Happy Day.....

...school has started!

Here are my high schoolers:
(Yes, this is taken while rushing out the door with tea in hand!)
(Austin 10th, Kambree 12th)

My lone junior higher:
(Devree 8th)

And my elementary kids:
(Alex 5th, Rylee 4th)

Now, I stop tormenting my kids in Junior High by NOT going up to school on the first day for pictures but while in elementary you must have the token picture by the flag pole:

And then the picture at your new desk:

And now I'm home enjoying the blissful silence of my house. I'm sure I'll miss them in awhile but for now, I'm just savoring the peace and quiet!

School Starts Tommorow!

Wow, school starts tomorrow and I'm singing the "Most wonderful time of the year" Christmas song over and over in my head!
It is not that I don't love my children I just don't love entertaining them for days on end, and or listening to Wii, Disney Channel and Avatar all day long. I get tired of feeding them from dawn until dusk, I get tired of tattling, tears, tantrums, sleep overs, late overs, and the inevitable "I'm bored, there is nothing to do!" I get tired of sharing my computer while they facebook, play Webkins or check their emails and funny YouTube videos. I look forward to knowing they are in school-hopefully learning something-socializing and using their brains as opposed to their thumbs and/or fingers on the joy sticks, remote control or texting.
I must confess, I love the feeling of structure, of routine. I've typed up our daily schedule and granted, it will be highly improvable that it will be followed to exactness but it will be so nice to have regular bedtimes, mornings where we get up and eat together and quiet time after eight pm!
The downsize is of course the busyness, the dance lessons, soccer lessons, homework, etc. Kambree is gone so much with Dance Company and if she can find a job will be gone even more. This is my Kam's senior year and it hurts my heart to see her get so old. I remember feeling older and wiser at her age and yet, she probably feels just as old an wise as I did. But to me, she's just a baby. I always thought I would look forward to my kids going off to college but I'm dreading it, I don't want her to go away. (Yes, I want her to clean her room and participate more with us as a family but not move away!)
I realized that in the next ten years all my babies will be grown and out of school. (Nine years actually.) That seems like such a short time yet some days/weeks seem like forever. How can that be? I try to remember the words to the country song "You're going to miss this" and remind myself that someday I will miss what is happening right now. I will miss Alex shrugging and sighing when it comes to studying English, I will miss Rylee bursting into tears when someone hurts her feelings, I will miss Devree spending hours in her room doing her hair and blaring her music, I will miss Kambree's messy room and coming home at all hours of the night. I will miss Austin's teasing and sarcastic humor at my expense.
What I will really miss is Alex's sweet hugs five times a day or more and climbing on my lap, laying his head on my shoulder telling me "I miss you." (Even though I tucked him in bed the night before and it's now seven am!) Rylee's sweet smiling face willing to cook with me, hold my hand when we go shopping and plant sweet kisses on my cheek telling me she loves me so much.
My older girls are not as affectionate but I will miss Devree's laughing and singing. I will miss Kambree's and my heart to heart talks and conspiracy's as to how we're going to eat healthy and lose weight. I will miss Austin's incredible sense of humor and how he makes me laugh....always! (He still manages to give me a kiss goodnight-but not when anyone else is around!)
We are going to be starting the discussions with Alex. I think he needs to know what our church is about. We're hoping to have a translator come so we can be sure that Alex is understanding everything. Today we had a talk about the priesthood and what temples are for and I just don't think he got it. James gave back to school fathers blessings and he was willing and eager to have a blessing but it's hard to know what or if he understood anything. I asked him if he knew who Jesus was if he had learned about him at church in Ukraine and he told me no, then he told me "Jesus up in sky". Then later James was giving a mini-lesson on the coming of Christ (our form of family home evening during Sunday dinner) and Alex asked me if he's bad will he go (and he pointed down) and burn? So he knows about heaven and hell but then later he picked out a child's book about the birth of Jesus to read and I asked if he knew this story and he said no. Then when he was done he told me he knew the story from "scriptures in Internat (school) not church." That's interesting, so they learned the story of Jesus birth in school?
Today at dinner we were going over rules to know about school. Like not taking air soft bb guns, pocket knives or any sort of weapons to school. Then the kids were telling him about not throwing snowballs or fighting and he made up this story (through broken English, pantomiming and great sound effects) and clarified that is was just pretend from the get go but how he will make a snowman and if someone knocks it down he will shoot them with a machine gun that he will buy from the DI (Desert Industries) for five dollars. I informed him if he's buying machine gun's from the DI they will more than likely backfire and kill him. He understood this and laughed and then pantomimed him shooting the machine gun and the bullets hitting him. As a mother I find this morbid but he always clarifies that this is just for "pretend". (Thank goodness!)

