Road Trip to Florida and Alabama

Yes, summer is officially here and the Dierlam Crew has finished school, moved into a new house and taken a road trip to Florida AND Alabama. Phew...I'm tired just typing all of that. What a wonderful journey we're on!

Sarah arrived 2 weeks ago and my father came for a week to help take care of Sarah and more importantly, do what he does best, fix up our new house. We purchased a foreclosed house and it needed a lot of TLC. My father is great for projects like this. We had a long list and he managed to complete most of the list! What a blessing. He doesn't know that we've already started a new list for his next visit-ha!


After moving the big stuff in and cleaning up our old house, we shoved the rest of our "stuff" into the garage and loaded up the car for a road trip! We wanted to visit Scott's brother and family in Florida and also take a trip to Alabama to visit his parents. What fun this was! The brother and sister team in the backseat got along just like siblings do on a 14 hour car ride. Ahhh! Actually, I'm proud of them because they managed to play nicely and Sarah has really been a big help with Luke. She loves him more than she knows. :)





The Florida weather was almost unbearable and both kids were troopers while we spent the ENTIRE day at Sea World. It was fun to sit back and watch Luke as he took in this amazing place. I think that he had a permanent smile all day. Sarah loved riding the coasters and she's tall enough now for all of them. She'll be taller than me in no time. She even went on one of the coasters by herself-wow!

Our next stop was Alabama and time to relax at Nana and Papa's house. We took in a Biscuits ball game and Luke was given a bat from one of the players. He loved the game! On this visit, Sarah fell in love with fishing. She even caught 20 fish in one day. Luke's favorite part of the trip was riding in the convertible Corvette with his Papa. Each day Luke takes in more things and becomes closer to his family.

Watermelon and Swimming

We managed to find time to have a little fun this weekend in the middle of all of the packing to the new house. Luke was great with helping me pack and loved carrying small things up and down the stairs. He was a bit confused about which house is really his and would scream whenever I took something off of the wall. It will all sink in when we're finally moved at the new house. We still have 3 more weeks to go!

Luke had his first taste of watermelon and fell in LOVE! I think he would eat it until he was sick if I'd let him. He didn't care too much for eating it with a fork and loved smashing his face right in and getting every last bite. You can't help but laugh when he came up for air and his entire face was bright pink.



I also took him to the pool at Fort Belvoir for a much needed break. The sun was out and it was too hot to keep moving things. Luke has never been to a pool before and it was such a joy to sit back and watch him. He ran when he saw how big the pool was and loved watching the lifeguard clean out all of the yucky bugs. He is a bit of a daredevil and I had to watch him closely because he wanted to jump right in. The water was a little cold for mommy but, Luke loved every moment of it. He even slid down a cool polar bear slide they have and tried his best to doggy paddle. What fun we're going to have this summer when Sarah arrives!

Summer Already?

With Scott out of town for a few weeks, I had to think quick to keep Luke entertained all day. Dad is so good at playing with him on Sunday afternoons while mom finishes her school work...not today!

With the sun beating down and pollen covering the car, I thought, why not wash the car and the boy at the same time! Luke loves getting the hose out and it sounded like lots of fun. He was entertained for over 2 hours spraying everything in sight. I'm glad that we have good neighbors that don't mind the fact that Luke doesn't have very good aim yet. He ended up washing their cars as well. He also watered all of our bushes and tried to make the "flowers" come back to life. He actually just watered a pot with dirt in it but, I didn't tell him that. The best part was that I could actually talk on the phone with my friend from Germany with only a few interruptions.

After he became tired of all the work, Luke decided it was time to ride his bike. As soon as he saw the neighbor riding his scooter he came back to get his scooter and away he went. This boy never stops moving until bedtime.
Summer is almost here and I can't wait to see what Luke will be doing by then!

National Air and Space Museum

We had a great family trip to the Air Museum. Sarah loved having a chance to use her video making skills and explore the video camera. She's getting good at making her own movies. Luke really loves airplanes and is fascinated by each and every plane that flies over our house. He also loved taking a ride in the elavator to the control tower. He does such a great job with traveling and it's fun to see how excited he gets about the little things in life.

Easter Morning

It was so much fun seeing how excited Sarah was for the Easter Bunny. Can you believe that she still believes in all of this? Scott and I were a bit skeptical until she set up this elaborate spread for the bunny. Check out the photo above...she had to have all of the "floral" accents, along with a salad, and ice water. Too cute! She was also very excited for Luke. We tried to explain that he really didn't understand all of this and she didn't really listen to us. She got his basket ready and even put signs on them so the bunny wouldn't be confused.

