Hall Family Adoption

Haiti adoption

2010-01-27T19:53:00.000-08:00

After watching all of the news stories, I thought it may be refreshing to read about an adoption. I am posting the link of a family who we follow each others blogs(If you are reading...Congrats again Cassel family). They have been in the Haiti adoption process for twins for a long time and due to the earthquake was recently able to have the twins come home to their new family. She blogs about it here....
http://casselcrew.blogspot.com/
go back to about Jan 17th post. God bless this family!

2010-01-18T17:16:00.000-08:00

Well, the time has come to wrap up regular posting on our adoption blog. I will come and post again if I have something significant to post regarding adoption, but I have been thinking about it and have decided to take a (hopefully) short break from blogging and then probably will start a family blog and keep this one forever as the blog of our journey of adoption. I have been thinking about how thankful I am that I have this journal & pics of the last year and a half and so glad that I took the time to do it. I will definitely put our new blog address link on here and hope that those of you that follow along will continue to do so. We have met SOOOOO many wonderful people and adoptive families through the blog! We have been contacted by adoptive families while they are in Ukraine, friends/fam of adoptive families who were concerned for their friend/fam in Ukraine, adoptive families who share similar stories or who have adopted for our children's orphanages, adoptive families with special needs children, and those hoping to adopt.....it is hard to believe the friendships we have made through just blogging. I really want to make a point to say PLEASE continue to contact us at anytime...we love to know other adoptive families or help anyone we can, or just to be praying with you as we have been blessed with great support too!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU to those of you who followed along during our time in Ukraine and supported us, prayed for us, and send words of encouragement through the blog. I dont know what we would have done without being so far from home for so long. We feel that you are apart of this journey we have been on. Thank you to the friends we have made along the way...what a blessing!!!

GOD IS SO FAITHFUL!

Catch up from Christmas

2010-01-13T18:41:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since I posted. I actually had a computer go out and am now typing from my new computer...still do not have email up if you have sent one lately. Hopefully, by tomorrow it will be running again.

We had a very blessed and peaceful Christmas!
This year we had a live nativity in our yard for one night of Christmas week. I have wanted to do this for several years and this year I mentioned it to a friend who loved the idea and also loves power tools, so she whipped up a little nativity set and I made a sign and then we dressed all our kids up and brought out the Kareoke machine for them to read Luke 2 and sing Christmas songs. They were all so cute and had a blast! We had an outside heater, hot chocolate, and cookies set out for people who stopped by. I expected people to drive by in cars, but had not thought of how many people might walk from around the neighborhood to come watch. Many elderly from around the neighborhood walked over and they made a point to come up to us and say "Thank you so much for doing this" and they would share how much it meant to them...some even with tears in their eyes. One neighbor actually stood on the sidewalk the entire time and just watched the kids and sang with them...it was so sweet. It really made me realize how hungry people really are to see Christ publicly celebrated during Christmas. Grant and Inna asked if it can be a tradition for us and I hope so too! Vitali was a shepherd for about 5 minutes and then just wanted to hang out by the snacks the rest of the time.

I am working on the video of our adoption pictures (the one I had hoped to have by the time the kids were home for a year). Hopefully, I will have it done by next post.

Fall Fun

2009-11-18T20:27:00.000-08:00

The kids got good use of their costumes this year at 3 different events...Inna was a ladybug, Grant was The Incredible Hulk, and Vitali was a fireman...

1st place we went was a party with our homeschool friends...the kids had a blast!!! God has placed some AMAZING friends in our path this year that we LOVE to be with and the best part is some of them live right in our neighborhood and homeschool too! We have been getting together for different things...we are all taking turns having parties at each others house this year (ours is going to be the end of the school year pool party)...here is our costume party at The Townes home...

They got to roast their own hotdogs...

Sack races:

friends: the new & improved way to bob for apple. This was challenging to Grant with no front teeth :)

Inna and Courtney:

Story time:

Hulk on the mega swing:

Then we went to the APAC Fall Festival at the Whyte's house and Katy(Nancy Drew)and Ella Grace(Dorothy) went with us:

Grant & Jeremy as football players:

The last place we went was the Fall Festival at church.

Also, Grants team had a great football season and won all games. We have to recognize the faithful friends & fam fans that came out on the last game and stood in the rain to watch him play. Thank you guys...it meant a lot to him! Here is a pic of those faithful fans(It didnt come out real clear, but it is going on the blog :)...
Vitali, Gracie, Silas, Grant, Inna Beth, Charlotte, Dan,
Tiff, Adam, Papaw, Jason

From Grant

2009-11-17T17:33:00.000-08:00

Grant wanted to post this time, so this is what he has to say:
Saturday, I am going to an Alabama game...sorry about this if you are an Auburn fan! I think Alabama is at least going to win by 60 points. It is going good at our house, but WILD...but, I still LOVE it! We are doing good in school. Inna and I are doing homeschool and Vitali is in Kindergarten. Life isnt hard, but it aint easy either! Oops, gotta go! Bye and Happy Thanksgiving and most of all ROLL TIDE!
Grant

Our typical school week with lots of pics

2009-10-02T18:14:00.000-07:00

We have been full force in school. I will start with Vitali...

Um...well...he can't quite say he likes Kindergarten yet. Matter of fact, he normally still tells me that he doesnt like his school when I turn the corner and it is in view. I am not sure if he still really feels that way or if it has become part of his morning routine to say that :) He seems to be enjoying himself when I pick him up though. His teachers have been so patient and great! There have been many challenges at school with him being in Kindergarten this year, but his special ed teacher felt that it would be best if he stay in Kindergarten and learn the routines for this year(which he is doing well...even started walking himself to class this week without special ed teacher) and he hopefully will be more comfortable by next year instead of starting over again. We are all taking it day by day.
Oh, and remember little Vitali that couldnt walk without falling every 2nd step a little over a year ago? Well, as of last week...he is riding his bike WITHOUT training wheels. We are trying to teach him how to stop, but his favorite way is after he has gotten some speed to turn the handle bars and slide the bike like he is sliding into home plate (Those of you who know Vitali...I am sure you can imagine this to be true) He even did a carwheel off the bike while it was moving to get off of it one time. SOOOOO, I am thinking not only do we need to use a helmet with our little stunt man, but also wrap him in bubble wrap before he rides a bike, ha!

Homeschool is going great. Grant and Inna seem to really love it and are so motivated and I am enjoying it also! God has really blessed our homeschool time this year more than I ever imagined! Not that there hasnt been any challenges, but even then, I have not regretted doing homeschool for one second. It seems to be exactly what Inna needed with the one on one teaching...I can already see a difference in her self esteem having school work that is on her level and Grant is thriving in being able to move along at his level. We start our work after breakfast at 8:30 and normally get done around 1:00, sometimes a little later...
So, here is some activities from our typical week...

Monday- homeschool-daytime / Grant football practice- evening

Grant & Inna at homeschool:

Ok, just kidding...this is our real classroom:

Football practice- Daddy is the offensive line coach

Tuesday- homeschool- daytime/ Grant football practive- evening

Inna picks me a bunch of wild flowers and makes an arrangement at almost every football practice :)
Wednesday homeschool- day/ 1:00 Grant electric guitar lesson with Jordan/ 3:30 Inna art class/ 6:15 Church

Grant takes guitar lessons from my nephew (Grant's cousin) the very talented...Jordan(we all meet up at Papaw's church)

While Jordan and Grant have lessons, Inna and Patsy(another cousin)meet up in another room and get to spend time together(usually drawing):
Then off to pick up Vitali and then Inna's art class that she gets to take with one of her sweet friends, Alea Bostic:

While Inna and Alea are at art, we usually hang out with the rest of the Bostic family at our house or the park:
Emme, Olivea, & Grant:
Vitali & Trey:
the momma's: me and Andrea

Thursday- homeschool- day/ 1:00 P.E. with friends riding bikes/scooters at YMCA track/ Grant football practice evening

Football practice- bear crawl:

Friday- We have made Friday field trip day and this has been lots of fun. So far, we have been to The State Capitol, Archives and History Building, Old Alabama Town, etc... Inna especially loved Old Alabama Town because her most favorite show is Little House on The Prarie and it reminded her of that. In the capital, I have a friend that works for the govenor who surprised us by letting us go inside the Govenor's office...she even took a pic of us sitting behind his desk on my cell phone...Grant thought this was cool!

And in the meantime, we have also had...
a lemonade stand
Many nights of Inna playing beauty shop on momma's hair:
Grant's 4 teeth pulled:

Do you know Him?

2009-08-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

I felt that I could not end the regular posting on our adoption blog in the coming posts ahead without sharing first in this post the most important thing of all! Many friends who have previously adopted had told me before we left for Ukraine that the opportunity to adopt is an opportunity to know the heart of our heavenly Father. In the midst of all the challenges, it does not outway the benefits of growing closer to Jesus and understanding him better! We were able to see his hand move in 7 specific ways while in Ukraine (ways where we had specific prayers that seemed a miracle would have to take place for them to be done and all 7 times, he did the impossible in the situation). We also have had the opportunity to learn about unconditional love. We have had people ask us so many questions since adopting and one of the big ones they like to ask is, "Do you feel love at first sight when you first meet the children?" The more I was asked this question, the more I realized that I believe the real question they mean to ask is "Do you feel a bond with this child when you first meet them?" As for the bonding....of course it was not at first sight (I am sure if you asked the kids they would say the same thing)...a true bond takes time, takes building trust, takes getting to know the person, etc... On the other hand, love at the first sight...YES.... UNCONDITIONAL LOVE IS A CHOICE...just like in a marriage or any other situation...the choice was made before we even met them that we would purpose to love them unconditionally NO MATTER WHAT and the only way to be able to love others unconditionally is to tap into the unconditional love that our Heavenly Father gives us. So, the bonding has been a process that is happening along the journey, but the love has been there from the beginning!
I have also learned even more about how we are human and are limited in how much we can help someone else. In adopting older children with severe neglect, abuse, and trauma in their past, you learn that there is only so much that being a loving parent can do to bring them out of their past and the strongholds that comes with it. As humans we ARE limited and there will be a need for healing in areas that human ability cannot do. I am so thankful we have been able to lead our children to know the One who can help them at these times....Jesus! We have personally seen with our own eyes over and over, Inna crying out to God for help in specific areas and him bring healing in that area. We have even had a councelor tell us that she has come out of a couple of specific behaviors that in her past situation would have been expected to be struggling with into the adult years (which we already knew that it was God who had brought healing in that area).

I do not know all of the ones who check our blog and I didnt want to take the chance of not sharing this with you in case you do not know Jesus as your Savior. It is such a unbelievable Blessing to be able to live for Jesus and after all we have seen in the past year, there is no way on Earth, I would want anyone to have to live without the peace and blessing of knowing Him! If you do not, I just plead with you to ask him to reveal himself to you or if you want more information about how to become a Christian, you can look up this link for more info http://www.billygraham.org/SH_HowtobecomeaChristian.asp
or feel free to email us (email address is on the side of the blog)

Please listen to this below if you get a chance...I have been meaning to put it on the blog for a while (mainly because he mentions Inna and Vitali in his message and I wanted it to be on our blog for our family to always have), but I promise you will be touched if you listen to it...It is the message from the day we were at Grace Fellowship and Pastor Carlton Weathers gave this message on adoption. If you do not have the chance to listen to the whole thing, I would encourage you to forward ahead to the 40 minute mark and at least listen to his story of adopting his daughter from China. We so related to everything he said!! Don't forget to turn off the volume of song at the bottom of page.

Here is the link:
http://gracefellowshipcc.org/sermonaudio/?p=578

P.S. Since some let me know at a retreat Sat that they have been looking for an update on the blog about homeschooling and how it is going...Well, I went into it with no expectations, except that we would give it a try and all I can truly say that it is going awesome, better than I ever expected! We wake up at 7:00, take Vitali to school, eat breakfast, and get started and the kids are so motivated and are working so hard in all subjects and seem to be loving it! It is exactly what we needed for this year to meet the needs of each child and I couldnt be more thrilled!

From comments: Stephanie Merkel- Believe me (I am not just saying this), just meeting you would make anyone want to homeschool...you are an amazing teenager!! Hope the India adoption process for the newest child is moving along smoothly! If you get a chance, shoot me an email and let me know how it is going...havent been updated on that in a while :)

Never Say Never

2009-08-13T20:19:00.000-07:00

It is Back to School time and Vitali has started Kindergarten and if you had asked me a few years ago, I never thought I would be typing these words....that Inna and Grant are homescooling! If you had asked me about 5-10 yrs ago, I would have been one of the sceptical ones, but in the last few months, I have learned just how much I actually just didnt have a clue before about homeschooling!

About the middle of this past school year, I began to sense that it could possibly be something that was needed for Inna as the regular classroom and public school setting was not a good environment for her needs (There are some internationally adopted children that do well in public school, but this was not a good fit for her). When I began to see this and learn more about Inna's needs, my first reaction was, "Oh NOOOOO, please God tell me your not going to ask me to homeschool", but as we began working with her developmental specialists and other health professionals that see her and looking into other school options EVERYTHING constantly pointed to homeschool. Then, at the very same time, I had Grant who was not being challenged in school. He was in 2nd grade, but testing on a 4th grade level in pretty much every subject. He was completely bored in the regular classroom and when I would talk to his teachers, they would say...we notice that too, but we are doing all that we can to try to keep him challenged (But it still was not enough...he was coming home and try to challenge himself here). He was accepted into the gifted program, but this still is not challenging enough as it is only 1 day a week and he was begging me to let him homeschool. Needless to say, Jason and I have spent many months praying about the best situation for both kids! I always want to do what is best for my kids and although I knew that homeschooling 2 kids that are not on the normal curve of their grade level and 2 different extremes at that would be intense and challenging, but over time, my heart softened to the idea as I could see that it was the best thing for them and I decided to give it a try! It still amazes me how when we say, "Yes" to something God is asking us to do how there is such a strong peace that comes over us even though we know it may be tough...can I get a witness? ha! Now, that I have said, "Yes" I have really felt good about the decision and have enjoyed planning everything out. I cannot tell you how excited Grant is....he is so excited to work at his own pace and knowing that I will make sure he is challenged (got A beka curriculum for him this year) and excited about all the AWESOME field trips of the areas he is interested in that he would not otherwise be able to take and I see a new spark of motivation in him of excitement of the new opportunities. Inna is not big on school yet, but we are really going to be working on some things like life skills, social skills, etc... that should really boost her self esteem and this will give her an honest chance to do well. Also, I had no idea how many people homeschool in our area, but Oh my goodness, there are over 200 families that homeschool in little 'ol town of Prattville alone. We have joined a huge homeschool group (FHE) that offers clubs, extra curriculur activities, homeschool P.E. at the YMCA, and group field trips. Now, we get to have fun deciding which ones to be apart of.
I have explained to Grant, Inna, and Vitali (a little early for Vitali :) that we do not want them to compare themselves to each other academically, because mommy and daddy are going to see what each child's school needs are each year. I told them that there is public school, private school (if we can afford it :), and homeschool and what may be good for one, may not be good for another, so we will place each one in the best learning environment for them individually from year to year.

I do want to add this bit of info because it is hard to find info on this on the web unless you know exactly where to find it. I have researched to no end curriculums and such for kids with special circumstances and I am just SOOOO excited about what I have found for this year. I want to post this to help any adoptive family who may be looking....The UAB IAC gave me info on a program called Smart Start at this link:
http://www.bgcenterschool.org/CourseLibrary/CL2M.shtml
It is a 8 step program designed for internationally adopted children who missed the vital years of brain development and it is designed to help the child's cognition and help place as much as possible the basic building blocks for learning in the brain that were missed in the first years of their life. I have also found some other books that I am excited about for math and reading that approaches the core subjects with basic cognitive developement in mind. The math approach helps with short term/long term memory and the reading book exercises are focused on cognitive development also. I will be glad to share the info I have found with anyone who may be interested in it...just shoot me an email!

Vitali started Kindergarten and is in the regular classroom part of the day and gets special ed services part of the day this year. He loves the idea of going to school and learning, but so far, one of the teachers has to pry him out of the car in the mornings and carries him while he says, "Mama" and wiggles around all the way to his classroom. His regular classroom teacher seems to be concerned with his activity level, but I really think this will get somewhat better once he adjusts to the change. We are all trying to give him a good adjustment time before any changes are made. He has a wonderful Special Ed teacher and she is great with him! I found out at orientation when I met her that she goes to church with us and we didnt even know it...isnt that cool? So, he will get to see her at both places :)

Well, the only other news is that Grant has finally started football again...try outs were today and He is pumped as he has waited for football to start back all year long!

Ok, since it is back to school time...Below is a little fun we have been having from yearbookyourself.com
You can go to website and put your picture in any decade hairstyle and we have had fun laughing at all of them! Here are some we made...

Jason 80's (we think he looks like Greg Brady)/ Mel- 1976
Inna 1958/ Tiff 1982
Vitali 1960's/ Grant 1988

Grant's 8th B-day

2009-07-21T13:10:00.000-07:00

First, I want to ask to please let us know if anyone knows someone who can translate Inna's letters from her best friend at orphanage to us from Ukrainian to English and Inna's letters back to her (I type what Inna wants to say in English and then we will need someone to type up in Ukranian). We of course, will pay someone to do this, but would prefer that it be someone that maybe other adoptive families have used and know can be trusted or someone that can be highly recommended :) We do have Ukrainian friends and contacts that live here, but they seem to be all IN Ukraine at this time and we have a friend/translator that we have been using for this that lives in Ukraine, but for someone reason he said he can send out money from Ukraine, but we had a hard time finding a way for it to reach him last time (long story). We hate to keep asking him to do this not knowing if he will ever be able to get paid. We really are not looking for info on just other Ukrainians that live in our area...we have several Ukrainian aquaintances in the states, but do not know them well enough yet to trust them with translating letters from Inna (although probably great people)... we really just need recommendations from other adoptive families that have used someone or from anyone that has someone they would highly recommend to translate at a reasonable price.

On to the birthday-
Grant has turned 8 yrs old and had a fun celebration! He had a swimming party and then 3 of his friends spent the night for a campout. Of course, I called it the "City boys campout" as Jason thought it was too hot to put the tent outside, so papaw "Yo daddy" on the blog) let us borrow a huge tent and they set it up in the sunroom, which had a fan to cool off in this Alabama summer heat. Then later they roasted marshmallows on the gas STOVE! They had a great time playing in the tent and they lasted all of about 30 minutes once lights were out and time for bed. Once they all laid down, Jason said he kept his eyes open just waiting for the first one to be ready to go inside (at least he was praying someone would want to go inside :) And then, it happened....the first boy said, "I'ts really hot", then the second one said, "I'm uncomfortable", and then the third said, "Let's go inside" to which no one had to ask twice...Jason was up and leading the way inside, ha! I had actually already moved some mattresses in the living room with the feeling that at least one of them would be there before the night was over. We hope to have an outside "true campout" when some of this scorching heat calms down :) Then, the next day, we somehow got 7 kids dressed for church and arrived in time to work the nursery (I guess it does help that we live across the street). The 3 boys that spent the night also go to church with us and they thought it was cool to be able to walk this time!

Also this past week...we got to spend 10 days with my brother Caleb before he left for Iraq for 2 years. We werent sure he was going to get to come home first, so we were thankful for such an extended time to spend with him. We sure are going to miss him, but so glad there is technology to keep us in touch! I think we may all try the Skype thing. If you know Caleb, please pray for him during this time or if you are someone who prays for our military, please remember him!

Happy 4th of July!

2009-07-03T13:22:00.000-07:00

I love this pic of our little Ukrainian/American boy and the American Flag! It was taken at church at the AWANA awards ceremony.

Speaking of...the kids had awards night for AWANA (the program the kids are in on Wednesday nights at church). They all have LOVED being apart of this during the school year and could not wait until Wednesdays for AWANA night:

Inna actually became a christian as a result of going through her AWANA curriculum and then asking us questions at home! She made it through the first starter part and one section of the book. It may not sound like much, but there are many scriptures and activities in just the starter part and for someone who had never even heard the name Jesus (that we know of) it was a lot for her to meditate on.

Vitali loved "Alana" as he calls it! He was very proud of all the scriptures he repeated after his teachers and proud of having his own book to work through and proud of the badges he earned! He asked every day if today is "ALANA".

Grant also loved this program and was so excited about it that he studied on his own all the time and actually finished the first years book in about half the time and wanted the 2nd years book to start on it early, but they did not have it yet! He has a tremendous gift to remember scripture! He was also so excited at the awards ceremony that he was presented with a special gift for raising the most money out of all the kids for the missions project for children in Brazil. He did not even know that there was going to be a gift for the one that raised the most, so he was pumped! He also had a little help from his Grandmother, Muh, who sent him some money to add to his when she found out he was collecting!
Now, they are in a VBS type program that last all summer long at our church and then AWANA will start back again when school starts.
Here are pics from the ceremony:

Vitali just couldnt get over his award...he was trying so hard to see what everyone else had in their hand until he finally got his!

Grant walking back from getting his award:

Inna before she recieved hers (when it was time for her class, she didnt like being called out and certainly didnt want to walk on the stage, so they had to bring it to her :)

To see how close our church is from our house....this is the kids standing in our front yard and that is our church in the background:

Kids getting ready to walk across the street to church:

Like always...so much has happened since last post...one of those things being Grant's B-day, so I will post those pics when I get em uploaded :)

Hope you have a wonderful 4th! We are going to go see fireworks on the River and we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of my brother, Caleb who is just hours away from arriving home from Texas and is coming home from the Army to spend time with us before he leaves for Iraq for 2 years. We will be sad to see him go, but thankful for this time to spend with him this weekend.....and on Independence Day...seems kind of fitting huh?

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Hope in Desperate Conditions

2009-06-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

http://www.worldnextdoor.org/2009/04/romaniv-boys-orphanage/comment-page-1/

sorry...you'll have to copy and paste (I dont know how to get it where you can just click on it)

The link above is from a missionary group that is ministering to an orphanage in the same region that Inna and Vitali are from. Jason found the site and we are so moved as it brought back so many thoughts and memories! As you know if you have been reading our blog, Vitali was in a special needs orphanage in this region, except that it was a baby orphanage. Jason and I have often wondered once these special needs children, like Vitali are too old for the baby orphanage where do they go? We did not know of or see an older kids (ages 6-16) orphanage for disabled children while we were in there area and out of 300 kids at Inna's orphanage, we did not see any as disabled as what was at Vitali's orphanage. So, we have often wondered where Vitali and his friends would have gone? When we saw the website above, we couldnt help but wonder if this boy's special needs orphanage would have been where Vitali would have gone since it is in the same region. Thank God, we never know what could have happened and that Vitali does have a family now, but as I read this I couldnt help but think of all the kids in Vitali's group that we played with while there who will be transferring to places like this, if not this exact place and I thank God for the missionaries that go into such conditions and are offering these children hope! The conditions they explain are very similar in some ways to Vitali's orphanage. The smells in both Inna's and Vitali's orphanages were so repulsive that we had to begin wearing deodorant on the bottom of our nose to try to endure being there. We too experienced the constant screaming, crying of kids with no one to hold them. I specifically remember looking through a door and seeing disabled children from Vitali's group walking very slowly with head leaning on the wall with such an obvious fever(bright red cheeks) that they could barely keep their eyes open and yet there is no one to help them! The weirdest thing to us was that the whole time we were visiting Vitali's orphanage, we thought his group of about 14 children were the only ones who lived there, but one of the last days that Jason was there, the director of the orphanage for some reason took Jason into a back room of a seperate building and there was a small room where the most severely handicapped babies 0-5 lived....he witnessed children with no arms or legs propped up on a couch and many other type disabilities.....it sounded just like the setting at the orphanage above. Inna's orphanage did not have children with such disabilities that we saw, but we witnessed some very hard things there too (the same teenagers crying alone in the hallways every single day we were there, kids freely roaming the premises outside, smoking, etc..., the children were only allowed to have a "shower" on Thursdays and 300 kids had to be herded through 3 shower stalls, and forget about ever have their teeth brushed and such. Inna tells us a lot about her orphanage (most of what I could not put on here), but some of the more minor things like she was on the 3rd floor of this HUGE building and at night, they turn off all the lights and there is no adult anywhere nearby. She explained how you couldnt even make it to the bathroom stalls at night because they were on the first floor and it was too scary. In fact, I just spoke to someone the other day who took a missions trip and stayed in a Ukraine orphanage the whole day and evening to see what all goes on and while he was there he even witnessed that now the pimps hang outside of the orphanages waiting to approach the new girls that will be released from the orphanage on that day (meaning they became 17 and "graduated" from the system and are put out with no skills to function well in life.) I know all of this is blunt, but it is truth and it is happening. As Americans, I think it is very hard for us to really understand what these places are like, unless you have been there. Even for Jason and I, I do not believe that there is anyway that we could have remotely "Got it" just having it explained to us if we had never been in a place like this. Basically, once you have been there, those images stay with you (how could they not), but while you are there, you can only rest in the knowledge of that these children are not forgotten by God and He knows each one by name! We don't understand God's ways sometimes, but we know that He explains in the Bible that He cares deeply for the orphans and I truly believe that He does! Because He loves them, he calls missionaries like in the link above to go to them and show them love...it is so encouraging for us to read about missionary groups like the ones above who are sharing God's love with these children and giving them hope and bringing joy into their lives and especially the one above as it very well could have been the place Vitali would have lived if not adopted. May God bless this missionary group and double their efforts!

More Ukraine Adoption Info

2009-05-31T19:06:00.000-07:00

We are off to a great summer! We actually had a great 1st week already! We are so past ready to swim in our pool too, but waiting on a new liner next week as our other one bit the dust over the winter.

