With the kids in school, I could not wait to have a whole day with my cute grandsons, James and Blake. We had a very very fun day together. I picked up the boys about 8:30 and we had planned to go to the Logan Zoo first but it was pouring rain. We did the next best thing and went to Petsmart :) After looking at fish, birds, cats, mice etc. we went to Borders and bought some new children's books. We then went next door to Old Navy and looked for a new outfit for the boys. A cute older couple asked me if the boys were twins. I said "no, they are the sons of twins though" we can call them the Hinkson twins---the next generation. I think that I am going to start calling Alisa and Vitaly twins since they are the same age. They both cringe whenever we suggest twinship. for them.
After finding matching shorts (that will fit better next summer) and shirts, socks and hats, we headed home. We had lunch and read stories and played until the boys were tired. They had a hard time sleeping very well in unfamiliar beds and so we finally got back in the car and drove around the neighborhood until they fell asleep. We parked in the driveway and listened to rain on the roof while they slept. When they woke up we headed to A&W for a baby cone and that was fun to watch them enjoy. Blake put the cone up to his face and sucked the ice cream out. So cute.
After some more stories, toys, a bubble bath,snacks, pictures, and seeing the kids come home, we had to take the boys home. What a great day. What a great blessing it is to have children who bring so much love and joy into our lives. This is truly what life is all about :)
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Learning....
I just went out to put something in the deep freeze and right on top, inside the freezer was a 18 pack carton of eggs. I don't know who put them there but I think that perhaps when all the kids were helping unload groceries one of the kids put them in there. They are cracked and interesting looking. I used to raise chickens and have bought thousands of eggs in my life and I am amazed that it has taken me so long in my life to actually see a frozen egg. I think there is some confusion with the new boys as to the difference between a freezer and a refridgerator.
Today Vitaly came up all dressed to go to the school to do some English placement testing. He has plaid shorts and a nice horizontal stripe shirt (picture clown attire.) When I tried to tell him about matching (this is a continual conversation that is often interrupted by "no, see blue and blue!!") he finally relented and changed the shirt. We had a discussion about patterns and solids and how you don't wear 2 patterns at the same time etc. Whew. America is hard, you have to match :)
Tomorrow is the first day of actual school here. I am biting my nails and hoping that it goes well. I hope they like the teachers, I hope the school lunch is good. I hope they don't get teased because they have an accent, I hope it is actually a tiny bit fun and that they learn something. I so admire mothers who have it together enough and enough energy to home school their children. I admire school teachers who can teach 25 kids at the same time with all of their various learning abilities and disabilities. I admire children who are so brave that they are willing to go to a new family in a new country and attend a new school and a new church and wear new clothes and make all new friends. Amazing, AMAZING!!
Today Vitaly came up all dressed to go to the school to do some English placement testing. He has plaid shorts and a nice horizontal stripe shirt (picture clown attire.) When I tried to tell him about matching (this is a continual conversation that is often interrupted by "no, see blue and blue!!") he finally relented and changed the shirt. We had a discussion about patterns and solids and how you don't wear 2 patterns at the same time etc. Whew. America is hard, you have to match :)
Tomorrow is the first day of actual school here. I am biting my nails and hoping that it goes well. I hope they like the teachers, I hope the school lunch is good. I hope they don't get teased because they have an accent, I hope it is actually a tiny bit fun and that they learn something. I so admire mothers who have it together enough and enough energy to home school their children. I admire school teachers who can teach 25 kids at the same time with all of their various learning abilities and disabilities. I admire children who are so brave that they are willing to go to a new family in a new country and attend a new school and a new church and wear new clothes and make all new friends. Amazing, AMAZING!!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
We are Home as long as in Ukraine
51 days home.
We have reached a milestone. We have now been back in America as many days as we were in Ukraine. It sure is better here!!!!!!!
In Ukraine we encountered a lot of things good and bad. I will list a few of our most memorable encounters.
Favorite:
George and Alah and family.
Ghena the driver.
Our landlords on left bank.
Friends and children from the orphanage
Beautiful countrysides
Getting comments on the blog each morning and feeling cheered on in our journey.
Leaving Ukraine to go to Russia and even better leaving Ukraine to go HOME.
Least favorite:
Dirty bathrooms, streets, busses, cities, and apartment entryways.
Being rejected by Alina and not knowing for sure what caused the sudden switch in her desires.
Dishonesty, corruption, betrayal and Ukrainian people who will do anything for money.
Alcohol everywhere, alcoholism, cigarette smoke and used drug needles.
In the 51 days at home we have had some trials and joys in the family.
Here is a list of the ones in the forefront of our hearts.
Joys:
Seeing our children and grandchildren at home and trying to make up for all the hugs and time together that we missed.
