I know I am still alive...

...I can hear myself talk! That's Jadin for you. Full of drama. He said that in response to my 'I didn't leave you in the back of the pickup to die! Look, you are still alive, aren't you?' What was going on? M was mowing the lawn for the second time that week. If you know where we live you are probably surprised. I know, it's supposed to be dry here. So, back to Jadin. A couple of years back I let them watch a segment on the news about a 2 yo boy who got mowed down. He spent two years in the hospital fighting for his life...and didn't make it. It was a sad story, but I wanted both boys to see it. You know, little boys find lawn mowers are soooo attractive. (don't you wish they retain that attitude when they grow up? ha-ha, it just doesn't seem to work that way) So, anyway, Jadin knows to stay away from lawn mowers and was upset that he was left alone in the pickup bed to watch Daddy mow. He just has a way of putting things...:)

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I have been working on potty training Rachael for the past month. She is doing very well and wearing big girl panties full time now, though she does have an accident every day, towards the end of it usually, when she is just too tired to think about it. Night training was never a plan. I understand, that a 16 mo simply cannot control herself when asleep. Or, at least, that's what I thought. Well, last night she decided she was a really big girl. She woke up at least three times asking to go potty and then going quickly and happily back to sleep. Me? Not so quickly. In fact, it takes me an hour to fall asleep. So, between her going potty and M getting up to go to work I didn't get any sleep. I know, I should be happy, but I am secretly hoping this will not last. After all, we just bought a huge box of diapers and are not afraid to use them...at night, anyway. Please, baby, SLEEP!

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I made a very interesting discovery a couple of days ago. Teen girl clothes in our front yard. There are no teen girls living in our immediate neighbourhood, so I have no idea whose they were. Or why would anyone undress in our front yard and leave, naked? Is it an American thing? We threw the clothes in the garbage after a couple of days since no one came to claim them.

Water fun

I missed out on a lot growing up. Oh, no, don't take me wrong I did have a wonderful childhood. It's just that my parents have no idea what it means to have fun. Or, maybe it was Soviet era. Everyone was obsessed with meeting quotas and raising productions while working as little as they could and stealing as much as possible. But that's not what I wanted to talk about. It was about water balloons. I never new how much fun they are! M bought a pack of the, 200 for 99c. And the boys are ecstatic! I have never seen them have so much fun! Those of you how are adopting kids from Ukraine and are going there in the summer, bring some with you! Don't mail them, the caregivers will never take the time to play them with the kids, but if you are going there and are prepared for some water fun, the kids will have a blast! I promise you. Mine did :)

Our trip to Lviv

This post will have a lot of pictures, so if you are not the type who would look at pictures of people you don't know and places you will probably never visit, you should move on to the next blog :)
This is one of my favourite pictures of us as a family of three. Jadin's first trip to Ukraine, though I am quite sure he doesn't remember any of it. Awww, it makes me miss home.


This is the city I lived most of my life in, the city of Nikolaev. It was originally built to support shipbuilding industry and most of it's occupants were men. In order to stimulate 'healthy' city growth the government shipped prostitutes in. The men and the women were lined up opposite each other and the men were told to pick a wife...history, glorious history :)
Now, unfortunately I don't know much about Lviv except that it' very, very old. Here some of the pictures of downtown:


And I like this next picture because of the inscription on the church (it says 'Soli Deo Gloria'):


The next few pictures were taken at an century old cemetery:








My home, people!

Why?

I just realized that I really don't have a life, and therefore I should probably not have a blog. After all, there's really nothing to post about except kids, and who wants to read about someone else's kid's potty training? It's amazing, but I do have one follower (thank you for your patience with all my 'awww, my kids are so wonderful' posts) So, at her request, I am going to post some pictures of myself and the wonderful addition my husband built (those will have to wait since the kids are napping there). Here we go:

This one was taken in California last year during our vacation. I was still nursing than so you get a glimpse of a fat me :) We really enjoyed our time there, though it was a little cold (M had to turn the heat on in our little pop-up camper for an hour or two. We were afraid to leave it run all night since it's an old hand-me-down camper we inherited from M's parents) Oh, and the seafood, it was WONDERFUL!