This week Inna and Vitali had their one yr check up with UAB adoption clinic and my mind is trying to process all the info at this point :) There are always so helpful! I truly cannot express to you all the changes that Inna and Vitali have made in one year! It is just mind-blowing at times. Of course we got all their stats on ht, wt, head circ. and it is no secret that Inna has grown significantly in every way :) She has gone from a size 2 shoe to a size 7 in this one year. Vitali has definitely changed from very baby-like to a little boy in one short year. He just continues to make huge changes, especially cognitively. It is really hard for me to express exactly some of his changes, but even in the last month, I have noticed a real difference in the way he is able to connect to conversation and being more aware of his surroundings. He has begun to show empathy for the first time recently and has started to care a little when he is hurt or someone else is hurt. There was no ability to feel these things before. My jaw just dropped last week when we were on a bike ride and Inna fell off her bike and he looked up at me sadly and out of the blue said (with lots of stuttering in between), "Mommy, I care when Inna gets hurt." Before, he would have been so in his own world that he would have been oblivious that she had even fallen off the bike. He has even been responding to some discipline with genuine crying or genuinely seeming to have some remorse when before he was too hyperactive and impulsive to know or care he was being disciplined. There is still a long way to go, but I am so thankful for these improvements as we did not know for sure if there would ever be the ability for these things. There are so many things that they have come through in a year and I began to type a list and ended up erasing it with the realization that the list is so enormous that I had a hard time choosing what to add to the list :) There is also a long list of things we are still working on :)

We wanted to give more info on Ukraine and adoption and we have really found a particular family's blog to have info that would be helpful if you are in the adoption process. The blog link is....
http://pretreadoptionblog.blogspot.com/
This family seems to be keeping tabs on many things happening in Ukraine, especially the latest news concerning the voting of whether to stop international adoptions from Ukraine. Many families have been praying this week over this and thank God it fell through on Tues for now....you can read more about it on blog link above. If you go back to further posts there is quest/answers for those about to travel. Also, if you go back to their April 8th post, they post the total amount that was spent in their Ukraine adoption of 2 children recently. We have found that their amount matches our total amount almost exactly and probably could help you plan better if you are planning on adopting 2 from Ukraine at this time.
Also, if you are in the adoption process, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND going to their April
1st post for some very important information from the director of the SDA.

No matter what information you find, I would just encourage you not to be discouraged. The financial alone can almost take your breath away, but God is always faithful to provide and if He has called you, He will see you to the end! If you have any specific questions, please feel free to comment or email us.

Just for fun:
Things that we are glad we packed in our suitcase for Ukraine:

- (Especially if you are taking kids) Snacks, lemonade packets (or any juice powder packet to go), coffee...we packed as many snacks as would fit in out suitcases and they lasted maybe the first week. This was especially important when traveling with Grant because you a lot of times are just getting used to everything that 1st week and are at the mercy of others and you may not get to stop and eat or get snacks anywhere...one of our days...we were on the road all day from 5 in the morning and never got to stop anywhere...Jason and I literally didnt get to eat or drink until 8:00 that night because we held all of our snacks for Grant so that at least he could be sure to get something to eat...THANK GOD we packed those snacks and then we had the same situation the next day...we were sad when we ran out of our familiar snacks from home- Mel

- DVD movies to play on computer (All TV was in Ukrainian)- Jason

Things we wish we had NOT packed to take to Ukraine:

- Long Johns- It was cold OUTSIDE, but the heat is government controlled INSIDE Kiev and if you wear long johns outside and you are hot natured at all, you are going to burn up inside the buildings. Put it this way...It was snowing hard outside when we were staying in Kiev and we were sleeping with our windows and balcony doors wide open in our flat because we were sweating so bad inside with no way to control the heat. We were so thankful when April 15th arrived and the government turned off the heat- Mel.

- Power converter because all we needed was the standard adapter for a 110 plug to European 240 volt plug (Check your electronics to see if they can accept 240 volts, because most of ours did)- Jason

Gotcha Day Celebration

2009-05-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

We had a such a wonderful Gotcha Day! God did such a cool thing...
I was trying to decide the best way to honor this day...it didnt seem that a party type celebration or gifts and such seemed like the right thing for our crew (especially since those type occasions where all attention is on them can send them into some setbacks for a few days) and as I was brainstorming...we were contacted by the pastor of Grace Fellowship in Anniston AL (A church that supported our adoption while in Ukraine...more on that later)who explained that they were having an adoption service on May 17th. He explained that the adoption agency we used, Lifeline, would be speaking on adoption and that they would be playing an adoption slideshow and would like pics of our family and then if we were able to attend, he asked that one of us speak a little on what God has taught us in our adoption. We were very excited about getting to meet this church in person, but got off the phone and it never occured to Jason or I until the next day that May 17th was exactly the day that Inna and Vitali arrived in America to join our family forever. This Sunday Service was not planned for our Gotcha Day, but that is just how our awesome God works!

Before I go any further, I want to explain a little more about how this church that had never met us before came to support our adoption....
From what I have been told and the best I can remember the story...
It all started when a family at Grace Fellowship gave birth to a child named Micah who was born with a disease that caused many hi medical bills. Financial support was raised for Micah during this time and he went to be with Jesus before he turned one years old. This is a precious family that we had the joy of meeting this past Sunday and my heart was moved when I found out their full story. Micah's parents and the elders of the church decided that they would take the money that was raised and use it to help adoptive families....the fund was named Micah's Hope.
Shortly after, there was an adoptive family in Ukraine who realized their process was going to be longer than expected and they were running out of money quickly and if God did not intervene they possibly would have to leave without the children they believed God had for them. This family of course was ours and we came to a hard time while were in Ukraine of realizing that we would have to release to God any efforts to make this adoption financially happen as we did not see a solution in site. It was a true test of faith! We added up that we would need $7,600 to pay for all that was needed in the country and we had no idea where it was going to come from. We released it completely to God in prayer and like I said, washed our hands of any efforts to make it happen at this point. The next day, we got a call from our social worker who back in America had made a phone call to Grace Fellowship and explained our need and they said, "Well, it is funny you have called because we actually have made an adoption fund and can donate the the full $7,600 that is needed. Obviously, this was a huge faith builder and encouragement to us while in Ukraine and we are very grateful!

Back to Gotcha Day...one of the families in the church offered for us to come stay with them Sat night and we had a great time getting to meet them and the kids loved their beautiful backyard with decorative fish pond. Grant liked it so much that we couldnt find him at 5:00 Sunday morning and he was out watching the fish. We had a great service Sunday and Jason nominated me to speak for our family and the sermon from Pastor Carlton was awesome. Afterwards, the church planned a meal for us adoptive families there and we got to meet so many wonderful people!
Then, when we were passing back through B-ham, we got to spend some time The Hood family (remember the friends that we met while in Ukraine) and all of our kids hit it off right away! They were all excited to meet their new friends that also had Russian names! Overall, I just felt EXTREMELY blessed and in the car on the way home as the kids were resting, I was just thanking God for how he had placed so many awesome, Godly, encouraging people in our paths and how we felt so loved on for Gotcha Day! Then Jason and I agreed that we had the answer for celebrating Gotcha Day in our family would be a day to celebrate adoption in general...to visit those that supported our adoption, to support someone who has adopted or in the process, to find ways to remember the orphans that do not yet have a family on this day...maybe writing a letter, maybe a missions trip...the possiblities are endless, but I pray that every year will be as meaningful for our family as this one!

Well, now that we have reached one year, I will be ending regular posts on our blog soon, but there are a few posts that I want to get in before I do.

Comments:
Kathy C~ Yes, we were in Destin- one of our favorites to visit :) I checked out your blog on the twins...hope you are able to get them soon...they need a momma and daddy :)!

Stephanee~ Oh my goodness...wouldnt my kids be beside themselves if they thought we were going to see Katya & Nastya at the beach :) I would be there in a heartbeat! I am sure your girls are going to be blown away with the beach like Inna and Vitali.

Denise~ Thanks for leaving the comment...Yes, Amy and I have emailed off and on and I am following along...I have no doubt they are going to see amazing changes! Please feel free to email me again anytime!

Rachel~ we are waiting anxiously for the wedding bells to ring :)

Alan~ Thanks for continuing to follow along...I wish I had time to posts their reaction to every first :)

Tammy~ You are exactly right...it is not for the weak at heart or anyone living without the strength of Christ...I have to tap into it daily :)!

Deb~ Thank you for your sweet comments...hope your family is doing well and still excelling in Karate!

Beach Trip

2009-04-26T18:35:00.000-07:00

Over Spring Break, I decided to take the kids to the Beach for what was going to be a day trip until my sweet grandmother (Meme) decided that she wanted to pay for us to stay overnight and we had a great time! This was the first time that Inna and Vitali had ever seen the beach and they LOVED it! I drove the 3 kids, Tiff, and we asked my mom (Gigi) to hop in with us last minute and she joined the party! Jason decided that the best way he could enjoy this time was to have the house all to himself since it doesnt happen much :) and so he opted to enjoy the quiet at home and join us on our next beach trip. On the way there, the kids just kept getting more excited the closer we got to being there. Inna kept saying..."I feel like I have been to the beach before because I have imagined it in my mind". Then, we past over the bridge over the bay and it almost took her breath away...she thought it was so beautiful. Vitali kept saying, "I have never been to the beach". (By the way, this is his new thing to say I have never..."I have never had a b-day party" "I have never...the list goes on and on to the point of even stuff like driving down the road and he will say "Mama, mama, mama, mama...I have never ridden in that car (meaning the car beside us on the road)...see what I mean, this list could go on forever. Ok, back to the beach...Inna was so excited when we finally arrived at Destin that she ran through the sand and plunged straight in the water even though it was FREEZING cold! She laughed and splashed and splashed like Vitali did when he first had a bath. She swam for hours and never seemed to realize that it was freezing water. She was having so much fun that the other kids all decided to join her...even Tiff. I asked Grant later if he thinks he would have ever got in the water if Inna didnt that day and he said, "No"...that he would have thought it was too cold, but instead he had a blast that day! The best part was that I just realized how therapeutic being there at the beach was for Inna and Vitali and really all of us, but I really could tell how enjoying one of God's most beautiful creations was such a healing experience for Inna. Later that night, we went out to eat and had more fun as there was a band playing some Jimmy Buffet type songs and the dance floor was completely empty and they had hoola hoops spread out, so we all danced and hoola hooped for probably an hour or more and had so much fun! Tiff, Grant, and Inna had some awesome hoola hoop tricks going on. The guys on the stage when they paused between songs even said, "Man, that is so cool" and started requesting tricks, haha! We wanted to take pics of this, but our camera wouldnt work with the lighting. We did get some beach pics though...

Easter & Birthday Update

2009-04-12T20:27:00.000-07:00

We sure did have a wonderful time of celebrating during Easter! We have joyfully reflected on our salvation through Jesus and joyfully reflected on his resurrection! We placed the cross with the different color cloths...purple, then black, and then white for different days! Grant requested this cross when he was 4 yrs old (He wanted one so badly) and our friends Raymond and Claudia surprised him with one they had made for him back then. I cannot tell you how much he has always loved this cross. When it got pulled down from the attic this year...he made sure it was kept in his room and not being touched until it went in the ground.Then, Vitali developed a love for the cross in the yard the next day...when everyone else was at school...he told me that he wanted to sit in the driveway and watch the cross. So, I sat with him and I couldnt believe all the questions he asked me about Jesus that were prompted by him...he really was making a connection and telling me things that I did not know there was a capacity for him to understand yet. I really know that Grant and Vitali's love for this cross is not because of the piece of wood that it is, but because of the love of Jesus that it represents to them and they are drawn to that love...this was so obvious to me through all of the things they shared with me! We had a fun-filled day starting with celebration at church, eating a great lunch, and Easter egg hunt at home.

Well, I guess I will end in a moment with the good birthday update, but before I do I guess this is a good section to post about the hard lesson Jason and I learned after having 2 occasions back to back with the Birthday and Easter. We are aware of Vitali's struggles with hyperactivity and impulse control, etc... and we try to watch for triggers that we know will send him completely out of control physically and mentally...sometimes it can be social situations that overwhelm him, any setting that looks institutional like doctors offices does it EVERY TIME, and some other things. We have SOMEWHAT limited his sweets as we know that can be a trigger, but we had no idea to what level that could have an effect until Birthday/Easter weekend and after having some sweets for 2 days in a row. We paid dearly! (also, having 2 days of overstimulation that he is not used to I am sure contributed some also) By the evening of the 2nd day, he became completely out of control, very destructive, trying to injure himself (running his head full force into a brick wall and laughing..... among many other ways of trying to hurt himself), destroying his favorite toys on purpose when normally he loves these favorite toys and carries them around with him all day...I really cannot even touch the surface of all that happened constantly for about 24-48 hrs. I was even very close to calling his doctor and seeing if there needed to be sedation (Normally, I wouldnt even think of doing something like this, except that it was this severe) to keep him from really hurting himself until he could Detox as nothing I tried was helping, but I was able to get him to sleep right before I was going to call and so I opted against it. He has had some of these behaviors now and then on a smaller scale, but nothing like this extreme in a while now~ I know there are medications also for these type things, but he has had a severe reaction to even the medicine to where I had to rush him to the doctor after only taking 2 tsps of it when we tried what the doctors had prescribed for his needs. Needless to say, we have been trying to get all sweets, dyes, etc... out of his system and it got a little better after a few days until he found a way to get to Grant's chocolate bunny while I was at the grocery store and daddy was home doing taxes and Vitali ate the whole thing and started back up again. (It has been so bad, that even when out in public and at places like getting our haircut and they would offer him a lollipop and Me, Grant, and Inna would all run toward the candy before it hit his hand and almost scream at the same time, "NOOOOOOOOOOOO" like in a slow motion echoing scream :) (Since it wasnt a huge issue before, I had never really noticed before I had Vitali how many times in public people offer children sweets...haircuts, banks, restaurants, church, school, people that just think he is cute, ha!!....AAAAHHHH!!! When I came home from the store, Grant and Inna ran up to me in a panic and told me he ate the chocolate bunny, my first thought was, "Melanie, drop the groceries and run" haha! But, I put on my big girl pants and dealt with another out of control day! Not only is it hard for us, but a doctor told me one time when we first came home to imagine how bad it must feel to him also being so out of control at these times (And they werent even thinking about what it would be like after sweets). Now that we know his reaction to this too, I guess I better get some creative ideas for sweet alternatives, huh?

Now, on a better note....He did have a great time at his 1st ever birthday party...he was definitely quiet as he knew all the attention was on him that day, but at the same time, I know he loved it because he told me so several times and he kept telling me after we got home, "I love mommy and daddy". It was a small party with family at Pratt Park and it was a beautiful day! He rode his bike most of the day, but also loved swinging and feeding the ducks. I did take some cupcakes and juice boxses on his actual birthday to his school (obviously, this was before the sweet attack) and I threw in those pics too...I think I will let the pics tell the rest of the story....
School party:
When I arrived to his class, the teacher was reading a story, but he was so excited he couldnt stand it...he wanted to run and give me a hug and was trying his hardest to wait until the story was over...

His teachers gave him this "Happy Birthday" tag to wear all day at school and he got to be line leader for the day

Blowing out candle...I dont think he had noticed anyone blowing out a candle before on a cake since he had been here...so when we first asked him to blow it out, he said, " I can't" and then we showed him and he did it

Birthday Party at Park with fam:

Family: Jordan, Dan, Josh:

Inna with Nanny and one of Inna's favorite cousins, Charlotte:

Niki, Inna, and Patsy:

Aunt Theresa, Inna, and Grant:

Big brother pushing little brother on swing:

The ducks trying to eat Jason's shoe when we ran out of bread:

Cousins pic:
Vitali in his new fireman outfit from his b-day:

Happy Birthday Vitali/Happy Easter

2009-04-06T20:15:00.000-07:00

Vitali is 5 yrs old as of yesterday. We had a small party in the park today and I am going to blog about that with pics hopefully in the next couple of days. I will share quickly his prayer last night before bed as we had told him his party was today....He was praying and said in his own little words, "Kamp Ku (Thank you) Lord for mommy coming to my parlee (party)". "I toe lighted" (I am so excited). "I never had a parlee". Amen Grant got sick in the middle of night and we woke up going what are going to do about Vitali's party being at our house with a sick child, but how could you not have a party that day after a prayer like that:) So, we moved the party to the park and had a great time!
Also, Happy Easter...It has been a great weekend to celebrate the resurrection of our Savior! In rained and thundered and lightened on Good Friday, which I thought was so fitting to remember the crucifixion time and tomorrow is the day we celebrate Jesus's resurrection and it is absolutely beatiful outside....I love it! There is so much I wish I had time to share with you of even things the kids have shared with us about Easter and maybe I will get the chance on next blog, but for now...I am posting this post below since I had already finished it a few days ago and it was just waiting to be published on blog :) Have a GREAT EASTER!

Hitting a few highlights since last the last post....Let's see...Grant and Inna are playing soccer now. It is Inna's first time, so she is learning, but I think mostly is enjoying being on a team. She did decide this week that she officially didnt want to play soccer anymore, but since we are halfway into it...we talked to her about finishing the season out, even if she just considers it as getting a little exercise. She did go to practice yesterday and kept a good attitude and seemed to enjoy herself. We have pics of her as she has already had her team pics. She is 3rd from bottom right in group pic below...I will have to post Grant's later when he has his. Inna is doing better in school behavior-wise as far as fights go (it has been a big adjustment for her as she tries to come out of the orphanage aggressive survival mode)...but there hasnt been anymore fights at school lately...YEA!!! Her GiGi(grandmother) gave her a bracelet to wear after her 4th fight at school and told her that when she gets angry and feels that she is about to fight someone to look at her bracelet as a reminder to ask Jesus to help her..well...I guess this has helped as she hasnt been in a fight at school since then that I know of. We are still working on other behavior issues at school and the academic situation and just trying to finish out this year, so that we can get her in something more appropriate for her needs next year. We have met with school staff often for this year and everyone is working on the best plan for her. All in all when I look back over her going to public school this year...it may have not been the best academic learning environment for her in a regular classroom, but we never know until we try and truly I am also thankful that she was able to see a classroom environment in America and be with other children that have goals for doing well in school and see what that looks like. I became more aware throughout the year of how there is no motivation for doing well in school. I began talking to her about if she was expelled from school what that would be like and it hit me while I was speaking that before now, she has probably only seen people "graduate" from the orphanage with no education, skills for functioning in life and the unfortunate truth is that most of them become homeless, drug addicts and prostitutes, etc..so when this is all she has ever known why would being expelled even matter to her. So ever since then, I have been trying to encourage her about different motivations for learning in school and we have talked about different careers and many other things. The light came on and the other day she said, "I want to be a designer one day" and I tell ya, she is so creative and designs clothes on paper all the time, so it wouldnt surprise me at all! I just try to keep encouraging her!
Grant is loving soccer...I am not sure if he loves it as much as football, but he sure seems to be just as excited when he plays. We are praying and deciding about his school situation too and we are going to visit the gifted program before school is out to see if that seems like it will be enough for him next year to keep him challenged. We have heard that it is only a 1 day a week thing, so we are not sure yet, but I think it will help make the decision for what to do for next year. He has a little stomach virus this weekend, so please pray that he will feel better. He is collecting quarters for children in Brazil right now through the AWANA program at church and had until May to collect a card full of quarters and has asked us non stop if he could do chores for money to fill up his quarter card and he gets SOOOO much joy out of earning the money himself and he turned the 1st card in 4 days after he got and they couldnt believe it, so now he is working on his second card of quarters. They had no idea what they were doing at church when they started this missions project with the kids...but missions is his heart...It wouldnt surprise me if he was a missionary one day!

Vitali~ Is still developing by leaps and bounds. His teachers at school and church constantly tell me how much he is improving. Remember my posts about when we were in Ukraine and my friends called him "Vitality" on accident a few times and I really felt the Lord was speaking to my heart that this was what we would see in him one day (Vitality...full of life) instead of what we were seeing at the orphanage....well, one of his teachers came up to me at church the other day and said, "We just love Vitali....HE IS SO FULL OF LIFE". She went on to say...every activity we do...it is like he just lights up with so much excitement. She does not even know his adoption story and hasnt known him very long, but I thought it was cool that those were the words she chose. God is good, huh? We just registered Vitali for Kindergarten next year although he is in a 3 yr old class now with Special Ed services. The main reason is that Special Ed home base is at the Kindergarten and they really recommended he be right where they are and they will be able to meet his needs better there. So, although it feels really weird to think of him going to Kindergarten...it will really be with Special Ed and they said he can stay as many years as needed, so we agreed! I trust the Special Ed group there as they have been wonderful to us so far and they seem to really love Vitali.

We are coming closer to the kids being home for one year. I have some posts that I would like to get in before then, so I guess I better get on the ball :)

Meeting up again with The Peipons...this time in America!

2009-03-18T11:00:00.000-07:00

Do you remember the missionaries from Ukraine that we posted about several times on our blog, Dr. Jim and Marianna Peipon.....Well, they are in the states raising support for their mission work in Ukraine and we had the opportunity to spend time with them as they came to Alabama. The first night was spent at a dinner meeting that we and 2 other couples hosted for them and the second night we were able to spend time with them in our home as they spent the night. I can’t tell you how much of a blessing it was for us to spend time with them again….I was reminded why we have come to love them so much and didn’t want to see them leave! They made a point to arrive at our house in time to walk with me and Vitali to pick up Grant and Inna from school and walk them home...Inna was excited to see them and Grant was just beside himself with excitement to have them with us! Later, we all hung out at The House of Java coffee house here in Prattville. Then, papaw and nanny came over to eat dinner with us and meet The Peipons in person also. The night ended with a little Hokey Pokey and square dancing with Dr. Jim, Marianna, Grant and Inna before bedtime!
God is really using The Peipons in Ukraine in the healthcare area and in helping AIDS orphans. They are currently trying to raise money for some land and a home that they have found to house some of these AIDS orphans. The land is connected with a church where the children could plug into and continue to be loved on and encouraged in their faith. The pastor of this church has already caught the vision for these AIDS children. Please pray that they will receive all the funds and every detail will be taken care of that is needed for this project and pray for their ministry! I have sent it out before, but here is the link to their ministry website...
http://www.ukrainemedicaloutreach.org/

Pics:
House of Java...I love this one of Marianna...she is so much fun!

Bedtime singing and dancing...

All of us:

Dreaming Of A White Birthday

2009-03-07T15:40:00.000-08:00

A beautiful birthday surprise for a Ukrainian girl in Alabama is SNOW! This was the day in between her actual birthday and party and the kids had a blast! I have never seen someone who could whip up a snowman as quick as Inna (If you have been around her in person, I am sure that you can imagine this as pretty much everything she does is in fast motion and with lots of energy). She got on her hands and knees and rolled a huge ball in the snow before we could blink our eyes :) All the kids had loads of fun in the snow!

Inna had a great time at her birthday party! We invited family and a few of her friends and she was so excited to see each of them arrive! We had pizza and cookie cake, which used to be her favorite until she tried ice cream cake :) She was very emotional when the last person was leaving and did cry off and on the rest of the night. Over all, tears of joy and of being overwhelmed at all the love shown to her in one day! You will see from all the photos that she is surounded by much family that loves her and she loved the celebration!
Friends: Anne Louise, Katy, & Ella Grace
Papaw & Nanny:
Vitali vs. his cousin, Jordan:
Aunt Theresa & Grandmama:
Grandmas Gigi, Meme, Nanny, and friend Robin:
Aunt Katie & Cousin Sydney:
Family~ Dan, Beth, Matt, Sydney, Gracie, Silas, & Grant:

The latest news is that Inna had her tonsils out this week and overall is doing good! The surgery went well with the only issue being some trouble with a bad reaction to the sedation, but after she was put completely under anesthesia, the rest went perfect. Her throat hurts as normal, but she has been able to eat and drink. She has not talked since being home from surgery and I know the doc said it was important to talk to help the healing process, so we are going to work on trying to get her to talk a little. Thanks for all of your prayers and get well wishes!!! Special thanks to my friend, Claudia who came up to the hospital and stayed the whole time. Jason had to work during surgery and stopped by afterwards and Claudia had already planned to be there while mom kept Vitali and picked up Grant, so it worked out great! Please, continue to pray for her recovery!

HAPPY 11th BIRTHDAY INNA!!!!

2009-02-27T17:39:00.001-08:00

Today is Inna's 11th Birthday and her party was supposed to be today (Sat), but unfortunately 4 of us came down with strep throat Thurs/Fri including me and her, so we are rescheduling party for hopefully Mon or Tues evening and she is sooooo very excited! For now, we wish Inna a HAPPY BIRTHDAY and are so glad that we get to celebrate this 11th Birthday all together as a family with you. Thanks to Papaw and Nanny for dropping off the ice cream cake at our house today! It was yummy and felt good on our sore throats :) I don't know who is more excited about her Birthday, Inna or Grant, but they both have been pumped! We will definitely post some pics and more update on that after her celebration! We are trying to squeeze in her party before she has surgery on Wed this week (March 4th) to have her tonsils removed. She has had tonisilitis/strep a lot and doc says it is time for them to come out. As far as I can remember, I have never had strep until now, but somehow always come down with a sinus infection when the kids get strep. This time I have it too and feel like poo :) The kids have actually been through about 5 rounds of strep throat since May and we hope that Inna getting her tonsils out will at least help some of the cycles of sickness.

We have been to so many appointments since May and are finally seeing a little light at the end of the tunnel as all 3 kids had their 6 mos dental cleaning and checkup and NO CAVATIES for any of them....YEAH!!!! I think this is the first appointment since Inna and Vitali have been home that we have not been told something was wrong and would have to schedule with a specialist or have return appointments. Also, we just had our last appointment at the TB Clinic for Inna. She has been on TB treatements for 6 mos...She DID NOT have active TB, but was exposed to TB in Ukraine and was infected with whatever causes active TB, so anyone who has a positive skin test is required to have TB treatments for 6 mos so that there is not a chance for her to ever get active TB. Because she did not have active TB, she never has been contagious. Anyway, that is almost completely done now....no more appointments for that...just finishing up the meds now!!!!

