Pictures, pictures and more pictures...and video of course :)

Our first family photo with Luke (minus Ryan, Ryan was back in the USA)

These are the bottles Luke used to get in the Baby Hospital...notice the glass that the liquid is in and the nipple...also it's filled with sweet tea.

I couldn't resist the photo of the potty's all lined up :)

Luke looks so serious

Above and below is the first day we met Luke...he cried, clung onto us, and literally was shaking

:(

Luke passed out at the VMI in Vladivostok, Russia after a nice stroller ride with Daddy, during their 10 day waiting period :)

Luke: Are you serious Daddy? This is way too many clothes!

In the beginning Luke despised baths!!!

We like to call this Luke's "incredible Hulk" look...LOL!

A bit stunned...this is the car ride to the hotel after picking Luke up from his Baby Hospital.

Our Family!!! Luke looks MUCH, MUCH happier, doesn't he???

All smiles climbing up the slide :)

Awwww, that's Ryan and Luke...doesn't this photo just melt your heart?

Happy Baby! Notice the Santa Claus belly and the lovely snot running from his nose...heehee!

He loves climbing up those slides, doesn't he? This photo was taken at the VMI in Vladivostok, Russia :)

We realized that we never put Luke's pictures of the first time we met him on here, so this is what this blog is about today, plus other photos of how Luke has changed. Can you tell he is much happier?

Love & HUGS,

Jenny, Ron, Ryan & Luke :)

This is Luke singing the itsy-bitsy spider with his Mommy (sorry my voice is awful but thought this video was too cute to pass up!)

He was an itsy-bitsy polka-dot baby...thats how the song goes, right?!?

Now that I have time to reflect on last weekends travels to Washington D.C. I thought I would add why we were extremely stressed...or at least I was! About two weeks ago Luke developed a fever, had it for a good five days, we thought it was an ear infection. Ryan was notorious for ear infections, we were one ear infection away from getting tubes. As it turned out it was not an ear infection, however his peds. told us to keep him on the antibiotic for the next five days, which we did. Then, Luke developed hives or some type of rash on the trunk of his body, two days after starting the antibiotics. I thought maybe it was due to him having a fever (which is extremely common with children)...called his peds. and was told to keep an eye on it. On Wednesday of last week it seemed to have disappeared, thought nothing of it. Then last Friday he woke up and had hives or those small bumps everywhere, from head to toe! Immediately, I brought him to his peds., who asked me "is he on Amoxicillin"? And YES this was a different peds. than the one who prescribed the antibiotics, same group just different peds. Dr. Anyway, my head snapped around and I said YES! The peds. told me Luke is allergic to Penicillin and he has a "classic" Penicillin rash. He also asked me if it had started on his trunk, to which I replied Yes. He said again, it's a "classic" Penicillin rash. I asked the peds. if it were okay to go away with Luke that weekend, if he was in any sort of danger and he said YES we were allowed to travel with him, and that the antibiotic just needs to get out of his system. Thank-Goodness it was only a rash and not something worse such as an obstructed airway, b/c this can happen too when you have an allergic reaction to Penicillin.
As we were driving to D.C. the Penicillin rash was getting worse, spots, spots, and more spots! He honestly looked like a polka-dot baby :( He wasn't uncomfortable just looked as if he was :/ I didn't think it was possible but Saturday morning he looked like one big spot and yes worse than the day/night before...I will say I was worried a bit. A friend who was there for the Azerbaijani reunion weekend as well, who we saw at breakfast and who also happens to be a pharmacist, told us yep it's a "classic" Penicillin rash. Then, we saw her again at the Cultural Center (later in the day) and she said Luke is looking much better from this morning. I thought so too but didn't want to jinx him :) Then on Sunday we woke up and the Penicillin rash was nearly gone.
At least we now know that he has an allergy to Penicillin and that he can not have it, b/c the next time it could be much worse of a reaction than this one. That to me is a scary thought!
If you look close enough at the photos I posted on Wednesday you can definitely tell Luke is a polka-dot baby...trust me you can see them :)

Love & HUGS,
Jenny, Ron, Ryan & Luke :)

Celebrating Our Families 2008, Washington D.C.

