Wow - end of the month...already????

I realized today that I had started a bunch of posts, and then became too busy to finish them.. So, I'll put it all in one big nutshell!!

Big Al : We started up regular wrestling in the last week.. unfortunately - he has already missed two practices due to behavior issues. :( He has a large project in school... Celebration of Cultures, that he is "supposed" to be working on studying family history, information about his heritage, etc... lets just say that his understanding of what his assignments given are not working out too well. And, Mama is holding him accountable for this - and he is not happy! We also discovered this week that Big Al has been the lucky "purchaser" of lots of candy on the playground at school... over $50 worth.... this is NOT good. I should not say "lots" more like a few handfuls and 5 or so dum-dum suckers... yes - $50+.... Let's just say that he has not had a good last week and a half!

Little J : Little J has been working on learning about Japan at school for the last few weeks... and for the life of him - he keeps calling everything "Chinese"! He has been enjoying his Japanese name in school of "Kenji" and loves the origami - today is his Japanese festival - so that should be fun! Little J also started wrestling - its his very first time - I am not a big supporter of this sport for him because he is well.... the best word I can use would be "less-determined"... He had his first practice - which he enjoyed. I, on the other hand did NOT enjoy it when I saw WHO they had paired him up with. His "partner in crime" from second grade! I will call him "Cody". I will quickly say that this boy was 80% of the reason that Little J had a horrible year in second grade.... I knew that trouble would be happening if he spent any more time with this kid.... I went thru alot of pain getting Little J seperated and distanced from "Cody" this year... and all my hard work was quickly ripped away the day after wrestling practice when he hung out with "Cody" during lunch and got in trouble. Let's say that it took a few hours for my blood pressure to go down! ARGH... So, if his coaches won't agree to keep "Cody" away from Little J at wrestling - we are done with that! Sounds harsh - but honestly, I am NOT going to deal with the "Cody" issue again. No WAY!

Miss O: She has been doing pretty darn well... except for her colds and changes in lack-of-nap time! She was moved up to the older preschool class - which goes from 12:30 to 2:45, W,TH, F. She rides the bus to school - but I have to pick her up. She is enjoying seeing some of her old friends from last year and doing more "big" kid stuff. She has been a real... pill.... due to the lack of nap - so she gets bedtime at 7:30, for which she is out in about 10 minutes... nice !! :)
Miss O also got ALL her kindergarten shots, even though she won't start until 2010... since she was four - we figured we'd get them all done and over with - whoo hoo! She is also in the 75th percentile for weight and about 90th percentile for height... the dr estimated that if she continued at this rate - she would end up at 5'8 or 5'9 and probably very lean.... uh oh! The hubby will be busy screening her dates when she is 16!

Not too much else to report... the county is trying to fix the roads and driveways around us from the "great flood of 09"... the freeway we use all the time in front of us has taken forever to get repaired - big pain and lots of waiting! We usually go the long way around it! The weather has been cold - but there has been some sunshine - nice to see!

I'll try to get back into a regular blogging schedule - things have been a little crazy with the new schedule and everything else going on!

Have a great weekend!

One of those weeks....

Trying to think of something to post... not much has happened since last week.. the weather has quite frankly stunk... below freezing, foggy and blah... no sun - what-so-ever!
Saturday afternoon we headed to Seattle...
The kiddos were watching fishing in Puget Sound while we waited for the ferry - how convenient that we were 3 minutes late and missed the ferry.. so we were 2nd in line to get on the next one!

Saturday night we spent at the Best Western where the hubby has been spending all his working nights away... Big Al is enjoying watching tv in bed!

Miss O likes having alot of mirrors in the bathroom so she can watch herself brush her teeth and make cute faces at herself...

Saturday we spent about 2 hours at the Fun Center in Tukwila.. we spent the $25 so we could all ride the bumper boats (yep - in the cold!) Miss O and I had fun whipping around in circles..

The hubby was a bit too tall for the boat - but had fun as well chasing the kids across the little pool.

Big Al was in his element racing around harassing other drivers... he does that well!

Little J liked the speed and the fact that he was able to smash the boat into his brother... no surprise there!

We had dinner Saturday night with my brother, Uncle Steve... the kids enjoy a good night with their uncle... we had a good - albeit expensive dinner at Jimmy Macs, one of the hubbys favorite places to eat!

And Sunday - we spent a few hours on Bainbridge Island, working on our adoption homestudy. We decided to go ahead and have Miss O readopted here in the US, so that she is able to get a US birth certificate. Not that the readoption is necessary or required, it will make things a bit easier for her (paperwork wise) when she is older - or heaven forbid, anything were to happen to both my hubby and I and someone had to try and figure out her Ukrainian paperwork! So basically, we have to do everything that we did in order to bring Miss O home... alot of the same paperwork, back ground checks, medical exams, etc etc etc... It is a time intensive project - but hopefully we can get it done by March!

On Sunday - our way home - we stopped at our friends Shaun and Kerri's new house - which was awesome! They raise those adorable Alpacas.. and I am so hoping that the hubby will let me get one! So super cute!!!