Hodge Podge of End of Summer Pictures....

We made our last trip to the pool last week. It was a bit overcast and we did get a few sprinkles but not enough to pack it up. Here are some pics.
Rylee freezing during the hourly pool check

Zach, Grandma and Syd during the sprinkle:

Alex eating junk food. He had brought his $5 allowance and spent it and ate it all! He's always generous offering to share his chips and candy but despite that skinny exterior, he seriously can put away the food!

Just chilling:

Dev & Kam working on their tans:

Alex with cute spiky hair and me with a cheesy grin.

Although my kids have spent WAY to much time in front of the TV this summer, it warms my heart these last few weeks that they have taken up crocheting while watching TV.

Alex told my sister he leaned to crochet in Ukraine with his Mom. Assuming this was his birth mom my sister didn't mention it to me. When I asked if she had seen what the kids were crocheting and told her I taught Alex while at the orphanage she confessed he had told her but that she thought it was his Ukraine Mom. Nope, I'm the only Mom Alex ever talks about.

And this picture is to document Murray City and the sidewalk repair. These tractors, along with a pile of gravel have been parked in front our our house for THREE weeks! They moved them last Friday....hurray!!

This is Devree modeling her new school shirt and her newly cut off Capri's with the legs of the pants on her arms. Now, Rylee would wear this entire ensemble to school-despite my protest-but Dev was just being silly!

Why Do I Blog?

One of my favorite blogging friends and professional associates wrote a post about why she blogs. (And I'm so glad she does as she's a fabulous writer and her post are full of wit, sarcasm, introspect, honesty and funny antidotes. I feel like a young child who squeals with glee and claps her hands together when I see she's posted!) And it got me to think, why do I blog? Why do I put out "there" our personal stories and show the world my ineptness with regards to grammar, sentence structure and parenting skills? I've been pondering about this all day.
I originally started blogging long before our adoption experience as a form of electronic scrap booking and low and behold it became more like a journal of our life. Many, many times previous in my life I've sat down to "catch up" on my journal-usually out of guilt after attending a church meeting about record keeping.-and I would attempt to catch up in one page the last three or four years of our life, summarise major and minor events. I hate my handwriting, I'm a terrible speller and I write so much slower than I type and think. These entries are very far and few between and pathetic at best. I could write a word document. I realize that, I have written some entries that way but never for long periods of time. So blogging even if it's just a few minutes at a time has been the best form of journaling I've ever done. Yes, I do censor some of my thoughts, (I actually write them but do not publish them.) And I try to be sensitive to what my children and husband would be okay with being published across the "world wide web".
I know that sometimes my post sound like those terrible "bragging" Christmas letters about how wonderful we are and how perfect everyone is (which is so far from the truth and my unpublished blogs can prove it!) but I think I throw enough honesty out there that most of you know we are far from that.
I am glad that I have documented these past few years so much better than the first 17 of our married life. I find myself through out the day making a mental note "Oh, I should blog about that!" and even my older children come to me with "Mom, you need to blog about this!"
Blogging is great to keep track of life events, vent, share pictures and stories with family and friends far away and especially nice when James is gone as my post go right to his email so he can see what we're up to or how crazy and irrational his wife is.
I also love following my friends and family blogs, it gives glimpses into their lives that you otherwise would not see and makes me feel connected and part of their lives.
But why do I let everyone read about us?
Am I an exhibitionist?
I've been thinking about it all day.
Do I have some perverse psycho disorder where I want to let everyone and anyone into my personal life?I don't know. I'm not shy, that's for sure. I'm not a fabulous writer so it's not for my secret desire to woo the world with my writing talent, so what is it?
Would I blog as much if I had no audience?I don't know. I know most my followers (and I truly think there are only a handful) started following around our adoption adventure. While putting together our paperwork and preparing to go get Alex I started lurking other blogs documenting Ukraine adoptions and I just couldn't get enough information. I decided then I would document our adventure thoroughly for those coming behind us, for my family at home and for Alex, so someday we can look back at read about his "birth" into our family.
My friends that blogged their adoption adventures (which I followed like a crazy woman) rarely if ever blog anymore. (Whats up with that friends? Don't you think we want to know about how things are going? Hear funny adjusting stories, or just hear you complain and vent about the difficulty of adding a new child to your families and life?)
If you thought this post would end with a philosophical and heart warming answer as to why I blog, you're wrong. I'm still trying to figure that out so until then....I'll guess I'll just keep blogging.

