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The Boylan's Ukraine Adoption JourneyApril 17 Amazing Transformations!The past four months have brought amazing transformations for Dima and Misha. Their increased confidence and security and sense of belonging are wonderful to see. Misha was able to start school (first grade) about 3 weeks ago - FINALLY! There was an unexpected opening at the school so we had one day's notice to come do all the paperwork to enroll Misha. Dima started school at the end of Jan. but Misha had been hanging out at home with us. At first, he was not happy to hear he would be going to school. But it took all of 30 minutes that first day for him to fall in love with school! That first day he rode the bus home. When he got off he talked NON-STOP about his day. His classmates have welcomed him and he has made lots of friends. On his first day he learned about swapping lunch items with other kids and so he was "in". He has already been to his first birthday party for a classmate.
Both boys are so incredibly smart. They are learning to read and write very quickly. Misha is very good at math also. He is catching up with his classmates. Misha also just started Cub Scouts and he looks very handsome in his uniform!
Sean and Dima are now in t-ball. It's so cute to watch the little guys out there not having a clue what to do! They enjoy it very much.
McKenna and Valerie are still in gymnastics and loving it. McKenna is excited to start kindergarten in the fall. She talks about it daily, as she now has two brothers in kindergarten.
My job of 10 years came to an end on April 1st. The company was sold. So now I am able to devote my time to God's Waiting Children. Of course, I work from home and usually have 2-3 kids here at all times!
I will try to upload some recent photos now.
Laurel March 20 Tooth Fairy Loves Us!If you ever want to see two very puzzled faces....try to explain the tooth fairy tradition to two boys that have only been speaking English for three months!!! They laughed so hard and looked at me like I'd lost my mind as I told them that she flys through the wall, will give Sean a kiss on the cheek, take his tooth and leave money under his pillow.
Sean had a loose tooth about two weeks ago. He became obsessed with trying to pull it out. Then enters Misha. Misha tells Sean that at the orphanage he used to tie a string around his tooth and pull it out. He assured Sean that it doesn't hurt much and will only bleed a little bit. So Sean asked Misha to help him. Well, this intrigued the other three kids, so all 5 kids spent hours in the bathroom throughout the day trying to pull out Sean's tooth. Misha got dental floss and wrapped it around Sean's tooth but it kept slipping off. They kept asking me to help, but all I did was laugh and take pictures of Sean with his mouth open and 4 kids trying to pull out his loose tooth! The tooth finally came out later in the day. (Sean got it out himself with no help from his siblings). At dinner, we tried to explain to Dima and Misha about the tooth fairy. As they were struggling to understand and laughing at the image of a lady flying through the wall into their room, Misha got up and pretended to run into the wall. He was immitating the tooth fairy on a failed entry!!! At this point, I figured they understood the tooth fairy story.
That night when we put the kids to bed, all three boys stayed awake for a couple of hours. They wanted to stay awake to see the tooth fairy! They were so wound up. They finally fell asleep and the tooth fairy visited. At 3 a.m. John and I woke up to lots of noise and commotion in the boys room. The lights were on and all 3 boys were up, chattering away, excitedly counting all the coins left under Sean's pillow. Misha and Dima were now believers! They actually saw the money left behind by this mysterious woman who can fly through a closed window. We tried to convince the boys that it was still the middle of the night and they needed to go back to sleep. Eventually, they did.
The next morning, I found Dima with dental floss wrapped around his tooth. He was trying to pull out his tooth so the tooth fairy will come visit him! He doesn't even have a loose tooth! Needless to say, we had to hide the dental floss but it was good for a laugh.
Well, if that wasn't enough, one week later Sean lost another tooth. This time Misha did actually pulled out the tooth with dental floss. Misha was so proud of his accomplishment and Sean was relieved to have the tooth out. The cute thing was, the next morning Sean gave Misha some of the money he received for pulling out his tooth. I thought that was so cute.
Guess what? Tonight, Sean's other front tooth is loose. He is obessed with wiggling it to get it out. He keeps asking Misha to help him but Misha isn't interested this time. Misha is more interested in wiggling his own teeth to find one that is loose. I hope the tooth fairy is saving her money because with 5 children all about the age where they loose teeth, she will go broke!