Sunday, Feb 9th was a very special day for Inna and Grant as they were both baptized! I cannot express to you the amount of excitement and joy they had. Grant was completely pumped from the moment he woke up. It was such a HUGE blessing for Jason and I to see the joy of their love for Jesus and being baptized!!
This pic is the morning before we left to church for baptism:

Then, last week Tiff finished up cheerleading for this year with a cheer competition in Tuscaloosa where her cheer squad finished in 3rd place. I had a chance to go with her and cheer the girls on and had lots of fun!

Well, in continuing in posting a video of each kid. Here is a video of Grant and when I told him I was going to video him he came up with lots of stuff for me to video, so I cut out a bunch of it in order to not be so long. When you hear some of the states and capitals, just a little side note here that he learned all 50 by himself studying a map (as it is not time for him to learn that in school yet) and so the way he pronounces them may be a little different as it is the way he sounded them out by looking at the word. He does all 50, but I just added a small portion to the video :)and I hope you enjoy the first part where I think he pulled in some Napoleon Dynamite moves :) He loves to put on a show....

A football video displaying God's love...

2009-02-20T11:39:00.000-08:00

I am working on my new updated post, but in the meantime thought I would share this great video. It is not very long, please watch until the end...I think that you will find it to touch your heart......

http://www.tangle.com/view_video.php?viewkey=b6c7b995da9705f7695b

Never A Dull Moment!

2009-01-25T13:45:00.000-08:00

I actually started typing this post a few weeks ago and never got to finish it until now. Every week there seems to be so many fun things that happen that I could put on the blog that sometimes it is hard to choose what to cut out Like the time that we were going down the road and Inna saw a Goody's going out of business sign "Everything is 40-60% off" and she insisted that those people needed help- that they had a sign telling us that they had not eaten in 40-60 days :) or times like when all of our children are in the doctor's office with strep and I am trying to stand and talk to the doctor and they decide to sneak up on me and each grab a leg and hold me in the air where I cannot get down, so I end up having my discussion with the doctor elevated in the air while the doc laughs...In other words...just pray for me, haha! :) But, a really cool thing that happened recently was when Grant was studying about missionaries in his book for church on Wed nights and he came up to me and said, "Mama, I was thinking that maybe we should write a letter to Lina at the orphanage and tell her about Jesus and then make 300 copies for the rest of the orphanage. So, the next day, I saw Grant and Inna sitting at my desk looking really serious and working on something...I wasnt sure what at the time until they came out to me and said, "We need a picture of Jesus...can you print one off the internet for us". So I did and they pasted it to their letter and showed it to me. Here is the amazing thing to me...We have had to hire a translator for Inna to write her letters to the orphanage lately as she has forgotten a lot of her Ukrainian language. Well, she and Grant went in that room and she all the sudden remembered how to write in Ukrainian to write this letter. She came out and read it to me and said it tells about Jesus and tells them to read the Bible to find out more. We sent the letter and I did not make 300 copies as I didnt know if they would allow it there, but who knows maybe it will get passed around a little bit. The pic to the right is the letter.

I am trying to add a video of each kid before the one year mark, so here is a video of Vitali. In the video, you will hear him call himself Vitalik (This is also his name in Ukrainian and sometimes calls himself this too) From what I understand, when you put the k on the end, it is like saying Vitali, my darling in Ukrainian. You will also he that he loves to flip...he hasnt ever had gymnastics, but we hope to be able to start that soon and put some of that energy and loving to flip to good use :) Sorry about the lighting in the video...it is not as easy to see...I'll know what to do for next time :) Oh yeah, you'll have to turn off the music at bottom of screen to hear....

The song that I am putting on the blog this time is one of Vitali's favorites. He asks me to sing "the hold hand" song at bedtime at night and we sing the chorus and whenever we are singing it, he makes sure we hold hands until it is over.

Grant and Inna were baptized this past Sunday and it was a very joyous day for them and us! I will share more about that with a few pics on next post.

Comments: Ukrainiac~ Thanks for your kind words and you are right it is kind of like walking in Ukraine, except we don't pass any of those beautiful cathedrals. I was looking back at the picture that I took of the pathway covered with trees lined up on each side the day that I walked from your church by myself to meet Jason and Grant who had gone ahead of me to TGIF and was thinking of how beautiful that walk was that day (long, cold walk, but worth it :) Hope to see ya soon!

Alan~ Thanks for sharing about how you celebrate "Gotcha Day"...I love to hear from other adoptive parents.

Dinner In Birmingham And Pulling Into Prattville!

2009-01-11T18:51:00.000-08:00

We had a great dinner Wednesday night with The Potts who I mentioned in the previous post as the family who recently adopted Katya and Nastya from Ukraine and brought them home in November. Stephanie's husband stayed home with the other kids while Stephanie and her mom brought the girls from Texas to the international adoption clinic here in Birmingham and let us know, so that we could all meet up. We had dinner at California Pizza and the kids immediately hit it off. Grant wanted to give the girls his Ukrainian picture book as we have two, so they all had a lot of fun going through the Ukrainian and English words in it. Grant and Katya even walked out the restaurant arm and arm and Inna walked them to their car to get big hugs good-bye one more time. When we got in our car, Inna and Grant both said that they wished that they could ALL be brothers and sisters. The kids are going to write letters.
Pics: Stephanie is beside me and Katya is on the left (brown hair) and Nastya is on the right of Grant (blonde)

One recent transition that I havent had a chance to update yet on here is in the church we attend. We have been going to Christ Community in Montgomery for almost 10years now and have so many wonderful relationships there, but we began to feel that the Lord was leading us to pull into Prattville for as much as possible, which included our church. It wasnt an easy decision, but we began attending the church directly across the street from where we live and it does seem to be where God has has us for this season of our lives . Thankfully, we are still able to keep in touch with many of our friends from CCC and got to spend New Years with some of them. I was concerned about the transition of church in the midst of so many other adjustments, but wow...the Lord really took care of this and the kids our loving it so far and God never ceases to amaze us...our first few Sundays/Wed there, we just kept meeting families with older adopted children that had so many similar experiences as ours. Since it is across the street, we just walk to church. We have even ridden our bikes to eat at the restaraunts down the street afterwards, which was a lot of fun.
It is amazing to see things come full circle...
we first decided to move to Prattville it was because after much prayer that is where we felt the Lord was leading us once we decided to downsize our house to help with adoption finances since we had just started the process. In fact, we expected to keep Grant at his private school in Montgomery and travel. We were considering a house in this same neighborhood that we are in now and the more we prayed about it, the more it just didnt seem to be the right one (even though there was nothing wrong with it and was in actually better condition than the one we did buy). We decided to move into the one we are in today and we later found out why God would not allow us to have peace about moving into the other house when shortly before we were leaving for Ukraine, a bad tornado (I re looked up the report and the damage was a quater of a mile wide) hit our neighborhood and took out a big majority of the houses. This is a pic of 2 houses that were hit(just the first pic I found on the net)...
My heart just sank when we drove by the first house we were considering as it was destroyed from the tornado. I was so thankful that we were able to hear God's voice speak to our hearts about this house or we would not have even had a home to bring any adopted children home too. Our actual home was left undamaged (lots of debride flying around our home and in our yard from other homes, but only our fence was down). We were even more blown away when my sister, Niki, who works with the Red Cross told us that she got a map of the path of the tornado and on the map our swimming pool was the boundary where the tornado stopped in our direction. God was showing us just how much he protected us! Anyway, we didnt know all of this when we chose this house, but it has all come full circle as we visited the school in the neighborhood and loved it and it has been a great school for him this year and last year, so we are in walking distance of the school, the YMCA where they played sports this year is in walking distance in our neighborhood, and now we walk to church. Pretty cool, huh?

Comments:
Ukraniac~ Grant fix...haha! Got Dr. Jim's email this week about ya'll coming in March...looking forward to it! By the way, praying that the heat ordeal doesnt effect you. As soon as I heard about it, I checked your blog to get the latest updates from inside :)

Stephanie~ Just sent you an email...write back when you can!

Have a Great week!

Posting in the New Year...2009!

2009-01-04T21:08:00.000-08:00

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!

A Great First Christmas Together!

2008-12-28T15:07:00.000-08:00

Our first Christmas together as a family was lots of fun and we felt blessed in so many ways! There are many pics and I will share some of the ones that we have. Inna and Grant were besides themselves with excitement most of the time and Vitali just seemed to kind of take it all in in wonder of all that was happening. He loved his new trucks most of all and has played with the constantly since getting them. He also learned to sing a few Christmas songs....our favorite song that he sung was Jingle Bells, which he pronounces "Gibble Bells".

Grant and Inna caught the spirit of giving this Christmas as they bought each other something special. They had already bought each other something very small at the Secret Santa Shop at school, but Grant & Inna had been given some money by a family member for Christmas and Grant came up to me a few days before Christmas and said that when he and daddy and Inna were in Walmart, Inna saw something that she really liked so much and he wanted to know if he could use his money to buy it for her. It was a "lifesize" Barbie. I told him that that was so sweet of him and if that was what he really what he wanted to do than of course he could, but I also explained that she may not choose to buy something for him with her money as she is so excited to have her own money to buy something with (I tried to manage any expectations, so there wasnt disappointment later :) He told me, "I don't want her to buy me anything, I just want to do this for her because she loved that Barbie". He always has a BIG heart and loves to give, so I pretty much guessed that would be his answer before he even said. Well, I took him to the store and he proudly bought her the Barbie and after she saw it under the tree, she also decided that she too wanted to buy him something special with her money. She bought him a crossbow from the Bass Pro Shop(Nerf arrows) that they were playing with and she knew he really liked. Here are some pics of their gifts to each other:

Vitali and his gal :)

Another one of our favorite things was looking at Christmas lights. We bought some glow sticks and went to the best houses in our area:

Daddy, Inna, and Vitali got out at this house with everyone else and had a closeup look. Grant and I had seen it up close to0 many years in a row to get out in the cold, haha!

This scary guy showed up Christmas morning...ok, it is just Jason in one of his Christmas presents to keep warm at work:

Then, a couple days later, some football in the yard:
Grant getting ready to catch and run:

Jason going vertical :)

Jason's mom, Grandmama, getting in on the action:

A Reason To Celebrate....

2008-12-21T18:33:00.000-08:00

We have so many reasons to celebrate this year...our family being together, health, great jobs, and the list goes on and on, but what we love about Christmas is that it is a holiday set aside to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus long ago and to celebrate the peace that we have in Him.

I posted before that I was asked to share testimony at our church women's group's last 4 breakfasts and one of the times, I shared about how I love to read the story behind the hymns and I shared the story behind, "What a Friend We Have In Jesus". If you have never read how they were written, I encourage you to google it. These writers have been through so much in their life and yet they write about the faithfulness of God. Well, today at church they shared the story behind the song, "I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day" and thought I would share a little bit...

The words to “I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day” were written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Christmas Day 1864 in the midst of the American Civil War and the news of his son had suffered wounds as a soldier in battle. The poet had suffered the great loss of his wife two years earlier in a fire. But in the midst of it all, he wrote the poem “Christmas Bells” that became this carol. He finished with this last stanza...

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, goodwill to men."

Our adoption agency sent out Christmas letters this year and at the top was this Awesome heading:
The treasure of Christmas is HOPE,
The hope of Christmas is PEACE,
The peace of Christmas is Jesus!

At Christmas time, we are celebrating the peace of having a relationship with Jesus and our hope is that each of you will experience the peace and joy that only He can give this Christmas!

Below is the Casting Crown's version of I heard the Bells: (May have to turn off other music at the bottom)

ISAIAH 9:6
For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called WONDERFUL, COUNCELOR, MIGHTY GOD, EVERLASTING FATHER, PRINCE OF PEACE.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

More family updates next post :)

More Updates

2008-12-14T15:46:00.000-08:00

It is hard to get a picture of Vitali without movement, so this one is a little blurred, but I didnt want to crop it.

Let's see...it has been an action packed week :)
One of us had an appointment everyday this week and some pretty long appointments too! I somehow actually "no showed" an appointment too when it just completely slipped my mind even after I had seen it in my planner that morning but with the events of the day, forgot...oops!

We had our UAB Adoption Clinic 6 mos evals done again by pediatrician, speech therapist, and psychologist. They are just great to work with us on all areas needed and they are so knowledgable. Vitali has some knots in his neck in lymph nodes and actually some swollen lymph nodes all over with some other minor symptoms and has been waking up in the middle of the night with bad leg pain, so he had to have lots of blood work done and THANK GOD the blood work was normal.
I will not bore you with all the details of the day (It was about a 4 hr appt to get everything done)....all of the ones that evaluated the kids that day are going to get together and let us know the results soon. It is great to know we are good hands with them (they are medical professionals, but also adoptive parents also with lots of experience :) They are specifically trying to help us with Inna and school as it has been a very difficult challenge for all involved this year. It has been a challenge for her to do well in school coming from the background that she has(there has been behavioral issues at school) and then starting off so behind academically. She is a very smart girl, but had only been taught to a 1st grade level academically when she arrived here and she is the age of 5th grade, but the developmental specialist felt that we should try her in 4th grade this year. So, now the adoption clinic are using their professional knowledge and experience with internationally adopted children(they see this happen all the time in school) and putting all this together with my "mommy sense" and Jason's "daddy sense" and we are all going to try to come up with the best plan for her in school. Please pray for us if you think about it as we make these important decisions.

We have had a fun week too! The Christmas parties have begun! The kids will have a Birthday Party for Jesus at church wed night and they are looking forward to it. Jason and I went caroling this past wed night with our church at a nursing home here in P-ville. We just walked through the halls and sang and it was so sweet seeing the residents in their rooms as we walked by singing along with us. Then, we went to my grandmother (Meme's) retirement home for the Christmas Party there. It was lots of fun and they always go all out on the decorations. We always look forward to all the great party food there. We did not get to the parade this year as Grant had a birthday party to go to for a very special long time friend of his that he had not seen in a while. Saturday, I was able to go to the Christmas Breakfast at Christ Community where I was asked to give testimony and speak about our adoption relating to a different topic each month. I have had the honor of doing this since June and December was our last one. It has been a great opportunity to be able to share so much of God's faithfulness in the midst of so many adjustments.

Sooooo...I have asked the kids if there is something special they would like for Christmas and everyone had let me know, except for Inna who always has a long list of wants and couldnt decide...you know, the list gets larger with every commercial and every store trip (Try taking someone who has never been in a store to Walmart...we havent gotten brave enough to do Toys R Us yet :) Although, we have gotten Vitali to stop trying to give the Target employees kisses goodbye, haha! So, this week she was brushing my hair and I asked her if she could narrow it down to one thing that she would really like and to my surprise she said, "Well, I have been thinking and my present for Christmas is my family...that is what I REALLY wanted". I agree, that is my present too! With her saying that, it reminded of the Stephen Curtis Chapman song, "All I really want", so I added it to the blog this time.

Hope you are enjoying this Christmas season!

Comments:
Mederma~ Good to talk to ya on the phone! We miss ya'll too. Come on over to
P-ville when you get a chance! Luv~ Prep H

Kathy~ Thanks for the comment! Looking forward to reading more about your family!

Alan~ Wow...4 girls and not far apart in age...I am impressed! You are right about the stories being heartbreaking! I am so thankful that I can always take comfort in like the old song says, "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands"...it is a child's song, but so comforting when hearing things that are out of our control.

Tis the Season...

2008-12-07T19:51:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos of our Christmas decorating day at our home (my camera was doing funny, so not all pics are real clear)~

The Guys:

Yes, everyone wanted to peek in the attic:

When the decorations finally made it down, the kids were in awe:

And...finally, the tree us up:

We also took some photos for Christmas cards and these are a couple that didnt make the card:

Next weekend, we will be going to the Christmas Parade here in our hometown. It is always lots of fun!

Tomorrow, we will be going to B-ham for our 6 month eval with our social worker (It was rescheduled last time) and then Inna and Vitali will have their 6 month eval at UAB Adoption Clinic. We have a busy day ahead, so guess I better close out until next time.....

In Honor Of National Adoption Month

2008-11-30T12:11:00.000-08:00

Well, I just did make it....Today is the last day of November and since November is National Adoption Month, this post will be dedicated to this special time of adoption awareness! I love this time of year (Even before I was an adoptive parent) because our local radio station airs Family Life Today and they normally have such great adoption info for this month. I know a lot of emails went around about the 20/20 episode on adoption this week too. We were so blessed to have an adoptive family at our church of children born here in America speak today on their new ministry for adoptive families/children.

We believe that God called us to Ukraine to adopt our children and since we came in contact with so many of the orphans there, we have a special place in our hearts for them. I put this video on the blog once when we first started the blog, but thought I would add it to this post today also...you may have to turn the music off at the bottom of the blog page to hear music on the video.....

This video gives some of the unfortunate sitations the orphans face and in my opinion probably doesnt even touch the surface of some of it. In Vitali's orphanage, I do believe that the caregivers did the best they could with what they have and we actually loved many of the caregivers and orphanage director, but when we got home, the doctors told us that for Vitali to be in the condition he was in when we arrived home, he would have had to have been in a baby bed about 20 hrs a day most of his life. That we are aware of yet, he actually has no gene to be special needs or disabled, but all of his special needs are results of his living environment at the orphanage and choices others made that affected him while he was developing in the womb. Inna's orphanage had approximately 300 kids and Inna is very open and tells us often about the things she experienced there and in her past.

(I certainly am no expert on adoption, but these are just some of my thoughts from what I have seen)
Like the video showed, most kids over 4 or 5 are rarely adopted. I have to believe this is in the U.S. and international. From what I understand, it seems the reason is that most families are concerned with psychological/behaviorial issues from a traumatic past in older children. I am sure there are those who do not have such issues, but the truth is from what we have found, Yes, when you go into these older kid orphanages, you should be prepared for such things as it is almost impossible for a child to miss the basic stages in life and parental bonding, go through the trauma that they have that landed them in the orphanage, and experience orphanage life without having some sort of psychological/behavior/emotional, etc...issues, even if just a mildly temporary thing for some. That is one reason the decision to adopt is taken seriously, but will be worth it. To be honest, we have been through several of the behaviors talked about on the 20/20 interview and it is not easy, but when God calls you, he also gives you the strength to get through it and blesses you and he certainly has for us. The decision to adopt is the decision to love unconditionally. Not to mention, sometimes we have to go through lifes hardest things to experience God's greatest miracles! There are many ways that we have been able to understand more of the heart of God through watching him work in HUGE ways in our older adoptive child. We have learned to live life one day at a time and focus on the day at hand and turn the past and the future over to our heavenly Father who wants the best (best= that which draws us closer to him) for each of our family members. There are so many awesome older children in these orphanages who need an earthly family who is willing to love them unconditionally and in return, if that is your family who is willing to take them in, I do believe God will bless you more than you can imagine!!!

Before I close~ In honor of adoption month, we would like to bring before you 3 specific children from Inna's orphanage that I ask you to be in prayer for.
The first 2 are Lena and Valya that I have brought up before (Inna's best friend and best friend's sister). We receive letters from them often and Inna writes back. Jason and I pray for them and have been checking into trying to get them to America on a hosting program, hopefully in the summer for a little while in our home or however the Lord leads. We are prayerfully going forward with this and not sure where it will go, but taking it step by step for now to try to make it possible. Would you please pray that God will give us clear direction with this along the way and please pray for these girls. We will update you as we get more info!

Also, the other girl we ask you to pray for is Olena. Some of you may have seen in the comments section a few post back from 21 yr old Cristina from Italy. She contacted us through the blog about Olena that happened to be in the same orphanage as Inna and Cristina's family desperately would like to adopt Olena. I have asked Cristina if I could share more about her story and ask my blogging friends to pray specifically for her situation. It turned out that yes, Inna knows Olena and even remembered Cristina visiting her orphanage after pictures were sent. One very upsetting fact that we learned while at Inna's orphanage was that many of the children there are not available for adoption because their parents took them to the orphanage and signed that they will be back in 3 yrs (because it looks better), but have no intentions of ever coming back. This was told to us by our facilitator/translator. Most of the children are only available for adoption if their parents loss rights for abuse/neglect or died. The other children will never have an opportunity to have a family and will "graduate" from the system into what you have seen in the video. I am so amazed with Cristina of how much love she seems to have for Olena. She travels from Italy to visit Olena in the orphanage and has even spent the night in the orphanage with Olena, which believe me is a HUGE thing. Olena is one of the children that have not been released for adoption by her dad, but yet from what I understand does not see Olena or would not be fit to take care of her. Would you please join us in specifically praying that God will cause the things that need to take place in order for Olena to be in the best care and that His will will be done for Olena. Please pray for Cristina and family that God will comfort them and bless them in the meantime. Let's let Christina know that we will be praying!! Cristina let us know if there are any changes!

Comments:
"Our Family"~ Thanks for the comment on our blog. By the way, we heard you on Faith Radio with Jill the other day while we were riding in the car...it was a great interview!

A Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-28T20:01:00.001-08:00

We had a great Thanksgiving Day! It was Inna and Vitali's first Thanksgiving ever and they seemed to enjoy the day. Grant has tried to fill them in on what happens on each holiday, but I am sure it is hard to remember all these new things at once, so I got tickled the night before when I heard Inna having a conversation that sounded like this:

Inna: Vitali, tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we get candy.
(then, lots of cheering from Inna and Vitali).

Mom: Actually, hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that is the Fall Festival where you get candy.

Inna: Oh Vitali, tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we are going to get presents.
(Again more cheering from Inna and Vitali)

Mom: Ummm...sorry, but actually, that is Christmas :)

Inna: Huh, then what do we do on Thanksgiving?

Mom: Well, we get to eat a special dinner with our family and it is a day to give thanks, etc....

Inna & Vitali cheer again, but not quite as enthusiatic as before :)

We did have a great lunch and have had left overs twice since then :) Grant checked out a book from his library at school of the story of the Pilgrims and the 1st Thanksgiving and he wanted to read it to us all that morning and then, we all went around and told things we are thankful for and prayed together. It was a great start to our day!

Then, later in the day the kids talked us into going to see the movie "Bolt", which was another first for Inna and Vitali as they had never been to a movie theatre before! They loved it and it was a great first movie to take them to! At times I amazed as I try to wrap my mind around what it must feel like for them to experience these things for the first time, especially for Vitali who had never been outside the 4 walls of his orphanage until 6 months ago. It is really an eye opener of all the things that we take for granted and never notice or the things that we have become numb to because we see everyday...they notice EVERYTHING and if you have been around them for 2 minutes or more, you already know that they touch EVERYTHING they can get their hands on. Inna watched the movie intensely and Vitali was very vocal throughout taking on every emotion as if he was in the movie himself. He loves vehicles of any type, so if there was a car that crashed or turned over, he would scream out, "OH NO, IT'S BROKEN"!!!! I couldn't help but to think back to our first month or so home when he was just getting used to riding in a car and would scream and duck everytime a truck would go by us on the road and now, he LOVES for trucks to go by, especially school buses.

Hope you had a GREAT Thanksgiving Day too!!!

Trip to Oklahoma

2008-11-25T18:16:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend, Grant, Tiff, my mom, and brother Jacob were able fly to Oklahoma to Caleb's graduation from basic training for the Army. Since Jacob works for Delta, we were able to fly on buddy passes, which is always a huge blessing! Everyone got out on the first flight, except for me and Jacob...me because someone had to stay back with one of our big pieces of luggage with Caleb's clothes that couldnt be checked in (long story) and Jacob because he was working and flew out on the late flight with me. I actually had 6 hrs in the airport by myself, but it went by so quickly. I am still amazed at how Ukraine still comes across my path so often even after the adoption...while at the airport, I ate lunch at Moe's and there was no seating, so a girl asked if should could sit at the table with me and we began talking and she shared with me that her husband is from Ukraine and she is from Moldova (by Ukraine) and her dad was born in Ukraine. I couldnt believe out of all the people in the airport, she had sat at a table with me and I told her about Inna and Vitali and we were able to share so much info with each other. She said that her family moved here a long time ago for religious freedom during communist times. She had so much to tell me about her experiences there and I had things to share with her as she had never visited an orphanage there, but had heard of the conditions. We exchanged email.

Jason wanted to go the graduation, but unfortunately does not have any more days off work from our Ukraine trip until May, so we video taped it for him. We felt that it would be best not to try to take Inna and Vitali yet since it is very unpredictable how they will do in new places, especially crowds of people, although this truly has gotten 10 times better than when we first came home.

The graduation was great and we are so proud of Caleb for his accomplishment. He seems to truly love the Army and passing his physical test did not come easy as he went into the hospital while he was there and we were all praying that he would recover enough to pass his physical test, which HE DID!!!!!!!
Here are some pics of the day:

Tiff had her 17th B-day this week! One way we celebrate b-days at our house is the b-day person gets to make the menu of their favorite foods for dinner one night (of course, I do the cooking, so I wil choose to go out to eat on mine) or choose to go out to eat. Tiff planned her b-day menu 2 months ago of her favorites and she has been waiting ever since. She chose:
Appetizer: Southwestern Salsa & chips (A great bean dip that she and I make)
Chicken Crescents
Green bean casserole
Mac-n-cheese
Desert: Chocolate Trifle

Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY THIS MONTH TO JOEY, KATIE, & MOM (GIGI)...Mom's is today!!!!!