We made it home!!! Of course we had a wonderful time but we are now totally exhausted and may I add take notice to the fact that it has taken three days to blog about our experience :/

We arrived late Friday night, this after the car ride from hell (pardon my French!) but you would not believe how difficult it is traveling with two children now, not to mention traffic didn't help out at all! Our car ride was only suppose to take us three hours. After arriving on Friday night in Washington D.C. I was spent and all I wanted to do was go to bed. However, I knew that there was a get-together at the hotel pool so Ron and I decided that he would go to the pool with Ryan (after all we were there for Ryan, it was his event, so to speak) and I would stay back in the hotel room and go to bed with Luke. Ryan had a ball that night :)

On Saturday we woke up early went downstairs to eat breakfast, which by the way was expensive but good, and then we were off to the Metro to take us to the Smithsonian's. Ryan wanted to see the "Air and Space Smithsonian", so that is what we did. It was perfect for children Ryan's age, however I feel as if Luke was bored. But Luke did get to sit in a helicopter cockpit, which I'm sure was the highlight of his day :) We then hightailed it back to the Metro, almost got lost, but made it back to the hotel to freshen up for the Azerbaijani Cultural Center. We were late to the Azerbaijani Cultural Center and Ryan missed the group photo...the highlight of the trip :( I did however take photos of the children enjoying the festivities of the Azerbaijani Cultural Center. I even videoed an Azerbaijani woman dancing the traditional dance of Azerbaijan, just beautiful!

We were off to the DeBakey's house were we would spent time watching our Azerbaijani children run around, play in the pool, enjoy traditional Azerbaijani food, bid on the Silent Auction (the Silent Auction benefits the UAFA), and spend a delightful night chatting with old friends and making new ones as well :) It was an evening to remember!

A funny thing happened at the DeBakey's house, Ron was watching Luke, as Luke was running up and down this hill, well Luke ran away from Ron a little too far and Ron says in this deep voice

идите сюда! (translated this means come here and pronounced "idi suda!"), there were special guests from the Azerbaijan Embassy and the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce at the reunion and this Azerbaijani woman over hears Ron stating this to Luke and she was pleasantly shocked or this is how I read her face immediately after Ron told Luke to "idi suda!". Ron asked me if I caught her face and how pleasantly shocked she looked. In Azerbaijan they do in fact speak Russian.

This made me reflect and brought me back to our court date for Luke on May 15, 2008, when the Russian prosecutor asked me "how would you raise two different children from two different countries"? In a lot of ways Azerbaijan is similar to Russia and in many, many ways they are two worlds apart. What an incredible process to be a part of...what I mean is we (Ron and I) get to raise these WONDERFUL boys as ours (Americans) but no matter what they will always be a part of their cultural/heritage too, whether it may be Azerbaijani or Russian.

We left the DeBakey's house at about 9PM and no sooner had we turned the corner and the children were out of it! That night all of us slept extremely well! On Sunday we woke up and were totally exhausted...still :/ We decided not to go to the National Zoo and to head home. Which we did, after we said our "Goodbyes" to everyone who was staying at the hotel. I knew that Ryan was tired b/c he told me that he didn't want to go to the Zoo all he wanted to do was go home. Believe it or not, the children actually took a two and a half hour nap on the way home. Our trip home was easier than our trip there!

Love & HUGS,

Jenny, Ron, Ryan & Luke :)

PS-This was our first trip "post Russia", it was quite interesting :) An example...I found myself brushing my teeth on Saturday morning and not even realizing that I wasn't "drinking" the water :) Ron pointed this out to me...LOL :) Old habits die hard, I guess???

