The 5 McGills

Cat Mouth

2008-08-31T06:50:00.010-04:00

Well, we made it almost 6 years without having to take a child to the emergency room. When Tim first started daycare we thought, "Great - it's right next to the children's hospital so it won't take too long to get him there". At 2 he had never met a chair, pile of dirt, curb, or anything else that he didn't like to jump off so we were sure that it was just a matter of time until he tried to do a superman off the top of the futon at school. We were partially right.

As it turns out, Matt likes to jump even more than Tim and as much as we can piece together, he jumped off the stairs into the basement while holding a foam bat in his hand. When mouth met bat it pushed one of his front teeth up into his gum and turned it 90 degrees. The big kids were great - getting him tissues to stem the flow of blood and coming to get me. Then we all made our first trip to the ER. As it turns out, there is nothing to be done for these situations. We wait and hope the tooth descends again and turns around, which, apparently, there is a good chance it will do. Then we take him to the dentist some time in the next couple of weeks to get x-rays and make sure he didn't damage the jaw.

Before . . . .

and after.

Matt always had such a beautiful smile and the most perfect teeth of all the kids. When he looked in the mirror after we returned home he pointed at his mouth and said "Cat mouth". I don't know if it looks like a cat, but it's definitely NOT attractive!

And, undeterred by the events of the day, he jumped off the steps into the basement, AGAIN, as soon as we got home. Later in the afternoon he was fooling around on the steps to the second floor, doing headstands on the sofa (!!! - a new trick even for him). To cap off the day, we got a call from the babysitter as we were on our way home from dinner last night - Matt was trying to slide headfirst off the sofa (as he loves to do) and banged his mouth on the floor and it started to bleed! You know, he really is a bright kid, but sometimes he really makes you wonder!

1st Trip to the Beach

2008-08-26T12:20:00.008-04:00

Prior to the start of school we took a family vacation to Ocean City, NJ August 15-18.

This was Hope's and Matt's first trip to the shore. Hope loved it and was quite proud of the fact that after she got used to the waves hitting her legs, she found her balance and could stand all by herself on her flat feet and not fall down.

Matt loved playing in the "sandpit", but didn't like the water because "the sharks are going to eat me".

Tim saved his allowance money to buy himself a boogie board (his first purchase with his own money) and had a great time riding it (as did mom).

Getting ready for a surrey ride on the boardwalk. Mom and Dad will be glad when someone else has long enough legs to help pedal!

1st Day of School

2008-08-26T06:21:00.009-04:00

August 25 was the first day of school here. Hope started first grade and was happy to have gotten the teacher she was hoping for. She has several friends in her class and was quite proud to tell us that she did not have to use the paper the teacher gave her with her cafeteria pin code on it because she had memorized the new 6 digit code (last year's code was only 4 numbers). Tim had orientation for Kindergarten and was so excited he decided to wear his uniform clothes even though orientation was only for 1 hour. The 26th is the first full day for everybody. Tim has changed his mind 3 times about which color combination of shirt and shorts he's going to wear and is very excited to have gym on his first full day. He's also a bit relieved that his caf pin code is on the back of his nametag that he has to wear for this week.

See how they've grown! I didn't realize until I compared the 2 pictures just how much Tim had grown this year and how much Hope and Matt have matured. (top, 2008; bottom, 2007)

Happy 2nd Family Day, Matt!

2008-07-24T17:24:00.005-04:00

2 years ago today we went to court to finalize Matt's adoption. The time has sure gone fast and Matt has sure gotten big!

Matt - June 2008 (wearing Tim's Thomas hat from Kazakhstan)

Matt - July 2006 (wearing the baby Thomas hat we bought in Kazakhstan)

Happy 7th Birthday Hope!

2008-02-02T21:40:00.000-05:00

Hope's 7th birthday was December 30. Yes, we're a little late with her blog update. Between parties, sports, scouts, homework, etc, etc, blog updates seem to fall to the bottom of the to-do list lately.

We had a small family "party" Christmas day. As you can see, Hope still like's princesses.

She enjoys opening gifts with the family.

"Oooh, I love it!"

On January 5 Hope had her first kids' party. About half her kindergarten class was able to attend. She had such a good time that she must have come up to us a dozen times to tell us how much she liked her party, from her princess castle cake, to running around Bette's Family Fun Center with her friends, to having them sing Happy Birthday to her.