Moments of brother and sister bonding at home.
Hot showers with clean water, fluffy towels, my washer and dryer, sinks and gardens.
Not having to share a toilet with anyone else (especially young boys who don’t know the rules of lift, aim and flush.)
The look of utter confusion on Vitaly’s face when Dave called me “Honey.” He said “Mom not honey!” We tried to explain terms of endearment but he didn’t buy it. He now calls Dave ‘Ketchup” I think that we will give all the kids condiment names and put them on the Christmas gift tags :)
Making new friends that we now have more in common with.
Trials:
Lice from the Orphanage (Spencer had it and before we realized it 2 weeks later, so did Scott and Alisa. They are gone now, after a lot of hassle. I recommend taking lice shampoo and taking care of any problems before you get back to your nice clean home.)
Trying to teach Vitaly the value of work and all that goes along with that. I keep thinking that it is getting better but then we have another meltdown when it comes time to help out.
Constantly wanting to eat, even right after a big meal and then refusal of perfectly good food because it is not familiar.
Tattling and the new boys being more interested in enforcing the family rules with others than following the rules themselves.
Overall, the adjustment at home has been easier than we anticipated. Life is good, Happiness is readily available and Family is where it is at.
Love
Christy
We have reached a milestone. We have now been back in America as many days as we were in Ukraine. It sure is better here!!!!!!!
In Ukraine we encountered a lot of things good and bad. I will list a few of our most memorable encounters.
Favorite:
George and Alah and family.
Ghena the driver.
Our landlords on left bank.
Friends and children from the orphanage
Beautiful countrysides
Getting comments on the blog each morning and feeling cheered on in our journey.
Leaving Ukraine to go to Russia and even better leaving Ukraine to go HOME.
Least favorite:
Dirty bathrooms, streets, busses, cities, and apartment entryways.
Being rejected by Alina and not knowing for sure what caused the sudden switch in her desires.
Dishonesty, corruption, betrayal and Ukrainian people who will do anything for money.
Alcohol everywhere, alcoholism, cigarette smoke and used drug needles.
In the 51 days at home we have had some trials and joys in the family.
Here is a list of the ones in the forefront of our hearts.
Joys:
Seeing our children and grandchildren at home and trying to make up for all the hugs and time together that we missed.
Moments of brother and sister bonding at home.
Hot showers with clean water, fluffy towels, my washer and dryer, sinks and gardens.
Not having to share a toilet with anyone else (especially young boys who don’t know the rules of lift, aim and flush.)
The look of utter confusion on Vitaly’s face when Dave called me “Honey.” He said “Mom not honey!” We tried to explain terms of endearment but he didn’t buy it. He now calls Dave ‘Ketchup” I think that we will give all the kids condiment names and put them on the Christmas gift tags :)
Making new friends that we now have more in common with.
Trials:
Lice from the Orphanage (Spencer had it and before we realized it 2 weeks later, so did Scott and Alisa. They are gone now, after a lot of hassle. I recommend taking lice shampoo and taking care of any problems before you get back to your nice clean home.)
Trying to teach Vitaly the value of work and all that goes along with that. I keep thinking that it is getting better but then we have another meltdown when it comes time to help out.
Constantly wanting to eat, even right after a big meal and then refusal of perfectly good food because it is not familiar.
Tattling and the new boys being more interested in enforcing the family rules with others than following the rules themselves.
Overall, the adjustment at home has been easier than we anticipated. Life is good, Happiness is readily available and Family is where it is at.
Love
Christy
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Adoptionway
Dave called and talked to Oksana in Ukraine. He asked if she had sent the accounting that she promised us so many times as we kept giving her more and more money. Each time she would ask for a few thousand dollars more, we asked what it was going to pay for. She would just respond with "You have to trust me, I will give you a written accounting when we get to Kiev." When I asked for it in Kiev, before we left, she promised to mail it to us. When Dave talked to her recently she said that she hadn't mailed it because "her agency" (Adoptionway) told her not to give us an accounting. I am not sure why they don't want us to know where all our money went. We are not sure why they are even involved since we fired them a long time ago.
P.S. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOO glad that we ended our relationship with these people. Since we have been home, I have had numerous people come to me and tell me how they were lied to and cheated by Adoptionway. Several people have told me that they believe that they only care about the money and not the families or the children. They lied to us a few times in the short time that we worked with them and while in Ukraine we saw evidence that they were lying to a lot of other families.