"Baku Babies"

We are off to Washington D.C. for Ryan's Azerbaijani's Reunion. Every year adoptive parents, who have adopted from Azerbaijan, get together for a weekend of fun and excitement, attend a luncheon with traditional Azerbaijani food (or Russian, or even Turkish food...which is extremely similar), a silent auction for the United Aid for Azerbaijan (UAFA), let our children run around and see their friends from "Baku". Or as Ryan likes to say his "Baku Friends". Some of the adoptive parents refer to the children as "Baku Babies". We have made it to 4 reunions so far, there have been 7 reunions all together and each one is held by a hosting family in a different part of the U.S.A. The first reunion occurred in 2002 and was held in Tennessee that was hosted by the first family to ever adopt from Azerbaijan (truly an inspiration to all of us who have adopted from Azerbaijan); the 2003 reunion was held in Kansas City, MO; 2004 it was held in New York, NY; in 2005 the reunion was held in Seattle, WA; 2006 it was held in Indianapolis, IN; 2007 it was held in Philadelphia, PA (which we hosted), and finally this year's reunion will be held in Washington, D.C. :) Ryan's culture is extremely rich and we feel blessed to participate in these reunions! I believe b/c there are only 151 children who were adopted from Azerbaijan (this according to the Travel.State.Gov as of 2006) the adoptive parents feel as if we are a close knit family. As a matter of fact, some of our children were in the same Baby House as one another and they were even in the same group of children as one another.

Hosting last year's reunion was a feat, in and of itself, but so worth it! This year we will go to the reunion "actually" realizing all that goes into these reunions. I have included some photos of last year's reunion above. Aren't the children just beautiful??? Here are some websites that detail Azerbaijan's rich history and culture. http://www.azari.com/index.html, http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/93_folder/93_articles/93_kimi_guidelines.html, or http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/93_folder/93_articles/93_kimi_inara.html.

Love & HUGS,

Jenny, Ron, Ryan & Luke :)

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY...We officially have another U.S. Citizen!!!

It's Official!!! We have another U.S. Citizen!!! We received Luke's Certificate of Citizenship yesterday in the mail. Being that today was the 4th of July we thought what an apropos time to receive his COC and Luke has been in the United States of America for one month :) We had Luke open up his COC and helped him take it out of the envelope and read it to him and of course the Presidential Letter that came along with his COC. He didn't seem to phased by the whole thing, however he did clap when I was done reading his Presidential Letter to him . We told him that we already knew that he was a U.S. Citizen but that this piece of paper proves it now :) This is just the formality.

Luke's COC in the mail is new to us b/c we don't have a COC for Ryan. The reason... when we adopted Ryan in May 2003 and in January 2004 they automatically sent you the COC in the mail. Now, we have to pay to get Ryan's COC, $420.00 to accomplish this task :/ However, I have contacted our Government and was told that YES Ryan is a U.S. Citizen even though he doesn't have his COC. We do have his U.S. Passport and Naturalization papers.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY :)

Love & HUGS,

Jenny, Ron, Ryan & Luke :)

HAPPY 6TH BIRTHDAY RYAN!!!

We can't believe that Ryan is 6 years old today!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYAN!!! I cried from time to time today realizing that my baby is growing up way too fast :(

Unfortunately, Ryan was sick last night so we didn't know how his birthday was going to turn out. I kept him home from summer camp today but honestly I really didn't have to. We were told, by everyone who called today to wish Ryan a HAPPY BIRTHDAY, that YES there is something going around right now. Ryan was acting as if last night never happened, except he kept on asking me "Mommy did I get sick last night"? I said Yes, to which he replied "you know I don't even remember that", ahhh to be young again :)

