Scavenger hunt through the cameras

I am soooo far behind on updating our family blog with what has been going on.  Here are a few updates based on pictures I found in our cameras!

June 17th was my last day reporting to the office.  Justin hosted a happy hour with some of our friends that evening.  It was our first date night since March and it was a blast.  He also surprised me with gorgeous flowers and a cute cake that read "To new beginnings...Love, Your family!"

I found a couple of pictures from Brady's fine arts night at school.  This was the night before we left for Russia.

On June 17th Blake lost his very first tooth. He was happy to show anyone and everyone (multiple times!).

On Father's Day, we had a fun day at Spring Lake.  Boston had fun in Mr. T's stroller (yes the stroller belongs to my aunt's dog!) lol

On June 24th, Madison attended Lamoine Christian Camp for the first time. She stayed for one night and had a great time.  She met some new friends and hopes to keep in touch with them.

Boston LOVES putting on other people's shoes still!

And the remaining pictures are from the Underwood Family Reunion weekend June 18th and 19th.

 Blake chose pickles over cake!

 Minute to Win It games are so much fun!

 Even Sabaka got to come along for the fun!

 Counsins are so much fun!

ANOTHER addition to the family

Yesterday was Justin and my 13th year wedding anniversary (19 years together). Both of us worked all day but we did line up a surprise for the family that evening. We had been promising Madison that we would get a puppy after we returned from Russia – then it was after dad got done with planting – and then it was after school got out. She finally had enough of our stalling tactics. She was set on getting a German Sheppard. She wanted either a purebred or a mix it didn’t matter. We all agreed that we were not going to spend a whole lot of money on a purebred puppy as the most loyal dogs Justin and I have ever had have been mutts. The kids have never had a puppy. Annie came to us at the age of about 2 years. On Sunday evening, Madison was hounding us again about the dog so Justin thought he was going to send her on a wild goose chase and had her look at the pet listings on Macomb.com. Wouldn’t you know it?!?! There was an ad for purebred German Sheppard puppies in a neighboring town that turned 6 weeks old on the 5th and were able to be released on the 6th (yesterday – our anniversary!). We called the number listed and left a message. I warned Madison that because they are purebred that either there may not be any puppies left OR they may cost a lot of money and we wouldn’t get one so she shouldn’t get her hopes up.

Well as you can see they DID have puppies left. They are purebred German Sheppards but they are not registered and didn’t have papers (which was perfect because we didn’t care about that and they weren’t outrageously expensive). The entire litter was males. Two were all black and the remaining 4 were black and tan.

Presenting: Sabaka ‘Curious’ Overstreet

(Sabaka is the Russian word for dog and Curious was Madison’s first choice for a name)

Born: April 24th, 2011

Adopted: June 6th, 2011

Annie has really taken to Sabaka pretty well so far.  She let him eat from her food bowl and played with her for a bit before losing interest!

Easter 2011

Boston's First Easter; Blake's Second Easter; of course Madison's 8th and Brady's 10th :o)

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!