Never A Dull Moment!

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!

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!

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!

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....

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

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...

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.....