Cheri Kay in Haiti....where my life became meaningful.

This past week has been crazy--But AWESOME! The kids and I got to go to Michigan for the first Christmas EVER that the kids have had with the family and my first in 4 years! It was so nice to be home, see snow (although I am not a fan of it!), and to finally introduce my babies to the family traditions that I've known for most of my life! What a gift! The trip home was interesting! On the first flight, the kids got to go sit in the cockpit of the plane! They loved it! The pilots gave them wings and even let them touch buttons! Jaryse thought that was REALLY fun! They travelled so well! They are such troopers! We had 3 flights scheduled for our trip to Michigan, 2 layovers! We first flew from LA to Denver, and everything was nice and smooth! The trip from Denver to Chicago was also easy, until we landed in Chicago. When we de -boarded, we were told that our flight to Lansing was CANCELLED! UGH! They told me that they cold put us on stand-by for the rest of the evenin

The week is finally over!!!! Oh, bummer, and so is the weekend now!!!!! The kids finished school on Friday for the year! We are looking forward to 3 weeks with no homework!!! Well, I am at least looking forward to that!!! On Thursday, the school put on a Christmas program and the kids did so well. It was fun to watch all of the classes use spoken language and ASL (interpreters were used as needed!) I loved watching both of my little ones show how much they've learned! Jaryse (the little one with the white shirt on the very far right in the front row!) was super cute! This is a hearing class, and so they sung a song about snow flakes and they used Sign Language too. Half way through the song, Jaryse stopped doing the ASL signs and looked over at me and gave me the "I love you" sign! It was so cute and so heartwarming! Ecrissa did a great job as a reindeer in a skit about snowmen! She was too cute, as she walked up onto the stage and waved at the entire cr

Yesterday we celebrated 9 months home from Haiti. How did we do this you may ask????? By not even getting out of our jammies!!!!! The kids and I had a day at home just hanging out! We watched movies, painted some arts and crafts, read books, colored, I cleaned a little bit, we ate snacks, and just played! We also looked at pictures of the kids from when they were little babies! I am still amazed at their journey so far and how little they once were! They enjoy seeing themselves and hopefully as we do this every now and then it'll leave a nice open and safe place for them to talk about adoption and ask any questions they may have. I'm so blessed to be chosen to be their mommy and to be allowed to be a part of their lives. Needless to say, yesterday was wonderful. IT WAS AWESOME! I am so thankful for all that the Lord has blessed me with and continues to bless me every day!

So, please forgive the no sound, old school video...but here is a bit of my man punching the punching bag today! Unfortunately, my camera is very old, takes not so great pics, and has no sound on the video, but at least something is better than nothing right now!!!! Jaryse had fun punching this thing for over 25 minutes! His little giggles were just priceless!!!

And we are loving it!!!!! Granted, there is no snow here in Los Angeles, but our house is decorated, the kids are wearing their santa hats, stores everywhere have things up, houses are lit up with lights, radio stations are playing Christmas music, and this little family is just so excited to spend Christmas in MI with the family!!!!!! Every day I am thankful for every minute I get with my children ! They amaze me! I love love love watching their eyes gleam with all the newness of the States and with all that they are learning and experiencing! I'm so blessed by them! There's really nothing interesting to report, just weeks full of school, homework, family time, gymnastics time, ballet time, house cleaning, bike rides, park, hangin ' out with friends and somewhere in there we all sleep! Both kids are doing well in school. Jaryse is having issues with runny noses and coughing, they come and go and come and go! There is no other real symptom, just a little cough.

I'm super tired!!! LOL !!! We have been so busy....doing what......well.....basically when we are not in school, working, or at a doctors appointment, or ballet or gymnastics, or church, or doing homework we are hanging out!!! I have tried to make our "family time" more family and less computer!!! So, when the kids are watching a movie, so is Mommy. Mommy is not updating status on facebook , or updating the blog, or whatever, the computer is down and Mommy is hanging with the kids and all three hang out! That's been good for the three of us, but bad for keeping up with emails, blogs, pictures , etc!!! We had a very restful Thanksgiving! We did NOTHING!!!! I know, sorta un -American to not eat a turkey dinner, but, that's just fine by me! Jaryse wanted donuts, so we walked to the donut shop together and all got donuts for breakfast on Thanksgiving morning, then took a bike ride to the park in the afternoon. It was wonderful! We laid around on the couch, r

Life is about to get very interesting for this little princess! I am pleased to announce that we got to finally schedule the Cochlear Implant Surgery for Ecrissa !!!! After lots of tests to be sure that she is a medical candidate and has the potential to benefit from this surgery, it was scheduled for January 13 2010!!! YAY !!! I am happy, excited, and a bit nervous too! I know that this is going to be a trying time for all of us. She'll be going through some pain, lots of adjustments, lots of therapy, and all sorts of new experiences. I am so excited for her, yet I know that it's not going to be an easy road, especially at first! These two previous pictures were taken before her little ballet performance that she was so privileged to be a part of. SHE. LOVED. IT!!!! Her ballet group got to perform at the intermission of a ballroom dance competition and she had so much fun on stage performing in front of all those people! She is NOT shy!!!! She came out skipping, wav