All kids are doing well. Dima's nose healed just fine. Dima is understanding everything now and talking more and more each day. He is still a bit harder to understand than Misha but we are so happy that he is now trying to talk English. He even talks to strangers! He went up to the counter at a Carl's Jr. to ask for more ketchup all by himself!
Next week, Misha starts Cub Scouts and Dima and Sean start t-ball. We are all looking forward to Easter. Misha remembers all Easter traditions from being here last year for hosting. He has already explained the whole drill to Dima so they are both excited to color eggs. I got matching dresses for the girls and matching shirts and shorts for the boys so I hope to get a good family pic on Easter.
The spring weather has been so enjoyable. It's been in the 60's and 70's for the past few weeks. The kids spend all day outside, which is nice. It tires them out! John made a race track in our front pasture for the kids. He has since mounded some dirt for them to jump over. All 5 kids spend hours a day down at the "track" on their bikes. It's great because they feel like they are going on a little adventure but we have full view of them out our front windows. They also spend plenty of time searching for and collecting worms. Dima is a good moth and butterfly catcher. He leaps in the air and catches anything that flys. The kids are enjoying spring and all the joys of being outdoors.
Dima and Misha got to meet their other grandparent this week! John's folks came down from Oregon. They also got to meet their Aunt Maryanne last week. There is still lots of family for them to meet. It's probably good that they didn't meet everyone at once, as that would have been overwhelming.
The new boys (Dima and Misha) are starting to play with the girls now. They originally had a natural dislike for girls and would not associate with them. Now, we catch them playing house or school or hospital with them. McKenna and Misha are getting especially close. It's very cute. Last week McKenna informed me that she was going to marry Misha. We had the talk about you not being able to marry a sibling! She'll understand someday. I viewed it as a good sign that the kids are bonding more and more each day.
Misha is starting to talk more about things in Ukraine. Now that he can speak English, he talks a lot! He is always comparing things here to how they are in Ukraine. We enjoy hearing his stories and encourage him to keep telling us things like that. Our friends who are hoping to adopt Misha's best friend at the orphanage received their travel date yesterday! Looks like Misha's friend will be here by the end of June or beginning of July. When I showed this to Misha on a calendar he started jumping up and down and asking if he could come over and swim or ride bikes with him. It will be a big celebration when he finally arrives.
That's about it for now. Thanks for checking in on us! Happy Easter and God Bless.
Laurel March 01 Misha turned 8!Well, it's official. We now have an 8-year-old in the house! Misha celebrated his first birthday in America in grand style. We had a big party with bounce house and all. He got a new bike for his "big" present. John said the look on his face when he saw his own bike was one of disbelief. For a little guy that had never ridden a bike before we brought him home right before Christmas, he sure is good! He does controlled skids and little jumps already. John made a bike racing track in our front pasture and all 5 kids spend hours a day out there running around it or racing on their bikes.
We also had our first trip to the urgent care this week. Dima broke his nose! Poor little guy looks like a prize fighter who lost a round. He and mommy were going to go on a bike ride. He got daddy's bike out of the garage and tripped as he was walking it up our front sidewalk. He landed face first on a rock. The rock won! He needed some stitches and we have a follow-up with an ENT surgeon on Monday morning. The injury has not slowed him down at all. He acts as if it does not hurt at all.
Dima is doing great in kindergarten. His English is coming along quickly now. Yesterday, all 5 kids were in the backyard playing tag. Dima came in to get a drink of water. One of the other kids opened the back door and hollered "Come on Dima, hurry!". Dima said is very plain English, "Just a minute! I'm coming." John and I looked at each other and laughed. Sometimes his English is perfect and other times we can barely understand what he's trying to say. He rolls his R's so much that is distorts his words. Misha is starting to talk to Dima in English sometimes! The other day, Misha said, "Dima, come here. I want to show you something outside". I was impressed. They still speak Russian to each other but we often hear English words thrown in there. It's like "Spanglish" but in Russian!
Misha's English is very clear and he is speaking full sentences. Actually, Misha tells us complete stories. He is starting to talk more about things in Ukraine also, which is interesting. There is still no room at our school for Misha so we are home-schooling him until August. He is, however, going to a 2-hour Russian reading and writing class every Wed. night. Our Russian neighbors pick him up and take him with them to the class. He has met a little boy in the class that he has befriended. It's good for him to have a friend other than his siblings!