Adoption "stuff" learned along the way #4:
I don't know how many of you journal, but I do keep a spiritual journal that usually is quite in depth writing. I have this blog that purposes as a journal for our family, but there are many things that happen every day in our adoption that would not be ideal to share on a blog, but to keep a personal journal of and eventually be able to go back and remember what you have made it through and even laugh about somet things later. I am a huge believer in a journal, because when you go through another trial, you can always look back at what you have already made it through and it gives you hope and builds your faith for the new trial. Anyway, up until recently, I had not been keeping a personal journal of the day in and out of our family happenings and a friend told me, "You have just got to write all of this down before you forget." She said even if you just write a one liner sum up for each child per day. I thought, yeah right, there is no way I could write just one line, but I gave it a try and it turned out to be great advice...it doesnt take but a second before I go to bed and I can already tell it is going to be great to look back at. Also, another awesome lady that I just met that owns an adoption agency and has adopted many children herself with special needs and said that one way she has gotten through the hard times is humor...so she deals with the trial during the day and then tries to find something humorous to journal about it that night. Afterall, laughter is the best medicine!

Comments:
Smurfette: I know the Joe Deertay look brought back fond memories for you...it almost looked as good as your Happy Day's Joni look...lol!

Kevin & Tammy~ I have enjoyed keeping up with your journey! So glad ya'll are doing well!

It's Been Six Months!

2008-11-18T19:19:00.000-08:00

6 months ago, Inna and Vitali arrived in America and joined us as a family in their new home! It has been a wild ride so far at the Hall home with lots of ups and downs, lots of laughing and crying, lots of tantrums and behaving, lots of frustration with the "too hard" and celebration with the "made it through", lots of missing friends and making friends, lots of talks about the past and talks about the future, lots of calls to be on Jerry Springer(just checking to see if you are still there...Ha! :)lots of difficult doctor's visits and thankfulness for the easy visits, lots of expected struggles and lots of unexpected miracles, lots of learning what love is and what it is not. Anyway, you get the picture....

If you are another adoptive parent, you are familiar with "Gotcha Day" and for those who arent, Gotcha Day is usually the day most adoptive parents celebrate once a year of when their family came together. A lot of people celebrate Gotcha Day as the day that their child came out of the orphanage forever, but we are going to celebrate our Gotcha Day on the day that Inna and Vitali came home and we were ALL together since when they came out of the orphanage we couldnt all be there. I know a lot of families go to dinner on this day, but I would love to hear any other ideas of how your family celebrates this day.

To celebrate 6 mos, I am posting some pics below of when we first met in Ukraine and now...I will go from youngest to oldest....

Vitali in Ukraine:

Vitali now:

Grant in Ukraine:

Grant now:

Inna in Ukraine the first day we met:

Inna now:

Jason in Ukraine:

Jason now:

Mel in Ukraine:

Mel now:

Adoption "stuff" we have learned along the way #3:
We were given this advice by one of our social workers, I may have touched on this in an earlier post (can't remember). In Ukraine, the kids are not supposed to take anything with them from the orphanage. Now, can you imagine that you are leaving the place where you live now, except that you cannot take one thing with you, not even your clothes, not even one thing familiar to you. Inna's and Vitali's orphanage did allow them to wear the clothes they had on out of the orphanage(this is not the norm from what I understand), but this is absolutely all that Inna had to bring with her from her past was the clothes on her back and when she got home, she actually wanted to send those back in case the other girls needed them. Our social worker recommended buying a few things that you could ask the orphanage director if you could trade out the new things to leave at the orphanage for your child's familiar things....like new sheet for the child's sheet they are used to sleeping on with familiar feel and smell, new toy for maybe your child's favorite toy at the orphanage, new clothes for an outfit they are used to wearing, etc... Don't forget to ask for any pictures. Our kid's orphanages did not have any pics to give us, but you never know if you don't ask. We were able to get Vitali's hat from the orphanage (the one you see in a lot of his pics from Ukraine) and he loves that hat. He even wore it around the house in the summer some. Also, his prize possession is his "Meeska", which is a little mouse that was given to him when he left his orphanage. He sleeps with it every night, took it the first day of school here in America, and likes to carry it around with him. It has been very obvious how much it means to him and every night when I give him a kiss for bed, he holds Meeska up for me to kiss goodnight. Hope this helps some!

Comments:
Ukrainiac~ Loved hearing about your patriotism all the way from Ukraine! I am so glad you are able to send in the absentee vote! Grant will appreciate that too when he runs for president :)

Dad~ nope...our candidate did'nt win this time...glad you joined me in American pride on voting day at the polls though :) Now, just praying for our country and new leaders!!!

Mrs. Huff~ We did see your comment on the slide show. Thanks for letting us know that you checked on us. Inna saw some papers a few weeks ago that ya'll had worked on and she said, "I miss Mrs. Huff". Hope you are doing well!

Did You Vote Yet Today??

2008-11-04T08:45:00.000-08:00

Does anyone else get emotional inside standing in line to vote...or is just me??? In a long line of many people commenting on just how long the lines are, etc.... (By the way, I have never understood why if we know we are going to be in a long line beforhand, why most people don't catch up on some good reading or even a magazine they enjoy...I have always brought a book with me and the time goes by so quickly) I always find myself feeling a little teary eyed and feeling really patriotic on voting days, especially for president (Actually, being a woman, I probably get teary eyed on many days for many things). I am not always exactly sure why except that on voting days I remember how blessed I am to live in a country with such freedoms to vote for my beliefs and I think it always reminds me of the values our country was founded on and the blessings that we live under in America as a direct result of being a nation established as ONE NATION UNDER GOD and how so many in the past have given their lives for the cause and then I think of the efforts of some to move our country away from these very things that we were founded on and that makes us a blessed nation and then I think Caleb (my brother) joining the military this year has brought a new meaning to voting this year too! I know Caleb's heart and why he joined was because he felt that this was what God called him to do for this time and has come to love his country so much that he feels honored at 26 yrs old to put his life on hold to serve his country and from his letters to us, they are telling him he can probably expect to go to war in the upcoming year. He seems to be making a big impact in his platoon. He says church is Awesome and he has been able to share about the Lord to so many of the men there and in his last letter he said that they are reading scriptures together and he gave his Bible away to one of the guys didnt have one ( I didnt even know that and in the last letter we sent him, we filled in the whole back page with scripture so he could just have some in front of him...GOD IS SO GOOD!) He said they now have, most of the guys in his platoon going to church together there. We are going to his graduation at the end of this month in Oklahoma...probably another teary eyed day, haha!!!

Anyway, hope you exercise your right to vote!!

By the way, Grant has already told Vitali last week that one day Grant will be the president of the U.S. and Vitali will be the president of Ukraine! I told them a few of the special priveledge that Mama hopes to have if that happens, haha!!!
He just looked at me like, "No, I am serious" and I could see those wheels turning of all that he would do if he were president. Those wheels are always turning and I am so thankful because he is very insightful and has so much discernment regarding people, he catches things that mama and daddy miss sometimes.
One cute story from the other day was we were all somewhere and someone gave us the question if we could meet any person in the world who would it be...and when it got to my turn, I was really stumped...you know there is a million people I want to meet, but you know how your mind goes blank when you are put on the spot. I just kept continuing to think and Grant said, "Oh, I bet I know...I bet you would love to meet Sojourner Truth"...WOW...SOJOURNER TRUTH (I didnt even know he knew who she was yet) and to think my limited mind was more on the lines of someone like Kelly Rippa, haha!!! I said, "Oh YEAH, YES, I WOULD"!

GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!!!!!

Fall Fun!!!

2008-11-02T17:55:00.000-08:00

We have had a fun week of the pumpkin patch, school parties, and Fall Festivals! Vitali and Mama went on a field trip with his class at school to the pumpkin patch in Clanton, AL. The first pic is of Vitali on the hayride to get to the pumpkin patch. I think he was most impressed by the tractor pulling us. Then, when we got off the hayride, he began looking for his perfect pumpkin (I think we actually picked up every pumpkin in the patch) and of course the day wouldnt be complete without falling head first into a burr bush...so somehow he managed to fall right in the middle of it head first and came out covered in burrs, even in his hair. I don't know what kind it was, but it felt like thorns, much sharper than it looked. The third pic is of the final pumpkin that he picked :)

These are of Vitali's school party.

Fall Festival Night:
Holidays are a lot of fun, because it is neat to see them experience for the first time the things that we are so used to having every year. They had a great time and Inna said, can we do this all again tomorrow! Grant dressed up as Price Caspian from Narnia for school, but then decided to be a football player that night. Vitali was Thomas the Tank Engine, but Inna kept telling people he was Tom and Jerry because she forgot what it was called and so Vitali starting thinking that too and started answering that he was "Jerry" for Tom and Jerry until I reminded him that he was Thomas...it was so funny! He actually has come to love Thomas the Train since being home, but with the new language, they sometimes get their words switched around...it adds some extra fun into an already great time!

Last are a few of Grant's football pics at The Lions stadium where he played. Football season just ended and he had a great time and made a lot of great friends! He is now moving on to wrestling which is another thing he has wanted to do for a while, but we had him wait until this year. I don't know how he could love it as much as he loved football, but we'll see and he is just waiting for football to start back up already for next year. In the pic of the teams on the field, he is in the maroon jersey on the field closest to my camera. He has also really into Alabama football now and waits with excitement to watch the games! Roll Tide by the way!

Where does time go?

2008-10-14T11:50:00.000-07:00

Wow..it feels like we just posted a couple weeks ago and it has already been a month!
We have had a busy 2 weeks...it seems the doctors visits hit all at once again and then just when we were done with the scheduled visits we had a round of Strep throat for each kid starting with Inna, Vitali, and then Grant. It is so funny their different personalities...Inna is always saying something different is hurting at all the time :), so when she is REALLY sick, she REALLY enjoys a lot of snuggles :), Vitali has learned from being in the orphanage not to pay attention to pain (It is getting a little better though) and has a VERY VERY VERY high pain tolerance, so we have no idea he is sick or hurt himself until we see blood or some other sign. So, we had no idea he had Strep until he broke out in a rash with hives all over his body and the doc said it was Strep. He never slowed down one bit the whole time he was sick. Grant on the other hand, gets sick, gets a fever, but fights the thought of being sick until usually after going to the doctor and then he decides he wants mommy or daddy to lay down with him until he recovers :) If you have never seen a strep rash, neither had I...this pic is Vitali with his rash, except it was from head to toe...I took this pic for the doc just in case it went away before our appt time, but he actually had the welps for 3 days

Believe it or not, it is almost time for our 6 mos post adoption assessment in our home. Our agency's social worker will be coming back out to do the 6 mos. reports. We LOVE her...she is so sweet and keeps in touch with us in between meetings.

The kids are really beginning to have some great play time together at home. They are definitely the typical bro/sis with loving to play together at times and then the sibling rivalry at times. Vitali in this past month has began to join in playing with them...all 3 love to build tents complete with their own sections for rooms and then they decorate them. Grant & Vitali love to play football together, that is usually at least once each day and Grant loves to be the tough coach with all the coach lingo! Inna and Grant are GREAT about taking turns playing what each other likes...they even have voluntarily helped each other clean each others rooms and then will tell me they have a "surprise" for me :)
Inna has had some great times at school and also some real challenges at school. She is picking up her work rather quickly considering that she had not been taught much in many subjects in Ukraine. For example, she was just learning to add in Math there where as you know in 4th grade, we are doing division and such here. She is working to catch up and I know it has to be hard for her, but she has a special teacher at her school for International students that understands the situation and has been a God send for Inna and us...they are helping her at her level to try to get through this year of adjustments and we will take it a year at a time. She has also started carrying over some of the behavior from her orphanage into school here in a America, like fighting...YIKES!! At her school at the orphanage it would be nothing to hit, push, get in fights, etc...with each other (It's survival) and Inna has learned to be quite a tough girl over the years, but I can also say that we are seeing breakthroughs all the time and a softer side come out and I know that God has divinely placed each teacher that she has this year, because they tell me all the time how much they love her and want to see her come through this and do well and I can tell they really do!!! I surprised her and showed up for lunch last week and she was so excited she started crying and when we went in the lunchroom all the way through people were saying, "Hey Inna" so she seems to have made many friends and of course she gives every teacher a hug all the way down the halls :)

Grant is absolutely loving football!! He told me that he felt sorry for his son one day because he is going to always talk about football and make him run plays. This whole football season he has been covered in bruises on arms and legs, but hasnt complained...it just looks bad! He has been pumped this week because the YMCA is trying to promote playing sports and having good academics at the same time, so they are working with the schools of the kids who play a sport at the Y and made the honor roll at the same time to reward them, so he is getting his pic on the honor board at the Y and getting a free meal at his ABSOLUTE favorite restaurant, Long Horn. His favorite meal is Salmon from there, so they didnt know it, but that was probably the best reward they could have given him :)

Vitali is still loving his school!! I can't say enough about his teachers...they go above and beyond!! We are very blessed that special ed will be going out to his school to give him therapy while he is there. He will begin with with speech therapy and cognitive therapy for now. I am just so excited for him to get started although...WOW...I can not say enough about how much he has changed since being here. We actually finished all of his dental work today...it has been 4 visits of dental work and we are done until cleanings now....YEA!!!! They told me at the dentist today that the change in him of when he first started coming to them until today is unbelievable...they said, we only see him every once in a while, but we can see a real difference. Of course, friends and family tell us a lot they see it, but it was just encouraging to hear that from them today. He is getting so strong and loves to do hand stands and flips...matter of fact this is an all day thing!! Last week, one of the biggest changes I noticed was in his drawing. At the orphanage and since we have been home, his way of drawing was to kind of stare at the paper, fist the pencil or crayon and draw a line from top to bottom of page over and over...Last week, he shocked me...he came up to me and drew his first object where he drew a circle and told me it was a circle...I was so excited for him and he was too!!! He learned this at school. Oh, and he is officially potty trained now...WOOHOO!!!!

Quick update for those of you who know Caleb: He is doing great and actually loves basic training. He said he has good drill sergents that seem to have really good morals. He most dislikes waking up at 4am and says he is homesick, but enjoying at the same time. I can't remember if he said he has 40 or 60 people in his platoon, but he is the platoon leader for his platoon. Please keep him in your prayers!

I am going to try to post a short video of each kid and hopefully will start on next post.

Adoption "Stuff" we have learned along the way #2:
This one will be a list called, "Don't Assume" just in case it might help someone. If you are another adoptive parent, we would love to hear your "Don't assumes" you have found helpful along the way that you can share....

In Ukraine, Don't assume that the older child you are adopting knows that they are being adopted in a FOREVER family. We explained every detail through translator about adoption and what that would mean for her. The kids at these orphanages see many kids coming and going for hosting programs...they will leave for a few weeks to a month and then come back, so you have to explain, so that they will not think they are going on a hosting trip, but going to be in a family forever!!! We talked to Inna about this the first day we met and asked her if this is what she wanted (I think it is good to ask even though you know they are going to say yes, so they feel a part of the decision). I still remember our conversation and how she lit up like a light and said, "YES, YES, YES"!

Also, In Ukraine, Don't Assume that they understand the events of the next days when they leave the orphanage...I think it is a good idea to explain in detail through translator...We wrote a letter for our translator to read to Inna with every detail of where she would go once we left the translator because of the different languages...including what will happen on the plane and how they would stop and get off the plane and then back on, etc...because if they wonder what is happening at any time, you may not be able to explain. We also wrote for him to read to tell her that she can trust us and explained many things about our family etc... (this is important for them to hear from a caregiver they have known or like in our case, Inna seemed to trust our facilitator as much as any caregiver so he read the letter). Here is the reason I say this...We were told by one of our facilitators while in Ukraine about an orphan that was adopted there and the visits went great with the new parents, but when they left the orphanage and went to board the plane, the child totally freaked out and started screaming and refusing to get on the plane. The parents wisely decided to not go that day and see if they could calm the child down. They went back to the orphanage to see if one of the caregivers could make sense of it and the child admitted that the other kids in the orphanage had teased the child that this family was only being nice during the visits to get them back to America to do away with them (but with details that I wont share). So, the family had that caregiver that the child knew talked to the child of how they could trust this family and that it was all a lie. From that our facilitator suggest having a letter ready for the caregiver to read.

Last one....Don't assume that they have been taught stuff already, chances are whether they are 6 or 16, no one has taken the time yet to teach them. I mean like, thinking of teaching things like you would a toddler...basic hygeine:showering, brushing teeth, toileting, etc...I remember when we were in Ukraine having a dinner conversation with other adoptive families and we getting closer to getting our kids out of the orphanage and we were all like, what should we do with an older kid at shower time....we don't want to embarass them. Well, since we have been home, I have not talked to a parent yet that hasnt had the same experience (and even some adoptions from America) It doesnt matter if they are 16, they will probably need you to explain these things in detail from beginning to end and from my experience and all the others I have talked to if they are like ours, they will not be embarassed at all, but in fact will be so thankful that you took the time to show them and they want to know. One thing that was very helpful to us was a book a friend gave me called American girl, "The Care and Keeping of You" and especially when the language is not there yet. It has lots of pictures and explains many basic things that they need to know.

Anybody, got any to add?

A few more pics:
1. This is how they like to watch t.v. sometimes.

Family Photos

2008-09-20T21:59:00.000-07:00

We finally had some "official" family photos taken. I added some to the slide show and the rest below:

Vitali Starts School & Grant's 1st Football Game

2008-09-14T18:32:00.000-07:00

This week was an exciting week, especially for Grant and Vitali. Vitali started Mother's Day Out 2 days a week at a local church here. It was not as easy as I thought to find a place for him, but in the end we were thankful that so many doors closed, because it led us to the perfect place! Many schools werent equipped or said that they didnt have the staff for special need's, but finally (it actually was the last number on my list) I called the school he is going to and the director was wonderful and I knew right off that this was what we were waiting for and she immediately knew the exact class that would be perfect for him. The teachers are very compassionate and Vitali really likes them! His first day was Thursday and he was very proud to go! He is most proud of his car "masheena" as he calls it, lunch box. It is almost as big as he is, but he carries it around everywhere in the house, car, stores, etc... He also took his favorite mouse the first day..he calls, "Meeska" his only toy brought home from his orphanage. Here are a couple pics from the first day:

About to leave with the BIG lunchbox, "Meeska", and balloons from church the night before to play with in the car:

Pic with teachers:

Grant did have his first football game, which is played at the same stadium that the Prattville Lions play on, which was a big deal for him. He had a great time and even got some good blocks in and tackled the other team's guy running with the ball once. This age has been really cute to watch, especially since they look like all helmet :) Unfortunately, I did not get any good pics at the game because my camera quit working again while we were there. I will have to borrow Tiff's for the next game until we can get a new one. I did have this one pic of practice when running back after water break.

A few pics of Inna at gymnastics:
Striking a pose:

I keep forgetting to answer the question of when is their b-days from a while back:
Inna- Feb 28
Grant- June 28
Vitali- April 10

Also~ I have decided to add a new section to the end of each post in hopes that it may be helpful to other adoptive parents of things that we have found to work well for us or any good info that we have learned along the way in our adoption, through reading, other adoptive families, social worker, clinics, prayer :) If you are an adoptive parent and want to add any info that you think may be helpful or your experience with the subject, feel free. There is so much that we have learned, I am not sure where to even begin, but here we go:

Adoption "stuff" that we have learned along the way:
One issue that we were having when first arriving home is that there are 3 kids and 2 parents and how to juggle tucking them all in bed and prayer and bedtime story, and any wrapping up the day bedtime conversation (especially, when they all wanted mama to be the one to do it and there is one mama, haha). We were given some great advice by our social worker to try having an end of the night family time right before bedtime where we read a story, pray, and then talk about what will happen the next day. It was explained to us that talking about the events that will happen the next day is important when adopting older children who have been through any past trauma because there lives have been so unpredictable before now and with the fears that they face, they need to have the security of knowing some of what is planned for the next day, even if we share just one thing that is planned (if nothing major planned, could even be what we are having for dinner) (and that it involves that our new family will still be together :) Then, after the family time, we start tucking in one by one and the ones that arent being tucked first have a quiet time in their room reading a book, coloring, listening to music until mommy and daddy can get there. All of this has worked great for our family!

Post again soon!

Labor Day Lemonade Stand & Saying Goodbye to Uncle Caleb!

2008-09-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

One great thing about living in Alabama is the warm weather, even in September (Although, I know that everyone doesnt enjoy the hot weather lasting so long as much as we do :) We took full advantage of the sun on Labor Day by letting the kids have a lemonade stand and they had a great time! Inna and Grant had lots of customers and enjoyed making their money! When Grant decided that he had made enough, they split their money and he went inside, but Inna decided she wasnt going to quit until there was absolutely no lemonade left to make! Here is a couple of pics from their fun day:

Vitali watching the action from the shade~

The rest of the evening was spent saying our goodbye's to my brother Caleb (Uncle KK) who many of you know. He actually joined the Army and left for Boot Camp last week. We were sad to see him go as we are so used to him being with us often, but at the same are excited for him as we know that he spent much time in prayer and talking to many others that he respects before making the decision. He has had many friends in his prayer groups over the years that are in the Air Force, but he said, that he just really felt led to the Army. He took the test that they take and scored really hi on it and had the option of many jobs. The position he took will be learning the procedures to launch Patriot Missiles. He will be at Boot Camp for 9 weeks in Oklahoma and then train for his job in Texas until March. Then, more than likely will be deployed or if not deployed, he will probably be living overseas for about 3 yrs from what he has been told. So, you can see why this felt like a BIG goodbye! Of course, right now, just have to get through Boot Camp! By the way, I told Jason and Caleb that I blamed Jason for sending my brother off because of all the times Jason got Caleb to come over to watch "The Band of Brother's" movies with him (A series of about 10 Military movies that they love). Really, we are all proud of him and those of you who know him, please pray for him! I will probably add a few quick updates on our blog as we receive letters since he cannot contact anyone any other way right now.
Comments:
Lara~ Thanks for checking on us...contact us when you move back!

Stephanie~ I am so glad to hear from you! Please email us if your family is ever coming to Alabama and we would love to meet up and meet your brother from India too(By the way, don't you have two siblings from India? I couldnt remember)

Hannah~ Awesome...you have a blog now...we can follow you at college!!! Sounds like you have had a good start...keep letting us know how you are doing!

We're Still Alive!!

2008-08-21T19:12:00.000-07:00

Wow...where to start? Well, it has been longer than I expected since my last post, so lots to catch up on....Thanks to all of you who we ran into in Costco :), church, restaurants that reminded us that you were still checking and hadnt been updated in a while. It is great hearing that ya'll are still following along with us. We are still so thankful for the prayers and support. I had one person tell me today that they had been waiting on an update, but figured it out that we were waiting until the 100th day on our count up to post and Gosh, that would have been a great idea, but I couldnt wait any longer, so here's to celebrating Day 99!

Jason and I are doing good and thankfully, nothing too eventful to report on us!

Inna: Started Gymnastics 2 days a week and is doing good. It was really cool, because we signed her up at YMCA one weekend and then I found out later that week that there is a lady who is a Russian Gymnastics coach at the Y where she is taking. She is the team coach if you make a team, so is not Inna's coach, but they did get to meet and talk a little in Russian and maybe one day if Inna is on a team, she can be her coach...cool, huh? Also, Inna started school a couple of weeks ago and seems to like her school, but thinks it is cutting in to too much of her play time right now :) She has a girl named Cameron who is assigned to help Inna throughout the day. She seems to be ok with going to school from 8-3:00, but can't get over yet that school is Mon-Fri. She loves her reading teacher and says that reading is her favorite subject. Her biggest struggle is Math, but we feel that it is probably not a matter of comprehension, but a matter of probably never being taught the information. Jason worked with her on riding her bike and she was so determined that she learned how to ride a bike the first day that she got on it. She worked on it from morning until night until she had it down...so, she has now gotten her first bicycle and is very proud of it.

Grant: Started football...he practices 3 days a wk and will have games on Saturdays. He has always wanted to play football, but didnt want to play flag football. He wanted to wait to start until he could tackle and this year, he finally reached that age and let me tell ya, he LOVES it! He wears his football equipment around the house all the time. If you live in P-ville, you may eventually see him wearing it to Walmart or out to eat (I am the mom that let my child when he was smaller wear Superman pajamas complete with his Superman cape to Walmart shopping since he loved it so much). He is really doing great at practice and just loves to tackle. He is holding his own when they try to tackle him and puts up a good fight, but if they end up tackling him, he actually jumps up and yell's in his toughest voice, "Yeah" and gets his hype on...he loves to give his toughest look to his opponent and say, "You getting tired yet?".
He started 2nd grade at school and loves it and loves his class. There are actually a couple of boys from his class playing football with him. He got the teacher that we requested and he loves her. Of course, I think his favorite subject is still "snack time".

