Meet the Teacher

I am getting back on the blog wagon. I have so many things I need to cross off my to-do list and this is certainly not one of them, so I blog between crossing things off. :) I enjoy it for the most part and I am multi-tasking anyway... (eating some pasta for lunch and catching up on Facebook while the pictures load :P ).

Looking back a few weeks and in the process of catching up to real time in blogging...


The kids get to find out which class they are in, go meet their teachers and have a peek into their new room, and drop off their huge bags of school supplies the week before school starts. For kindergarten (or kin-ger-garten as Tate calls it) it is an actual set time when you come in and listen to the teacher explain about all the fun the year will bring and how best to make the year successful. For the others it was just a drop in open house kind of situation. All the kids got great teachers this year and I couldn't be more thrilled for them!


Tate with Mrs. L. She used to be the art teacher a few years back but she is a wonderful K teacher as well. Tate is one lucky little guy to have such a creative and fun teacher.


Never imagined such a change was possible for Tate in such a short period of time. In the last 4 months or so he has gone from a very anxious child to one who faces new challenges with excitement and a only a small, healthy amount of fear. It has been a miracle to watch this little guy! He has been in speech therapy for about a year now and he had lots of challenges to overcome. He is still working on these challenges, but has made such huge strides! He had such a hard time learning in the past that we really thought there was a disability but his goal seems to be proving us wrong once we have made up our minds about what he is capable of. I love that! It will be another year of dramatic growth and pure joy for Tate. I would not have believed he would be so ready for kindergarten even 4 months ago.


Both girls started up dance class again too. They are loving it and are in a couple classes together, which is so much fun for them!



Julian with Ms. A. I think she is a great teacher and I am so excited for him. His teacher last year was not a good fit for him and wasn't very supportive of all he was going through. She could not seem to appreciate all the things he was overcoming and that made it a little hard. I am so optimistic about Ms. A though, because she seems to get him a whole lot better and I think he will thrive academically in a more positive environment this year.


Sophie with Mrs. N. Sophie worked so hard on her reading this past year and over the summer. She is probably nearing grade level in her reading and is so proud of herself for being able to read chapter books like all her peers. I know she will continue to impress us with her hard work and determination. She is able to laugh at her own mistakes, and that serves her so well at school and at home. :)


Lily's teacher is sweet as can be, just like Lily! We are so impressed with Lily's academic abilities. She is quite the thinker and so bright! She has been reading above grade level since mid-year last school year and continues to climb the ladder passing many of her peers. It is hard to believe she spoke so little English only a year ago. She is a much more confident child and students than the little girl we sent to school last year. Do you remember that she cried every day at school? Hard to believe that was the same Lily Grace. This girl is one to watch!


As we walked out of the last classroom we noticed the strange sunshiney day with a little rain mixed in had turned out beautifully. There was a rainbow over the school so we stepped out to get a picture. We decided it was the sign of a great school year to come!


Julian asked me to take this picture on the way to our car. He thought the leaf looked like a heart. What a little sweetie, huh?

Road Trip!

Our good friends the B's came to visit us for 8 days in the middle of August. It was so good to see them and have our kids play. Good stuff. We wore a path between our house and the pool, ate at the local hot spots, drank lots of sweet tea, had way too much Bruster's Homemade Ice Cream, and had a lake day too. But toward the end of the trip it was supposed to rain for a couple days. We decided that 6 kids in the house for a couple days wouldn't be much fun and Kevin had taken a couple days off of work so we decided to head somewhere fun for a night. We looked at Myrtle Beach but it was, of course, going to rain there too. We settled on Downtown Atlanta. All the things we wanted to try there were indoors so rain wouldn't matter. We booked a hotel and left the next morning.


And we're off!


One of our favorite landmarks is this giant peach water tower in South Carolina because we think it looks like a hiney. Yep, we are mature. Makes the kids laugh for miles.


Kevin had his first Del Taco since we moved 5 years ago. Yuck! I had to make a pit stop about 20 minutes later. Made me sick and glad we moved far away from Del Taco, which I never liked anyway.


Then we split into a boy car and a girl car. Girls went to the American Girl Store and the boys went to World of Coca-Cola.

3 girls and their dolls.


So cute! We didn't eat at the Bistro, but we checked it out. :)


Each girl got to pick an outfit for their doll and a t-shirt for themselves. It was a tough choice!


We took this picture the next day since the boys didn't take any on their special trip to World of Coke. Julian and Tate loved drinking soda from the bottle!

We ended up going to Hard Rock for dinner, which was fun.


Tate in music heaven!



G trying to look like one waiter who was wearing really dark sunglasses in the already dark restaurant.


Night swim at the hotel pool on the roof and then off to bed!



A great buffet breakfast was included in our hotel package. We were at the Hilton and purchased the "Aquarium Package." It was a great deal and we had adjoining rooms so that was fun!


Then we were off to the Georgia Aquarium. We spent a few hours checking out all the sea life. So neat. It is a really nice aquarium and we all loved it.


How cute are these buddies?

Then Corner Bakery for lunch!


Back up the hill to the hotel and we drove back home.


A quick, but fun filled trip!

To Blog, or Not To Blog...

I can't decide. I am weighing the pros and cons of blogging and I can't seem to come to a conclusion. Hmmm..... I either need to keep up with it or drop it all together. In the meantime, have you seen my cute kids lately? ;)

A hodge podge of pictures I would have posted if I was blogging in the last couple months.



Tate celebrated his 6th birthday and got the guitar he has been wanting for so long. He is a natural musician, or at least he has a passion for it.

