Please Don't Juggle Your Vegetables!!!

PLEASE HELP JONATHAN FIND A FAMILY!

2011-12-15T07:16:00.002-06:00

UPDATE: A family came forward for Jonathan in time. By God's grace, this child was spared a life alone and on the streets. There are so many more like him. Won't you consider reaching out to be Jesus's hands and feet for one of "the least of these"?

This is a post by Adeye who writes a blog I frequently read at: NoGreaterJoyMom.com

Herself a mother of four special-needs girls, along with three biological boys, she spreads her love for the fatherless and advocates diligently for children in desperate need of families. Please read this, and then act on it by committing to Jonathan, or passing it along so his family can be found. Thank you!

December 14, 2011

URGENT***URGENT

A couple of mornings ago I woke up to an e-mail in my inbox. "A boy needs help!" I read through the information and my heart broke. Not really knowing what my role was at that point, I prayed and trusted the Lord that He would send the right family.

I prayed the entire day on Monday for him. I checked in later that night to see if the many prayers being prayed on his behalf had been answered yet.

No, they hadn't!

Tuesday morning came and all I could think about was this poor young man. I started thinking about when I was a teenager, and what a blessed life I had--a warm bed, food in my tummy, the opportunity to go to school, and people who loved me. I put myself in his position and I felt physically sick.

You see, life as this one young man knows it is about to change. Drastically!

It was then that I knew that I knew that I needed to come to you, the amazing readers of my blog, with another rescue mission. I realized that, knowing all I know about him, if I choose not to advocate for him, well, I may just regret it for the rest of my life. I knew I had to try to help, and I also knew that you guys would be so faithful to rush in and help.

Friends, this time a young man, just fifteen years old, is literally on the brink of an absolute catastrophe!

This is Jonathan. I don't know anything of his history, only that he is an orphan in Eastern Europe.

On December 31, 2011, Jonathan will turn sixteen. A huge birthday for most teens. But a dreaded day for this young man. Soon after the day of his sixteenth birthday Jonathan will be given the "gift" of his freedom. Together with a small bag which contains all of his earthly possessions and about $30 in cash, he will be set free--no longer to be taken care of by a state orphanage.

Freedom?

Sadly, not!

Unfortunately, most of the children like Jonathan who "age out" of the system literally have nowhere to go. They are left on the streets to fend for themselves. With nowhere to turn, and no one to turn to, many end up in the trafficking industry. The majority never make it past their teen years. It is the sobering reality of most orphans who are forced to leave the only place of safety they know. The statistics are staggering. It is one of the many reasons adoption advocates fight so very hard to get children out of orphanages before it is too late. They know.

Here's the thing...

Jonathan has a matter of DAYS to find a family. Mere DAYS!

In order for this boy to be rescued from a life that few of us can even begin to imagine, a family needs to step forward in the next few days and commit to him! I'm told that as long as there is a commitment and the I600 visa is applied for, he will be kept where he is, and the adoption can be completed later. That's the good news.

Right now what is needed is a family who has adopted internationally before. From the contact I have been given, "He needs a family that is married, can travel, and has a homestudy that can be used for immigration approval and is willing to apply for immigration in the next week. If a family is ready to apply they will work directly with the facilitator who knows him."

One week! A visa HAS to be applied for in the next week in order to save this boy!

Here's a little we know about Jonathan:

"Jonathan is apparently a very, very good boy. He has a great sense of humor which has been confirmed by other kids in his class and two children who were recently adopted to U.S. He loves to work on a computer, takes part in virtually all theatrical performances organized at the orphanage, just a great actor, very calm when not on stage, never gets in trouble, loves sports and plays soccer, played basketball and trained in light athletics, studies at good level. Jonathan is respectful to adults and older children. He is obedient and always ready to help. NEEDS A FAMILY to file for immigration ASAP, can adopt later. BEGS translator when he visits if he has found his family yet, desperately wants to be adopted. Can be chatted to on Skype as well as email."

Oh, God in heaven, surely someone can go for this precious young man before it is too late? Surely he can be rescued in time? My heart cannot even bear the thought of what the alternative is.

Many, many people have joined in to spread the search for Jonathan's family as far and as wide as is possible. Many are praying and interceding on his behalf. Will you please join in? Would you use your blogs and your social networks to share Jonathan's desperate need for a family? It is only going to take ONE family to rise up and say yes. Just one. Surely between all of us we can help one boy to be united with his family...and spared the future he is rapidly heading toward? I have to believe it.

I believe with all my heart that we serve a God who LOVES to show His miracle-working power through seemingly impossible situations. He loves to show His power, His glory, and His faithfulness when all the odds are stacked up against us and things seem so dismal. Of course He can do this!

Thank you so much for joining us in the search for Jonathan's family! I appreciate it more than you will ever know.

Please, I'm begging you to share his story wherever you possibly can! It is the only way his family will find their son.

If anyone would like more information about adopting Jonathan, please contact Amy at waitingchildren@gmail.com

FIRST [REAL] SNOW OF THE YEAR!

2011-11-08T19:18:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was a really great day. We started it off with our first snow of the season. At breakfast somebody suggested the kids go outside to make a snowman, and it was all over! It took us forever to get them out the door, since we hadn't quite located all the snow gear yet, but we finally got them all bundled up. They had hours of fun in that fluffy white stuff. It was Katya's first real experience with snow, and she dove right in! She ate snow the entire time, and her face was beet red because of it. But she had such a ball! The snowman was a joint effort. Even Katya helped roll and pat the balls, and Claire was sent to fetch a nose. The photo in the middle may be the best photo I've ever taken of all my kids at the same time!

The boys stuck with it until the snowman was complete. They each went through two pairs of mitts. (We had to assure them that mitts getting wet was perfectly normal, and the solution was as simple as changing mitts). They used a bike helmet for a hat. The whole snowman was completely their own doing. The only thing Vlad helped with was getting the middle ball up where it belonged. Snow is heavy!! Other than that, the whole thing was the boys' work. I thought they did a pretty good job!

The kids and I spent the afternoon shopping for lumber for small woodworking project, and then grocery shopping. When Vlad got home, we finished off our day with pot roast, apple cider, and caramel apple fondue (and awesome kid-friendly way to make caramel apples without the mess of the caramel apple). What a treat, and a perfectly cozy day!

THURSDAYS WITH CARMEN …and a bit of randomness

2011-11-03T15:36:00.000-05:00

Today I am thankful for…Katya seeming to be getting better with her potty training. She's notifying me more often, and has gone #2 several times on the toilet. I'm thankful for every single time i don't have to change a smelly diaper.

I'm listening to…Katya crying because she just fell on the tile floor, Claire laughing as the boys tease her in the family room. Spencer saying, "Don't forget! I've got horns, and I'm dangerous." Evidently they're playing "bullfight." And Collin talking about what would happen if he ate all of his Halloween candy at once.

Looking forward to…umm…..I'm gonna have to say this one goes to being at the Little House this weekend. It was very nostalgic and comforting to go back there last weekend, when we replaced the downstairs carpet with laminate wood. This weekend we're doing doorway thresholds and baseboards. I really love that old house, even with all its rough edges.

Missing…my family. Evidently I have only a 7-week threshold for being away from my family before I start to long to go back. That's a bit of a problem since we live next to polar bears, and they live next to saguaro cacti.

Praying for…God to make me into a more loving and patient person.

What's for dinner…I have no idea. We're really low on groceries because I just haven't managed to get to the store this week. Vlad suggested I bring the kids down to Costco by the university for dinner, and then we catch a movie as a family at the second-run theatre. I might take him up on that.

Burning question of the week…I can't really think of one, so I'll borrow from Spencer's string of questions at lunch: "Who invented the spoon? Who invented the lightbulb? Who invented the toilet? Who invented houses? Who invented plates? Who invented candles? Who invented candy? Who invented baseball? Who invented basketball? Who invented…"

This little miss has been very cute with her artistic endeavors this week, and produced her first-ever drawing of our family!

And here's a bit of randomness from this week:

The kids have become my super-duper cleaning crew. I know I talk a lot about the messes we make, but I don't often mention that they are also super-duper cleaners. I don't mean just tidying, but also cleaning. They do windows, dusting, toilets, sinks, scrub floors, vacuuming. They're just reaching the point where I can tell them to clean up a room and they'll make it perfect- including vacuuming. It's really awesome, let me tell you! So there are a few pics to show you their nice tidying/cleaning jobs.

This week we started lapbooking, and our first unit is based on "The Secret Garden." We are reading through the book, and are pulling stuff from the book to learn about. For instance, the other day we learned all sorts of stuff about India, since Mary Lennox came to England from India. We learned a bit about Indian food, and so that day for lunch I dug in my pantry and found some canned curry sauce, and whipped up a quick Indian-style meal for us. I was pretty proud of myself, and it was delicious. All the kids ate it! Score!

It's always been a dream of mine to build a small mini-golf course in our backyard for the kids to enjoy. The boys took matters in their own hands a few weeks ago and dug several small holes in the front yard, then marked them with some PVC pipe that we had hanging around. It was pretty ingenious, and they enjoyed it for quite a while before forgetting about it. Here's hoping that no one turns their ankles in the little holes…

I ran to the store the other day with a few extra minutes while we were in Grand Forks. I tried on some jeans and figured out my size. But they didn't have the style I wanted, so I went home and ordered them offline. I'm not much of a shopper, so I really don't browse or peruse for much time at all. Sometimes the details of my purchases evade me. Evidently, I don't check myself out in the mirror either, because about three days ago I put on my new jeans and a shirt, and went down to start schoolwork with the boys. When I put my hands on my knees, I was shocked to find some very soft and fluffy patches, and even more shocked to see that they were intentionally-worn spots in my jeans!! I actually have holes in my jeans! On "purpose." I always thought I was much too practical for buying jeans that were already half-worn, and for sure didn't intend to show large patches of my upper thigh to the world. I am considering ironing patches of fabric in behind them, to extend the life of my jeans the same way I do for my kids' jeans. And next time I'll inspect for intentional damage.

A favorite game lately of all the kids, but especially the girls, has been to bury each other in the laundry that I throw down over the railing if I plan on folding it downstairs. Here are a few shots of Katya, buried by Claire. If only I could have caught the giggles on camera too!

You know you have a strong European influence in your home when you slice salami and french baguette for breakfast, and serve coffee in a French press.

I thought the boys would love learning about India, what with all the amazing architecture, the colorful festivals, the elephants, the traditional dances, the interesting traditional clothing. We made layered mini books for India, and they cut and pasted all sorts of beautiful and interesting photos.
As it turns out, they have loved learning about cholera today 10x more. Why? Here's a clue: It has to do with the symptoms of diarrhea and vomitting. They have laughed for hours while they sketch various pictures of people displaying these symptoms over and over and over in every variation of awkwardness. Seriously, they never cease to amaze me.

Happy Thursday!!

NOT ME! MONDAY -- HALLOWEEN, 2011

2011-10-31T21:01:00.000-05:00

The whole crew, in Halloween garb.

Today is Halloween. I have been a parent for nearly 9 years, and I have three children who understand that Halloween is a free-for-all for free candy while living out your childhood fantasies in full costume. I know the great anticipation with which kids approach this most beloved community holiday. And so, I most certainly would NEVER have intentionally left Halloween unmentioned for the last week so I would have a few moments peace from the costume and trick-or-treating talk. Halloween was NOT so unheralded in our house that my kids actually didn't believe me when we mentioned casually this morning at breakfast that on our list of to-do's was to go get them some costumes so they could trick-or-treat, since it was Halloween today. Oh, and get some pumpkins so they could carve jack-o-lanters too. No, Not I!! I did NOT leave costumes and carving pumpkins until Halloween itself.

It was NOT nearly three o'clock before we finished school, got a few chores done, and managed to get out of the house to the dollar store. I did NOT hit the dollar store up for a few ghost masks, a princess crown and wand, some facepaints, a couple of capes, a pumpkin costume, some leggings, and a witch's hat (that was all they had!), and glow wand and a few glow necklaces. Luckily for me, my kids had asked to be ghosts and a princess (Katya had no choice - she's the pumpkin). Odds and ends for those costumes are easy to find; I got everything we needed for $25, and my kids were thrilled.

No, this is NOT like me. I am so uber-organized and pour all my time and talent into creating gorgeous detailed costumes for the weeks before Halloween. I NEVER wait until the last minute to grab anything that works.

We then did NOT roll into the grocery store at about 3:30, grab a few pumpkins and some candy, and some loaves of french bread for dinner, and get back home by 4:30. We did NOT carve jack-o-lanters and put them out only an hour before dark.

Claire did NOT carry a sheep-shaped candy basket with her. When you squeeze the sheep's hoof, it does not say "Happy Easter!"

Katya did NOT go around singing "Happy Birthday" today, because she knew we were celebrating, but just wasn't really sure WHAT we were celebrating.

I was impressed with the kids' tenacity when they all dug in to their pumpkins to clean them out!

That's pretty ewwwy and gooey! And it swallows up her whole arm!

Sometimes a princess has got to do what a princess has got to do….rolling up the sleeves to get to work!

Gutting her fellow pumpkin. Cannibal.

Spooky! I hate these things!

We're not sure what Katya was for Halloween this year, except for cute.

Our princess, complete with makeup. Enough glitter will make any girl feel like a million bucks! (And yes, I do make her wear warm clothes underneath in order not to freeze out there!

Collin did NOT decide last minute that the ghost mask was too scary, and dig out his trusty Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costume from the dress-up box downstairs. Whatever works!

Our finished products, awaiting trick-or-treaters (all 20 of them who showed up tonight!)

These are the girls'. Can you tell which is Claire's? The princess with the crown, of course!

These are the boys'. They're sort of into matching lately.

After we put the pumpkins out, I did NOT then instruct the kids to help me clean up the house so if anyone we knew came over for candy, they would not see the mess we'd created today. :) By time Vlad came home, he did NOT say that the kids looked amazing, and the house was sparkling! He gives me a LOT of credit. It did NOT make me laugh just a little bit - mum's the word!

THURSDAYS WITH CARMEN…and a little bit of randomness

2011-10-27T11:06:00.000-05:00

Today I am thankful for….the fact that the bug that has hit our house isn't too awful. Claire got it the worst, and Vlad and I have both had 1/2 days of nausea and needing to lie on the couch and do pretty much nothing, but it really hasn't been as awful as stomach flus can really be.

I'm listening to…Spencer, Claire, and Katya playing somewhere in the house. I'm not sure if they're upstairs or downstairs. But they're fairly quiet - always a bad sign. Spencer is being exceptionally patient and sweet to them, and it's a joy to my mothering ears.

Looking forward to…going to our Little Town this weekend. We're hoping the renter has finally moved out.

Missing…most of my dishes. We now have five or six plates of three different sets. Where have all the others gone? Have we really broken that many dishes? Have the kids carried them out to the yard? I'm just not sure what to make of it, but one thing is for certain: the next dish set I buy will be the absolute most generic white set I can buy. That way I won't be sad when it breaks, and it will be easy to buy new ones to match. I remember that hundreds of years ago I had a very "beautiful kitchen" as my mother called it. It meant my dishes were pretty, and when the table was set it was actually attractive. Well, not so much anymore… *Wistful sigh*…..Okay, back to reality and the things that actually matter:

Praying for... direction with the adoption process. We are hung up about finances at the moment. There are many people who step out in great faith and on a limb and jump into the adoption process without the faintest idea where their finances will come from. But $35k is a lot of money, and my husband's brain is waaaaay too logical to jump in without a plan. So we're praying for direction, provision, and that we can know exactly how to proceed with moving, and with getting the finances in order.

What's for dinner….I wish I had a gourmet answer to this question. The answer lies closer to a rice casserole with pork chops. Yes, I said pork chops. Vlad did the strangest thing and actually bought them the other day. I don't know why because I've never cooked pork chops when they actually tasted good afterward and didn't make me sick to my stomach. One time we actually got food poisoning from pork chops. But he still bought them, and I'm still going to make them. Wish us luck - those who cook, and those who eat. :)

Burning question of the week…what is up with this little man?:

This kid is going to be the end of my illustrious career as home-schooling mom, I tell ya! This little dreamer boy of mine is really quite something. I cannot for the life of me figure out what's going through his little brain. The best I can come up with is that he is so distracted by his animals and his full-throttle imagination, that he just can't concentrate or doesn't want to concentrate on his schoolwork. It's sort of unbelievable, and at times just hilarious.

Take those two bottom pictures, for example. These are from yesterday's schoolwork. See the six and the four written in orange crayon under the donuts? Oh, yes, those are a six and a four….but as Collin put it while he was scribbling them sideways (and backwards) "they're having gravity problems." The six over on the right that is scribbled backward, was also endowed with bug eyes and a tongue that is spitting raspberries. This is how Collin does his schoolwork - always full of imagination, especially in anything that has to do with drawing or writing.

But he also has strange little mental blackouts each day. They seem selective. This morning he couldn't for the life of him remember which number came after 10. So he counted to twenty every time he couldn't come up with it. It took us quite a while to do an addition worksheet.

The other blackout he always has is the letter "i". He can't remember the sound or the letter. Why "i"? So strange. I finally found a way to give him a clue each time (EVERY time) he comes to the letter "i" in his reading. He hits the letter, squiggles his nose, looks at me for help, and I say, "Iguana in an igloo." And then he keeps going….until the next "i".

He also doesn't seem to remember letters, words, or ANYTHING from one second to the next. He will write the word "me" for one sentence, adn then not remember how to spell it the next second. The list could go on and one, but what I really think is happening is that he just doesn't really care too much about his schoolwork yet. He's much too distracted by his stuffed animals.

Have you ever known a kid to have a stuffed lemur? Well, he has one. In fact, his first one was so loved that he now has a second one. He is the proud papa to two stuffed lemurs. And, of course, he knows their personalities, habitats, and mating patterns. :) This morning he wouldn't do his schoolwork until he had the "Daddy" ginormous stuffed dog all tucked in with puppy stuffed animals under his ears. They slept next to him while he wrestled with his addition.