Sean and Dima will start t-ball in March. They are excited about this.
Our 2-year Family Day celebration is coming up for our girls on March 14th. It feels like the girls have been home forever. It's hard to remember what life was like when we had just Sean. McKenna will start kindergarten in August and Valerie will go to preschool three mornings a week. Both girls are doing gymnastics and loving it. The girls are still very, very close to each other - like twins are. They play together constantly and stick up for each other, but also fight with each other. The girls are starting to play more with Dima and Misha now, especially McKenna. McKenna and Misha seem to be buddying up, which doesn't surprise me. Their personalities and talents are similar. Valerie is more like Sean and Dima. Valerie is getting so tall all of the sudden. She is very skinny and tall. McKenna is a bit more stalky, though she is still taller than Valerie by a smidge.
Well, that's the Boylan update for now.
Laurel February 02 Ukraine Hosting This SummerI am so excited! I have received all the photos and bios of the Ukraine orphans that will be coming to CA this summer for hosting. We also have a group coming to the KY/OH area this summer. The kids will be here June and July. If you know anyone interested in seeing the children's photos and info, please email me at laurel (at sign here) godswaitingchildren.com.
As most of you know, we hosted our son Misha last Easter.
All is going great on the home front also. Just wanted to get the word out there about these beautiful kids that are coming (mostly girls coming to CA) this summer. We must find sponsors and host families for them by the end of March in order to get their visas issued in time.
Laurel January 30 The Triple BunkI have done a lot of wood working projects and this one took the cake as the largest. I found the plans on the internet at www.BunkBedsUnlimited.com. This site has some great bed plans.
Anyone who has built cabinets or furniture has an appreciation for "good wood". You just cannot settle for your typical Home Depot or Lowes selections if you want to build something right. The wood I used is poplar, which was recommended by a neighbor of mine who runs a cabinet shop. The grain is not as tight oak but like oak it does not easily check (i.e. crack on the ends when bolting together). There are very few knots. I think I counted 2 knots out of the 206 board feet I purchased for the project. The grain and color of the wood was too nice to paint over, so I sprayed it with Verathane. I made quite a few modifications to the original plan to give each sleeping level the maximum amount of room. Anyone interested in the details on this project, just shoot Laurel an e-mail.
The boys really love this bed! My dad build one for my brothers and I when we were kids and we loved sleeping in ours as well. I guess you could say I am continuing the tradition.
John
P.S..Tagging onto John's post below about food......last night I made turkey burgers in buns with all the fixings. Dima and Misha were excited about getting "hamburgers" for dinner. All was going well until I burst out laughing when I saw Dima take a fork and stab it through the entire turkey burger, bread, tomatoes, lettuce and all, and ate the burger like it was on a skewer! He did not want to handle the burger or bun with his hands so he stabbed the whole thing, held it up and ate in circles until he had devoured the whole thing using his fork as a skewer. Oh well, whatever works. :-)
Laurel January 27 Eating HabitsWhen Laurel and the boys first arrived home, something that I had anticipated was two little boys with voracious appetites. We went through this when we brought the girls home – they gobble up fruits, vegetables, eggs and toast, yogurt, and various other “good” foods like they are going out of style. Misha and Dima’s breakfast “requests” for the first week home were two yogurts, three eggs, and toast with generous amounts of butter. If they had room in their stomachs, they requested a piece of fruit as well. I felt like a short-order cook with the requests I was getting each morning. Our girls jumped on the bandwagon and started eating eggs with toast, however, not at the same pace as the boys. It was incredible how many eggs we were going through in a week! Misha backed off after the first week, only requesting “toast and butter, Pop!” Dima continued at this pace for another two weeks! Neither boy liked dry cereal with milk, until one morning Dima asked for “cereal and milk”. I asked him, “Do you want eggs and toast.” He shook his head and in English said, “No thank you.” It surprised me. Here was this little boy eating a man-sized breakfast for three straight weeks and suddenly it all came to a halt.