P.S. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOO glad that we ended our relationship with these people. Since we have been home, I have had numerous people come to me and tell me how they were lied to and cheated by Adoptionway. Several people have told me that they believe that they only care about the money and not the families or the children. They lied to us a few times in the short time that we worked with them and while in Ukraine we saw evidence that they were lying to a lot of other families.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Temple and Missionary lesson
Today the older kids joined with Amy Rast and her cute daughter, Lena and Carlin Keller and her cute daughter, Tanya to do Ukrainian Baptisms in the Bountiful temple. Also joining us was Julia Strater (I am probably slaughtering these name spellings...Sorry) It was a cool experience to see Tyler speaking Russian again as he baptized them. Last week we also went to Mt. Timpanogos and did some names with the Garretts and Margie Jorgensen and her son Chance. So we have had a fun time trying to baptize more people than our son Bryan in Ukraine. He is having a great time teaching and guarding the temple during the open house in Kiev. We are truly blessed to have the blessings of the temples in our day!!
Tonight the boys had their first missionary discussion. They loved it and had some great answers to the questions. The Elder who taught them was Elder Franscisco from Hawaii. He is a cute elder that Tyler has gone to teach with a few times. Tyler translated tonight and they set a tentative baptism date of Sept 4. We were delighted to learn that this same elder also taught Julia Strater while he served in Bountiful. Isn't it a small world? I will post some pictures from today.
Tonight the boys had their first missionary discussion. They loved it and had some great answers to the questions. The Elder who taught them was Elder Franscisco from Hawaii. He is a cute elder that Tyler has gone to teach with a few times. Tyler translated tonight and they set a tentative baptism date of Sept 4. We were delighted to learn that this same elder also taught Julia Strater while he served in Bountiful. Isn't it a small world? I will post some pictures from today.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Little Frustrations
This week Vitaly broke his new IPOD. It was 2 days past the 15 day return policy day and so we were not able to exchange it for a new one. As it turns out, we wouldn’t have been able to return it anyway because Spencer said that Vitaly broke in on purpose because he wanted an IPOD touch. We don't really know the truth but I did overhear him yelling at Alisa yesterday when she fixed it for him. He said that he wanted it broken. There seems to be some false idea going around that if what Vitaly has is broken that he will get a brand new replacement. We have bought him several pairs of shoes but he seems to always be shopping in the ads for new ones. I have told him several times that he has enough and he said "NO, my shoes broken." I know he lost one pair of NIKE shoes while trying to catch frogs in the frog pond and I can't seem to see anything broken about the other pairs. I told him today that if he breaks things he will have broken things, not new things. I think he is catching on. Anyone else have these kinds of issues?
The other one that is quite annoying is the constant tattling from the new kids. They really seem to be after our current kids to make sure they are getting in enough trouble and doing everything perfectly. It seems OK if the new boys leave their clothes out etc. etc. but if one of the others do it is a federal crime. This doesn't really help with the sibling bonding. They are especially interested in dethroning our youngest son Scott who has been the baby for years and I think that they both think that if they can get him in enough trouble that they will have even more favor in the family or something. The problem is that Scott is really a good, innocent kid, without an evil bone in his body and so they have to get pretty creative to make him look bad. I am hoping this will pass because I really don't like tattletails and neither do my other kids. I guess on the bright side of it all, if anyone is doing something wrong I have an instant alert and don't have to worry that anything is going on behind my back :)
Overall we are really lucky and haven't had too many major problems. We are getting ready for school and for the first time I am really kind of anxious to send the kids their own separate ways to separate classes for a few hours a day. I am usually a little sad to see summer end but this year... sigh... it will be a relief.
The other one that is quite annoying is the constant tattling from the new kids. They really seem to be after our current kids to make sure they are getting in enough trouble and doing everything perfectly. It seems OK if the new boys leave their clothes out etc. etc. but if one of the others do it is a federal crime. This doesn't really help with the sibling bonding. They are especially interested in dethroning our youngest son Scott who has been the baby for years and I think that they both think that if they can get him in enough trouble that they will have even more favor in the family or something. The problem is that Scott is really a good, innocent kid, without an evil bone in his body and so they have to get pretty creative to make him look bad. I am hoping this will pass because I really don't like tattletails and neither do my other kids. I guess on the bright side of it all, if anyone is doing something wrong I have an instant alert and don't have to worry that anything is going on behind my back :)
Overall we are really lucky and haven't had too many major problems. We are getting ready for school and for the first time I am really kind of anxious to send the kids their own separate ways to separate classes for a few hours a day. I am usually a little sad to see summer end but this year... sigh... it will be a relief.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Tyler in the Church News
There is an article called Visit by Apostles on page 7 of the July 3 (week ending) church News where low and behold Tyler is pictured talking to Elder Richard G Scott. We are not sure who took the picture but it was sure cool to see that and especially to be there in real life. Russia was a highlight of the Ukraine adventure and we are grateful we went to the extra effort to tour his mission there.
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