Marty's take..and it was 2 years ago!!! (well in a few days!)

Hi everyone, as we are getting ready to go back to Korea for Olivia's little brother (really soon Hopefully) , I just realize how time flies by and how things are today.
November 30th 2009 we got the news about our amazing baby girl, 2 years later , the time for her to get a baby brother can't come soon enough..for her own good;-) let's just say that she is not taking all of Papa's good influence! a few pics of those early years!!!!

un clin d"oeuil (wink) for Grand Papa

 Good potty training ( as per Papa mentoring) (and yes this is a triathlete magazine! that she pick on her own!)

 Never too early to shoot some pucks!

 Just chillin!

 Afternoon Nap..Awesome

 Love rewards..I want more Medaille!

 GO PACKERS! now that's a SuperBowl Party

 LOVE Papa Newton Shoes! RUN RRUN RUN

 Let's get those candy out!

 Much easier to RUN!

 Hummmmmm carb load!

 Still carb loading!

 Recovery!

 Where is Olivia?

 Can you see the Giraffe?

 Men those marshmallow are awesome!

 Olivia is working with Papa

 Jump jump jump

 Silly sillly!

 Yep, that's my kind of car!

Good Mechanics! thank you Newtons!..

Sleeping papa Style!

 Open water Swim Training!

Dry land Swim practice!

Nothing New

I just wanted to have the historic date stamp on this blog. I know it's probably a bit silly, but hey, when the kids look back at this blog they can say it was cool. (well...maybe not, but I do).

Might as well share my newsworthy day today. :0P
Typical Friday at school. There was a Remembrance Day celebrations.
Picked up Miss O, who by the way is toilet trained - not even 2 1/2 months (but that's another blog).
We all went to Costco.
Came home and ate homemade pizza (yum!) - except for Olivia who ate at all the food vendors at Costco and tasted everything from chocolate to crackers to pasta. Sigh...I know it's our fault she didnt' have an appetite for dinner.
Then bath and dodo.

Aside:  Although it looks like a plain ordinary day - something very exciting happened to me during my lunch break.  As I was leaving the mall (because I had to buy my lunch today), I ran into Susie. Her lovely family just came back from Korea about a month ago with a little sister for Benjamin. Isabelle was just adorable!  Happy as can be, and babbling like crazy.  This surprise encounter came at a great time, when I was just at the height of my anxiousness about news about William. I was dying to hear travel news, wondering everyday everyhour how he was doing. I was worried about what I was missing, and how big he was going to be when he came home.  That all went away when I saw Isabelle. She was the cutest little thing - still unsteady on her feet, babbling, curious, and active. I'm sure she was still wearing her size 12 month clothing. hahahhaa.  It was just great to see someone home with their baby. It gave me some hope that we will be there soon. We will soon all be reunited.  It speared me into asking her tons of travel questions, adjustment issues etc.  I am excited again - rather than depressed that we didn't hear anything yet. It was news that I needed to have today.  It has made all the difference, and I know I can wait patiently (not too much more) for our travel call.

Always Choose a Good Book Before Sleep

So, tonight (the day after Halloween) was my turn to put Miss O to bed. Before we were going into the bed, she reached for her usual bedtime story suspects - "Hug", "Brown Bear, Brown Bear", "Mouse's Paint", and "I Went Walking".  Tonight, however I put another book in her hand. I took out Robert Munsch's "MORTIMER".

Good lord, that was a mistake.  First of all, I thought she might be too young to get it. I was wrong. If you don't know the story, it's about a boy who does not want to go to sleep. Instead he sings on the top of his lungs "CLANG, CLANG, RATTLE BING BANG, GOING TO MAKE MY NOISE ALL DAY....".  Olivia really got a kick out of it!  She enjoyed the fact that everyone kept going upstairs to tell him to be quiet, and as soon as they left he would sing louder.  Of course, when I read it I was changing my voice and intonation for the characters - which made it more interesting. So interesting, that we read it 5 times.  Sigh.  Finally I had enough and it was really really time to go to bed.

She decided to bring the book with her into bed and read it in the dark. Not a good sign.  I bargained her out of that, and we lay in the dark trying to sleep. All of a sudden, you hear "CLANG, CLANG, RATTLE BING BANG GOING TO MAKE MY NOISE ALL DAY!.....".  UGHHHHHHH!!!!!!
I literally had to tell her to stop and go to sleep 10 times.  Everytime she would get quieter but still sang it. Did I mention that I clap my thighs in rhythm as I read it?  Yup, she was copying that too.

In the end, I threatened her that I was going to sleep in another room because I was tired and wanted to go to bed.  She quieted down and then it was actually quite for about 2 minutes. Yay!  She got the message. Then she started whispering good night to everyone she could think of.  She knows ALOT of people.   Cute and she was calm.  Then the singing came out.  You would think they were lullaby sleepy songs. Nope.

