Love the Unloved

Sliding & standing!

2011-05-04T13:32:00.001-07:00

So we brought the sunfaded slide inside for some awesome physical therapy for Mina. She loves it and has mastered it all by herself!

She is doing awesome! Weighs 21pounds now and is working on walking while holding our hands! We are so proud of how far she's come!! Love our precious girl!

YouTube Video

Mina crawling up stairs!

2011-03-25T19:16:00.001-07:00

Mina can now successfully crawl up stairs. We have been spending a lot of time at my grandma's house who was diagnosed with 4th stage lung cancer back in December to spend as much time as we could with her in her last days. Unfortunately she actually passed away on March 17th. She was an amazing woman and one of my best friends in the world! She was Mina's biggest fan & was a huge reason & contributor in love, support & prayer in us bringing mina home.

So her house has a couple stair steps going into the sunroom and Mina tonight finally mastered them. Turns out all our visits have been great therapy for her ;)
I am so proud of her. She is constantly gaining muscle and getting closer and closer to standing up & pulling herself up on things. She has come such a long ways!

YouTube Video

Introducing Miss Serenity Piper Gower!!

2011-03-03T18:16:00.001-08:00

Our precious little angel entered this world February 25th at 12:10pm weighing 8lbs 8oz and 20 inches long after 8 hours of labor. She was barely born in the hospital :)
Our sweet Mina saw Serenity from a distance the day she was born but didn't get to meet her till a couple days later. She had 102 fever, bad cough and runny nose so she got to spend a couple days with Oma and Papa. It was really hard for Jim and I to not have her with us and that she didn't get to meet Serenity right away but we didn't want to risk her getting sick.... plus we knew she was in very good hands and they definitely spoiled her. She spent most her sick days sleeping in her Papas arms and being snuggled.

Oma (my mom) made this special outfit for her as her going home from the hospital outfit and to have as a keepsake to pass down to her kids. My mom kept my outfit from when I was a baby which Myla wore home from the hospital and will have to pass down to her children so my mother made this special outfit so Serenity would have something as well.

Leaving the hospital!
For those interested in hearing my birth story:

I woke up with contractions around 4:00am and laid in bed about 30 minutes trying to go back to sleep and couldn't. I got up took a shower and realized the contractions keep coming and I was in labor. I woke Jim up around 6:30 to let him know and then I just worked on packing our bags and cleaning. After Jim got around he left the house around 8 to go get the videocamera from the office. (Which I found a bit humorous cause he left right before the girls woke up.) So that meant I got both of them up and ready for the day occasionally having to stop when I'd have a really painful contraction. My mom came by around 10 to pick up the girls and I just continued doing things around the house and pausing & squeezing pressure points when I'd hurt really bad. My contractions started out lasting about 1 minute long and 2-3 minutes apart. Then the part that threw me off was that my contractions were getting much more painful but further apart. Finally after tears during a few contractions I told Jim I thought we should go ahead and head for the hospital and literally a minute after saying that I was having back to back contractions and in a lot of pain.
So I wanted to labor at home as long as possible and thought it would be ideal to arrive at the hospital about an hour or 2 before she was actually born. Well apparently my timing wasn't very accurate in when I thought she would arrive because all of a sudden I was in transition labor and having back to back painful contractions as we tried to hurry to the car to drive about 20 minutes to the hospital where my midwife was to deliver. I literally prayed the entire car ride as I had constant contractions and asked the Lord to please help us make it to the hospital because I didn't want to deliver in the car. We pulled up at valet and the man asks "Should I get a wheelchair." Jim told him yes which thankfully I didn't try to walk up cause she would have been born in the hallway then :) Once he wheeled me up to the labor and delivery floor in the triage room to get checked in the nurse tried to get me up out of the wheelchair into the bed. I sat there through another painful contraction and then tried to stand up to get in the bed and started having another painful contraction. I told Jim I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom and he was rushing around like a crazy person trying to quickly line the toilet with a layer of toilet paper & get back over to help me LOL. As I stood leaning over the bed I felt a big gush... my water breaking and the baby was coming. The nurse had left the room a minute and I told Jim go get somebody the baby is coming and I just kept thinking I'm going to have to catch this baby myself. So in comes running 2 nurses trying to get me to get up on the bed so I didn't have her on the floor. Within a minute or two after that in comes my midwife and Serenity is born. My doula unfortunately missed the delivery by a minute. She had a really short umbilical cord so while we waited for the cord to stop pulsating to clamp it she rested on my belly :) She nursed for about 4 hours after that. It was such a crazy hectic time and not quite how I'd imagined it but everything worked out perfectly and what a wonderful experience it was.
We are so thankful for our newest little blessing!
We stayed in the hospital 24 hours so that we could get the hearing test and pku done as well as social security paperwork and birth certificate. Myla came up to the hospital to help us take her home and she managed to lock herself in the bathroom in our room right as we were trying to leave. It took maintenance about 25 minutes to get her out of the bathroom. Poor baby was a bit tramatized and had her pants around her ankles when they finally got the door open. Guess she was to scared to pull her pants up once she realized she was locked in.

Once we left the hospital we took Serenity by my grandmas house. It was really important to me and to her because her health is not very good as I've posted previously. She has stage 4 lung cancer which is rapidly spreading through her body and she continues to decline. Please lift her up in your prayers as well as my family!

Serenity with her great grandma!!

Mina turned 2!!!

2011-02-04T22:44:00.000-08:00

January 15th was Mina’s 2nd Birthday!! It was such a joyous day because it was her very first birthday spent with family and her birth is definitely something to celebrate. Mina was sick on her birthday with 104 degree temp so we didn’t get to go out or take her to do anything exciting on her special day and her birthday party had to be postponed to a later date which was a little disappointing. However the day was spent with a lot of snuggle time with mommy and daddy. We lounged around all day (because we all were sick with the flu read about it here) and watched movies and spent time together as a family.

We had her 2nd Birthday Party on January 22nd and she sure had a great time. She got to color on the wall :) dig her face into a huge cupcake and open lots of presents. She absolutely loved it!! Needless to say she was on a sugar high and didn’t fall asleep till close to 11 that night.

Mina has come so far in just 5 months and it is so amazing!! She has been just blossoming before our eyes. We are so thankful for her birth and that we were blessed to adopt her and that she is apart of our family! She is such a joy in our lives!

Coloring a pretty picture!

Present Time!

Beautiful cupcakes her Aunt Sheshe (Michelle) made special just for her

"I think I'll take this one"

"Look at all my cupcakes!"

"Hmmmmmmm"

"What am I supposed to do with that?"

"Here sister have some!!"

"I think I'm really starting to like this stuff!"

"Yummy!!"

Papa giving Mina kisses!

Kisses for the birthday girl from Mom & Dad!

All Done!!! Time for a bath!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR PRECIOUS MINA!! WE LOVE YOU, LOVE YOU, LOVE YOU!!

Help Save Carson!

2011-02-04T12:19:00.000-08:00

A friend of ours recently adopted a precious little boy named Kullen from Ukraine. You can read about their adoption story by clicking here.

They are advocating and trying to help raise funds for another family who is adopting a precious little boy named Carson with EB (epidermolysis bullosa- a rare genetic skin disease that causes the skin to be so fragile that the slightest friction can cause severe blistering–inside and outside the body.) They have a daughter who has EB so this is something that is very dear to their heart and they are working hard to try to help raise funds for another family to be able to bring this boy home and give him a better chance and quality of life. You can read about the family who is working towards bringing Carson home here.

We had sent them a set of 5 Ukrainian stacking dolls for them to fundraise for their adoption and they are actually using them to fundraise for this other family instead. Everyone who donates through the chip in on their site will be entered into a drawing to win this set of dolls we bought in Mina's country. The donation will go directly to Reeces Rainbow for the Cannell family and is a tax deductible donation!!

Please head over to their website and read the full story and details and help save this precious boys life.

Click here

Our lives in December~ Lots of pics!!

2011-02-02T11:02:00.000-08:00

Here's an updated post with lots of pictures as promised! Check back for a January updated with Mina's 2nd Birthday pics coming soon!

This December was Mina's first Christmas holiday season with family who loves her very much. We tried to make the best of our situation and illnesses and did what we could to still make Christmas time fun, festive, and celebrate Christ's Birth! In the midst of our madness here’s the fun things we managed to do.

Picking out our Christmas tree. Look how tall it is!! Mina's 1st tree!!

Our little Christmas angels!! Oh how these sisters love each other!!

We went to the Harn Homestead Christmas lights event. Mina is petting a horse with Aunt Danie. We got to go on a hay ride, take pictures with Santa, decorate cookies, and play some fun games.

Mina didn't mind sitting in Santa Clauses lap... but Myla was not a big fan. If you can tell she is sitting in her daddy's lap :) LOL

Big Smiles!! Happy girl enjoying every minute!!

This was Myla's first day ever to leave her mama to go to any type of daycare and it about broke my heart. She was so excited all dressed and ready with her backpack to go to Mother's Day out. She went there for one day with her Aunt Christy and cousins because this mama was exhausted trying to take care of everything around our house, take care of my sick husband, and just keep up with the everyday things. Mina stayed at home with Mama and we got some things done and Myla had a great time (although she wouldn't nap there LOL)

Myla always loves taking care of her baby sister and holding her :)

Mina at the hospital visiting Mimi (her great grandma who was recently diagnosed with final stage of lung cancer) Oh how her mimi adores her. Please keep her in your prayers!! She is one of my best friends in the world and I can't imagine life without her in it!! She's been told she has a year left but we're praying for a miracle!

Well December 23rd we were just about sick of being couped up in our house for weeks on end and not being able to get out due to the shingles and chicken pox so Jim loaded us all up (the girls in pajamas :) and took us out to Chickasha for the lights festival. Since we couldn't be around people it was something perfect that we could do together as a family and the girls really enjoyed the road trip and seeing all the Christmas lights. We stopped by Jakes Ribs and Jim grabbed food to go that we ate in the truck while enjoying all the lights.

The girls in daddy's lap eating supper

Our poor babies and their chicken pox. I am so thankful that is all over!!!

We made cookies for Jesus, Santa, and his reindeer :) Myla loved loved this! She did such a great job cutting out her cookies and decorating them... oh yeah and eating them! Mina had some cookie dough and some cutters but within seconds it was gone. She was a happy girl though LOL

Christmas morning at our house! This year was the first year we didn't spend Christmas day with our families... which made me sad... although we enjoyed our time together with just us. All the past years we spent the night at my parents and wake up altogether and the cousins all get Christmas morning together. Then after spending the morning with my family we go to Jim's parents and spend the rest of the day with his family. Well this year was the first to wake up in our own home and not do those things since the girls had the chicken pox and couldn't get around the other kids. It was a wonderful day and we enjoyed our time together celebrating Jesus. We didn't really do anything big for Christmas as far as presents goes.... for one Jim had spent so much time off work from everything and we want to keep it a bit more simple and try to keep the focus on Christ and the reason we celebrate Christmas. Hopefully we can instill in our girls the giving rather than receiving. Myla got a new bigger piggy bank and she wanted to give her other one to her sister. Very sweet! Mina got letters of her name for us to put on the wall in her room!

Cute story about the ball pit. So this is the ball pit we got when we returned home from Ukraine because the girls both loved the ball pit so much in the orphanage. After having it for a couple months and constantly picking up balls I thought it was time to put it up for a bit. A friend wanted to borrow it for her daughter so she took it off our hands for a little bit. Myla asked about that ball pit ALL the time. Well come Christmas time my friend was sick of it at her house so I brought it back home and set it up Christmas morning. Myla walked into the hall first thing in the morning when she woke up and I hear her little excited voice, "Mommy Annaliese brought my ball pit back!!" She was so excited about it. And that is what Jim and I woke up to Christmas morning :) Oh the little things.... I'm thinking we are going to need to put toys up more often and then get them back out. It's like a whole new toy again :)

Mina's favorite light up toy we took her in Ukraine when we first met her had broken so we got another one for her for Christmas. She loves those toys!! $3.00 at Walmart- best entertainment ever :)

In the evening Christmas day after everyone was leaving we went by my parents for a little bit to see them. Mina in her Christmas jammies sitting on Oma's counter. Papa is making her laugh!

Decorating a gingerbread house! Well and eating all the candy :) Mina really liked the icing.

The rest of our December was spent playing, coloring LOTS, and a ton of snuggle PJ time!

WE'RE ALIVE!!! :)

2011-01-29T13:36:00.003-08:00

So most of you probably think we fell off the face of the earth the past couple months… which as far as blogging goes we absolutely did….. but we are still here alive and well :)

At last a moment to sit down and update the world on the couple months of life. ha ha Sorry to those of you who have been wondering or wanting an update on Mina. Life has definitely thrown us a curve ball and been extremely crazy and stressful the past couple months.

Starting the end of November my husband (Jim) has had a whirlwind of scary situations starting with a tree limb going into his right eye. He was in severe pain and the eye got infected and he still hasn’t fully regained his vision. So he was down for about a week spending most his time in bed on pain meds. After he got over that eye infection his left eye ended up looking like he had pink eye in it (although I don’t think that’s what it was.) That eye was infected and gooped up for several days and then all of a sudden his eye cleared up but he had swollen lymph nodes in front of his ear and all along the left area of his face. Then we noticed a patch break out on his forehead that looked like acne. He was in terrible pain so we took him to the doctor on a Friday and they put him on bactrim (antibiotic) for a skin infection and sinus infection. After being on it for 24 hours the spot continued to get much worse and spread on his face and the pain got so bad that by 1 in the morning he was pacing the floor and grabbing his head (after taking pain meds.) The medicine wasn’t helping at all so we took him into the ER. The ER doc came in took one look at him and said he had shingles and the antibiotic wouldn’t help so he took him off that and prescribed him antiviral medicine. He was in bed sleeping for over a week trying to recover and drugged up. I have never seen him in so much pain. I guess from all the many things that have happened and all the meds he had been taking for pain & eye infections, etc his immune system was really weak and so at that point he got shingles. We had to take him to several eye doctors appointments to continue to check to make sure the infection didn’t spread to his cornea because if it spread it could cause blindness and the shingles were already covering his eye lid. So it seemed for a few weeks we were in and out of doctors offices. I have been trying to get his immune system boosted with vitamins, D3, kefir, olive leaf, colloidal silver, and fresh vegetable juices. I also rotated rubbing aloe vera, colloidal silver, and apple cider vinegar on the spots on his face. The ACV seems to have helped a tremendous amount in drying it up. Well thankfully Jim is feeling much better now!! Praise the Lord!!!! He has scaring along his forehead now but hopefully that will minimize some with time.

So in the midst of all of that going on my grandma was in the hospital and we found out that she has lung cancer in the final stage and there’s not much they can do for her. They said she has about a year…. But I’m praying for a miracle. My grandma is one of Mina’s biggest fans and hugest supporters in bringing Mina home. She was always there at every event and fundraiser and always telling everyone about her precious new great grandbaby she looked forward to meeting and she absolutely adores her. She prayed and prayed for Mina everyday while we were in the process of adopting her and did everything she could to help get her home. We are so grateful for all of her help, love and support and that she helped save the precious life of our precious baby girl. Everyone please Please lift up prayers for my grandma that her year would turn into decades and that God would give her ultimate healing only He can.

So next curve ball was despite the fact I tried to keep the girls away from Jim and he basically stayed secluded to our bedroom while he had the shingles about the time he was getting better Mina broke out with the chicken pox and then a week or so after that Myla got the chicken pox. Both the girls had the chicken pox during Christmas and we basically spent the entire month of December cooped up in our house. Mina got a more mild case of it but poor Myla was covered and it lasted almost 3 weeks. After we thought it was about over and she hadn’t broken out with anymore spots for a few days she all of a sudden developed what looked like a terrible rash all over her body. We took her into the doctor and they said that it was more chicken pox coming up all over. My poor girl… I felt so bad for her. Needless to say we spent lots of time rocking and snuggling.

Once everyone was over that and we were finally free to get out of our house Jim got sick with the flu and then the rest of us followed. Let me just tell ya… being 9 months pregnant, extremely sick and trying to take care of your whole family that is sick is a tough job. Mina and Myla had fevers that got up to 104 and those poor babies wanted nothing more than just being snuggled so we spent over a week once again on house arrest resting as a family.

I never really could find the perfect opportunity to sit down and write because between caring for everyone in my family I was worn out any moment I would get to actually just sit and rest. Thankfully we are all better at this point and hopefully it will stay that way for quite some time.

I only have 3 weeks left till this baby is born and so I hope to get our blog updated with some pics for you all of the last couple months.

Mina is doing wonderful!! She is getting all over the place by crawling, scooting on her bottom, rolling, whatever she has to do….. she is a completely mobile child now and makes it all over the house. She is such a happy precious little girl and loves to giggle and smile all the time. We have been working with her on standing up and she will do it for a minute or so with you holding on to her (only when she wants to.) She is sleeping great through the night; eats great and everything in site LOL; saying a few words and working on sign language. We just celebrated her 2nd Birthday!

Keep an eye out for pics and posts from the past couple months. I plan to post back so that you all can see the changes in our precious girl during this time.

Mina's first Thanksgiving!

2010-11-26T08:48:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was Mina's first Thanksgiving with family!! When we were eating breakfast yesterday it dawned on me that it was Mina's very first Thanksgiving spent with family. This is the first Holiday season that she will be surrounded by lots of family and lots of love!

We spent the morning watching the Macy's day parade with the girls with a cozy fire going and then went over to Jim's families for the day for fun family time and lots of yummy food. Mina absolutely loved it!!! She had enough to eat for a few people and her little belly was full full full!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!! There is so many things I am thankful for!! I am thankful for all of my family, for my wonderful husband and for our 2 precious girls!! I am thankful that within this past year the Lord blessed us with precious Mina and that soon we will have our 3rd little blessing in our arms as well!! I am thankful that Mina will never again have to experience any holidays without family!

Please remember all the many children in the world who don't have family to spend the holiday season with. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers that the orphans in the world can be surrounded by God's love and that they too will soon have a family come for them!!

Our happy little Turkey on this special Thankful day!!
Mina digging into the big plate of turkey :)
Mina filling up on all the yummy food!
And here she is wiping her own mouth with her napkin :) All done!!

Sick Baby Scare

2010-11-23T13:19:00.001-08:00

I think one of the scariest things is when one of your children is struggling to breathe. Last night around 11 Mina woke up and Jim and I heard her making all sorts of funny noises so I went in her room and grabbed her up. She was wheezing really bad with every breath she took. We were so worried and went back and forth on whether or not we should take her to the ER.