We don’t know what it is, but like our daughter, McKenna, they love cherry tomatoes. Laurel bought two containers of them tonight – one for now and the other for tomorrow. The first container was eaten in a flash and the second one as well. Apples and pears are another favorite. They eat everything except for the stem which they proudly show me. Dima loves tangerines. He ate seven of them in one sitting!
Laurel mentioned that Dima requested pickles with peanut butter for breakfast while they were in Ukraine waiting on passports. I had yet to receive an unusual request until the other day I cut up some Hickory Farms smoked sausage and Dima wanted some with butter smeared on top! He gobbled it up like candy. My arteries would “scream” if I did such a thing, let alone the “rebellion” in my stomach.
All in all, it has been pretty easy to encourage “healthy eating” around our house!
John January 21 Stack 'em up!John's masterpiece is finished! He made triple bunk beds for the boys. Check out the new pics. I also posted photos of our Boylan monkeys climbing all the trees on our property. They LOVE climbing and these trees were meant to be climbed on!
Laurel January 19 Heaven sounds like fun!Today at lunch, McKenna announced to everyone that if she keeps her room clean and all of her toys put away from now until she dies, that all of her toys and her bed will go to heaven with her. She said she will live in Jesus' house for a long, long, time and every morning she can wake up and play with her toys. Then Sean explained to his sisters how when they die they will become angels and be able to fly. Then reality started hitting him and he got very concerned that they would not be able to see each other very often and that they would miss each other. I reassured him that once we all get to heaven we will be together everyday so no need to worry. I thought the whole unprompted conversation was very cute. It means they are trying to understand the concept of God and heaven!
Laurel January 18 Is that a school group?Now that we are taking the boys out a little more it's very funny to hear all the questions and comments we get from people. I guess we do look a little unusual with 5 children all piling out of car seats, all 5 being very close in size. Yesterday I was asked if they were quintuplets! I've also been asked if I run a day care. When we went the mall to visit Santa we were asked if we were a school group. Yesterday another mom at preschool smiled when she saw me with our two girls and said, "Don't you just wonder where their blonde hair came from?" (I am brunette). I said, "No, I don't wonder, I KNOW where it came from - Ukraine!" The funny thing is when people really stare at the kids they think Sean is the oldest (and he's in the middle) and that Dima and Misha are twins and they are 16 months apart. When we are in public, we make a "choo choo train" holding hands as we walk across the parking lot. We used to get stares and smiles from people with the three kids but with 5 now people stop and comment or ask questions. I can only imagine the attention you big families (like Christine) get!!!
Things are going extremely well now. Each day the (new) boys personalities are coming out more and more. Misha's guardedness is gone. He's silly and affectionate now. He is speaking 2-3 word sentences in English to us and I even hear him speaking some English to Dima! He understands almost everything we tell him without having to use hand signals anymore. Dima still benefits from hand signals. Dima is learning to trust us and this has made an amazing difference in his personality. He LOVES helping out around the house or yard. He also begs to run errands everytime one of us leaves. He is so spunky and curious and energetic. His smile makes you want to melt. He willingly takes the trash out to the dumpster, sweeps the floor, washes the table...anything I ask of him he does with delight. All the kids enjoy helping but Dima moreso.
We had a big milestone with Dima yesterday. For the past month that we've been home, I keep trying to get him to color or draw. He would just lay the pencil down and say no. He had no interest in it so I assumed he had never been shown how to hold a writing instrument. BAD ASSUMPTION. Yesterday I took Dima with me to volunteer in Sean's kindergarten class. Dima picked up crayons and drew a big picture like all the other kids did. He even copied a couple sentences off the board and wrote them very clearly on his paper. So he CAN write, he just didn't want to until yesterday! I am so happy about this. He won't be as far behind in school as I thought he would be. He is also starting to have an interest in learning his ABC's and numbers. Misha learned them the first week he was here but Dima was not interested. All of the sudden, Dima is showing an interest in learning and trying new things.
Speaking of trying new things.....both boys are now eating most of the same foods we eat. For the first few weeks we did not push anything on them and they freely rejected 90% of what we offered them. They lived on eggs, toast, yogurt, cucumbers, tomatos, and fruit. But now, they both want to try everything. It's great.
So there's the one-month home update!
Laurel
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