* See the Little Bunnies - after that she proceeded to hop in the bed
*Five Little Monkeys
*Sur le Pont
*Danse Des Canards (Birdie Dance)

Are you kidding me??? Each song I stopped it 3 seconds in.  It was crazyyyy!
I read dozens of articles about putting your child to sleep, making the most of bedtime.  In those articles, I remember reading to do calming activities with you baby, to soothe them before going to sleep - read a book, no tickling, sing quiet songs.  Man...they didn't tell you specific stories to read to your toddler. So learn from my mistake everyone.  "Mortimer" is a childhood classic to be enjoyed over and over - but not before bed.

    Have you heard of this one?

Happy Halloween - Sigh, on a Monday Night.

Today started off on a rocky start. We woke up at 5:30 and she tossed and turned till 5:45am. This was going to be a longggg day.  However, even though we had an early start, she was in a good mood.  We got downstairs and had breakfast.  During breakfast I was trying to plan how to get these MONKEY pants on her, without having a freak out about changing. It started with "Happy Halloween, it's time to put your costume to show your friends!".  That didnt' do it.  "Let's show Miss Amelia your MONKEY costume!".  Nope.  "It's cold outside, you need to wear your pants or you can't eat your grapes.  Grapes are for the car." Well, it was sort of a bribe.  She put the leggings on first, then the monkey pants. I wasn't even going to put the top part of the costume.  I left it for school to deal with that one.  I did put the Uniqua costume in the bag, just in case she was going to pull a tantrum about this monkey costume.

At school, the Uniqua costume won. Much to Tita Melissa's dismay.  Olivia passed out her treats to her friends and had a great day at school.  Thanks for the pictures Miss Amelia!

I picked her up a little early from school because we had a neighbourhood "Little Tykes" party. It was a nice get together with the neighbourhood kiddies. We did a wardrobe change, and Miss O put on her monkey costume for the party and left it on for the evening part.  Woohoo!

We came home from the party and we did a couple of houses down the street with Olivia's BFF Nalina.  I came home to hand out candy, and Papa and O did a couple more houses.  When they arrived, Olivia's bag was full!  Not only with regular Halloween treats, but full sized chocolate bars. Who are these people?  It's great for us.  :0P
I think the real fun for Miss O was when she came home. First, another wardrobe change. I dread her wedding day, where she'll want to have 2 wedding dresses - one for the ceremony and the other for the reception. Sigh, she's such her father's daughter.  Anyways, she LOVED handing out the treats to the kids.  She brought out her bench and put it by the door and was calling out " EVERYBODY!!!!!  COME!!!!".  And when they came to the door, she asked "WANT SOME?" as she was putting treats in their bags.  Then preceded to say "BYE PEOPLES!" as they left. It was hilarious!

I have to say, even though it's a crazy holiday. She's loving it. She's making us laugh and enjoying it more.  Even though it fell on a Monday night, which means a very long week of over tiredness, it was pretty fun. We can't wait till next year when Olivia and William will be running down the street together.

Halloween Get Together 2011

Another year...another Halloween.  Sure enough, this year, because Olivia is just that much older, a little bit more wiser, and a little bit more aware of "Halloween", we ended up carving a pumpkin and decorated the house. Sigh. Yes, we know. Everyone knows about our anti-Halloween sentiments, but heck, we have a toddler that not only has 1 costume, but 2.  Which is funny, because Olivia is at this horrible stage of not wanting to wear anything. Getting her dressed has been somewhat a challenge this last month.  Now, I had to get her into a costume too!  But, we had to do a little bit more this year.

This Halloween, we had our 2nd annual Savard Halloween get together.  We had "big" Olivia, Matthew, Daniel, and baby Jacob over for pizza and junk Saturday night.  It was a blast. It always is.  We had kids all over the place eating junk and playing. Of course, we had to do our group picture WITH the costumes before anything else.  They were adorable.  I love this age!  Soon Olivia was sweating from her Uniqua costume, so that ended the costume parade. Off went the costume.  All in all it was another wonderful evening with great friends.  I love our get togethers. Irene said it perfectly.  She said it was so wonderful that the kids will be close and they have each other in the adoptive community. It really is like having family coming over and the cousins playing together. They kids had a great time, and they all slept really well that night. :0)

Costumes and treats.  This holiday can't be that bad.  :0P

William is 10 months today!

Happy 10 months baby boy!  I hope you received your gift from us. Know that you are constantly in our thoughts and hearts.  These days it's been hard to concentrate because we are anxiously waiting for the phone call to come and get you. Soon my love...soon.

Package #2 for William

Our second package to William is ready to be FedExed tomorrow.  Included in the box are more pictures of us (sigh...hope this helps). I laminated the pictures and put them on a teething ring so he can play with them.  I also put some onesies size 6-12 months. Hope they fit still. An ELMO DVD, heck why not.  Maybe he'll be just as hooked as Olivia was.  That'll help on the plane ride home, we have lots to watch.  Also, a special DVD we made of Olivia singing songs (Twinkle, Twinkle, and You are my Sunshine) and reading a story (Brown Bear, Brown Bear) for William.  We made an extra copy for Olivia's foster family so they can see how much she's grown.