I really don't think it's a lack of IQ that I'm dealing with. This morning he came to me and said, "Mom, I had a scary dream last night that was evern scarier than the night before! Last nigh there were alien invaders coming to invade our planet! And so I took out a tommy gun and shot them, and the bullets went right through…."

Maybe if I have him add the number of bullets that came from his tommy gun we'll get past the number 11….

Here is a little bit of sweet nothing from our Fall 2011. These are the four little girls who roam our collective four acres all day, every day. This particular day, a dump truck delivering compost to the neighbor was the thrill of the season!

And then there's Katya, who loves her Sunday dress…and doesn't see any reason why she shouldn't climb up the outside of the stair rails in that Sunday dress. The third picture is from the day that I decided to really give Katya's hair some extra-special treatment. She was born with curly hair, so that morning I put curling gel on her hair, and some hairspray, and scrunched it 'til it was dry. This was the result. Stick-straight! Evidently the curl was transferred to me when she was born.

And this was the view (and still is, at 11:00am) from our windows today. Foggy fog. I love the fog, and this one was/is particularly heavy. When we started school at 6:30am, the street lamplight was glowing in the mist. I'm looking forward to the daylight savings time change, so we might have a bit more light in the early morning.

Happy Thursday!

BLONDE SNOW WHITE

2011-10-26T10:10:00.000-05:00

We got a stomach bug in our house this weekend. Claire got it really hard and heavy yesterday, and is still sick today. Somehow she's even more beautiful when she's not feeling well. She reminds me of a blonde Snow White.

And she's such a little trooper - she trudges back and forth to the restroom to the couch, back and forth, back and forth. She's probably thrown up about 15 times today, but has always made it to the restroom. And no whining or complaining. Her only request was mint tea. Somehow she thinks it will help her stomach. I know she's not keeping anything down AT ALL - even the anti-nausea medicine, but I wasn't about to tell her she couldn't have the one thing that she was sure would make her feel better.

This little girl has nerves of steel.

BUBBLE TEA

2011-10-26T09:57:00.002-05:00

On Friday night we made "bubble tea" for Family Night. I have to admit, I wasn't too sure how to go about it, but I was sure that I wanted it to be delicious and a memorable experience. I'm not sure it was either, but this is how it went:

We got out the beautiful parfait cups that were passed on down from my mom. I remember my mom making granola parfaits and the occasional ice cream treat in these glasses. I thought they were so elegant and special that they always gave me a thrill. So I thought it would be the perfect time to pull them out of the cupboard and give them a whirl with my own kids.

Bubble tea is essentially an iced latte made with tea instead of coffee, and with pearl tapioca mixed in. Well, we were out of drinking water. One strange little glitch of living in the country with well water that isn't potable, is that sometimes if I forget to fill up the jugs at the grocery store, we run out of drinking water. So we were coasting through Friday evening with milk alone. Turns out, it made things better - the drink was much more rich.

We started by boiling rainbow tapioca. I found out that when you stir the tapioca with a whisk, they get stuck inside. And they stick like glue. Next I found out that if you shake that whisk for all it's worth to get the tapioca out, the tapioca will fly and stick to the ceiling. As I said, they stick like glue.

Getting the tapioca to boil and then set takes about an hour total, so in the meantime we made our tea drink. I took green tea with a berry flavor, and some brown sugar, and put them both in milk which I set to boil. The tea steeped right in the milk, and the sugar made it all sweet. It was really really yummy! We all loved this part.

Well, we had to wait forever and a day for the tapioca to be ready. I finally got it ready after about an hour of waiting, and then we mixed it all together with some ice, and had ourselves a little bit of a party while we watched some cartoon thingy - kids' choice!

Truth be told, the milk mixture was awesome. The berries with brown sugar with milk was delicious. But the tapioca….not so much. They were icky and squishy on the outside, and crunchy on the inside. Evidently those babies were too big to cook in an hour. Claire enjoyed playing with them, but that was about the most milage we got out of them. So we pitched the tapioca. Next time I'll try smaller tapioca. Still, it was an experience, and it was fun to try.

Cheers!

AURORA BOREALIS….IN MY FRONT YARD!

2011-10-26T07:53:00.001-05:00

I'd always wanted to see the aurora borealis, the Northern Lights, and had heard that they were visible from our location on the globe, but had never been able to witness them myself. Well, the other night our neighbor came over to our door and said, "Hey, you want to see the Northern Lights?"

I said, "Yeah!"

He pointed out to the sky in front of our houses. "There it is!"

Yes, indeed, there it was! This is one of the first photos I snapped after screaming with delight. It started small, but soon….

It grew….

And grew. The whole sky was lit up - the whole dome. In an otherwise pitch-black sky, it provided so much light that the clouds were visible again.

(That little light is actually a star. There is just a lot of camera shake from my low shutter speed).

It was amazing. I'm sure that no matter where you are, it looks like it's coming from directly above you, but this is a shot straight up into the sky from my spot on the front porch.

My neighbor's house, once the red streaks appeared.

This is a shot of the sky above our house, NOT an imaginary vantage point of streaking through the galaxy.

Far out on the horizon to the north.

What an experience! One I'll not soon forget!

Not Me! Monday

2011-10-24T06:15:00.000-05:00

The past few days the bathroom did NOT start smelling badly for no apparent reason. It did NOT begin to smell like sewage in our house. I was NOT on my way out the door to get Drain-O yesterday in hopes of dumping it down the pipes to "Kill bacteria" which were evidently growing and making a stink, when we realized that the smell was not only coming from the upstairs bathroom but also the basement. We did NOT go down there and find the toilet nearly overflowing with toilet stuff, and standing water around the perimeter of the basement. I was NOT extremely thankful that our basement is unfinished and that the floor is heaved, so the water actually stayed at hte edges. We do NOT have septic backed up into our house. When I wondered why the alarm hadn't let us know there was a problem, I did NOT find the alarm unplugged. The alarm had gone off about two weeks ago, and when we called the septic guy, he did NOT tell us that he didn't know what the alarm was for, and that we should just unplug the alarm. Someone in the family did NOT comply with that erroneous idea. Yesterday I did NOT get ahold of a different septic guy, who told me that the alarm is telling me there is a problem with the pump. Ding, Ding! He gets the genius award. He told me how to *possibly* jog the pump manually into working. It did NOT involve opening up the septic tank and jangling the ropes & chains that are tied to everything down there. Upon opening the septic tank, we did NOT see that our little pond of you-know-what was about five feet deeper than it was supposed to be. And so yesterday I did NOT spend a good portion of my afternoon with my head hanging over the shaft to the septic tank, watching our family's waste slowly recede, after managing to manually kick-start the pump. I did NOT nearly add another kind of waste to the pile while I sat there and got whiff after whiff of that lovely mixture. I did NOT spend the evening laying on the couch, sick to my stomach.

The Asian Market Adventure

2011-10-21T11:17:00.000-05:00

Yesterday the kids and I had an adventure. This week we've let the regular routine slip, and as a result the kids have been ~~insanely messy~~ very creative and busy while I've been turning my back on messes. The result was a mess that would turn my mother gray… ;)

So we spent the morning cleaning up our downstairs. The kids were tidying, and I was wiping and vacuuming after them. By time lunch came 'round, we needed a break. I had promised McDonalds and a trip to the Children's Garden in Assiniboine Park after we made a stop at the Asian Market. There's this huge Asian supermarket that I've always wanted to go to, and it's right next to the kids' favorite McDonalds. Score!

So we took off for that corner of town. McDonald's was McDonalds. What can ya say? However, it was made much more exciting for me by the fact that there was a worker guy who was scaling out OUTSIDE of the playplace in order to get to the top for some repairs. A guys rappelling a McDonald's play structure: now THAT'S something you don't see every day…

Then it was on to the Asian Market. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was sure of one thing: with the city's high and diverse Asian populace, it had to be good. I so wish I'd not forgotten my camera, because it did not disappoint! True, it was a mix of western and Asian foods, but there were so many things that you can't find in a regular supermarket, that there was always something else interesting to see. Most of the packages had what looked like Chinese writing with English subtitles. There were innumerable stacks of coconut milk (seriously, thousands of cans), all sorts of rices and sauces, interesting deserts, about 10 kinds of tofu, lots of canned fruit that we'd never heard of, and veggies that were different than the "normal" varieties. Collin loves strange vegetables, so he talked me into getting some really fat carrots. I decided right there in the store that we were going to cook dinner from what we could find in this store. So we also chose a young coconut, a can of lychee (a red spikey fruit that turns out to taste like a sweet grapefruit with the texture of a plum), rice noodles, a mango roll cake, and some frozen coconut pudding.

THEN we found the frozen fish section. The kids went ballistic. They have watched so many sea documentaries, that they recognized most of the fish names, recognized some of the fish on sight, and generally could not be quieted with their enthusiastic SHOUTS of joy over frozen fish. They did get some curious onlookers, but didn't seem to notice in their ecstasy over rock-hard sea life. They insisted on picking up each variety, and on some occasions, hugging the fish as well. They BEGGED for a frozen fish. But not just any fish. No….they wanted something interesting, and finally settled on a Parrot Fish. None of us had ever heard of a Parrot fish before, but it was certainly a beautiful fish. In case you've never heard of one, it's aptly named. This is what it looks like:

Then on to the meat section. This is where things got really interesting. The first thing we noticed were three pigs' heads in the deli window. They were right next to the pigs' hooves, pigs' hearts, pigs' intestines, pigs' lungs, pigs' stomachs, and pigs' ears. Those were next to the beaf tripe, heart, tongue, stomach, liver, and intestine. Yes, all for sale as delicacies. Seriously, what would possess someone to eat a pigs' lung? It looked as gross as it sounded. And my kids let the lady behind the counter know what they thought of her butchered offerings.

Next came whole fish, and squid (not a tiny one - about 2-3 feet long), and then live crabs and lobsters. This is where we got really excited. There was an entire huge barrel of small blue crabs. They were live, and you had to pick the crabs out with tongs and put them in a plastic bag. I asked behind the counter if they would cook them for us, but they only smiled at me as if to say "Silly squeamish American." Well, we had a blast getting those crabs into the bag, squealing and yelping all the way. We each chose one, and they were the hit of the party, let me tell you! Of course, the kids set right to work trying to determine which ones were male and which were female.

The cashier turned out to be quite knowledgable and was actually able to tell them how to determine crab gender. I was impressed, as usually the cashiers couldn't even tell you the difference between skim and 2% milk.

So after a quick stop at the Children's Garden (a really awesome playground that I'll have to blog about in the future), we went home and I grabbed the camera pronto!

The kids wanted to ~~torture~~ observe the crabs a bit. All but one had made it home alive. They were such beautiful little crabs! Look at that blue and orange color!

They were strong, too. They would grab onto each other when we picked them up, and on a few occasions actually pulled off the legs of other crabs!

Just trying on the dinner plate for size...

Here's Collin in a face-off with one particularly fiesty crab.

Collin, stop playing with your food!

In the pot, ready to steam.

Now, you may not believe me, but this little mango cake was the most delicious, light, spongey, moist, decadent cake that I have ever eaten. Amazing.

Here we are, admiring our purchases.

Oh, we also bought rainbow tapioca to make bubble tea.

After the crabs, the purchase that the kids loved the most was the bamboo back scratcher.

Frozen coconut pudding. Gag.

Crabs, all steamed and bright red.

Young coconut milk ready to drink. Yummy!

We didn't have any crab-picking tools, so we used what we could find. Katya was the only child who absolutely refused to eat a crab. She was so freaked out that she wouldn't sit to the table until I took that thing off her place, and put down some noodles and stir-fry (my plan B) in front of her instead.

I actually had no idea how to pick a crab, so I left the table in the middle of dinner to go look it up on YouTube. Turns out, you don't need a hammer!

Then was dishes time. I thought all the kids were watching cartoons while I cleaned up. Then I turned around after all was clean, and found my baby girl here. She had made herself a bed next to Mommy, and was fast asleep on the kitchen floor. Aww….

We're saving the Parrot fish to eat with Vlad. Lucky him. :)

SPENCER IS ALMOST 9!!

2011-10-20T13:43:00.000-05:00

In about six weeks, we'll be celebrating Spencer's 9th birthday. I can hardly believe that I have a child that old. It really feels like it was just last week he was only a little kid - a child I was toting to preschool. Now he's in grade 3, and speeding toward teenage years.

Spencer has loads of energy, and is very spiritually and emotionally sensitive. He is such a walking dichotomy. He's the first to swack at a sibling during an argument, but also the first to cry if someone else is hurting; he's the first talk back, but the first to recognize the wrong in his attitude; he's the first to bounce off the walls, but also the first to clean up the messes he's created; the first to laugh, and the first to be serious when warranted - and sometimes when not warranted. :) He is enthusiastic, hard-working, and still retains his boyish naivete, regardless of whether or not he knows about the birds and the bees.

Spencer is a challenging person to parent, because he's so sensitive to the ups and downs of the dynamics around him. It constantly challenges me to be a better person, and a better parent. His personality demands ever-better parent-child communication, and provides constant accountability.

He's a really fantastic person, and as the depth of his personality slowly unfolds over the years, we enjoy him more all the time. This is my Spenceroo…

our view this morning...

2011-10-19T19:26:00.001-05:00

This morning we woke up to a view of a winter wonderland. Honestly, I'm not sure where the snow went on this first photo. It sort of disappeared when I edited it. But trust me, there was a very heavy snow of at least 1/8 inch on the ground and all the trees.

This one shows it better. I love the light in this one.

It's just Winter, warning us she's on the way. :)

Not Me! Monday

2011-10-17T07:50:00.001-05:00

Last weekend when we were in Grand Forks I most certainly did NOT take all the children and Vlad in to TJMaxx, knowing that there is a very special equation to be applied in this situation.

This is it:

(TJMaxx+Daddy shopping = kids playground) + grouchy store clerk = embarrassed/frustrated Mommy

I most certainly did NOT raise the white flag of surrender for any decent behavior to emanate from my kids in TJMaxx before we had even entered the door. The other shoppers never knew what hit them! Katya did NOT catch a glimpse of the toy section due to some negligent cart-steering on my part, and did NOT immediately start asking for a baby doll. I, being the very responsible and logical mother that I am, did NOT steer over to the toys, pick a cute doll that moved and talked from the shelves, and hand it to her, telling her that we most certainly would not be buying it, but that she could hold it while we were there. I would NEVER do that to a little girl whose cup is overflowing with maternal instinct.

She did NOT immediately fall head-over-heels in love with that doll.

She did NOT kiss its toes.

She did NOT kiss its fingers.

She did NOT say "OOOOHHHHH" every time she looked at it.

She did NOT rock it and "shush" it and sing it a song.

She did not giggle with delight over every little thing that ran through her imagination that the baby doll was doing.

She did NOT nearly wet herself when the "try me" button got pushed and the baby actually called her "Mama."

I did NOT have the feeling that my battle was over as soon as she melted into a puddle at that one little sound.

Still, I held on strong - I was NOT going to buy the doll. I held on strong while finding my children under clothing racks. I held on strong while trying to catch Claire's feet while she scooted under the racks from one aisle to another. I held on strong while I saw Spencer chasing the other kids "like a dinosaur" (can we be done with dinosaurs by now? please? What ever happened to jacks and baseball?) I held on strong while finding my husband calmly perusing the aisles, oblivious to the chaos around him. I held on strong while fellow shoppers looked at us and counted children, and talked in huddles. (Seriously. It's four. Not 15! 1-2-3-four!). I did NOT contemplate calling over to them, "Yep! All ours! And soon to be FIVE! 1-2-3-4-FIVE!)

But when I found Spencer in a sort of silent awkward-glances stand-off with a shopper who evidently thought he was unaccompanied and had lost a sibling (undoubtedly because he had asked her if she had seen his sister. He does that.), that's when I called a dead-stop to all kid activities. I spied Claire darting through another aisle, and I called her over. I told her she was going to stand with me. No more running. No more playground. She did NOT throw a ginormous fit.

She did NOT continue to throw a ginormous fit while we walked around the store, and I did NOT eventually put her in time out while perusing the store for sweaters for a friend in Russia. She did NOT go ballistic. That did NOT get the attention of a store clerk who came over, gave me and Claire a the most disapproving librarian stare over her spectacles, and said, "Can I help you with something? Hmmm??" I looked at her mildly, then gave Claire my most disapproving mother look down the ridge of my nose, and finally said, "No, thank. She's just having a fit," as if it was a normal part of every shopping trip. (Truth is, TJMaxx is the only place my kids go absolutely hog-wild. I don't know why). The clerk, shaken by her inability to shake us with her glare, muttered something like, "I see that," and wandered away.

That started a lovely little conversation with some ladies around us who evidently thought I needed some encouragement after that stare of death. While we were all perusing the racks, they started talking about the horrible fits their kids had thrown in stores. They said they didn't mind if I let her cry around them. Good thing. Because I wasn't about to back down. I did NOT have the urge to hug those women right there between the aisles of discounted name brand sweaters.

All the while, I was holding strong that I still wasn't going to buy Katya's doll, despite the adorable bonding that was going on. When we got to the checkout stand, I held strong and actually managed to convince Katya that she needed to give the doll to the woman behind the stand, because the baby lived there and it was her bedtime….or something like that. I was pretty proud of my phenomenal parenting skills *cough cough* when we managed to leave without the doll in tow. After all, I've only recently thrown away most of the toys, and I don't plan on bringing in more to replace them.

When we got home, Katya immediately went to our shopping bag and dug through it. "Mommy, where baby? Where baby?" "It's not here Katya, it's at the store." "Where Baby, Mommy?" "It's not here, Katya." "Not here? Where i' it?" "You left it at the store, remember? It was sleeping." "Sleeping? Where Baby?" Oh, goodness.

In the morning she came downstairs and the very first thing she asked for was her baby. She searched for it for two days. But mind you, she wasn't actually distraught, because she loved that baby so much that it was actually inconceivable to her that we hadn't brought it home. So she just thought she hadn't found it yet.

That's when it did NOT dawn on me that I had committed an epic parent fail, separating this toddler Mama from her plastic machine-child. And so…….