We quickly turned the shower on and stood in there with her so the steam could help open her up some. She started to sound a bit better till we got out of the shower and back to the bed with her. We gave her some guifenesin to help loosen up the phlegm in her chest and rubbed vicks on her feet and chest and had the humidifier going. She ended up sleeping between us last night although I could say we didn't get much sleep. I kept being afraid she would stop breathing and I think I prayed just about the entire night even in my sleep :) She sounded much better once she fell asleep but still was wheezing most the night.

I took her into the doctor this morning and he tested her for RSV which was negative and said that it sounds like one of the many viruses going around or croup. She has started breathing so much better through out the day and seems to be doing okay the night time just worries me because most likely it will be coming back again tonight. The doc perscribed some liquid steroids to help keep the phlegm loose in her chest and hopefully help eliminate some of the wheezing at night and he said to just continue what we did last night with her and it will just have to run its course.

Exciting news: Mina is now up to 17.5 lbs!!! She has gained 3.5 lbs in the past couple months! Horray!!

Please keep our little angel in your prayers and that she feels better and that this little bug doesn't last long.

Momma why are you taking my picture right now in the middle of the night when I'm miserable?? :(

Physical therapy!

2010-11-23T13:02:00.001-08:00

So physical therapy has finally begun for Mina and it is going great. She has only had 2 physical therapy sessions and is such a fast learner. She has physical therapy 2 times a month for now and if more is needed we will increase it, but they think she is doing extremely well and picking up on everything quickly so it will just be a matter of time and practice for her to learn how to do things.

We have been working on teaching her to go from the sitting position to lying down and from lying down back up to the sitting position. The first day we started working on it by the end of the physical therapy session she did it all by herself trying to get a toy!! Going from lying down to sitting up has been a little bit more of a challenge as she continues to gain the muscle strength but she is doing great. I have walked in her room several times to her sitting up in her crib... now the catch is I don't know if she is actually sitting up on her own or pulling herself up by her bumper or possibly big sister may have helped sit her up. Haven't quite caught this one in action. She does however grab hold of your hand with one of hers and push with her other to pull herself up. Also lately if she is lying on her back and I am leaning over her she will do sit ups to come up and kiss me :) So precious!!! She LOVES to give kisses!! I get 100s of kisses everyday!! She also has added Dadda to her new list of vocabulary words. Horray!!! Daddy is very excited about this one!

Another thing we have been working on is knee time or the crawling position. She hates being up on her knees but is starting to get a little more used to the idea. We have used a motivating toy to get her to stay up on her knees as she plays with it and watches the balls go around and recently she actually let go of the toy table and was just sitting on her knees for about 5 minutes (very exciting!!) Now the crawling position on her hands and knees usually results in several tears... she just doesn't like it but she will do it for a little while before she realizes she can successfully get out of that position on her own. Hopefully before to much longer this little one will take off crawling :) and then this mama will have to do more chasing around. LOL
Mina has also been doing great with potty training. She still doesn't tell me when she needs to go but sometimes when I ask her she will actually shake her head. Usually if her diaper is dry when I check it we will take her potty and 99.9% of the time she will always go & gets so excited!! Lately I've only had to change 1-2 diapers a day! Horray!!

She is really doing wonderful developmentally for the short time she's been home with us and we are so proud of our girl!!

Video of Mina going from sitting to crawling around.

YouTube Video

In the crawling position

Spending time on her knees

Morning with the Duggars!

2010-11-11T18:25:00.001-08:00

God always amazes me. Just this past week when Jim and I were just chatting one day I told him I think it would be awesome if he ever got the opportunity to do a shoot for the Duggars and how much I would love to come along for that. Little did I know that within the week after saying that he would actually get contacted for a shoot there & what a blessing it would be that I got to go along. I normally don't go out with Jim on shoots but he had been out of town in Kansas and hadn't had much sleep the night before and had been up since 4am. After making it back home around 9pm from Kansas he loaded the truck up and we left around 11pm without any sleep to head to Arkansas to be there for a 4am call time. He needed someone to ride with him to help keep him up and thankfully my brother couldn't go & my mom said she would keep the girls overnight so I got to go with him. Thank you mom!!

First off it was so wonderful to get so much time with my husband. We had 8 hours in drive time and it was great to just have that time to talk with one another and spend time together. I always love long chat times with my hubby :) And we talked and talked the whole way there & back to keep each other up. Wonderful time I cherish and am so grateful for! I sure do love my husband and it is sure wonderful to get alone time with him!

Today has been such a wonderful experience and I am so grateful for the time I got to spend meeting and being with the Duggar family. They are such a sweet sweet loving family and it is just such an amazing thing to be in a home surrounded with the love of Christ and amazing people that follow the Lord. I have always had a list of questions I'd love to ask Michelle Duggar and learn from her and today I actually got the chance to talk to her. She is such an amazing woman. She visited with me for about an hour and gave me so many tips, advice, resources, books she recommends and homeschooling tools and programs they use. Their children are all so precious and so well behaved and they are such a welcoming beautiful family.

Today I really felt like I got one of the greatest opportunities of a lifetime in meeting a family I look up to as being such a wonderful role model and example of following Christ. I love Michelle's sweet calm gentle spirit and pray that I can become more and more like that as I follow after God & my relationship with Him grows. So many people a lot of times are so busy with their own lives and what's going on just trying to keep up with themselves but Michelle took time out of her day to pour into my life (a complete stranger) and share with me things she has learned over the years & pour blessings and words of encouragement into my family & it meant so much to me.

Anyway if you all are wondering what we were there for this morning on the Today show they had a live shot of their family and announcing that Josh and Anna will be having their 2nd child. What great joy and excitement for them to be blessed with another gift of life!

Check out the Duggars at http://www.duggarfamily.com/ and catch them on TLC.
We still have 2 years till homeschooling starts for our little ones but I am so excited to have this information and resources for when we do start homeschooling. I am also very excited to get the Monki See Monki Doo videos to start with the girls to begin to teach them to read and recognize words.

To my sister and my mommy friends that are homeschooling or about to start here's a list for Education and Homeschooling children:

Monki See Monki Doo Videos for babies & preschoolers http://www.monkisee.com/
Sing, Spell, Read and Write (phonics) - 1st- 3rd grade
ACE- Accelerated Christian Education- Pace workbooks Math, English & Spelling - 1st-3rd grade
SOS- Switched On Schoolhouse - 3rd grade and up
Typing Tutor- Mavis Beacon- 3rd grade & up

2 books recommended that I can't wait to read on parenting and discipline:

How to Be the Parents of Happy And Obedient Children- Roy Lessin
Shepherding a Child's Heart- Tedd Tripp

Thank you to Michelle and the Duggar family for welcoming us into their home, pouring into us and teaching us tips on how to raise our children in a Godly home!

Also HAPPY VETERAN'S DAY to my precious husband and all other's who've served! Baby I love you and am so proud of you for serving our country!! Thank you to all Veteran's!

Today is Orphan Sunday

2010-11-07T12:05:00.000-08:00

So today is orphan Sunday.....

We have been home with Mina now for 2 months and as the time has flown by with all the adjustments of life with an additional child, doctors visits, and working towards getting therapy started my thoughts still continously go back to all those we had to leave behind.

There's not a video I watch, a song for orphans I hear, or a story I read that doesn't almost instantly bring tears to my eyes. Maybe a part of that could be me being hormonal since I'm pregnant :)

I have really been searching to find what more I can do for the remaining 143+million still out there in this world longing for their family. I recently attended the Chazown conference with Life Church about finding your purpose and vision for which God created you for! And am currently searching and praying that God reveals to me what He created me for and what I can do to serve Him during my life on this earth! I have ideas but there are so many things I feel I want to do for the Lord and not enough time and energy in a lifetime to do it all.

If I'm being 100% honest part of me just wishes to push the pain and hurt and thoughts that burden my heart away... but what good would that do. I have only looked at the precious children on Reeces Rainbow a few times since I have been home mostly because I know I will long and hurt for them and want to bring them all home with me. Obviously I am not super human and can't care for 143million orphans in my lifetime and can only do what I can so I am here using my voice to advocate for these precious little ones.

Please watch these videos and pray and ask the Lord what more you can do whether it be through prayer, financial support, or adoption. God has called us ALL to care for the orphans and be the father to the fatherless. That is part of our job as christians and followers of Christ. So I truly ask you on this Orphan Sunday to take today and spend it in prayer searching for what the Lord will have you do to help save the life of a child. Please pray pray pray for all these precious children that live life without family, without love and without the proper care and nurishment they need to survive. Please pray that the Lord comfort and embrace them as only He can. Please pray for the Hearts of God's people to be burdened and do something to stand up against the injustice that happens to these precious blessings.

They are not a burden, they are a gift!

We are so blessed by Mina being a part of our family and thank the Lord God for blessing us with her and giving us a burden to bring her home that regardless of what people said we couldn't shake!

Check out http://www.reecesrainbow.org/ and seek out a child or children to pray for by name, to possibly sponsor financially, or help be a voice and advocate to help him or her find a forever family!

A hurting heart for her mama!

2010-11-02T11:07:00.000-07:00

I have been overfilled with pure joy the past many days as I have watched this amazing caterpillar turn into a butterfly. As Mina has changed, learned, and grown so much recently and is doing things so much quicker than I had ever imgained. I look at her with so much excitment and adoration with amazement of the little gift the Lord blessed us with and can't help but think about her birth mother and all the joy she's missing.

As Mina continues to say mama over and over numerous times a day and look up at me with arms stretched high with the biggest grin on her face.... as she bobs her head and dances anytime she hears music, as she lays her head into my chest and snuggles.... as she pats my back while I'm loving on her and she blows me many many kisses I think of all the things her mother is missing out on and my heart hurts for her. There is so much love and happiness Mina has brought into our lives and our home and although I am so grateful it saddens me to think of all her family is missing by her not being a part of their life.

I often times wonder what her mother's thoughts are; how frequently does she think of her; how much does she miss her; does she wonder where she is or if she is even still alive??? Mina lived with her parents and siblings till she was 6 months old. They had bonded with her, loved her and cared for her.... and then because of her diagnosis they gave her away. My mind wonders if they gave her away because of fear of the unknown, because of society, did they give her away in hopes that she would be adopted and have a better chance?? I suppose my mind will always wonder about her feelings and thoughts.

My hope is that one day maybe our precious girl can meet her biological family. That they can see her and see how much she's changed and know how blessed our family has been because of her.

I am now 24 weeks along in my pregnancy and having met with my midwife yesterday was asked if I had any of the prenatal testings- amniocentesis done. Once again I said no and I'm not interested in ever having any type of testing regarding that matter done. At least this time around my no was 100% accepted and not argued as opposed to my pregnancy with Myla were the doctor pushed and pushed to still receive a big N-O. For me I just don't see the point in it. No matter what the case maybe, what my child maybe born with or what could possibly be wrong with our baby we will always love her and accept her whole-heartedly. We will be thankful for the blessing and gift that God chose to give us and we will cherish her & know that God ALWAYS has a plan and purpose for each child that He creates!

I absolutely love my precious girls and think that we are so blessed to soon have 3 little angels that God has entrusted us with. There is no greater gift in the world and I can not thank Him enough for the blessings!!

Mina army crawl, standing, waving & kissing! Horray!!

2010-11-01T20:31:00.001-07:00

Mina has been doing wonderful!! She seems to be loving life and living more and more. Each day that passes more light, life and spark seem to enter this precious childs body. She is so much happier... smiley and filled with laughter.

She is my best little eater. She will eat and eat and never is there a time she doesn't clean her plate :) And she is definitely not picky. She has been doing great with finger foods and loves to feed herself. We can definitely tell that she has been gaining a little weight. Praise the Lord!! Her little feet look like they've been growing also. Everytime it is meal time and we put her in the high chair she gets so excited and just gets the biggest smile.

She is babbling and baby talking much much more now. She is really good with b sounds like.... ba (for ball) and loves to say bye, and the past couple days she has been saying mama a ton :) Horray!!

Her biggest joy and accomplishment is waving and blowing kisses and she can melt your heart doing it. She always knows when someone is getting ready to leave and she will start making loud noises to get your attention as she blows kisses and waves extatically.
So yesterday and today have been such wonderful blessings and great joy for us!! Last night Mina was in the jumper and I kept telling her to stand up and she did it. She would stand up for about 10-15 seconds and did it probably close to 30 times. We are so proud of her! It was so exciting. She was so proud of herself and did it over and over again with a huge smile. Then today after she went potty on the toilet before her nap I laid her down to put her diaper on and she just quickly rolled over and started army crawling across her bedroom floor. She made it all the way to the other side pulling herself with her arms and pushing her legs behind her :) She isn't up on her hands and knees but she is doing so good and is now more mobile. Before she had been rolling to get to what she wanted and now she can actually pull herself and scoot to get what she wants. We had her do it several times back and forth and I finally caught it on video (although by this point she was a bit tired.) YAY Go Mina!!! She sure has made her mommy and daddy very proud of her! She is just learning so quickly! Amazing what 2 months of love and nourishment can do! This is the same little girl that just 2 months ago couldn't even sit up on her own or drink out of a bottle. WOW!! Blows my mind!

Here's several videos to share with you all the JOY we got to experience today!

Mina showing you her newest accomplishment! Waving, Kissing, and Standing!!

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So cute!! She is jumping jumping away!!!

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Our little crawling machine!! Watch out world Mina is becoming mobile! Woohoo!

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Another video of her standing!

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We finally are getting somewhere with her physical therapy getting started. Our doctor recommend we use Sooner Start for therapy. He said they were really wonderful and do a great job with total overall care and getting you with the therapist and people you need to best help the child develop and learn. So over a month ago we began the process where the doctor sent in the information for us to get started. Weeks went by and I called several times trying to get in contact with someone to set up the initial visit. Well finally after leaving my information and frustration (I might add) with the receptionist a few days later I received a call from a lady saying she was assigned as our resource coordinator and she scheduled an evaluation appt for Mina. We chose the earliest she had available which was a week out. The day arrives, my house is picked up in order and clean to the best of my ability, the girls are dressed and ready and we are sitting around the living room waiting for a nock on the door to meet our resource coordinator. Well 2 minutes before our 9:30 appointment I get a phone call from another lady stating that our coordinator won't be here. So all the preparing, cleaning, and waiting was for nothing. On the bright side my house was in order and my girls were all ready for the day. Then I'm told that I will receive a call from someone in a few days to re-schedule. I wait till the following week- no call. I call in... no answer. I wait some more. Finally another week gone by I get a hold of them and am told that I am assigned another resource coordinator because ours is no longer with them but our new resource coordinator has not yet started so I will have to wait till she gets in the office to receive a call for an appointment. I get a call the next day thankfully and do a 20 minute phone interview and get an appointment scheduled for the next week to finally have the evaluation. The day comes. Same routine of cleaning, preparing and no show. So here my girls are at 12:00 waiting for our company and by 12:30 I get ahold of someone in the office that gives me the # to the lady who was supposed to be at my home. Call her and leave a message. Call the office back and explain the situation and my frustration once again. The receptionist takes down my information and contacts our new resource coordinator and then called me back and apologized saying they are not sure what happened but somehow our appointment slot had disappeared. Not quite sure how that happens. Then she proceeded to tell me that they are no longer doing in home evaluations and I will have to drive my child in for the evaluation about 30 minutes away and it will take around an hour and a half to 2 hours. By this point I was pretty much in tears. Trying to take both the girls downtown, park in a parking garage, tote them to the building and then entertain them for 2 hrs during the evaluation and answer ?s just didn't seem like it would go over all that well... but we had no other choices so the appt was scheduled. About 15 minutes later and if I'm being honest... many tears later.... the lady calls me back and said that 2 ladies in the office that do evaluations overheard our conversation and felt really bad for me and agreed to come to my house the next afternoon. Praise the Lord!! So on Wednesday we met with them in our home. Basically it was just an evaluation to prove to them that Mina does indeed need therapy. Of course in every area and aspect of Mina's life they confirmed that she is extremely behind (as if we needed the confirmation :) So now we are just waiting on getting therapy scheduled at this point. So soon very soon I hope and pray her therapy will finally begin and she will be able to continue to quickly develop as she has been!

It is so crazy to think that Mina has now been home with us for almost 2 months and she has learned so much and changed so much. I took a walk down memory lane earlier today reminiscing and looking at pictures of when we first met Mina and Oh what a different child she was. She has learned so much and we are so proud of our little angel. She continues to amaze us and I look forward to seeing what great things God has in store for her life!!

Family photo shoot!

2010-10-14T08:42:00.000-07:00

Mina's test results- Praise the Lord!

2010-10-07T19:11:00.000-07:00

I am so excited we finally got all of Mina's test results. Everything was normal and negative. There is absolutely nothing wrong with her that they have found. Praise the Lord!! We are so excited and overjoyed!! They tested her for CBC, RPR, Lead, Hep B and C, HIV, anemia, and I think a couple others that I can't remember at the moment. They are sending me a full report on all of the labs done and the results as well as the echo. Even her echo ultrasound for her heart murmur came back normal! Yay! Glad to have all of that complete and finally hear the results! The only test they have left that they want to do is a chromosome analysis test which was what they were going to draw blood for this past Monday. Apparently the test takes quite a bit of blood from what the nurse said when I talked to her. I think we are going to hold off on that because we already know she has DS and I hate to take her and put her through more torcher having more blood drawn already and that's not a high concern since we already know what the outcome of that test will be anyways.

Thank you all for your prayers for her!! We are so appreciative and are so thankful that the Lord has protected little Miss Mina and that she is healthy! Can't ask for anything more than that! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord always!!

Potty potty on the Pot!

2010-10-05T18:53:00.000-07:00

Yes this is Mina sitting on the potty :) LOL We have just been occasionally sitting her on the potty to get her used to it and she actually doesn't mind it anymore. In the beginning she hated it and cried but now she will sit there and actually go sometime! Horray! Still I'm sure we have a long ways to go before she is officially potty trained but I think you can never start to early. After all Myla was fully potty trained by 18 months.... and wouldn't it be so wonderful if Mina is by the time this baby gets here in February so we will only have 1 in diapers :) Well we will see. I know from everything I've read DS children are usually potty trained later but it never hurts to start getting them used to the idea.

Tonight she went poopoo on the potty! Hip hip horray. One less poopy diaper I had to change! She has probably gone #2 at least 15 times on the potty... mostly due to daddy's patience sitting with her... but we are very proud of our girl!