We are hoping to get some news soon.  Hoping and praying. Meanwhile, as we wait we are in the midst of finishing his room. Little touches here and there. Almost there.

A Trip - Over the Border and Pumpkin Farm

Mother Nature was kind to us this weekend. A perfect long weekend for some quality family time.  Our weekend started across the border. We needed to do a Target run and get some things (well we didn't really need to go all that way, but we love road trips!).  We knew that this might not be the best trip for Olivia at this point - being stuck in the car, shopping etc - but we made the most of it.

All in all, it turned out great!  Olivia was super in the car. There was no one at Customs when we arrived and we headed straight to Watertown to Target and have dinner. From there we drove all the way to Syracuse and stayed in a lovely hotel.  This might actually be a highlight of the trip because we ended up getting a king-size bed, and Olivia got to sleep with Maman and Papa once again.  Lucky us!  :0)  In the morning, we had breakfast and headed to the outlets.  This was the long part of the day, but we made the most of it.  Olivia got to run around a bit in the stores and outside.  Every now and then we would stop and pay the 50 cents for the dinky rides.  She was having a blast.  The best part was the stroller rental. A great big yellow school bus (phew...because we forgot our stroller).  By the end of the day, she was done.  She slept for an hour and half as we drove back to Syracuse and then back to Watertown for dinner.  We thankfully made it home at a decent hour Saturday night, which meant another 2 full days left of our long weekend.

On Sunday...well...we were ALL exhausted.  It was a perfect day to do home stuff. A nice solid nap in the afternoon and a quality park outdoor time.  I don't think we could handle anything more.

Today, Thanksgiving Monday, we went to Saunders Farm. Our 3rd time this year, and the weather again today did not disappoint.  We did the play structures, jumping pillows, the cedar AND spiral mazes.  The great part of today was we did a wagon ride to the pumpkin patch, but we didn't stop and find our pumpkin this year, we decided to stay on the tractor wagon and wait.  Finally, this time around there were farm animals that we could pet and feed (something that was missing the other times we went).  Olivia had a blast!  It was hard to keep her up on the car ride home.  Now she's in bed, full from a awesome turkey dinner that Papa made tonight.  A perfect end to our Thanksgiving long weekend.


This is a picture of the CROWDS at Saunders today. I have never seen so many children at the farm before. It was very busy.

Where is Olivia and Papa?

We finally found the perfect pumpkin to take home.

This one was a bit too big. The rule was, if you can carry it, you can take it home.  Olivia decided to rest on it instead.  Maybe next year Olivia and William can haul a big one off the lot together.  :0)

Happy Thanksgiving 2011!

To all our family and friends we wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.  Thank you for gracing us with your love and support all these years it has meant a lot.  What would we do without you always supporting and strengthening us with your love and kindness.  It's amazing to reflect upon our circle of friends and family.  On this day, we celebrate you and all you have done for our family.

xooxx,
Martin, Melanie, Olivia, and William

WOOHOO DVD came!

Today a surprise came to us.  A DVD of William moving around, playing with his toys, walking with assistance.  Ugh...this is brutal. We are just hoping that this means travel will be soon.

It was a funny thing this morning, I was looking out the window and praying for a sunny day. It's been so cold and gloomly lately that I needed a bit of sun just to get through the day.  I found myself singing to myself "You are my sunshine", but changing my lyrics.  Seems appropriate to sing to him today to let him know we are thinking of him.

"You are my sunshine, our other sunshine

You make us happy, when clouds are gray ("grapes" as Olivia would sing)

You'll never know dear, how much we love you

Please let our baby Sunshine come our way."

"The other night dear, as I lay sleeping,

I dreamt I held you in my arms,

You'll never know dear, how much we love you

Please let our baby Sunshine come our way"

By the time I got to school today, the sun was peeping out.  :0)

Summer 2011

What a wonderful summer it was!  Great weather, great travels, and most of all wonderful news of baby brother William.  There was so much we did and saw, that I thought I would just add a montage of pictures of our summer vacation.

Package to William

With all the excitement of the referal and the process of getting things done legally, we finally sent out our package for baby William.  We tried to put different things than Olivia's package way back when, but there were the essentials.  This package was sent September 17th.

* Elmo musical book (because he's at the stage where bright lights and music catch his interest)
* 123 Canada  (Olivia got ABC Canada)
* His Build a bear with our voices (we tried to get Olivia's voice on there but she refused to perform). His name is Charles (a concession because Martin wanted the name Charles but I didn't)
* Some very cute outfits. 1 especially but that says "Little Brother".  :0)
* 2 disposable camera - don't know if they will use it.  Hope they are taking pictures digitally.
* A fabric book with our pictures in it.
*A box of "Canadian" chocolate - well, they are little Halloween chocolates but bars only sold in Canada (Smarties, Aero etc) for the foster family.

We are hoping to send him a DVD of us and Olivia so he can really see our faces and hear our voices.  Might also put an ELMO dvd in there to prep him for our flight back.  :0)
Our dear William - I would put the moon in the box for you if it meant you could come home sooner.  Missing you everyday.