Vitali: Thank you so much for praying for Vitali's MRI/CT process. It was a smooth experience with the sedation and MRI/CT and all the reports came out clearly. The doctors were concerned that Vitali would have to have a pretty major surgery on his skull for his brain and was confirming the need for surgery with MRI and PRAISE GOD, after reading the MRI, they found that he would NOT need the surgery!!!! This was huge for us as we had known there was a possibility of the surgery since 3 mos ago and and are glad to finally have that cleared. The MRI was also clear to show us the underlying reasons for his developmental delays besides just being in an orphanage since birth. I know many have asked about the results of these test and we have already been able share with many of you, but for now, I am thinking at this time it would be best to share the test results in person or by email rather than having it on the blog since this will be our family journal of our adoption for years to come. Feel free to email anytime. Although, we know all of the testing is important and can point us in educating ourselves on how to best help him through life, we also know that Vitali is already a completely different child than when we were visiting him at the orphanage. There are daily struggles and there probably will be, but he is such a blessing to us and there is so much peace in just knowing that no matter what comes our way, we are in the will of the Father. The developmental specialist at UAB recommended that he start Special Ed and we have him registered and have the ball rolling there. The next step in Special Ed is an interview with Jason and I and then his evaluation and then at the least start Speech and Occupational Therapy. We are not sure how many days or how long he will go yet. We have loved all of our dealings with Special Ed here in Prattville. I didnt know what to expect in our little bitty town, but they have been wonderful and so eager to help us! I really believe that Vitali will be in the best hands in their Special Ed program. They are going to evaluate him often for possible advancement, so that he is not left in a level that he may have already advanced from.
I really think his name explains it all for him....we decided to keep his name, Vitali for 2 reasons: We didnt want to change the name he had always gone by unless this is something he wanted to do and if he ever comes to us and wants to change it, then that is what we will do. Also, another reason is that his name Vitali means "LIFE GIVING"...the root word of his name is Vital and we all know what that means. I truly believe with all my heart that this is no accident and it is a constant reminder of what God is going to do in him. When I was in Ukraine, I had 2 friends that called and checked on me a lot and they didnt know how to say his name yet and they both accidentally called him Vitality and I would laugh and say, you mean Vitali, but one day while we were there and while on the phone with them, they both called him that again and instead of correcting this time, I stopped and said, "Oh my goodness, do you realize what you are calling this little boy with so many struggles, "Vitality" (dictionary def: to live and develop) and we both just stopped and were in awe of how God can use such neat things to speak to our hearts and that was our reminder again of the great things ahead for Vitali.
I have been asked to share our testimony at our Women's Brkfst at church and shared this story the other day with them (If ya'll were there, you can skip below, haha), but the other day, I had had a really challenging day and went to bed that night exhausted and a little down. I woke up the next morning and was getting dressed for church and Vitali who is normally too hyperactive to sit and watch t.v. and is just learning to speak (Especially English) came in there and saw this preacher on t.v. and became very intrigued...he just sat under the t.v. and stared at it for a long time like I have never seen him do. I went about my business and was finishing getting dressed when Vitali ran up to me like he had something really important to say and said, "MAMA, MAMA, MAMA, GOD IS WORKING!". This is apparently what he had picked up from the sermon and he was exactly right!

Tiff: Is cheerleading this year and had her first game this weekend! They have had practice everyday at school for the past month and will until football/basketball is over. She is really enjoying it and is looking most forward to the away game in Panama City. She is in 11th grade this year and can tell you at anytime the exact amount of days left until summer again!

One other neat thing that happened since last post is that we found pics of Inna's orphanage on the internet. I can't remember who gave us this advice, but another international adoptive parent told us one time this info: In Ukraine, you are not usually given any photos of your children of when they were younger or babies when you leave the country, so we have no past photos of Inna or Vitali, except the one I posted on the blog that I took a picture of a picture of Inna that I saw on her orphanage wall of when she was about 7 or 8. To be honest, I am not sure that they have ever seen a baby photo of themself. So, what we learned from other adoptive parents is to try to google your childs orphanage and home town on the internet and see if some older pics come up from sites like missionary groups that have been there, etc....and possibly posted photos of your child from their mission trip. It has actually worked for some families. So, we havent found any of Inna or Vitali yet, but we did find a site from a mission-type group that had info and photos of her orphanage on it from I think it was 2004. The photos were of friends in other groups at her orphanage and the director and teachers at orphanage. Inna knew everyone of them by name and it was just kinda cool for us to see. However, Jason forgot to save it to favorites and if I can find it again (it wasnt easy to find first time), maybe I can post on the blog.

I will try to get some gymnastic pics of Inna for next post...my camera bit the dust before I could get them this time.

By the way, the song on the blog this time is Inna's favorite that I wrote about on post last time, which is NOW Vitali's favorite too. He knows the words!

Comments:

Kevin & Tammy~ Hang in there...I am following along your blog while you're in Ukraine and thankful for how things are moving along. Will pray for your court date on Monday!!!

Ukraniac~ We will be looking forward to hearing about your itenerary in the states. You will be perfect to teach the AIDS kids English! We have thought about you so much, especially with the recent attacks on Georgia. Also, I have tried to email you at the medical outreach email address about the form we discussed, but it is shooting back to me?

Lara~ We would love to get together if you move back to P-ville...let us know!

MaMaPoruski~ I love reading about your great stories of getting your children. I hope that you are able to go get your daughter very soon!!!

Jerry & Amanda~ Amen to your comment...you did forget TGIF though with McDonald's. How has your first couple of weeks been back at school?

Tiff: M-E-E-E-R-L-E- ~ Bangladesh Redneck!!!! HAHA!

Post on Ukraine & Adoption

2008-07-20T15:33:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone~ This will be a little different post than our regular updates, but I hope all will read, not just the adopting families :)
First, a quick update: We are doing well and still going to several medical appointments and undergoing evals on Vitali. He is having his MRI under anesthesia on August 5th and we would appreciate any prayers for a smooth time that day and for
a clear MRI report. Thanks so much!!! More updates on post next time.
For now.......

We have for so long wanted to post some info that we have found helpful during our adoption and hope maybe others in the adoption process may be able to use some of this info as well.
First, a little reflection on our time in Ukraine. After being there for such a long period, we kinda felt like we moved there for a short time and then moved back to America, haha! It is no secret that the adoption process in Ukraine changes at different times with different leadership and many times right now has been quite a challenging process for those we are aware of traveling into the country. At the same time, there are an abundance of orphans there that need a family and we truly believe that if this is where the Lord is leading you that He will sustain you and prepare the way throughout the process.
After being in Ukraine and now being home, I find myself thinking of the people and the orphans there a lot. My heart just goes out to the people there. I can remember looking around while I was there and feeling an overwhelming sadness for the opression that so many are living under as they have become a free country from communism, but so many are still living under great oppression and desperately need to know the love of Christ and the freedom He gives. My heart is burdened for the orphans that "graduate" from the system and become prostitutes, drug addicts, and street kids, but what I think of most of all is the orphans in Inna's & Vitali's orphanages that we saw on our visits to the orphanages while we were there. As Inna begins to share more and more about what she was living in and experiencing at her own orphanage (which could only be expected in an institution of approx 300 kids), I am deeply burdened for the ones that we met that are still there...we pray for them often, especially Inna's best friend, Lena (It rhymes, I know :) who she just got a letter from and we were all excited!! Inna wrote her back immediately and wanted to send almost everything she has to Lena in Ukraine. They normally don't let you wear your orphanage clothes out of the orphanage when you leave, but they graciously let Inna wear hers to leave with Jason, so Inna really wanted Lena to have them, so she packed them in a box to send back to her. A neat thing that happened was while we were visiting Inna at her orphanage, I was really drawn to this sweet little girl in her group name Valya and I have thought about her and prayed for her often since we have come home and when Inna got her letter from Lena, there was an old worn out picture inside of the girls and Valya was in the picture too and when I asked, it turns out that Inna's best friend, Lena & Valya are sisters and I had no idea...cool huh!!! Would you please pray that these 2 little girls (8 & 10 yrs old) will find a family also (& we would love it if it could be in America :)
I was also encouraged in Ukraine by so many wonderful people we heard about and came in contact with there. I just for some reason love the widows there (Babushka's)...they are easy to spot with their scarfs on their head and worn out boots. When you look at them, you know they have been through so much in their time, especially knowing the history of Ukraine. One great thing Marianna Peipon shared with me was about her church (Marianna, you can correct me on comments if I get anything wrong) was that it started not as a church, but a choir for widows and then later grew into the church that it is now and she told me the widows come every Sunday and walk to church rain or shine (and let me just tell you that is not an easy walk)...that is dedication!!!!
I guess I wanted to share the above because we cannot all adopt and we can not all take missions trips, but we can support the missionaries that are already there doing these things. 2 missionary groups that we know personally are The Peipons and Bridges of Faith and I know that they do what they do off of donations to their ministries and just wanted to share their info in case your church or individual would like to help them help the people and children of Ukraine.
If you have been following our blog from the beginning, you will remember the Peipons who helped Jason and I in such a tremendous way while we were there (By the way, we miss ya'll so much!) We had the honor to stay in there home for several days while we were in Ukraine and we got to see their day in and day out and I can truly say that they are making a Huge difference there in so many areas. One particular that means a lot to me....Before we left for Ukraine, we went to an adoption clinic for education on adoption and learned that one of the most traumatic experiences for an orphan and one that causes the most delayed developement and delayed growth is when the orphans there have to go to the hospital, because there is no one to stay with them there. Can you imagine how scary that must be for them to be there all alone. Well, this is one thing that just stayed with me after clinic and I told Jason, one day I wish we could just take a missions team there and just sit and be with the orphans in the hospital, so that they wouldnt be alone, even though I had never heard of a missions team doing that type thing. Well, this is how AWESOME God is....he placed Jason and I in a missionaries home (The Peipons) that does this very type missions work. Marianna goes to the hospital, I think it is once a week, and sits, loves on, and plays with AIDS orphans. She has many wonderful pictures at her house of this and it was just a blessing for me to see that God had already placed this on a whole group of people's hearts too!!!!! This is just a small portion of what they do there....here is there website for more info.....
http://www.ukrainemedicaloutreach.org/

Also, another missionary friend is Tom & Larissa Benz of Bridges of Faith. They are doing a great work for the orphans of Ukraine by among other things, holding VBS type camps at the orphanages, even right now as I type. He has shared in his updates of many that have come to know Christ and their lives changed for the better through their ministry there. Here is their website for more info....
http://www.bridgesoffaith.com/

Now, for the ones in the adoption process:
Here is a little bit of info of things that have helped us greatly....
About the adoption links to the right of our blog:
1. Family Life Today~ I beg you to listen to these adoption audios for free...they are Awesome!!!

2. APAC (Alabama Post Adoption Connection)~ They offer a lot of services, but we used them to order library books online for Grant...it was great, I just asked them to send me what they had to prepare siblings of adopted children and they mailed me about 5 books and then you just mail them back when your done. They have books on any adoptive subject.

3. Lifeline Children's Services~ This is the adoption agency we used and we had a great experience with them and highly recommend them. They use great facilitators and believe me, that is important. We came across some families while we were there (not with our agency) that did not have good experiences with their facilitators.

4. UAB International Adoption Clinic~ OK, I really don't think we could have done it without them! They are very experienced on internationally adopted chldren and their medical, emotional, and developmental needs, which is very needed. They kind of guide you into all the areas that need to be tested and how to get started with the help needed. Even my regular pediatrician recommended that we go to them first as most Pediatricians do not have experience with International or institutionalized children.

Some other helpful things specifically for Ukraine.....
1. CD/Handbook~ Ukrainian plus Russian phrases for children- this is a great CD for adoptive parents to learn the basic phrases that you will want to say to your children your first meeting and time at home. I cannot imagine if we had not had this...it has been so helpful. If you are adopting an older child, you will definitely want this. Ours have been picking up a lot of English quickly, but even our first month home, I understood a lot of what they were saying in Ukrainian just from these CD's. We also left the CD with Inna at the orphanage to learn some English before she came home with us.

2. In a store in Kiev called Children's World (It is a pretty popular store there and your facilitator will probably know how to get there), they sell books for children that have basic needs...food, hygeine words, anatomy in Ukranian/Russian and in English. It has the Ukranian/Russian word and then the English word with how to pronounce it written in Ukranian (hope that made sense), it is a good resource to have.

Also, A great site that we would encourage you to check out as we have found the info to be correct with our experience there and with the experience of others we talked to while there....
www.FRUA.org (chat)

This is all I can think of for now. If I think of anything else important, I will add to another post. If you would like to email us...our email address is melhall75@knology.net or jhgasco@knology.net

Comments:
Lara~ Yes, Yes...we remember your family and Jackson...so glad to hear from you! By the way, Do I remember right that you lived in Prattville?

Connie~ Thanks for the comments...I do believe that you more than made up for not having to change diapers starting off with a 9 & 12 yr old :)

Marianna~ Alabama...next spring???? Woohoo!!! Do you know where you are going to be yet...you know that we would love to meet up or if you would like to have an adventurous, action packed time, you could even stay with us!!!!!

Jeanne~ Are you & Kolya coming to Alabama too? Hope so!!! We miss you too and I know Grant would love to see you!!! He might could draw you another potty pic!!!

Andrea & Alea~ Thanks so much for the sweet comment...Alea, Inna had so much fun with you the other day...we will have to do it again soon!!!

Dad~ Yep, we plan to keep the blog going for a while as it is a family journal of our adoption for us also.

Pat Maioulis~ Thanks for your comment on the slide show...we are very touched by your kind words!

A Great Week of Relaxation, Spa Treatments, & Eating Bon Bons

2008-06-30T22:41:00.000-07:00

OOPS...I MEANT to put a Great Week Of Hyperactivity, Parasite Treatments, and eating Mickey D's on the road in between appointments, haha! Wow...we have been trying to catch Inna and Vitali up on a LIFETIME of missed health care and it has kept us pretty busy lately! We went to the eye doctor this week and Praise God, we were cleared there and didnt have to get glasses this time. Vitali will need to go back in a year when he is speaking more and evaluate again.

Today, all 3 kids went to the dentist and it was Inna & Vitali's first visit ever to a dentist and so as expected much dental work is needed including 2 baby root canals for Vitali. They all did great at the dentist and Inna even said she liked it, which is a good thing since between she and Vitali, they will have 6 dental visits coming up to get everything fixed. Grant is still holding on to his record of no cavaties and mama has never been so thankful!!!

Ok, can I just tell you that by far the worst part of medicals so far has been the million "you know what" collections of both kids that I have had to take to the lab to check for Parasites(I just know that I am getting an Amen from you other adoptive parents doing this right now). Now, I know this is not ideal, but I confess that on the last day of collecting, I paid a family member $10.00 to be the pooper scooper into the viles for that day (And I know the rest of you are thinking this is too much info, but I figure if I have to do it, I should at least be able to vent about it on my own blog), They both are being treated for parasites from the water in Ukraine and now we will have to start collecting all over again once the medicine is done (Guess, I better start saving my $10.00...just kidding). Speaking of the medicine...the doctors told us that the medicine taste really bad (There is only one pharmacy that it could even be found at) and so I was expecting this huge battle with the kids taking it. Well, Inna really doesnt like it and so I play every "entertain you so you don't know you are taking your medicine" game when she takes hers, but Vitali actually begs for his and falls on the floor crying for more when he is done...it is pretty comical.

This next week will consist of a Birmingham Audiologist appt, English tutoring for Inna (which is going great and you wouldnt believe how well she is speaking English), and we have a social worker coming to our house for a mandatory post-adoption assessment for Ukraine~ maybe this would be a good time to place a "Enter At Your Own Risk Sign" on my door, so she will have a good warning of the hi activity level in the house before entering. One friend has already told me that it sounds like I'm at Walmart when she calls my home :) I said, could'nt we at least make Target.

Vitali is still being evaluated, but one thing that was confirmed on our first UAB appt is that he is on a 15-24 month old level in every way (While we were in Ukraine, Jason and I guessed 18-24 mos, so we were not far off). His severe orphanage conditions definitely has played a huge part in his developmental delays, but there is a good possiblity of other underlying conditions that would cause some delays also. He has had x-rays of his skull, but the x-rays did not come out clear for what the doctors need to see, so they have recommended to put him under anesthesia and do a MRI. We are in the process of getting this scheduled now. Please continue to pray for a quick report as I think the hardest part is all the waiting. It seems that it will be so much easier when we can get through with the diagnostic part and know the best way to help him. UAB was telling us from the beginning that the most important factor to his development is that he build a good attachment to us and bonds well with his parents and they said that they didnt recommend any physical, occupational, or speech therapy until that has taken place first and the GREAT NEWS is that he is attaching and the bonding process is going AWESOME and his last UAB visit, they were very impressed on how well it was going and we could all tell a big improvement in his development. We just feel that he has come so far in a short time- far more than we ever could have expected from our visits with him at the orphanage. We definitely want to be educated on all that we can on how we can best help him...at the same time knowing that God has the final say on Vitali's medicals and He has already done more than we could imagine in Vitali. About 2 weeks ago, he began to really interact and communicate back and forth, which was not happening before and his little personality is really beginning to come out. He loves to go around the house reciting his family's names over and over, which he pronounces, Mama, Tato (Ukrainian word for Dad), Inna (he pronounces "Yeena", Grant (he pronounces, "Vant"), and then he says, "Tali". It is so precious!!

Some more 1st since last post:
Inna~ 1st Vacation Bible School, which she loved and 1st time her hair has been long enough for pig tails. The pic below is of she, Grant, and Grant's long time friend, Emma at VBS.

Vitali~ 1st time jumping off the diving board and swimming WITHOUT floaties. He is a true swimmer now.

Grant has had a BIG week as he turned 7 and celebrated his birthday by 3 of his best friends going out for Pizza and then Go-carts and Bumper Boats. Here are a couple pics from his B-day~
1. Grant & friends
2. Tiff & Grant riding Go-carts...he wasnt quite tall enough to drive himself yet

One last thing~ I decided to add the link to the song "Never let go" by David Crowder as it has become Inna's favorite song. She ask me to play it constantly and she has learned all of the words and sings with the CD every time. From the first time it played in the car, she said, "Please, again". When she is scared at night, she wants me and her to sing this song together now. She loves it and I think it is great, because it is about no matter what happens in our lives Jesus never let's go of us...he has always been there through the good and bad. There is probably not many people who would understand how much the message of this song means more than a child who has been an orphan. It seems to bring her so much comfort and has become one of my favorites as well! Here it is...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jHrbXEcee8

Pics below: I was looking over older pics and found these 2 pics...the 1st is of Inna now and the 2nd is of Inna at the airport her first day home with us 40 days ago...just can't believe how much she has grown in such a short amount of time. Does anyone else feel like your kids are changing at SuperSonic Speed? :)

Pics Cont'd....

2008-06-18T14:13:00.001-07:00

Pics:

1. Grant talked his Aunt Tiff into having an overnight campout in the living room.

2. Vitali watcing T.V.

3. The first time we put Vitali in the pool his first week home, he did not have the strength to balance on floaties without his head tipping over in the water. Well, this is a pic of him now...not only can he balance in the water, but he jumps off the diving board about 100 times when we go swimming. YEA!!!!

4. Tiff with our animals...Max & Dil

New Pics

2008-06-18T13:27:00.000-07:00

Here are some new pics of the past couple of weeks. We are all adjusting a little more each day and this week we had kind of a free week with no appointments or tutoring, but next week will make up for it with MANY appointments for the kids.We are awaiting confirmations on Vitali's medicals and will share with you what we can as soon as we know more, but we are seeing many improvements just from being in a family and having "normal" playing time outside. He started counting to 10 this week (which is HUGE!) and every week his balance gets a little better and his walk is much more stable than before.
We have many pics to share and because I can only get 5 pics per post, there will be pics on the post below too. Here they are.....

Pics:
1. Inna pretending to have a conversation on the phone. This is one of her favorite past times playing on the phone and practicing an English conversation. This pic is from one of those times. By the way, if you have called our house and someone answered and talked to you in Ukrainian and then hung up...it was Inna and we probably have no idea you called...try again :)

2. Papaw launching Grant in the pool

3. Papaw launching Inna in the pool

4. Inna took this pic of Mama & Grant

5. After many attempts of Vitali trying to stand and walk in Papa's shoes and after many face plants to the floor, in this pic he finally made it...SCORE!!!!

More Pics Below.....

What A Week- Part 2 :)

2008-06-05T19:28:00.000-07:00

Well, we have had another eventful week. Daddy has officially gone back to work as of Monday and this was the first week of just Mama & 3. There were many challenges this week, but the Lord has been so gracious to give Mama & Papa the strength needed for each day! Thank you for all the support from friends and family this week...so many of you...you know who you are and I cannot thank you enough!!!

Inna & Vitali did go to the UAB international adoption clinic and it was so great to get the ball rolling there! I think they spent about 4 hours with us evaluating the two, but since they are older, the evaluations are quite extensive and they were not able to finish evaluating Vitali that day. We will go back on June 25th to finish his evaluations and get the results of Inna's. The Developmental Specialist tested her and did go ahead and tell us that she can start in 4th grade next year. So, when the school year starts, she will go to school with Grant. While we wait on our next UAB appointment, they will be seeing an Audiologist and Eye doctor. Grant went to the appointment with us and played hang man with one of their staff a lot of the time and he was just too excited not to have to get all the blood work with them. Inna on the other hand is one tough cookie and doesnt even react a little bit when getting blood work or even shots.

Well, with a whole new world to discover for Inna & Vitali, I thought I would post some of the things that they have found most AMAZING this past week~

Inna~
1. Tin Foil~ I pulled out tin foil to put on the left overs and by her reaction you would have thought she spotted Elvis...she was amazed even more the next day when she saw Jody(my hairdresser) put that AMAZING tin foil in my hair for highlights

2. The small ice in Sonic Drinks~ she looked at me in a panic and thought that something was wrong with her soda. I explained that it is just like what comes out of our refridgerator door, but smaller and she thought that was cool.

3. The fact that Mama is 33 years old. It was ok for Papa to be 33, but when we told her that I was 33, she just looked at me with very sadly and just kept saying, "Mama, No".

4. Tiff eating Bruster's Hot Fudge Sunday~ she just looked at it and fell on the floor in passing out position :)

Vitali~
1. The handle on the toilet~ potty training at it's best!

2. A Bath~ I could never explain the amount of activity involved in his baths, but let's just say a Gold Medal Gymnast has nothing on him. He loves it!!!!

3. Car ride

4. Back rubs~ He loves to be touched and usually will lift up his shirt meaning he wants us to rub his belly and then he always flips over and wants you to do his back.

5. Books~ At night, when I go to read him a bed time story, he just laughs and laughs when I start it off...he thinks it is so cool to have a book read to him!

Well, that's all for now! More updates later.....

Comments:
Stephanie~ Sounds like Riley IS a lot like Vitali. I would love to see a pic of him sometime! Thanks for keeping in touch along this journey!

Thanks for all the new post on the guestbook...Pat Miaoulis, Bret & Margie, and Elena Littlefield...it was great to hear from you!

What A Week :)

2008-05-25T14:18:00.000-07:00

It has been a wild ride at the home of The Halls this week. There has never been a dull moment! At times it looked like a scene from the "Super Nanny Show" (in fact, I almost filled out an application for the show a couple of times, haha...just kidding)and other times sweet "Little House on the Prarie" moments. There have definitely been many adjustments for all of us as we have begun to learn how to be a family. There are many things to work through of past learned behaviors and the attempt to reverse the emotional damage that comes along with children who have lived through such difficult past situations. Although we still have a ways to go, it seems that each new day gets a little easier and that the adjustments for that day are improving a little better than the day before. We are so thankful for the support of other adoptive families to share all of our similar experiences and learn from each other what seems to work best. Jerry & Amanda~ it was also great catching up with you this week and thanks for all the encouragement...since you are a couple of weeks ahead of us, you can fill us in on the changes we can expect for each week ahead, haha! We also want to thank Lauren for coordinating meals for us all of this week and each one of our friends that brought a meal. I cannot tell you how HUGE that was not to have to think of cooking. Thank you to all of you who have passed down clothes to Inna & Vitali and for the financial donation from Living Hope and for all that has let us know that you are praying....what a TREMENDOUS BLESSING all of this has been for us!
A little update on the kids:
Inna still loves the pool most of all and is getting a great tan from being out in the sun so much. Her next favorite thing is the 2 Barbie's we bought her. She takes them swimming with her most of the time. She has really missed her friends at the orphanage and tonight we are going to get some pics printed out to make her an photo album of her orphanage and friends there. Neither, Vitali or Inna had meat at their orphanages so they have been getting used to eating meat and she has found that she likes chicken and roast. She really likes soup, but thinks the Campbell's soups are too salty. She really wants to eat all day long with the food being so plentiful here, but this would be expected for anyone who has been food deprived. Vitali will eat pretty much anything that is placed in front of him, even meats. I havent found hardly anything that he doesnt like. She is learning English little by little and we have been able to communicate most things to each other. She will start with her English tutor next week.
On to Vitali~ Lesson # 1~ A very active child + lack of balance= STITCHES!!! Yes, we have already been to the ER this week. He has a very high pain tolerance and has not learned to be careful of things that can seriously hurt him yet. In other words, he bangs his head on everything right now and and tries to dive head first off of anything he can. We try to run across the room and catch him before the big plunge! This week, after the water was drained out of the tub for his bath, he decided to jump head first into the bath tub and landed on his chin and busted it open. After only 2 minutes of crying, he was fine and ready to plunge again, but we took him to have it looked at and I pretty much begged that if there was anyway to only do the liquid stitches to please try that since I didnt want his first American doctor visit to involve needles. They decided to give the liquid stitches a try and thank God it is working great! He did take them off the next day and we went back to get some more and thankfully, they sent some with me to do myself the next time, because he did remove them again. But, now the chin is healing well and closed up. He is improving in his motor skills, walking, coordination, and speech by leaps and bounds. It is amazing!! He was having a great deal of trouble with coordination and balance at the orphanage and still has a long way to go, but we have definitely seen improvements. His speech is just unbelievable! He talks all day long!

Grant is making adjustments too and some days are harder than others for him. He is doing great sharing a room with Vitali and spending a lot of time swimming with Inna! He is looking forward to starting baseball back this summer! He just finished school and did great!

We will be going to take Inna & Vitali to Birmingham this week for their UAB adoption clinic evals. We have been looking forward to this, so that we can be sure of any needs that need to be treated and to get the ball rolling. This will be a very lengthy appointment as they will both be evaluated by a pediatrician, developmental specialist, and councelor. The next day, they will have more blood work at our Pediatrician here in Prattville. Please pray for smooth appointments and wisdom for all involved.

Here are some pics of first days home:
1. Vitali & Grant playing with Thomas the Tank Engine
2. Inna dancing to a song on the T.V.
3 & 4~ swimming in our pool

We're Home!

2008-05-19T12:27:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone~ We did make it home safely on Saturday night and Jason is thrilled to be back!!! Thanks to Papaw & Nanny for the great ride to & from the airport! Well, the Hall household has been "Hoppin" ever since! There have been many moments of excitement, joy, tears, tantrums...you name it...just like expected, there are many adjustments right now!