This past Friday when we went to Grand Forks again, I did NOT leave Spencer in charge and run as quickly as possible into TJMaxx and bring out the same doll to an unsuspecting little girlie with pigtails who was still buckled into her car seat. I would never be so frivolous and give into my daughter's materialistic whims. When she saw her baby, her mouth did NOT drop open so huge it showed the red under her lower eyelids. She was NOT thrilled to pieces. The baby did NOT stay with her the rest of the day, get shown to passersby, share her seat in the grocery cart, and get protected from any infringements of personal space by adoring aunt and uncles. She hasn't been away from it since. Baby is a part of the family, mechanized head movements and all.

Autumn is in full swing!

2011-10-15T09:31:00.000-05:00

Well, about half of the leaves have flown this year, and it's starting to be consistently chilly. The vegetable stands are stocked full of bright orange pumpkins, and we're avoiding the scary-looking costumes that are filling the stores. Summer clothes are put away, and we're stocking up on winter gear. I guess it's finally autumn!

It's a cozy time of year, and starting to be full of anticipation of the coming holidays. Halloween, Thanksgiving (which we already had in Canada, but to me Thanksgiving can only be a big event in November with pilgrim decorations and a turkey in the oven), and then Christmas! Throw in two kids' birthdays between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we're heading for great holiday season!

The kids are still enjoying playing outside without winter coats.

(our cute neighbor friend)

But this week was one of the first that they had to stay indoors for several days due to rain and wind. So what does that mean for our indoor climate? Absolute mayhem! I came out from working in the office and found this:

(Yes, mom. I realize two of my kids are half-naked again.

My kids take their clothes off. What can I say?!)

They had decided to line the stairs with our camper bed mats, and make a luge track. It actually worked pretty well. Their teamwork was extraordinary, and the final product was a load of fun! They were having such a great time, after I assessed the situation and assured myself that no child was in immediate danger of losing life or limb, I snapped some photos. You might think that Collin didn't make it into these photos, but you're mistaken. See that white blob at the bottom of this photo? That's him, stuck between layers while trying to reposition the mat.

Yesterday Vlad took off for Finland. He is helping with a PhD defense, and is taking a quick three days to go see his mom in the meantime. We took him down to Grand Forks just so we could spend a bit more time with him before he took off. We all felt a little lost without Daddy last night. While in Grand Forks the kids and I ate at our favorite Chinese buffet, bought Katya her favorite baby doll in the world, got groceries, and hit the Old Navy clearances before heading back up into the land of the polar bears. At the Chinese place, they had these little doughnut "dumplings" that I could have sworn were really just fried Pillsbury dough rolled in sugar. So I grabbed some Pillsbury dough at the store, and this morning we fried it and coated it with sugar - a first for us. Sure enough! Same exact thing, and it was delicious! Saturday morning donuts this morning instead of Saturday morning pancakes.

Last night when we got home we realized that the garage door had been open since 7:30am when we left, and that there were two lights on in the house. What to do? I told the kids to stay in the car, and in true Vlad-like fashion, I grabbed a metal bar from our weight set, and tromped around the house, turning on lights and checking each room, closet, door, and under beds to make sure there was no intruder. There wasn't. Unless you count a little mouse that I'm sure is hiding out in our furnace room. Relieved that I wouldn't have to use the metal bar on any poor unsuspecting robber, we went about our normal Daddy's-not-here routine. It's Claire's turn to sleep in the king bed with me and the other kids get to sleep on the floor on bed mats (with an exception for Katya who insisted on joining us in the bed around 2:00am). Even Lizzie the Mutant Canine is allowed to sleep in our room, since she gets so sad when Vlad isn't around.

We have a good time together when Vlad isn't here, but we also miss him like crazy. Have a good trip, honey! Have fun, and come back safe and sound.

xoxoxo

Thursdays with Carmen

2011-10-13T08:23:00.000-05:00

Today I am thankful for…finding a really wonderful and knowledgable woman at an agency who seems to know all the ins and outs of Russian adoption. Also very thankful for my mom's group at church. I love this group of women more and more each season we meet together. Also very thankful for the date night that Vlad and I took this week - maybe the first time we ever just paid a babysitter to come and we went out for no particular reason other than to spend relaxing time together.

I'm listening to…Claire count to five over and over again. I haven't yet figured out why, but I think it has something to do with Diego. Also listening to Katya chase Spencer through the house, quietly calling "'Pencer….'Pence!" And the footsteps of the boys going up and down the stairs as quietly as they can because they think I'm not noticing that they're doing something they shouldn't.

Looking forward to…watching "Around the World in 80 Days" (the 1988 Michael Palin documentary) with the boys on Netflix today. It's really great!!

Missing…my phone, at the moment. I think I'll recover it today, though. Also missing is the know-how for motivating Collin to want to read. I think it's laziness, but it is my #1 home-schooling woe of the moment.

Burning question of the week: why, oh why, do I get so frustrated with my kids over stupid things? How can I change to being a more positive parent?

Not Me! Monday

2011-10-10T07:08:00.030-05:00

Again, it's been a long time, but I'm hoping to resurrect this tradition.

This week I got to our house in MN and saw that my neighbor, whose youngest had been 17 when we left, had a sandbox and baby toys in her back yard. When she came over for a chat, I did NOT greet her with "Oh, I see you have a grandchild!" She did NOT say, "Grandchild?! No, that's MY child! He's almost two years old."

This week I did NOT nudge Spencer to wake up, and he did NOT sleepily utter a phrase directly from his own mother's mouth: "Who's responsible for this?!"

Last week when the high-pitched shrieking alarm for the septic tank went off, I went and turned it off, then called a septic tank cleaner guy. He never called back. In the meantime, we were descending to the basement about every hour or two to turn the alarm off again. Whoever woke up in the night was the one with the honor of going to turn it off. Two days later, and still no luck with getting a cleaner to come, I trudged down the stairs at 2am. And there, in the glory of midnight grogginess, I did NOT have a brilliant idea. Instead of coming down to turn this stinking alarm off all the time, I would just UNPLUG it!! Perfection! I unplugged it, smug with the knowledge that I had saved our ears and our tired legs a lot of grief. Two days later it is NOT occur to me that I still hadn't gotten anyone to clean it. Three days later, this morning, when I started smelling a raunchy smell coming from the pipes in the bathroom it did NOT occur to me that I still needed to call - and evidently it was getting to be an emergency. Thank God I finally found someone to come on short notice, and thank God he was thorough. Evidently there was quite a back up.

Pumping poop - what a crappy job!

Thanksgiving Goose

2011-10-09T05:55:00.000-05:00

Yesterday it was cold and windy. The wind blew with such ferocity that the neighbor's basketball hoop fell over and their hockey goal blew into our yard. The wind blew over three of our newly-planted spruce trees, and took our stroller for a ride through the neighborhood, with no driver. I made the kids come inside instead of playing outside with gusts strong enough to make them loose their footing.

It was a day for staying indoors, so I was a bit surprised when our neighbor pulled up in his pickup and lugged a black trash bag out of the back. I had no idea what he was doing. But Spencer remembered:
"A goose! He brought us a goose!"

Sure enough, the next moment he reached into the sack, and pulled out a Canadian goose, freshly killed. He held it up by the neck, and the body just swung back and forth there beneath it. Gross.

It's goose season. He'd been hunting, and had remembered Vlad's request to bring us one. "You want it?" I could not honestly say I did. I was already trying to stay as far away as possible without looking rude.

"Um…" I said, "Well, I don't know how to clean it." It was a dead bird, feathers, eyes, and all.
He told me how to skin the thing. Double gross.

"Sure, we'll take it! Thanks very much!" I was trying to sound pleasant, even though I sort of wanted to throw up. I left the bird in the garbage sack on the lawn mower seat in the garage. Vlad could clean it when he got home. I wasn't going to touch that carcass.

Vlad didn't exactly relish the idea himself. We're not exactly hunting folk, nor survivalists. We don't do dead animals that still have bullets in them somewhere, and feathers and hides that still have to be cleaned off. But he bravely looked up "how to skin a goose" on YouTube and watched the video. Then he set to work in the garage. The boys were in the height of their glory. Claire was there with them, not about to be outdone with enthusiasm level, even though she wasn't sure what to make of it. I kept Katya inside.

10 minutes later the goose was skinned and ready to be washed. Now it resembled a big, dark skinless chicken. I had watched another video on YouTube, and insisted that we had to soak the thing in salt water overnight to get rid of extra blood and draw out the shot. So we did. I hoped what I read was right. The goose was kind of grossing me out, and I didn't want to mess with it any more than necessary.

This morning we put the goose in the crock pot with lots of butter, garlic, and herbs. It cooked all day. This evening we returned home from the movies to find that it was cooked, tender and flavorful. It smelled good, but I was sure it was going to taste nasty. I tried to calm myself by telling myself that people have been eating geese for thousands of years. Try as I might, whenever I said that in my mind, it always came along with a picture of Tiny Tim.

I carefully tried the smallest taste that Vlad first offered. To my utter surprise, it was delicious! And my family agreed! After their first careful and tiny mouthfuls for taste tests, they fell on it like a bunch of ravenous wolves. I would have taken a picture of the goose all beautiful and herby, but the family gathered around the crock pot with a forks in hand, and in about 10 minutes the carcass was picked clean enough that it didn't retain any of it's former culinary glory. So I took a picture of the feasting scene instead.

Now let's see if the pumpkin pie makes it all the way to Canadian Thanksgiving. (That's tomorrow, y'all!)

Smoky October Morning

2011-10-07T10:02:00.001-05:00

On this warm, smoky October morning, my kids are in the front yard, still dressed in pajamas, throwing table knives into the ground (evidently in preparation for their futures of independent survival in the bush) and laying around on blankets in the grass. The other night when we did some family star-gazing, they all became so enthralled with the idea of spreading blankets on the front yard that it's now the favorite pastime. And they're so cute out there together!

All bundled up, enjoying the morning. I don't have the heart to call them in for morning chores.

A little bitty crazy girl, shrieking just for fun..

Always on the go...

A perfect autumn photo!

One Last Hoorah

2011-10-06T16:41:00.000-05:00

Summer is giving us one last hoorah. There is a strong wind blowing up from the south, bringing all the warmth with it, defying the onset of winter. If it wasn't actually October already, I might turn on the air conditioning. But the hoses are already disconnected and wound up for the winter, and since our air conditioning system needs hoses to work, we're just putting up with the warm air. It feels like August again! This summer has been good to us. We hate to say good-bye.

Here are a few photos I snapped earlier this summer before Katya got her cast off. Little girls playing in the yard on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Thursdays With Carmen

2011-10-06T06:58:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time…. I thought I'd resurrect this old tradition of mine.

I am thankful for….time to chat with my hubby and have an in-home "date" after the children have gone to sleep. Last night we chatted very late, with a warm autumn breeze bringing in the smell of backyard fires. It was lovely.

I'm listening to….absolute silence as the family is sleeping past their normal wakeup time. I guess I need to wake them up….oh, wait. Spencer's up!

Looking forward to…the vanilla hazelnut coffee I bought yesterday. I hope it's as yummy as it sounds.

Praying about…. the decision to adopt, and how to go about the process. We think we're making headway, but we still need prayer.

What's for dinner tonight….Actually, I haven't even thought about it. But I do have the ingredients to make my favorite white chicken chili. Maybe that will be on the menu!!

Found…My "Creating Ceremonies" book, which is a book that gives you nice little tools for addressing more difficult times in a kids' life. Meant for adoptive kids, but applicable to all kids. We like the suggestions in there and it's interesting to read.

Missing…Oh, geez. So many things are missing! Pretty much all the mitts are missing, as we're getting all the winter stuff out and ready for when the cold actually hits. I have a plan to go and buy about 8 pairs of mitts, all in the same color (black) for the older kids, so if they lose one, they'll still be able to find a matching set. Or maybe I should sew elastic between them so they're harder to lose.

Burning question of the week: should we move down to our border house, knowing there are potential dangers there because of the former resident? Or should we stay put and deal with the limitations put on our adoption by the Canadian government? Canada or US? Younger child or older? Consistency or nostalgia? These are all actually the same question, but there is a lot to consider.

Perfect Moment

2011-10-05T21:35:00.000-05:00

Coming home from a tupperware party to find my family in the front yard. Laying on a blanket in the warm autumn evening and star-gazing with the family until they start to fall asleep…Awesome!

The Farm House

2011-10-05T17:20:00.001-05:00

Note: edited to remove anything that could be considered slanderous.

The more Vlad and I have researched about adopting in the US vs Canada, the more we have come to realize that we have two options: 1) Adopt in Canada, which we are only eligible for after we receive our premanent residency, which could be as soon as a few weeks, or as late as next year. There is a longer wait, and a younger age limit for adopted children. 2) move to our house on the border and adopt through the US. This is a faster option, and less expensive, and we can adopt a child out of birth order.

All things considered, we decided to start moving some furniture down to our border house. Our renter is currently moving out and will be gone by next week, and we had arranged with him to bring some furniture down. Well, when we got there our former neighbour came hurrying over with a piece of our mail, and was so excited to see us. We haven't spoken with her since we moved two years ago, so we caught up on family news and then she started really spilling the beans. She told us all about what she had seen going on at our house through the years, which included the neighbors never having the shades up, rarely mowing the grass, subletting to other people (all of which we already knew), and most importantly: furtive little exchanges on the back porch where he hands little packets to teens who come to the back door, and they give him money. That we didn't know.

We knew he was shady. From what he'd told us, we assumed he's probably had brushes with the law, and we knew that his job situation was unstable. But we didn't know that the neighbors have long suspected him of illegal activity. It's a bit shocking to realize we were so out of the loop. Even if we'd suspected that he'd lied to us several times, he's always been friendly, and has not damaged the property aside from smoke damage (grrrrr). And he's been helpful in collecting our parcels and mail, without incident.

But as I stood there, knowing that we had finally called quits to the renting situation, knowing that he knew we 'd now been filled in on the neighbors' perspective, and knowing my kids' comfort with his presence and unusual appearance, and knowing he's now living with a woman who could only glare daggers at me and my children from inside my house that she was illegally occupying, I wondered if we were entirely safe moving back into that community.

I'm still wondering.

I know I carry a good deal of anxiety, especially where it comes to my kids. Maybe my fears are founded in fear rather than reality. But I had to wonder "what if?" What if he had a vendetta? What if he wanted to get at us for some reason? What if he wasn't thinking, but just doing something stupid in a place he's very comfortable with and my kids just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? What if?

Standing there in the yard by the sweet plum-colored porch with deck benches that I'd built myself and built memories on in my family's infancy, where Katya slept in her car seat as a baby, where the lilacs that I planted three years ago have grown waist-high, and where my boys had first discovered the delights of hunting crickets and frogs, looking at the garage that we had changed from dilapidated old wreck to cute red country barn, listening to the rustling leaves of the tall cottonwoods under which we had plans to add another child and create more memories with our growing family, I had to wonder if my kids would be safe running free around our 2 acres in this little hamlet, knowing this was no longer the former family home, but the former home of a person whose activities and cohort are questionable, at best.

I feel a bit sad, because we have already been allowing ourselves to get a bit giddy over the things we look forward to in our former home - the people, the friends and community that we left behind, the church, the little town and endless country drives, the private backyard and comfy country home that already has our fingerprints on it. It was such a sweet home for us - one where we found our footing and our personality as a family. Now it seems a bit spoiled.

And I have to admit that I'm thinking that maybe the better option is to put up with a 2-4 year wait in Canada, and adopting a younger child (we really DID want to adopt an older child) instead of putting our family in danger. Is the danger real? I can't say for sure.

For now, I'm praying. We need peace to know which direction to proceed. Please pray with us.

There is a girl in Russia who is waiting...

2011-10-02T17:06:00.001-05:00

This is a little exercise for you. It's not for the faint of heart (there is no blood, in case you're starting to panic), but you can manage. Take a deep breath, pull up your bootstraps, and do me this favor: click on THIS LINK.

(or you can copy and paste this: http://www.usynovite.ru/db/)

Really, please do it. It's important that you see with your own eyes. HERE IT IS AGAIN click it.

Now that you've clicked it, move the window over so you can read this blog and look at the page at the same time. See that blue button with the word that starts with the backwards "N"? Click on that. Now you see that green line with the white square that just dropped down? Don't worry about anything in there except the two little "up-down" arrows in the blue square over on the top right. Click that. Then choose "1999" and click the big blue button with the backwards "N" below once again.

You should be looking at 10 faces. Scroll down and look at them for a second. Now close your eyes, and point to one - any one.

Voila!!

Victim number one. Within six years' time, before this child is 18, (s)he will commit suicide. WAIT!! I know you want to close these browser windows because you think I've gone batty. But stay with me for a minute. I'm not crazy, and I'm not making this up - it really is the statistic for this group of kids. One in ten will commit suicide before they are 18 years of age. Don't close out because your stomach is turning as you look at victim number one.

Instead, look at the numbers 1-10 at the top of the page. Click on #2. There are 10 more faces. Look at them for a second. Close your eyes and point. What? You don't have the stomach for it? Neither do I. Let's not point. Instead, let's just click on the numbers. #3….#4….#5….#6….. Go ahead and see how many pages you go through before you come to the end. Don't close it out yet. Just keep it open so you can glance at them while you read this:

You are looking at Russian orphans who were born in 1999. I've given you only the ones born in 1999 - the kids who turned 12 or are turning 12 this year - because it's a smaller group to wrap your head around. In this database, there are thousands of pages of faces. THOUSANDS!! I went through the ones in the Moscow Region alone, and it took me hours. There were about 250-300 pages. For each page, there is another suicide victim-to-be. If truth be told, it's actually higher because the disabled children aren't included in the statistic, but are pictured in the database.

Why are the numbers so high? One word: Hopelessness.

Let's not even talk about the abuse and/or neglect that usually lands a child in an orphanage to begin with. Let's not even talk about the developmental and physical delays due to lack of nutrition, and insufficient connection and nurture in the institutional setting, and all the emotional baggage that comes along with all that, or the lack of sufficient education and preparation for life outside the institution's walls….