It was great to see her interacting with her classmates. We're so used to seeing the boys with their friends when we pick them up from daycare and with Tim we've really watched them all grow up together and seen their relationships evolve. It's very different with Hope. Very few of her classmates are in aftercare with her so we really don't get to see her interact with her peer group much.

It was amazing to watch her take charge, from playing the gracious host, greeting all her friends and group hugging the girls they way only young girls can, rounding up her best buddies to climb the giant slide or go on her favorite moonbounce of the moment to handing out goody bags and thanking everyone for coming.

And of course, she had a great time opening all her gifts later that night.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2007-12-28T16:59:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

It was great (although noisy and chaotic) to finally enjoy Christmas at home with the kids. Here are a few pictures from our Christmas activities.

Finally a decent Christmas card photo taken on a frigid night at Dutch Wonderland.

Hope's and Matt's first visit with Santa (Hershey Park).

Matt and Hope decorate a (real) tree for the first time.

Hope puts her first ornament on the tree.

The kids were very proud of their beautiful tree.

Christmas Eve breakfast with Grandmom

Opening presents Christmas Eve with Nana and Pop

Santa came!

Matt is more interested in Tim's pirates than his own gifts.

Oh, this is mine?

Midway through opening gifts, the 2 big kids went around the house to see if baby Jesus was in the manger now. (We have a few - Mike's mom's, my granny's, a few others that baby Jesus doesn't come out of, and a new outdoor set from Nana and Pop.) As Tim explained to Hope when they were setting up the outside nativity, "On Christmas Eve Santa will bring baby Jesus and put him in the manger. Well, I don't know why Santa would bring baby Jesus, but I can't think of any other way for him to get here." So, for now, we are going with Santa puts baby Jesus in all our mangers when he delivers gifts.

The kids in their Christmas outfits with Nana and Pop

Happy 2nd Birthday, Matt!!

2007-12-01T08:57:00.001-05:00

Matt's Sponge Bob cake for the family "party" at Thanksgiving.

Hmmm, why is my cake on fire?

Hey, this cake is pretty good.

What do you mean I don't have to put the card back in the package when I'm done with it?

Sesame Street cake for his school party.

Apparently, turning 2 is very upsetting to Matt.

Happy 1st Family Day, Hope!

2007-11-30T08:08:00.000-05:00

November 27 was Hope's 1st Family Day. This last year has really flown by!

Thanksgiving 2006 - We hadn't gone to court yet so we visited Hope during the day and then when back to the apartment for our Thanksgiving "dinner".

Thanksgiving 2007 - How it's supposed to be.

Hope sitting between Nana and Pop enjoying her antipasto before the turkey and veggies that Pop and Nana made were on the table.

The kids doing some artwork in our apartment in Kaz, November 2006, and in our kitchen November 2007.

Kazakh Friends Old and New, So Much Catching Up to Do

2007-11-02T23:26:00.000-04:00

Here it is November and I still have pictures I wanted to share from May through the summer. So, here's the thumbnail recap of the kids' adventures for the last couple of months.

May
Hope's Kindgarten Celebration Night and Spring Concert

Tim's Pre-K Graduation

Tim and good buddy Jake

June
Matt's and Hope's Baptism

July
Zarena (who came home from Hope's group at the orphanage in 2004) - 1st thing they said when they looked at each other: "She looks like me!" It was great to finally meet Zarena and the rest of her family!

Zhailau with the Kazakh Aul at Geneva Point in New Hampshire

Hope and Tim enjoy their introduction to the dombra, the national instrument of Kazakhstan

August
Kaz Kids Gathering at the Hoffman-McFaddens

Kaz Kids Gathering at our HouseIt was great to reconnect with folks we already knew and to meet so many new friends that we only knew through email and internet. We're really looking forward to making this an annual event and connecting during the year some more. All but 3 kids in the picture are from Kaz.

Dutch Wonderland with Justin and Aunt Carolyn
Tim, Hope and Justin - the daredevil kids - couldn't get enough roller-coasters and whirling, spinning rides!

Kindergarten Orientation and First Day of Kindergarten for Hope
Despite having learned an amazing amount last year, we decided that Hope needed the opportunity to experience the entire year of kindergarten.

September
First Day of Kindergarten for Tim
Tim misses the cutoff for our district, but he is eligible for the Kindergarten class at daycare so he, too is in kindergarten this year (as a head start for his official Kindergarten year next year).

