Let The Count Down Begin...

It is 25 "wake-ups" as our children describe it until Christmas morning. That means 24 days to purchase all those gifts we haven't already purchased (which is almost all); and with a small budget this year to do it with.

Tonight we headed out purchase our tree. As we were walking out the door, Christian asked if we are going to the PX (Post Exchange) to get our tree (he is only accustom to the fake ones). I said, "No son we are going to have a real tree this year; one that smells like Christmas and fills the house with the smell of the outdoors." With that, Christian said, "Don't we need a saw or something to cut the tree down with?" Logical question. He was so excited at the thought of going to the woods to search for "our" tree, cutting it down, and loading it into the truck to bring back to decorate as we listened to Christmas songs and drank hot chocolate. Ahhhh.....it does sound so good. After listening and seeing the excitement in his little face it was sad to tell him we are just going down the street to one of the vendors selling trees. Next year little man....we will go to the mountains so you can have the full experience.

Instead, we all piled into the truck and headed down Dyer Street to find one of the many "Christmas Trees Sold Here" lots for our perfect tree; and believe it or not it was at the first place we stopped! We debated for about 20 minutes between 2 trees and then decided the smaller of the two would be best....plus Ella Grace had to potty and she was at the point when "in a moment baby" was no longer working. We loaded the tree into the truck and headed back home....only Ella Grace HAD to potty REALLY BAD now and we diverted for a burger and a potty.

We finally made it home and placed our perfect NOBLE tree in the living room; no ornaments tonight... we are waiting a day or two for the limbs to relax and an earlier start with all the trimmings for a memorable decorating night!

Adapting to the Changes....

We are still here...

The postings have been less frequently lately but we hope that now we have adjusted to the changes in our family and our travels are over for now we will be able to begin posting to our blog on a regular basis.

This is what has been happening....

We (Christian, Carson, Ella and me) left for Tennessee on November 7th; we returned to El Paso with Grandpa and Flat Stanley on November 16th. Then on November 19th we took a trip to Albuquerque, NM to visit my Dad's sister Marcia we hadn't seen in over 8 years! We had a lovely couple of days visiting, catching up, and seeing snow flurries, before we headed back to El Paso on November 21st. That afternoon, Ben and Daniel came to spend the weekend while their parents headed up to Ruidoso - we officially have a house full!

We enjoyed a wonderful full weekend with 2 more boys and Grandpa. We just hung out and enjoyed our company; roasted marshmellows on the outdoor fire; the boys' played in the tree house, and my dad, Jim and I sat by the fire....it was nice. Then Sunday came and it was full of "see ya laters" sprinkled with a few tears. Dad headed back to Tennessee and Ben and Daniel walked back across the street to their home....it was quiet again. Maybe we need to add a couple more children to our family? I love the chaos!

In the midst of all the happenings, Jim celebrated his birthday, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with our family here in El Paso and today is Patrick's 17th birthday....where does the time go?

We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoyed the company of good food and sweet treats with family and friends!

Believe It or Not...

We headed out to the Ripley's Believe It or Not Aquarium today to see all kinds of life living in the the water that covers 70% of our earth! We saw poison dart frogs, four-eyed fish, fresh water stingrays, armored catfish, fish from the coral reef like the parrots, damsels, angels and butterflies, fish whose very names are almost as exotic and colorful as they are. We visited the shark lagoon where we leisurely traveled on a moving 340-foot long glidepath, as we made our way through the acrylic tunnel and came face to face with snappers, tarpons, grunts, squirrelfish, a green sea turtle, giant stingrays, sawfish and...very large SHARKS! Then me moved on to one of our favorites, stingray bay! Here, we saw so many different rays and sharks - atlantic stingrays, southern stingrays, cownose rays, spotted eagle rays, bonnethead sharks, leopard sharks, epaulette sharks, arabian sharks, brownbanded sharks and white-spotted sharks. They looked hungry so we stayed away!

We had so much fun!

Fall Foliage

OMGoodness!

Flying in over east Tennessee was so beautiful! Fall has arrived here and the sight of all the colors below was just breathtaking! Oranges, yellows, reds, greens, and golds all across the landscape; when you have sand and desert landscape you forget the beauty of fall.

What a perfect time to fly!

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Okay, back to the purpose....we arrived here in Tennessee with my family. It's nice to come back (especially in fall) to see everyone! I am not so sure Ella Grace knew what was going on but when I told her she was going to see her Grandpa and Grandma she squealed with delight!

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We have been here almost 5 days and she is finding her "way in" with Grandpa and Grandma - FOOD! She will resource one of them waiting until a drawer or cabinet is opened to see what is hiding behind it. When Grandma or Grandpa opens it, Ella Grace can hardly contain herself! Of course the find is more than anything she hoped for and her squeal is a true reflection of her desire to consume it! I have given up on telling them she shouldn't have this or that....hey, they are Grandparents ~ their job is to spoil her and send her packin'!

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Yesterday we went to the park with some of her cousins ~ the pictures from our outing are below.

Sliding and climbing

Big brother Carson

Big brother Christian

Waiting to zip line Carson, Ella Grace, Carly, Caden and Christian

Time to go home.....I'm cold.