My funny children...

I'm always writing about the funny things Alex says. That is not to say my other children are not funny as they are. Austin is hilarious but as this is a family friendly sight and his idea of humor is crude verging on vulgar most the time, I don't blog too much about his wisecracks. Kambree would be highly offended if I shared most the things she does I find funny. Devree hates to be laughed at and Rylee is so sensitive that she might cry if I blog for all the world to see. Not to mention that most of their humor is at my expense. So Alex is just easiest to blog about as he doesn't know how to read my blog (nor could right now for that matter) and he has such ample material as he learns English.
However, here is an example of the torment and sarcasm I put up with on a daily bases from my eldest two:
Last night we were online trying to find a Redbox to rent. We clicked on some show that was not rated (NR), not to mention it looked bad. I told them I didn't dare rent it as it was probably nasty. Kambree pointed out that the "The Princess Protection Program" (produced by Disney) was also not rated-so we better not rent that one. I told her that the fact that princess was in the tittle made me feel more comfortable so she came back with, "Well, then could we rent a not rated movie if the title was 'The Evil Princess'?" and Austin piped in with "Or the "Naked Dancing Princesses'?" See what I mean? Funny children-not nice but funny!
Here's some more Alex funnies:
A: Mom me new word.
Me: You have a new word? Really, what is it.
A: Dude.
Me: Wow. How can you use that in a sentence?
A: Hey dude!
Me: That's pretty good. Where did you learn this new word.
A: Crack
Me: Crack?
A: Yes, you know, little Crack.
Me: Craig? (My cousin's son)
A: Yes, Craig.

Alex coming up to me after church in the hall:
A: Mom me learn about a dam.
Me: A dam? (With confused look on my face)
A: Yes. A dam.
(A few seconds pass and then it hits me.)
Me: Oh you learned about Adam, as in Adam and Eve.
Alex: Yes.

And now I must brag a little about my Alex. We were sitting at dinner and Alex asked (and I quote) "Mom, may I please have more corn?" What a perfect and proper FULL English sentence. I told him as much and then I felt my eyes start to tear. I was just so proud of him. I told him how fabulous his English is and later he asked. "Me fabulous English?" Yes, Alex your English is fabulous!

Alex's Bad Day....