Everyone is doing great! They're into their school routines and we're back to soccer and swimming. After soccer ends we head straight into basketball. Hope and Tim are both very excited for basketball. They all really missed Daddy during the 3 weeks in August/September that he was in Spain. It was doubly exciting for them when he came home because 2 days later we left for a trip to Disney World so that Hope has the opportunity to go while she still has a passion for Princesses (and because Tim has already been 2 or 3 times!). The trip was great. Disney through the eyes of 3 young kids is even more fun. All the kids were real troopers going from early morning till late at night on very little sleep and yet still all very well behaved for the whole week. I'll post more pictures from that later.

Say Cheese

2007-10-31T19:37:00.000-04:00

Last week all the kids had picture day at their respective schools. Everyone looked so good I couldn't resist sharing the pictures.

Tim insisted on wearing his suit instead a more "business casual" outfit that I would have chosen so that meant having to find a dressy outfit that also matched Tim's suit for Matt. I was so happy to see that Matt fit into this outfit. It was handed down from my former nursery school teacher from her grandkids and Tim wore it for Christmas a few years ago. Hopefully at least one of them will put their own kids in it some day.

Hope flashes her sparkling smile to go along with her new sparkling red dress and gold princess shoes.

Happy Halloween

2007-10-31T18:32:00.000-04:00

Trick or Treat!

The gang just came back to unload their first bag of candy - what a pile of loot already and they've only done 2 streets. Tim, of course is an old pro at the Halloween thing, but Hope and Matt have definitely embraced the concept and both have mastered the art of an enthusiast "Trick or Treat!"

The kids are very proud of how they helped decorate the yard for fall.

Hope with
"Princess Pumpkin" that she decorated for the school decorating contest.

Matt enjoying the Fall Festival at school.

Hope and Tim
collaborate on the decoration of a Halloween gingerbread house for a Saturday afternoon craft project.

The proud artists

Happy 5th Birthday Tim

2007-10-21T20:11:00.000-04:00

Tim's 5th birthday was September 29, but as you can see, I'm a little behind in my posts. Below are a few pictures from the kids' party and the family party.

His party theme was the Disney channel movie, "High School Musical", a very popular movie among his former Pre-K classmates, so he had a red and white "Wildcats" basketball cake. It's nice having such a big yard now. We were able to get a much larger moonbounce this year for more bouncing fun. All 22 kids seemed to have a good time. The next couple of pictures show most of the kids at the party in a group photo attempt and singing Happy Birthday to Tim while Dad tried to keep the candles from blowing out.

Later that night, Tim had a great time opening the many nice gifts from his friends.

The next day, we had a small family party for Tim and Dad (the 29th is also his birthday) with Nana and Pop, Aunt MaryAnn & Uncle John, John & Karen.

I Want to Be Pretty Long Time

2007-09-17T05:47:00.000-04:00

Well, she finally did it. Hope cut her hair! Funny thing is, after wishing for so long she'd cut it, I tried to talk her out of cutting her hair. She'd been joking about it for quite a while and every time she had some tangles in the bottom she'd say she was going to cut it, but the last couple of days she seriously kept asking when she could cut her hair to her shoulders. So, yesterday it was off to Super Cuts. She smiled the whole time she got it cut and has been looking at herself in the mirror, swinging her hair around and saying how cute her hair is and how she's going to show it to all her friends. Her reason for cutting it? Vanity! And I quote, "End of the day my hair all messed up. I want to be pretty long time. I'm going to cut my hair shoulders." Yup - she's still a princess!

December 2006

September 2007

On Friday, Hope also got a brace for her left leg. Here she is showing off her American flag brace. Looks lovely with the pink and purple butterflies and flowers on her right leg, doesn't it? She's definitely go her own style!

The boys thought they were quite a pair swapping hats!

The whole gang together.

Happy 1st Family Day, Matt!

2007-07-29T20:53:00.000-04:00

July 27 was Matt's 1st Family Day. It's hard to believe that we've been blessed to have him in our family for a whole year! He's changed so much since last July. He was a quiet, still, tiny, skinny little guy when we met him. Well, not anymore! He's the noisiest, loudest one in the family. He's ALWAYS on the go, especially if it means chasing after big brother Tim. He climbs anything and everything. Once he started on table food, he also started out-eating all the kids so he's gone from 20-25% in height to 80%. Here are some then and now pictures. (You can click on the pictures to make them larger.)