Set forth from this day forward I will strive to .......................... NOT BE PERFECT. Yep, that's it. That's my new goal. I am going to strive to not be perfect. To stop living each day as if I can somehow be it all in all and doing all and knowing all and doing all and all the all's that I just can't do! I am tired of trying to be so perfect in my life, that I live in frustration that somehow I'm letting my perfectly wonderful children down. I want to leave my house a mess for a day so that I can sit on my son's bed and read stories with him and his sister----WITHOUT feeling guilty for it. I want to forget that there is laundry to do so that I can take the kids for a bike ride and NOT FEEL bad about leaving the laundry. I can't do both! So, when it comes to choosing, I'm choosing my kids AND no guilt. Usually I choose the kids PLUS guilt. I am going to stop multi-tasking (to the best of my ability) so that I can enjoy making dinner an

Yes, my little community workers went Trick-or-Treating!!!! In Haiti, we didn't celebrate Halloween or really even mention it. Since there is so much Voodou in that country, Halloween is not a holiday that I paid any attention too. Here in the States though, Halloween didn't feel evil to me. Not like I would feel during "all saints and all soul's day" in Haiti. So, the kids and I had a blast tonight! We went to my friends house and had dinner and then we did some trick or treating around their neighborhood. This was not only a first for the kids, but a first for me! I had never TAKEN kids trick or treating! I remember being a kid trick or treating, but I've never been on the "mommy" side of it! It was so fun! The smiles on their faces were AWESOME! I did notice a couple of things though. 1. When I went trick or treating in Michigan, we were FREEEEEEEZing and it seemed like it ALWAYS rained! Tonight here in LA was a perfect temperature

This morning, Jaryse and Ecrissa carved pumpkins for the first time. Ecrissa wasn't sure she liked touching that slimy inside stuff, but Jaryse had a blast! The pumpkin is wearing one of Mr. Potato Head's hats!!!! Good thing Mr. Potato Head doesn't mind sharing! We've had a restful couple of days. We skipped out on extra stuff this weekend and mostly just stayed home. We ran one errand that took less than an hour and took a short trip to the park. Other than that, we stayed at home. We've played dress up, painted, watched movies, colored, read books, carved pumpkins, and basically just laid around and did not a whole lot! It's been nice! I think we'll all be rested to tackle the week ahead of us!

This past week has been a week of reflection for me. After finally making it home from Haiti with my two amazing children, getting the kids enrolled in school, finding work, dealing with and finally coming to the end of the bulk of the doctors visits, and trying to make a schedule for the three of us that is looking at least similar from one week to the next.....sorta.....I have finally had a chance to think and reflect. What have I discovered? I'm not sure!!! I am still discovering feelings that I have had and haven't had the brain capacity to realize that I've had through all of this! It was 9 months ago today that we finally got the last signature that we needed and had been waiting for over 17 months to receive! At that point, without even processing my previous feelings of despair and depression, I was onto the highest level of elation possible to mankind!!! Then, we made it home and have had so much on our plate that I haven't even thought of me and my adjustmen

We are in the middle of a week full of amazing milestones for the Sessions family! Today is 7 months being home from Haiti, Wednesday is 6 months after moving to Los Angeles, 5 years ago yesterday I met my beautiful little girl, 5 years ago on Saturday I had met my little man! I am so blessed and I cherish each day that I have with my amazing children and I give all glory to the Lord above for his promises!!!!

We have had a week!!! It's been full of laughing, crying, cleaning, learning, growing, changing, loving and even a little bit of sleeping!!!!! Monday was a hard day. I woke up feeling crappy and I think that my mood rubbed off on my son because he had a pretty hard day at Kindergarten! When I asked him what happened and why he said to me "Momma, I just hit my limit with school today!" Poor thing!!!!! I couldn't help but laugh inside at how stinkin ' cute this kid is!!!!!! Ecrissa has been moved out of the Kindergarten/ Pre -Kindergarten class and into the 1st grade classroom! I have had mixed feelings about it, but in the end I think the new challenge is going to be great for her, plus this class only has 5 students in it, so the extra individual attention will be great!!! We have her IEP Meeting for school next week, so I am sure we'll make some nice forward progress with school and the services that she recieves at school next week! I'm exc

.....I am the world's worst blogger! I have two very amazing superstars that keep me one busy Momma!!!! Things have been pretty good! This week, the kids finished their third week of school. Both kids are doing really really well. They are learning a lot and I can see it every day! Each day they both come home telling me things they've learned or signs that they've learned or something! It's amazing to me! I don't remember making this much progress each and every day!!!! Both kids are very good about doing their homework each night and have been really good about the nighttime routine and getting ready in the morning! I am so blessed with 2 amazing children! Wednesday was Jaryse's 5 th birthday! First, I can't believe that he's 5 years old! Second, I can't believe we are finally celebrating his birthday in the states!!! WOW!!! So, we had a small celebration in his class with cupcakes, a crown and the singing of "Happy Birthday&qu

One half of a year ago today these three people were loading a plane to leave Port au Prince Haiti for the first time as a family. They had been a family for over 4.5 years with a bond of love and a determination to make the best of every minute. Jaryse and Ecrissa became US citizens and this was the beginning of some amazing new opportunities! Jaryse is a new Kindergartner with UNLIMITED opportunities in front of him! He loved his first three days at school and I can already see how much he has learned and will be learning! He has also been given the opportunity to start gymnastics (through a wonderful donation by the gym) and HE LOVES IT! His coach told me last week that he is very talented and has good strength. His face lights up when it's his day and time for gymnastics class. Ecrissa has had so many tests and there are still so many unanswered questions, but she is truly an AMAZING little girl. She has blossomed here in the States growing over 4 inches in th