Thanks so much to everyone who celebrated Mia's birthday with us. We are very fortunate to have such thoughtful friends and family. And I think we can all agree that we are super fortunate to have such a bright little star enter our lives.

Yummy!

 

Mia officially turns 3!

 





















Mia celebrated her birthday with Blue's Clues this time around. Dora is so 2 weeks ago...

Mazlin's new one leg dance step

We've started this little after dinner tradition in our house. We move into the living room and dance to kiddie CDs for about an hour. We realized it is a sure way for the girls to sleep through the night because they are so worn out. And to be honest it wouldn't hurt Dennis and me to add a little activity to our aging skeletons. Dennis taught Mazlin how to dance on one foot. She loves doing it but falls about 98% of the time. It makes us laugh so hard because she just keeps getting up and trying it over and over and...

Mia's Puppet Show

What's in a name?

Anyone who followed the process of our 2nd adoption knows we did a little name switcharoo at the end of the process. The adoption of Mazlin was initiated through a dream I had one night. I woke up the next morning and told Dennis I had the strangest dream. We adopted our 2nd daughter but we were troubled by the fact her name was Pearl and we didn't know if we wanted to go through with it. We both laughed it off and that afternoon Dennis started in on his relentless pursuit of a bigger family. When we first started the paperwork Mazlin's name was Pearl McGrath. It had so much meaning to us based on the dream and it was set as far as we knew. It was hard for me to come to terms with the fact I just wasn't feeling the name Pearl but how could we change it when it has so much meaning to us? Then I read an article and saw the name Mazlin and fell in love immediately. I called Dennis and he loved it just as much. So, Pearl was gone and Mazlin was born! I later found out not many people were into the name Pearl and happy we were considering a name change. Not to mention the fact she is every bit a Maz Mataz as we affectionately call her.

A pregnant friend of mine looking through baby books called and asked, "Did you know that Mazie is Greek for Pearl?"

It all makes sense now and will be much easier to explain when she wants to know why we changed her name. The English version just wasn't good enough for our little princess. :)

Happy Birthday Mia

 


Dear Mia

This is your 3rd birthday! It seems like yesterday we were celebrating your 1st birthday. You are a joy beyond words to us and such a bright little star to have entered our lives.

xxxoo

Mommy + Daddy

Love the metallic gold shoes

 

Kaitlyn, Maz, Mia and the Dora head

 

Sweet pea

 

The hit of the party

 

















This is just wrong on so many levels.
1. Plastic
2. Plastic
3. Life-like Dora head
4. Plastic

Mazlin is ready for cake

 

Yes, it is my birthday. Do you have a problem with that?

 

Dora makes her 3rd appearance

We asked Mia what kind of cake she wanted and for the 3rd year in a row she wanted Dora. We are going to deduct Dora on our taxes this year. The is the 3rd year she has lived with us and we get no credit for her. Not fair.

Dreams of parenting: you just don't know what you don't know

When Dennis and I were planning to be parents we would sip our fluffy lattes and talk about how we would never let our children do the following:

1. Watch television
2. Play with anything plastic. It would be only handmade cool organic manual toys to provide the best landscape for learning
3. Eat sugar
4. Eat meat
5. Eat anything but organic food (no exceptions)
6. Be anything but little spiritual beings void of any organized religion and understand that life is this amazing place filled with love, love and more love

Now that Dennis and I are parents we embrace the following:

1. Television. Except we draw the line at Sopranos reruns. They’ve watched it once, what’s the use to waste valuable time watching it again?
2. They can play with anything as long as it doesn’t wake mommy and daddy up when they have had too much red wine the night before and stay away from the water if it has a plug.
3. They manage to get sugar when we are too tired to tell them no.
4. They do eat meat but only the kind of meat that is all different parts of the animal that way we can still consider them somewhat of vegetarians
5. Only organic when mommy and daddy make their quarterly bonuses since we are broke from giving them every gross large plastic structure that clutters our house allowing them to fulfill every ‘big person” fantasy they’ve ever had.
6. We signed Mia up for St. Roch preschool and were greeted by a huge poster of the Pope on our way in to register. In fact, I think he winked at me and asked for a $100.00 application fee. We are hoping maybe Jesus can instill at least one rule in their life and give them a time out on an annual basis.