This one was taken last August at Sorybook Island. It's a great park for kids and they also decorate it with hundreds of lights for Christmas. If you are here around Christmas, it's a must-see.

Now, I asked M to take this one when I was mostly done loosing baby pounds. I've lost more since than and unfortunately those jeans are way too big now to be comfortable. Those were my favourite jeans and I only paid 8$ for them. Talk about great deals!
i can't help but quote a conversation between Daniel and Rachael at Reptile Gardens today. We were looking at a colony of prairie dogs. Rachael:'Dah! Dah!' Daniel 'No, Rachael, theses are fairy dogs!'

Up against the wall

actually it was more down against the wall. We had to sit on the floor in our local YMCA's basement facing the wall for about 20 min waiting out a tornado warning. Why were we at YMCA if there was a possibility of a tornado, you ask. Well, because I have ants in my pants...and three kids. It was poring all day, and the kids were tired of staying in and looking at hail every once in a while. So I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I exercised while kids played at the nursery. When I came to pick them up, staff person told me there was a tornado warning issued and I could either go home and sit in my own basement or go down to the YMCA's basement. My house doesn't have a basement. Actually, three years ago my house didn't even have room for a dining room table. We had to either eat sitting on the love seat and holding our food or set up a cardboard table every time we ate. See, our house only had one bedroom, and the kitchen was too small for a table. And it still is. I am lucky to be married to the most talented and handy man in the whole country. He designed and built and addition including a nice dining room and two bedrooms. The boys share one (it's quite small, not much room to play but at least they have their own beds, a chair, a closet(!) and a chest of drawers). Did I mention the fact that M did it all by himself? We even have heat in the dining room floor. Anyway, though the house is bigger now than it was when Jadin was born, it's still quite small. And we came to a point when we will be loosing our guest room. Because baby is 16 mo and it's time to move her out of our bedroom. I can't pretend that I am prepared for that. She really doesn't bother anyone, she sleeps in her own bed and I just love waking up to her sweet little voice calling out to me. What can be better? I do understand that she can't sleep there until she is out of high school. Plus, I finally purchased graco baby monitor, something I wanted really badly ever since D was born 4 years ago and never really had money for. One of the ladies I know from the Y was selling it really cheap, so I bought it. We really didn't have the 15$ we paid for it, I had to use my gas stash (I keep 20$ in the glove box in case I run out of gas and need cash to pay for it.) But it's wonderful and worth every penny we paid for it. I used it today when the baby was sleeping inside while the boys wanted to play outside. Did I say it's wonderful? It's even better than that. If you have more than one small child, you absolutely have to have one of these! It worked with boys, too. I put it in their room when they were taking a nap and told them that If they make a sound I will hear them and there will be consequences (they tend to start arguing or playing instead of napping) WOW! It's my own personal miracle. :)
We had a much better day today. Rain is over, tornadoes are gone and we enjoyed the day:


What you can't see int his picture is Rachael wearing big girl panties. But she was and she only had one accedent at the end of today. I think she was just really tired and ready for another nap. I am so proud of my little girl! Here she is in her light pink panties:

Our worship team

I was going to blog about a fight I had with my husband over who gets to put the baby down for a nap, but, hey, we fought, we made good, I don't think it's that interesting. Let me just say that being married to a philosofer isn't always easy. I am sure being married to me isn't a walk in a park, either :)
So, instead I am going to talk about some talanted people in our church. Our church is quite small, under a 100 people, so it's amazing how that small a church can have so much talent. First, our pianist, C, has been playing piano in one church or another for twice as many years as I have been alive. Or just about. I don't know if there's a hymn she doesn't know. She can transpose them in her head and doesn't neseserily need sheet music to play. She can change keys in the middle of the song and come up with such a smooth and beautiful transition you'd think she had music in front of her. Most amazingly, she can play AND sing alto at the same time. She brought some sheet music for us to learn to sing as a special song, wich brings me to the other two members. They can sight read their parts AND can sing either bass or tenor. Can you imagine the range these guys have? Now, I can play three instruments myself, but I was sweating trying to keep up with their sining. And my alto part was really simple! I am telling you, these guys ARE amazing! I am learning a lot from them every Sunday.