Czech Festival & Echo Ultrasound of Mina's heart

2010-10-05T18:18:00.000-07:00

Well Friday night we spent the night at my parents because when we returned home from Ukraine with our newest little blessing somehow our dogs were covered in fleas. They haven't had fleas in at least 4 years but of course the only month we are ever gone is when they get them and by the time we were home and immediately put frontline on them it was already to late and they had already occupied our home. Grrr..... I hate fleas. I think that would be one question I would want to ask the Lord when I get to heaven the Why?... but of course when that day comes I won't give a flying flip about those annoying little pesky critters. Anyway, Friday we did an in depth thorough clean, vacume and Jim took us to my mom's so that he could do a good spray down of everything in our home. We have been trying numerous things the past month since we made it back and just haven't been able to get rid of them. Good news is that since all of that I have only seen one flea in the past 4 days and have been vacumming and emptying the vacume cleaner like a crazy person and have been praying to the Lord each day to please make them forever gone. So Saturday morning we woke up 2 hrs after my poor husband had fallen asleep (@ 6:30am) cause after he finished spraying he stayed up and worked on his truck changing out the motor mount. He is amazing and my hero :) Oh of topic again.... back to saturday morning when we got up and went to the Czech festival parade out in Yukon. We went to the parade and met up with a lot of our family, ate some yummy food and enjoyed the festivities.

All ready to go to the Parade with her thinking cap on :)
Mina watching the parade with Mommy

Myla watching the parade with daddy!
Playing with balloons!
Watching the parade in Aunt Jamies arms!What a fun fun day we had!!! Today we had to take Mina to have her Echo/ ultrasound of her heart done. We went to Children's hospital and suprisingly it didn't take to long. Mina did great at first and then got really upset in the middle. She kept trying to push the ultrasound scanner thingy off her chest and attempted to pull of the sticky things on her. Don't you just love my medical terminology :) I tried to give her milk, let her play with my phone, toys... but still she was not having it. After many tears mommy got smart and pulled out the puffs. Why didn't I think of that sooner. She loves those things and those kept the tears away... at least until the Echo was done and then she got upset at me for putting the puffs away. LOL Overall she did great!! Of course the person doing it couldn't tell us anything. She said the cardiologist would review it and write up a report this afternoon and that we should probably hear from her pediatrician on Thursday. My mom went with me since Jim is out of town and she thinks that it didn't look exactly right and she thought it appeared there maybe a problem. We are just praying and hoping for the best and waiting till we hear the results. Please say a prayer for little Mina and that all will be fine with her little heart. I will let you all know once we get the results.

Below she is reaching for a puff :)

And here she is eating it!
And this is my super sleepy girl after a long day and practically missing her nap since the Echo was during her naptime.

We still haven't heard back on any of the blood work just yet. Still waiting for a call from the doctors office. We didn't end up going back in yesterday (Monday) for more blood to be drawn quite frankly because I didn't want to torcher the child two days in row. We will probably take her into the lab to have more blood drawn on Thursday or Friday and then it will probably be a week or so on those remaining test results. Once we get back any news I will let everyone know.

Thank you all for your prayers and for continuing to follow our journey and see as our precious girl changes and grows!!

TB Test Results Negative!

2010-09-30T20:04:00.000-07:00

This morning we ran Mina by the doctor's office for them to read her TB spot and it was negative. Glad that is over and done with. Mina is such a wonderful baby. Everyday that passes I am blown away by all the accomplishments and all thats changed. It is just truly amazing. We are so blessed and thankful to have this precious girl in our lives and her smile and laugh light up the room and brings us so much joy!

Toys, Development, State Fair, Doctors, & It's a girl!

2010-09-28T21:55:00.000-07:00

Here's our once again long overdue post.... I will call this the weekly digest :) Lots has happened since the last post.

State Fair, yummy food, playing at Oma's, learning new things, shooting, Doctor's appointment and it's a girl!

So this past week has been full with lots of fun things!! Myla and I went to the state fair and enjoyed some food together and walked around, Mina got to enjoy some time with her Oma & get her fingernails painted, we got to go shooting with some family and friends and have had doctor's appointments.

Mina's appointment was on Monday which you can read about below in the previous post.

Jim had a doctors appointment this am cause he has been having severe migraines... and my ultrasound was this morning. IT'S A GIRL!!! Very soon we will be having our 3rd little girl! Oh how much fun this shall be 3 sisters so close in age. LOL We are very excited and grateful for the little blessing on it's way that the Lord has blessed us with.

Check out all the new pics and some precious videos of Mina!!

Mina has mastered digging through her box of toys!!

Mina and mommy took a trip to Orange tree to get some frozen yogurt and this video shows what she thought about ice-cream. It is so funny! So I guess she's not a big fan of the cold wet amazing treat just yet but I'm sure before long she will love it :)

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OKC State Fair! Myla and mommy took a trip to the state fair while Mina got to hang out, take a nap & play at Oma's. We thought Mina may be a little overwhelmed and overstimulated going to the fair with lots of people around just yet.
Eating lots of yummy state fair bad for you food. We had cheese on a stick, fried pickles, fried snickers, cinnamon roll, jug of root beer & a snow cone. And I think I'm sick just typing it out :)

Playing at Oma's out by the pool.
I showed Mina how to put the balls in the holes on this dinosaur maybe 10 times and helped her do it a few times and here our quick learner is doing it by herself! Amazing!! She is just picking up on things so quickly!

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Coloring sitting in great grandma's (Mimi) lap

Trying out our new double stroller that will soon be a triple stroller. This stroller is amazing. Once the third baby gets here there is a standing board on the back so Myla will stand on the back, Mina will sit in the toddler seat and the baby will be in the back seat. It is the size of a single stroller and is great for outdoors with air pump tires and it pushes so easily. Love it! I won it off of Ebay! Just what we needed!

I included this pic because this was something that was so precious to me. Myla got in the fridge and grabbed out her milk, her sisters milk, and got each of them a bottle. When I walked in the kitchen later there it was all sitting out on the counter. I can't believe my 2 year old is getting so big.

Watching sign language "My baby can talk" videos

Shooting.... Jim and I got to go shooting with some family and friends. Shot a Colt 45, 22 rifle, AR-15 and 356 magnum. Jim has been wanting to teach me how to shoot and now he got the opportunity. Just hopefully I can remember if a day like this ever comes again :) LOL It was fun & I enjoyed doing something with my hubby that he likes to do.

Please excuse the nasty cigar in his mouth. Yuck!

Mina's Doctor Visit, Lab work, and TB Test!

2010-09-27T20:52:00.000-07:00

Monday morning Mina had her second doctor's appointment. The doctor said she looked great and is already looking better. She weighed 15.5 lbs so has gained a little! Yay! She was just a little ham smiling and laughing and talking up a storm. She started waving at the doctor when he walked in the room. So precious! We are so glad and excited to see all these new changes as she seems to enjoy life and be a much happier girl with each passing day.

She had a TB test done which we will take her back in Wednesday or Thursday to have it read and then she had lots of blood work done. She had a vial from each arm drawn and we have to take her back next Monday for more blood to be drawn since she is so tiny. Can't wait to have all these tests out of the way.

Her stool came back normal and no parasites so that is wonderful! Her ultrasound of her heart is scheduled for Oct 5th and once our return appointment next Monday for more blood to be drawn we will just be waiting on the test results.

I felt so bad for my precious girl today because she cried and cried during the TB test and the blood being drawn. She cried so hard little blood spots came up across the bridge of her nose and under her eyes. Poor baby. I am thankful I wasn't the one in the room when she had the blood drawn cause I would've been balling right along with her. Daddy went in with Mina while I waited in the waiting room with Myla. Myla was worried about her sister and kept trying to yell "It's okay sister, It's okay." to comfort her. Oh how thankful I am that is over with.... but said that we have to return for more next week. Hopefully this will be the end of it and everything will come back normal! That is our prayer!

A PRAISE!! Mina has really been trying to say some words. She has said daddy and momma a couple times and she tries to say ball. Sounds like ba. She is really trying and doing great. We were playing peek-a-boo and she kept putting my hand up in her face and then moving it saying boo. She said boo probably 100 times :) LOL and I got her to start doing it with her own hands. So we have been working on that and blowing kisses. She has the waving thing down pretty well now also. Tonight before bed we worked on helping Mina stand up to strengthen her legs which she absolutely hates. She stood there for probably about 2 minutes straightening her legs putting some weight on them while we held her up under her arms. Although she isn't a big fan I'm hoping if we continue it each night it will help strengthen her legs and hopefully she will start to not mind it as much! She is really making some great improvement and we are so proud of her!!!

Here's her battle wounds on her arms. My poor baby. She has two around her upper arm from where the blood was drawn and the pink bandaid is from the TB test. Notice her pretty pink nails in the bottom pic :) Her Oma did that the other day when she was playing over at Oma's house. Don't know how she managed to keep her hands still long enough :)

Pretty princess and her celery stick. She loves cold celery sticks. I give them to her several times a day and I think it just really feels good on her gums and is helping some of her teeth come through. She has 2 more teeth coming in (one front top and one bottom.) Also the celery sticks are wonderful whenever she has had a lot to eat and she thinks she is still hungry when her belly is clearly full and bloated. This helps minimize the tears. We actually have learned that children with DS have a hard time knowing when they are full because their brain tummy doesn't send a message to their brain letting them know they are full so they want to just keep over eating. The doctor said a lot of DS children end up overweight because of it. Although this is not at all a concern for now we have been trying to give her enough food (which is usually more than Myla will even eat) but not feeding her till she stops eating cause quite frankly that time never comes she just keeps on eating till her tummy is hard as a rock and she is sick. So anyways the celery sticks help with that cause once she is finished eating all her food I will give her one of those to chew on and she is happy :)

My crown!

Myla serenading all her baby dolls! :)

And now she needed to tuck them all in her bed to sing them lullabies. Notice each baby has their own bottle of milk or juice. LOL

PLEASE PRAY!

2010-09-20T19:42:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday (today) we have heard that the countries Parliament (from where we adopted Mina) is scheduled to consider a bill to ban all international adoptions. This is not the first time the bill has come up and in the past it has not passed. If it does pass that means adoptions end. Depending upon the terms that could mean that many families well on there way to adopting could end up unable to finish the process to bring their child home and many many children who have families working towards adopting them will no longer be able to be adopted. This breaks my heart for all these precious babies, blessings, and gifts from the Lord that they would no longer be able to be adopted internationally which would make their chances of being adopted much more slim. Please pray pray pray with us that this will not pass. Please pray that international adoptions will still be accepted so that more of these children can have hope at having a family and a home to call their own.

Wonderful news update!! I have heard that it has been postponed indefinitely so for now adoptions can continue as usual! Praise the Lord!! This has aparently come up several times in the past and we are just praying it doesn't come up anytime in the future so that more of these children can have a family and home!

Zoo Trip and Doctors Visits! Long overdue update

2010-09-20T08:50:00.000-07:00

Sorry that I've been slacking on blogging. Daddy has been out of town working this past week so it has been me and the girls till late Thursday night so I haven't found a whole lot of time for doing anything extra. :)
We had Mina's doctors appointment on Wednesday. She did great.... wasn't a big fan of sitting and laying on the table but for the rest of it she was a happy girl. The doctor gave me a list of things he wants us to test for and sent home a stool kit for me to collect stools for them to check for parasites and such. Ewwww..... Mina still has awful awful diapers... not quite as bad as they were at first but still bad. We figured by the time we got her home and fed her good food it wouldn't be as bad but not so. Maybe her tummy is still working on getting fully adjusted. Anyway... I think collecting stools from her diapers is probably one of the grossest things I've ever done in my life. Yuck! Mina weighed 14lbs and is 28.5 inches long. Of course the doctor showed me the growth chart and how she was no where near even being in the 1 percentile... as expected. I wish we knew her weight when we first got to her to see how much she's gained cause I'm pretty sure she's gained some weight over the past few weeks. Her little legs and belly are stating to get a slight bit of pudge on them :) Yay! The doctor also listened to her heart and said she has a heart murmur so someone should be calling me soon to schedule an appointment for an ultrasound of her heart. Also someone should call soon to get started on therapy.

I had my doctors appointment on Thursday and Mimi and Papa came over to watch the girls. I have some precious pics and videos below from the sweet time they spent together. The girls loved it! The doctor said everything sounded great and looked normal. The babies heart beat is 147 and I have an ultrasound scheduled for September 28th. So in just a little over a week we will hopefully know if it is a boy or girl.
Mina has been teething lately and fussy off and on. When I was brushing her teeth the other day there was one area when I brushed over it that she just went nuts and started crying. I felt so bad.... it's one of her back molars on the top and looks like it's about 3/4 of the way through.

Mina is absolutely loving bath time now. She gets in and splashes around and plays with all the toys and doesn't get upset one bit. So glad she has learned to love baths.

And the greatest news of all is she will finally drink milk. She actually isn't a very big fan of juice anymore and will just down the milk. The pediatrician gave me some pediasure to try her on so we did that but I hated all the sugar in those and that it is the 2nd ingredient so I thought I'd just mix that with some milk and she loved it. I just gradually did more and more milk and less pediasure so now I will mix about 1 ounce to 6 ounces of milk and she still drinks it. I'm so glad to be able to get the extra calcium and protein in her.

Mina is such a wonderful little blessing! It is so joyful when she wakes up in the morning and I go in there to check on her trying to figure out if she is awake (since she doesn't cry to let you know she's awake) and when she is and her bright blue eyes are opened and she sees you she gets the biggest grin and reaches her arms up to me to get her out of the bed. So precious! I love those sweet moments. She has turned into quite the little snuggler and cuddle bug!

Enjoying bath time!

OKC Zoo Trip! The gorillas were loving their photo shoot :)

Mina wasn't so happy when I sat her down from holding her

Playing with the gorillas!

Spending time loving on Papa Bud!

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Thursday when Mimi and Papa Huzz were watching the girls

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Daddy is finally home!!

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Daddy was being silly with Mina's puffs. She thought it was funny!

Party, Science Museum, Waving, Partying Star Mina!

2010-09-12T19:01:00.000-07:00

Our precious girl has been changing so so much since we've brought her home! She is just doing wonderful and continues to amaze me! She is such a smart smart girl and is learning so quickly! Her new thing is now waving (which there is a video in the previous post.) She has been sharing toys looking at the person she wants to hand it to as she hands it to them and then giving it to another person and so forth. It is so precious! She also shared her puffs feeding her great grandma the other day :) Here's some recent pics for you all! Our happy girl!

I gave Mina a spoon to hold the other day when I was feeding her and she knew exactly what to do with it. This time she got to use the spoon without food :) (no messes) but soon we will have to try letting her attempt to feed herself and see how she does. She does great with little finger foods!

Mina's welcome home party was so wonderful!! We absolutely loved spending time with all of our family and friends. There was also a great deal of yummy foods and desserts! Mina did great for all the passing around she did but still managed to keep an eye on one of us periodically to make sure we weren't going anywhere. She just snuggled right into everybody. She also got to meet her great grandma that is 101!! We have some precious pics of the two of them. Unfortunately this welcome Home Mina sign pointing to the party was the only picture I actually took on my phone and our camera battery is dead so I can't upload the pics from my camera. Thank you to my sister Christy and sister-in-law Misty for having this party for Mina!

Saturday Morning Jim and I decided we wanted to have a fun family day. We went to Jimmy's Egg and had an amazing breakfast (pineapple ham cream cheese omelet and sweet potato pancakes... YUM!) and then we took the girls to the Science Museum. Mina loved loved loved breakfast. I actually couldn't really get her to stop but the poor child had to be hurting she ate so much. They had a blast at the museum. Our little astronauts

Gymnastics play area!

Playing at home!

Ball pit fun!!

This video shows the life that is now in our child! She is just jumping up a storm, moving her legs, playing with all the toys and she just has really livened up a ton just since we got her home. She looks so playful and energetic and I love it!

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Mina waving!

2010-09-12T16:54:00.001-07:00

I am so excited!! Mina is waving & even putting away her toys in this video. This little girl makes me so proud!! She has come a long way and keeps amazing us with how quickly she catches on and what a little love can do!

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Playtime at home!

2010-09-08T18:50:00.000-07:00

The girls slept till 6am this morning!! Yay! What a blessing that was! Hopefully they will keep sleeping longer and longer well at least till 7:00 would be very nice :) This is the first time since we've been home that they haven't woken up several times in the night so praise the Lord! Here's some precious pics from the last couple days!

Mina playing in her Jumperoo

Video of her jumping and using her legs. She is doing pretty good in the jumperoo and she likes it (accept 4 in the video she was a bit fussy cause she had been in there a while by the time I grabbed out the camera :) Hopefully it will help build her some leg muscles so she can work on crawling and walking eventually.

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Sleeping on Daddy~ Favorite spot to sleep!

Playing with her new top that grandma bought her. She loves it!

Trying to get it to spin

Mina's Welcome Home Party!

2010-09-07T13:59:00.000-07:00

For anyone that would like to meet our precious little Mina and is in the OKC or surrounding areas we are having a welcome home party for her this Friday, September 10th at 5:30pm in OKC. Anyone is welcome to come! Please click the link here to view the Evite with all the details of the event and let us know if you will be attending.
Please be sure to RSVP through the evite so they will have an idea of how many to plan for! Thank you! Hope to see you all there!

First day of Church

2010-09-06T19:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Mina's first day at Church!! Jim and I debated on whether or not to put her in Life Kids right away on Sunday mornings or keep her with us during the sermon but thought it would probably be more difficult on her if we kept her with us then later put her in class. The two ladies who work in her classroom we absolutely love and they are so wonderful and have been anxiously awaiting meeting Mina. She did great! She got a little sad faced when we started walking away and was so excited and lit up with a huge smile when we were back to pick her up. They said she did wonderful, no tears, and she was just a big snuggle bug.

Myla had a little more of a difficult time since it has been over a month since she has been to class. Once they told her they would take her down to see Miss Suzi and her sister in the other class (Myla had recently moved up from) she was excited and went in. They said that after they took her down there she did great, colored, and no more tears. So that is good.

Mina definitely knows that we are mommy and daddy (or maybe at this point just caregivers that she really really loves and doesn't want to see go :) Anytime someone else has her she always wants to keep an eye on one of us to make sure we don't go anywhere. If we both walk out of site she will get a little upset at times. I know this is a good thing because it shows that she already feels an attachment towards us which is awesome! She also has been reaching towards us a lot and lifting her arms for us to pick her up! She has made so many leaps and accomplishments in such a short period of time it is just amazing!