Actually, let do talk about it. Let's talk about it because whether we like it or not, whether we're comfortable with it or not, it factors in to the statistics. Hard facts: kids in orphanages are delayed. The more time they spend in institutions, the more they are delayed. They are delayed emotionally, cognitively, and physically. They're usually smaller and more immature than their non-orphaned peers, and many have a lower IQ from the lack of stimulation in the orphanage setting in the early years of development. When they age out of the orphanage at age 16, they are given a duffle bag with a change of clothing, one month's rent for a "dorm" which is more likened to a cement barracks crammed with older orphans, and an ID card stamped "orphan." As if all they carry internally isn't enough to deal with, their unfortunate situation is stamped like a scarlet letter on their identification forever, like a forewarning to anyone who would have anything to do with them. Try getting a job like that! They don't have any family to encourage them, no family to give a guiding word, to point them in the right direction, or to simply CARE what happens to them. They drown in hopelessness. Is it any wonder then, that these are the statistics that face them:

Every 2.2 seconds another orphan (in the world) ages out with no family to belong to

and no place to call home.

In Russia and the Ukraine, studies have shown that 10% – 15% of these children commit suicide before they reach age eighteen.

These studies also show that 60% of the girls become prostitutes and

70% of the boys become hardened criminals

Another Russian study reported that of the 15,000 orphans aging out of state-run institutions every year, 10% committed suicide, 5,000 were unemployed, 6,000were homeless and 3,000 were in prison within three years…

So, count 10 girls, and pull out six of them. The cute little blondie with pigtails, that spunky-looking brunette girl, the one who looks scared, the one who dreams of being a doctor…. they have a fairly dismal future as the sex workers of Russia. Count 10 boys, and pull out seven of them. These are the future population of Russia's prisons.

I mean, really. What do you expect? At age 16, many of these children have the maturity of a child a few years younger, have very little social adaptation skills, are in full-on sensory overload from being suddenly released into the real world, and are in all-out survival mode. It's a recipe for absolute disaster!! But its' their reality; sink or swim. Most sink like rocks.

When we look at their faces, we are captivated. We read their names: Katya, Klara, Kolya, Sasha, Natasha, Tanya, Vladimir, Vladislav, Vanya, Liza, Vera, Anna, Slava… these are the names of our family members, the names of Vlad's childhood friends… Yes, they are children who have been broken, battered, and bruised by their difficult start in life, but they are very much alive and in desperate need of families. In them, we see ourselves. For how do we come to the Father, but broken, battered, bruised, and in desperate need of the healing that His unconditional love can bring? Who can look at these faces, and not be moved? Who can know what their futures hold through no fault of their own, and not say, "Here am I! Send me!"?

We can't. We have finally reached the decision to add another child to our home - and that will be an older child from Russia. "Older child" is lingo for any child who's no longer an infant. Vlad and I both naturally gravitate toward girls who are in the age range of 9-11, but we're open to God's suggestion. :) We are seeing God start us on the adoption journey, and opening doors. Vlad was put on a sort of forced sabbatical this semester, which affords him more time to travel right now and a bit of flexibility, and our renter is moving from our US residence just in time for us to move there temporarily to complete our home study and adoption process (allows us to adopt an older child, and the process is smoother and faster). In only two weeks Vlad is going to Moscow. I may go as well. And just like that, the search for our next child is underway….

There are so many unknowns, and so many questions. What is certain is this:
1) we are adopting
2) we need prayer
3) the child will be Russian
4) we need prayer
5) we need to raise funds
6) we need prayer

There is a girl in Russia who is waiting... for us.

Loving these days...

2011-09-23T18:48:00.000-05:00

We're getting it down, this home-schooling thing. The boys have accustomed to their schedule, don't really seem to mind pulling themselves out of bed at the crack of dawn, and are finishing their work in record time these days. Seriously, it's freaking me out a little how fast they get done now. But I think I might get used to it. Part of me is tempted to pile on more work, because obviously they could handle it, but then the other part of me tells the first part of me not to reward their diligence with an extra heavy load. So the first part of me is listening. And I'm learning to just enjoy the fleeting moments of their childhood instead of trying to fill every moment with something 'meaningful."

These days I'm watching my kids in wonder. Where has the time gone? Maybe it's because Spencer is very quickly creeping close to eye-level with me; maybe it's because Collin talks with cute expressions and a sort of fake lilt to his voice that makes him sound like a Cool Dude; maybe it's because Claire has this confident quiet look to her these days as she tosses her hair, and in that moment I can already see the teen, and the twenties-something young woman that is slowly budding from this baby girl of mine; maybe it's because Katya is old enough to put on her own clothes, nurture a baby doll better than some mothers nurture their own children, and is often speaking in full sentences. She's no longer my baby. Whatever he reason, I'm so aware these days that my kids are growing up on me, and I'm a bit in awe of them. I love them, of course, but they older they get, the more I LIKE them.

These days I see them mostly through window panes because the weather is so beautiful. They spend hours upon hours outside in the neighborhood, playing with friends and soaking as much sunshine and fresh air as the Lord will lend our way. I hear them through the open doors and windows, the voices of my babies growing up.

If I want to find Spencer, I look to the trampoline first, then to the tree line at the neighbor's house. He's running here and there, enthusiastically tackling the next thing, and always trying to keep everyone in check. Wherever he goes, the other kids follow. Whatever he's doing is exciting - or at least it seems to be, because he's always enthusiastic about it. Spencer is becoming a young man before our eyes. He is hard-working, driven, precise and literal. And I'm more and more impressed with how he is developing into a people- and family- oriented person. Spencer is only eight, but he has his priorities in the right place. He is the one who seeks me out to give me goodnight kisses, or sit by me during family movies - just so I wont' feel left out. Such a tender heart, that is still very visible and vulnerable on the outside, but I suspect will become more hidden in the teen years to come. He has such big boyhood dreams....he is so strong and such a fighter, but I can't help but hope that life will be kind to that tender little heart that is on his inside. As I watch him run past the window, I remind myself to savor the moments that he is still a little boy.

If I want to find where Collin is, I look out of our bay, past the houses, to the "Pond." It's really just a big ditch at the edge of the road, but has enough standing water and creepy crawlies to keep my nature-loving boy happy. Watching him with hair golden in the sunlight, wading barefoot in the mud, exploring every rock and cranny, chasing butterflies, catching snails and tiny water snakes and frogs, I think to myself that this is what boyhood is made of. Such a boy, and yet such a handle on language, with a knack for storytelling. My boy has a ready smile, and a familiarity as he grins and leans close, like we share a funny secret. He's learned the necessity of forgiving and forgetting, this second boy of mine whose sensitive little soul has been crushed by my impatience, quick temper, and tongue too many times. He's an optimist, this little man, always sure that the next big frog, the next full rabbit trap, the next good thing is just around the bend in the road. And then sometimes, like last night, he counts his blessings - food, clothes, house, mom and dad, and Jesus - and remembers that the good things are here and now, and the rest is just extra.

Claire is either easy or impossible to find. She is either on the porch steps or in the garage playing with her little friends, or is far and away at the neighbour's house in their playhouse, in their basement, or even further down the road looking for an older friend to play with. She walks down our lane, back straight, hair tossing away from her face. I watch her and smile to myself, She is fierce, this first girl-child of mine. She is a fierce fighter, has a fierce temper, loves fiercely, is fiercely loyal, and is fiercely determined. When she sets her mind on a thing, she gets it done: swimming by herself, riding a bike, and learning to read. She can spend entire days on projects like puzzles and painting. Independent and determined, she runs here and there and everywhere. She runs fast and low like a gymnast; I marvel at her sturdiness - it's a reflection of her soul. My own heart swells with pride as I watch her. But my greatest moments of pride are when I see her walking home from dinner holding the hand of her little sister. Protecting and caring for the little person and heart who loves her so greatly in return. Even now, over baby dolls, water-colors, cereal snacks, and bedtime giggles, my girls are forging a bond that will carry them through adulthood. Claire Bear is a good big sister.

If I want to find Katya, I look for the neighbor girl, Lea. She hovers over Katya, and Katya follows her everywhere. I've been in denial that she wasn't really my baby anymore, until this afternoon when she woke up from her nap, put her shoes on, and joined the rest of us at the trampoline with a smile on her face. No longer a baby, but a resourceful little toddler full of spunk, tease, and cuddles. Her biggest problem these days is trying to figure out how to carry her two favorite baby dolls and a blanket all at the same time. That, and finding time to play on Daddy's iPhone when the other kids won't take it away. "I iPhone, Mommy?" I iPhone?" "Where iPod?" Her first full sentences have come in the past few weeks - "Mommy, C'are Bear in my bed!" and "Mommy mad at you!" and "I want soy miwt." At two years and two months old, she is doing trapeze tricks that have her father and I seriously considering installing pillows under the play structure outside. While our stomachs leap into our throats, we bite our tongues and say nothing, because her sister and brothers have already done this before her - we've been trained. Bath time and jumping on the bed with her sister, swinging, painting, playing in the sandbox, writing with chalk on Mommy's walls, and stealing the cereal box for a snack rendezvous with Claire…these are the things Katya's life is made of.

At night after reading our bedtime book, the kids all go to their rooms.

I lay down between the girls for a moment. "Jesus song, Mommy. Jesus song," she says. I sing "Jesus Loves Me" and then "Jesus Loves The Little Children." Claire only likes it if I make a raspberry sound between phrases. Katya laughs because Claire is laughing. Then I kiss them both goodnight, and tell them to go to sleep. I close the door, and leave.

Katya opens it a minute later. I put her back.

She opens it a minute later, and I put her back again. Another kiss, another "good night."

The boys want kisses and hugs, and after they've exhausted every excuse for staying up longer, we shut their door. They chat, laugh, and bond together in the dark long after we've gone. I call up to them to quiet down, but am secretly delighted that they enjoy each other's company, even if they should be asleep.

Katya's in our room at 2:00 am. She wants to sleep in our bed, but I tell her she can sleep on the floor. She already knows where the sleeping mats and blankets are, and shows me which one she wants. She's asleep as soon as she lays down. Claire follows within an hour, sniffling. "Katya is not in bed." She gets her mat, puts it down next to Katya's, spreads her blanket out flat, and crawls under it.

I drift off contentedly, knowing it's just a season…and it's passing all too quickly.

Back to school 2011

2011-09-17T07:05:00.001-05:00

Last Wednesday we started back to school. Let me tell you, it was the closest I've ever come to sending my kids back into public or private school - anywhere but here! First off, I was stressed. I was enjoying the free time of my summer way too much, and the sudden invasion of my days was most unwelcome, no matter how well I had planned for it. Second was the fact that the boys felt the same way. To put it nicely, none of us was excited to start back. I tried to take the edge off the pain by buying new stickers, animal pencils with awesome erasers, new crayons, and new pencil sharpeners. But the truth is that home schooling in this family doesn't follow the all-things-new pattern that public schoolers have. My kids don't need backpacks, they don't get all-new textbooks, they don't have a new teacher, with a new set of classmates, a new homeroom, and a different desk. They get the same-old same-old. The same notebooks they were writing in last year, the same math books, the same reading books, the same dining room table with the same supplies cart stacked up with books, folders, and a small box of stickers . There just wasn't a whole lot to make it feel special. To top it off, Spencer was having his usual meltdown with all things new - and the first day was spent in misery to the point of tears over how difficult grade 3 was, even though all we had done was literally turn the page in his reading and math books and picked up where we left off. I don't even want to talk about his reaction when I introduced his new writing program. And Collin was doing his usual out-to-lunch bit, which is enough to render the most rosy-cheeked sing-song kindergarten teacher looking like a mad scientist with Albert Einstein hair by the end of the day. The icing on the cake for me was when I had been trying to get Collin to concentrate enough to just write one number on his math sheet, so he FINALLY began to write the number "7" only to stop mid-way to tell me a story. My mom got the brunt of my frustration on the phone.

Day 2 brought a blessed relief. A friend called just after we had finished our schoolwork for hte day, and invited us to spend some time at the beach for the last nice afternoon of the season. It was perfect, and just what the doctor ordered. And thank God for a friend who doesn't shy away from the big home-school family! The kids spent a few hours getting wet and dirty, catching teensy tiny catfish, playing pirates with foam swords, and generally saying good-bye to Summer in grand fashion. And I got a chat with a friend. On the way home, my self pep talk included a serious reminder that public school kids were only arriving home from school at about the same time that we came back from our beach excursion.

Day 3 we only finished half of our schoolwork, when I called it quits mid-afternoon. I was worn out, exhausted, tired of hearing myself harp on my kids for not concentrating, tired of being frustrated with them after we had enjoyed so many weeks of quiet, contented togetherness. The Unstoppable Force (my kids' obstinance about schoolwork) had met the Immovable Object (my stubbornness) and something had to be done. We were at an impasse. I wrote my list of home-school moms for advice and tips. They told me I was trying to do too much book work, and should take more advantage of natural learning that comes from interracting with the world. Get the kids out, do science activities, let them breed rabbits, let them hunt, build, and READ READ READ. I decided to cut the grammar/reading/writing workbooks and toss them out completely since my kids get those subjects in other places. But we were still at an impasse for the kids' work ethic. Thus commenced Operation Motivation. Wal Mart had the solution. I marched my kids all to the kitchen section and found 2 digital timers, and my fingers tingled with such anticipation that I was almost sad the next day was Saturday and I wouldn't get to try it out until Monday.

Day 4, Monday. We started school late, due to me being in bed too long after several interruptions to my sleep during the night. The first thing I did was pop out those timers. I put a glass of cold milk and a warm chocolate chip muffin in front of each boy, right next to their timers. Then I gave the boys a stern warning that they were going to have study time, and then break time. There was no talking during study time - only working. And then break time would give them a chance to eat their muffins, drink their milk, and talk. And when break time was over, they would go straight back to work. It was amazing. They actually did it. First we set the timer for 3 minutes, and they worked the entire three minutes with only a few reminders to concentrate rather than socialize. Then their one-minute break commenced, and they wolfed down about 1/2 of their muffins in that short amount of time. Three-one-three-one-three-one....around and around we went for an hour and a half. And we got most of their individual work done by time I was leaving for my morning walk. I was amazed that it had worked at all! Claire decided that she was missing out on a good thing, and persistently asked to "do school," so I started her back in the reading program learning her letters and sounds, and also started taking her through a preschool workbook. Nothing too serious, but enough to make her feel special and very knowledgable. :)

Days 5 &6 were the same - the kids did well with the timers, but we were still taking too long in the mornings. Collin's work was taking over an hour for something that should really only take 1/2 hour. And the reading......OOOOOHHHH, the reading! It drove me batty. He just. won't. concentrate!!!

Spencer needed more supervision with his math because he was taking an hour and a half for one page, when he should be able to get it done in 1/2 hour! Still, the week went much smoother. We stayed on track, did all the assignments and projects we had planned, and generally things were better. Spencer had adjusted to his writing course and doesn't freak out every time he sees words without pictures anymore. We worked up to 5 minutes study time with 2 minute breaks, and the kids didn't even seem to notice. But they DID notice that they weren't doing their grammar workbooks anymore, and demanded they be reinstated. Evidently they liked those books.

Day 7 This was the miracle day - the day that a fluke brought me the solution. Collin was still in bed when Spencer woke me up for schooltime. So I decided to flip our normal routine, and work with Spencer first instead of Collin. I also set the timer for 10 minutes with a three minute break. Spencer did his math in 1/2 hour. When Collin came down, I plopped his reading book in front of him and told him to study those words on his own until I was ready to work with him. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, and it didn't look like he was doing a darned thing. Meanwhile, Spencer flew through his other work (the only magic element being that I was sitting there with him), and by time 45 minutes had passed, he had only his writing course left to do before breakfast. It was like a miracle! Thank you, God! And Collin's reading wasn't much different. Evidently he had actually read some of those words to himself, because he was much more adept than he usually is at a first dry run of reading. We were practically done with everything by time breakfast rolled around, which only left group work to be done for the rest of the morning. Score!! Exactly what I had envisioned for our days!!

Day 8 was yesterday. It went the same as Day 7, but with a museum trip and haircuts thrown into the mix. Finally, it seems, we have figured out how to make this home schooling thing work for us. *Grateful sigh*

Phoenix Vacation

2011-09-06T08:25:00.002-05:00

Okay, this is a very quickly-written recap of our time in Phoenix. We had a great time, and saw all of our family and lots of friends. It was a wonderful three and a half weeks, and then we retreated back to the cool north in time for the most glorious late summer/early fall. Here is a recap of our vacation, in photos.

Claire enjoying her window seat on the plane.

Snacks were a god-send. Did you know that planes won't even give out glasses of water anymore? Crazy.

This is what Vlad does in Phoenix - works on his laptop in Barnes and Nobles at Starbucks all day long. It's his office away from his office.

The girls sporting their new outfits and backpacks for church.

THe boys being boys.

We went to Sedona with the whole family. Dad rented a house there, and it ended up having a great backyard with a play structure for kids and some heavy-duty-fun toys. I love this pic because it's just exactly like the girls - claire is the wild woman tearing here and there, and katya is hanging on for dear life.

THey had a great tub, obviously enjoyed by *most of* the family. :)

Carissa, affectionately known as "Aunt Preessa" (a name dubbed by Katya), holding Claire. They crashed during a movie. It was so precious. You can see why the kids all love her to death.

My brother's birthday was in August, so we had a little birthday bash.

Bath time with all the grandkids was a blast. We're big on baths in our family. Audrey and Owen never knew what hit them!

Owen, not sure what just happened, but quite certain that he didn't really like it.

Audrey, on the other hand, had a blast. Claire was official water-dumper, and Audrey thought it was hysterical.

There are so may babies in this family!

Aunt Rachel scrubbing Katya's head. Baths were a joint effort...a union of family interests.

beautiful audrey

just don't try to take her out of the tub. she doesn't like it.

Aunt Preesa.

These two little boys, Oliver (right) and Emerson (left) were born only a few months apart, and it was their first time laying eyes on each other.

No, Oliver's not worried. His eyes are always huge like that.

More pics from Sedona, You'd think I'd have taken pcis of the world-famous mountains, but no. Just my kids playing. :)

one of my favorites to date. the light was awesome in this room.