What a rough day Alex has had. It started off pretty good, he always gets up and does his job and gets dressed and today he even combed his hair on his own accord. He made his bed especially nice (yesterday we had bed making 101 for the 10th time) and asked me to go look at it-which I did and I complemented him highly. Then I asked the question I ask every morning. "Did you brush your teeth?" "No." (This after our hour long talk yesterday about just obeying the basics??) I didn't make a big deal, I just let it go and he went and brushed his teeth.
Then less than 20 minutes later he's sitting with his shoes on the couch watching TV-for the 50th time! I gently remind him for the 51st time to take his shoes off the couch. (He could just not wear his shoes and have his feet on the couch but he can't get that idea in his head.)
Now, remember how I swore I wouldn't remind him about his hour of English studying? Well.... he didn't seem to be remembering our talk at all so I dropped some major hints, like:
"Alex is there anything you want me to do for you right now?"
"No."
Ten minutes later:
"Alex, is there anything you should be doing right now?"
"No."
And finally....
"Remember our big talk yesterday? Is there anything you should be asking me."
Long pause and then a mumbled quiet voice:
"English?"
"What? I'm sorry what? Did you mean to say Mom, please help me with my English?"
He refuses to look up and mumbles to the ground but I get it out of him more or less and I set up the computer for him. He proceeds to watch TV some more. I was leaving for the grocery store so I told Rylee (in front of Alex):
"If Alex doesn't start his English soon, feel free to continue playing your Webkins, Alex can just go to bed at eight o'clock."
This got him off the couch and on to the computer in a hurry. Tomorrow, I'm not saying ANYTHING, he can go to bed at eight o'clock!!
Later in the day I walk into the kitchen only to catch him in the fridge eating grapes. Again. He's managed to eat the whole bag pretty much in two days. When he sees me of course he asks with his mouth full of grapes if he can have some. I remind him to ask BEFORE he eats-not to mention he's eating in front of his cousin's and just a half hour before dinner. (Yes, this is something we talked about in our hour long talk yesterday, just like teeth brushing and shoes on the couch!)
Then right before dinner he's playing DS with his shoes once again on the couch. (He sits with his knees up to his chest spread eagle-with his shoes digging into the couch-it's very unappealing but it's the shoes on the couch that get me the most.) This time I tell him that he's lost his privilege of sitting on furniture for the rest of the day. He moves to the hardwood floor and later eats his dinner standing up. He's pretty much sulking and quiet now and disappears for awhile after dinner. I find him up in the tree in the front yard. He comes in and sits on the floor in front of the TV and then begins to sigh and groan as he tries to get comfortable on the floor. I kneel down beside him and told him how I hope he can remember to keep his shoes off the couch tomorrow so he can sit on the furniture and ask if he's mad? "No." I ask if he's disappointed that he can't remember the rules and he says "Yes."
At 8:30 I send him up to take a bath-which he begrudgingly does and then it's time for reading, he and Rylee both put up a fuss and stomp upstairs but they do their reading.
I"m thinking they need a little fun so I take the UNO cards up to play with them for twenty minutes before bed and we play one round and Alex wins. Then we proceed to teach him Spaz-a silly game where if you have two of one color of card thrown down in a row you make a hand movement. It's very simple and easy to play and we have a practice round to give him a chance to learn and we all laugh at how silly it is. Then we start playing for real and in just a few mintues it's apparent he's losing. His eye's well up with tears and then he loses it. It's time for bed anyway and I take his cards and tell him to go to bed and he storms off and throws himself on his bed and sobs....over the silly card game. (Give me strength!)
Once again I sit down and hold him and talk to him. This time I talk to him about being a good loser and how you can't win everything and that no one will want to play with him or be his friend if he acts like this. We talk about him acting more like an eleven year old and less like a baby. He cries intermittently throughout our talk. I ask if he cried at school and what the teachers would do, he tells me some story about how he was either helping in the kitchen and the teacher didn't know where he was or he was suppose to be helping in the kitchen anyway, the teacher told him he couldn't have any Christmas presents, which was candy and he cried. He said he was seven. Not exactly what I was looking for. I asked if he cried when he lost games at school and he said yes and that the teachers would laugh at him. I explained that he doesn't have to be the best or win for me or Dad to love him. We love him no matter what. That he'll never go back to the orphanage and he'll always be a apart of our family. (I really think he's got it in his head he has to be the best and prove himself.) I told him I didn't adopt him because I thought he'd be the best and always win but because I love him and if he never makes a goal or wins a game, I'll still love him. He cries more.
Then we talked about being a good sport winning and losing. I talked with him about school and how he might have a hard day sometimes and we came up with a secret sign that means, he's had a bad/rough/hard day and when I see it, I'll know he needs to be held in a big a hug and a minute to cry into my shoulder. I'm hoping this is a good option to tears and frustration at school, to know he has a safe place to let it out.
Then he told me he did not want to say prayers because he says the same things everyday. So, we talked about being thankful for our blessings and all the things Heavenly Father can help him with including understanding English, not crying when he loses and remembering to keep his shoes off the couch. He agreed to pray and said a few words with a quick amen. I then helped him pray for all the things he needs help with including to know how much I love him. Then tucked him in to bed!
Good gravy that's hour long talk number two, two days in a row! Did he even understand any of it?? I guess time will tell.

Journaling...