She has been doing great with eating and drinking. She is starting to learn a little more when she is full (although she still will stuff herself) she is not crying really bad when her bowl of food is all gone from her meal. I think she is starting to learn that she will be fed again and again and doesn't have to worry anymore about going hungry. This child eats way more than we can get Myla to eat :) LOL She is doing great with eating finger foods as well. She has been loving all the new tastes she's gotten to try. We have been given her small little bites of what we are eating as well and she has been doing pretty good with that. As far as drinking goes we are still trying to get her to drink something other than juice. I keep watering the juice down more and more but of course the more watered down it gets the less interested she gets. I keep trying milk and hope eventually she will like it. I am going to try blending some fruit in the milk and see if I can get her to drink it that way. She loves yogurt so that is great!

As far as sleeping goes we are all still trying to get adjusted. Or I should say Mina and Myla are still desperately trying to get adjusted and therefore it throws Jim and my sleep off. They have been waking up between 2 and 4ish each night because they think there nap time is bedtime and their bedtime is naptime. So they try to take 4-5 hour naps in the day and we are always having to wake them up (and they aren't happy about that cause they think they still need to be sleeping.) So by the time we get the both of them back to sleep in the middle of the night I am so much awake that I just can't fall back asleep. I am praying and hoping that they can get adjusted quickly so that we can get some good sleep as well.

Our Precious girl!

Oh.... how she loves the puffs!
Mina eating a cheeto puff!

Our trip home!

2010-09-04T21:24:00.000-07:00

What a long long day yesterday was but so joyous! We left our apartment at 4am and arrived at the airport in Kiev. The airport does things quite a lot differently then back home. We had to wait until the airlines put up the check in counter # on the flight info boards to know where to go check in at. That of course made me nervous because we stood around and waited for about 30 minutes and there was only an hour and a half left before the plane left by the time they started check in. So once the # shows up on the screen it is like a crazy mad dash where everyone is rushing to get to that check in counter. We get there and there is about 30 people with luggage all lined up waiting to check in. I thought oh my goodness how are we ever going to make it through all this in time. We went to the back of the line and then an older man told us we were supposed to go up to the front of the line since we have small children and sure enough once we got up there a couple let us in front of them to check in. Oh what a blessing that was! Then you get to another part of the airport where there is security checkpoint and oh my those lines were extremely long. A man that worked for the airlines told us to go over here where there was no line and I guess it was the crew security area cause we were the only people that went through there other than crew members. It was so easy to get through security there. They didn’t check through our liquids, I didn’t have to throw away my bottle of water, they didn’t even make us take Myla out of the stroller they just pushed her through and it set the alarm of but they didn’t act the least bit concerned. Ok… so then there was the passport control after that. More more lines. Grrr… This time I guess we didn’t pick a very good line. It moved the slowest of all then weg et to the counter and the guy was rude as can be. After we handed him our passports (3 US and 1 Ukraine) he said I see two children did you adopt the other one also. I thought seriously there is 1 Ukraine passport obviously not. Then he proceeds to ask us for all of our adoption documents, court decree, birth certificate, etc. We were told by the facilitator team that they very rarely ever check for any of that stuff since you have the passport and Visa but we got the drill sergeant there for the day. He sat back in his chair and read ever paper and let me tell you he took his time. We stood there for about 15minutes. Mina and Myla were both crying by then and there wasn’t much keeping them happy. After that he stands up and says he will be back and takes all our paperwork with us. About another 15 min later he comes back with an attitude, stamps our passports and practically tosses them through the window with our paperwork. Let me tell you the people behind us weren’t the least bit happy like it was our fault and everyone kept staring at us cause our girls were crying. Finally at last we made it in. No more lines praise the Lord. And we got to our gate with about 10 minutes till boarding began. So note to other families examine the passport control lines and look for the person that looks the nicest and take your best guess and better luck to you. That was quite a nerve wracking experience.

Munich was a really nice airport. We got a bite to eat and then went through passport control and security to get to our gate. This security was very thorough. Pretty much everything had to be taken out and every carry on item was searched. They even did some sort of test on our pillows and blankets and we got a full body rub down… and I mean rub down. Talk about feeling violated when someone is patting all over your body. I guess the wand and going through the metal detector wasn’t good enough. And that my friends is US security letting you fly into the United States. Ha ha… Much safer I might add. We had to go to a ticket counter for them to register our passports or something of that nature to get our boarding tickets signed and they had some sort of problem with Mina’s passport that took the guy about 20 minutes but he kept reassuring me that everything was fine. That plane ride was about 9hours and then we arrived in the good ole USA.

Once you get to the USA you have a massive amount of hallways to walk down before you can get to the area to go through passport control and get your luggage. First when you think the hallways will never end and you feel like you are about to fall over you will make it to the passport control and wait in the line to have your passports checked. We picked an awesome line this time around. The guy was absolutely wonderful and very sweet. He took our US immigration adoption packet we received from the Embassy for Mina and looked through it real quickly to make sure it had everything we need. He stamped our passports and welcomed us all home. You then come to an area where you pick up your luggage and go through another line to recheck your baggage. That wasn’t as bad as I thought cause it was basically just grabbing your bags, waiting in line and dropping them off with a worker that put them on a conveyer belt and then we proceeded to security checkpoint. Yes we went through a ton of security checkpoints yesterday : ) LOL They went through all food items in our bag and surprisingly said nutella didn’t pass there inspection test even though it was not yet open and we sell it in the USA. I wonder if they just wanted to keep it and eat it for themselves. Ha ha. The funny thing is a loaf of bread from Ukraine was no problem (which was our bread for our nutella we no longer had) and Mina’s jars of fruit baby food wasn’t at all a problem as well as other chocolate candies from there. Anyways we didn’t argue we just said okay and let them keep it because it would’ve been to much of a hassle to get it put in our check bag and we can always just buy some here. The whole process actually went pretty quick and we made it to our gate with time to spare. We fought staying awake at this point and were so anxious to board our last flight home.

The girls did awesome on all the flights. No major melt downs or tears. We are so proud of our girls. Once arriving home we were so excited to go out and see our family. We gave hugs and kisses and they held Mina then we went down to baggage claim to grab our bags to head out. We then went as a big family to eat Chinese (a food I craved the whole time we were gone) and then we went home where Mimi (my grandma) was waiting to meet her precious great grandbaby. I ended up passing out very quickly once we made it home and my mom and grandma ended up putting Mina to bed. I was so exhausted and nauseated feeling from the lack of sleep.

It feels so good to be home. We are so excited to be here in our own comfort zone where everyone speaks English and we can see our family and get settled in. The girls slept great through the night except Myla got up at 4am to use the bathroom and of course by the time I took care of her I couldn’t fall back to sleep cause my mind began thinking of all the things to do so I decided to just get out of bed extremely early to work on things. It’s amazing how much junk mail you get in a months time : ) LOL

Praise the Lord for our safe travels, beautiful sky and weather, no delays and that we made it to every flight and arrived home on time! We are so grateful to be back home! It was wonderful to show Mina around her new home and she absolutely loved her bed because she slept without waking up till about 8:30 this morning! Yay!

Thank you all for your prayers and for following along. More pictures of our precious girl home with us to come!!

Check out the little infant seatbelt they gave us to put on Mina. It straps to your lapbelt and then around the child for take off and landings. Pretty cool~ haven't seen this before. They also gave Mina this precious little crinkle picture book.

Doing an awesome job at eating some little peices of finger foods and oh so happy!

Munich, GermanyAnd here we go being lazy American's now that the opportunity has arised :) Thank you Lord for these moving walkways that walk for us. LOL

Sisters sitting together watching a movie

Finally in the USA Washington DC. Mina is holding herself up with her arms and her tummy muscles. I was so proud of her because she sat that way and didn't lean back in the seat at all. Great work out for her

And then she was a sleepy girl :)

And still sleepy on the flight home to OKC. Probably cause it was bedtime back in Ukraine. Both the girls were exhausted by this point.

Beautiful blue skies the whole way home!!

At last we've arrived!! Welcome home our precious angel! We are so excited to show you a whole new world!

Mina with grandma seeing Aunt Misty and cousin Keely

Aunt Christy & Uncle Tye letting Tytus hug his new cousin

Oma and Myla

Our familygreeting us home!

Grandma with Mina

Papaw letting cousins see her

Papa Bo at the Chinese Restaraunt holding his newest grandbaby

Oma loving on our angel

Mimi waited at our house till about 10pm when we made it home to spend a some time loving on this baby!

We are home!!

2010-09-03T20:44:00.000-07:00

Mina is officially a US citizen!! Horray! We are so excited to be home! Mina did absolutely wonderful on all the many flights. I will post pics and tell u all about it tomorrow once we're well rested! Night!

Visa & headed home in the AM!!!

2010-09-02T09:39:00.000-07:00

We are so excited and jumping up and down shouting with JOY!!! Today we went to the US Embassy and got Mina's Visa and packet of paperwork to give to the US when we go through customs once we land in Washington DC! It only took about 45 minutes to get everything!

There was a couple other families there from the US getting Visa's for the children they adopted and it was wonderful to sit and visit with them. One was a lady from TX adopting a 14 year old boy who they had hosted last Christmas time to come and stay with them and they had been there for about 8 weeks. Another was a woman who adopted twin 16 year old girls. The girls were absolutely beautiful! They were getting ready to age out of the orphanage and so they came across the host list and the family was going to host them until they couldn't be because they got to old and were having to leave the orphanage so they decided to adopt them. It was so wonderful and so joyful to see those two girls happy and excited with their new mom. I sat there and thought about how their lives so quickly changed and how now the life of them living on the streets, possibly turning to prostiution, and possibly ending up dead by the age of 20 is Very unlikely at this point because a couple stepped forward in faith and said yes to them. There lives will forever be completely changed. Praise the Lord!!

So tonight we took the girls to TGI Fridays!! Yes our last meal before we head back home was American food :) It was so tasty too!! I am so excited if you can't hear me screaming through the computer I am screaming inside. Tomorrow at 4am Nikolay will be here to pick us up and take us to the airport. We have everything we need and Mina is officially ours and very soon once we land in the good ole USA she will be officially an American citizen. I sure hope I can get some sleep tonight and the excitement and anticipation doesn't keep me up with wandering thoughts :)

I tried to post a few recent pics for you while we were at TGIF and had wifi but after numerous attempts I gave up. So I will have to post some pics once we are back home!! Thank you all for following along our journey. We will continue to post pics, videos, and stories as our precious Mina changes, learns and grows so you all can continue and follow along if you'd like. Next post from the USA!!! Horray!!!

Blessings to everyone of you!

US Embassy and Medical

2010-09-01T13:56:00.000-07:00

Today started off to be a bit confusing but we made it through the day. We never got a phone call like we were expecting to let us know what time we would be picked up this morning all I knew was that I talked to Marina a couple days ago and she said Yulia would call to let me know the time and would probably be by sometime around 9am. Well 9:30 rolled around and we hadn't heard anything. I had tried to call from our Ukraine phone but realized we were all out of minutes so tried calling through skype but no one would answer the call since it of course rings in private no. After calling Marina several times she answered and asked if she could call me back in a couple hours till she realized who I was and then she quickly said hold on a minute and called me back and told me Nikolay would be here in 10 minutes to get me. She called about 20 minutes after that to make sure he had picked me up and we were on our way to the embassy.

Well it took about an hour to get to the embassy because we had to go pick up another guy and his son that was adopting through another organization. We arrived at the embassy went in and filled out paperwork for the Visa and then waited in the car about 20 minutes for the other man to be finished up. Then we drove to a place for the Medical. That was extremely quick and the doctor acted a bit suprised that Mina has down syndrome because she didn't think she looked like it. Mina weighs about 14 lbs fully clothed. Well we then waited about 45minutes for the other guy to get x-rays of his son and then we had to go drop him back off at his apartment and then finally we were taken back to our apartment.

Our girls were extremely exhausted, fussy, and starving by this point. Mina had eatin her baby food I brought her and they had gone through all the snacks in the bag but it was 2 1/2 hours past lunch and naptime. Once we arrived at the apartment we had to pay Nikolay for driving us around that day which was a bit frustrating because here we shared a ride with someone else and most the day was spent waiting on the other guy and we were charged by the amount of time (not to mention we were confused and thought that was included in the facilitators cost.) So for any RR families using Yulia just to warn you in advance you will be paying for the travel fees to the embassy, medical, back to the embassy, and airport. You probably know this but just in case I'm putting it out ther :)

Tomorrow Nikolay will be picking us up around 1:20 and then going back to pick the other guy and his son up and then to the Embassy to our appointment at 2 to get Mina's visa. Hopefully tomorrow we will both be finished up around the same time and will not be waiting around on him. We could call and try to get another driver but that just seems like confusion plus our phone is still out of minutes and we need to go find a place to put more on it.

After we returned to the apartment Myla was sleeping so we just laid her down, Mina we fed and put down for a nap and then Jim left to run grab us some lunch cause we were hungry. Later that evening we got out and ran to the store to get more diapers, wipes, baby food, water and a few other essentials to get us through tomorrow. Of course we went to 3 different places to buy all those things we needed and went into about 4 others looking for what we needed. LOL Oh how I miss Target (where everything is under one roof.) Ha ha!

So excited that tomorrow is our last day!! Horray!! We will get Mina's visa tomorrow and then Friday early morning we will be picked up around 4am to head to the airport. So happy we will be headed home so soon and can't wait to introduce Mina to her new world!

We met some couples from RR tonight at TGI Fridays. That was great to get to visit with everyone. We met Lyndi (adopting Fedia), Sandra & Marshal adopting Mallory & Peach, and the Stratton's adopting Ivanna. We really enjoyed our visit with them and it was great to get to introduce Mina to them all. Both the girls did wonderful at the restaraunt. Glad we got to meet some RR families and put faces with names and children! It was also wonderful to get to meet Lyndi because she has been so wonderful and helpful to us through our whole adoption process with all our dossier documents so it was nice to get to meet her in person. She got to hold Mina tonight a couple times and Mina actually cried for me to take her back and reached for me. That definitely made me feel good that she feels comforted by me and can already distinguish the difference and know that I am her mama.

Sorry I ramble on and on... this blog has basically been our journal of everything we've done and gone through since we've been here so I don't like to leave anything out so that we can have this to always remember everything :) So if you all get bored of reading I do apologize :) Off to bed now!! Nighty night!

Our trip to Kiev

2010-08-31T09:41:00.000-07:00

We are finally here!! We have Mina's passport & we headed for Kiev at 1:30 this afternoon. It took much longer to get here because it has been pouring rain all day & lots of traffic. We also stopped for some supper with Rostik.

The girls slept the first hour or so of the trip and the rest was spent trying to keep Myla entertained. Mina did great. She was just along for the ride & loved watching out the window.

Once we get out bags all brought up to our apartment we are going to bed. These are sleepy kiddos and I'm a tired momma. It is almost 8pm here. Glad we made it safe and sound!!

Our sleeping beauties!

Groceries for all future adopting families

2010-08-30T13:07:00.000-07:00

So after our struggle to find the right kind of grocery items and figuring out through trial and error we thought we would compile a grocery list for any future adoptive parents. The brands may vary a bit by region and everything but we thought that people could have an idea and read the words on the packaging to find what they need where they are. Hope this helps!!

The best bottled water we found... and trust me we tried a lot. This one tastes like filtered bottle water and not tap and it has no bubbles!

We tried lots of juice and this brand is the best. Several brands tasted like sugar water and not at all fresh. This one is supposedly 100% juice and tastes like it. They make all different kinds (apple, orange, grape, pineapple, grapefruit, etc.)

This is instant coffee. I'm not a coffee drinker but Jim is. This is his favorite instant coffee out of the ones he has tried here.

This is ketchup. They have lots of bags with pictures of tomatoes on them and we have tried 3 different bags. One was chunky tomatoes, one was like spaghetti sauce, but this particular one is ketchup.

This is the cheese we found to be the most like cheddar. It tastes the best when it is melted or cooked in something. Grilled cheese is great or scrambled eggs with cheese! Yum!

This is real butter.... NOT margarine.

This is salt. Couldn't find any salt shakers. Our driver helped us find this and it is just a box of what he calls Ukrainian salt :)

Pepper

Flour

These are 2 different flavors of Ramen Noodles. They are both great. Mix a bit of butter, some vegetables, and scramble an egg in it to make it a bit more healthy. Definitely reminds me of home!

Cross between mayonnaise & miracle whip

Milk tip: always check the date on any type of dairy you buy. Lots of it will be expired

Hope this helps!!

Packing 2 head back 2 Kiev!

2010-08-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

This morning we got a phone call from Marina. Mina’s passport will be ready at 1 for us to pick up tomorrow afternoon and then we will be on our way to Kiev. We spent today packing our bags and getting things ready for us to leave. We will get settled in to another apartment once we arrive in Kiev and then Wednesday morning go to the US embassy to do Visa paperwork and her medical. As far as we know Thursday we will go pick up her Visa in the afternoon and then Friday we will be flying home! Yay! Can’t believe it’s just a few days away. We got our plane tickets changed today and we will be departing Kiev at 6:45am and arriving in OKC at 7:19pm on Friday. Crazy to think that full 19 hour flying trip can be done all in one day but once you take in to account the 8 hour time difference it makes sense.

So we decided to try Mina in a sink bath since Myla had already had a shower earlier today and Mina slips and slides all over the big tub so we thought this might be easier on us all. Well here is some precious pics of our girl in the sink splishing and splashing and getting clean then next thing you know our little Myla has once again taken her clothes off and wants to get in the bath with Mina. Well as mommy is explaining to Myla that she has already taken a shower today and the sink is to small for her dad plops her in for the humor of it all. So there I was cracking up taking pictures of our 2 girls in a small sink taking a bath. Of course they didn’t mind & Myla didn't stay in long :)

And here's Myla :) he he

Mina has been doing great holding her bottle and is doing so much better sucking. She actually sucks now and it doesn't end up soaking everything in sight. Yay!

Playing with her stacking dolls!

Mina & Myla playing together on the couch while dad gets a few minutes of shut eye

Sorry about all the naked pics of Myla... she is always taking her clothes off when we are at home. Myla is showing Mina her book and telling her all about the people in the pictures.

Here's our precious girl sitting up all by herself with a big smile!! I love this girl!

