About Our Family

El Paso, Texas, United States
We are James, Lisa, Patrick, Christian, Carson, and Ella Payne a military family serving our country via service in the U.S. Army. Jim and I have been married for 18 years and have 3 wonderful home grown sons -Patrick, Christian and Carson. We recently adopted our beautiful daughter Ella Grace Ana from Donets'k, Ukraine in September. Jim and I began our Army life together at Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas and every assignment thus far has extended unique opportunities and challenges for our family to grow and learn; to become a stronger, committed, and a prepared Army family. Having recently lived abroad for six amazing years, we cannot express how thankful we are for the opportunity to have represented our great country and to discover the cultures and customs of other countries; to become close to the people and learn from them; to open our hearts and minds to the unfamiliar languages and way of life in other countries. Having now moved back to the United States, we are looking forward to discovering what new adventures await our family. Rest assured, wherever the Army sends us we will continue to serve you and our country proudly. Army life, we wouldn’t trade it!

August 26, 2008

Tee ochen kraiseevaya!

Today, we played beautician
(thanks MP for the suggestion)
...first I did Ella's hair



And then she did mine...


A quiet moment with Mama

Sharing juice with Mama



Ella kept asking to leave in the masheena (car)...it was heartbreaking to tell her not today solnishka (sunshine).
We'd love to hear from you at

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

beautiful mommy, beautiful daughter...

You can see her get closer and closer to you both with each photo/video posted.

hugs and loves - Schrie

26/8/08 15:25
Staci and Damon said...

LOVE the pictures!! She is absolutely adorabvle and you can tell that you are all bonding well. We plan to be in Kiev by Saturday, so we'll try to give you a call!! I'll give you our number 80955443511
Staci

26/8/08 15:57
Kevin and Tammy said...

So wonderful to see the pictures. I finally have a moment to look at other blogs. Things are moving so quickly. I already have one who likes to play beauty shop and I am sure I will have two. We are parents. Do you have a court date yet?

27/8/08 11:40

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This is our "spot" we began at the beginning of our journey in May 2007, to adopt a child from Ukraine. In August 2008, we traveled to Ukraine to bring our daughter/sister Ella Grace Ana home; and on September 12, 2008 we did just that.

While our journey to bring her home is complete, our journey together is just beginning. We will continue to keep our spot here, posting as frequently as we can; and keeping you updated on our next journey in life...maybe a second adoption is in our future.

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