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May 26 What Imaginations!Boy, how time flies. I can't believe it's been a month and a half since I wrote the last update! We are all doing well and very ready for summer. Two more weeks of homework and then 3 months of playtime!!!
Speaking of playtime, the other day all 5 kids were playing so well together in the front yard. They made a pretend house, with landscaping and all. They took leaves and branches and covered a little Tykes toddler slide and playcenter that we have. They took rope and tied it around a tree and ran it to the "house". They hung leaves there also as the "garage". They took some play chains and made "Christmas lights" across the top of the house. They had little opening where they could enter and exit there little play house. They had a box as a mailbox. They even took a dead branch and "planted" it upright to look like a tree outside the front door of the little house. They were all so proud of their construction project.
A funny thing happened this week. The kids were in the pool swimming and the water was very cold. I was also filling the pool as they were swimming. I turned off the fill spout and Misha said, "Was that water coming into the pool warm water?" I said, no, it was cold but that the water being circulated by the filter was heated. I pointed to moving water across the pool and told him that was "heated". I was just kidding of course, as we have no heater in our pool and the water is still very cold. He went over to the other side of the pool and put is feet in the water where I had said the heater was. He said, "Oohhhhhhhh, nice and warm!" Within a minute, all 5 kids were sitting at that spot with their feet in the water telling me how "nice and warm" the water was!!!!! Wow, the power of suggestion. :-)
Misha and Dima are both doing very well in school. Misha is reading entry level books and doing math appropriate to his grade level. Dima now knows all the alphabet, their sounds, and is working on reading. Misha is sounding out words and doing a GREAT job at trying to write. We play a lot of "how do you spell ****" games around here! Dima and Sean will be graduating from kindergarten in two weeks, as Misha graduates from first grade. McKenna will be entereing kindergarten in August. She is very ready!!!
Next school year should be a tad easier on us as we will only have to go to the bus stop 3 times a day instead of 4 like this year. Next year we will have 1 preschooler, 1 kindergartner, 2 first graders, and 1 second grader. :-)
We are not yet used to the stares and comments we get when we are in public. I can only imagine the looks you people with large families get! I think people stare so much because all 5 kids are so very close in age. Typically, when families have a lot of kids, they are stair-stepped in height. All 5 of our kids look the same from a glance. People just smile and shake their heads. Of course we get asked "are they all yours?" all the time.
Our kids are still going through the adjustment phase in some ways. Sean, McKenna and Valerie are still closer to each other than to Dima and Misha. And, Dima and Misha tend to hang out together, outcasting the others at times, which is normal I suppose. The girls have been with us 2 years now, where Dima and Misha have only been here for 5 months.
We are getting very excited about all the Ukraine orphans coming for hosting this summer. We have 15 coming to KY/OH area and 33 coming to CA. We still need 8 more host families....so if you know anyone who is interested in hosting a child, please have them e-mail info (at sign) godswaitingchildren (dot) com.
That's it for now!
Blessings,
Laurel
April 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 January 12 Cute things they sayIt's so much fun to see Dima and Misha learning English so quickly. They pick up EVERYTHING that we say and we don't realize how silly we sound sometimes until we hear Dima or Misha say something we typically say! When I say "Hi" to Misha he will return the greeting with "Hi Sweetie!". He is not trying to be funny. I didn't realize it until now, but everytime I see one of our kids I say "Hi Sweetie" and so Misha thinks "Hi Sweetie" is something you say to everyone!!!!
Today in the car, Valerie was excited about a goodie bag she got at a party. She said, "I have candy in here!" and then McKenna said "Me, too!" and then Misha said "Me, three!" Again, he was not trying to be funny. He heard McKenna say "too" and Misha thought she was counting "two" so he added one!!! It was too cute.
Dima came up to John in the kitchen the other day and said, "Pop, Kitty Kitty yummy, yummy" That meant that the cat wanted something to eat. Today Dima walks up to me with an empty can of cat food and asked for the trash. I asked him where he got that can and he proudly showed me that he opened it and fed the cat himself!
Whenever Misha does something good, he turns to look at John or I with a big thumbs up and says "Cool!" Dima runs over to us and says "Give me 5".