We were suppose to go to the pool today but I thought it was best that we stay home and well ask Aunt Lissy why we didn't go. We did however go out to eat, I asked him what he would like for dinner? He said he wanted to go out to eat :) My Mom would have said only your son Jenny :) And he didn't choose just any old place, nope not my child, he wanted Red Lobster! Ron thought I had put him up to it but believe it or not he does like Red Lobster. They sang HAPPY BIRTHDAY to him, to which he just giggled. We came home, he opened up his presents and we ate his cupcakes that he picked out today all by himself at the grocery store :)

We plan on having a Birthday Party for him at our local pool later in July...we hope to see everyone there :)

Love & HUGS,

Jenny, Ron, Ryan, & Luke :)

Bonding is ohhh so sweet :)

I didn't realize it had been a week since we last posted :/ Obviously, life here at the Grabowski household has been a bit crazy but ohhh so worth it!
A day or two after our last post an amazing thing occurred with Luke. I know I keep on saying that word amazing but Luke is blossoming like a flower and I can't think of any other word that describes our feelings. I can't remember if I read about doing this or perhaps it was Dr. Farber's team who relayed these words of wisdom to me but it worked!!! Remember in the last post how I told everyone we were having difficulty with Luke and his afternoon naps? It's almost as if he wakes up extremely disoriented and doesn't know where he is...you feel so bad for him as he is crying his little eyes out. He cries for a good 30 to 45 minutes, it truly is heart wrenching!!! It was suggested to me that when Luke gets up from his nap that I automatically take him to a mirror, talk to him in a calming voice...such as I Love you Luke, Mama's here for you, etc., let him see himself in the mirror and Mama holding him close to me, kissing him, loving him. Well, it worked!!! I was just as astonished as everyone who is reading this right now :) He only cried for 20 minutes, which is about what we our at right now. I just keep thinking "baby steps" everything happens in "baby steps". It's like watching magic, honestly it is!!!
I also want to say we are having eating issues with Luke. Not that huge but probably worth mentioning. When we first received custody of him, after court, we noticed this child is a big eater...then again we are basing everything on Ryan and Ryan is not a typical eater, I think there are some days when Ryan survives on air, honestly! He ate as much as Ron in Russia. When he came home he still ate as much as Ron, if not more at that point. I mentioned this to Dr. Farber (b/c as I've said we never truly had any of these issues with Ryan, if anything Ryan never eats enough) and she told me that once Luke feels comfortable in his surroundings on a daily basis and he knows that the food will always be there, we will see a change. Well, low and behold we have been seeing a change for about 5 days now, where he is starting to "actually" leave food on his highchair and giving us the sign of all-done. Again, I'm going to say it...amazing!!!
I believe that Ron, Ryan, Luke and myself are now into a routine. Which I think makes life a little more easy to live. Dr. Farber said to maintain structure, predictability and provide a routine...as much as possible. This is especially important the first six months to allow the child to learn to trust their new environment and of course their new parents.
Those first two weeks home were unpredictable, I will state that. We (especially me) went from caring for a 5 year old (Ryan) who is basically self-sufficient to an 18 month old, who came off the plane running!!! We tell everyone (jokingly, of course) that he doesn't crawl, he doesn't cruise, he doesn't even walk...he runs to get from point A to point Z and everywhere in between. A friend of mine told me that it's not as if we had 18 months with him to prepare for him running everywhere. I told her she was exactly correct in this statement! I've re-learned what it is like to care for a toddler again but yet he is still an infant in many, many ways. These past few weeks have been an eye-opening experience but like I've stated before "ohhh so worth it"!!!
It finally is starting to feel like he is ours. I've stated this to Ron and to friends of ours (Jesse and Jason) that it felt as if we were babysitting him at first, then again I have felt this way with Ryan too. It's just a surreal feeling is the point I'm trying so eloquently to get at. I do believe that other adoptive parents have felt this way...or at least I hope so :/ But unless you have been through the whole process of adoption, I think it's difficult to relate. I truly did not mean to offend anyone and if I did I'm sorry :(

Love & HUGS,
Jenny, Ron, Ryan & Luke :)