointment in a two weeks. I guess I should say at least a huge bulk of Dr. appointments are done with. I attended an IEP for Tori yesterday through the school district. It went really well. I had gone to the school district shortly after arriving home, requesting a speech and language assessment for her. Her medical information from Russia indicated she was speech delayed. I felt I wanted to tackle this right away and not wait for her to begin school. I gave the district some information on Tori’s background and the decision was made to do a full assessment on her; which includes speech, language, cognitive, health, etc…..They came to my home to do the assessment and hired someone that speaks Russian to assist. In a nutshell, she has no qualifying conditions for Special Education services. The conclusion, she is doing really well and has learned so much for just being her a short time. I agree wholeheartedly. After reviewing the paperwork I had given them from Russian doctors, they were not sure what to expect when they arrived at my home. Upon leaving my home and at the IEP, they were very complementary about what an amazing little girl she is and as to how well she is doing! She really is pretty amazing!!!! =)

Along those same lines, Tori has started preschool. This is her second week of attending. I was fortunate to find a lady about a mile from my home that runs a preschool out of her home in the mornings and offers daycare as well. For now, Tori has just been attending a few hours in the morning to get her used to it. Starting Monday, while I am at work, she will be going all day. She is really enjoying it and continues to learn so much!!!! =)

Ready for her first day of preschool!

All the fun stuff Tori made the first week of preschool, learning about the farm!

Dylan and Tori, Oklahoma style!

Tori, unsure about this stuff on the chip.

BUSY BUSY!!!!

All is well! We have just been BUSY! Tori has been home for 2 and a half months now and continues to learn and grow in every way....well almost. I weighed her yesterday and much to my dismay she weighs the same as see did with her first Dr. visit....a whopping 22 pounds! I do wish she would have gained some weight by now. I am feeding her, I promise =)

I have to admit, she is very active, so I am trying not to be very concerned about the weight. She goes all day long. No naps, but does sleep about 12 hours each night.

My mom is a member of a Red Hat group. Those wonderful women had an amazing "Princess Party" for Tori! It was absolute fun! I have never met some of these women, they just wanted to celebrate Tori's homecoming. Tori enjoyed tearing through all her gifts and showed her appreciation through her verbal gestures!!! The ladies absolutely enjoyed her!!! We all had a great time!

We have been to a BBQ and the beach. She is a fish! She loved the pool at the BBQ. She would go under water and just laugh while under with her eyes wide open. There really was no chance of keeping her out of the water. She really loved the waves at the beach too and it was awesome to watch her having so much fun.

Before I left for my second trip, I was participating in a cardio boot camp in the mornings, sometimes 5-6am and sometimes 6-7am depending on the month. Shortly after I came home, I thought it was going to be difficult to get back into a work-out at that time of the morning. Dylan had been begging me for a while now to get him a gym membership....so yes, much to his pleasure that is what we did and it has worked out really well. Dylan and I will work out for about an hour or so and Tori will go to the Kids Klub for an hour. It did take a few visits for her to get comfortable and understand that we won't be away from her for long. Now she enjoys going most of the time. When we start getting ready to go she recognizes our change of cloths and says, "Go play!" When I drop her off she says, "See you in a little bit!" and, "I love you!" at least 4 or 5 times before we depart from each other.

Lots of Dr. appts. going on here, lots! So far I have a very healthy little girl, tiny, but healthy. We have another cardio appt. this week for an ultra-sound. On my first trip to Russia I was told Tori had a murmur. The second trip I was told she had another abnormality besides the murmur. The Dr. visit for the embassy stuff, I was even told she would need surgery in a couple of years. Not the same findings here at all, interesting....possibly a slight murmur and that is it. We will know more this week, after the ultra-sound. Tori does have a chest deformity due to rickets. Her Dr. feels that because her chest cavity has a different shape, the heart beat would have a different sound. Suggesting that possibly Dr.'s in Russia thought there were some issues because the beat sounded abnormal due to the shape of her chest cavity. All blood work came back just fine. She did get two shots, no big deal. I suppose I thought the list would be long medically. I am happy to report all is well. She has an ophthalmology appt. the end of the month. She also has a home assessment from the school district at the end of the month. I do hope to get her qualified for a preschool program offered through the district.

She is not comfortable getting in a car besides mine, I am fine with that and it is just something we will work on so she can feel safe. She honestly just continues to really enjoy life. Still singing and talking all the time. Babbles still at times, but also lots of English going on. She loves to say, "I love you" and "kisses" to both me and her brother. We love her so much too!!! Her birthday is the end of the month. We are looking forward to that and also, I will have all of August off to play with my kids all day long. =)

At Princess Party.

Swimming to our friend Michelle.

Sliding into pool.

At the beach.

Tori and her friend Bryan in a towel fort.

By the bonfire with Michelle.