The boys are doing a lot of half English, half Russian - even when they are talking amongst themselves. For example, all 5 of our kids now say "Eta mine!" (That is mine - but in Russian it's "eta mina".) They will ask "Mama, apple oulitza?" asking if they can take an apple outside. The first few weeks it was "yablaka oulitza" but now it's "apple". Misha will say things like "Mama, coat ziloanie?" asking for his green coat. So he says the "coat" in English but the color in Russian. Most of our conversations are like that with a little of both languages. It is fun.
Oh, and you should see the charades that the boys do to tell us a story. It is especially interesting when they are very excited or upset about something.
Yesterday, the lady who owns the horses we keep on our property came to take one of the horses in a hoarse trailer. I was inside and did not know the horse trailer had arrived. Dima came running in the house very upset and told me, "Mama, canashka (horse) bye, bye - vwoooom" and he pointed down the road the direction the horse trailer left. I then realized that the owner of the horses must have taken her horse. And, when my parents drove into the driveway yesterday, Dima came running into the house announcing "babushka, dadushka!" letting me know his "grandpa and grandma" were here.
Misha has learned the phrase "let me see" and when I ask him if he wants something he says "let me see". When he doesn't understand what I am offering him he wants to see it before he commits to wanting it!
They are such smart boys and they love to learn English. I amazed that they are not more frustrated with the language barrier. The language barrier has been almost non-existent because we always seem to understand them and they understand us. They will be speaking sentences before long.
Laurel
January 03 New pics addedI added some misc. pics from the past three weeks. We do have cute kids....even if I say so myself!!! We still need to scan and post the pics of the kids sitting on Santa. Enjoy! December 31 Happy New Year!!!Happy New Year from all 7 of us! God has truly blessed us in 2007! We are doing great. I'm sorry that I have not been able to keep up on e-mails since we got home. I will try to get caught up over the next two weeks but please know that we appreciate all the gifts, emails, cards, and phone calls. We owe MANY thank yous that will probably never get written!
We've been home for 2.5 weeks now. It's weird to think about the fact that we went from a family of 3 to a family of 7 in 1.8 years. The girls have been home 20 months now and Dima and Misha have been home 2 weeks!!! Misha is really trying to learn English. He regularly asks us how to say things in English, then he tells us how it is said in Russian. Dima is just now trying to say some words. He gets more confident every day. We are at the point where we only speak English to them (no more Russian commands) and they seem to understand us but speak back to us in Russian (and we usually understand them). It's so strange how children and their family can speak different languages but not have communication problems. It's all in God's plan.
The boys are sleeping well since we got home. No more nightmares or restless nights or fighing sleep. Dima's resistence to following our requests is almost completely gone. He is like a new child. He is eager to learn, wants to please, beems when he is praised, and has become a real snuggle bun. Misha's personality has changed also. He has developed a "happy dance" to his step. He gets excited and shows it now. He used to be so reserved and guarded. Misha will walk up behind us and put his arms around us as he walks by. Oh, so sweet for a guy who didn't like hugs or affection when he was here for hosting.
All 5 kids are getting along very well. The adjustment this time was not hard. Going from one to three kids was HARD. Going from three to five has been no problem. They play together well, and even fight like siblings occasionally. :-)
I had to return to work a few days after getting home but either John or I are here at home with the kids at all times. We've kept our holiday celebrations to a miminum and spent most of the time at home. We did take the boys to see Christmas lights and we visited Santa before Chirstmas. They were over-joyed on Christmas. They take such good care of their "own" toys. They always put them away and know where things are. We've had some great friends and family who have blessed us with gifts of pillows, blankets, towels, and clothes - all things we very much needed!!! Misha and Dima asked Santa for a remote control truck. Guess what Santa brought them? Santa even brought Daddy one so all 4 boys have races in the driveway.
We hope to be able to start Dima and Misha in school by the end of Jan. Dima will likely join Sean's kindergarten class and Misha will start in the first grade. The girls are still attending two mornings of preschool.
The past 2.5 weeks have been wonderful. It's great to be home with John and the kids and able to bond during this special time of year. I am slowly recovering from the long Ukraine journey and I'm feeling better and better everyday. Being away from home for 6.5 weeks does take a toll on you!