Just to give you a quick recap of the events of the past 48 hrs (Warning: not for weak stomachs)~ Vitali had a dirty diaper on the plane that was even on clothes & the buckle seatbelt sign was on and attendants were strickly enforcing at the time, so Jason could not change him for an hour until they landed, which was our first cell phone call from Jason going through customs in the airport to get the new clothes ready to change right away! This is a great intro to the rest of the past 48hrs because it has been just as eventful...Inna has eaten a dog treat thinking it was for her(until we told her) and not to be outdone, Grant decided to follow her and lick a dog treat! The great news is that Vitali has cured our dog of all of his barking, because everytime he does, Vitali chases him! Though, he has learned to pet him now instead of lifting him by his tail. There are many behavior adjustments to be addressed. There are a few times when Inna has not gotten what she wanted that Jason & I looked at each other and said I think we just got cursed out in Russian! These are some of the difficulties, but there have been many joys and visible improvements in both kids already. Vitali is like a totally different child now! He has been talking non-stop (literally) today~ I believe that he has made up for 4 yrs in one day! When he is not talking, he is has been singing while he walks around. He loves to play and seems to be very happy!
Inna absolutely loves the swimming pool and would probably stay in it all day if she could. She has had some great times and some down times (again, expected). Her favorite thing other than swim is to go through her closet and change outfits. I think we have had about 10 outfit changes over the past 48 hrs complete with a new hairdo for each one! We wondered if she would like the dresses since she mostly wore a gym suit in Ukraine, but almost all of her clothing changes have been into dresses. Melissa Taylor, her favorite dress is the one that ya'll handed down to her with the purses on it that has the fun diferent lengths at the bottom. She loves to dance and watch it twirl! Her favorite show so far is Dora!
They both like pretty much any food that is placed before them. We have tried to make sure they get some things that they would eat at home, but they even like the new foods from here too. It is just amazing to watch them eat...they eat and drink so quickly and are usually done before we even get through putting our seasonings or sauces on our plate :) Trish G., they LOVED the pea soup and Pam, we LOVED the lasagna!!!
Grant & Tiff are doing great too! Grant is thrilled with his new brother and sister and seems to be adjusting well with having them here!!! They have both warmed up to Tiff very quickly. In fact, Vitali is loading toys on top of her right now! Vitali has warmed up to neighbors and friends bringing meals rather easily, but Inna has not been willing to meet anyone so far, except for the ones that were at the airport. I am sure that this will just take time and that it is all overwhelming for her right now! Tomorrow, we have an interpreter coming so that we can communicate the things that are needed with them and that they can ask or tell us anything that they may need. The interpreter is a sweet foreign exchange student who is staying with a family in our church and she has been so sweet to offer coming anytime that we need. So far, the communication has gone better than we ever expected. My Russian cheat sheet has been a life-saver and Inna is picking up some English words rather quickly. Please keep the prayers coming...although we are in a big adjustment phase, these are things that we expected from all the adoption educational preparations from our agency, UAB clinic, and others experiences and it really helps to be able to say when something happens, "ok, this is just what we learned would happen from others experiences" instead of being taken by surprise! We really feel your prayers and God's strength every step of the way!

Here is a pic of when we first met up at the airport (More pics later).....

Just Hours Away Until We Are All Home Together

2008-05-16T20:41:00.000-07:00

It's a cool thought that even though it is nightime our time, it is morning Ukraine time and Jason, Inna, & Vitali should have just arrived at the Kiev airport not long ago to get ready to board their plane to head to 1st stop in Prague (Czech Republic). Please keep Jason and the kids in your prayers for all of the flight time. He has a 5 hour layover in Prague and cannot leave the airport and then a long flight to U.S. He knows that it may be a trying day and says it is worth going through the long flight and long layover as long as he knows he will be at home in the U.S. at the end of the day. I can just hear the "Amens"! They will be arriving in Atlanta at 5:20 p.m. ATL time where we will meet them!

Overall, he has done well the past few days with the kids. He says their days have been filled with many ups and downs, some joyful moments and some challenges, which would all be expected. He shared some cute moments with us like when Vitali took a bath for the first time and he LOVED it! From what we understand, at the orphanages in Ukraine the kids normally one by one stand in the tub as the caregivers spray them down like a shower, so as far as we know, this was his first bath experience. Jason said he just loved his bath and Inna saw how much fun he was having so she came in and washed his hair to join in on the fun!
He also shared about shortly after he had gotten them out of the orphanage and he had given them some juice, which they drank in one gulp! They went to eat shortly after and he ordered them a big glass of water and again they drank in one gulp. So, knowing they must be really thirsty he ordered another glass of water and Inna finally said, "Faza, Faza...and went on talking in Ukrainian and Sergey translated that she was saying, "Father, Father if you keep giving me drinks I am going to pee in my pants". We thought that was funny!

Things have been going well at home, just very busy too getting things ready and setting up all appointments for the kids. A special thanks to Trish R. and Tiff who have been my painting buddies (or they might say slaves...just kidding~ they graciously volunteered) the past few days! Thank you also to all of you have checked to see if I needed any help this week, to those who brought clothes or let me know that you have some clothes for us, Claudia...love the sound machine and the video monitor...we have taken turns seeing who could scare the other person by hiding in the room and jumping out in front of the video camera (I know...not the intended purpose, haha!), and thanks to everyone who has hung on in this adoption ride with us all the way back to America...your support has meant so much!

Tonight, Grant and I had a special dinner out for just the 2 of us before everyone gets home and we had a great time! He is PUMPED about tomorrow and told me he has been waiting on a brother AND a sister since he was 3 yrs old and that sounds like the truth!

Well, we are very excited about Inna & Vitali coming home and our family finally all being together! In the adoption process before we left for Ukraine we spent a lot of time learning about orphaned children and adoptive parenting through our adoption agency, UAB international adoptive clinic, and many experienced professionals that work with internationally adopted children on a regular basis and other adoptive families. Through all of this we learned that there are some things about adoptive parenting that are the same as parenting a biological child and there are quite a few things that are different. They also taught us that it is important that our children have a specific type of environment and parenting when they first come home in order to feel safe and begin to learn how to live in a family. Beyond just the normal emotions of anyone who has experienced transitions, this can be an especially difficult time for orphaned children whose difficult past experiences normally impact their beliefs and behaviors once they get home. Please continue to pray as we implement the recommendations to us to help our children become a strong, attached, emotionally healthy family member. One thing recommended and that we feel is best also is to try to provide a more quiet environment(which is definitely not our norm) for a few weeks once we get over our initial celebration of coming home the first day. This will also give the kids a chance to get over jet lag, get used to a new time change, a new country, new foods, new everything, and will allow them time to learn about their new parents (and even what a parent is for Vitali) and new brother and for us to get to know them. So, we are doing our best not to commit to being anywhere for about 3 weeks (except, Jason's job and their medical appointments) If we feel that things are progressing quickly, we may begin to venture out sooner. We can't wait for them to meet all of their family and friends that have been praying for them for so long and all of those who have been on this journey with us!! We can't wait for them to experience the blessing that we already get to experience of so many AWESOME people that God has placed in our lives!!!! We love you!
Jason & Mel

Comments:
"Addicted to Blog"~ Yeah, I do remember Backyard Burger...although it does kinda feel like 20 yrs ago instead of 2, haha!

Tina~ I think you are right about Vitali talking.

Trish G.~ Thanks to you & Kent for keeping up and praying so much for us!

Yo Daddy~ Get the van ready...Grant's PUMPED and it gonna be a WILD ride there :)

Gasaways~ We love you...You're right...Prattville won't be the same...they told me at the school the other day, that Inna will make the 13th language represented here in our P-ville school system.

Leonard Family~ Thank you!

Ukraniac~ So cool about the plane! I hope ya'll are passing each other in the airport!

Kevin & Tammy~ Congrats on your appt date- in the summer...this should be much better than winter :)

Jennifer S.~ Thanks! Can't wait to bring em to church!

The Swinney's~ Your church has been an awesome blessing to us. Thank you!

The Taylor's~ I was just thinking today about how our time in Ukraine took the same amount as yours...2 mos...who would of thought?

Guess Who Is With Papa Tonight!!!!!

2008-05-14T18:17:00.000-07:00

It is a Big Day for us and not just because our count up of days in Ukraine is on exactly 60 days today...2 months :) ... but because Inna & Vitali left the orphanage officially today!!! The passports came through this morning and then Jason went straight to "Big Novo" to pick up the kids. When he got to Inna's orphanage, the staff there had already told her that he was on his way and she was dressed and waiting on him downstairs. She was very excited when she saw him and was ready to go!!!! Then, they drove to Vitali's orphanage and after he had given his goodbye's to everyone, he joined his sister for much excitement in the car. They called me & Grant in the car as they headed to Kiev and we all had a little celebration over the phone!! We talked to Inna and then to Vitali. Guess who was talking A LOT on the phone...Vitali!!! We could not believe it...he was repeating every word he heard to us and naming everything that he saw with excitement! I am still blown away at the speech change in him and I don't even know how to explain the difference in what we have seen over the past visits and what we heard today. All I can think is that God knew all along what Vitali was capable of...we just had not seen it yet!!!! When they arrived in Kiev, they ate dinner with our facilitator (B) & his wife and children. Jason said they had a great dinner time and then they headed to the apartment where they are sleeping tonight. Tomorrow, they will wake up bright and early and Inna & Vitali will have their medicals done and then Jason will apply for their Visa's so that they can come home Saturday!!!! Thank you for all of your prayers...God is so good! Please continue to pray for the events of tomorrow and for comfort from all the transitions!
Mel

The Day Before The Big Day...Hopefully!

2008-05-13T18:37:00.000-07:00

Jason has been very busy the past 2 days making decisions & plans for the rest of the week. Inna & Vitali's passports were not available today, so he has another day in the main city of Zhytomyr. We are very hopeful that the passports will be ready tomorrow morning and that tomorrow afternoon will be "The Big Day" that Inna & Vitali will come out of the orphanage forever. If the passports ARE ready in the morning, then Jason & Sergey will drive to "Big Novo" that afternoon to get the kids and then head to Kiev to finish out process there. If everything goes on schedule, then he will be able to fly out of Ukraine to be home on Saturday...YEA!!!! He did have to change his flight though because all the flights leaving out from Ukraine to NY to Atl were booked for Sat, Sun, Mon, and had one seat on Tues. So, after checking into any other options today, they found him a flight from Kiev to Czech Republic to Atl for Saturday. The bad news is that he will not be going through NY anymore for Grant & I to meet up with him there, so we had to change those plans too. So, now my dad...known on the blog as "Yo Daddy" and my step-mom, Pat are going to drive us to Atlanta in their mini-van (So that we will all have a seat for everyone on the way back) and we will meet Jason in the Atl airport and we will all ride back to P-ville together where I am sure Jason will probably take advantage of much needed rest.
We are very exited of thought of Inna & Vitali hopefully leaving with Papa tomorrow! Inna's Gigi (my mom) sent bead bracelets for Inna to give each of her friends in her group before she leaves the orphanage tomorrow for them to remember her by and we also packed notecards, envelopes, and stamps to give her best friends to be sure that they would be able to write her. I know that it will be a huge transition and I wish we could just take them all with us :), but I know that Inna really wants to be in a family and that the Lord will help her & Vitali through the transition.

I asked Jason if he wanted me to tell you anything specific and he just wanted to ask you to pray for some specific things if you would:
1. That the passports would be done by tomorrow.
2. That there will be a smooth transition taking them out of the orphanage and the days ahead.
3. Medicals/Visa's
4. Flight Home
By the way...he is still reading all of the blog, but from a timed internet cafe, which doesnt allow him enough time to post.
Hoping to have good news to share tomorrow!
Thanks for all your prayers!
Mel & Jason

Happy Mother's Day!

2008-05-11T15:16:00.000-07:00

Hope all of the mother's have had a wonderful Mother's Day! I sure do miss not having our family in Ukraine with us today, but it has been a beautiful day and Grant and I have enjoyed every minute. Jason called early this morning to wish me a Happy Mother's Day and Grant remembered right when he got up this morning and has been especially snuggly all day long (which I LOVE). Yesterday, he had his wallet out and he told me that he needed to run to Food World up the street and when he got there, he bought seeds for us to plant flowers today for the occasion. So, we went swimming after church and then planted our flowers.

Last night we began on Inna's room and actually made a lot of progress. She told us that she likes the color green, so we are adding the girly lime green wherever we can. This is one of my favorite colors too, so it came easy.
Grant is very excited to share a room with Vitali and that is our next project.

Jason is still in the main city of Zhytomyr just waiting on the passports to get done. Once he receives the passports, he will take Inna and Vitali out of the orphanage forever and then they will travel to Kiev to do medicals and Visa's. Jason is very hopeful that he will receive the passports on Tuesday of this week and be able to get them out on Tues afternoon and travel with Sergey to Kiev that night. Of course, we will just have to wait and see if Tues will in fact be THE BIG DAY!!!

While we are in a little waiting period again, I thought that I would share a little more about Inna and Vitali. We seem to get a lot of common questions, so I will try to answer as many as I can or can think of below.

Inna is 10 yrs old and her B-day is in Feb, so she just turned 10. She speaks Ukrainian & Russian (By the way, most Ukrainians speak Russian, but not all Russians speak Ukrainian). When we met her she knew very little English...about as much as we knew Ukrainian :) Communication is definitely a challenge right now, but we have had our translator with us when we have been with her. We went over some words with her while we were all there together and we left an Ukranian to English CD for her to listen to and we are listening at home for us to pick up more Ukrainian words. We are also hiring an English tutor to work with her over the summer, so that we will be able to communicate quicker. God has blessed us with a few Ukrainian speaking friends here in Alabama that have also offered to help translate if we get into a "need some help" mode. Inna is very eager to learn English and we believe that she will learn quickly.
She seems to be very athletic and can climb across monkey bars quicker than anyone I have ever seen. Her personality~ Right now, she just seems to so excited about being adopted that it is hard for her to sit still. Sometimes, when we are all sitting and talking, she will just bounce up and down over and over. She normally gives us spontaneous hugs and kisses the whole visit and held on to us when we would walk around the orphanage. As you can imagine for any orphan, she has had a difficult past and present even at the young age of 10. There will be many challenges to work through on the road ahead, but we see her as a gift from God with so much potential and life and we can't wait to see God's unique plan for her unfold over the years! One of the biggest things that we would like to see in her right now is that she enjoy being a little girl again. Being in an orphanage, the children learn to take care of each other and in Inna's group at her orphanage, she likes to be the "head honcho". She will tell the others what to do and they actually mind her :) Sometimes it gets a little comical. We pray that the transitions of teaching her that she now has parents to depend on and care for her will come quickly and that she will just learn to enjoy being a little girl.
Her favorite foods~ I am not sure, but I know that everyday that we would ask her what she ate, she would always say that they fed her porridge and peas everyday and she seemed to like it. (By the way, does anyone know the closest thing that we have to porridge here in America, so that I can make it when they first get home since that is what her belly is used too :) Jason tried to give her a Fanta Orange drink this past week and she made a bad face. He explained what soda's are, but she told him that she doesnt like sweet drinks. Although, we do know that she liked the juice we would bring her.

Vitali~
He just turned 4 in April while we were all there. Like we said, he seems to be on the level of about an 18-24 month old in every way, except his physical body where he is probably pretty true to size for a 4 yr old. We have already set up his and Inna's appointment at the UAB International Adoption Clinic where they will evaluate his needs and give him the best treatment available. We are VERY excited about the help that they offer. Even though he is not really speaking yet, he seems to understand a lot of the times when his caregivers speak to him in Ukrainian and can follow many of their commands. He really doesnt like to be held too much yet, so Jason gets to hold him if he throws him up in the air and I get to hold him if I feed him Cheerios:) So, we just cherish that quick time. He has the sweetest smile and smiles for us a lot!!! He is in an orphanage that I believe they really care about the kids and try to do the best that they can. We really like the orphanage director at his orphanage. He has been so friendly to us and seems to really care about the kids. He always walks around with candy in his pocket to give them when he sees them. They are all excited that Vitali is getting adopted out. His orphanage is very small and it can be very emotionally draining to visit there sometimes. The orphanage staff does the best that they can, but there is no way to spend the time with each child that they need (and even extra time for special needs kids like his group). We were asking them one day about his delays and trying to figure out what milestones he had reached and one of his caregiver's just said in a caring way that "He is a good boy, but there is just no way that we can give him the individual attention he needs to develop and reach normal milestones". We have no doubt that they have done the best that they could do, but he has definitely suffered the typical results of a child that has not had any stimulation or the care of a family. Just like Inna though, we can't wait to see what God will do in his life!! We have no doubt that he will be a joy to our family!
What he likes to eat: hmmm...well, they told us at the orphanage that he will eat anything put in front of him...YEA!!! He has never had meat though, except for liver! He loves the juice that we bring him on visits and he actually drinks it all in one gulp :) He loves candy too...one of their snacks during the day at the orphanage is candy and juice and we havent found any he doesnt like :)

All in all, we are so thankful that God has blessed us with Grant, Inna, and Vitali and no matter what the challenges are ahead, we feel this adoption is God's plan for our family and that He will teach us all how to be a family together and give us the grace for the days ahead and we will enjoy the blessings that He has given!!!!!!

Comments:
Smurfette~ I think you can find that wallpaper at Ikea and pick me up some too while you are there...lol

Dad~ Salamander..haha...we had fun at the Biscuits Game!!!

Mamaporuski~ Yes, along the way, we have decided that you just might as well laugh. Hope you I-171H gets taken care of as quick as our court decree did. That's a bummer I know!!!

Jerry & Amanda~ We miss you and think of you constantly! We are thinking date for the Hood, Hall, Farrington Reunion in July...what do ya'll think?

Until next time....

Moving Right Along...

2008-05-08T14:37:00.000-07:00

The paperwork process is going smoothly according to Jason. They got the necessary authentication of paperwork today in the main city of Zhytomyr and then traveled to "Big Novo" to get paperwork signed at the orphanages and the best news is that there was going to be a possible hold-up because they accidentally typed JACKSON Hall instead of Jason on the court decree...AAAAAAHHHHH! Jason jokingly told Sergey that maybe it would be faster to get it fixed if he flew back to Alabama and just had his name legally changed to Jackson (haha! I told you there might be more name changes before we are done, ok maybe not) The great news is that everything was taken care of quickly and that could save a lot of time...Thank God! So, now Jason and Sergey are back in Zhytomyr waiting on the passports to get done. He said he is staying in a hotel there and has already seen a GROCERY STORE there, a luxury we did not have in "Big Novo". Well, tomorrow is another government holiday in Ukraine. It is Victory Day where they celebrate the day that Germany surrendered during WWII. So, passport office will be closed, but will re open on Monday. Jason, with the wait, he will be able to focus a few days on just getting rest.
Here are a few more pics of when we were all there....

Pics:
1. Jason and some of Inna's friends at her orphanage. The book they are holding up is an English book they are trying to show me.

2. Grant & Vitali

3. The day we took Inna to Vitali's orphanage and we broke out in dance. Just when you thought that ya couldnt do "The Robot" dance to Steven Curtis Chapman, Jason proves us wrong (heehee).

4. This was a hoot to us...She is singing outloud to Steven Curtis Chapman again even though it is in all English.

Happenings in "Big Novo"

2008-05-07T13:27:00.000-07:00

Jason is doing good, just of course trying to get adjusted to the time change, which hopefully will be before it is time to come back :) When I was talking to him a little while ago, he was at the cafe downstairs in the hotel and had ordered soup and let's just say I cannot relay his explanation of what he said it looked like the meat was :) He just started dying laughing when he looked at it. He was eating dinner at 10:15 p.m. Ukraine time. I just didnt have the heart to tell him what I have eaten today! He said that he and Sergey have been running non stop from one place to the other and sometimes sprinting to the doors of the building before they close. The great news is that he has been able to visit the kids yesterday and today. I will share about that in a minute, but first want to share with you about Anna's name. Well, she has always been called Inna (Pronounced ee-na) and we decided to talk to her again about her name and make sure of what she wanted us to call her and she made the decision to stay with Inna, so if that's what she wants, that's what we want too :) Of course, there is not even a second thought for us....INNA it is! We'll let ya know if any of the rest of us have name changes too (Haha!)
Now on to Jason's visits with the kids:
Yesterday, he was able to make quick visits to both orphanages in between running to and fro for paperwork. He peeked his head into Inna's school room at her orphanage and she grabbed her new teacher and pointed to Jason and excitedly said, "Faza" (Father) and she ran to him and gave him a big hug. He said that she was so excited to see him. Then he said she went back into the classroom and brought him a little notebook that she wrote "Mother" on the outside and on the inside had her ABC's written in Ukrainian and then English (Impressive) and then it had written, "Your's Inna". She was sad when Jason left, but he told her that tomorrow she gets to go on a car ride to get passport pictures and that he would be back.

Then, he went to Vitali's orphanage and he said Vitali smiled when he saw him and kept pointing to the playground. I guess he remembers us as those fun people that take him to the playground and give him snacks.

Today, Jason and Sergey took Inna and Vitali on a car ride to the main city in Zhytomyr to get their passport pics. This is a huge deal for Vitali considering that he has never been in a car since birth from what we understand, just when he was transferred from the hospital to the orphanage. Wow...can you imagine what that must feel like to be out for the first time! Ok, so to the Farrington's and Hoods, I packed the Dramamine for him and remembering the phone conversation with you, Jerry while one of your's was losing lunch on the way back to Donetsk...we were prepared! He willingly got in the car and Jason said he just took in every site and got really excited when a bus would pull up next to them or when he was see a bird. Jason asked him (through his caregiver who also came along on the ride...Yea!) if he wanted to go on an airplane and he did. Of course, she told Jason that the car is as good as going on an airplane to him since he has never been in one. There was no car sickness today...Woohoo! Inna was very excited about her road trip too. Jason and Inna called me on the phone to let me talk to her and we did the best we could with the language barrier. I said what I knew in Ukrainian and she said what she did in English. It was good to get to talk to her. She wanted to talk to Grant too, but he was at school. Jason and I were talking on the phone afterwards and I could just hear her laughing and laughing...I asked Jason what was funny and he said she is just that excited. They even got to stop and get something to eat, but all I heard that was eaten was buckwheat..yum! He said that Vitali was pretty hyper during this time, but we both said that we think if we were out in public for the first time at 4 yrs old, we would be making an even bigger scene!!!! Jason through Sergey explained the plan over the next week or 2 to Inna and told her that once she left the orphanage with them, before they went home to America, they would have to spend a few days in Kiev (applying for Visa's, etc..) and then could GO HOME!! She told them that she didnt want to go to Kiev, just was ready to go home to America. Jason's next step is that he and Sergey are going to be going to the Zhytomyr Region tomorrow to get authentication of some paperwork and to wait on the Passports to get ready. We have heard that the passport wait can take up to 7 days, but we are praying for less.

We will try to update the blog daily while Jason is there if time allows.
Until next time....
Mel

IN Ukraine

2008-05-06T07:31:00.000-07:00

Jason has arrived safely in Ukraine! As soon as Sergey picked him up they went straight to "Big Novo" (What we call Novograd Volinsky) and began paperwork for birth certificates, etc.... He called from outside the courthouse and said that they had already gotten several things accomplished. This is great news and it sounded like the paperwork was going smoothly today. I will update more later...have to get to work for now :)
Mel

Back To Ukraine

2008-05-05T14:08:00.000-07:00

Well, today is kind of a sad day and happy day at the same time for our family. Jason is in the air and on his way to Ukraine as I type. We were all sad to not all be going back together and to be apart for so long, but happy that this will be another step closer to Anna & Vitali coming home. The last time Jason called was around 1:30 p.m. our time and he had already flown from Atl to NY and was about to board the plane in NY to go to Ukraine. He was doing good and had stopped at a Duncan Donuts in the NY airport to get his fill, before changing to a whole different food :) Sergey will be waiting to meet up with him as soon as he gets to the Ukraine Airport and then he can just be guided around (that is our favorite part when we could just let someone we trust tell us what to do and take us there. Probably one of our most used phrases with Sergey is you don't even have to explain where all we need to go today, just take us there and we will follow. We knew that he was working his hardest to help us get home with the kids.
Jason will be in contact with Grant & I every day and he has asked me to type his post on the blog for him (There is not as much time to post while in Ukraine as you would think and if he has extra time, he said that he will try to post also, but otherwise I will relay his messages. Even though he may not be able to type out the post, he will be reading each comment left on the blog and he will post new pics as he can.

Pics:
1. So I told you that Novograd Volinsky (the town where their orphanages are located) is the oldest city from the Old Soviet Union~ This is a way of transportation there...you see it everywhere in this town. Some do have cars, but mostly they ride bikes or their horse and carriage. In their courthouse they still use rotary dial phones and a lot of things from the past. It kinda makes you feel time warped to the past. Cool huh?

2. Mel, Grant, Vitali

3. We LOVE this pic...the day that we were waiting awhile for them to bring Anna out to us, we began looking at pics they had on the wall in the orphanage entrance. Guess what we found...an old pic of Anna and her friends at the orphanage!!! This may not sound like much, but normally when you adopt from Ukraine, the adoptive family never gets any older pics of the kids that they are adopting. They only have the current pics they have taken starting from the meeting day. Well, the first picture and only pic that we had ever seen of her from the past was at the SDA on our appointment day. Her head was shaved in this pic they showed us that day and of course you have seen that it has grown since that pic, but when we saw this one below at the orphanage, we recognized her right away because she looked about the same age as the SDA pic they had showed us that day and her hair was just beginning to grow out where it was shaved (by the way no hair is common in the orphanages for boys and girls...I'm sure it makes for easier upkeep. We think she looks precious and we took a pic of the pic on the wall and were excited to find it. We asked her if she played basketball and she said no, that they just posed for the pic. She is on the front row, 3rd from the right.