James is back to work, kids are asleep in bed and it's only 12:45 AM and I finally have a chance to blog.
So, the last night of Grease I was taking pictures and all my pictures were blurry so I re-formatted my camera-without thinking- and lost ALL of Devree's and Kambee's birthday photo's. I was so upset! I almost cried. Now, when they're old and I'm gone they'll look back and say "See how much Mom loved Alex? She only took pictures at his birthday!"
My domestic children are feeling slighted by their newest imported brother. It's true he takes a lot of my time and attention and I can't say I blame them. I am sure Alex would like less of my time and attention as most of it is spent teaching him manners, family rules and personal grooming habits. (Tonight I made a bet with him that he could not sit still for 20 minutes without cracking his neck or itching or picking at his face/nose. It almost killed him-I had to itch his nose twice and his ear once! He did it though! He has so many quirky habits/nervous tendency's. It hurts my neck to watch him crank his head from side to side popping his neck and then cracking his back and fingers. His hands are always on his face, picking his nose, scratching his hair, wiping at his mouth. He can't watch TV with his hands in his lap.)
We also had a BIG talk today about how many times I remind him of basic things like keeping his shoes off the couch, brushing his teeth, sneaking food, eating in the living room, and studying. His eye's welled up with tears and I held him as we discussed these things and how tired I am of reminding him over and over. Then when I asked him to tell me how he feels he complained that he didn't get to play Wii yesterday because Rylee had friends over watching movies, (What the heck? Your tears are over the Wii? I don't think so!) so I pressed for more feelings (he just shrugs and says "I don't know" when I ask him how he feels so I told him to think hard to find the English words he needs to tell me how he feels or just say how he feels in Russian and let it all out-that really made him sob, he does not want to talk in Russian!) I finally got that he feels it's unfair that he has to study English. Hum... here's what I came up with: I told him how unfair it is for all the children back in the orphanage in Ukraine without parents and how he made a deal and promised that he would learn English. He told the judge he would study and before we even talked to him about adoption we explained our family rules and that our children are expected to go to school and try their best and that he would have to learn English. I told him that it's his part of the deal to learn English and to be a part of our family. How would he feel if I stopped doing my part of the deal? Taking care of him. What if I stopped cleaning his clothes and making dinner and tucking him in at night. How would he like that? He quickly agreed to study his English and more importantly he agreed that if he didn't and if he didn't seek me out each day WANTING to learn English (in other words, setting up the Rosetta Stone on the computer) he would go to bed at eight o'clock instead of his summer ten o'clock bedtime. Tomorrow I am not going to mention studying at all and see how he does. (I really hope I'm saying the right things to Alex. It's so hard to even know if he gets what I'm saying and/or my point is getting across.)
Anyway, back to the birthday re-cap:
Devree had a party where we took a group of her friends to the grocery store and played the shopping cart game and then they got into teams of two and each had $5 to buy something to contribute for dinner. Each team could not let the other teams see what they were buying. We ended up with Mac & Cheese, hot dogs, spaghetti, a can of fruit, two tossed salads and I bought chicken nuggets and supplied slushy drinks. The girls had a lot of fun preparing and eating their dinner and then we made s'mores on the fire pit and served birthday cake.
Kambree's birthday was more low-key. Last year was her big sweet sixteen and this year we just took her to lunch with Michelle & Paul and then we brought a birthday cake to our performance of "Grease" that night to share with the cast.
Here is the cakes count in the last two weeks!
#1 Alex's Sponge Bob Cake
#2 Aunt Kammy's Ice Cream Cake
#3 Dev's Barbie Cake
#4 Family Costco cake for all three kids
#5 Kam's Barbie Cake
#6 Cast Cake
Not to mention, every night of "Grease" we celebrated someones birthday so that was FIVE MORE cakes. Ugh, I think I'm caked out!
James work has changed his schedule yet again. Now he's NOT home for ALL the major holidays. But I refuse to worry about this as who knows how many times they'll change it again before then.
I applied for a (gasp) job this week. I highly doubt I'll even get an interview but I applied all the same. It's for the school district so I'm hoping that it will have similar hours to the ones that my children are in school. Real estate has just been so slow this year and I don't foresee it improving anytime soon. Oh, I really don't think I want a job, I love my freedom. It just so very expensive to live. James makes plenty to pay all the bills, groceries and gas but it's the extras that kill us. Like Dance Company, braces, holidays, soccer, doctor appointments, swimming, dance classes, school registrations, birthdays, and broken down things/home improvement. If nothing would break, need improving, the kids did nothing, no one every got sick, everyone had perfectly straight teeth and we stopped all celebrations and vacationing we'd be just fine!
Well, enough of my venting. I think I'll go to bed...alone! The other night (James was at girls camp with Kam & Dev) Rylee was sleeping with me and Alex came in with a "Me scary" and climbed in on the other side. Right before bed I'd been watching Dateline about that couple that was killed in Florida that had adopted all those special needs kids. Alex was watching it with me and it made him upset. I explained that the bad guys were all in jail and that Florida is very far away and no one is going to shoot me or Dad. He said "You shoot my mom, me shoot you!" and then pantomimed shooting the bad guys. When he crawled in my bed with his "Me scary." I asked what was wrong and he simply said "I miss you." Then he laid against me all night. Sweet, I know, but it does not make for good sleep to be sandwiched between a nine and eleven year old!