Our 2nd day with Matt,
July 1, 2006

July 29, 2007

4th of July, 2006

4th of July, 2007

Feeding Matt at the Baby House
July 2006

Matt feeding himself his ice cream cake
July 29, 2007

Wondering what Family Day is? Many people also refer to this as Gotcha Day - the day we, as adoptive parents, "got" our kids. For us, Gotcha sounds like we took possession of him, like a new car or something . So, we prefer to celebrate it as Family Day - the day we all became a family.

New Hampshire
July 28, 2007

Soccer Stars

2007-05-08T21:44:00.000-04:00

Hope and Tim started playing soccer in April so we now have lots of free entertainment for 2/3 of the day on Saturdays. Hope has come a long way since her first game. She's playing in the under 6 league and still is smaller and slower than most of the kids on her team. The first game left her in tears on the field because she was tired after about 5 minutes and didn't know she could tell the coach that she wanted a break. Since then, she knows that she can come off the field whenever she wants so she's all smiles. She's really starting to "get" the game more. Last week she was actually trying to position herself where she could see the ball when the other goalie was throwing and managed to get it out of a pile of kids and kick it out so one of her teammates could get it. The pictures of Hope are from her first game with her new pink ball and a more recent game where she's making a valient effort to keep up with the other kids.

Tim is playing in the 4 year old league and I'm coaching. How did that happen, you ask? Because when the roster came out they had no coach so I volunteered. The goals of 4 year old soccer are not really soccer related - at least on my team. My goals for the season - have all the kids play without crying and get the kids to run after the ball instead of standing in the middle of the field. I think Tim's only goal is to score lots of goals every game. We're making strides on all fronts. The pictures of Tim are one of him on a breakaway and a couple mixing it up with the other team.

Tim and Hope have been practicing in the back yard and Matt has been trying to get in on the action, but it's tough when you're the little guy.

In case you're wondering what all the construction debris is in the background of the backyard soccer picture, that's our old deck. Dad came down this week to replace our old splintered deck before Hope's and Matt's Baptism on June 10. The new deck is beautiful and the kids had a great time with Pop.

The last picture is from the Luau Party at Hope's school. Don't they look cute?

Easter in CT

2007-04-13T10:20:00.000-04:00

Finally, a holiday with the kids that we could enjoy as it should be - with family and friends. We spent Easter in CT with Debbie's parents. It was great. We didn't arrive at their house until late Friday, around 11 PM. Tim and Hope were so excited to be going to Nana and Pop's that neither slept much on the way there so it was not a very quiet ride up since all of our kids are talkers. We all went to to bed after midnight and still at 5:45 AM Tim crawled into bed with my parents - I'm sure to play rather than sleep. Even Hope was up at a reasonable hour after having gone to bed so late. The kids hung out and played with Nana and Pop all day, even having a picnic on their bed after Mike and I fell asleep in the family room where all the toys were. They all had a good time dying Easter eggs. Even Matt did a great job with help from Pop to keep the bowl of dye on the table. Apparently he didn't care for the taste of the dye though.

The other reason for Tim's excitement, as if seeing Pop isn't reason enough, was that he was going to see his friend Justin on this trip, too. They've been wanting to get together, but it doesn't happen too much when you live over 200 miles away and you spend part of your year on the other side of the world. After their initial "I'm being shy and not going to talk to you phase" they had a good time together and were reasonably well-behaved in the pizza place.

Easter morning was filled with egg and basket hunting and church. Hope and Matt discovered that if you go to Nana's there's always lots of good food so they munched away and then sat down for a nice family dinner. They got to meet Uncle Skip, Uncle Bob and Eu. They learned that if Uncle Bob is at dinner all the grown-ups laugh and even if you don't understand why you laugh too. Not to leave out the kiddies, he also taught them important tricks from my youth, like how to put your finger through the flame of a candle. No, we didn't let them try it, but they were fascinated nevertheless.

A motley looking crew on Easter morning

The piano player, The Diva, The Superhero in training

We headed back to DE Monday morning, much to the disappointment of the kids, and stopped in PA on the way home to visit Grandmom. Tim and Hope tried to impress her with their counting ability by reading all the hymn numbers up to 102 (several times) in the Sunday missal that was on the the table. Matt smiled and waved and danced for everyone.

We hope you all had a nice holiday and are enjoying the beginning of Spring. Spring for us means the beginning of organized sports for Tim and Hope so that will end this post since it's almost time for their first soccer games. More updates on that later.