July 4th

The kids loved their first 4th of July and they celebrated like true Americans. :)


We celebrated the year anniversary of the kids homecoming. They wanted to sleep on our bedroom floor like they did the first week or two that they were here. How cute is that? We had American food for dinner (cheeseburgers and tater tots, etc.) and talked about all the new things they have done in the last year. It is so funny to hear their versions of the stories now and what their thoughts were from before they could tell us.


The girls started back up to dance (they took only occasional summer classes) and the boys started soccer.


We got ready for school to start. This is a picture from back to school shopping on the day they met their teachers.


We hung out around the house and I really got to spend time a lot more time with the kids than I had before. We all loved that!

I met up with my adoption blog mom friend Julie and her (even cuter in person, if that is possible) 3 kids from Hinshaw Happenings. We bonded over dinner at a local burger joint while the kids ate and giggled. So fun to talk to other people who understand what the past year of our lives have been like. Hope to see you guys again someday!



We had friends from California come for a week. The kids had a blast and us adults did too!

There was also lots of swimming (we taught all 4 kids to swim this summer) and plenty of trips to the lake. Kevin's parents' house they built about 40 minutes away is now about finished. I see lots of fun times and good memories with the family at the lake in our future. :)

We crashed our 5 year old iMac last week. That was the bad news of the summer. We still have the laptop and most all our pictures were backed up here, there, or somewhere so that is a good thing.


And then the inevitable happened...

Disney World 2009

We had a such a wonderful time with family and extended family at Disney World. It was a great bonding time for the 6 of us too. Sure it was hot, humid, and a bit crowded but the kids did it all (and I mean everything) with smiles on their faces and a spring in their step. They are such troopers and so happy to just be living life and part of such an adoring and loving family!

Special Visitors

The evening of the last day of school we got a surprise telephone call. It was Olya, the wife of our good friend and facilitator of our adoption. We knew that Kostya, Olya, and their son Nikita were visiting the US because we received an email link to pictures. We had missed the email detailing their plan to visit the U.S. and asking if we could spend some time with them because I'd used a hotmail email for the adoption since AOL isn't as compatible with Kostya's email address. So were we sad we missed out on making plans ahead with them and excited it still worked out that they were visiting another local family they had worked with so we could see them.

Michelle from From NC to Ukraine, her four delightful kids (including sweet and adorable Mary), and the Farkovets family joined us the next day at a Sprayground for a picnic lunch and time to catch up. The spot was close to Kevin's work so he was able to take a couple hours for lunch and join us. It was great to see old friends and get to talk with Michelle too. Thankfully all kids need to communicate is water and laughter, so the kids had a ball with Nikita!

One of the funniest parts of the visit was when Tate sat down next to Nikita and I told him to say something to Nikita in Russian. I figured he would say hello. He looked right at Nikita and said, "Machina!" (That means car.) We were all laughing, including Nikita who understands basic conversational English pretty well. Silly Tater-tot. Nikita actually liked to play with Lily best of all. She is very giggly and knows how to have a good time. They played in the fountains together for quite a while. Nikita told Olya, "Lily knows how to have fun!" I thought that was sweet.

As we chatted with Kostya and caught up I said it was a good thing they were visiting when they were because we were leaving in a week to head down to Disney World. They got a surprised look on their faces and said, "So are we!" We made plans to meet back up in Orlando. That made it a bit easier to say good bye to them on that day. :) What a fun coincidence. They also tried to talk us into heading out to California in July. They will be visiting some other friends out there then and that is where we are from, but we will likely not be headed out to California this summer.

Michelle sent me these first two pictures. Thanks, Michelle!


(That is Mary, the little firecracker down in the corner of the picture. If you want to read her adoption story you can click the link to the blog Michelle keeps. She is a much more faithful blogger than I am and she has great advice and anecdotes for adoptive parents. :) )















Can you see why the kids all adore Kostya? He is so playful!

Thanks for the visit Kostya, Olga, and Nikita!
If anyone is interested in getting in contact with our wonderful facilitator from Ukraine you can find him at the Ukraine Christian Adoption website.

Julian the Gymnast

Just before school got out Julian's gym had an Olympiad Day where we could come watch the skills he has practiced over the school year. Julian is quite the little gymnast. He is tiny and strong as can be, so this sport comes naturally to him. He really enjoyed it and the conditioning he got will help with any other sport he decides to try in the future. I bet he could go pretty far as a gymnast but he has decided to retire ;) and try soccer come fall. His coach was awesome and we would really miss him and the gym except that Lily started class there the very next week. We may have a little gymnast in the family yet.

On the rings:




His favorite skill each week was climbing this rope and ringing the bell at the top. He practically flies up there and the one without the knots in it too. Clearly he is not afraid of heights!



It wasn't a competition, but everyone got medals for participating.



Any other bloggers out there have suggestions for photo uploading? I have always just used the Blogger one on here with pictures I drag from my iPhoto account to my desktop and then upload. It takes forever and sometimes it is tricky to figure out the order Blogger is going to arrange them in. The time it takes is the #1 and only reason I don't blog as much as I wish I did. I often put the kids to bed and come down to post only to realize I am too worn out to start the tedious process. I tried to load them through Photobucket.com for this post. It was quick to upload them but they were all huge. I tried to resize them but ended up scrapping the idea and doing it the same old way after about 30 minutes of playing with it. There must be a secret (that is probably only a secret to me) because some of you moms would not be posting as often as you do if it took you as long as it takes me. I have at least 10 posts in my head, but don't have 10 hours to post them. ;)