Blog Pirating!

I yi yi!
I have been so crazy busy (and I lost pictures on my camera of my girls birthdays!) but thank heavens my awesome cousin-like a sister-Michelle came to visit and blogged about her visit so if you want to see what we've been up to, here's the link!
Hartshorn Cousin Visit
By the way, she's a professional photographer so if you are in need of one, she's fabulous!

Grease Pictures!

Most of these pictures I pirated off of Facebook but some where supplied by my fabulous cousin, Paul. (My other sister-cousin Michelle has pictures too but she has some high finagled security system on her blog that prevents me from pirating them!)
This is me as Miss Lynch reprimanding these boys for not being in class.

Kambree crying after the Pink Ladies pushed the cheerleader pyramid over.

Freddy My Love sleep over scene.

Kambree close up

20 Year class reunion at the top of the show (these are not in the correct order!)

Setting out punch during the Hand Jive Contest

Behind the scene's shots!
Kambree & me with our fabulous Danny!

Kambree and Sami

My favorite costume!

Our dance costumes.

Beauty School Drop out costumes.

4th of July Park Pic

Kambree's Birthday!

Wow, seventeen. Have I been a mom for that long? I remember so well the day Kambree was born. It was six long, grueling days PAST her due date when the hospital finally admitted me-apparently I wasn't in full fledged labor but the nurse that turned me away the night before had me wait until the new doctor for the day came on shift and then he admitted me, started the Potossin and broke my water. Ten hours later, Kambree made her entrance. And since that day my heart has never been the same. I read a quote that said something like "Having children is like allowing your heart to walk around outside of your body." That's how I feel and especially with Kambree. You see she's the first. No, not that I love her more then my other it's just that I have loved her longer.
It's not easy being a first child-I should know as I am one too. When Kambree was a baby she never left the house without matching bows and socks and slathered with baby lotion. Her Binky (which she loved) was always properly sterilized when she dropped it on the ground and all her toys were educational. I would break out in a nervous sweat when she would cry in public and I remember crying right along with her during her immunizations.
When Kambree was born she aspirated fluid and was put under oxygen in the NICU. (Keep in mind she was nine pounds and three ounces so she looked a little out of place with all those tiny babies.) Her little chest heaved in and out and she was breathing so rapidly that the doctors were thinking she'd need to be life flighted to Primary Children's. I couldn't hold her or feed her. Never in my life have I prayed so hard. I remember sitting in a Sitz bath at the hospital with tears streaming down my facing praying and sobbing that she would get better. Her Dad and grandfathers gave her a blessing, placing their large hands on her little tummy and hours later she improved and eventually came home just one day after I did. She was my miracle and she still is. Not many seventeen year olds would want to spend their summer rehearsing and being in a community play with (gulp) their mother. Not all teenagers take college courses and have a love for learning and know the path they want to take. Not everyone can dance with such feeling and power and make their mother cry EVERY time. Not many girls are as beautiful inside as they are outside. Yep, that's my Kam and she's my miracle. I love you Kam, happy birthday!