And now sticking her tongue out at everyone :)

Another video of our awesome girl sitting up great all by herself and she is feeding herself Gerber Puffs! We are so proud of her each and every day. She has come such a long way in such a short time!

YouTube Video

This is the picture of her taken a little over a week ago by Svetlana for the US Emabassy. I believe this will be her Visa picture but not 100% sure

I am so excited that we are getting so close to coming home and that we have our little angel with us each day. She is such a blessing and joy to be around. She is livening up more and more each day and is developing her own little personality. She has been smiling lots more and is also learning patience when it comes to eating and somewhat when she is full. Before she would cry and cry if she saw any of us eating something and she would eat and eat and eat until her tummy would be bloated as hard as a rock and we knew she couldn't feel good so we had to moderate the amount we gave her at a time and just fed her more often. Now she is starting to get to where she will decide when she is full and she will stop eating on her own and won't get upset when we take it away so that is good! Like I mentioned before she is doing much better with drinking from a bottle and it doesn't spill and run all over her face and clothes anymore. She has a lot more control of her tongue and is doing a much better job sucking. We are so so proud of her!!

She is also not waking up as many times and crying in her sleep at night. Before she would wake up every hour and stir and cry and babble and make all sorts of noises all throughout the night. Now she is sleeping much more peacefully and doesn't usually wake up at all in the night till 6:30 in the morning when she is ready to get up.

Family and friends we can't wait to see you all when we get home and share our little ray of sunshine with you! She is truly a precious precious girl & can't wait till you get to meet her.

If any of you missed my last post (or I should say 2 posts ago) there is several more pics of Mina since she has been here with us in the apartment.

Thank you all for following along and for all your sweet sweet comments. I look forward to getting on and reading your encouraging words each day!!

Precious Orphans~ Adopting 1 child does not change the world... BUT for that 1 child the world will change!

2010-08-29T12:15:00.000-07:00

Ok.... so I first heard this statement at Ruslana's (Eliana) banquet and it touched my heart.

Adopting 1 child DOES NOT change the world....BUT for that 1 child the world will change! Adopting Mina will not change the life and outcome of all these other children here.... it will not make their lives any better but for Mina her life will forever be changed. She will forever be loved and cared for. She will forever know what it feels like to have a mommy and daddy to shower praises and kisses and hugs on her. Her world will forever be changed! It is so hard for me to see all these other children and think unless someone comes for them their world will not change, their lives will not change, their future will not change, they will never experience love of family, they will never be fed enough to nourish their little bodies, and sadly many of them may die. That just breaks my heart! I just wish we could love on them all, kiss them all, hug them all, sing to them, read books to them, play with them.... although I know it is completely impossible! There is soooooo..... many orphans in this world! It is so hard to look in the eyes of one of these children, kneel down and hug them or hold there hand and think and imagine what they must be thinking, what they must be feeling, and wondering will they even still be here... will they even still be alive a few years down the road. Oh how I wish so badly I could change the world... I could change the lives of all of these precious innocent children. That the little girl that bangs her head on the wall in Mina's groupa will no longer have to do that for stimulation, that the little boy that always greats us at the door will no longer get in trouble for just wanting a second of love and attention, that these little babies won't be left to lie on their backs and never learn to sit up or walk. I pray that through our adoption journey others may come to realize the need for adoption and the need for these orphans survival. I pray that God would embrace each and everyone of these precious angels with His love and comfort them. I pray that God would stir the hearts of His people to hear the calling and to receive and perceive children as gifts and blessings from Him. That our eyes would be open. That we would look at these little ones and think Wow.... God you made a beautiful creation, this child is wonderfully and perfectly made, this is a special blessing and gift of Life and I will gladly say Yes and accept such a precious gift! I can't imagine if we hadn't said yes to accepting Mina as our daughter. My mind thinks and wonders.... how much time would she even have left to survive in her current situation, how long would it take till her tiny frail body gave out on her, how long would she just stare at the wall and what thoughts would fill her mind. Would she ever learn to sit up on her own, or walk, or talk... most likely not. Would she ever smile, and laugh, and cry tears of joy? Would she ever know what love and kisses felt like? I praise you Lord for putting a burden on both of our hearts that we could not ignore. That no matter what negativity came our way you continued to reconfirm to us that we are on the right path and we are doing what you have called us to. I praise you Heavenly Father for protecting our little girl and keeping her safe till we could get to her. I praise you for calling us and blessing us with this precious gift of life and thank you for giving us the most precious blessing there is in the world. I thank you for giving us a glimpse through your eyes and feel the hurt and burden for these children. I can't even begin to imagine how all of this must hurt you. I pray that you never let us shake and ignore all these tragic things but that we would continue to do something about it. Please make the things that matter most in life always be more apparent and the things of this world disappear in our hearts. I remember the first day we met Mina looking at her thinking oh my goodness what in the world did we get ourselves into. We had thoughts and envisions of what we thought she would be doing developmentally by now, how big she'd be, what she'd look like. We thought for sure she was sitting up because that is what we already where told and we thought since she has been working on crawling surely 6 months later she'll be crawling by now or close to it. Which I firmly believe she was able to sit up when her parents brought her to the orphanage when she was 6months old and probably getting close to crawling but then after left in the orphanage no longer experiencing the love of her parents, no longer being individually worked with on a daily basis and just laying down on her back all day everything she could do went down hill. Jim and I together thought are we really going to be able to do this, have we completely lost our minds.... but of course looking at that tiny frail malnourished body and all these months of loving her and dreaming of her being our child we couldn't look at her and say no we are just going to leave you here and hope for your survival... because the odds in her survival for years to come are slim to none. There is no way in our hearts we could ever do that to this precious girl! In just a few weeks time it is amazing to see the leaps and bounds she has already made. It is amazing to us that she is already doing such a great job at sitting up and that she is smiling, laughing, interacting with her sister, and loves playing with toys. She seems already like a totally different girl than the one we met a few weeks ago. I can't wait to see all God has in store for her and all the progress she continues to make.. I look forward to helping her develop and grow and do everything she can do! And I am so thankful that we get to be there and experience these changes with her. She has already melted our hearts and already has daddy wrapped around her little finger. We are so thankful for the blessing and gift God gave us in giving us this little girl and entrusting her life in our hands! What an honor it is to be her mommy & daddy! There are so many precious precious children that we saw in Mina's orphanage and there is children left without parents ALL OVER the world who need someone to say yes to them. Here are a few pics of these precious children who we got to see, smile at, wave at for a brief moment to pay them a bit of attention and show them that they are worth far greater than the way they may feel. Some of them might have a parent or family member that may come visit them but several of them never have anyone that comes for them and I can't imagine how forgotten they must feel. They would get big smiles and grins, wave, blow kisses, call you momma and papa and all the while my thoughts and mind wondered what each of their future will hold. For the special needs children will they be transferred to an institution far worse than the orphanage they now reside in. Will any of these precious children end up tied down to beds or pass away before they get to that point or from malnourishment. For the ones that get older and reach 16 resulting in them having to leave the orphanage to make room for the others will they turn to crime, prostitution, or commit suicide.

60-70% of boys will become involved in crime for survival after leaving the orphange
60-70% of girls will become prostitues for surivual after leaving the orphanage
And 1 in 6 will commite suicide before their mid-20s because of hopelesness

When I looked into the eyes of these children my thoughts and prayers for their innocent lives wondered what hope or hopelesness they might experience in their future to come and my heart breaks for them. What precious babies, children, blessings, gifts from our God above just waiting for someone to come for them so that they to might have a better changed life as Mina and so that for them there world may also change!

If anyone is considering adopting I encourage you to step out in faith, trust in the Lord, and just say yes. You will be receiving one of the greatest gifts on earth!

Since our angel has been with us!

2010-08-29T08:38:00.000-07:00

Today has been a day spent lounging around the apartment just spending time all together as a family. It has been very cold here the past few days and it is way to cold to take this kiddos out because we didn't pack a lot of wintery clothes for them. So we just stayed home, watched kid movies, played, and spent time together. I got a call from Marina this morning and she said that it looks like our passport will be ready to pick up Tuesday so we will pack tomorrow, pick up our passport Tuesday and head straight from their to Kiev. Once in Kiev we will get settled in another apartment where we will stay our last 2 days here in Ukraine and then on Wednesday morning we will go to the US Embassy. Thursday we will finish up stuff and be able to head home on Friday. So that is the plan! So finally the pictures and videos you all have been waiting for. Our precious girl has been with us in our apartment for the past 4 1/2 days. Sorry I've not been able to keep up with pics and postings.
Here's lots of pics of our special moments with our new blessing! First morning (Thursday) waking up! So sweet! Myla hugging & snuggling with her baby sister.... so excited she is here! Every morning when Myla walks into our room and sees Mina on the pallet she gets so excited and says Mina really loud and runs over to lay with her on her pallet. She absolutely adores her little sister & it just melts my heart!

Mina playing with a yellow balloon on a stick

YouTube Video

We had a special blanket made just for Mina to show her all the love & support it took to bring her home. There are many quilt squares with loving words, scriptures, and prayers for our little girl. We are so grateful to all those who helped make this blanket possible for her. To my mom for working so hard sowing the front of the quilt together to make the squares for people to sign, for all those who offered loving words and messages to fill her squares, and to my wonderful cousin Alex who stayed up late late late and worked so hard for us to get the quilt put together with a beautiful ruffle trim so that we could have it in time to take it to Mina. We are so thankful for all those who blessed this little girl in giving her something she can cherish for life and look back and see the Love that brought her home!

She absolutely loved the big pink bow and card my cousin tied around her blanket for her!

Friday morning waking up!! Here is where Mina has come in our room and layed down beside her sister on her pallet.

Myla playing a game while sister watches.
Intently watching

Myla thinking Mina is thirsty. She always makes sure she never goes without a drink :)
So this video was much longer but I cut it down. Notice how well Mina is sitting up. She sat there for about 5 minutes without anything proping her up. She is doing great and will sit up for several minutes at a time. So proud of her!

YouTube Video

Friday afternoon Jim took Myla out for a daddy daughter play date! :) She needed to get out for a bit after all the time spent in the apartment. She had such a blast with her dad. This was them at NY Pizza!

Driving a car!

YouTube Video

Playing in one of the many play zone areas!

Jumping on the trampoline

YouTube Video
What a fun fun day with daddy she had!!

Here's Mina trying a Gerber biscuit for her first time and she LOVED it!! This kept her well entertained for close to 20 minutes and she just about ate the whole thing.

Think this pic is so funny!

Video of Mina enjoying her biscuit!

YouTube Video

This is how Mina will fall asleep (either that or laying on her belly.) But then she moves and moves and ends up all over the place despite the many pillows. I have even had to move her back on her pallet in the middle of the night when she has ended up on the hard floor. She always kicks her blanket off no matter how many times I put it back on her during the night.

And this is one of the many positions she will wander to in the middle of the night while she sleeps. Notice her head is the opposite direction and up against the wood door.
This morning laying on daddy!

Just a random pic. This is the hallway to our apartment & that was a bat on the wall above the door hanging from the cord

Mina's groupa room NO MORE!

2010-08-29T07:29:00.001-07:00

This is the room where Mina spent the last 14 months of her life. Never again will she have to see this place, lay on the hard playpen or floor and not get the love and attention she so much deserves!

The orphanage Mina has spent the last 14 months of her short life

2010-08-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

This is the orphange where Mina spent 14 months of her life. Although from the pictures you can't tell it was built in 1979.
Where we enter and leave each day for our visits

Mina lives in the very far down on the right area.

All the many long pointless hallways.

Patch job to keep the wall from further cracking.

Many playground areas around the orphanage.

Several playing areas where extremely overgrown. They use a weedeater to cut the grass.

The supermarket we do most our shopping at

2010-08-29T07:24:00.001-07:00

This is the supermarket we would walk to on the far right end. We did most of our shopping for groceries and things here. It was about a 10 minute walk from our apartment and it was pretty much like their Walmart. You would have to put all your belongings inside a bag that zips and locks when you enter the store and then when you leave someone unzips it for you to get your things back out. Apparently they have a lot of theft or something.

Doesn't this bread look yummy!! I usually have to buy the prepackaged breads because it grosses me out that there are bugs flying around lots of it. At least I don't know what happens to the packaged bread before it gets packaged ;)

Grains, rice, etc you scoop into bags and weigh

Feeling Better today & Anniversary!

2010-08-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

I apologize in advance for all the skipping around.

Thank you all for your many prayers and sweet words! I am definitely feeling much better today but still mostly just staying around the apartment & resting. We did get out and grab a bite to eat by our apartment today but that's about as much walking as I felt up to. My fever is completely gone and my throat is feeling much better, still minor aches and back pains but not near as bad as it was and most my migraines have gone away. Now I've basically just been dealing with lack of energy & dizziness at times... but so much better than I was! So thank you all for your prayers... and sorry about the lack of posts. I haven't really felt up to it.

Mina is doing wonderful! She is such a little doll! A precious little angel and we just absolutely adore her. She is eating great & loving it! She actually gets upset at us when her bowl of food is gone and starts to cry and throw a little fit and give us a pouty lip... I feel bad but her little belly will be buldging and we don't want to feed her so much she is sick. We have been feeding her lots of smaller meals a day to try to make it easier on her tummy. She absolutely loves Gerber Puffs and does extremely well feeding herself them. She also got a Gerber toddler biscuit and that kept her happy for a long time until she got down to the last bit where it started to break off in chunks & she tried shoving them all in her mouth & made herself start choking so mommy & daddy took the last big chunks out of her mouth. She wasn't happy with us for that but we definitely didn't want her choking and hurting herself. She doesn't like milk at all (not warm or cold) she just spits it out. She doesn't like water... just juice (cause that's all she ever had in the orphanage.) She wasn't a big drinker of the juices we bought from the store and watered down so I boiled some fruit and water on the stove and made her juice like they do in the orphanage and she drinks that much better. I may have to do that for a little bit until we can get her to like other things and ween her on them.

We are so glad she is finally with us and we are able to feed her, love her, bathe her, snuggle her, kiss her, rock her, sing lullabies and tell her each day how much we love her. You can just see her world brighten up more and more each day.

Yesterday Morning Mina woke up around 6:30 and cried and woke Myla up. Today Myla walked in our room and woke Mina up. Myla is so excited to see her sister she wants to lay with her on her pallet, snuggle, kiss her, and help feed her, get her what she needs, whatever it may be. It is to cute. This morning when she came in our room she said Mina up and ready to play with Myla :) LOL She keeps talking about flying back on an airplane to take her sister home.

Nap times & bed times~
Well Mina is the busiest most moviest child I have ever seen in their sleep. She moves all over the place even with 4 pillows proped around all sides of her (can't wait to get home to the crib.) She also wakes up off and on lots of times in the night. Seems every hour or 2 she will wake up cry, moan, make babbling noises and then in a few minutes she will fall back to sleep. The girl will be turned all kinds of crazy ways several times in the night and many times I've gotten up to move her back on her comfy pallet or to get her head away from a wall.

So Yesterday Jim took Myla out in the afternoon for a daddy- daughter date. They got to go get Pizza and ice cream and daddy took her to drive her very first car and let her play in the play areas. She had such a blast with her dad and it was good for her to get out of the aparement. Mina hung out with Mommy and we rested and played on the couch and I tried not to do to much.

Tomorrow I promise I will try to get some pics posted since we've gotten her out of that place. Most the newer pics are on Jim's phone so we need to go where there is wifi so he can email me the pics so that I will have them on my phone to update through our blog app.

Last thing today is our 6 year anniversary so i just wanted to say Happy Anniversary to my dear sweet husband! Thank you for taking care of all your girls and for always loving us. So sorry we didn't get to celebrate and that I didn't feel up to doing much! You are an amazing husband! xoxo.

And my best friend - brother of over 10 years is getting married today! I am so so happy for him and his wife and wish so badly we could be there! If you're reading this congrats to the both of you, have the greatest time & make wonderful memories. We love you both!
Sorry for the spiraticness to the post and jumping all over... I keep starting to doze as I type this... off to sleep! Thank you all once again!

Doctors visit~ Pregnancy!

2010-08-26T12:03:00.000-07:00

Well I wish I could say today was such a wonderful day enjoying our new little blessing but that’s not quite how the day went. My fever went back up again during the night and I’ve had terrible aches and pains with severe migraines, dizzy spells, and sore throat. This afternoon Julia met me and took me to the doctor. Oh my how the doctors are different here than back home. The first doctor did a pelvic exam… probably the most painful exam I’ve ever experience and not sure how sterile. I was literally shedding tears. She then tells me that I need to be hospitalized and stay there for however long so that they can evaluate me and check me each day. I about panicked. I did not at all feel comfortable being put in a foreign hospital where nurses and doctors would come in who I wouldn’t understand and who knows what type of medicine they would give me. Not to mention all the other fears that would go along with that. I told them I would rather fly back to the US and get medical care there. The doctor advised I leave asap and go back where I can have medical care. Julia said that was good because she would worry about me being there in the hospital by myself and who knows how long they would keep me. They had me right in English on a piece of paper that I was advised to be hospitalized and refused. Then I went to an ear, nose and throat type doctor who prescribed me some throat spray. Then I went to have an ultrasound down. For all those who don’t know I AM PREGNANT! I am 14 weeks and due February 22nd. This has been a big part of our concern with me being sick right and left. So we saw the baby move and the dr said he could see the heart beat but that my uterus is having spasms. They kept wanting to give me shots of different things. They wanted me to get a shot for my fever but I told them I have Tylenol which helps reduce fever and I’d prefer to take that. Then they wanted to give some other shot (can’t remember what that one was for.) And they wanted to give me a shot for the spasms. I asked about that in pill form so that I could check with my doctor back home before taking it. My mom called the pharmacist back home to check on that medicine and they said absolutely not do not take it. Thankfully I didn’t let them talk me into getting a shot and thankfully I got out of them hospitalizing me. I was so fearful and it was such a crazy different experience. All that and it only cost 300 grivnas ($37.) I was advised to not do anything, no walking, drink lots and lots of fluids, and basically stay in bed all day and go home to get medical care. Jim and I have debated on whether or not I should go or stay this last week with him. As of now the plan is for me to stay because I am so weak and dizzy and just about fall over anytime I stand up so I’d be afraid of being in an airport with Myla and pass out or something happen. Plus I just don’t think I have the energy to get the 2 of us back home at this point. So I am taking Tylenol for the fever and got an antibiotic and will be doing a lot of resting and lying down.