Not much excitement - and now on to a new week!!

A wonderful accomplishment!

Miss O never ceases to amaze us with her newly acquired talents! In the last two weeks - she has learned to write her full first name... for the longest time, it was just "O" and "l" with scribbles after it! Now she can write her name with all four letters - AND you can read it!

Last night - she wanted to spell everyone elses names and write them too! She just could not get "Mama". as she said, it was "too haud" - but she got "Papa" down with no problem at all!

Here she is showing off her name... not bad for a new four year old!!!

A big first!

This year for Christmas, Miss O received a "biiiiggg bike"! She had specifically asked for one - and yep - the big man in red complied! Since the weather the first two weeks after Christmas were cold and snowy - she rode it in the house!

Now, since the weather is (gasp!) 60 degrees outside today - she has moved the bike from the bedroom to the garage!

Here she is on her new ride!!

Have a great day!

A simple thing - and oh so helpful!

One of my resolutions is to try and help causes that are near and dear to my heart by sharing information to others - and help spread the word!

My cause this month is Ukraine Orphan Outreach. Two of the families who have founded the group are from our CH Angels group. Both have adopted children from Ukraine. Heidi and Felix just returned at Christmas with not one but THREE wonderful older children from Ukraine! (Their blog is listed on the right as well)

Ukraine Orphan Outreach (UOO) is raising money to bring a group of older children from Ukraine to Colorado this summer to spend time with families and enjoy life away from the orphanage. This group is a lot different from others, as they don't focus on daily needs of the children, but LIFE needs. It is fairly easy to donate money to a group to help purchase clothing and food - but it is another to help a group truly change the life of a child for the better! These children have no families to call their own. Spending a few weeks during the summer in a family setting, creating bonds, sharing family life, and truly knowing that they are loved and cared about is life changing and makes an amazing difference to these kids. Some that are brought over actually find their forever family here - others are given the chance to have such wonderful experiences that we take for granted daily!

The approximate cost to bring a child to the US on this type of trip is $2500... there is alot of paperwork that goes on behind the scenes, which takes months of hard work, all done by volunteers... please consider making a donation to help!

Please visit the UOO website by clicking here. It is easy to donate and you can go back and check the website in the summer to see the kids that were helped by your donation in pictures!
Amy

200th post and Nation De-Lurking Week!

I have been informed that this week is National De-Lurking week on blogger! Hmmmm... someones idea of getting folks to do more typing than usual!! hehe!

So - I decided that since this was my 200th post since I started the blog that I would ask each of you to simply leave me a little comment and tell me who you are and how you found my blog!

So, go ahead - don't be afraid!!! Comment away! :)

Have a great day!!!

Stuck at home!

I am running out of things to get done since the kids and I are stuck at home today!!!
Last night - the weather warmed up drastically and we had 50 mph winds most the night WITH tons of rain... all night long! About 90% of our snow has melted, since we had over a foot still on the ground yesterday, it created a real mess!
At 6:30am this morning, the bus garage called to tell me that the highway was closed and they would not be able to pick up my kids... arghhh #1!
So, about 7:45am, I loaded everyone up and we attempted to head towards school.... First we saw this absolutely beautiful rainbow, which was funny as it was pouring down rain!

Since we knew that the freeway was closed - we went the "back" way - or at least tried to! This picture does not show enough detail, but - there was more than a foot of water over the road here - and the freaky part was that you could see asphalt breaking off in the lovely little waterfall to the right.... I made a couple calls to people that I knew traveled the route I was wanting to take... one made it in their jacked up truck - the other said a majority of that road was under water! ARGH #2

So - decision pretty much made... we were homebound! We headed back home, one kid was PSYCHED that he was missing school... and one boy was in TEARS... the cute little girl was angry that she could not go to school... This was becoming a recipe for disaster! ARGH #3

Picture below is the neighbor two houses down the road... He is a hay farmer and his fields were completely full of water!

This picture below is our neighbor directly across the road from us... his driveway was gone! It was like a river!

We are really fortunate that our house is up on a hill, and that our driveway is on the high side of the road! Hopefully, the rain will stop and the sun will come out - at least so I can make it to town tomorrow! The kids are driving me nuts!!!! :)

Благословения на Рождество!

Благословения на Рождество!

Today is Christmas!!! Miss O is the only person in our family who has been baptized as Russian Orthodox! So, since today is Orthodox Christmas... we wish her.....Blessings for Christmas!

What? No posts yet this year??

We are already a week into the new year, and I have not posted one darn thing!!! Not too much has happened! We spent New Years chilling at home - lit off the remainder of the 4th of July fireworks - as it is much safer when there is no wind and about a foot of snow on the ground!
The kids went back to school yesterday = WHOO HOO! Two weeks off is almost too long! The boys tend to start getting on each other's nerves, then that of course gets on MY nerves!
It seems like everyone is thinking about resolutions... I have not really decided on any yet! Maybe by the end of the week I'll be able to get them posted!

I hope that everyone is having a great New Years so far... we've got a looonnnggg way to go!!!