We will download and post some cute photos in the next couple of days so check back soon! We hope and pray that 2008 is a blessed year for you all.
Happy New Year!!!
Laurel December 21 Ukraine orphans coming this summer!Just a quick note to let you know that we have two groups of kids coming to the US for hosting this summer. They will arrive the last week in May and leave the last week in July. 15 children will be coming to KY and 20 children coming to CA. If you are interested in hosting or sponsoring a child (orphan) please send an email to info (at sign) godswaitingchildren (dot) com. I met most of the kids that will be coming while we were in Ukraine! They are fabulous kids and they are looking forward to enjoying a fun summer in the US.
Merry Christmas!
Laurel December 15 Home Sweet HomeIt's me.....Laurel (I think!). I'm still trying to figure out which end is up but I'm starting to feel more like myself again. Been home three days now. It's been a wonderful three days. The kids are all adjusting to our new family dynamics with minimal problems. I'm amazed how smoothly things are going now that we are home. I had some pretty major problems with Dima over the two weeks prior to our trip home. I did not blog about the problems but let me just say they involved a lot of screaming, kicking, crying, drooling, hitting, etc. The last day in Ukraine I was in tears wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. The trip home was very hard. The first flight was fine. No problems. But on the second flight, Misha and McKenna were angels but Dima was not. Everyone on the plane knew Dima by the time the 12.5 hour flight landed. We went from Kyiv to Paris (3.5 hours) then from Paris to LA (12.5 hours). It took almost 2.5 hours to go through all the immigration and customs paperwork before we could go meet John and kids. McKenna and Dima got into a big fight while we waited in line at immigration. I had two of them on the floor screaming. It was horrible but we survived.
The GREAT news is that the past three days have been amazing. Dima is a new child. Not once have we seen the screaming, hitting, or kicking tantrums. He is happy and cooperative. He acts very secure and is learning the family rules rather quickly. John has yet to see what I dealt with in Ukraine. I hope and pray those fits are behind him. Even his sleep issues are gone. He has gone to sleep easily all three nights and sleeps almost all night. When he wakes up about 4 am, he quietly reads a book (until we go lay with him, turn out the light, and tell him it's not moring yet). He is not waking up crying or moaning or kicking like he did for two weeks in Ukraine. He loves all of our animals and is very gentle with them.
Misha's personality is blossoming. He is getting more out-going and energetic each day. He is very secure here. Since he's been here before for hosting, he acts like he owns the place! The first day home, Misha showed Dima the ropes around here. Misha is attempting to speak English more and more each day. I'm so proud of him.
All in all, we are all doing great. Tomorrow is John's birthday and next week is Christmas. I have not one present for either occasion and I'm not even stressed about it! I'm so happy and relieved to finally be home together as a family that nothing else matters. John posted a few pics here of the boys decorating our tree and getting their haircut. All 4 boys look so handsome now!
Now here are a few blog entries that I wrote in Ukraine and from the plane that I was not able to post until now.......
12-10-07 Day 44 in Ukraine
I haven’t been able to blog for 4 days and I’ll probably be at home by the time I actually post this but I wanted to capture a few thoughts while they are fresh in my mind.
The car trip to Kyiv from Nikolaev was uneventful. We spent the first two nights with our missionary friends in Kyiv (in their small apt.). Since I’m here by myself with the kids I wanted to be near friends but we couldn’t find an available apt. until Sunday afternoon so we stayed in their living room the first two nights. We walked around the 3 mile parkway around the river and played in various parks. On Sunday we rode the marshuka to church. Dima and Misha stayed with McKenna in the children’s bible study area and did great without me while I went to the church service. Our friends here have been so gracious and helpful to us. I hope I can return the favor to them someday when they visit CA!