Please pray for Jim. Pray that God gives him strength and help him to not get stressed during this time as he cares for his 3 girls. He is such a wonderful husband and father. Today has been quite difficult on him because the worry of his wife being sick and the girls didn’t nap well this afternoon which made for a cranky evening. Plus lets just say you should see our apartment now. I feel so bad that I am not able to help him with everything. I was looking forward to enjoying these precious new days as a family and it’s not quite turned out how I’d imagined.

I am very thankful that for the next few days we don’t have anything we have to do. Monday or Tuesday we should get the passport and then be in Kiev probably Wednesday and Thursday and fly home Friday. Hopefully if all goes well. Marina our facilitator said to pray that the passport is done on time with no problems because the US Embassy is closed the last Friday of the month so if the passport is not finished by Tuesday we would have to wait until the following Monday to go to the embassy.

Thank you all so much for your prayers and following along our journey. Sorry no pics today. Hope everyone is well!

Gotcha day!!

2010-08-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

Today was gotcha day & what a busy joyous day it was! We woke up this morning without knowing the plans for the day got a call from Rostik saying he’d be by to pick us up at 9:10 and that we would meet Marina at court. We met Marina and waited in the car while she picked up the court decree, drove to the department of vital statistics to get Mina’s birth certificate with us listed as her parents. We waited in a skinny crowded hall where several people kept trying to ask us questions while we were waiting on Marina. We just kept shaking our head and saying we don’t know. Then after about 20 minutes Marina came out to get us to sign papers so we could get the birth certificate and be on our way. Next stop was to the orphanage to pick up Mina and Svetlana (the head nurse.) We went to the passport office and got Mina’s picture taken and paperwork done to obtain her passport. Of course we ended up having to walk across the street to another office and left the diaper bag in the car thinking we’d be in and out and of course Mina had an awful diarrhea diaper. Picture taken, made it back to the car, changed her and waited for Marina to come out of the other office. Then off to the two banks where Mina had fund accounts set up for her where the government/ orphanage deposits money into an account for her so that if she was never adopted she would later on in life get the money (I believe after she was out of the orphanage system due to age... if she was still alive by then.) Went to one bank and waited in the car while Svetlana took care of some stuff, ran to the other bank, signed papers to close Mina’s account and to sign the money over to the orphanage to be given to the other children. Went by the apartment and dropped Myla and Jim off because she was cranky and extremely tired. Went back to the first bank and finished up paperwork to sign that money over to the orphanage. By this time it was an hour past Mina’s lunch time and nap time and she was getting sleepy and cranky. She fell asleep in my arms for a little bit. We then went back to the orphanage and I took Mina to her groupa for them to feed her while I went up to Svetlana’s office to sign some paperwork to get Mina out of the orphanage. I gave the orphanage director, Svetlana, and the 5 caregivers and 5 nurses their gifts and then went back down the hall to get Mina to come home at last!! She was cranky and so very sleepy. The caregivers asked for her clothes that we brought so I got them out of her bag & they took them and dressed her. I did not put her hairbow in I stayed up till 1 in the am making for her because she was just so cranky and couldn’t handle one more thing. Marina and I left the orphanage quickly. It was amazing how fast the day went today and all the many things we crammed into such a short time. Marina really is an extremely hard worker. We made it back to the apartment where daddy met us at the car downstairs to video us bringing Mina into the apartment. We didn’t have much time for pictures cause like I said the girl was cranky and tired. We put her down for a nap and she slept about 3 hours. We finally went in and woke her up so she would be able to sleep tonight. She is such a happy little camper.

Svetlana today was talking to Marina and telling her that she can see a huge change in Mina in the short time we’ve been here. She told her that when she sat her up to take a picture for the embassy last week she was amazed at how well and strong Mina was sitting up and that usually she would just fall over when propped up.

We told Svetlana about the bumbos and that we are going to mail some to the orphanage for the kids and showed her a picture and explained them to her. She was so excited and said she thought that would be wonderful and that they don’t have anything like that anywhere here. She said that it is so hard for the caregivers to be able to work with the children on sitting up because they can’t sit there and hold them up throughout the day and there is nothing like that children can sit in. I am really excited to be able to send them some and think that it will make a huge difference for many of these children. I know it sure would have been a helpful tool for Mina.

Myla was so excited that today was the day we got to bring Mina home. She actually woke up at 6 this morning saying Mommy Mina gets to come home with Myla today! Needless to say she was so excited about it that she couldn’t go back to sleep so that is another reason why she had to come home this afternoon for a nap. She also was excited to finally get to take a bath and splash with her sister this evening. It took Mina a minute to get used to the water but she sure loved to splash. Mommy and Daddy are excited that she is all clean now and that she smells so good!!!

Mina did an awesome job eating dinner and we even gave her some puffs which she loved and has mastered at getting in her mouth all by herself!! So proud of our girl she has come such a long ways!

Please pray for me again. I have no idea why I can’t stay well and keep getting sick. I practically never get sick back home. Last night I started to get a sore throat and had a rough time sleeping… part of which was because my back and body ached really bad and the other part was sheer excitement for today. I woke up with swollen glands and a terrible migraine and my body has just been really achy. This afternoon after making it home I laid down to take a nap cause I wasn’t feeling well and checked my temp which it got up to 101.9. Please just pray that I get completely better. That any illness would just leave my body, that the headaches, achyness, and sore throat would go away, and that my energy level would be restored so I can enjoy this new time with our precious girl and play with her lots!

Today ended up mostly being a lazy afternoon for us because of this and she was quite the trooper. Daddy took Myla to go get us some supper to go and pick up more bottled water and Mina hung out with Mommy on the bed. She didn’t fuss one bit. She just seems really happy and kept looking at me with a grin on her face! So precious! I love that girl and am so excited that she is finally with us where she belongs! Her and her sister are both now sleeping peacefully and we are two happy and proud parents!

Mina's first car ride leaving the orphanage for passport pics

Best family portrait we could get :)
This is what Mina thought after all the running around and missing her nap time. She was sure sleepy!
The 2 caregivers working today when we got to get Mina and say our goodbyes!
Made it home to the apartment & just got a pic in before she wasn't having it any longer and we put her down for her nap
Sleeping Beauty all snuggled in on mommy & daddy's bed!
First bath home!! Splishing and splashing!

Video of Mina and Myla splahing in the tub!

YouTube Video

Clean dry baby all bundled up!

PJs on and ready for bed!!

Mina's Ukrainian Wardrobe~ Celebrating Independence day!

2010-08-24T10:22:00.000-07:00

Today we went to our last 2 orphanage visits!! Yay!! We also got to feed Mina lunch again and I should have a very own blog post to tell you all about the most horrible awful diapers we have ever changed in our lives (& we've changed quite a few diapers.) Many people warn about those terrible orphanage diapers but boy there is really no way to prepare yourself for that. Since we fed Mina lunch yesterday during this afternoon visit it decided to all come out at us and Jim and I worked through fighting back gagging/ throwing up and tears from hard laughter during 2 explosive diaper changes. You can tell that girl hasn't ever had that much to eat before because we've hardly changed any diapers during any of our visits till now. Glad she's getting some food and fluids in. Today for lunch we didn't feed her the entire bowl all though I'm sure she would've had every last bit of it. Her little tummy was hard as a rock and we'll probably have to feed her smaller more frequent portions while her tummy adjusts to the change. Now we are getting already to bring our little Mina bean back to our apartment tomorrow. So I went shopping today to figure out which of the special dresses I posted previously we should buy. My favorite was #6 the beautiful dressy one with little yellow flowers. We actually went to get that one the other day and then I noticed that on the bottom edging there is a part where the hemming is gone and the fabricy mesh is fraying. If anyone knows baby clothes and Ukrainian prices you know the clothes here are not at all cheap & I certainly didn't want to pay an outrageous amout for a dress in less than perfect condition. Another thing that was a bit disapointing was that NONE of the dresses were actually made in Ukraine. They were all made elsewhere so that kind of took the specialness out in my mind of spending that kind of money for something that's not even from her country. So instead we thought we will put her in one of the precious dresses we brought from home... I bought the beautiful cream yellowish shoes, and made her a hair bow to match. Instead of spending the $ on a dress that was not even from her own country we bought her a little Ukrainian wardrobe all handmade here. None of them fit her as of now cause we looked and looked for the tiniest ones and just couldn't find them her size but they should fit within about a year or so and she will have these precious outfits as keepsakes from her own country where she was born!Sorry some pics posted sideways.

Stacking Dolls. The one on the left is Mina's & the one on the right is Myla's.

Today is Independence day in Ukraine. Lots of people were dressed up in their Ukrainian outfits similar to the ones we bought Mina pictured above. There was so many people out on the streets this evening. A concert, lots of fun festivities, and pony rides!!

Here's Myla riding the Pony! Only 10 grivnas ($1.25)

Here's a little Ukrainian Music in the city central

YouTube Video

Happy Independence Day Ukraine!! Now time to open up those offices so we can get home :)

The many halls 2 get 2 Mina

2010-08-24T10:10:00.000-07:00

Thought we'd share our daily walk with you since I love to capture everything through pictures :)This is the many many halls we walk down each day to get to Mina's groupa room. Anytime we decide to go outside, sit in the couches in the front, need to use the bathroom, you get the picture... we have to re-walk down all these halls... there is no shortcuts. Today was the last day of walking these halls for our precious visits with our sweet girl and tomorrow we will be walking them to bring her home!! How joyous that will be!! This is from the front entrance of the orphanage.Front foyer area/ couch seating area

Hall #1

Mini-hall/ turn #2

Long Hall #3

This is the corner at the end of the hall.

Hall #4

End of the hall little carpeted play area

Hall #5

Toys at the end of the hall

Hall #6

Hall #7

And finally we've arrived at Mina's groupa doors! Hip Hip Horray! Now that these out of shape Americans have had their excercise for the day and are worn out :)

Front doors to Mina's groupa

Waiting in the entry room for our little blessing! Doors we knock on each day to pick her up and bring her back

Someone is quite the artist around the orphanage. There is paintings all over the walls between the windows as you walk the halls. Bright, cheery & fun!

Feeding Mina today!!

2010-08-23T14:27:00.001-07:00

Mina was so excited to see daddy when we showed up at the door this morning but once she saw her bottle of juice her whole body froze and her little hands started shaking and she clenched up. The first 10 minutes of our visit was spent with her downing 3/4 of her bottle and after that she was a happy girl. Makes me so sad that she was so thirsty. My best guess is that she didn't get much fluids yesterday if any and so she felt extremely dehydrated. She looked like she had a little buddha belly after drinking that much but she was happy!

We had a wonderful morning visit with her and she sure livens up more and more each day and is getting so playful. She absolutely loves her sister and it is so precious to watch the two of them together. Myla adores her and can't wait till she can come home with us. She is ready for Mina to fly back home with her and asks everyday when that gets to happen. Very soon, very soon!! Tomorrow is our last visiting day with Mina!! Yay Praise the Lord! Wednesday we will get to go get birth certificate, passport paperwork completed, and bring our precious girl back to our apartment with us while we wait out the 4-5 days for the passport process and then head back to Kiev for about 2 days to finish things up to come home!! So we should be home hopefully within about 1 week if all goes well!

Today we got to feed Mina lunch. That was so exciting! The other couple got to feed their kiddos yesterday and today so when we took Mina back I asked them if we could feed Mina too and they let us! They don't give much time for feedings just about 15 minutes and then they come out and grab the children regardless of if they are done, strip them down to change their clothes, and put them to bed for nap. Mina ate so well! She ate her entire lunch. I wish I could tell you what it was but not quite sure... lets just say I wouldn't want to try it but it had meat, rice, potatoes, shredded carrots, and some sort of gravy. When the caregivers feed the children they just line them all up and go down the line with one bowl of food & 1 spoon (blah) and feed each child one bite then go back down the line. Mina pushes a lot of food out of her mouth with her tongue so it takes her a bit more attention to eat so that makes me think she doesn't get a whole lot to eat since they would then just start back down the line. I was shocked she was able to eat her whole bowl of food and that her little tummy could hold it all. Her tummy was sure bloated.

This is right after she set up from downing her bottle. Happy & Full!

Adoring Daddy!

Yes we are sitting on a blanket (to prevent infertility :) You aren't allowed to sit on the ground unless you are sitting on a blanket or rug because they believe that will make you infertile and that the floor is a place for walking and not sitting. It's kinda confusing though cause the kids sit & roll all over the bare floor in their groupa and that seems to be okay. Oh well... just do what they ask to make them happy! :)

Loving on sister!

Myla was holding Mina's hand and counting her fingers! :)

YouTube Video

Lunch time!! She is all ready & excited to eat!!

Bon apetit! This is what Mina got to eat

All done!!

YouTube Video

What a precious girl she is!! After our afternoon visit we went to lunch with Rob, Darla, and Julia to the awesome Ukrainian restaraunt we went the other day. The borscht there is wonderful and we tried some potato pancakes with meat, and Jim had a jug of meat, potatoes, and vegatables. It was yummy!

Daddy went and spent the afternoon with his girl and he said that she was so squirmy and playful this afternoon!! He got some adorable pics of her on our camera today I will have to try to upload and see if I can post any if our internet connection will be quick enough to do so.

Thank you all for following along!! We are so excited that very soon our little angel will be with us forever!

Sundays Castle Visit!

2010-08-22T23:00:00.000-07:00

We went to see a castle (or they call it fortress.) I would like to tell you where it was but don’t know how to say it or spell it in English. So here is the best Ukrainian spelling with my English keyboard KAM*RHEUb (the R is backwards and of course some of the letters look a little different.) It is about an hour and a half from Khmelnitsky. We left around 8:15 and didn’t arrive till a little after 10 because the main street was closed leaving Khmelnitsky and several of the roads were blocked off. They told our driver it was because of a bad accident but I’m not so sure he believes that was the case. We had to try 3 different routes to get out of the town and each way came to a police road block until the very last route left to try. It was neat though because we got to see a lot more of the country side, houses, animals everywhere… and I mean everywhere. The entire drive you would see animals here and there on the side of the road. We saw cows, horses, goats, lots of chickens, dogs and cats. They just wander and do their own thing. Once we made it to the castle we found out that they did not have any English speaking guides there today so we walked to a restaurant to eat lunch while Rostik called around until he found an English speaking guide. She met us and took us around the town. Her English wasn’t very good and I don’t think she does tour guides very often. Jim and I honestly just wanted to ask if we could just pay her and she could go ahead and go so we could just look around but we didn’t want to be offensive. The guide took around 3 hours and most the time was us walking to one place and her struggling to find the right words to explain to us. Rostik our driver even ended up having to translate for her a lot and help her out to explain things to us. We don’t really feel like we learned or understood much from the guide but enjoyed the experience of the town. Rostik has taken many families to the castle but never had a tour guide… I think he learned a few things so that was good. He will know more to be able to tell the next families he takes. The town is very neat. Lots of history there. She was telling us about the battles and how the city and castle is surrounded by water (rivers in a U shape) and that if any armies were coming to attack they could lower a wall of some sort to let the water rise and fill up the rivers. There is also holes all along the stone walls and surrounding the castle where army men would be on watch with their weapons. She said that the castle was later used as a prison and then later turned into a museum.

YouTube Video

Dungeon area where they said people where thrown in and left to die unless someone could pay bail to get them out.

YouTube Video

These torn up car road signs are all over the highway. Rostik says they are to remind people not to drive crazy on the curvy roads because lots of people have accidents by doing stupid things and they need these as a reminder.

No update- blogpress issues

2010-08-22T12:37:00.001-07:00

Jim tried to post our blog post for today through our blog press app on our phone but it is for some reason having issues. We will have to try to post it again tomorrow and hopefully it will work. Sorry no update today!

Mina's huge day of ACCOMPLISHMENTS!

2010-08-21T12:32:00.001-07:00

There is several posts today so scroll down to see the others.

This morning when we arrived at Mina's groupa they tried telling us something in Ukrainian and of course we did not have a clue or understand so we just stood and waited. A few minutes later they came out with a little chair from the groupa for Myla and played with her for a couple minutes and then went back in the room. So we just hung out in the front room area and waited. About 10 minutes later Svetlana the head nurse came walking down the hallway with Mina and handed her to us. Not sure where she was or what she was doing but she was now with us and ready to play. We went down to the ball pit area per Myla's request. I think that is her absolute favorite place in the orphanage.

Today has been an EXCITING day of accomplishments for Mina. She has been doing so awesome and has progressed so quickly in such a short period of time. Today she held her own bottle to drink out of it for a min, rolled over several times, and sat up in the stroller for a good long period of time. We are so proud and excited for all the changes we see in her. It's amazing what a little attention and Love can do for a child! Just 2 weeks ago she couldn't do any of these things.

Waiting Patiently with the doll she brought for Mina!
Standing in front of the giraffe to see how tall she is.

Mina playing with her baby doll. Becky makes these amazing dolls and she is doing it for her fundraiser for their adoption. They are absolutely adorable.

Check it out! They would make awesome gifts and you would be helping save the life of another orphan.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/justplainbeckyw Is her Etsy site to order your custom doll and she has many more adorable things that she makes and sales there as well!

http://waitingforthegirl.blogspot.com/ is her blog for their adoption of Alina!

More kisses from sister! Oh how Mina loves kisses!! :)

Daddy didn't know I took this picture. He was actually humming to her and swaying around like he was rocking her. It was so precious. I tried to video it but of course by then he realized and stopped :)

Look at Mina holding on to her bottle by herself!!!

Mina rolled over today!! She does it once in the beginning. She did it about 4 other times before that but this is the only one I could catch on video.

YouTube Video

This is a shop that is right by the orphanage. This has been one of the main landmark pieces I always looked for to know if we were about to the orphanage.

This is the baby hospital in Khmelnitsky. This hospital is only used for the birth of babies. This is most likely the hospital where Mina was born.

After our morning visit Julia, Darla and I headed down the market and on our way we stopped for some lunch at an amazing Ukrainian restaraunt. Jim, Rob, and Myla went back to the city center and got pizza then back to the apartments while us girls spent the afternoon shopping.

Darla and I

The Menu was a thick wood piece with the menu carved into it. It was so neat!

This is all the things they brought to our table to set our table to get it ready for our meal.

Borscht- traditional Ukrainian soup. It is very very good!!!! We both loved it!! It has pork, beats, cabbage, and lots of vegetables!