4. Pic of all of us (Vitali just woke up from his nap :)

4 Days Until Jason Goes Back To Ukraine

2008-05-01T12:08:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy week of getting ready for Jason to go back. I am focusing right now on packing the kids suitcases of everything they will need...making sure there is clothes, toiletries, entertainment, meds (just in case), and snacks. Jason is back at work this week until Friday. After much prayer and thought, it looks the plan will be that Jason will fly out on Monday and when in Ukraine meet up with Sergey and they will begin the paperwork and finish out the procedures needed to bring the kids home. Jason and Sergey will be making visits to the orphanages also. Then, when all of this is finished, he will fly out from Ukraine to JFK in New York and Grant and I are going to attempt to fly and meet him at JFK (on a airline buddy pass from my brother) to help with the kids as soon as they arrive there and then we will all fly back to Atlanta together and then drive home. We really would love to fly Sergey home with us and hold him hostage for about a month, but not reality :) Grant and I are going to miss our friends there and boy, would we like to be there to see the kids, but this seems to be the best decision for now. Grant will be finishing 1st grade and catching up on all of his test while he was in Ukraine and if the estimate of time is right, Anna & Vitali may arrive home right when school is out. We are ready for a summer of swimming in our pool!!!! Grant and I are going to be getting our home ready and the kids bedrooms ready while Jason is gone. Anna will have her own bedroom and Grant is excited to share a bedroom for now with Vitali.

Ok, something I keep forgetting to share....this is for Niki, Trish R, and Jennifer Common (Ya'll will appreciate this most of all). We were eating at a Pizza Parlor in Zhytomyr in between paperwork and they had of course Ukrainian music blasting throughout the restaurant. All of the sudden, the next song up was Mary Mary's "Shackles off my feet" in English...and of course, we had to bust a few moves. Don't worry our facilitator joined right in with us!

Tina: Unfortunately, I have no idea how to set up a online photo album, so I will be trying to post as many pics as I can on the blog with each post and on the slide show above. Also, one day I am going to get all these mounds of photos printed...hopefully, before they are in college :)
Pics:
1. Mel, Anna, & Grant
2. On our visits Anna started watching out the window at the time that we usually arrived and before we could make it in the building (which is a little hike to the back of the building) she would surprise us and run out to meet us. This is a pic of her sprinting down the path to meet up with us and we always got big hugs when she arrived.
3. Jason & Mel in the Zhytomyr Region.
4. Vitali playing
5. This is the day that we took Anna to Vitali's orphanage.

Monday, April 28th

2008-04-28T09:12:00.000-07:00

We are beginning to settle back in as last night was the first night since we have been home that we didnt all meet back in the living room at 4:00 a.m. one by one wide awake :) Grant went back to school today and was excited to see all of his friends. Jason will be leaving out next Monday, May 6th back to Ukraine to get started back on paperwork procedures. He will be well taken care of and guided by our facilitators and specifically in NovoGrad-Volinsky by our facilitator/translator Sergey (He will be with Jason the whole time). We are very hopeful that we will be able to bring the children to America around May 21st. Of course, this is our estimate of getting everything done and could be shorter or longer. We are still praying and making the decision on whether Grant and I will be able to go back to meet up with Jason and finish out the process there. There are many factors to be considered. Please continue to pray for us as we make these decisions. Right now, we are getting everything ready for Jason to return and the things that the kids will need and preparing our home and their rooms here. At the same time, trying to recover a little bit ourselves :)
Well, once again we are in awe of God's hand at work! We have had specific things come up while in the process that were out of our hands and that we knew that if God didnt move a mountain this adoption process would not be able to go forward and we can think of 7 specific things that we want to share with you later that He did. We have learned to be thankful for our weaknesses, because without them we would not be able to see just how powerful God is. The most recent thing being the generosity of our church family. When we arrived to church yesterday, it was announced that our church body had given an offering to help with our adoption. It was at such an amount that would cover the expenses at home for the time that Jason will be out of work. Wow...we again are blown away and want to thank Christ Community Church and body for all that you have done...it was great to receive so many hugs and kisses too...we missed you! Thank you to everyone for all the "Welcome Backs" we truly feel welcomed back :)

Pics:
1. Jason, Mel, Grant, and Anna
2. Vitali picking a flower
3. Vitali and Jason
4. Grant wrapped up for the cold

Back Home!

2008-04-25T14:11:00.000-07:00

Well, I had an awesome dream last night that we were in Prattville and the weather was really warm and then we walked in our house and looked in the pantry to find snacks that we love even written in English, and in the laundry room was a dryer to dry clothes again, and then we took baths in clear water and then....OH WAIT...that wasnt a dream..IT REALLY HAPPENED...WOOHOO!!!!! Really, it was funny, it is amazing how you can forget what your home looked like just being away for 40 days! We all 3 walked in and our house and it seemed HUGE to us and totally different than before. Everything seemed new and we kept telling my mom that she had to have done something different to it, because it just seemed new to us. Every inch of it felt so comfortable and although we already miss some things about Ukraine, especially our friends there, we all are glad to be home even if it may be just a short time. Grant was so sweet this morning, he was so excited to have waffles again that he made us all breakfast in bed this morning. We are now trying to recover from the jet lag and get back to Alabama time, but Trish G. you were right the flight is much easier coming to Alabama than going to Ukraine! I think we will recover a little quicker this time. I will post again soon, but for now just wanted to let you know that we arrived home safely!!!
Mel

The New Halls!

2008-04-23T07:21:00.000-07:00

Meet Vitali~

Meet Anna~

We are so excited to finally get to share pics with you! Thanks for all the Congrats, prayers, and sharing in the excitement with us! Even though we have not always had the chance to respond back to each comment, we have loved hearing from each one of you...friends, family, fellow Alagasco employees, friends/fam of The Hoods, other adoptive families, and so many more.........we have cherished each message! The process is here in Ukraine is not over yet and we will continue to blog even at home and back in Ukraine again :) We have so many pics to share too! Today, it is rainy and cold in Ukraine. We have been at the American Embassy today taking care of paperwork and everything went real smoothly there. There were lots of people standing in the wind and rain waiting on applying for Visa's to go to America, but we didnt have to get in that line today thank God. We got to go straight through and take care of our paperwork!
Well, tomorrow we fly out of Ukraine back to Alabama to continue with our plans that I shared on the earlier post. Our flight leaves out at 10:50 a.m. Ukrainian time and will go to JFK and then to Atl. Our total flight time will be 14 hrs and then a 2 hr lay over in New York. We will arrive in Atlanta at around 7:40 p.m. if everything stays on schedule. (Although still a long flight...we gain time this time in Alabama...YEA!) In my mind, I already have on a tank top and flip flops! In Grant's mind, he is already eating at Longhorn Steakhouse, In Jason's mind...he can't believe it is reality until we actually step foot in Alabama! We will post to let everyone know that we made it safely!!
Luv~ Jason, Mel, & Grant

Court Day!

2008-04-22T12:27:00.000-07:00

Court was successful today!!!! A little recap: Sergey dropped us off at 9:45 a.m. and then went picked up the rest of the crew that joined us in the courtroom. We got started on the hearing and the judge began to call out all members present and oops found out there was one juror missing....So, he called a recess until the juror showed up and we got started back again. All in all everything went well and we were done by 12:30 with a final decision that the court of Ukraine approves Jason & Melanie Hall to adopt these children and announced them with their new name:
Alexander Vitali Hall & Anna Christina Hall
We may begin to call him Alex eventually, but right now he goes by the name Vitali and it has kind of stuck with us too-
pronounced Vi(short i)-tah-lee.
And the little girl's name is Anna.
We were able to take Anna to Vitali's orphanage today and they got to meet. It was a real sweet time. She did get a little dissappointed that he didnt warm up to her right away, but we explained to her that the more time that she gets to spend with him, the more he will warm up and also that they woke him up from his nap to bring him out to us today and he was still really sleepy. Once he woke up a little, we played and even danced a little to some music we brought. We have some fun pictures of this. When it was time to go, he did give her and all of us a sweet hug and kiss goodbye as we left. We took Anna back to her orphanage and gave her a picture album of all of us and our home in Prattville, the calendar of dates to check off until we will be back, and a portable CD player with a Ukranian/English words CD and believe it or not, a Steven Curtis Chapman CD...she loves this CD, so we left it with her. Now, we are back in Kiev, so that we can take care of paperwork at the American Embassy here tomorrow morning. It is getting late, so I will have to finish my post for tonight, but will post pics of the kids tomorrow! Thank you for all your prayers! God is so good and so faithful!!!
Mel

Court Tomorrow!

2008-04-21T11:59:00.000-07:00

We have had a very busy 2 days! Yesterday, we had great visits with the kids and today we had to leave out early this morning for the main city in this region to do more paperwork and then headed back to Novograd-Volinsky or "Big Novo" as we call it to do more paperwork and notarizing. By the time we finished everything it was past visiting hours at "A"'s orphanage, but her orphanage staff was very sweet to let us visit her for a little while...we had about 15 minutes and then had to head to "V"s orphanage before his visiting hours were over. Today, "A" came running out and was so excited to show us what she had learned at school. She came around and touched each one of us and said, Mother, Father, Brother, & Sister in English, except for it was so sweetly pronounced, "Maza", "Faza", and "Braza". We have been working on her English and our Ukrainian at visiting times some. (A little side note for those who are coming to Ukraine to adopt an older child that can read already. We found a GREAT picture book at a store called Children's World in Kiev. It has a lot of the basic words that they will need to know written in Russian and English and written in Russian how to pronounce each English word. It has been great for her! By the way, we will be sending out a post soon of more info like this that may be helpful to anyone adopting...we have a lot of info that we would like to share, just waiting for the first chance to post it :)
Tomorrow is our court date (Tues)! We are very excited! Court is at 11:00 a.m., but our facilitator is going to drop us off at 9:30, so that he can pick up the directors at both orphanages and the inspector for this city to bring to court also. We don't know how long it will last. Sometimes it can be very quick and sometimes an all day afair. After court, we will get some more paperwork signed and we will take "A" to "V"s orphanage to meet each other. She is so ready and wants to meet him so badly! Every day when we leave, she walks us out to the fence (that's as far as she is allowed to go) and when we get almost to the car, she yell's out bye to us again and says, "Don't forget to tell "V" that I love him"! So, that is exactly what we do! She and Grant also have a great time together and are bonding well also. They spontaneously give each other hugs the whole visit and play great together!
Well, like I posted before, there is about a month left in this process before we will be allowed to take the kids back to America. We knew before we left that if the process took longer, that we may have to go home for a short while and with the waiting periods and holidays coming up, we have made the arrangements to fly home on Thursday of this week and let Grant finish school and us catch up on some things at home and prepare for the kids coming home. After a short period at home, Jason will fly back to finish more paperwork...passports, birth certificates, etc...He will be with our facilitator Sergey the whole time and we just love him...We have spent so much time with him here that he is like family now :) Grant and I are hopeful that we will get to come back at the end when we get the kids out of the orphanage and fly home with them, but we are working to see if that will be possible right now! We have explained all of this to "A" and I made her a calendar tonight of how many days until she should be able to leave the orphanage, so she can check them off until then. I know that it will be hard for all of us, but we really feel that this is the best decision for now and we all talked about how once this wait is over, we will all be together forever...no more visiting for 2 hrs and leaving...She had a HUGE smile on her face when we said that! Oh, I just remembered a sweet thing that she did on our visit yesterday. We brought sidewalk chalk (Thanks to Marianna) to play with outside and she drew a huge heart on the sidewalk and wrote in Ukrainian, "I love you because you came here to me".
I have had a few emails about the kids sizes and honestly, I am not sure...everyday that I check their clothes, they have on a different size. I traced their feet on paper to try to find shoes at home to bring back (I got this hint from another adoptive mom). I think a lot of their clothes have been donated and they are sizes from all over the world, so it is almost impossible to tell by the tag. When they leave the orphanage, they are not allowed to take anything with them and you are supposed to bring clothes to change them into before they leave, so tomorrow I am going to try to get their measurements for sizes.
By the way, we will continue the blog even at home and we will have a chance to send out more pics with our post! Please keep us in prayer tomorrow for the Big Day!!!
Luv~ Mel

3 Days Until Court!

2008-04-19T12:05:00.000-07:00

Hi~ We had good visits with both kids today. We will use their first initial on the blog until after the court date on Tues. The little girl's first initial is "A" and the little boy is "V". We went to A's orphanage first and it was so cute, she actually saw us pull up today in the front of the orphanage and she came running down the sidewalk to meet us. I guess she was watching out the window. Her orphanage told her on the first day that we met that we were trying to adopt her and we have explained to her also that we are doing everything we can to adopt her. She always responds back that she really wants us to adopt her. They also told her about her brother on the first day we met and that we were trying to adopt him too. Well, today she asked about him and we told her about him and showed her a picture of him on our camera. As soon as she saw it, she took the camera and just looked at it and cried. As she cried, she told us that the only time that she had seen him was after he was born, her mama let her see half of his face and then she never saw him again. She wanted to meet him so badly and we told her that we think they are going to allow us to take her to meet him at his orphanage on Tues after our court date. The director at her orphanage had already told us this. Today, she began to call us mama and papa (this is daddy in Ukrainian) and we all talked about how she would be meeting her brother "V" for the first time just like she and Grant will be bro/sis and met for the first time. A funny thing that happened today...Jason wore a short sleeved shirt today as it was warmer outside and as soon as she saw his arms, she told our translator, "Papa has hair on his arms and then she just examined Jason's face for a long time and said that he had needles (beard stub)on his face like a hedgehog and we have a good pic of her trying to figure out his beard. We think she probably has not been around too many men, never the less she has warmed up quickly to Jason.
Today, we had a good visit at "V"s orphanage. He is in a special needs orphanage because of his delays, mainly because of speech and we got to spend time with the other kids in his group. We tried to bring him a juice box yesterday, but he had no idea what to do with it, so it was funny, he would hold his mouth open and Jason would squirt the juice in his mouth and then he would swallow...today, we brought a cup :)
Today, was a special day for Grant. One day over the past year, Grant asked me to get a mason jar and he decided that he was going to collect money for the kids at the orphanage and that is exactly what he did. He collected a pretty good amount and while we were in Kiev, we exchanged his dollars for Hrynia( Ukraine money, pronounced Grevna) and then we asked him what he wanted to get them and went shopping. He said he wanted to get them a Ukrainian childrens Bible for each orphanage and videos, stuffed animals, and snacks. So, that is exactly what we did. Today, was the big day that he got to deliver what he had bought to both orphanages and they were thankful and said, "Speciba" (thank you). All of "V"'s orphanage loved their new stuffed animals and he was able to pass them out to each one. We are so thankful for Grant's big heart to want to do this!

Comments:
"Crispy": Sounds like a fun B-day...we want to see that video!

Penny: So glad that ya'll are able to pull up the blog at the bay. Tell everyone we said hello!!!

David & Elaine~ Glad to hear from you! Family reunion...sounds great!!!!

Pics:
1. Girl's orphanage
2. Grant on playground at Girl's orphanage
3. Boy's orphanage
4. Doorway into boy's orphanage
5. Bedroom at boy's orphanage (V's bed is the one that is against the wall)

Back In The Zhytomyr Region!

2008-04-18T12:09:00.000-07:00

Well, you might want to grab a cup of coffee...I'm catching up from some of last week too!
We had a great stay with the Peipon's for a few days. It is exactly what we needed! I told Marianna she is going to have to get some beds with the springs sticking out so that we will want to leave! There ministry here in Ukraine reaches out to so many...adoptive families, physicians from all countries, AIDS orphans, other missionaries,. Just staying with them, you realize how many people that they touch on a daily basis. While we were there a guy from Romania came to spend the night who is going to be doing missions work in Ukraine at a music camp for over 1,000 orphans. It was great to get to talk with him over breakfast about Romania. It was wild when he walked in the door the night before and said he was so exhausted because he had been organizing a Josh McDowell conference in Romania before he came. This has just been so cool for us to hear people from other countries talking about ministries that we follow from the states.
Then, we headed back to the small town we were in right past Zhytomyr. The town is called Novograd- Volinsky and we found out an interesting fact that it is the oldest city from the old Soviet Union times. The scene here is very old buildings and village houses. Our hotel window looks over a village and there are roosters at the bottom of our window. It is still very cold here. One thing that we have enjoyed is that everyone has been so friendly here and have treated us wonderfully with all of our paperwork to be done with officials.
About the children that we are trying to adopt...we have visited them several times before we left and today when we got back. The little girl (who will hopefully be OUR little girl on Tues.) has warmed up to us right away. From the 2nd day that we visited her, she always comes running down the hallway to give us HUGE hugs and she and Grant are pretty much inseperable. She walks everywhere holding our hands or holding on to us. She is very energetic and she and Grant laugh A LOT! On our 3rd visit with her, she brought us all paper roses that she had made and even made one for our facilitator who translates for us each day! She is in a huge orphanage of about 200-300 kids ages 6-16. They also go to school there at their orphanage. They allow us to walk around her orphanage, so we have seen many kids there. Sometimes, it is heartbreaking to see that many kids without a family. They are so hungry for a family that when we walk through the halls or go outside to play with her, it never fails they completely stop what they are doing and sit and just watch. One day, we were playing on the playground with her throwing an American football and there was one particular boy that was sitting on the ground very close to us just watching and so we threw him the football and he was so excited and immediately we had over 50 kids run over to play football with us. It was great to get to play with all of them! We have a particular time that we can visit with her and they give us 2 hours a day. Today, we were sad because when we got to her orphanage, we waited for them to bring her for an 1 hr and 45 minutes before we found out that her whole floor of the orphanage was in isolation for one child that had gotten sick and went to the hospital. They told us when we only had 15 minutes left with her that they would bring her down, because she was not sick. We shared snacks and juice box with her and gave her a hug goodbye until tomorrow.
The little boy is in a very small orphanage and he has been there since birth. He is very sweet and smiles a lot. He is very delayed in every way physically, mentally, etc...He is 4, but is on about an 18-24 month level. We believe that it is from being in an orphanage his whole life, but he will have a thorough evaluation when we get home at the UAB International Adoption Clinic. We had learned from this clinic before we left of how children in orphanages could experience severe delays from being institutionalized, so we were somewhat prepared for this. We also learned that there are significant changes most of the time quickly once they are in a family. Also, on our first meeting at the orphanage, we were told that they thought that he couldnt speak yet, but the great news is that we have actually heard him say 3 words since we have been visiting him. He always recognizes us when we visit and smiles and today he cried when we left. When we gave him back to the caregiver to go back in the room, he spread his body out, so she couldnt take him through the door. We couldnt get him to stop crying, so we had to leave him crying today. We were glad to see that there seemed to be an attachment building, but it is also hard at the same time. Tomorrow, we will see him again. I am going to try to post pics of both orphanages tomorrow.
Well, we have prayerfully been planning out our next steps over the past week. There is still another month left at the least in this process before we can take the kids back to America and there are several holidays coming up for Ukraine that the government will shut down and will slow our process down. We still have the court date, 10 day waiting period, passports and 8 day waiting period, birth certificates, medicals of kids, etc... and they cannot leave Ukraine until all of this has been completed. Because we have already been here for over a month, we have had to make some hard decisions about our time in the country and believe me, we have considered every scenario possible. Please be in prayer as we make the final plans over the next couple of days, but it is looking like either Grant and I or Jason, Grant, and I will be traveling home a few days after the court date for many reasons...so that Grant can finish school, we can prepare for both kids coming home, etc...and then one of us will return to finish the process when the holidays and waiting times are over. There is a chance that if we can come on my brother's buddy pass (he works for an airline) that at some point we could all be here to get them out of the orphanage and bring them home. Although we are very homesick, it will be hard to leave, but we know that it is a short amount of time and when we come back we will all be together forever.
We want to thank publicly Carlton & Aimee Weathers and Grace Fellowship Church for all of your prayers and financial support for our adoption. We have just been made aware of what you are doing for our family and we are just in awe that a family and church that has never met us would give to support our adoption in such a huge way. You have been an instrument in showing the Hall family just how BIG our God is! May God bless your family, church, and your adoption process to China more than you can ask, think, or imagine! I can't wait until we can bring our children to Grace Fellowship to meet all of you! By the way, I clicked on your name and read your blog and it is was very inspiring!! I would encourage anyone who will to read it!

Comments:
Channing: Glad to hear from you! We have thought about ya'll several times since we have been here. Thanks for the Hab 3 scripture...I have wrote it in my journal and look at it every morning.

Christy~ 10 day wait starts the day after court date.

Josh G: Oh, we miss Wed night dinners too!!! Although, when we get back, we are either going to have to get a van to go out or I'll have to strap some of you to the roof, haha! Don't worry, we will always have a place for Josh! So, you are a little rusty on the music huh? Well, you best start studying up, because when I get home IT'S GONNA BE ON!!!

Corrie~ Glad ya'll are doing good and the class too!! We miss ya'll!!! Give the kids a kiss for us!!

From Grant:
Emma~ Happy Birthday!
Mrs. Susan~ I eat hamburger, FF, and coke at McDonald's.
McKayla & Austin~ Yes, I am having a good time! Hope to see you soon!

That's all for today! Luv~ Mel

Back in Kiev

2008-04-15T12:47:00.000-07:00

From Grant: Hello. Hope you are having fun! I watched Shrek 2 again today. We are at the Peipon's house and ate dinner and having a good time. Something neat about their house is that Bible Man's nephew has spent the night here in the same room I am sleeping in. We (Mommy, Daddy, & Grant) got lost walking to McDonald's today and we had a very long walk.

From Jason & Mel:
Hi~ We made it back to Kiev and had only one flat tire along the way :) Our facilitator and Jason were very proud that they changed it so quickly and we were back on the road again in no time (I think they must have been timing themselves :) Anyway, our biggest news today is that we have a court date for next Tuesday!!!! After the court date, we will be able to share more info about the kids and share some pics. But, a little info for now is that one of them is a little boy who just turned 4 yrs old last week and the other is a little girl who is 10 yrs old. They are brother/sister, but in 2 different orphanages and have never met. We will be traveling back to the small town we were in in a couple of days and will also have our court date in that town on Tuesday. We look forward to sharing more with you as we can.
Also, Grant has decided that he really likes blogging as you can see above and if you get a chance to go to the Peipon's blog, you will find a pic of Grant that Marianna posted from our dinner with them last night at a Mexican restaraunt (How cool is that a mexican rest. in Ukraine?) and she let him post on her site. http://ukrainiac.wordpress.com/
Post again soon!
Mel

April 13th

2008-04-13T18:17:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone~ Thanks for your prayers and gathering up the prayers of others! The city council here did meet and cleared everything up on that end, so that we are back to the normal process now. The next step is to wait on a court date and while we are waiting we have been graciously invited back to Kiev to Dr. Jim and Marianna's for a few days. I cannot tell you how AWESOME and a God send this couple has been for us. Their main ministry here is a medical outreach, but they have been a huge support to so many adoptive couples here. Marianna is so energetic, creative, and they have so much wisdom. When we have been to their house even just for dinner, she always greets at the door with a "Welcome Home" and it is always just what we needed. We are not staying in the main part of the region, but in a small town. There are about 2 Ukrainian eating places that we have found and not really a decent supermarket for us to get food...just bottled water and crackers/cookies/fruit. Although, we didnt want to face the drive back, we felt that it would be best to go back to a bigger area and "refuel" and stock up on anything we may need. We are going over our time frame left in this process and taking into considerations that the U.S Embassy here (this is part of our process)will be taking holidays the last week of April/beginning of May. There are many decisions to be made and we ask that you keep this in prayer. We miss you all and love that we can communicate back and forth in this way!
Mel
P.S. Love the new pic of the Flahive's on the guestbook...one of the nights that I was sick, I opened up the blog and there was your new pic and it brought much cheer!!

Hello!

2008-04-12T03:47:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone~ sorry for the lapse in posting. I (Mel) have actually been very sick and took an antibiotic and am feeling better, but still having a lot of nausea. So, I will definitely catch everybody up when I can post longer. For now, just wanted to let everyone know that we are alive :) and I will give more adoption details as soon as I can. Grant and Jason are doing good. Grant wakes up every morning singing the Sponge Bob song "This is the best day ever"...it really is a good laugh after been gone from home so long. Hope everyone back home is doing ok. Will post soon! Luv~ Mel

Waiting AGAIN!!!!

2008-04-08T09:18:00.000-07:00

Well, I was looking forward to sharing more info with you tonight, but I will share what I can right now. After visiting the orphanages (Yes, I did say orphanagES!)It is 2 children who are siblings, but are in two different orphanages (I will share more about them later). Unfortunately, there is an unusual administrative matter in this situation that has come up and will have to be taken care of before they allow these children to be adopted. This came as a surprise to us and although we have visited them once, we will not be able to visit again until the city meets and makes a decision regarding these children. We are hoping to have an answer by Thursday and then begin visiting again with them on Friday and move forward with the process! PLEASE keep this matter in prayer! We were planning on taking Grant to see them today, so it was a dissappointment for ALL of us not to visit them. Wow...let's just say...we are learning the fruit of patience!!! I will update on this as soon as we know something.

A post from Grant:
"I am excited that we are already in the region. At least it didnt take 3 mos, but it felt like it. We have a fancy shower at our hotel and a cafe down stairs- I dont really like that, but I have to eat it, because there are not many places to eat in this region. Boo~ no McDonald's! I hope it doesnt last long. Hopefully, we will get our new family members soon! I am excited about them! It is very hard to wait! The good thing is that we live in a fancy hotel, but our hotel rooms are small. We have to go to the lobby to post. It takes a long time to get upstairs. I am glad we have a car now with our translator. He is staying with us and helping us. He is very nice too! Yesterday, it was easy to go to sleep because I woke up so early that morning. Luv~ Grant

Here are some pics:
1. At the Grocery Store in Kiev
2. Tiff~ since you seem to be getting attached to the Tahoe, we found this BEAUTY for you at a great deal!
3. A cathedral in Kiev
4. A walkway that I thought was pretty.
5. Grant's new window seat in the NEW region!