Katya and her new favorite person in the world. Oliver. She ADORES him. "Ah-vih-vuh"

We all adored him. I, for one, couldn't stop singing "Oliver" from the movie "Oliver Twist." The I read the lyrics and they were so awful, that I determined to make up new lyrics. But I never got aroun to it, so I resorted to humming. I just...couldn't...stop.

It was a fun trip, and we love and miss you all. *For full photo shoots of both of my brothers' families, go see them on my photography blog (click the "My photography" link above and wiggle your way through.)

TTFN

Juice Feast: Day 6

2011-07-26T10:25:00.001-05:00

Now you have to admit: that looks really yummy! This morning's breakfast: 5 carrots, 1 apple, 1c spinach, and 1 tomato. It actually made two of these glasses, and I drank them both. Rather full now...

Day 6
Weight loss: 7 lbs
Notes: nothing has really changed in the last couple of days. Losing 7 pounds hasn't made a huge difference, except that I can tell my jeans are a bit looser and my belly is flatter. Not flat, mind you. Flatter. And I have more energy. I'm not falling into bed absolutely exhausted at 10:00. In fact, I could have gone on for hours last night. The only reason I didn't is the knowledge that I also have to wake up with four kiddos bright and early. But my energy levels are way up. Last night I cheated. I ate things I shouldn't have. Carbs. And I felt guilty especially in light of the fact that I have an audience now, so I'm confessing it here. Am thinking that one good reason for doing a complete fast is to push the reset button on the whole gamut of eating habits, so I can build from scratch when I break the fast. Am giving some much heavier consideration to fasting completely....but do I have the courage? I don't know.

Quotes March 17- June 25 2011

2011-07-26T09:49:00.001-05:00

June 25

Collin, giving a play-by-play of his new pet: My caterpillar got out of his lair!

June 18

Spencer, very seriously, watching me make Vlad's Father's Day Cake: Mommy, you should travel the world making cakes! You would make millions of dollars! Cha-ching!

My arms want to fall off when I think of how many cakes that would take!

June 17

Me: Spencer, will you help Claire get her bike out of the trunk?

Spencer: How many dollars do I get?

Me: Dollars? None.

Spencer: I never get paid!

Me: Paid? To help your sister?! You've got to be kidding!

Spencer: Hey, Mommy, I'm a businessboy. I want money!

Me: Katya, you are so stinky!

Katya: I poot.

June 14

Collin, after I pinched off a bit of skin from a scrape on his ankle: Ouch! That hurted like a sheep. Now I know what a goldfish feels like......AND a sheep!

June 8

Spencer, in a tirade of outrageous behavior at Costco: You mean you're going to give [the pop] to [Claire]?! I'm eight years old, and my life is in ruins!

June 1

Collin, at the skatepark, surrounded by pot heads and one guy without a shirt: Look at all these skateboarders! Just look at them! And that guy (the guy without the shirt) is totally out! I mean, he's gonna attract a woman like that! What is he thinking?

I don't think my kids were made for the skateboarding crowd.

May 24

Me, getting into the childhood silliness when talking about Spring: I love the pink blossom trees. I love them so much I want to marry them!

Spencer, laughing: You can't marry a tree! If you did, then you couldn't have babies; you would just have wood chips!

May 23

Collin, lovingly speaking about his hamster: I named him Mosquito, because he bites me a lot, just like a real mosquito!

May 22

Me, getting ready for church: I don't know what to wear to church today.

Spencer: I know! How about your wedding gown?

Me: My wedding gown? No, you only wear that when you're getting married.

Spencer: Really? I would wear that baby!

May 16

Katya, in her sing-song voice that ends every sentence like a question, urging me to hurry so we could go outside: [C]'mon, Mommy! 'mon!

Me: I'm coming! I just have to get dressed.

Katya: Dessed? 'mon, Mommy!

Me: I'm coming.

Katya: 'Mon!

Me: In a minute!

Katya: Minute?

Me: Yes, I'll be there in a minute.

Katya: 'Minute? 'Mon!

Me: Katya, hold on.

Katya: 'old on?

Me: Yes, be patient.

Katya: pasent?

Me: Yes, patient.

Katya: 'Mon, Mommy!

Me: Katya, shhhhhh!

Katya: ssssss?

Me: yes, quiet.

Katya: Kai-et?

Me: yes, you need to be quiet for a minute.

Katya: Kai- et?

Me: Gosh, I need earplugs.

Katya: Noooooooooo? 'Mon, Mommy!

May 15

Collin, whose breakfast was interrupted when I realized he'd lost his hamster: Mommy said we can't eat until we find that darn hamster!

May 12

Collin, about his new pet hamster: I love my hamster! I love him like he's my own son. And when I'm holding him and no one else is there, I almost cry.

May 11

Vlad: Today is my birthday, boys, so you have to treat me really good today! And since I'm going to work, I'm transferring all my birthday rights to mommy while I'm gone!

There are major perks to being the stay-at-home parent.

Me, calling to Katya after realizing the house had gone quiet and hoping that she hadn't snuck outside with the other kids: Katya? Katya?

Katya's little voice, from upstairs: What?

Me: Are you here?

Katya: Yeah. I seeping!

She is the most mature nearly-two-year-old I've ever known.

May 9

Spencer, in an unusual gush of brotherly love: Katya is so cute and so beautiful.... but she has a poopy diaper. You gotta change that, because otherwise she's the sweetest baby in the world!

Collin: I know! She's sooooo beautiful! But she's really stinky!

May 7

Vlad, to me as he went outside to work: If you can find me, you can kiss me! If you can't, I'm behind the car!"

April 30

Katya, seeing a sweater for her amid my good garage-sale finds, and picking it up to admire it: Ohh, eh doot!!

Translation: Oh, that's cute!!

April 29

Collin, with his usual pre-breakfast question, which is always followed by a complaint once he gets his answer: Mom, what's for breakfast?

Me, deciding to let him save his dignity and actually give him something to complain about: Bread and water.

Collin: What? (to Claire) She's joking, isn't she? No, seriously, Mom!

Spencer, arriving late into the kitchen: Mommy, what are we having for breakfast?

Claire, very matter-of-factly: B'ed and wahyer!

You don't want to know what followed. Evidently Spencer doesn't like being treated like a prisoner.

April 26

Collin, 20 minutes after he and Spencer couldn't concentrate on Social Studies for the day because they were so preoccupied with their new pet spider and caterpillar: I don't like that caterpillar, anyway. So i gave him to the spider!

oh. my. gosh.

Me, putting a plate of peanut butter toast on the breakfast table beside Katya: This is for Daddy. Don't eat it!

Spencer: Yeah, because she always eats Daddy's food.

Katya: Noooooo!

Spencer: Yeah you do!

Katya: Nooooo! Diego, Diego!

Because, clearly, "Diego" is the answer to all of life's little problems.

April 21

Collin, trying to get Claire in trouble by tattling one of my pet peeves: Mommmyyyyy, Claire took out her pigtails!

Me: Oh, really? Well, she didn't even have pigtails in her hair this morning.

Collin: Oh. Then what did she have? Puppy tails?

April 20

Me: Hey, Claire, do you want to help me put the trash in the trailer?

Claire, looking at me thoughtfully: "N-O 'pells 'No'."

April 18

Claire, coming to me with wide eyes and a serious expression: Mommy, Coyyin pulled down my pants and saw my bum....inreaw yife!

April 17

Katya, sitting near me when she lets one rip, then grins, enormously pleased with herself: I faht!

Obviously, her vocabulary is growing in leaps and bounds.

April 7

Spencer, bursting into tears as he took a first look at himself in the mirror after enduring a terrifying, life-endangering, identity-threatening, sanity-challening...haircut: I don't look like myself! I don't want to look like a country kid with..two teeth missing!! *sob sob sob*

Guess I should have layered in the top a little more. His haircut was quickly corrected - after I stopped laughing enough to hold the scissors steady.

April 6

Katya, after I turned off the movie she was so proud to have found on the computer: Mommmyy!! Voovie no' done!

April 3

Spencer, on a toy phone: Hello? Doctor? I need a miracle for my mother. She's a little nuts.

Katya, appearing at the top of the stairs at 7am when everyone else is still asleep: Mommyy....I da' deep!"

Me: You can't sleep?

Katya, descending the stairs for her early morning cuddle: Nope. I da' deep.

She's the earliest talker of the four, and it still shocks me the things she can say at 20 mos.

April 1

Spencer, after a collision with Collin: Ohhhh, my tarnations!!

Katya: Mommyyyyy.....(no answer)...Mommyyyy......(no answer)....Mommmyyyy....Hellooooo? Mommy!

Collin, with great warmth and tenderness after coming in from the porch where he plucked last year's wilted, brown dandelion from the melting snowbank outside the house: "Mommy, look! The first dandelion of the year!"

March 30

Claire: Mommy, tan I have new eawings?

Me: New earrings? No.

Claire: But deese ones ah not pe-fect!

Whoa.

March 29

Katya, charming us all with her favorite new phrase: Chitta-chitta boo-boom! Chitta-chitta boo-boom!

Spencer: Holy Crackup!! The wax beans are growing like bananas and look like Venus FlyTraps!!

Just imagine!

March 28

Spencer, after being traumatized by the clown at a birthday party where we spent the afternoon. Evidently, clowns are the enemy: I hated that clown! And he tried to make me smile, and he almost got me, but he didn't. And then I just turned around and made a face that people wouldn't like.

Me: Nice, Spence.

Spencer, happy and content in his sense of vindication, completely missing my sarcasm: Thanks!

March 27

Claire, while the kids were arguing/discussion which songs I should sing for bedtime: I wan' you to sing "Twintle Twintle Widdle Stah!"

Spencer: Noooooooo, Claire! What's so special about it? It's just a star that looks like a diamond!

March 25

Spencer, with the other kids in the kitchen, guiding an impromptu science experiment: Now let's put this in the cup with water, and add some salt...Now let's shake it up all together!

Collin: What's going to happen?

Spencer: I don't know. That's why it's interesting!

For the record, they were mixing hair with shampoo, and salt. Nothing explosive!

Vlad to Collin after Collin had a hard time sitting still for morning reading: Do you know who succeeds in life, Collin? Those who have a sharp brain and a flat bum. You have to be like a pyramid, sitting still and applying your mind to things if you want to succeed. If you have a sharp bum and can't sit still, and you don't apply your mind so it is just flat, you'll be like an upside down pyramid, and you'll fall over easily in life. So you be like a pyramid, ok buddy?

March 20

Katya, pointing to the kitchen: Mommy, mesh!

Translation: Mommy, mess!

Me, looking in the kitchen to find one of my "nice" plates crashed on the floor. So that's what the loud sounds and squeals 10 minutes ago had been about: Oh, Katya! You did make a mess! The plate broke, huh?

Katya: Mommy, mesh. I wowwy, Mommy. I wowwy.

Awwwww.

March 18

Collin: Mommy, do you know that some dinosaurs have brains like green beans?

Me, thinking hard: Um.....green beans? Do you mean that they have brains the size of peas?

Collin: Yeah!

March 17:

Spencer: I can't believe I have to dust your bedroom! It's nasty! It's disgusting! It's not what kids are supposed to do!

Me: I can't believe I have to do your laundry! It's nasty! It's disgusting! It's not what moms are supposed to do!

Spencer: Sorry.

Collin: Mommmmmmmy! Spencer drew half a moustache on me with permanent marker!

Me: Let me see........(looking at the half-moustache over my son's lip)......here, let me draw the other half!

Yes, I did draw it. And yes, it is still there.

My Birthday 2011

2011-07-25T19:55:00.000-05:00

Saturday was my birthday. I turned 33 years old. It started out as a huge bummer. Vlad is gone, and I was stuck at home with the four kiddos, who were sweet about their birthday wishes, but were not exactly planning a surprise party. But we remedied the situation with an afternoon out. I rounded up the kids, and one neighbour friend, and we took off for the zoo. But first, a stop at the steam train!

This is the best shot I got of everyone together. Seriously, I'm awful at taking group pics of my kids.

But train robbers...now THAT is a pic I can take! :)

What's a train robber without a Sherlock Holmes to solve the crime?

After the train we headed to the zoo. We got rained out after about 20 minutes, but it was a sweet little stop. Too bad my camera battery ran out at the train! :) We hurried on to the movies, where we had a great time. No one even left their seats. 5 kids, and one mom who thoroughly relaxed at the movies - I call that success. It turned out to be a fun birthday after all, despite the lack of adult conversation.

Juice Feast

2011-07-24T20:43:00.001-05:00

A few days ago we watched the documentary "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead." Sounds enticing, eh? I didn't think so either. Just know that the guy who did the documentary is an Aussie, and has a great sense of dry British humor. Thus, the title. Well, the documentary is basically about a man who was very overweight and had some serious health problems as a result. He decided to reboot his system and his life, and give a new start to his body. How was he going to do that? He decided to do a juice fast (which I shall hereafter refer to as a "juice feast"). Basically, he travelled the US for 60 days, talking to people about their diet, effects of diet, and about his juice feast. For 60 days all he ingested was fresh squeezed vegetable and fruit juices for meals and snacks. Why juice? Because you get all the nutrient available immediately to your body without the need for digestion. Basically, it's super healthy, and you can get so much more nutrition than you can get through eating vegetables throughout the day. At the end of his feast, he had lost nearly 100 pounds, and had completely recovered from his health ailments (free of pills after over 9 years). He rebooted his life entirely, and went on to help others do the same thing. It was very inspiring. I have been thinking about doing a serious detox for my body. It's no secret that I'm overweight, but I have become increasingly concerned for my health over the past year. Not because anything awful health-wise is happening to me, but because the extra weight brings extra potential for problems. So after watching this documentary, I've decided to follow suit. Problem is, it's sort of hard. I'm used to eating all the time. It's sort of strange how much we become attached to our rituals of eating food, whether it's just eating healthy food in healthy amounts with the family at the dinner table, or whether its overeating on the wrong foods. I'm not sure I can go completely off of food altogether, so I'm making allowances for fruits and vegetables, along with the juice at every meal. So far, I've been at this juice feast for four days. I have not been a model student. But I figured I'd sort of ramp into it. Today, day four, has been a good day for one reason only: I decided to tell the world about my juice feast. The extra accountability really keeps me going. This a shot of our breakfast table. The kids were eating cereal. I was drinking my juice. It's kind of pretty, don't you think?

It's a mix of lots of greens: green apple, cucumber, kale, and kiwi. So every second day I'm going to pop in and give an update on how it's going, no matter how much I hate how it makes me feel like an old woman to tell about my body and the state of my health.
This is my first update:
Day 4
Weight loss: 4 lbs
Notes: ankle swelling going down. Didn't realize they were so swollen until I saw them shrunk down today. This is probably due to losing water weight. Had a bad headache for the first day and a half, probably due to detox from coffee. Feel like it was a good decision to "ramp in" instead of going cold-turkey. Not sure I could handle that headache for too long. Headache still lingers on and off, but not so bad. Was terribly cranky the first day - also probably from detox. Eating some fruit seems to help the crankiness. Maybe I was just hungry. Got seriously hungry today at lunch for the first time. The nice thing was not having the panicky feeling, because I didn't get shaky with hunger as usual (suspect low blood sugar?). That's a big change! Fruit and juice were enough, and kept me going all afternoon. I'm still amazed at how the body goes and goes on just vitamins and minerals in the juice. I didn't know it would be so easy to live on (mostly) juice.

And, because I can't do a post without pics of the kids, here are the girls enjoying their breakfast:

Happy Birthday, Katya!

2011-07-19T08:21:00.001-05:00

Hey, Katya, how old did you turn yesterday?

2? That's right! And approximately what time in the afternoon was it when Mommy realized that she had forgotten it was your birthday?

2 - right again! (Very handy place for that thumb, by the way! Good thinking!) And so how many presents did you get to pick at Toys R Us, to make up for Mommy's guilt?

2! Right again! Was that loads of fun?

Katya?.......are you listening? Don't you want to help Mommy with her blog post by telling all the people how you tried to buy out the store with your one little Toys R Us gift card? Don't you want to tell them how you scolded Collin that it was your birthday and then proceeded to point to every toy in the store and say "YES!"?

No? Alrighty then, we'll just skip to birthday pics.

It's true. Mommy forgot a birthday for the first time. I'm sure it won't be the last, knowing me. Thank goodness Katya had already picked out a doll this weekend as her "birthday baby," whom she carried and "shshes" and kisses constantly. And thank goodness for wonderful neighbors who came over on the drop of a hat (no pun intended) and had a quick little celebration in the front yard with us. This pic below is precious. Katya loves her friend "Nina," (which isn't her real name). She lives two doors down, and is mother to the other three kids who our kids play with from 8 in the morning to 8 in the evening. When Katya is mad at me, she cries for "Nina." She sings "Nina's" name, and when she's going through her list of favorite people, "Nina" is in there at least three times. Nina is her favorite person. And you can see why. It looks like she is adored right back. The birthday hat? Supplied by Nina. When I was a little girl I loved the neighbor lady whose last name was Jones. I loved them so much that my parents started calling me Carmie Jones. And it stuck. I'm still Carmie Jones when I go home. It looks like Katya is following suit .

Only two candles on this little cake! But it's twice as many as last year!

There they are - the whole gang!

Blow, Katya, blow!!

Milk and cake on the warmest evening of the year - YUM!

It turned out to be a really lovely evening, and a great time catching up with friends and neighbors. But most of all, Katya was celebrated. I can't believe my squishy, gushy, teasy, giggly, cuddly, waddly, adventurous, fun, loving, sweet, kissy baby is already two!

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl! May all your dreams come true!

Bathtime!

2011-07-17T07:37:00.000-05:00

Katya has a removable cast, so now she can take a real bath!

I gotta say, being back in the water and suds was so much more fun than bathing in the kitchen sink.

Some more of Claire's strange sleeping spots

2011-07-16T22:00:00.000-05:00

I found her here a few weeks ago. I thought it was hilarious, with her amid all our laundry that was on the stairs. She even took the time to cover herself up with her special blankie!

This is where we found her this evening. It beats them all....

Slingshot

2011-07-16T18:10:00.000-05:00

What's the upside of your little sister having a broken leg that has to be wrapped with an ace bandage all the time?

