April 16

On April 16, 2009 – just two years ago – Justin and I were in court in Vladivostok, Russia. After a 30 minute or less hearing, the judged granted our petition to be the parents of Blake David Overstreet. He has been a great blessing to our family. One thing that he has wanted for quite some time is to be a big brother. He wants to be big big he tells us. Well today, I sit in Moscow with his little brother Boston waiting to bring him home and make Blake’s wish come true. You will be a great big brother Blakey! We love you so much.

Here are just a few things these brothers have in common so far...

The have seen the Sea of Japan and been on the bay!

Their first every happy meal was eaten in Moscow, Russia (too bad it is a horrible picture of Boston!) 

They have both touched the duck monument that Barbara Bush sent to Russia honoring the book "Make Way for Ducklings" 

2 year post placement

It is hard to believe that tomorrow we will be doing Blake’s two year post placement report. On one hand it seems as though he has been with us forever and on the other hand it seems like just yesterday we were meeting him for the first time. He is such a joy to be around. He never stops smiling unless he is fake pouting which lasts for about 30 seconds. He is still skinny as can be, but he is getting taller. He loves to eat healthy food like fruits, vegetables, and salads. He isn’t a big fan of anything of fried. But his favorite thing ever is chocolate! He could be classified as a chocoholic.

His biggest goal in life is to be big. He wants to be big like his daddy. Going with Justin in his truck is one of his favorite things to do. He loves to help all of us. If he can be helping others he is happy as can be. He will start kindergarten in the fall. We feel there are still some delays that he is working through. He is in speech therapy and he has come a long way. Anything concrete, like tying shoes, sorting, building, working with his hands, he excels at. His attention to detail is impressive. We do see him struggling with things that are more abstract. Letter/sound associations for example just don’t seem to click with him. There are several skills that we are working on that he doesn’t pick up on as quickly as we would expect. But I think that at some point something is going to ‘click’ and it will all fall in to place.

He speaks very little of Russia. Actually until a month or so ago he never really said anything about it. Now that we are talking everyday about going to get his little brother, I think there are some memories that are being stirred up. We had the following conversation last week and again this week.

Blake: Mom, I don’t want to go to Russia.

Me: Blake, you don’t have to go to Russia if you don’t want to go.

Blake: Not ever, I don’t want to go to Russia.

Me: Ok, buddy. You don’t ever have to go back if you don’t want to.

Blake: What about Boston?

Me: Daddy and I will go get Boston.

Blake: Will Boston have to go back?

Me: No, he will not have to go back if he doesn’t want to go back.

Blake: Good.

Me: Why don’t you want to go back to Russia?

Blake: Do you remember that bad teacher?

Me: No, buddy. I don’t remember a bad teacher. What do you remember?

Blake: Remember there was lots of yelling and I covered my ears?

Me: No, I don’t remember that. Do you want to talk about it some more.

Blake: Remember there was lots of yelling and I covered my ears?

Me: Nope. I wish I could remember for you. Do you remember anything else?

Blake: No. I just don’t want to go back.

Me: We love you so much and you never ever ever have to go back buddy.

We always want him to feel comfortable to share his stories with us. I just wish we knew more about the first 3.5 years of his life so we could help him fill in the gaps a bit. I can't imagine life without him in our family!

This weekend we are heading to Brady’s state swim meet. He is swimming the 50 freestyle portion of a medley relay. I hope to update pictures soon!

Contact me...

I want to clean up the readers list on this blog before we leave for Russia (hopefully sooner rather than later!!!!).  Within a month or so from being home we will stop blogging on The Overstreet Journey Continued and just continue our family blog here.  I can only have 100 readers added to the blog list so I wanted to delete any accounts that are no longer reading.  If you are seeing this message :o)  and would like to continue to read the blog just leave your first and last name in the comments below or email us at jnhoverstreet@yahoo.com

I will leave this message up for two weeks and then do the clean up (March 7th).

Thanks for checking in on us! 

Updates through Pictures

On Saturday, February 5th we celebrated Justin's mom's birthday (actual birthday is February 8th).  We met in Galesburg at the Packing House and had dinner with his family.  We love getting together with our families!  Justin's cousin made this awesome cake.  It not only looked great, but with the hazelnut cream filling it was delicious too!

Along the bottom of the cake, there was red, blue, and white edible poker chips.  Of course as soon as the first person ate a blue one, Brady, Sydney, and Maddie thought they needed to have one too!  Blake does not like to get dirty at all (he knows how to make his momma happy!) and he was only interested in eating the white ones! 

Right before leaving, Sydney opened her birthday gifts too.  Her birthday is February 10th.  Madison made her a scrapbook of fun pictures.  She sure loves her cousins!

On Sunday, February 13th, we celebrated my girlfriend's birthday!  She turned 11 on the 16th.  I can hardly believe she is that old!  She wasn't much for posing for pictures that day.... 

At Alexis' party, Brady was busy working his salesman skills.  He was taking orders for the B and T Wood Works business.  He better get busy filling orders!   

And I can't help but to share pictures of my precious niece - our lil princess Dani is adorable! 

And we got a great surprise from my grandma.  She makes a blanket for every grandchild.  She finished the one for our Little Guy and gave it to us on Sunday.  So sweet and so special!

And what good is a family blog, without documenting some of our more fun moments!  Here is Miss Madison after being woke up from the drive home on Sunday.  She was not feeling well and was not in a good mood.  And she was NOT interested in us speaking to her at that time!

And sticking with the hair theme, we just cannot decide on a hair cut that suites Blake well.  Right now his hair is growing out.  Many nights he will still rock himself back and forth in the middle of the night while his head is buried in his pillow.  When that happens this is the site we wake up to the next morning!  

And check out those muscles!  He was so proud of his basketball tattoo.  He thought we needed a picture! 

Blizzard 2011

We have really enjoyed the three snow days from school - especially since we didn't lose power during the storm. Below are a few pictures to help us remember what it was like. Justin spent at least 5 hours total moving snow so we could get to the bottom of our drive. He got the tractor stuck once. He thankfully got a path to the road just before the tractor ran out of fuel.

B & T Wood Works

Brady and his friend Tanner are starting a business.  They want to sell wooden trinkets made from anything Justin will let them get their hands on in his shop.  Brady has even come up with a business plan, a graph to show is profit margin, a directory with his and Tanner's cell phone numbers, etc...  They came up with the slogan "Where Wood Matters".  Today is our third snow day and Tanner is coming over so they can work on their inventory.  :o)

Eat Something Cute

My good friend Malloree says "You are what you eat so eat something cute!"  On our snow day yesterday, Madison decided to make cute lollipop cookies.