Drew's first Thanskgiving....

Happy slightly belated Thanksgiving :)

We were up in Vermont with my family for Thanksgiving - Aunt Stephie (my SIL) came along too - and it was a great time had by all!! :) A great dinner by GG (What Drew now calls Grama, cause it's much easier to say!), with some help from his aunts Sheri and Lysee and me (Hey, I made the salad!)...Drew didn't eat any turkey (he doesn't eat meat very much), but he LOVED the cranberry sauce and a lot of the fixings...

We tried to dress he and his cousin David up as a pilgrim (David) and an Indian (Drew), but niether of them was too thrilled about their costumes - I thnk we got one or two pics before the hats and outfits came off - oh well...

All in all a good holiday - and lots to be thankful for :)

And now it's Black Friday and I officially started our Hanukkah/Christmas shopping - so much to get, so little time!! Chris and Ben will be with us for Christmas this year - yeah!!!! :) And Christmas and Hanukkah fall at the same time, which will make it extra special - I'm very excited...the older boys will be here the 23rd - I think. We have to check out our box of Christmas stuff and make sure we have enough ornamnets, etc...we'll decorate the tree when Chris and Ben get up here...

All of Drew's paperwork for a Certificate of Foreign birth has been submitted to Probate Court - so hopfully he'll get that in a few weeks. His conversaion is coming up quickly...and I need to weite his first post-placement report to Kaz in the next week or two - wow...this year went fast!!

I know it's been almost 11 months, but...

...I finally just got around to contacting the Probate Court about getting Drew registered with the state so we can gt a U.S. birth certificate for him. I know, it took me a while, but my goal is to have it done by the time Drew's "A Day" rolls around on Dec. 17. The woman I talked to at Probate Court asked me what country he was from and I said, Kazakhstan (obivously!) and she said, "Wow, never heard of that one!" - So apparently we are the first people in the New Britain area who adopted from there - wierd. Anyway...thankfully his name change was already legally done, we have his citizenship papers and hopefully this will be a smooth and easy process.

Drew is starting to learn cause and effect. He had a really bad day at daycare this week - hitting his best friend Hunter! I felt so bad cause Hunter was so sad about it. So Drew and I had a long talk about how it's bad to hit (or go "boom") and how we need to be nice to our friends. And yesterday I told him if he was a good boy and didn't hit anyone he could have an ice pop after daycare - well, that worked!! Hopefully it keeps up...of course he woke up this morning wanting an ice pop, and wasn't happy to have to wait until later, but he seemed to understand that he could only get one if he didn't hit anyone...

Drew also went on the potty again - his second time!! He's so proud of himself when he does it - it's so funny. And of course we are proud of him too...

Oh - Drew's conversion will take place Dec. 7!!!!!!!! Woo hoo.....

Drew's First Halloween...and Other Stuff Too...

Drew celebrated his first Halloween last night - and what a night it was! He was dressed as a black cat and had a great time. He was scared at first and didn't understand why he was going to all these strange people's houses, but eventually got the hang of it and started knocking on the doors himself! He liked going through all his candy at home and enjoyed some lollipops and M and Ms before mean Mommy and Daddy made him go to sleep...all in all it was a successful first Halloween.

It was nice, there were so many kids walking around our neighborhood - so much fun! Of course there were lots of houses that didn't have porch lights on, clearly not wanting trick or treaters...how hard it is to buy a bag of candy people?? Sheesh!!!

Drew also FINALLY said his brother Chris' name today!!!!!!!!! He's been saying Ben since the summer, but Chris is much harder to say (He can't say the "k" sound yet) - so it sort of came out like "Diss," but when he talked to his big brothers on the phone tonight he clearly said both of their names!!! He misses his brothers so much and talks about them ALL of the time...of course we all miss Chris and Ben and can't wait until they come here for about two weeks at Christmas... :) Yeah!!

Other than that - things continue to be good with Drew...I'm starting to think how we will celebrate his "A" day (Adoption day - the day he came home) - not sure what we should do. I'd love to do something to celebrate his Kazakh culture that day, but I'm not sure what..oh well - I have until Dec. 17 to figure it out :)