Dateline NBC (the tables turn)

Anyone that knows me (REALLY knows me) understands what an addiction I have to reality shows, documentaries and a good exposé show of any kind. You should see my TIVO schedule and you would know. Ironically, Dateline will be doing just this on Sunday. Unfortunately, this is a subject that affects our family personally as well as many of our friends. It will cover the two sides of adoption in Guatemala. We will be watching this with a heavy heart. I'm sure it will bring to light things we really would rather not know but do exist. My heart aches for the children in Guatemala, the families that will never know the love we have experienced, the perception that could be created every time someone looks at our children and the worst...if anyone were to ever say anything to them. I'm very sad by the fact I am already feeling that magical process in a far away land will forever be tarnished in the eyes of everyone around us. I don't know anything about what will be exposed but I'm sure it won't be pretty. I think Kevin summed it up best.


So while this Dateline story will show the unfortunate dark side of Guatemalan adoptions, please realize that the overwhelming majority of cases were not that way. And PLEASE do not judge us or more importantly our children by the actions of a few people who deserve to be behind bars.
--Kevin Kreutner, WI (submitted on Jan. 14, 2008)

Far far away...

 


















in this magical little place called Guatemala, Dennis and I found the most amazing love in our daughters and the most amazing love in our friends that shared it with us.

Thanks for a wonderful weekend GuatSquaters

Our little trooper

 























Maz was such a trooper during the trip. She was pretty sick the day before we left. I took her to the doctor and they basically said everyone has it right now and try to make it as comfortable for her as possible but don't cancel your trip if the other parents don't mind. Well, with our group, we will only let you bail on the reunions if you have leprosy and even then I think we would still want you to come. Dennis and I split Maz duty to make sure that Mia was able to enjoy her time with her friends. We had a few sleepless nights but we tried to make it as comfortable for her as we could. We gave her lots of hot baths and she loves being wrapped in a towel. She is happy to be home and resting like a champ.

Shannon and the girls

 

Mia + Miles

 

Mia + Mommy's special day

 

Waiting for the trolly

 

Ready for the museum with my buddies

 

Relaxing before the cocktail hour

 

My how things change

Growing up, my family never went on vacations. Although, my dad did have this stellar station wagon that had two seats in the way way back that faced each other. Add an aunt or two that lived in the county (we were city folk) and you have yourself a 'Bono' family vacation.

Staying in touch

It seems like just yesterday we were preparing to say good-bye to Guatemala and each other. There is definitely something magical about the people you meet through your journey to adopt. We all left Guatemala on different days to fly to different cities with our new babies promising we would always stay in touch. I am confident we will be doing this for a very very long time.

The tale of Blah Blah's tail

 

Mazlin's tasty best buddy

 


Ever since Mazlin came home she has loved her little Blah Blah. It is her security and she refuses to sleep without him/her. Over the months Dennis and I have noticed Blah Blah's tail is getting shorter and shorter. Poor Blah Blah he is being consumed by the one that loves him/her most. If she starts to move on to the arms and legs we'll incorporate a separation period and feed her a little more.

GuatSquat 2008

We are off to Chicago this weekend! When we adopted Mia it was an added bonus the friendships that were created with other adopting families. We were all in Guatemala at the same time. The year we've added 3 new babies and one on the way. The group keeps getting bigger.

A monster is created

 



Mia has been telling us when she wakes up that she wants to go to the coffee shop and get a cow milk. When she starts ordering double shot lattes, I'll worry a little more. Here she is in her favorite spot.

Sherri and Jon Claude are in St. Louis

 

The Walton family lived across the hall from me in Cleveland many moons ago and we've stayed in touch through the years. They are the best! We don't see each other to talk very much but their friendship helped me a great deal through a transitional period in my life. It was great to see them. Sherri refused to let me take her picture (nothing new) so I did the best I could. We're hoping to see them again next weekend when we travel to Chicago.

Mazlin and Emma

 

Mia's First Birthday/Spa Party!

 

Mia's friend Emma has a birthday party where PJs were mandatory. She had a great time and came back with a cute little pedicure and manicure.