Comments:
Jeanne~ Read the signs~ HAHA! That was a fun conversation yesterday...lol! Thank you again! Glad you made it home ok!

Dad~ Hope "R2-D-Tooth" starts putting out lots of work for ya, so you won't have to work so long! Luv U~ Mel...Grant, just told me to tell you Roll Tide!

Uncle Zack~ Thanks for all the encouragemnt and prayers. Luv ya!

Christy~ Funny...I was just thinking last night about how they call one part of the adoption process the "paper pregnancy" and was thinking that right now we are just having the labor pains, haha~ Do adoption labor pains come with a NERVE BLOCK and DRUGS, haha! I hope Bryan's patient load picks up soon! He usually is overflowing with them! Does anybody out there need some physical therapy? haha! I love the scripture that you shared!

Leslie (AKA Mrs. Boo)~ Thank you so much for your support and prayers! It has been great hanging out with you this past weekend! Oh, I will be praying for you as you go back to the region tomorrow! Give the Peipons a hug for me too!!!

The Sadie's~ I LOVED your post! James and Anna- Grant loved hearing from you too! Lisa~ I had completely forgotten them "playing Jesus" until that post..LOL...they are a hoot and so precious!!! James, we are definitely joining ya'll at Moes...CAN'T WAIT!!!! Miss ya!

Caleb~ Yes, we have learned a lot since being here. It is AWESOME to go across the world and be in a worship service with other believers! Hang in there! Email me and let me know how you are doing when you get a chance!

Mom~ Yes, you are right about all of this! Thanks for sharing! HAHA- Max! Grant & I pretend that Max is here in the mornings and say what we normally do to him just for fun!!!

Love to all~ Mel

Made it to the Zhytomyr

2008-04-07T22:36:00.001-07:00

Hi all~ Just a quick post for now letting you know that we did arrive safely to the Zhytomyr region and that we had a good visit at the orphanage. I will hopefully be able to share more by tonight (Your daytime on Tues :) We are in a small town in this region and found a hotel that was available for 2 nights and it is very comfy. On Wed someone rented out the entire hotel for awhile, so we will be moving again soon :) Thanks for your prayers! Mel

Getting Ready To Travel

2008-04-05T11:24:00.000-07:00

Hi all~ We are anxiously awaiting to travel to the new region. The name of the region is Zhytomyr. We will be leaving at 6:00 a.m. on Monday morning with a new facilitator that we havent had yet. We will also be taking Jeanne with us for the first day to stay with Grant. She is the nanny that stayed with Grant on our first SDA appointment and she is also Dr. Jim and Marianna's daughter (there is a pic on an earlier post). She is very sweet and we are excited to have her company on the ride! We have spent what will be our last few days in Kiev for awhile spending time with The Peipon's one night and eating dinner with them and then tonight we went to one of our faciliator's (B) house again for dinner. There is another adoptive mom that we have been able to hang out with at both houses each night (She uses the same agency as us and so we had met her before we even left the states...we have had a great time with all them!!!!

I do have a specific prayer request beyond the obvious with the adoption process. I have not felt real well the past few days, just kinda queezy on my stomach that I feel is probably just due to the adoption rollercoaster that we have been on :) But today, Jason is really not feeling well at all and had a fever this evening. We would appreciate if you would also pray for our health and that we will all feel well on Monday. Thanks!

Comments:
We sure do look forward to all of your comments. We read each and every one and it is one of our favorite parts of the day when we get to sit down and read all of them!!!

Stephanie~ Great to hear that your trip went so well at the orphanage. I know the kids were so blessed to have you as a "Hug Therapist" :) Keep in touch!

Robin~ Ella Grace- 5 yrs old...Oh My! Katy~ Grant says, Hello too and Happy late Birthday! Robin~ are you saying that they are already building back some of the houses that were demolished?

Hey Tiff~ We miss ya! XOXOXOXO! We have a pic for you that we will have to send later!

Mom & others who may have never heard of "Dubya"- it stands for George W. Bush~ "Dubya" = W.

To each person who has left a message from Alagasco...we have so enjoyed hearing from you! Thank you for your support and prayers!!

Trish G.~ Pic of Nacho's Bell Grande- HAHA!

Tina~ Great to hear from you! Thanks for the encouragement!

Melissa Taylor~ Speaking of computer savy...I didnt even know that you could leave a comment on the slideshow at the top, so I just found yours and Claudia & Raymonds message from a while back...oops! Thank you guys!

Thanks to everyone who has signed the guestbook...we love to know who is with us on this journey!! Paige~ LOVE, LOVE the new pics you added.

(Well, the new song that we added this time is from one of Jason's favorite groups...Casting Crowns and the CD he brought on the trip).

We will post first chance we get in the new region and hopefully we will have some news to share with you when we do!

Mel

SDA Appointment Surprise TODAY!

2008-04-03T12:03:00.000-07:00

Hello all, we got a nice little surprise today. We got a call earlier this morning around 9:00 am our time 1:00 am Montgomery time that our SDA appointment was going to be at 4:00 pm. It went well, we are excited about going to the region Monday morning. Can't be too specific yet until things are more definite, will post about that Monday or Tuesday. The region we are headed to is northwest of Kiev and about 2 1/2 hours away.

We thank you all for your prayers, they mean alot.

Jason

While we wait- Part 4

2008-04-02T10:39:00.000-07:00

Still no news yet of an appointment! As those of you have experienced this know, the wait is difficult at times. Please continue to pray for us...as orphans become available daily, we are trusting in God's timing for the right day of our appointment. In the meantime praying for strength to wait! We are in communication with our facilitators and they are working each day to get us an appointment.
Also, our friends from Birmingham, Jerry and Amanda traveled to another region yesterday, so they are no longer in Kiev. I know some of you have added them to your prayers, so I thought you may like to see how they are doing also....here is their blog...www.hoodshope.blogspot.com Jerry & Amanda~ We sure do miss ya'll already...Kiev feels different without ya'll here. It was great to talk to you today. We will anxiously be waiting to hear more and watching our email!

Yesterday, we caught word that President Bush was going to be at St. Sophia's Cathedral, which is in walking distance from our flat. So, we walked there and tried to see him, but we had just missed him :( They still had the roads blocked off and the security there, but no "DUBYA". Here is a pic of the cathedral he was at.

Also, I thought about it after I posted the protest pics. I wanted to make a point to tell you that although we posted those pics because that was what we were near...let's see there were thousands of protestors, but there are 4 million people in the city of Kiev alone, so they represented a small group. I can't stand when the news only reports the bad, so I thought I would put the whole thing into perspective.

Well, to past the time away, we decided to make a list of some things that we like about Ukraine so far. The obvious is all of the friendships that we have made and all the people that are working with us to make this adoption happen and also the churches we have attended. So, here is our list not in any certain order... just for fun....

Jason:
1. Sushi fast food at the food court

2. Ring tone of our Ukranian cell phone (It has techno music and speaks in Ukrainian when it rings...we all know it by heart and say it together when it rings. We could be saying, "We are freaky Americans for all we know", but we love it!!!

3. Great water pressure (only Jason would think of this :)

4. Croissants

5. Walking everywhere

6. TGIF

7. Baskin Robbins

8. Cathedrals

9. Huge fish dept at the grocery store

10. Many cars that I have never heard of

Grant:

1. Croissants

2. Salmon at TGIF

3. Not as cold as I thought

4. That I have always wanted a brother or a sister (Grant told us a few days ago that he was going to be mad if he got all those shots and he doesnt get a brother or a sister out of it)...we said, "So are we, haha!)

5. Sitting in the window at the flat and watching outside (The window is very wide to sit on and believe it or not, we all three sit in the window and make games out of it)

6. McDonald's

7. Watching Narnia DVD

8. Statues

9. Eating with friends and facilitators

10. Pringles

Mel:
1. Walking everywhere (although with bags of groceries, it is on my dislike list also)

2. Underground food court

3. The beautiful cathedrals

4. They use old timey baby carriages here instead of strollers

5. The Ukrainian language...I am starting to pick up on a little of the alphabet...The letter P is our R, an H is our N, and a backwards R is pronounced ya...I'll teach you more later, haha!

6. Crazy driving (because it makes mine look good)

7. Ukrainian food

8. Raffaello coconut treats

9. Instead of police in cars, they stand on the side of the road and wave a stick at you if they want a car to stop and people actually pull over from them just waving the stick...there is tons of policeman all over.

10. The villages on the way to the Donestk region

Comments:
From Grant to Emma: "What's up. Did you know it is my bed time at your school time? Yesterday, President Bush came. We thought we might get to see him though. Cow-Bye!

From Grant to GiGi~ "We are having fun in Ukraine! We are going to get 7 brothers/sisters, so you may want to buy some diapers. Give Max LOTS of kisses for me and I love you....Bye!

Susan~ Oh MY!!! I can't believe that about that book...I had chills when I read your comment!! Did you tell Lauren...remember she was there when I told that story. She would probably like the book too. Her adoption testimony is still AMAZING to me!!! After seeing your comment, I tried to find the broadcast to listen to it again, but havent yet!!! Wow...thanks for the reminder of that story...I had not thought of that since I had been here and it really encouraged me!!!!

TJ, Grandaddy, & Muh~ Thanks for the comments...hope everything is going well there! Muh, thanks for putting us on the prayer list at church...we sure are glad!!! I hope Granddaddy liked Jason's pig story! Luv U!

Marianna~ That is wild that they got paid to hold the flags and protest. That never even crossed my mind! I didnt know that happened in the Orange Revolution either. Did you get to independence square that day?

Mel

P.S. Jason asked if someone could please Fed Ex him a Nacho's Bell Grande from Taco Bell :)

While we wait- Part 3

2008-03-31T06:26:00.000-07:00

It has been an eventful 2 days. Yesterday, we went to church at Hillsong Kiev and really enjoyed it. They had little headphones for us to listen to the service in English...that was pretty neat. We took the headphones off during worship time since we knew some of the songs and we just sang in English while they sang in Ukrainian. Trish R. at your request, I am posting some pics and I had short video I made, but can't get it to upload on this post, so will try again later.....

Also, we went to church last night with our facilitator (B) (I will start putting facilitator initials for Debardelaben's and Taylors since you know them. This is our 3rd Sunday there...we are starting to feel like regular attenders there :) It is a smaller, intimate atmosphere and we really enjoy it also. They have acoustic worship that is very pretty. We broke up into small groups last night and they prayed again for our adoption process.

Today, we walked to Independence Square to eat at the underground food court and when we were about half way there we could hear singing and yelling on a microphone and cheering from a crowd. And, when we arrived at Independence Square, we saw TONS of people holding Old Soviet Union Flags protesting against NATO in response to President Bush being here today. So, there was definitely a different atmosphere here today. We tried to find out where Bush was going to be so we could go, but couldnt. Here are the pics from the protest....

Well, hopefully we will have some news this week of advancements in our adoption process! Mel

Comments:
Niki~ Tell Dan and the kids we also said, "hello"!

Stephanie~ It is great to hear from you and so sweet of you to be praying for us!! I was told yesterday about your adopted siblings and how you learned Hindi before you went to meet the one from India. That is AMAZING! Please do keep in touch and also when you get a chance, we would love to hear how things went at the orphanage with your medical mission team last week.

Lauren & Susan~ MISS YOU TOO, especially on Fridays!!! Thanks for the updates! Lauren~ Thanks for the messages from the kids to Grant. He loved them and wanted to respond to them, so I quote this from Grant:

To Gabe: "Hey Dude, What's up? We are having a good time in Ukraine. Miss you. To

Mckenzie: "If George is Curious, do you think my brother or sister will be curious like Curious George?"

To Gavin: "Hope you are having a fun time in Wed. night class. We miss you." Susan: Thanks for the scripture, I am going to read it tonight. I cannot believe Kayla's finger...we all cringed (sp?) we when read it. Hope it is feeling better now! I have thought about the retreat revisit several times and wondered how it went, so can't wait to hear about it!!!

Post again soon! Mel

While we are waiting...Part 2

2008-03-29T13:04:00.000-07:00

Privyet (Hello/Russian :)
It has been a beautiful day here! We have no news to share yet...still waiting, but are hopeful that we will get an appointment next week. Please, continue to keep us in your prayers. God is sustaining us...it is not always easy to wait, but we feel that we are staying in the Father's will for us and there is comfort in that. We have seen His hand at work too many times in our lives to doubt Him now! He has showed us over and over in our lives that no matter what happens, "All things work for the good for those who love Him" Romans 8... and His plan IS always perfect! We are so thankful for those of you who no matter what the circumstances look like, you continue to agree with us in prayer for this adoption, encourage us with the truth of God's character and plans for us...we cherish this!

Now, guess who is coming to Ukraine Tues...DUBYA...that's right...President Bush! President Yushchenko invited him to come! And...I forgot to tell you that when we were coming to Ukraine...at the JFK (New York) airport our plane got held up on the landing strip at arrival because Air Force One was there and then departed. We could see it from our window. Cool, huh? I don't want to say that DUBYA is following us, but what do you think? Haha! We are going to try to find out exactly where he is going to be and get as close as we can if he is still here since it will probably be near downtown where we are.

I added a new song to the blog at the request of Grant. Chris Tomlin is his favorite music artist and this is his favorite song, "How Can I Keep From Singing". He brought this song to Ukraine with him and has listened to it often.

I will leave you with some pics:
1. Square of Independence (this is where the underground mall is)
2. This is how we walk so far when Grant gets tired.
3. The Golden Gate~ the log wall represents the wall that used to be around the city of Kiev to keep invaders out.
4. There are many street performers here for money...people playing music and singing (and it is pretty good too) and last night we saw this one...a guy twirling and breathing fire...and he had drummers behind him.

March 28th...While we are waiting...

2008-03-28T04:55:00.000-07:00

First of all...
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Dad, we do hope you have a great B-day and try to not work so hard today. Better yet, hope you get some Lek's today and eat some for us too!!! Luv U!

From Grant: "Happy Birthday Papaw! My birthday is soon too! (singing) Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy B-day dear Papaw, Happy Birthday to you...any many more! I love you! Roll Tide!"

Well, we are still hanging out here in Kiev. No snow today, yet. The weather seems to change hourly here :) We have become more familiar with our surroundings of our
2nd flat, which is in downtown Kiev. For Trish R. and CCC folks, we have found Hillsong Church and it is only 5 blocks from our flat...WOOHOO! We will be going Sunday Morning. We actually walk pass it all the time! In our waiting time, we have tried to stay somewhat busy...it makes the wait easier! We have visited an underground mall several times (Although, not shopping as we are penny pinching with not knowing how long we will be here :) We do love to eat at the food court as it has a McDonald's for Grant. We also went to the World War II Museum here with Jerry and Amanda. Unfortunately, our camera battery went out as we were there, but Amanda took a cute pic of Grant on top of a tank. I will try to send that later. (Tiff, I know you said you wanted to see more pics and we will try next time!) Kay, saw your comment and decided that story was worth sharing, haha.......We do have a English/Ukrainian/Russian translation book now, but the other day, Jason went to the mini-supermarket to try to get us something to eat and he wanted some ham to make sandwiches with, but the guy could'nt understand him, so he tried the word, "Pig", still nothing, so he had to resort to saying, "Oink, Oink" and finally he was able to get the ham...I know it is pitiful! We now take our translation book around and point to the word in it that we are trying to communicate. Miss ya'll~ Mel

Comments:
Christy G~ HAHA...pics in the guestbook...we had no idea that the mini-mall man was following our blog...AWESOME...LOL!!!! Grant thought that was funny!

Julie~ Can't believe the boys! Tell everyone we said, hello!!!

Trish Gastineau and family & The Sadie's~ We sure do miss ya'll too! Thank you for the prayers and encouragement! We cherish every prayer and thought! To the Sadie's...no doubt, we are joining ya'll for a Moe's night after we get back and settled in!!!

Will try to post tomorrow!!!
Mel

Officially Waiting

2008-03-25T14:25:00.000-07:00

Hi~ We have had a very snowy day here today! We walked about a mile in the snow to go get dinner. At times the snow and the wind was so hard that it was blowing horizontally straight in our faces and Jason would jump in front of me and Grant and tell us to look down and follow his shoes to walk. We had so much snow on us when we got there that we looked a little like snowmen, hehe! We found a taxi to take us back home after we ate. It is still snowing now! Today, we also found a mini-supermarket at the end of our street, which is great!!
We have finished our paperwork and it has been turned in, so although we have been waiting for our 2nd appointment, now we are officially waiting! We are not sure how long this will take, but we believe our facilitators are really trying to help us get one as quick as possible. While we have been back in Kiev, we have had the opportunity to spend time with the family that I told you about from Birmingham, AL that are also waiting on a 2nd appointment, Jerry and Amanda Hood. We have been meeting up with them a lot since we have been back in Kiev and have really enjoyed their company. It is kind of strange that we had to go all the way to Ukraine to meet when back home we only live about an hour away from each other. Jerry is a high school football coach at one school in B-ham and Amanda is an Assistant Principal at another high school in B-ham. Jason was familiar with both schools and teams, so it has been fun hearing about this, but mostly it is a blessing to have another family to share the ups and downs with. If you will, please add them to your prayers as they wait for their 2nd appointment also.

Also, Just for fun, I added a Photo Guestbook at the bottom of the page. We would love to see photos while we are here of friends and family and also put faces with those we may have not met in person, but that are following our journey.

Comments:
Phil Sisk~ We were so excited to see your comment! We think and pray for you often!

Julie~ so good to hear from you! Please send pics of the boys soon!

Dad~ Thanks for your sweet email! It really meant a lot! Also, our friends here told me that they got a kick out of seeing "Yo Daddy" :)

Christy G.~ HaHa...cartwheel at Biscuits game!

Jacob & Caleb~ We have laughed out loud over your comments.. Jacob...mmmm hellurh! C- BOI, hope things are going ok...let us know when you get a chance... IGHT DEN!

Paige~ Love CJ's new egg hunting technique...I can just see it now!!! Give him a BIG kiss from us!!!

Bruce & Jamie~ Did want you to know that I got your email! Thanks for all the info! I have a question for ya, so will be emailing you first chance I get.

Mom~ Luv U~ the email pics that you sent would not pull up...not sure what they were. Also, if you get a chance to take a pic of Max and put it on the Guestbook for Grant, I know that he would LOVE it!!! Don't go to any trouble, but if it is easy, that would be great!!! He has been talking about Max a lot today.

Susan~ Thanks again for your prayer last Wed night! I sure did miss my Friday "homegirls" this past week. Glad things are going good there!

Michelle F.~ Your comments all along have been so encouraging and thank you for all your prayers. We miss you guys! Tell MG and P that Grant said, Hello!

Enjoying reading the comments of each and everyone of you! It makes the wait so much more tolerable! Luv~ Jason & Mel

Some more Pics:
1. Dr. Jim & Marianna Peipon
2. Marianna, Jeanne(this was Grant's nanny while we were at the SDA~ she is also Dr. Jim and Marianna's daughter), and Jeanne's husband, Kolya
3. Jerry & Amanda
4. Grant looking out the window watching to see if daddy will be able to find us a taxi
5. Snowing as we walk to get dinner

Happy Easter!!!!

2008-03-23T05:56:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter to everyone back home! It is not Easter in Ukraine until mid April, so we may get to celebrate twice :) We celebrated today at church with Dr. Jim and Marianna Peipon. It was a beautiful service and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The sermon was on Hebrews 11. One of our favorites that we needed a good reminder of! We are taking things, not one day at a time, but one moment at a time :) Thank you for all your encouraging comments and emails, they mean so much!!! I will respond to these later. By the way, I need to tell you that if you send an email to our knology account it may be a while before I can respond to it because it is not working for me to send out, but I am getting yours. More later, but for now a post from Grant....

This is at a pizza parlor here in Ukraine.

I quote from Grant:

"Happy Easter everyone! I hope you are having fun today. Have a good Easter! We are having a fun time in Ukraine and it is really exciting, but in Ukraine Easter is in April. Their food is o.k. here. We have a big apartment. The television is Ukrainian. My favorite place in Ukraine is McDonalds. That is all I want to say for now. I will blog another time."
Love~ Grant

Now, Jason wants in to so I am playing secretary and typing for him also.
I quote from Jason:

" Mark and Pam G. thank you for the sending the Folger's individual packs of coffee with us. That is the best coffee in Ukraine! To all the coffee lovers, let me explain the coffee here. If you ask for coffee, it comes in a minature tea cup with a shot of expresso. If you ask for "Americano" coffee, it comes in a normal sized coffee mug with a shot of expresso and then they give you seperately a small piture of hot water and you mix the two together and make your coffee. Mike Bailey, if you are reading, your driving would fit in perfectly here. When I am riding in a car here, I usually keep my eyes closed! When crossing the street, you better be running! My favorite food here is TGIF in Kiev...there is only one and we have to walk a long way to get there, but it is worth it!!! We have done A LOT of walking everywhere. When our facilitator is not with us in Kiev, we may have to walk a ways to get food or anything!!! We get excited reading the comments...thanks for them!
That's all for now, will post later!

Here are a few more pics...
1. The Opera House in Ukraine
2. Jason & Mel in the entrance of our new flat
3. A pink convertable Ferarri (Sp?) that we thought was cool
4. Looking out our new flat window

Warning: sad post below

2008-03-21T02:03:00.000-07:00

Hi guys~ Sorry that I could not post sooner...we did not have internet access in the hotel that we were in and didnt know where to find it. We have ridden in a car over 20 hrs in the past 2 days. Partly, because we rode half way there in heavy snow, but it was beautiful! Talk about a quick weather change. It was very cold in the region that we were in, which is closer to Russia...everyone there spoke Russian instead of Ukranian. The sad news is that we arrived back in Kiev last night. There are many details that I would like to share with you, but it would not be wise for me to post these on a blog. So, to sum it up....These past 2 days have been some of the hardest days we have ever experienced for many reasons and I will share what I can. At our SDA appointment, we chose to visit a little girl that we already knew would have some special needs and we are definitely open to a child with special needs. In fact, she is almost 3 yrs old, but at the appointment, all that could be confirmed about her physical development is that she could move her arms and legs. Once we were at the orphanage and after our pediatrician evaluated, it was clear that there were other things involved. It was one of the hardest things we have ever been through, but Jason and I both knew what we had to do. Because of her condition, she was not aware of her surroundings or maybe that we were even there, but never the less, it was very difficult to leave. I cried most of that evening and then in the middle of the night started back up again and then Jason joined me. We finally prayed together and were able to get some sleep later than night. We don't know the reason why we felt led down that road, but feel that there is a reason for everything. The road is not always easy, sometimes it feels like we are going to not get through it, but we have to keep hold of Jesus love for us and his faithfulness. As for the little girl, we had to spend much time in prayer releasing her to the heavenly father and praying for her best!!! I heard someone say one time that God either calms the storms in our lives or he gives us the strength to go through them and that is what we are praying for right now. I woke up again Wed morning with the thoughts of how hard the journey is right now and being in a whole different country, taking baths in brown water (this is one of my biggest adjustments), how tired and weary we are right now, and that we still had to face the drive back and then what when we get back to Kiev and all of the sudden the thought came to me of one of our favorite movies (I know all of you~ your favorite too) "Facing the Giants" and specifically the scene of the football player on the field whose coach told him to crawl across the field with another player on his back to the 50 yd line and he blindfolded him so he could not see how far he was and quit too soon. As you know, the player was agonizing as he was crawling, saying "Coach, I can't do it, it is too hard, It hurts, I've got to stop" and the coach was following him on the ground screaming, "Don't you stop now, you can do it, KEEP GOING" When the player takes off his blindfold, he had made it all the way to the 100 yd line. This is how I felt that day and I just sensed that God was encouraging me to keep going and that although I didnt feel the strength at the time that I had to depend on HIM and "coaching" if you will and allow Him to be glorified through it all. I also received some "coaching" from Jason as he was feeling a little more ready to face the giants and go forward than I was at the time :) Thank you for all your prayers, please keep them coming! We now will wait on a second appointment, but there are several families that have had similar experiences as us and are also waiting, so we will file in line! There is another family from B-ham, AL in Kiev that we met who was already waiting for another appointment when we left for Donestk and we were kinda sad to leave them, so we are excited to get to spend some time with them as they understand and are going through exactly what we are. Also, everyone has been so supportive and encouraging this past couple of days...our faciliators, pediatrician, social worker back home...we are so thankful for them too! Last night there was not a flat available for us back in Kiev, so the pediatrician that traveled with us and his wife took us into their home and WHAT A BLESSING. They are from the states, but along with working with adoptive families they have medical mission outreach to Ukraine and are AWESOME christians who really comforted us and showed us the love of Christ. When we walked in the door, we were very tired and Dr. Jim's wife Marianna said she wanted to cook us something like we would have back home and had us a wonderful meal of sphagetti ready when we walked in the door. Her home is very much like what we would experience in the states and the beds were so comfortable. We felt like we were in heaven! Marianna gave us so many testimonies of God's faithfulness in their lives here and we were very encouraged! She has a blog too that she is going to post a video that she made of Grant last night on today. So, she said that I could give you the link to her blog. Also, Grant is doing GREAT! Although, we have traveled far and wide lately, he has not complained once and has actually been in a wonderful mood the whole time. He seems to really be enjoying himself. We are going to send a blog later today when there is more time from him as he would like to blog also.
Here is Dr. Jim and Marianna's site...
http://ukrainiac.wordpress.com/

Also, I want to leave you with a video of a song that I have been listening to throughout this adoption process and brought with me on the trip for encouragement. I thought maybe some of you are experiencing hardships this week also and hopefully, it will encourage you like it has me and Jason....please go to your tool bar and paste this you tube video since I dont know how to embed it into the post. Thanks! Mel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQVmR0jV52A