This is a castle picture hanging on the wall in the restaraunt. We are actually going to go see and hopefully get to tour this castle tomorrow so that is very exciting and will be lots of fun! Looking forward to it!

The post from the rest of today continues below on the next post!!

Market, Afternoon visit, Mina sitting up like a PRO!

2010-08-21T12:21:00.001-07:00

Ok so after lunch we went to the market. Here I was in their make-shift dressing room trying on a pair of pants :) ha ha Darla & Julia enjoyed this. Most people just strip down and try clothes on wherever... not this modest American :) Needless to say... i bought the pants.

In the market there is stuff everywhere. It is narrow walk ways that are crowded with people and you have very little "Personal space." Julia is awesome cause she will ask the price of everything for us that we are interested in so that is a HUGE help! It is sure a lot of fun going shopping with 2 women who speak English :)

They were all starting to close up shop by the time I thought to take pics so it's not very busy. How would you all like coming to do all your shopping at a place like this?? Thankfully today was a much cooler day for it! Julia says these people are here during the heat of the summer and cold in the winter everyday and get there early in the morning to set up and then tear down each day.

And this is wahat it looks like empty at the end of a busy day.... i say empty yet notice all the trash and debris left EVERYWHERE! Julia says that someone else will come through and clean it all up. To bad each individual person doesn't just keep there own area clean at the end of the day

After we finished shopping we just headed back to the orphanage for the afternoon visit. We were tired and achy after all that walking but Julia is a pro & used to all this walking.... she even does it all in high heels. I had on tennis shoes & my feet were killing me. Here's a Cute video of Mina from our afternoon visit. She is SITTING UP in the stroller all by herself. i sat her up, got her balanced and she sat there for quite some time. I am so proud of this girl. She has come so far in just a couple of weeks. She even fell over at one point and pulled herself back up! YAY MINA Mommy is so PROUD!!

YouTube Video

I love when grips my hand and holds on tight... so precious!

Just an extra video

2010-08-21T12:17:00.000-07:00

Forgot to post this video the other day. Mina is watching all the kids run by to their room. Myla is wishing she could join them. ;)

YouTube Video

Oh how the buying experiences differ

2010-08-20T12:10:00.001-07:00

Yay! We got to get out today!! Thank you all for your prayers! I definitely felt much better today. We all 3 went to this morning’s visit and Myla was so excited to get to go play and see her sister again. We attempted to go outside but a cold front has come through so it was a little chilly. But we are certainly not at all complaining because this cool weather is so wonderful compared to the heat we’ve been out in. So our visits today we spent most the time in the ball pit. I think we may have to get them a ball pit when we get home. Mina sure does love it and she was doing great today sitting up in it on her own!!!

The rest of the day we spent with our Okie friends venturing around town. Between our afternoon visits we walked around to little vendor booths and little shops. I found the girls some matryoshka dolls that are the wooden nesting dolls. I was so excited to get them each a set of those. I forgot to take a pic to include in today’s post. We also bought Myla a coat because it was chilly and we didn’t bring her a coat. It was fun for us to all walk around and just browse a bit. We wondered into a big meat market type place and boy was that nasty. I am so thankful I don’t have to buy meat like that back home. It was all hot and stinky and there was all types of animal parts I had never even seen before and pretty sure most of which I would never want to eat. Be sure to check out the pig head :) We also went by the fruit market so we could buy fruit to take a basket of fruit up to the caregivers and nurses for a gift. After the afternoon visit we got back out and walked to the Supermarket and bought a few groceries, more chocolate of course :) and ate dinner from their cafeteria area. One thing we've learned is if you see something you want get it immediately or it will be gone. Darla and I were going to get chicken kabobs and then once we got a tray and walked back up there they were all gone. Then I was going to get a few of these meat filled pocket fried bread type things (which are quite tasty) and there was several of those but by the time I went to get them they were gone.... So what we've learned today is grab what you want when you see it :)

Myla loves to swing!!!

Precious little shoes they put on her today! So cute & they actually fit!

Sisters playing!!

Here is the market we entered:

And the pig head!! Gotta love that! Pig anyone?

Birds pecking away at the side of a bag of rice.

This afternoon we also went by the fruit market area and bought a variety of fruits to take Mina's caregivers and nurses a basket of fruit for a gift!

More ball pit fun!!!

YouTube Video

Full of love & smily face

2010-08-19T12:54:00.000-07:00

Well I must say I am quite ready to get out of this apartment. I think I have watched about every chick flick movie we brought along with us and I hadn’t planned on watching hardly any movies while we were gone…. But it sure got boring sitting here all day long. I’m feeling a slight bit better today but my tummy issues still aren’t better enough to get out. I’m hoping and praying by the morning I will be able to go see our precious Mina again. I sure do miss her plus I hope she’s not forgetting about Myla and I. She’s going to be even more of a daddy’s girl now :) This afternoon Jim met Julia and went to the Anteka (pharmacy) to get me some medicine that should help.

I sure am so thankfully grateful for my wonderful husband and man of God for his love, care, and willingness to tackle everything and go to each visit alone while we haven’t been feeling well. Baby, if you are reading this… Thank you so much for all you do! You mean the world to me and are the greatest husband ever! I truly couldn’t do any of these things without you and I love you so much! Plus thank you for getting up with me in the middle of the night to pray for me! You are such a wonderful husband and daddy!

Today Jim went and spent the day with our little Mina while I once again stayed back home with Myla. They played in the ball pit and walked around outside. Mina also got to ride on the merry go round thingy all by herself! I would’ve never been brave enough to try that with her yet… that’s definitely a daddy thing :) There’s a precious video of it below.

Our Oklahoma friends had court yesterday and everything went great for them adopting their twins. We are so excited and happy for them!

YouTube Video

Riding the Merrry go round!

beautiful pic walking the grrounds of the orphanage

Eyes for daddy!

Words from Jim

2010-08-18T12:20:00.000-07:00

Well ….. It’s the end of the day and the middle for everybody else.

Hi everybody this is Jim,

Mel and Myla were "faking" sick today so I had to step up to write something short for our blog. I apologize that I’m not one to write and make a lot of sense, so you’ll have to read every four word, seventh letter, and calculate every twentieth space to understand what I am really saying.

Since I have never written anything on here I want to let everybody know how amazing our new little girl is. She has come around so fast with understanding that my wife and daughter and I are her new family. It's really stressful that we have to hand her over at the end of our visiting time. I pray that anybody and everybody feels that special experience what God has blessed us with. I enjoyed spending the day with our little girl while Mel and Myla stayed back at the apartment to rest. We will have more pics of the past two days on here tomorrow. I have pics taken but right now for the situation we are in the process is a little overwhelming and tiring. I hope everybody has a good day and to stay tuned for more to come.

Keep the prayers coming.

Jim

Taxi cab confusion & tummy aches!

2010-08-17T09:46:00.000-07:00

I feel like we've been telling you mostly about the same jane monotony of each day but since several people have said they get on each day to check I didn't want to leave you all hanging.

Our driver is still out of town so he called a taxi for us this morning. We were supposed to call him once we made it to the taxi so he could tell him where to take us. So we got in the taxi, tried to call Rostik but our Ukrainian phone had run out of minutes so we where sitting in the back thinking what in the world are we going to do and how are we going to tell the driver where to take us. Thankfully, just a couple days ago I took a picture of the orphanage from the road view where we get dropped off. I showed him that picture and thankfully he knew exactly where it was and took us there. Praise the Lord for that picture. Had we not had that I don't know what we would have done.

It was so difficult figuring out how much we owed him after the ride because we don’t understand their numbers when they speak them only if they write it down. So we just handed him $ and hoped for change : )

Rostik must have called a driver for us after our morning visit because there was a taxi waiting for us or I should say impatiently honking at us while we were trying to figure out what we were supposed to do. LOL The other couples translator (Julia) that is always with them came up to the taxi for us and talked to him to make sure he was our driver and Rostik must have already told him where to take us because off he went and we arrived at the correct apartment complex so that was good. Julia wrote down on paper the address to the orphanage and the address to approximately where we live so that next time we can get in the taxi and show them the piece of paper and they should know where to take us. So we are very grateful for that. Hopefully that will make the next few days (or however long Rostik is gone) go smoother. Oh how we miss him!

For the afternoon visit Jim met up with the other couple and road with them to and from the orphanage so that was good that he didn’t have to worry about getting a cab or anything.

On the way back home he stopped by and figured out how to add more minutes on our phone so that we will be able to call people here in Ukraine.

Todays visit with Mina was just about the same as usual. We played outside today because it was a much cooler day! She enjoyed riding in daddy's lap on the merry go round thingy.

Myla and I stayed at home this afternoon. She managed to take her naptime diaper off between the time we layed her down and the time she fell asleep in bed so she woke up with wet bedding & a wet blankie. She doesn't like it very much when she has to wait patiently for her "blankie" to air dry after it's been washed.
We had chicken and rice soup for supper that I made (although it is hot here- & definitely not soup weather :) because Myla and I have had tummy problems since yesterday so I thought that might be soothing. It was good but Chicken soup just doesn’t taste right to me without chicken base or bouillon cubes for added flavoring.

Hope everyone has a wonderful day or evening whenever it is that you may be reading this. Please say an extra prayer for Myla and I to feel better tomorrow. Thank you all!! We will post pics tomorrow!

Hot weather, naked baby, more ball pit fun!

2010-08-16T12:49:00.001-07:00

This morning Rostik (our driver) called about 10 min before he was supposed to be here and said he was far away so he called a cab for us. He will be out of town for the next couple days. So we waited on our taxi to get her & arrived at the orphanage a little late. One of the caregivers had Mina already and met us in the hall with her. Perfect timing! After our morning visit the driver was supposed to come back to get us but we waited or about 20 min and he did not show up. Thankfully the taxi that pulled up to pick up our friends from OK was a van with 2 rows of seats so we all piled in. We went out to lunch with them and got once again.... PIZZA! Surprise! :) I told Jim once we are back home no more pizza. After lunch we walked around some shops and just looked a bit before heading back to the apartment to put Myla down for her nap. For the afternoon visit I just walked about 10 min down to the City center and road with them back out to the orphanage. So that worked out nicely so I didn't have to try to get a cab & then ride by myself.

This is how Mina was brought to us this morning!

More fun in the ball pit area! We are really enjoying it because it is on the lower level and so it feels a little cooler down there.

YouTube Video

More pics of the cute little guy Voldya!! He is just so precious!!

And now to the naked baby pics.... well, she's not quite naked :) I stripped her down during the afternoon visit cause I took a little dress to try on her that I brought from home to see how it fits! She was so hot & sweaty so I thought I'd just leave her little dress she had on off for a bit so she could cool off! She sure liked it!

Don't know if you can tell... but look close at the diaper below the yellow tabs & you will see her name (Margarita) written on her diaper :) I guess they wrote her name on all the diapers we brought up there for her cause everyone we've seen has her name on it. very funny!

Skinny little girl!

More cute fishy faces that I love ;)

Here's a pic with the little dress I brought her. This is about the best one I got :)

After our afternoon visit we had the taxi drop us all off at the supermarket/ mall area and Jim and Myla met us at the mall. We looked in a few baby shops & then went down to the supermarket & got a few groceries & more diapers! On our way back home we stopped and let Myla play a bit! She sure is going to miss all these fun play areas everywhere when we go back home!

YouTube Video

Help! Pick out Mina's coming home outfit!

2010-08-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

So we thought it might be great to get something special for Mina for her to have as a keepsake from where she is from. This will be the outfit we dress her in to take her out of the orphanage. And probably put her in for her welcome home party! Let me know what you think.

Option 1:

Option 2:

Option 3:

Option 4:

Option 5:

Option 6:

Here's the precious little shoes that are newborn size & should definitely fit her feet. Of course we will have to decide on the shoes to match the dress. I absolutely love the little yellow shoes.

Please post a comment & let us know ur vote to help narrow down our choices :)

Today marks 6 months!

2010-08-15T10:40:00.000-07:00

Just realized that today marks 6 months since we started the process to adopt Mina. At times it feels like time flew by but other times it feels like it's been so much longer than 6 months because we've longed to be with our little girl and have her home! We can't at all complain because this has been an extremely quick process compared to many others where it takes years. We praise the Lord and are so grateful for all the Love, support, and financial blessing that so many provided for us to be here and for us to be able to bring Mina home to her forever family! Very soon we will be home with her! 10 more days left of this wait period and then we can get Mina's birth certificate and take her out of the orphanage!! Can't wait for her to be with us for good!

We posted 2 other posts today so be sure to read back. We posted yesterdays visit and todays! Lots of cute pics and videos!!

Mina sitting up caught on camera!

2010-08-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

Today has been great! Caught Mina on camera sitting up, watched Life church sermon, bought groceries, Myla took a super long nap, played in the ball pit, & enjoyed tasty onion burgers!! Now I think we r going to have a movie night & snuggle up & watch a movie on our computer. What a wonderful day!

Watching Life church on daddy's phone.

Mina sitting up on her own. She did this several times this morning. When she gets her balance she'll sit up for about 30 sec. We r excited about this accomplishment!

YouTube Video

Our precious girls:

Happy girl

Walking down the many halls after taking Mina back to her room. Myla always has to be carried cause she's tired from the long walk

Daddy's afternoon visit:

Daddy's so silly!

Mina talking to herself on video ;)
She sure likes to watch herself in the camera.

YouTube Video

Watch what Mina does every time there's sunlight. She hates the sun ;)

YouTube Video

Mina playing in the ball pit

YouTube Video

Our yummy American food super! We went to the supermarket today & was so excited to get ground beef, boneless skinless chicken breast, and parmigiane cheese. We made onion "American" burgers and they were so yummy!!! The burgers here are made with spam & cabbage. Nothing like our burgers back home. We also made Jim's sister (Aprils) famous tomatoes baked with parmigiana cheese. Yummy! My belly is now happy & full ;)

Myla has been taking my phone and taking lots of pictures of herself. This is 2 of about 35 she took today. Yes I had to go through & delete most of them ;)

Sat~ Visits, Market, Cute videos!

2010-08-15T05:29:00.001-07:00

Mina apparently is not an outdoorsy girl... yet :) Quite opposite from her sister who thinks she could live outside. Every time we decide to go outside Mina gets cranky. I don't know if it's just cause it's hot or maybe allergies or what but she all of a sudden turns on the fussy switch and she is just not having it. The past few times we've walked around with her and every time she passes out within about 5 minutes of being outdoors. Something about the sun must really put her to sleep unless she is just not getting much sleep at night.

Here she is sleeping in Daddy's arms!

All the bites covering her legs.

After the mornings visit. Darla (from OK) and Julia (her translator) and I all walked down to the market up the street from the orphanage. It is like an extremely huge flea market. It was so so hot and only occasionally would we feel a draft of breeze. It is extremely crowded and lets just say you have NO personal space whatsover. Julia literally got hugged by some strange woman that wasn't watching where she was going. It is small spaces to walk and very crowded. I ended up getting extremely tired, dizzy and weak and had to sit down for a bit (or I should say squat because you are not supposed to sit down on the ground anywhere because they say it will make you infertile and the ground is no place for sitting).... although at the moment I thought I could just lay on the dirty ground I felt so bad. After I ate some protein and downed the rest of my bottle of water I felt better. We found a few things and then left to go to the City center (where lots of pics posted on previous blog posts have come from.) It is called the walking street where we go to most places here in the city. Thats where Myla jumps in the blow up toys, NY pizza is there, the fountains, etc. It's a busy area. So we ate lunch and then went to a mall and walked around some more. Not much luck in the mall cause everything is so expensive here as far as clothing and children's things go. I wasn't about to pay 1,000 grivnas for a dress.

After our full afternoon of shopping I rushed back to the apartment, came inside, talked to my mom a minute and then back out the door to head to the orphanage for the afternoon visit. By the end of the day I was so exhausted I made it in the door of the apartment and passed out on the couch I was so sleepy. Lots of walking in the heat and it sure wore this out of shape American out.

Here's a pic of the market... wish I had taken more pics to show you. We hope to go back one day when it is cooler.

Mina's new hat I found for only 10 grivnas (approx $1.25 USD) I like this hat... so cute!

She likes it too!!

Bought her some hairbows that have bands since she doesn't have much hair. The package of bows kept her entertained for close to an hour... she loved the crinkle of the plastic.

My pretty new bow!

Such a precious little princess! I just love that smile!!

YouTube Video

Adorable videos. Mina loves making kissy faces now that she knows how! So cute!!!

YouTube Video

No blog post today!

2010-08-14T11:08:00.001-07:00

Sorry to all our faithful blog followers who look forward to reading and seeing pics of our precious girl each day. We have just had a long busy day today and are very tired and this momma is too tired to talk about it right now. We will post tomorrow about today's precious visits, some cute new videos of Mina and our trip to the market. Just wanted you to know for those that check frequently waiting on an update so you don't keep checking lots today :) Will tell you soon! Night!

Morning visit cut short, Jim's afternoon visit, & new shoes 4 Mina!

2010-08-13T12:37:00.000-07:00

Starting yesterday Jim and I decided that all 3 of us would go to the orphanage for the morning visits but just one of us would go to the afternoon visit and the other would stay back at the apartment with Myla. I think she is just getting bored from having the exact same daily routine of getting up, getting ready, going to the orphanage, coming home, naptime, back to the orphanage, back home, dinner, bath & bed. She has done great but the more days that pass the harder it is on her and the more disobedient she has become. Plus she’s starting to think she runs the place and she can do whatever she wants at the orphanage. I think sticking with 1 visit a day for her she is still getting to spend time with her sister which she is so excited about but she is also given time to finish her nap (cause we’d been waking her up so we could leave for the afternoon visit) and she gets some time to just play around the apartment. So far for the past 2 days it’s gone good. She seems to be in a bit of a better mood although every time one of us gets ready to leave to go to the orphanage she gets upset for a minute cause she wants to see sister to. Very soon she won’t have to tell her sister bye anymore or go anywhere to see her! Yay for that!
So yesterday afternoon I went for the afternoon visit and played with Mina. It was nice to just be the two of us. We worked on sitting up and then I let her lay down on the couch a bit to play with her toys and of course had to tickle her a few times to get some sweet laughs : ) I tried to see if she could roll over on her own but it didn’t quite look like it. She would try to roll over and get about half way and then get stuck where she couldn’t finish turning over. After our visit Jim, Myla and I went for a walk with our Okie friends to go to the mall (pics posted of it the other day.) It sure is wonderful that there is another couple here that speaks English and it is so crazy that they are even from our home state. I praise God for them being here. It sure makes it easier on us to walk around town with others that stand out just as bad as we do and try to struggle through talking to the locals as we do. It takes away a bit of the homesickness. LOL Plus I think it makes us a bit braver to navigate into new places : )

Pics from yesterdays visit with momma!