You have the material for a perfect slingshot!!

One..... Two.....

Three!!!

(No children were harmed in the making of this blog post, even though it looks like my daughter has fallen to the floor after being hit with projectile object).

My kids are crazy! I came out of the office, to find very guilty faces and long sideways glances to the ginormous slingshot they had rigged with Katya's ace bandage. They were hurling thing across the room....namely, DVDs. They thought I'd be upset, but instead I ran to grab my camera. Moms are so unpredictable! You never know what they're going to do next!

The Zoo, with friends. :)

2011-07-15T12:10:00.000-05:00

About two days ago we met some friends from our church's moms' group at the zoo for a quick run around to see some animals and have lunch in the presence of some very aggressive prairie dogs. The boys were super-excited, since they'd been asking to go for quite a while. Especially Collin.

My boys are really starting to get attached to their little friend, Nathan.

The bird house was really beautiful!

Collin exploring in the bird house. I think he may be playing "cat," which is why he is licking his lips with a smile on his face.

Katya getting around in her little purple cast.

Having a look at the antelope.

I'm so impressed with Little Miss Claire the older she gets. She is such a determined little thing, so sturdy, and so sure she has already conquered the world. And yet, she's such a little cuddly bear. I love her spunk and her personality.

A pair of bald eagles.

Look! An albino buffalo! (No, I'm not joking).

Love this lucky shot of Claire!

Our friend and her little boy, who was very keen on chasing the peacock.

The peacock.

Our boys were feeding him our friend's snacks. Thanks, Martini!

Snakes are serious business! Lots of fascinating fun...

...but also sort of scary!

Too bad we had to cut our visit short for a doc's appointment....Maybe next time we'll see more.

The Long-Awaited Trip to the Manitoba Museum

2011-07-15T11:41:00.000-05:00

This year we got a membership to the Manitoba Museum. I haven't regretted it one second. It's the perfect place to go on a winter's day, or any other day when you want to get out of the house and have a change of scenery. They have a very fun science room in the lower level next to the planetarium with all sorts of hands-on stuff for kids to do. My kids especially love the water table, the little aquarium, and the race car table. It's easy to kill an hour or two there on an afternoon. Then the upstairs is where things REALLY get interesting....so much great stuff to see! The kids wanted to go about once a week for a while, and I did take them about every other week for a little bit, but then decided that familiarity would breed contempt, so we had to cool our jets. They still love it, and have been begging for a trip for a while. This week we finally got there.

Claire and Collin went straight to the aquarium.

Katya went straight to the water table.

Then Claire joined her.

Katya was fascinated by the fish too! I love watching their little faces light up with wonder.

Spencer, following in his dad's engineering footsteps, went straight to the table for building cars.

The pulleys are great! You have to feel the difference in the different pulleys that employ one, two, or three pulleys. You sit in a chair and hoist yourself up.....

Then take a ride down...

Katya never left the water table. She was having such a great time!

I love how these two are sticking together more and more all the time. I don't even think they realize it, but they are becoming great buddies!

Too bad we didn't have time to explore upstairs.....maybe next time I'll get pics of the old settlement town, or the giant ground sloth skeleton!

Summer Days = Lazy Afternoons

2011-07-15T11:23:00.001-05:00

To say that we are enjoying the provincial park beach recently would be an understatement. We have been keeping the lifejackets, towels, blankets, and sunscreen in our trunk so we can go at

pretty much the drop of a hat. It's only a five minute drive from our house when all the roads are open, and only 20 minutes when they're not. So we've been going about every couple of days - any day that we would otherwise spend in the house, we're camping out there for the afternoon instead. What makes it even more doable is the discovery of a huge play structure with picnic tables nearby, under some lovely poplars.

It's a perfect setup, and now even Katya can enjoy herself on the play structure, instead of just waiting around in the sand. She gets dirty, but she's very happy! :)

The kids play here for hours, and we relax in the shade for hours.

They really only ask to go in the water a few times each day, and then it's only for about 20 minutes, until they get tired of us telling them to stay close because of the vigilante lifeguards, or until they get too cold with the nice northern breezes that blow here most of the day.

Vlad goes in the deep water when he can, with the boys...or just hangs out in the shallow edge where the water is warmer.

It's even better when we have some friends along!

Under the trees we relax, hang around....

...and sometimes find a sunny spot for some extra warmth.

We eat loads more fruit than any normal day. Even Katya has learned to peel an orange by herself!

Vlad is in the height of his glory, being at the beach.

And his daughter seems to follow suit.

Sorry - no pics of me. I'm on the other side of the lens! Maybe next time. :)

The family photo shoot...

2011-07-12T21:09:00.001-05:00

And so the quest continues to get a good picture of all four of my children together at one time. I must say, I fare much better with other peoples' children than with my own. Since the trauma of last years miserable attempt at a photo shoot had finally worn off a bit, I decided to try the other day to get a great shot of my kids together at the park. They didn't even have to dress up - they just had to look mildly pleasant sitting in close proximity to one another. The banner image was the best of the lot.

I don't think I'm going to try to shoot all four kids at the same time together for a while. It does too much damage to my self confidence.

Summer continues....more pics.

2011-07-11T10:30:00.000-05:00

Lovely title, eh? I can't always think of something brilliant. What I just wrote as the title is what usually goes through my mind - something very dry and bottom line. I would never have made a good headline writer!! Good thing a picture is worth a thousand words! That turns this post into a 7000+ word expose' on the thrills of our summer. :)

The truth is that things are more or less quiet around here. This past week we enjoyed having my dad come with a couple of friends on their way to and from a fishing trip. It was short but sweet, and we were happy to have a bit of time with Grandpa. I especially loved the nice cleaning he gave my van, which had been trashed from too much negligence along with trips to the beach and the park.

Vlad went to a conference all week last week, so I was flying solo with the kids. I have to say, we had a good time even though we were missing Daddy. We went to the beach, went to the park a few times, and played outdoors lots.

Maybe I should say the KIDS played outdoors lots. I took pics of them playing outdoors lots. Because my #1 toy right now is my new camera. I have to say this: It is everything I hoped it would be. I am unabashedly in love with that little black machine...and even more in love with the images and the moments that I'm capturing of my kids' childhoods. Because, as my business tagline says: It's all about capturing the extraordinary in those ordinary moments of childhood.

When we went to take Vlad to and from the airport in Grand Forks, the kids were begging to go to the park. The Grand Forks road trip is about 3 hours, and they are incredibly patient, but I am always a fan of making it as fun for them as possible. So I went in search of a park, and just to happened upon this awesome park with a great playground and a splash park!! We had a blast, even though Katya literally used me as a jungle gym the entire time since I had to be close to the splash park, and she couldn't get her cast wet. That park became an instant Grand Forks tradition for us. It's beautiful, with lots of trees and a quaint old neighborhood right next to the university. We went back the next week when it was time to pick Vlad up, and arrived close to sunset. The light was a photographer's dream, and the kids were surprisingly enthusiastic about having me take their pics. So I played around with some sun flare. I love this one of Spencer. He bemoans the fact that he can't smile like the rest of the kids - that whole-hearted from-the-gut sort of smile. But the truth is that I don't try to get him to smile because I love this more penetrating expression from him.

I couldn't get Katya off the swings. She was having such a blast!! "I wing, Mommy! I wing!" Seriously the older she gets, the more her looks and facial expressions remind me of my sweet Grandma who died a few months before Katya was born.

A few days later we went to another splash park in the south end of town after Katya's cast appointment. That was loads of fun!

One of the greatest surprises and joys this summer has been discovering the new playground they put in at the park near our house. It's so cute, complete with HUGE and very cool play structure, a pirate ship play structure, built-in tiered sandboxes, little footbridges, a forest path, and colorful toadstool mushrooms. It's like a kids fairytale land! And the Witch's Hut from Hansel and Gretel is nearby. With the huge green trees, and the great play places, its' become our favorite spot.

Bird's Hill Provincial Park is a hop, skip, and a jump away, so we have been taking advantage of the beach there. Yesterday I came home from a photo shoot and found the whole house empty of hubby and children. When I called to find out where they were, Vlad had taken the kids all to the beach by himself!! They needed lunch, sunscreen, and lifejackets. So I packed a lunch and headed over. Everyone was getting burned pretty quickly. But it was a great time!

This is definitely the Summer of Parks for our family.

The beach and my new baby

2011-07-06T23:05:00.004-05:00

Today we went to the beach. It was the perfect evening, with a perfect storm cloud that passed us by just as we arrived. Then the sum streamed through the clouds again and it became perfect beach weather once again! We met our neighbors and some other friends there, so it was also the perfect opportunity for me to try out my brand-new camera. My new baby. Honestly, it blows the sock off of my other camera, and I CAN'T WAIT for the practice session I have scheduled for this weekend, when I'll get to photographed clean children who are actually styled for a photo shoot. :) But these little munchkins are my wonderful practice subjects, and I think they're awfully cute.

You'd think I've edited this heavily to be dark on the sides, but I didn't. It was the light from the storm that made it look like that. It was very cool!

I love this little girl's eyes and her ever-optimistic personality.

Spencer's constant companion.

Katya Joy, who waited, and waited, dug through the sand, and waited some more.

Claire and her friend, very seriously building something.

Through it all, Katya waited so patiently it was almost embarassing. Love this little girl!

The boys were swimming far away, so I didn't get to photograph them. :( Maybe next time...the summer is still young!!

Summertime...

2011-07-04T19:22:00.001-05:00

Summer is for running through the sprinklers....

And enjoying yourself with abandon...

For perfect beauty in just being you...

For silliness and laughter....

For including others in your fun...

For time with grandma and grandpa...

For beautiful sunsets that last until midnight....

And for early morning balloon rides.

Summertime is magical. ;)

Happiness is...

2011-06-28T21:47:00.002-05:00

...sharing your iPod with someone you love.

Childhood just isn't what it used to be.

Katya broke her leg jumping on the trampoline on Friday. She was just jumping when someone else bounced close to her, and it sort of jerked her body, then she fell down and the leg was broken. I didn't figure out until the next day that she had anything more than a sprained knee. But when we took her into the ER, she has a break close to the knee right across the tibia. The cast goes up past her knee, and she most likely won't be able to walk on it for about 6 weeks. She's a smart little cookie though, and as quickly figured out that we'll bring most anything she asks for. So she's gone from asking for milk and blankie to asking for cake, chocolate, iPod, and earrings. (She doesn't have pierced ears....yet.) She has also quickly learned to crawl with one knee and drag her other leg behind her. So yesterday she was determined to go to the neighbour's to play. Since we leave our doors open all the time at this time of year, she snuck out quickly, and I found her nearly to the edge of our yard, on her way over. I can only imagine what it looks like to the neighbours to see a crippled little girl on her hands and knee dragging her cast through the dirt and grass so she can go play with friends. Needless to say, I saved her from herself pretty quickly. She's a determined little thing!

Father's Day with loads of photos

2011-06-20T09:57:00.001-05:00

I don't write much about Vlad. The kids usually trump him in antics and blogging material. But this is Father's Day, and he so greatly deserves his own post. Vlad is the backbone of our family. Our stability, our voice of reason, our quiet in the storm. I am so blessed to be able to call him "husband" to me and "father" to my children. He is the man that our children adore, and want to emulate. It's Daddy's lap that is the coveted real estate at the dinner table, and the chairs next to Daddy that are taken first. I think Vlad is the only man in the neighborhood that occasionally has a child running behind his car as he leaves for work, shouting and waving "goodbye" and yelling for just one more hug and kiss before he heads off. His understanding of our children, of parenting, and instruction through example and experience exceeds my own. Every day he lets us know we are loved through word and deed. In all, he's an extraordinary human being, and so it's only fitting that we had a great day of celebration on Father's Day.

The kids and I had a great surprise planned. We were going to steal Daddy away and take him for a day at the beach. (Lake Winnipeg is north of here, as well as Bird's Hill Provincial Park). We all know how much Daddy loves the beach! Mommy loves the beach too, as long as there is grass and not too much sand. The kids haven't had a chance to swim outside yet this year, so it was an all-around winning idea! Vlad started making other plans in the meantime, so we sort of had to adjust the "surprise" part of our plan, but other than that, it was a go!

In general, Vlad likes steak. You could give him ONLY steak for a meal, and he'd be happy. (Well, he might want to gnaw on a lettuce leaf too). So steaks were on the menu! We spent the morning working on a new mosaic countertop for our bathroom, getting some good interactive project time together, and then headed off mid-afternoon for some time at the nearby provincial park. Half of Winnipeg had the same idea, but we did manage to find a picnic area that was open. The previous fire was still smoking, and the embers were so hot that our own wood caught fire within about 30 seconds of putting it on! How about that?! I can now say that I once made a fire without matches!

Since Vlad has a penchant for grilling and steak, it was only fitting that I make a Father's Day cake that reflect his preferences. (I get no credit for this idea - it was on the cover of a magazine at the checkout stand). The kids were SO excited about this cake, it was an effort to keep little hands away. I pacified them by giving them leftovers. Then we finally ate it last night before bed. :)

Anyway, back to the cookout. You can see the kids were so excited to swim, that they wore their lifejackets the whole time. I'm not even sure why Collin had a lifejacket on, because he could swim last summer already, and has been in swimming lessons all year. I think he was just so excited he forgot it wasn't needed anymore. :) And, yes, I do realize that my kids are without shirts in about half the photos that I take. I don't know why, but evidently it's not something that bothers anyone around here, because we never notice until someone else mentions it.
This is a sight I always love to see: Vlad with his boys, playing with fire....and raw meat.

Our cookout location was overlooking my favorite meadow in Bird's Hill. Spencer decided to go running "through the prairie."

Claire, at the edge of the prairie, evidently scared off by Collin's warning that she'd get eaten by a bear in the prairie.

Spencer, playing cheetah. Still, I think it's a cool photo.

This is how we roll.... Swagger Wagon and all. We're the only people that drove through the ditch and parked next to our tables. Not sure it was legal, but very convenient.

Spencer ate quickly and then got bored, so he decided to start a water bottle. fight.

Collin got wet, and then decided to "arrest" Spencer with the cowboy rope they've been carrying around lately.

Life is good, especially when you're getting away with stealing your brother's cowboy hat. :)

Next we went over to the beach.

Always the life of the party!

Little Princess

Katya was very unsure about the water for a while, until she realized that it was fun, warm, and shallow. Then she stopped clinging, and I eventually had to wade out to about a foot of water and get my jeans all wet to save her from herself. :)

I'd say she was having fun, wouldn't you?

Little toes, first dip in the wild waters of a man-made lake.

The girlies having fun together. I turned around for a second, then turned back and realized that Katya had decided to sit in the waist-deep water and enjoy the waves. :)

I think this is such a funny shot! Katya grew two more legs! Actually, it's Claire who rolled backward at just the right moment, and Katya is blocking the view of her body. :) Never a dull moment!

Collin playing with the volleyball.

Ahh....refreshing!

Nice perch!

Vlad, with all his kiddos, enjoying the water.

Katya adoring her Daddy.

Daddy adoring his Katya.

These two dudes are always having a good time together, despite the occasional bickering.

A super-crop of Vlad at the back of the lake, throwing Spencer and Collin through the air, with spectators. This is their favorite thing to do in the water with Daddy.

Daddy with his kids, Father's Day 2011.

We love you always, Honey! Thanks for being such a great dad, friend, teacher, husband, and example. XOXO

Perfect Moment

2011-06-18T15:08:00.000-05:00

Katya comes into the kitchen, carrying toys from her trek outside in the yard. "Mommy, I miwt."
"You want milk?"
"Yep."
I give her milk in a sippy cup.
"Mommy, I seepy."
"You're sleepy?"
"Yep."
"Okay, let's go to bed!" She takes off her shoes and climbs the stairs. I put her in bed and cover her with a blanket. "Good night!"
"'Night."
I walk out and close the door behind me.

Score!

Field Trips in June

2011-06-16T18:58:00.003-05:00

Well, school this year is winding down to a close. We have only a few weeks to go. The boys have both finished their penmanship books, Spencer is feverishly working through his Grammar workbook which he started mid-year, and counting the pages (12 more!) until he is finished with his math workbook. I am incredibly proud of both of them. They have both come such a long way this year. Collin went from having me convinced that he had a learning disability and would never learn his numbers and letters, to being able to do some simple dictation (me telling him the word, and him sounding it out and writing it in his notebook) and doing early addition. Spencer has moved on to multiplying three and four-digit numbers, and is astoundingly meticulous and analytical at times. There is no doubt about it: we've had some really rough days in this schoolyear, but we've also had a lot of fun. We've watched more documentaries than most people watch in their lifetime, and both of my boys will now sit through an educational video/DVD with as much rapt attention as they will a cartoon - if nothing else, that is a fantastic feat! We continue in our regular curriculum, and have 1.5 more units to finish before we call it summer break. Our current unit is on money. What better field trip to take than to the mint that is only 20 minutes from our house? That's where we went on Tuesday. We took a tour, saw the machines and the coining process, and in general had an interesting time, despite Spencer running up the down escalator and bruising his knee bone on the escalator stair pokes.

This is the mint.

These are the flags of all the countries that they have made coins for.

This is some sort of cool token machine that stamps blank coins in the same way they are stamped to make money.

This is a cool balance.

But what's the most fun thing in the mint? Running around the super-cool lobby, of course!

Oh, and hanging off the handrails in the courtyard outside! Claire is going all California-bleached-blonde on me, and I think she's drop dead gorgeous this summer!

The home school group was taking a big field trip to MorningSound Farm today. We signed up ages ago when we were doing a unit on animal life. It was a long-awaited day, especially for one little animal lover whose name starts with a "C' and ends with an "ollin".

The girls enjoying themselves in the petting barn. I love how Katya is holding on to her stuffed kitty, and Claire is petting the real kitty. They are becoming such little buddies. I love to see their relationship unfold.

What can you say? These little pigs are....well....pigs.

Collin in the height of his glory holding the most adorable kitties.

Claire wasn't too sure she liked it. They had claws.

Collin holding a perfect yellow fluffy baby chick. This kid has no fear of animals.