What we were up to yesterday.

Jadin's school always holds their events on Thursday nights. You are probably wondering why I care to mention it here. Well, because it's irritating. Why Thursday? Why not ANY other night? I am free any night of the week but Thursday, when I volunteer in the YMCA's nursery:

(Rachael is the little hairless girl sitting at the table :)
Looks like fun, huh? Add about 15 more kids to that picture. Now, imagine half of them running in play and the other half screaming for their mom. Not so fun. At the end of the night I just want to crawl in a hole somewhere and sleep 15 hours straight. But how can I possibly miss this:

(Jadin is the little boy in a yellow shirt with stripes on his sleeves.)
Jadin's class was singing at the kindergarten graduation. Notice how few kids there are on the stage. Normally, there are twice as many. But most moms don't drag their kids out at 7pm just to let them sing one song at somebody else's graduation. I do. It's important for Jadin to know that I am willing to change my schedule just to watch him sing this one song.
Also, Wednesday was last day of school. My firstborn graduated from preschool. Hard to believe. I still remember the first 8 sleepless months after he was born (and sleepless they were as he screamed around the clock and only slept 2 hours at a time at the very most while I was holding him sitting in a particular chair) Anyway, I know it's not a big deal for most families, but I decided to make it a big deal. He asked for a dinosaur cake, which I made:

An ugly cake, I know, but look at the smile!
And to finish this post let me give you the quote of the day from Jadin: 'Mommy, when it's freezing hot and it's summer, are we going camping?'

Another bridge crossed

Most people don't understand the challenges associated with moving to a different country. They assume that since we have the same skin color and can speak their language we do fine. And we do, but some things are more difficult for me than it is for those people who grew up in the USA. First of all, I am not accustomed to making choices. When I was growing up, we had one kind of whatever in stores. Like, there was only one kind of pasta available and that's what we would have. Or, potatoes. Or, pretty much anything else. Even ice cream. Chocolate was a rare find, and my favourite, fruit flavour was sometimes available only in the summer. Otherwise it was just plain vanilla. So, when I moved here, I had to learn by buying things and trying them to see if I liked them. It was very hard for my husband to understand why I would by this horrible brand. Everyone knows, it's terrible, right?
Another big one was driving. Someone made fun of the way I parked recently. Hey, you know what? You have been driving for 50 years at least! I got my license 4 years ago!
Jadin had a school trip the other day that required going to a nearby town. I asked his teacher if she would ride with me, since I didn't know where we were going. 'But it's just a trip to ..... town!' she said. It was embarrassing. How do you tell someone you've never driven outside of your town? Well, it was time. So, I went hoping to not lose a sight of this other mom who was driving ahead of me. I did fine. I wish people were more understanding, though. It wouldn't be so hard.

And that's how we lost it...

...her poopy diaper, I mean. But I'll get to that later. First, you have to know that I love Saturdays. Even more now that we've discovered that our indoor water park has early bird specials on Saturday mornings. So, this is what we do:

and this:
After all that fun we usually just have to go and have some more fun, like shopping at Sears. We like Sears for several reasons. Like, prices. We bought three cutest new outfits for Rachael for less than 15$. But my favourite reason is being able to return Jadin's worn out jeans and get a new pair. For free. You can't beat that, can you. Now we get to how we lost a poopy diaper in the middle of Sears. Mark was trying new clothes on Rachael while I took Jadin to the bathroom (after all, the poor little guy did just drink half the pool) Upon my return Mark told me Rachael need changed. He failed to mention that after putting on and taking off all those clothes, the diaper was not on very well. And I took her to the bathroom without putting her jeans back on. Yep, it fell off. She had to go through half the store naked with a dirty bottom. I would have fixed it right there where it fell off, BUT the good mom that I am I forgot the wipes in the car. So, in addition to all that embarrassment I had to wash her in the sink. Ouch!