At the mall I found a few things for Mina. There was a baby store where I bought her a hat (which I will be leaving with the orphanage because it makes her look like a turkey… ha ha ) and we found her some little pink shoes. The smallest shoes I could find where 3 months and I thought surely that will work. I brought her size 2, 3, and 4 from home thinking one of those would work but all are extremely huge. It worked out good cause the Okie couple have been looking for some shoes small enough for their little girl’s feet and haven’t had any luck so we gave them the size 2 shoes we brought for Mina and they fit her perfectly and she loved them. Sorry to get off topic… so anyway I took the little pink 3 month sandals to try on her feet this morning and well they are still big. They may just have to do though cause I’m not so sure I can find newborn shoes around here. I’ll keep an eye out. At least these will actually stay on her feet. I thought her feet were the size of a newborn… guess I was right. WOW, still blows my mind that she is 20 months old.

Here's her little turkey hat :) ha ha

New shoes (3 months) & still big

We also bought a bottle for her to try that has a hole in the middle of it thinking she may be able to try to start holding on to it a little bit. We also bought size 5 nipples (the biggest size hole they had.) She hasn’t been able to drink out of any of the bottles we brought her she just kinda chews on the nipple. I think we are going to have to drill a hole in it to make it even larger so that she can actually get something out of it since she doesn’t really know how to suck.

Well this mornings visit got cut short. 20 minutes before time to bring her back everything got crazy. The other couples translator that is with them constantly said that she got a call from the orphanage nurse (while we were all outside) and said that the doctor wants the kids back in the room right now. So we had to rush them back to the room and then they took the kids from us really quickly. We weren’t told anything so not really sure what all was going on. Mina has seemed sick today. She has been cranky the past day or two and today she just would cry and cry and we couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Then she had lots of green snot (TMI) and we had to keep wiping her nose and she fell asleep very quickly on daddy again today. I don’t think she has been feeling very good. Maybe something is going around her groupa so that is why the orphanage doctor shortened our visit this morning. I hope she starts feeling better soon.

Michele, we found the fun ball pit area today!! Thanks for telling us where that was!

Myla coloring

This was our best attempt at getting Mina to use her little legs and stand up... I think Jim got a better arm work out than she got a leg work out :) Ha ha... She did push back a few times before I got the camera out to video of course. And she will push against our hands occasionally.

YouTube Video

Myla holding sister!

Jim had a great time with Mina this afternoon. He said that she seemed to be feeling a little bit better and wasn’t quite as cranky. They spent some time outside and then playing on the couch. Daddy is always so silly and she sure does love him.

This evening we went for a walk, bought some more data on our aircard for the computer, ate New York Pizza (again… surprise : ) But this time we got some “fried icecream” afterwards. It was pretty tasty! I also got to talk to my good friend Melissa from back home through skype tonight so that was awesome to get to catch up!! Now off to bed! Everyone back home and in the US have a great rest of your day while we sleep peacefully!

Pics from Daddy's afternoon visit with Mina:

Video playing and being silly with daddy!

YouTube Video

Pics from around town this evening:

The walking street

Fried Ice-cream!

Flowers, walk around the orphanage, & a broken stroller

2010-08-12T10:47:00.001-07:00

This morning we thought we would just take a stroll around the orphanage. Here are some beautiful flowers to brighten things up a bit.

Thirsty girl....

Ahhh.... much better!

Another thirsty girl!

She's watching her sister!

While we were out for our walk we passed by 2 caregivers pushing strollers. One of the wheels had broken off the stroller. Jim tried to fix it but it was done.

This precious baby in the underneath basket on the stroller just kept starring at Jim while he tried to fix it.

Precious precious babies

Myla driving the car

Ok.... so I thought I should clarify the other picture comparing the size of children in the previous post on the railing is not of Mina and Myla. Myla is pictured on the left but the little girl on the right is the little girl being adopted by another family. Mina is not at all able to stand up yet. We did our best attempt to get a picture of Mina and Myla side to side to show you the difference in size. They are 6 months apart.

Myla (on the left 26months) Mina (on the right 20months)

Pics promised from Yesterday!

2010-08-12T03:36:00.000-07:00

Notice Mina's new bites on her face.

Mina is trying to lean forward and sit up in daddy's lap at the beginning! Yay!

YouTube Video

This is when she fell asleep on momma in the am when we were walking around outside.

Precious girl!

Some of the caregivers were painting outside and the kids were all standing around watching.

Mina reaching for the boxes of toys!! This is a huge accomplishment for her!!

Reach, reach, reach and grab toys with success!!!

Here's my toys I got momma!

Tea anyone?

Here's the huge gift bag of clothes, blankets, bibs, hats, mittens, etc. we took them yesterday. We actually saw 2 kids today in Mina's groupa wearing some of the clothes we brought!!!! Glad they can use them and the little kiddos look so much cuter in them :) Thank you to all those who donated through our blankets for orphans fundraiser. They were so grateful of all the things we brought and they will definitely be able to use them.

This is the precious little boy that is in Mina's groupa. He is the one I have been telling you all about that always greets us at the door and the one pictured through the glass. He is so sweet!!! I just love him! He was out for a walk with one of the caretakers and I asked her if I could take his pic. His name is pronounced Vol-die-ya not sure how that would be spelled. I so hope & pray a family comes for him! Notice his flowers in his hand :)

Couch time with sister!

Kisses... Myla loves to give sister lots of hugs and kisses.

Myla thought she should lay down in her little sisters lap. Mina didn't mind but it sure looks a little awkward with a big girl in a little babies lap :) LOL

This is the mall area we went yesterday by the supermarket. The supermarket was just a bit further up the street from that.

Headed to the Supermarket!

Bites, Supermarket, Gifts, 2 yr old & squatty potties!

2010-08-11T13:34:00.000-07:00

Sorry our blog post is a little late today. We had a long crazy day. Loved our visits with Mina. She was very sleepy for some reason today. She actually fell asleep in my arms for this mornings visit and started to fall asleep during the afternoons visit. She had a couple crying fits this afternoon. Don't know if she is just really tired or not feeling very good. She was covered in bites today when we picked her up. She has had a few bites on her periodically that we've noticed and I have just thought they are mosquito bites but she hasn’t been outside to get any bites and she has a ton of them on her face, her head, her arms and legs. The poor girl is covered. I feel so bad for her. Several of the other kids are covered in bites so I think it must be some bugs getting them at night while they are sleeping.

During the afternoons visit we took a huge gift bag full of Blankets (from those who donated through our blankets for the orphans fundraiser), Clothes (boys, girls, summer, winter, hats, mittens), bibs, etc. We just brought a whole check bag full of things to give to the orphanage because they definitely could use some more clothes and blankets. We took Rostik in to translate for us. It was a little stressful of a time to give them the gift because the kids were crying and you could tell the caregiver was very stressed out so we just quickly gave it to her and she said thank you and put it in the closet for later. Rostik also went to another groupa at the same orphanage that another little girl had been adopted from through RR and he read a letter that the adoptive mother had written to the groupa caregivers and gave them some precious recent pictures of the child they adopted. Rostik said they were very thankful of the message and loved the pictures.

After we made it back to our apartment we decided to take a walk to the supermarket to buy some gifts for the caregivers and nurses, and some chocolates to bring back home to share. It was about a 15 minute walk. There was a mall right over by it so we went in there and just looked around for a bit. It is so funny because just about anywhere or any stores you go into you are practically followed around by someone. When you walk down another aisle they walk where they can see you and keep an eye on you like a hawk. Really it is kinda just annoying and it makes me want to laugh because there will be numerous other people in the store and we are the ones that get followed. I guess maybe we stand out and they can tell we are not from here. Too bad they can’t tell that we are not the type of people that would ever steal anything. Anyway we didn’t buy anything…. All their clothes are so expensive compared to back home and the sad part is they make so much less money and can hardly pay to survive and feed themselves but yet they all have really nice clothes. Baby stuff is outrageously expensive as I believe I’ve mentioned already. Everything is practically double what it would be back home. No wonder they feel they can’t afford or support their babies and many probably end up in orphanages because of it. I’ve gone into numerous baby stores hoping to find a bumbo. I am determined to go into every baby store I pass and hopeful that I can find one to give the orphanage and explain to them to sit the children in it so that hopefully at least the ones who can’t sit on their own aren’t just left to lay down all the time and it will help them work on sitting up and developing the muscles needed to sit up. Pray I can find one somewhere.

So we shopped at the supermarket. Myla got to play at the play area at the back of the store… and every time we go there of course she has to go potty… which I dread every time. At the supermarket the potties are Turkish squatty potty style I believe and it is so nasty and hard to take a 2 yr old in one of those for numerous reasons. 1. I have to try to hold her up and keep her from peeing all over her pants and all over herself. 2. It is dirty in there and so I don’t want her to touch a thing. I’d prefer the normal potty seat where I can wipe it down with a Lysol wipe or use a toilet seat cover for her. Much much easier…. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about falling head first in the pot while I’m trying to balance my daughter while she goes potty. Oh what joy and fun … hence the sarcasm.

By the time we left it was dark and we walked back. We used Myla’s stroller to put our groceries and things in and we carried Myla back. That made It a bit easier then carrying all the bags and Myla enjoyed being held.

I will have to post pics tomorrow through our blog app on our phone. We have to go down and find wifi to post through that but it was taking to long to upload pics this route. It’s almost midnight here and I’m tired so off to bed. Promise to send today's pics tomorrow!! Have a great day!

Introducing Officially Mina Bella Gower.... The many faces of an angel!

2010-08-10T13:16:00.000-07:00

Here's some pics now that Mina is officially our girl!!! We took these this afternoon at our visit!

Arms wrapped around her daddy... oh how she loves him!

Oh wait mommy got out the camera I need to sit up and smile!

The many faces of an angel!
Now it seems she is always smiling! That's exactly what we like to see!

Making kissy faces at daddy

My most favorite face Mina likes to make. I call it her smooshy face. Jim calls it her bitter beer face. LOL I just think she is so precious!!

And lots and lots of smiles, giggles and laughs!! Love it!

Mina's tiny foot in her daddy's hand.

NY Pizza for super to celebrate Mina being officially ours!
Tasty pizza and fries!

Street vendor~ Cotton Candy & Popcorn

Uncle Sam in Ukraine!

Myla enjoying cotton candy!! Yummy! Big ball of sugar!

Cramming her face in it.... sticky mess! But she loved it!

YouTube Video

There are fun little kid play areas on just about every street corner out here.

You can pay to let your child drive on of these cars around in front of the movie theatre

Myla on the Disneyland Bouncy..... she loves these things. Thankfully they only cost about $1.25 :)

Our girl presenting her lack of stability on the Disneyland bouncy house. Yes she is falling as quickly as she gets back up ;) lol

YouTube Video

Twilight in Ukraine!

There are homeless dogs EVERYWHERE!! You will not walk a street where you don't see dogs lying around. Thankfully they mind there own business.

Jim went to this beer brewery and picked out a local Ukrainian beer to try. Don't think you can buy beer in 2 liter bottles back home... but then again I could be wrong cause I really don't know. :)

Mina is officially ours!!!

2010-08-10T03:42:00.000-07:00

Well not officially but she will be after the 10 day wait!!!

Court went great! It was the most nerve racking thing I think I've ever done. It was about an hour of questions. The questions wasn't the most nerve racking part it was the fact that we had a 2 year old to try to keep quiet and on her best behavior for an hour. Thankfully she did quite well. We gave her a page of stickers and a bottle of milk and only had to tell her to be quite a few times. Thank you all for your prayers!

The social worker was there, as well as the head nurse, and Yulia (our translator.) There was also a man sitting across the room, another lady sitting over by us, and 3 additional people with the judge. Not sure what everyone's role in everything was exactly but the social worker, nurse and one other lady had to stand up and say that they agreed to us adopting Mina.

The judge was worried about us being so young and what if we have other children of our own~ will the adopted child be loved as much or receive less attention. She said that Mina is so young that she probably doesn't no or understand to make such a big trip and enter a new world and doesn't know if that would be best for her. She said she hopes we won't regret our decision.... which of course we know we won't. She asked if our families are supportive and would be helpful and loving towards Mina.

The nurse from the orphanage explained to the judge that she thinks Mina will really benefit from being apart of our family and that Mina has been doing much better since we got here and have been spending time with her. She said that Mina smiles and reaches for us when she sees us and she does recognize us and that Myla is very good with her and always shares her toys with her. She also told the judge that Mina entered the orphanage in June 2009 and that she has not even been visited once since. She explained that she has been in the orphanage for over a year and that no family members, grandparents, relatives of any kind or any ukranian citizens have come to even see Mina at all since she has been there. That brought tears to my eyes cause it is so hard for me to imagine that. I just know that if anything ever happened with anyone in our family we would be there loving, visiting, caring for that child and it's so hard to think that she has been completely left with no one even caring to ever visit her. I know it's expected and typical for these children it just makes me so sad to think about it. I can not imagine how hard that must be to have loved and cared for your child for 6 months and then no longer see them, or know at all how they are even doing.

Mina has 2 brothers... which the judge asked us if we would mind if the brothers down the road ever wanted to get in contact with Mina. Of course we wouldn't mind... that would be wonderful and we would be very supportive and encouraging of that. If Mina ever wants to learn more about her birth parents, brothers, or other family we would do everything we could to help her find them and meet them. I'm hoping we will be able to get enough information or possibly going to see if we can get her parents names so that when she gets older she will have that information if she ever is interested in finding them.

So at the end of court and the many questions and concerns the judge granted us as parents to Mina. Of course Mina is not her real name it is actually Margarita but her new name on her birth certificate will now be:

MINA BELLA GOWER!!!

Mina is her name given by RR so that is what we have known her as and called her since day one, and we think it goes perfectly with her sister Myla's name. Actually it is pretty funny because when we were looking through some dossier documents that were translated into Ukrainian Myla actually was spelled and looked like Mina.

The middle name we went back and forth on a lot. I am really big into name meanings and wanted to give her a name that has an awesome meaning. Mina means love so that helped make her first name be a keeper :) Out of all of the names we mentioned Bella stuck most with Myla. She started walking around calling her Mina Bella and I absolutely love the meaning of the name Bella. It has amazing meanings in several different origins:

Origin: French Means: Beautiful
Origin: Hebrew Means: Devoted to God
Origin: Hungarian Means: Intelligent
Origin: Latin Means: Yeilding to prayer. Beautiful, loving, lovable, graceful
Origin: Spanish Means: Beautiful, Devoted to God

So there you have it Court went great, we are officially Mina's parents and now just have to wait out this 10 day wait period. It will actually be a 14 day wait period unfortunately which I am a little disappointed about but glad that court is at least over. Our 10th day falls on Friday so on the 11th day is when you can go to get the birth certificate. Unfortunately since that is on Saturday the office is closed on Sat, Sun, and Mon and then Tues (the 24th) is there Independence day holiday so the office will be closed then as well. So now our 10 day wait has turned into a 14 day wait because we won't be able to go get her new birth certificate until the 25th of August. Once we have her birth certificate we can go get her out of the orphanage and we will take her to get her passport picture taken and send off passport paperwork. That usually takes 4-5 days and then we will leave for Kiev. Once in Kiev we will be there approx 2 days to go to the US Embassy and take care of paperwork and take her to have a medical exam done so that we can head back home. It is looking like we will probably be flying home August 1st or 2nd which is sooner than we thought so that is still exciting. To bad that 10th day fell over the weekend we'd prob be leaving 4 days earlier then that. We asked if there was anyway they could do the birth certificate on the Friday before the weekend and she said absolutely not because it is counted as the 10th day and you have to wait till the 11th.

Missed seeing Mina this morning. The other family there said that she was laying down when they went to pick up there kiddos for visit and that she was ready and waiting for us. Makes me so sad. Of course we had no way to tell the orphanage we wouldn't be there that we had court this morning but we will get to go see her this afternoon. Looking forward to that!!! Will post some new pics of her as our official child this everning :)

Comments/ answers to comments posted!

2010-08-09T14:15:00.000-07:00

Thank you all for all the comments! It is so wonderful to read what everyone has to say and so very encouraging. Here is a response to some posts.

Sarah, I think back to your blog often and how quickly Zoya changed through visits and once she made it home and it amazed me everytime I would get on and read a new post. In the same aspect every change we see in Mina each day amazes us as well. It is wonderful how quickly they can change with love. The diaper thing just cracks me up cause it's like seriously the child is not even technically in our care and how much is it really going to save them for us to bring 2 diapers each day. I guess every penny adds up when you ask each family to bring diapers for the child they are adopting. Oh well we will of course be buying diapers for a while anyways so why not start now :) LOL I can't wait to give her some of these pedialyte packets we brought per your advice and help get her hydrated.

Molly the little boy on RR that we saw in Mina's groupa is named Toby (26) He is ADORABLE!! We saw him sitting in a walker the other day. He looks healthier (or I should say has more meat on his bones) than the other children. He doesn't even look to us like he has DS (although I'm sure he does.... he just doesnt look it) He is so precious! I would love it if you would advocate for him and help find the little guy a family. He is listed under the children under the age of 2. Here's his info:

Orphanage 26

Toby (26)

Boy, Born October 22, 2009
Toby is another tiny one, perfect age to blend seamlessly into a new family and benefit from early ntervention. He does have a heart murmur which will need to be followed by a cardiologist once home.

I have $1010 in my grant fund towards the cost of my adoption!

ANYONE READING MY BLOG NEED A NEWEST LITTLE ADDITION????? HERE HE IS WAITING FOR YOU :)

http://www.reecesrainbow.org/

Molly, If you are talking about the other little boy that always walks out the door to see us and is pictured with his face up against the glass door I don't think he is listed with RR.... but he is sure a sweety and I would love for him to find a family to. Unfortunately I have absolutely no info on him.

Melissa, Mina does have a bloody sore spot on her nose. She has pretty much had it since we got here. It will start to get better and look like it's going away but then I don't know if they pick the scab off or if she some how does but it will be worse on certain days than others. Hopefully it will be completely gone soon. It of course doesn't seem to bother her a bit so she is ok.

PLEASE KEEP THE COMMENTS COMING.... WE LOOK FORWARD TO READING THEM EACH DAY!