Posting in the New Year...2009!

Well, a good New Year's resolution would've been posting more frequently on our blog, but glad I didnt make that one or I would have already broken it, huh?!...not to mention, I am one of those weird people that has NEVER made a New Year's Resolution....but do make a lot of goals throughout the year. Actually, my goal for the blog has been to post regular updates until Inna and Vitali have been home for one year and then we havent decided if we will continue the blog, make this the adoption blog and start a new family blog, or keep the blog up and going, but wrap up the regular posting at one year. I sure do enjoy all of you that follow along with us and definitely would miss it, so just don't know yet. I'll let ya know, but for now we are going strong on our journaling so far toward our one year home goal, woohoo!! I think no matter what we decide, I am going to try to post a slide show video of our story in pics from beginning to end at one year...see I don't have time for any other New's Years goals, haha! By the way, the blog post the date at the top by the first day I started typing this post(little by little :), not the actual date it is posted if you were wondering why it is so off.

It has been a pretty crazy beginning to 2009 already...
We did have a great time New Year's Eve spending it with some close friends eating great food and playing games!

Then last week it hit :).....Just in case I was beginning to feel too young...I really hurt my back 2 Fridays ago. All I did was try to go from sitting to standing and pulled my upper back/neck out." Aren't I too young for this...I really wanted to make up some cool story like I was River Dancing or something. I have been in a lot of pain for several days and had to go to the ER in the middle of the night that Sunday night because I was finding myself not able to move and when I tried to force myself to get to the restroom, it took me about 20 minutes to get there and then I almost passed out from the pain...I became really dizzy and was blacking out...AHHHHH! The ER hooked me up with some good shots :) and now I am in Physical Therapy and moving around again and definitely doing better than I was.
THEN....2 days after my ER visit, Vitali had a bad reaction to a new medication and had to be rushed to the doc. They took him off the medicine and he is all better.
THEN...the hardest of all...my dear friend, Kathy, who had Cancer passed away that night. She and I and 4 other women (I call em "My Homegirls" :) had been in a prayer group for many years and for a long time met every Friday and have been there for each other through many events of our lives. I have been grieving off and on since then, but this past Friday was her memorial service and there is so much to celebrate about her life here and she was a great Christian women who impacted many people. I sure will miss her though!

The kids have been back in school from the holidays, except Vitali because of his medication ordeal. He does miss it and is ready to go back as he just loves his school, teachers, and therapist so much. He is like a sponge...loves to learn. He is still making HUGE changes in his development and his personality is coming out so much and it seems everyday he begins to make more and more of a connection with people and interact with those around him. I am just amazed!!

We are still working with UAB on Inna's school stuff and making decisions there. Overall, she did well over the holidays, but sometimes it is like we take 2 steps forward and 10 back behavior wise and it hit shortly after Christmas was over that some of the things that we thought we had come through already from at the orphanage and when she first came home started back up and we had a pretty rough couple of days. I have heard from so many of you adoptive parents that have had the same experience with the holidays and taking some back steps at that time (I have been reading about some of your holiday experiences on your blog :). I guess we are no different...I am not sure exactly what triggers it during the holiday, but I know the holidays are a lot for them to take in and lots of stimulation that they are not used to, etc...Thank God, we were able to work through the issues at hand once again. She is very open about her past and has so many things to work through and we try to make sure that we provide the help needed to get through, but I think the most important key to help her happened about a month ago as she became a Christian and made Christ her Savior. We were reading out of our weekly family devotion and she stopped us and said, "Oh, I want to be a christian...I believe Jesus died for all of my sins, etc..." This was prompted on her own as we werent sure when she really would have the language to understand. We prayed with her and she is so passionate about Jesus now. She prays so passionately and many times it will be with tears. The other day a man found out he had Cancer at our church and the pastor asked if anyone wants to come up front and pray for him to do so and Inna took my hand and said, "Mama let's go pray for him" so we did. This is a totally different situation than 6 mos ago when Inna was extremely nervous just walking in the church santuary with so many people. She has so much faith already!!!! The great thing to me is that no matter what the struggles are, she is way ahead of so many people already in that she recognizes her need for God and how much he helps her. It has been a neat thing to watch unfold!!!

Grant is still living, eating, breathing football and about the only thing that he wants to wear anymore is football t-shirts, jerseys, or his actual equipment. He told me that he thinks in heaven there won't be a football SEASON, but football all the time. He has been studying a map at home and taught himself the 50 states of America and locations and all their capitals. I am not sure what grade you actually learn this in, but he will be ready. Now, he is working on the states and capitals of Europe. He tries to test me, but uh...PUHLEEZE...how long ago did I take Geography? He has ALWAYS studied maps...I mean like at 3 yrs old, he would get our book of maps in the car and carry it around and study it for hours. He is in 2nd grade at a wonderful school and has a great teacher, but he has been telling me for the past month that he is just not challenged enough at school and I am starting to believe that it may be true as he is asking us constantly at home how to do other things that they are not learning yet and has been teaching himself multiplication and division. He has been saying, "Mama, you have just got to let me skip 3rd grade next year and go to 4th". I keep telling him that there are new things in 3rd grade that he will learn and that is not an option. Then, we got a report back from some national testing that they do at school (I guess like a mini SAT) and he scored way above average in most areas and in Math the report came back that he is on a 4th grade level. So, now what? I know there are not AP Math classes for elementary and I am not sure of ways to keep him challenged in this area at school or is the answer to just keep him challenged at home. His teacher already mentioned to me in the middle of the year about how well he does in Math, but I have not specifically asked her yet if there is anything he can take part in at school. I am very thankful that he loves to learn and nothing may need to be done but trucking along like we already are, but I do know being bored can be just as much a problem as being too challenged at school, so I just try to listen more closely when he talks to me about it now.

So, the bottom line is that I am just evaluating school for Grant as well as Inna and will be prayerfully considering how to make sure they are both getting all that they need. Thankfully, the UAB clinic is working closely with us on getting Inna situated in the right school situation for her. She really is smart and I know that she has the intelligence to catch up in the right environment and with behavior management. If you think about us, please pray that God will make it clear to us the best school environment for her.

One thing that we are excited about is this week we are meeting up in Birmingham with The Potts family from Texas who just adopted Katya and Nastya from the same region Inna and Vitali are from (Different orphanage though). They found us through the blog and then contacted us over the summer and then we were able to talk by phone before they left for Ukraine to get the girls. We were able to follow along their journey to Ukraine and they returned to America with the girls in November. We are excited to all meet up in person for dinner on Wednesday and can't wait! I hope to be able to post pics of all of us.

If ya'll are still reading along (I hope so) :), We just really wanted to thank the person from CCC who gave us the anonymous gift card to Target(I am hoping that it was someone who will read this on the blog). We went in to make our first purchase with it (my heating pad for back) not knowing the amount and hoping that it would cover it, haha! and when we found out the amount on the card, we were very humbled by your generosity. We can definitely use it and since we werent sure who it is, we just hope you will read this.

Comments:
"Our family" ~ Glad your Christmas went overall well! We will be meeting with our Autauga adoption group for the first next month. We already know the Whyte family as we go to church together now. Hopefully, we will get to see all of you Montgomery folks too in the near future :)

Stephanie~ Thanks for checking in on us! Hope you had a good Christmas too! Had not heard from you in a while and started to wonder if you were still following along...glad to see that you are. Do ya'll have any missions trips planned for Ukraine in 2009?

Hannah~ Thanks for your sweet comment! We sure do miss seeing you...glad I can check on ya through the blog!