'Bonk' beds and no hell

We had a great morning today, until about 7:30 when I realized it was Friday. Jadin's school day. He needed to be there by 8:15. At that point both Rachael and Daniel were still sleeping. We did get out of the house eventually and even made it to school by 8:17. My car was the ONLY car in the parking lot. I checked the clock again, and then date on my cell. Just to make sure it was actually Friday. It was. And the school was closed. Finally I called another mom just to find out that today is school track meet which means no day care. Does it mean that pre-school is considered day care? We went to McDonald's to lessen Jadin's disappointment (he is still at a stage in his life where school is the best part of his day) Now, we go to the same McDonald's once a month on a Friday morning and see the same old folks sitting at the same table. Well, today they complemented me on my three beautiful little boys (I cut Rachael's hair yesterday :) and one of the old ladies stayed a while and visited. She is one of 18 children in her family. EIGHTEEN? As in one eight? In this day and age we are shocked to discover someone has 8 kids. It was very interesting to listen to her. The kids were sitting there very patiently (yeah, right!) while we were visiting so we all decided to go to Reptile Gardens. And we did just to find out it was school trip day. The place was packed. I turned around and left. about 5 minutes after coming back home I heard someone ring the bell. Jadin ran out accompanied by the dog that proceeded to attack the lady who rang the bell...while I was using the bathroom. I HAD to let her in. Turns out she is a Jehovah's witness. We talked. And talked. The conversation was pretty much over when I told her that unless she believes in Jesus as her GOD she will discover for herself that there's indeed a hell.
By now you are probably wondering if I just misspelled 'bunk bed' when I wrote the title to this post. No, not really. Last night Jadin asked if we could make Easter eggs just for fun and somehow he went from Easter eggs to Easter bunk beds. I missed the transition. I explained to him that his bed is called bunk bed because it's two beds stacked one on top of the other and Daniel started laughing and hitting his bed. When I asked him why he was doing it, he said 'It's a bunk bed, so I am hitting it, bonk, bonk, bonk' I rolling on the floor laughing (Yes, I know, it's not that funny. Five hours in the YMCA's nursery might have something to do with it)

Let's get to know each other

I feel I should tell you all about myself a little, just so that you know who you are dealing with. I am 32 yo, a wife to a wonderful man, a mother to three great kids, two boys ages 5 and 4, and a 16 mo baby girl. I was born in Moldova because according to tradition my mom went to her mom to deliver me. That was the only time I have ever been to Moldova. I spent my childhood in Ukraine. My parents are not Christians, never claimed to be Christians and unless God has a wonderful plan for their lives that I don't know about never will be Christians. I am. Can you feel the tension?
I met my husband of 7 years when a missionary friend of mine brought a vision team over and asked me to translate. I had no idea he was bringing my future husband along. I really wasn't looking for a husband. I was 25 yo, had a job that I LOVED and spent quite a bit of time at, and a church that I also loved and spent the rest of my time in. But God had another plan. This guy, Mark, he was just so different from anyone I ever met, I didn't think guys like him were even real! In addition to all of his inner qualities he was (and still is) sooooo cute. I just couldn't say no...after spending 10 days with him in person and 3 months via e-mail. I know, I know, crazy. I mean, who would give up everything they knew and loved to marry a guy they knew for 10 days and move across the world to a different country, speak a different language, live and raise a family in a different culture and still claim to have a sound mind. But I did and am happy with that decision (for the most part).
Seven years and three kids later here we are, in South Dakota. Have you ever been to SD? It's not where you live, it's who you live with, right? Right. Still, I'd like to move to Florida, which is pretty unlikely, considering I am the only member of this family who likes it warm and humid. Well, this is probably more than you wanted to know about me so let's talk about the kids...in the next post, of course.

First

Hi! Welcome to my blog. I have been thinking about doing this for a long time. Not sure if it will work out mostly due to lack of time.