This kid has no fear of people. The cowboy hat was purchased yesterday, with no connection to the upcoming Farm Day. He just likes it. Everywhere he goes, he has a faithful following of other boys within about 10 minutes. Today was no different.

Katya trying to figure out if she likes the goat. She didn't.

Hay rack rides to the cow pasture.

Pony rides for my little cowgirl.

Such a thrill!!

Seeing Something Beautiful

2011-06-06T07:46:00.002-05:00

I was doing some reading in the office when I heard a gasp and a sharp thud in the kitchen, followed by Katya wailing and sobbing. I already knew: she had fallen off of the barstool in the kitchen while she and Collin watched a kids' movie (allowed this early in the morning only because the other three people in the house are still sleeping). I picked her up and she was was already wailing for her blankie. We walked to the family room, I grabbed her blankie from the playpen, and laid her on the couch, soothing her while I gingerly felt her little head for knots. She was sobbing with her eyes closed and thumb in her mouth, not like she was mortally wounded, but as if her feelings had been hurt by the floor that been so unkind as to injure her. She laid there, eyes closed with tears streaming out and moaned, "I faaaaall." Seeing how tired she was, I made a guess that she had dozed off while sitting there, and had fallen off the stool when she fell asleep. She was almost asleep now, and her eyes fought a losing battle to flitter open. She would be asleep any second. But instead of succumbing to sleep, her eyes flitted open and suddenly locked on something as she stared at our entryway. She stared, unblinking, thumb still in her mouth without sucking. I looked, but there was nothing there. She was still staring, unmoving, unblinking, entranced. She's never done this before, so I dared a question I've rarely, if ever, asked our kids: Do you see something? Do you see something...beautiful?
"Yeah," she said quietly, unmoving. "Jesus."
"Jesus?"
"Jesus," she said again. Then she looked away, snuggled into her blankie, and dozed off.

Upcoming Field Trip

2011-06-01T16:37:00.000-05:00

I just got an e-mail from our field trip coordinator:

"Still space left in the upcoming field trip to Fort Whyte [Nature Center]. Fort Whyte: 'Adapt or Die.'"

Umm.....I think I'll skip.

Fluffy, Love, and Death UPDATED

2011-05-21T08:23:00.001-05:00

UPDATE:
The night after Blackout was lost, we found her. She saw me brushing my teeth and decided to crawl up my pant leg. Needless to say, chaos ensued when I felt a creature trying to crawl up my leg. We did catch her, though, and promptly put her in the cage. Mosquito (the name change given to Mr. Fluff because he bit Collin all the time) was put in a huge stainless steel bowl to wait out the night. Perfect solution - he would reach up the side, then slide back down. It was a sure bet to keep him in one place all night long. The problem was, by morning he was gone. WHAT?! HOW?! Since our family is getting used to having hamsters on the loose, we calmly went about our normal life, bonded with Blackout, and wondered if Mosquito would ever be found. Sure enough, two days later we found him in the toilet drain pipe in the bathroom that is being renovated. Unfortunately, we couldn't catch him. That night while I was lying on the bed with Katya in the girls' room, I heard rustling beneath the bed. Sure it was the Boogie Moster, I at first lay there, terrified, staring at the ceiling, mouthing for help.......That's not true, but it was more interesting than what really happened. What really happened was that I jumped up and flipped on the light in time to see Mosquito dash into the closet. Looking frantically around the room for something to catch him in (didn't want to touch the biting hamster), I quickly emptied the diaper basket and then managed to scoop him up while he tried to climb the wall. So that night Mosquito was put in the cage and Blackout was kept in the bowl because she's smaller. And we put the heavy "Single socks" basket on top of the bowl to make sure she couldn't escape. The next night, however, we weren't so thorough. We were so sure that Blackout couldn't escape that we failed to put the Single Sock basket on her bowl. The next morning she was gone. It was not even two weeks from the time of the purchase of the first hamster, Fluffy. Vlad and I were getting pretty tired of this hamster charade, so we took Mosquito back to the pet store that day. It was a relief. Since then it's been five days, and we've had absolutely no sign at all of Blackout. The cage is empty, and the hamster wheel rattles in the night no longer. We have a sneaking suspicion that she went down the open toilet pipe, like Mosquito. But she wasn't as smart as Mosquito, so she probably fell to some place where she isn't retrievable. What that means is that the first time we flush our new toilet, Blackout will probably be no more...

But maybe that's okay. Three hamsters in two weeks - at this rate, we're a threat to the species.

ORIGINAL POST:
Last week when I went in for a procedure that will ensure we have no more little munchkins entering our lives through my womb, Vlad decided to do something that would guarantee I would never regret the decision: he bought our animal-loving boy a hamster. I've always been completely against rodents or reptiles as pets.....really, I prefer PillowPets or ZhuZhu pets. But Collin loved his hamster with the sweetest love that can only come from a boy who is still five years old, and has his first pet all his own. The hamster was named Fluffy, and was much beloved. He held him, he cuddled him, he gazed at him, he took him everywhere. That hamster was an instant family member. And he was actually, really cute. Caramel color with white blotches, he was sweet and soft, and curled up in a ball in the palm of Collin's hand for a nice little nap whenever he would get overwhelmed from all the attention, which was quite often.

Last Sunday Collin was playing with Fuzzy (who had undergone a name change), and Fuzzy jumped off the ottoman and ran away. Instead of chasing him or watching where he went, Collin calmly laid a line of food down on the ground, leading to the cage, then went off to eat his own breakfast, confident that his animal-catching techniques were superior to his hamster's intellect. When I realized that the hamster was missing, I tore apart the house looking for him. We emptied couches of pillows and crumbs, vacuumed under the couch and in any crevice that could provide a food source, moved the gargantuan entertainment center, and searched dark places with a flashlight. By time it was all over, we were an hour late for church (showed up just in time for the bar-be-que afterwards - classy!) Vlad assured us that Lizzie would be the one to find him - eventually. Just what she would do with him then was the question!

As usual, Vlad was right. We found Lizzie whining at the stove later that day, and when we removed the stove drawer, there was the sweet little hamster. Vlad retrieved him and gave him to an overjoyed Collin. That's when we made the mistake. We said, "Good girl, Lizzie!"

From that moment on, it was Lizzie's mission in life to chase that hamster and make him miserable. When the hamster was left in the cage, on the floor of the boys' room, Lizzie scratched and scratched on that cage until she spread wood shreds and hamster food all over their entire room. The poor hamster was scared to death, and had taken refuge in the lincoln log house the boys had made for him, in the middle of his cage. It didn't matter what we did or said to Lizzie, she was AFTER that hamster. She's neurotic that way.

Well, two days ago Collin, being the loving parent that he was, put Wake-Up-Sleepy-Head (who had undergone another name change) in the sand box while we were all outside - it was the hamster's playpen while Collin was jumping on the trampoline. To make a long story short, Lizzie found him. That nasty neurotic dog killed him.

As soon as I realized that the hamster was missing and had been in the sandbox, I ran over there only to find the hamster, very recently killed, lying in a small, slobbery bundle by the sandbox. And I burst into tears. I sobbed. Collin sobbed, and we both trudged in a crying parade to the garage, where we found Vlad and broke the news that the hamster was dead. Vlad picked him up and we walked together in a funeral procession to the back of the yard where we buried him while he was still warm.

We bought hamster #2 within 3 hours. He looked like a mouse without a tail. No fluff, no sweetness. Just a mouse with a bit of extra fur. He was black and white and had tan spots. Collin named him Blackout. When Vlad saw Blackout, he immediately said he wanted to return it for a hamster that looked like a hamster instead of one that looked like a rat. I think there was some cross-breeding going on at that pet store! So yesterday when Vlad went to work, he took Blackout with him to exchange. But instead of exchanging, he didn't have the receipt, so he had to just buy a new fluffy hamster and take Blackout back a bit later after he got the receipt from my purse... So Blackout and the new fluffy hamster were sharing the same box

Then Vlad wrote me an e-mail that said he had to separate Blackout and the new fluffy hamster and Blackout because "Blackout" is a really inappropriate name for a girl. Evidently Blackout and Mr. Fluff fell in love pretty quickly. Good thing he had two hamster boxes.

Mr. Fluff is gray and white, very curious, and the fattest fluffy rat you've ever seen. He refuses to get on the hamster wheel. It's like he's afraid of it or something. He's also a very cute little hamster. But the problem is that he bites. He's bitten Collin already three times, in the less than 12 hours we've had him. I'm not so sure he won't be traded for hamster #4.

In the meantime, Blackout was waiting in her hamster box to be taken back to the pet store this morning. The box was on the counter all night long. THis morning, there is a hole chewed in the box, and the Blackout is gone. I already checked behind the stove. But, honestly, I don't want Lizzie to find her.

Collin is walking around saying, "If I was a black hamster named "Blackout," where would I be?

Cleaning up

2011-05-16T18:24:00.000-05:00

While cleaning up the house after my afternoon of being outside planting the garden while letting the kids ~~run wild~~ create their own adventures, I came across an interesting pile. It was obviously Claire's blanket draped over some unidentified object in the middle of the family room. When I got closer, I thought it almost looked like a child's form under there, except for the strange square shape on the side. I quickly jerked up the blanket, only to realize that it was indeed a child! There was Claire, in another of her strange sleeping spots, totally conked out on the family room floor, with the cereal box that she had evidently been snacking from in the best hiding spot available - under the trusty blankie!

Perfect Moment #2

2011-05-07T16:49:00.000-05:00

Perfect Moment #2:

New strip for gardening just uncovered in the greenhouse, Vlad and the boys just left for a few hours of fishing, thunderclouds rolling in and a light sprinkling starting, Katya playing happily in garage with adoring neighbour girl and their sounds drifting, doors open to the clean air, Claire hanging out with me in the office.... perfect moment!!

...randomness from April

2011-05-05T11:04:00.002-05:00

April came and went so fast I hardly had time to catch my breath!
Vlad was gone for a little over two weeks, we were busy with this and that, we built a greenhouse (well, mostly), and we generally had a great time watching Spring slowly come in. This spring we are SO SO VERY thankful that we are inside the floodway instead of outside the floodway. In 2009, being completely unaware that were were living in a flood zone, and completely unaccustomed to what it meant to "fight" a flood, we moved most of our earthly possessions into the limits of Winnipeg, which is protected by a floodway. This year the flood was nearly as bad, and we haven't even seen the slightest bit of water in our new neighborhood area. In fact, it looks like the water would have to raise about another 10 feet in order for us to get concerned that it would go over the riverbanks. And at that point, most of Manitoba would be covered...
I have written countless posts in my head, and taken only slightly fewer pics in the last few weeks. I've chosen some of my favorites to share, and sort of catch you all up on what we've been doing.

First up is school. Thankfully, the school year is winding down adn the boys have only about 1/2 as much math and penmanship to do each day as they did at the beginning of the year - the blessings of revving it up when you have the energy and will to do more work at the beginning of the year... I have no idea what I offered to give Spencer in order for him to smile like this. :)

Next up is Katya and her hats. The girls loves hats. And she loves even more the fact that we have hat bins next to the front door. And boots right outside. This time of year, the girl is in heaven - hats every day, and more boots than she can wear. If only I had a pic for every hilarious hat/boot combination she's tried in the last few weeks. Yesterday she left home and went to the neighbor's house with Vlad's Illini winter hat, Claire' leopard boots, her own pink dress, and Clair'e pajama shirt pulled over her head. It was hilarious. Unfortunately, she took off the boots and pajama shirt before I could get a good shot of her.

What else is she up to these days? Oh, you know.....helping around the house....

We celebrated Easter with Vlad in Moscow. The kids got a few things in an Easter Basket, and we went out on Good Friday after church to a Chinese place to celebrate the "most important day of the year - the day our sins were taken away!" I have made a decision to go as all-out next year for Easter as I do for Christmas, including preparatory traditions, such as Passover, Lent, and an Easter Tree. This really is the most important holiday of the year, and it struck me this year that we really don't celebrate and remember as we should. Especially sweet this year was taking communion and seeing baptisms on Easter Sunday.

An Easter Breakfast of chocolate bunnies made my morning preps much easier, as the kids watched the Easter Carol from Veggie Tales.

It was Katya's first time with an Easter bunny, and she was enthralled. What is IN that thing?

With the weather warming up, it's time to put op our greenhouse. This is what I did on the final few days Vlad was gone. The ribs and spines are made from pvc, then connected to a wooden frame, and attached to wooden end walls (not in this pic). Behold, I have created a monster!!! Nevermind that when Vlad came home he pointed out that my location wasn't a very good idea, and quickly convinced me to disassemble the whole thing and move it. So now it's directly behind our house, in a straight line to the rest of the yard, instead of off to the side on a diagonal. It'll be great when we get those "ribs" all covered with greenhouse plastic so we can put some of our plants inside, because....

It's a jungle in here!!

To my utter dismay, last week the plants started blooming. The beans are okay, because they're self-pollinating. See that bean among all that green? Yes, our bean plants are actually producing beans in our window. I had no idea I'd started plants too early. I figured we could have them outside by mid-April. Evidently, the blizzard that came through here on May 1 had other ideas....

So all of these plants, my jack-o-lantern pumpkins, the yellow squash, and some of the cucumbers, which are busy producing male flowers daily, have been moved to under this table to make the work of pollinating easier. I have to do the work of the bees because my plants are still indoors instead of in my greenhouse. In the words of that beloved little bear: Oh, bother! (See our sweet potato vine?! It's HUGE - and so are it's 5 brothers on the shelves in our kitchen).

In other randomness this month, I've started a sourdough bread starter, inspired by our nightly reading of the Little House On The Prairie series. I thought if I added some yeast when trying it out in the bread maker, that it would help the bread rise fast enough to be ready for when the baking cycle kicked in. I think I added a bit too much yeast. What do you think?

And last, but certainly not least, are these little cutie pies. Some of you may remember this post in which we had cut off all of Clair'e hair due to her only having whispies left because her rubberbands had broken off all of her hair. Well, her hair is growing out much better now. It's a lot more coarse, not so fine, and entirely too straggly. So it was time for a trim....

And this is the result:

Katya got a trim too, only I don't like hers nearly so much as Claire's. Thank goodness hair grows!

Monkey see, monkey do...

Going out

2011-04-23T07:16:00.000-05:00

Our activities this week:

Monday: Mid-morning we went out to a park with a friend where the kids played hard for two hours. Then me and the kids made our way to Fort Whyte Alive nature center where we enjoyed the wildlife, Spencer got attacked by a goose, and we made a new home-schooling friend.

Tuesday: A friend came over in the afternoon with her daughter for a teatime playdate. Then the kids played so hard outside and had such a good time all afternoon and evening that I didn't even mention going to swimming and soccer at the Y.

Wednesday: We went to Mom's Group at church where the kids played in the gym, ate doughnuts, and generally had fun while I chatted with other moms. Then we went home, picked up the food for Forward House, and dropped it off before we headed over to the library where they picked out books, movies, and played video games on the computer.

Thursday: We went to a home school mad science hour where the kids had a great time learning about air, air currents, and conducting air science experiments. Afterward we came home and had another home school family over for a quick playdate. In the evening we went to the YMCA for Spencer's TaeKwonDo class and other kids played on the play structure for an hour with other friends they've made there over the months.

Friday: As we were getting ready for Good Friday morning services, Collin says, "Mommy, can we go OUT somewhere?! We never go anywhere anymore!" Seriously, the more I take them places, the more he feels like he doesn't go anywhere!

Update on Vanya, the little boy with a dream

2011-04-21T18:09:00.000-05:00

Praise God! He has heard and answered the prayers of hundreds and hundreds of people around the globe for one little boy to have his dream come true: the dream of being part of a loving family.

For the original call for help for Vanya, see this post.

This is a message I received today from the Eli Project:

What an amazing 2 weeks! For an amazing little boy! When Adeye Salem emailed me a couple of weeks ago that she wanted to advocated for a little boy and that the little boy she wanted to advocate for was Vanya, I knew something special was going to happen. If you never read the original post, you can view that here. This post included a letter from someone who works closely with Vanya and knows him well.

In just about 10 days, more than $15,000 was raised by more than 370 contributors! And then, more than ONE HUNDREDfamilies responded that they might like to adopt Vanya. The reason are getting this email--- you responded about Vanya (maybe just inquiring...maybe wanting to commit to adopt him). There were MANY families who hadn't ever begun the process of getting a home study or any other adoption documents, there were some that had lots of paperwork done (for other countries) and there were some who checked in to making appointments for getting a home study started.

As last week went on, we received word that the country where Vanya lives is going to be making some changes in their procedures and what government office handles adoptions. Therefore, they will be closing the office in early June and will be closed for an undetermined amount of time (probably 3-4 months or more). Last time they closed for this reason, it was much longer. It's been anticipated that it will happen, but the timing was never known. So it was a bit of a surprise only because we didn't know when it would happen.

So why did Vanya's situation become more urgent? He is currently living in a transition center where he will not be able to stay long. In fact, missionary friends in his country have lobbied the direct to hold him because Adeye was advocating and we were sure we could find a family for him. They agreed if we could hurry. Obviously, if the government stopped accepting petitions for adoptions for months, that's not "hurrying" and there is little chance they would/could hold him. We know where he would be transferred and he would become unreachable at that point. We couldn't let that happen! So we put out the word that we needed a family with PAPERS READY. On Tuesday, we worked with a family all day to verify they had what they needed and could get the certain documents updated quickly. They did and they can. Their initial paperwork will be arriving in Ukraine on Monday morning. Our team in Vanya's country will be meeting with the proper authorities to get things underway and the rest of their documents will be mailed soon.

For this we are praising God! He has provided for Vanya in so many ways and we know that He is not finished yet!! Some of you were already feeling that Vanya was "your" son. We understand that and we know the emotional roller coaster you have been on. We too have been in the same situation and know that it is not an easy journey. But be encouraged that GOD is in control and HE is the one Who opened your hearts to this little boy.

But let me assert this...perhaps Vanya is a face that you were able to put on the call that God is placing on your family. Maybe He plans to lead you on a journey to rescue one of the MANY other children just as desperate as Vanya. As special as Vanya is, he is one of so many.