This apt. (which I found on my own – our facilitators never would have arranged it for us. I was trying to be near friends and save money!) is horrible. It reeks of cigarette smoke. It’s old and many things do not work, like the flush handle on the toilet. There is only one small hand towel in the entire apt. I’ve had to use that little towel as a pot holder, hand towel, and after-shower towel for all of us. Today, I purchased a bath-size towel to use tomorrow and will leave it with our friends here when we go home! We are on the 7th floor of a 17 story apt. building. The elevators are very nice (for a change). I’m actually riding in them. I’ve taken the stairs 99% of the time over past 6 weeks for fear of the small, old elevators breaking down or the power going out. We’ve gotten questioned both evenings by the security guard in the lobby. Last night, I got Misha to talk to the man in Russian and he charmed the guard. He had the guard laughing and he let us enter the elevator. The guard asked who I was. Misha said “Mina mama” (my mom). The guard then looked puzzled due the language barrier and asked Dima if he spoke English. Dima said no. Then he asked Misha if he spoke English. Misha said, “Yes, one, two, three, four…” and he counted to ten in English very proudly. The guard laughed hard at that one!
There are strings of beads hanging across each doorway in this apt. The kids think these are great, but I’m constantly having to correct them for pulling on them. There’s also glass vases and a glass coffee table here. Not exactly kid-proof!
Dima is starting to say some English words. He says, “Thank you very much” and “cookie please” and “Mama, coat please” and “shoes” and “hold hands”. Sunday night at dinner (we were at our friend’s apt. for dinner) Dima says “Mama, I love you” right in the middle of dinner! McKenna says this all day long (as does Sean) and Dima learned it from her. It was very sweet.
I am having major sleep issues with both boys, but Dima is the worst. It takes him anywhere from 1-3 hours to fall asleep. I can’t wait to get home where we can establish a regular routine of reading and baths and soft music at bedtime. We’ve done a lot of moving around in the past two weeks and Dima has had to sleep with either Misha or McKenna or me each night. He thrashes and cries at night. I have to wake him up so he’ll realize where he is and then he will relax. Last night was Misha’s turn to cry for an hour at bedtime. I just lay with the boys and rub their backs and sing to them trying to sooth them until they go to sleep. Our girls had horrible sleep issues so this is not new to us. But I must say, I’m very tired and grumpy due to the lack of sleep over the past two weeks.
Today was a hard but productive day. We got up at 5:30 a.m. and Kostya picked us up at 6:45. We went across town to the international medical clinic for the kids medical exams that are required by the US Embassy. We arrived their at 7:30 for an 8 am appointment. But we were not seen until after 10 so we waited in a chair in the hallway for 3 hours. The kids were so restless but they survived. The doctor who examined the boys was the same one who examined our girls in March of ’06.
We then went to the US Embassy and got the mountains of paperwork done there for the boys to get their visas to enter the US. You cannot take your facilitator into the Embassy with you. So I was alone there with the three kids, trying to concentrate on all the papers and procedures. An angel must have been following us because there was a Ukranian/American there who spoke to all 3 kids in both English and Russian. She entertained them for me while I completed the paperwork. Her and her hubby had been here in Ukraine for the past 2.5 months to adopt their son who they had there with them! I should not complain about the 6 weeks it took us to do this adoption! The new passport procedures are really adding time to the adoption trips now.
After a trip to McDonald’s drive through on the way home, we made the 3 mile walk around the river parkway again for exercise. We went shopping and walked home.
We should be able to pick up our visas tomorrow afternoon at 2 and come home on Wed. This part of the journey is almost over and I’m sure ready to get on with the next chapter!!! Laurel
12-11-07 Today is our last full day in Ukraine! We got the boys visas today to enter the US and we got tickets for tomorrow to come home – finally! It’s only been 6 weeks but it feels like an eternity. I cannot wait to get home to see John and Sean and Valerie. I am also looking forward to seeing Misha and Dima’s reaction when they see the rest of the family at the airport.
We spent the morning relaxing at the apartment. Then two of our Ukraine facilitators took us out to a nice Japanese restaurant for lunch. The borscht was the best I’ve had yet. This restaurant is only a block away from our apt. I wish I had known about their delicious borscht before our last day here!!! We had a wonderful visit and the ladies enjoyed meeting the boys and spending time with McKenna again.
Then we headed to the Embassy for the final leg of paperwork. That process took another 2 hours but “mission accomplished”. The people at the Embassy are so very nice and helpful.