She woke up first and wouldn't touch a thing until little brother was up. She ran upstairs to get him up and couldn't make him budge. Mom went to get him and he was sitting at the top of the stairs in a bit of confusion. When he heard that the Easter Bunny had come, he had a huge smile and plopped down the stairs. It was a great surprise for him and he didn't quite know what to do. Sarah helped open his eggs and he loved it all. In true "Luke Cleaning" fashion, he quickly cleaned up everything and put it all back into the basket. I've got to find a way to keep this good habit. Both kids had a bit of candy before Scott packed them both up for the long haul back to South Carolina. Mom stayed home to finish up report cards and enjoy one last day of break before work begins again tomorrow.

We are truly blessed and thankful for two wonderful children.

Adoption Video

Easter Fun

Our first Easter with Luke was lots of fun. He had no idea how to dye an egg or what the dye actually was. He wanted to drink it because it reminded him of dill pickles! He loves the smell of vinegar and it was funny watching him try to drink it. Scott helped out by showing him that it turns your finger the color of the dye. Sarah was also great with Luke and showed him how it all worked. The eggs turned out great and I love how dark the colors were. Next year we'll have to try a few different kits because it's nice to compare how they all work. Sarah had a Tatoo Kit and it didn't work at all. We all got messy and had some fun laughs. It will be different next year when Luke understands it all.

Luke's Week of "Firsts"

"FIRST DAY of SCHOOL"

Luke has been a busy little boy and he had many "firsts" over the past few weeks. I am amazed each and every day at how resilient he is. He has grown so much with his speech and he uses very few Russian words anymore. Just this week he has started saying "yes" and "no" and he repeats everything we're saying.

He started school and he loves it so much! What a blessing that is because he could have had difficulties with going with strangers for an entire day and he didn't. The teachers told us that he fit right in and it was like he'd been going there for the entire year. He loves to help and his specialty is cleaning up the tables and pushing the chairs in. He's slowly beginning to interact with other kids. Because of his limited language skills, it's been a little hard for him to make friends. This will come with time.

"FIRST TASTE of PANCAKES"

My favorite thing to do is just sit back and take the world in through his eyes. Today he heard a lawn mower and couldn't figure out what it was and where the noise was coming from. He went right out the front door to investigate. When he found the man with the mower he just laughed and couldn't believe that the grass was being cut with that loud machine.

He's still transitioning to our rules and wants to touch everything-at least 10-20 times! At least he's stopped flushing the toilet 10 times each time he goes. He also knows the remote controls are off limits and he tries very hard to touch them "accidentally" as he runs past them. The kitchen is almost too much for him to handle...the refrigerator light, the fire on the stove, the microwave that beeps. He loves it all and wants to know how it all works.

We have Sarah here this week and this will be a BIG first, meeting his sister! Hopefully it will run smoothly and we'll get through the growing pains of adding a new brother to the Dierlam family.


"FIRST CUPCAKE"


"FIRST TRIP TO THE HOSPITAL"

Snow Day with Dad

Luke had so much fun today with Scott. He had to go out right away with his pajamas on because he was so excited about the snow. It was nice having Scott home in the morning so he could go out and play in the snow with Luke. We are finding out that Luke loves to work hard. He helped Scott shovel the sidewalk in front of the house without any complaints. What a fun morning we had!

Luke's New Life

Luke is doing great and he seems to enjoy many of the things I do. He loves to clean and he asks me if he can vacuum every day. What a blessing that is for a mom! He's actually very good at it and he can vacuum our entire main floor. He's also fallen in love with dressing up as a doctor. I had him do this to prepare him for the many appointments that he has coming up. It was a success because his first appointment went well and he wasn't too afraid of the doctor. He smiled big and tried to use the stethoscope on the doctor. He's a strong little boy and I admire how much he's had to endure in the last 3 weeks.

He also loves to dance and listen to music. We went to Borders and I couldn't get him to leave the CD area. I think that he listened to each of the CD's in the players. We'll have to wait and see what kind of music he likes...right now he likes it all.

His English is coming along nicely. He can say many words in English now. He hasn't put words together yet and mostly uses one word to ask for something. Yesterday he did say, "Mama, blanket please" and I almost couldn't believe my ears. We're going to see BIG changes in the coming weeks.