So you might think there are not enough Vanya's to go around...but THERE ARE. Each one of you could rescue a child just like Vanya and we have still only begun to meet this desperate need!

What are the next steps for you? If you want to be READY, get your passports, get a home study started that is general when it comes to special needs of a child, include HIV in the list of special needs you are willing to accept and include it in the recommendation. Contact us if you are interested and we'll walk you through the initial steps and provide you with LOTS of kids for God to open your heart and family to.

Below is a letter from some friends in Vanya's country who know him well and work with many other precious children like him...

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your interest in Vanya. His dream is now coming true...he will soon be living as a loved son in a family that hand-picked him. It seems the whole world was praying for this boy and God has certainly answered. I can't wait to see his face when he learns the news!

Vanya is not just a face of adoption: He is a real boy with real desires for real love and a real family. And though he is not simply a face of adoption, his story has stirred the hearts of so many. Honestly, we could take down Vanya's picture and put up another picture every hour on the hour and not run out of pictures worldwide for years. My prayer is that many of you who were touched by Vanya's story would remain open to adopt another of these precious children. I pray that all of you would share what you have learned about the status of HIV+ so that we can finally reduce the stigma associated with this diagnosis.

I thank God upon every remembrance of you.

Perfect Moment #1

2011-04-19T11:03:00.000-05:00

Chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven to prepare us for tea time this afternoon with our neighbour friends, all four kids traipsing around the yard with the neighbour kids, searching for bugs, avoiding puddles, and calling to each other happily as they explore, cool breeze coming in from the open front door, puffy clouds drifty by.

Lovely Little Neighbors

2011-04-17T18:41:00.001-05:00

Have I ever mentioned how much I love having our neighbors just two doors down, with kids the same ages as our older three kids? They are all great friends (well, most of the time) and they are so very comfortable with each other, it's almost like having an extra set of siblings - or maybe cousins - just two doors down. So it was a very long three weeks that we waited for their return while they visited family in Germany. They only got back a few days ago, and within minutes of them being home, they were at our door looking for their friends. We were so happy to see them back again!!

Yesterday Collin had been outside for about 1/2 hour when it started snowing. I went outside to call him out of the snowstorm, and quickly I realized he wasn't outside. I started to panic. I hopped in the car to canvas the neighborhood, but first stopped at the neighbors' house to check if they'd seen him. Of course he answered the door with their older daughter! What was I thinking? They looked at me like, "Where did you think he was?" It's true: I should have known. Silly me. :)

This afternoon the girls came over (their older brother was visiting someone else) and it was so cute to hear them all squealing, playing, and even arguing together in the basement. The oldest girl holds nothing back when she laughs, and it's the cutest thing! You almost have to laugh with her, no matter if you know what she's laughing at! And the younger girl is so cute - so small, but actually older than Claire; and she's got such perfect pronunciation. She talks just like a small adult. She just came to tattle to me, "Carmen! Lizzie is licking the sooofaaaa!" It's hard for me not to laugh. We really missed them!! I just heard the house go quiet, with six kidlets all indoors. I went to see what they were doing. This is what I found:

How cute is that?!

And, last but not least, another one of Claire's strange sleeping spots. Evidently she'd been lying on Vlad's desk, perusing pokemons on the computer with Spencer, when she got a little sleepy.....

Yes, that is my daughter absolutely nose-down on the desk, fast asleep with her legs hanging off the side. And Spencer didn't miss a beat....even when I came in for a photo op!

Vanya in Ukraine

2011-04-16T14:13:00.001-05:00

For an update to this post, please click here.

From No greater Joy Mom:
We desperately need a family for Vanya as soon as possible. Many people have inquired about adopting him. But things have changed and we URGENTLY need a family who is paperwork ready--one who has already done their home study and has USCIS approval. We need a family who can get to him quickly.

While I am not at liberty to give any details, I can tell you that Vanya's situation has turned into a critical need for prayer. He needs a paperwork-ready family to commit to him in the next few days...before it is too late.

Time is running out.

Do you know of a family who is already adopting a child from Ukr*ine? Do you know of someone who is traveling to adopt a child from there soon and may consider adding this precious boy to their adoption? Either a family who is already adopting, or a family who has all their paperwork ready and has been waiting on the Lord to show them the right child.

Friends, we urgently need your help....PLEASE spread Vanya's story on blogs, social networks, and adoption discussion groups. We absolutely have to find his family soon. The finances are not an issue--God has provided them. Now all we need is the right family--one who will say, "Here am I, Lord, send me!"

With all my heart I believe that Vanya's family is out there. Why? Because I believe that God has provided in a miraculous way for this boy to come home. I believe in miracles in 2011! I do.

Please stand with us in prayer over the next few days...trusting that Vanya's family will come forward. How desperately he needs them now.

Pray, body of Christ! Pray without ceasing. Pray until Vanya is rescued and safely in the arms of those who love him.

Thank you for helping us today. Thank you for praying and bringing this boy before the Father. Thank you for trusting with us. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it.

"If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Matt 17:20.

"MOUNTAIN BE MOVED!"

Any family who thinks they may be able to get to Vanya quickly, and would like more information, please contact Chris Malone at the Eli Project as soon as possible.

You can read Vanya's full story right here.

April Showers

2011-04-16T08:37:00.001-05:00

It’s Friday night. I’m sitting on the couch with Claire, Spencer, and Collin. We sit here amid puzzles, pokemon cards, videos on the floor, and school books on the table. It’s really a sight! No one would ever believe that I was literally cleaning up all day long to the point that everyone, including myself, is sick of hearing the “let’s clean up” mantra coming from my throat. So I’ve given up and I’m telling myself tomorrow is another day….

Collin is still undressed from his shower, and no matter how many times I repeat myself to go get his pajamas on, he can’t be pulled away from the “Princess Bride,” which is our “family night movie” tonight. The fact of the matter is, that Collin feels 100% entitled to a family night movie every night. Evidently family night movies are not movies that you watch on a designated “family night” but are movies that you watch as a family in the nighttime…every nigttime. He told me on the way home this evening that he was very upset that I’ve been leaving the movie time in the evenings to go and do my stuff on the computer. It’s true, I must admit. The past few times they’ve watched a movie I’ve stolen those moment for my own endeavors. It has something to do with Vlad being gone, I think,.. The days are much fuller when he isn’t here and it’s harder to catch moments for myself. So in order to make my little boy feel like I’m participating in Family Night Movie, I’m typing with my remote keyboard, with the computer in the other room., pretending to watch the movie, while I’m actually punching out this post. Haha. Multitasking. I’ll edit my typos later.

Vlad left one week ago for Rome where he attended a conference before going to his mom’s house yesterday. He’ll be gone another 9 days. So I’ve been flying “solo” this week. In so many ways, it’s gone much better than I expected. In other ways I see all the more how much I rely on him for music, laughter, encouragement, and hominess. Skype is now on my 1000 Gifts list.

There are so many thoughts that have been going through my mind lately. So many that it’s hard for me to catch them all, and even harder to articulate them here. The first that comes to mind right now is that someone has opened the floodgastes. A couple of months ago I wrote about being lonely here in Winnipeg. It’s been a long, hard road. Honestly, I think it’s been an experience that has left me forever changed, this loneliness so deep it has at times seemed to make spider cracks on the smooth surface of my mind. So long and at times achingly vacant has been this path I’ve travelled in the past five years. It’s left my perspective altered, but I think for the better. It’s taught me a lot about my own nature, human nature in general, and has made me think a lot more deeply about what I’m doing to meet the needs of others who are around me and might not be at a place of reaching out for themselves.

I liken it to a drought, causing me to search deeper, as the shallow roots dry up but the tap root digs deeper and deeper to find the Living Water that is the only answer to continuing with life. When I’m at a place where I’m alone with God, it has a way of making me think about my relationship, what it looks like to keep my relationship with Him alive, living it out day by day. You would think this means I’m becoming a more spiritually adept person, a more God-honoring person in my daily walk. I can’t honestly say it is so. I feel like I fail at even showing Jesus to my own family 23 out of 24 hours each day. But I’m trying. Someday maybe I’ll be able to sigh at the end of the day with the feeling that I got it mostly right. For now, that’s not the case, but at least I’m more aware of my own faults now, so that I can work on them.

Back to the point: the reason I’m writing this about my loneliness issues is that in the past few weeks it’s like someone has opened the floodgates. It started with my librarian friend, Nanda (Hi, Nanda!) who introduced me to another American named Angela (Hi, Angela!), who reached out to befriend me “just because.” That kind a touching gesture from both ladies was very encouraging. Then this week has been the week fullest of people that we’ve ever had. I’ve so often felt like a young plant, weak, limp, and pale, thirsting for the water of human contact. But this week there have been showers of blessings, and I’m drinking it in! On Monday I enjoyed a long chat with Nanda when I went to pick up some gardening stuff. On Tuesday another home school mom named Barb who has six kids invited us to Oak Hammock Marsh where we spent most of Tuesday enjoying a wonderful outing with her and her family, watching birds, having a picnic lunch, and enjoying the weather.

Oak Hammock Marsh

Spying on the wildlife

The kids discover a nest at lunchtime

Always an educational opportunity. Barb explaining the weather machine to her daughter.

How many kinds of birds can you find?

How the kids spent most of the lunch break!

Spencer was VERY proud of his face painting of the horned owl.

Up close and personal with the water fowl.

Inside the interpretive center - everywhere you turn there are things to do!!

Spencer enjoying an educational game.

Was that the first time we’ve been together with another family for an outing/playdate since we’ve arrived to back to Winnipeg? I’m wracking my brain to think…and, aside from our lovely neighbors, and other activities such as YMCA, Scouts, VBS, etc., the answer is “yes.” And Barb is such a real and warm person, and her kids are so calm, that it was delightful. (Can’t say the same “calm” for my kids! lol) Then Wednesday I went back to Mom’s Group at church, which I had almost nearly decided to quit for various reasons including child care (provided at church for young kids, but not for the boys) and school schedule. But it was such a great time together with other women who only seem to get deeper and more real each time we’re together – I like it more each session. Even the boys had a good time playing with another friend’s little boy in the church gym! So glad we went! And while we were there another mom invited our family to join their small group. Woo-hoo!! Then Wednesday night I decided to do something wild and crazy….I hired a babysitter from down the street to watch the kids while I went to a book club for Ann Voskamps “1000 Gifts.” I almost think this book is too deep for a book club – maybe it needs a seminar. J Friday we had yet another play date planned, but we rescheduled because it was just a bit too cold to enjoy the park. So last night I took the kids out to the Salvation Army to put together sandwiches for the flood relief workers with the boys’ scouting group. Another huge group from the Lutheran Church was there, and together we pumped out 1000 sandwiches for flood workers in about and hour! Today we’re cleaning up, because tomorrow – on a Sunday!! – we actually have some new friends coming over for lunch. Imagine! On a Sunday! That, to me, goes beyond showers of blessings, right to a huge hug from the Lord!! Monday we have another playdate scheduled with a lovely friend from the Czech republic who also attends our Moms Group at church.

All that to say – this week has been incredible! A rare but beautiful gift. It seems someone has opened the floodgates; I don’t understand it, but I’m so very grateful for it!

Book Worm

2011-04-09T11:45:00.000-05:00

This morning we woke up to fog. Fog is always the most beautiful weather to me. I'm sure I'd feel differently if I were a sailor, but as I'm sitting here in my cozy house, I can't resist photographing the melted word cloaked in a blanket of misty gray.

I was recently reminded of the Book Worm program, which is a motivational goal-oriented tool to get kids reading and excited about reading. I've decided to give my kids a small reward and a circle to add to their Book Worm every time they read one book. When the worm reaches all the way round the room, they get a bigger reward and start the worm over. They each have their own Book Worm. I really aimed the program at Spencer, who technically can read and can sound out everything he needs, but who so far hasn't really developed a love for reading. He does just fine with his daily reading lessons, but rarely picks up a book for himself. To make matters worse, I noticed that when I would require him to read, it was like spraying reading repellant on the kid! But when I left him alone to do it on his own, he would develop more interest and pride. This week we seemed to have taken a turn around a corner in his reading journey - he is owning his reading finally......finally!! By "owning" his reading, I mean that he is finally taking pride in reading, is really trying to sound out more things, is trying to "help" by reading things for me, and wants me to add minimal input into his reading lessons. He wants to do it on his own. Yesterday when he was doing his reading lesson with his book on his lap, I helped him out by reading a more difficult word that he was stumbling over. He gave me a look and said, "Hey! It's not yours! It's mine!" I was never so happy to hear a kid be sassy in all my life. So in order to earn coins and, ultimately, his coveted Bionicle, he has been reading several books a day. Of course, they're smaller books, not chapter books. But we'll incorporate chapter books soon enough into the program as soon as he has established himself in this program. At this rate, I'll go broke! But I couldn't be happier that he's finally catching on.

This is Spencer's book worm.

We just put Collin's and Claire's up this morning. They can't let Spencer have all the fun!!

Claire.....well, Claire, has a worm head. That's all. But she's eager to start trying to add to it. I'm giving her circles for time spent on the Bob Books program on the iPod.

21st Century Home Schooling - reading on the iPod.

Katya is itching to enjoy the beautiful weather. So right after she got up the other morning, she donned Claire's boots and my hat, and tried to take off for an outside adventure, mis-matched tights and all! I had to take a photo, even if I didn't have time to get it in focus. She was coming at me fast!! :)

"Daddy's Here"

2011-04-08T07:20:00.001-05:00

This morning at 4:30am we got the kids out of bed and drove to the airport. Each kid had a blanket, and I was still in my pajamas. Vlad was the only one that looked smashing in his white shirt, jeans, and a new suede coat, ready to meet the world. *insert whoo-whoo whistle*. It's travel season around here - the time of year that Vlad takes off for conferences, and usually stops off to see his mom on the way. I usually go with him, but this year I just wanted to stay put. Besides, travel is expensive, even (or especially) when you leave all four kids at home. So we dropped Vlad off at five and came right home. The older three kids went to bed right away, but Katya and I couldn't fall back asleep. She had dozed off right when Vlad was leavning, and had missed the part where he kissed her good-bye. So when we got home she started asking for her Daddy. She kept saying, "Daddy home, Daddy home." I told her, "No, Daddy went away. Daddy went bye-bye. Daddy's not here. He went to see Grandma Tanya, far away." She kept insisting, and calling, "Daaaddyyyyyy! Daaaddyyy!" I consoled her with breakfasting on strawberry crisp left over from the going-away party we had last night (just our family). As soon as she was done, she climbed up on my lap. That's when I opened the blog to write down Spencer's quote, and she saw the picture of Daddy. She pointed to it, and said, "Daddy's here!" Then she burst into tears and buried her face on my chest. I know how you feel, Baby Girl. Life is sweeter, calmer, saner, and lovelier with Daddy here, strawberry crisp or not! We're going to miss our "Daddy" these few weeks. Have a safe trip, honey, and come back soon. Blow kisses to Rome and Mama Tanya from us! We love you!

Voovies

2011-04-06T14:59:00.000-05:00

Katya just came in to the kitchen where I was cooking, pointing to the office and saying something very excitedly with a huge smile. I went to where she was pointing, only to find that she had managed to click enough right places on my computer desktop to get a children's cartoon to play. I went to turn it off (because computer cartoons are not allowed), but she got very frustrated with me, and complained, "Mommy!! Voovie no' done!"

This girl is already giving me a run for my money!

Dino Statues

2011-04-05T07:20:00.000-05:00

Yesterday the name of the game was paper mache! The kids have been begging to make "dinosaur statues." I let them, even though I actually really dislike paper mache, on the condition that they do layered diagrams of the dinosaur's anatomy after the statues are finished. We do have a dinosaur anatomy book that we got from the library, and I have to say it is probably the coolest dinosaur book out there that we've ever seen. (And we've seen a lot!) Spencer crafted himself an ankylosaurus. He is proving to be a fantastic sculptor - especially of dinosaur shapes. He doesn't even use the book - just does it from memory with surprising accuracy. Sculpting is definitely his artistic forte. Collin is also quite good at making dinosaur shapes, but with this little dreamer-boy of mine, his dinosaurs are half-realistic, half-imaginary. :) What better creature to bring to "life" than one you made up yourself?

So, anyway, here are the kids diving into the paper mache paste. It's Claire's first time. She made a "sharptooth," which is actually a T-Rex. I helped her quite a bit, but the boys did everything mostly on their own.

With the paper mache project, and the garden project, the house is starting to look.....well.....lived in.

Spencer's ankylosaurus.

Katya was none too thrilled to be left out of the paper mache fun!

The first beautiful sunset of the wam season. I loved how the sunset reflected in the pools of melted snow in our yard.

That's all for now!

The Wasp Nest

2011-04-03T07:31:00.000-05:00

We discovered a big wasps' hive in the eave of our house the other day. We were pretty freaked out about it, as the world is just about to thaw, and we didn't want to have to deal with a swarming hive in a matter of weeks. We did have an issue with wasps last year - lots in the house. I could easily kill 10 wasps each day in the kitchen, but I could never figure out where they were coming from!.I don't know how we didn't see this before this week! So we did a bit of reading and found out that wasps can't fly in temperatures below 50F. Great news! Still, we wanted to be safe. So me and the kids got in the van and pulled into the driveway where we could watch Vlad knock down the hive from inside the van where it was safe - just in case. :) Vlad bravely went to the front lines armed with a hoe, and knocked most of it down. It was immediately evident that the nest wasn't going to swarm, so we hopped out and took a look.

It was fascinating, built in at least two tiers of comb clusters that were mostly empty....

but some weren't. See those combs that are covered over with white paper? Those are the larval combs, each one with a new little wasp who was closed in by careful parents, and who is waiting to hatch and wreak havoc on our summer fun.

This is what they looked like when Vlad pulled them out - slimy, squishy, but fully formed little wasps in a little cocoon.

It was a very interesting and educational experience. And I'm so very glad we caught it before the warm weather set in! The combs were duly destroyed and disposed of. No swarming pests this summer, please!

Mommy, Do I Look Like A Granny?

2011-04-01T20:57:00.002-05:00