John had made a reservation for us to come home tomorrow but did not pay for it until we got our visas. In the meantime, I went by the airline office in Kyiv to see if it’s any cheaper buying the tickets direct from here rather than through a travel agent in the US. The lady at the ticket counter told me we do not have a reservation for tomorrow. She said that even though we hadn’t paid for the tickets yet, our last name would be in their system. She also told me that are not 4 seats on the flight from Kyiv to Paris. So I took a seat and called John in the US to call the travel agent to ask. In the meantime, the power at the ticket office went out! It was pitch black. I was upstairs in a big building wondering how I was going to find my way down in the dark. A lady lit a candle by the ticket agent so we could at least see each other. Long story short, the ticket office closed up due to no power and I am hoping and praying that the reservation number I was given by the US travel agent is good. Also, I learned that the ticket price at the Kyiv office was almost identical to the price I got from the travel agent in the US. J
I got the kids to bed tonight, finally. They are so excited to go on a plane. The boys jabbered in Russian to John on the phone tonight about their pending trip tomorrow. Two of our facilitators and our missionary friends will be coming over at 9 tomorrow morning to say good-bye. Our ride to the airport will be here at 10. This chapter of the journey is almost over!!!
Laurel ======================================================================================================
12-12-07
Blogging from the plane! We left Ukraine and are enroute Paris via Air France. We almost didn’t make our flight in Kyiv. They will only let you enter the ticket counter area 2 hours before your flight. We were there right at 2 hours early, but it wasn’t enough time. We waited in line at the ticket counter only to be sent to a special services desk at a different part of the airport. There was a problem with our e-ticket that we had to straighten out. Once that was fixed, we had to go back and wait in line again at the ticket counter. Then it took us almost an hour at passport control. We had to go to a special area to see the supervisor of passport control because of the adoption of the boys. Everyone was nice and helpful, but everything took a long time. As we were waiting in line at the security check point, they announced the boarding of our flight – yikes! There was nothing I could do but pray the security line went quickly. It did. We made it to the gate as the last people were boarding. Everyone on Air France is very nice and everyone speaks English. The three kids are sitting together and I am in the isle seat across from them. I have very minimal control over what the kids are doing from here!
Dima is so excited to be on an airplane. He had never seen a seatbelt before. He had no idea how it worked and he continues to play with it. He’s also fascinated with the window shades and is constantly moving them up and down. I feel sorry for the person sitting in front of each child. They are moving their tray tables up and down, in and out, kicking their seats, etc!!!! They are really being very good; it’s just that they are wiggly and have lots of curiosity and energy. When the food tray arrived the party began for the boys. The immediately opened the sugar and mustard packets. They poured some sugar into their orange juice and ate the rest straight out of the packet. Then they poured water into their juice. I don’t think they ate a bite. They just played. I was sitting too far away to do anything about it. I tried sitting McKenna in my seat so I could sit with the boys but she was not comfortable sitting by herself next to a man she doesn’t know – and I don’t blame her. So, as long as the kids are not destroying anything too badly, I’ll let them sit together.
Note: The second flight was not so enjoyable! :-) I have to say though, Dima was so cute about an hour before we landed. He kept saying "Mama, utra America?" asking me if we would be in America in the morning! He asked this over and over and over. Everytime, I responded "da" (yes) he would squeal with delight. He was so excited that he jabbered non-stop (and very loudly!).
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THANK YOU so much for all the prayers, e-mails, phone calls, and comments on the blog. It all meant so much and helped us to get through the journey. We are very blessed.
Laurel
December 13 Let the FUN begin.Sleep was rather limited last night with our late night arrival. Misha has settled in well and is much more relaxed. Dima has been "testing" the limits at meals. He is pretty spent though which may be bringing some of this out. After some resistance this evening, he gave up and is now fast asleep. McKenna is spent too from the trip. She has a classic case of the "Thousand Yard Stare".
 The only incident, which I had to chuckle when Laurel told me about it, was the boys bringing the bicycles through the house to the back yard so they could ride around. They left a pretty good trail, which didn't take much to clean up. You have to hand it to the boys. The straightest line is between two points and in this case they figured the front door to the patio door was the way to go.
Let the FUN begin!  Home Sweet Home!We arrived home 30 minutes ago! The boys went straight to a hot bath and the girls collapsed into bed. Driving |
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