Дедушка и Бабушка

That's Russian for Grandpa and Grandma.

We (Ella Grace, the little men and I) are leaving to visit with my family in Tennessee. We can't wait for everyone to meet our daughter/sister!

Gross (ology)

Homeschooling began with a trip to the Grossology Exhibit. It is truly an impolite experience of the grossness of the human body. We explored sticky, goopy gross things like blood, pus, sneezing, and athlete's feet; bumpy lumpy gross bodily issues of goose bumps, hiccups, moles, rashes, tongues and warts; and then on to squishy, mucky gross things of the brain, bruises, eyeballs, guts and poop!

Christian said, "The museum was cool and so was the operation game. I liked pumping the juices to make the man exhibit burp."

Carson said, "It's really not that awesome and I really didn't like it. I didn't like smelling all those stinky smells: armpits, anus, feet, and bad breath."

Our neighbor went with us: J, S, and B - thanks guys we had a great day with you!

Also little man from across the way went - thanks D we loved having you with us!

Halloween Fun...

I thought I would add some post Halloween pictures.....

Major Changes

Those of you still reading and who know me well - this is going to knock your socks off.

Have you ever made a decision/choice and then later thought better of it? Thought maybe I could have made a wiser choice? Perhaps a situation isn't what it appears to be at first and the 'other' option(s) may have been a better fit? My point is, often times we make decisions and later find those decisions may not have been the best choice. This had happened with the choice we made for schooling for Christian and Carson.

Coming from Madrid, Spain and the private school ASM we gravitated towards the private schooling here. We searched, we visited, we asked questions, we compared, and thought we had made the right choice. Now, we are sure we made the wrong choice. It has been 12 weeks since the boys began school - 4 of them while we were in Ukraine. Every night, they have had between 4 and 5 hours of homework - yes homework. Their routine consist of arriving home, 30 minutes to eat and play, then to the dining room table for homework. From 4 in the afternoon until bedtime we (Christian, Carson and myself) are at the dining room table with studies. They have absolutely no time to hang out with friends, socialize, play sports, or be apart of any community activities. I have no time to cook dinner, talk with a neighbor, on the phone, or go to the bathroom! It has been stressful and not very fun. They have cried and I have cried. It is terrible to see your kids so miserable. It tugs at your heart when they say, "We moved here on base to have friends, we don't have time for friends because it is always homework, homework, homework!" What do you do?

So we took a huge step back and looked at this objectively and asked ourselves..... Why do they dislike school? Why are they begging us not to send them to school every morning? Are they being pushed too hard and/or too quickly? What happened to enjoying and loving to learn? Where are the hands on experiments? Where is their community involvement at? Where are they learning team building? Do we want them to "learn" the material or "know" the material? How do we make learning fun? How do we make this work for our family?

After careful consideration, much thought, and a whole lotta praying and asking for guidance, we have decided effective Friday, October 31st Christian and Carson will no longer attend the private school they have been attending or a public school. They will be home schooled. Yes, I did say home schooled for those of you who thought you didn't read that correctly.


I never thought in a thousand years I would be homeschooling my children. I didn't think I had the personality or drive to teach my own children; but here we are at this juncture in our lives where we must make decisions that are selfless and in the best possible interest of others. We are excited and looking forward to this new challenge for our family. As we move forward in this new journey we hope to bring the fun back into learning math, science, language, history, spelling, reading; and to teach them new and exciting things, to have hands on experiences that go hand in hand with what they are studying, to be apart of their community and learn about citizenship, team building and volunteering, to join the football, baseball, soccer or swim teams AND just be a kid.

Birthday Girl!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Ella celebrated her 5th birthday today - her first with her forever family and her

first as an American citizen.

Cake

New Name....so says she

Our little Ella Grace has picked a "new name" she insist on calling herself "Elle" or "LaLa."

She is showing us her comic side:

She plays this game: She will say, "Eta Mama, (pointing to me) and then "Eta Elle Lala" (pointing to herself). When I point to me and say, "Eta Mama" she says, "Nyet!" and points to me and says, "Eta Ella" (then points to herself) and says, "Eta Mama."

Isn't she just the cutest little thing!

She called me Mommy today! Still calling Papa - Papa.

It's Raining...Inside the house!

Our entryway was raining and the chandelier was the waterfall....

....the repair men came and OH MY now that is some damage!

Our hot water pipe had sprung a leak....this is the damage to the ceiling

The repairs were 3 days long - but they handled our home with care by draping off the rest of the house to avoid dust and damage....

And now it looks like new!

Ideas....

Thanks for all the great ideas for Ella's 5th birthday celebration and first with us. We are keeping it simple and pretty....

E-Mail...

Do you get behind?

I had 96 emails to respond to! I wish that "E" stood for Easy - it took all day to go through and respond to all those emails. I am good now...just one left to respond to - sorry Rita. Why did I leave just one? I can't imagine waking up in the morning and not having "mail" in my Gmail in box. Something to look forward to I suppose. :o)

The Community Showers Us...

Our community showered Ella and I with a beautiful Adoption Shower to celebrate Ella's arrival. Thank you Lisa and Michelle for such a beautiful shower and for your friendships, support and love. Thank you to the 6th BDE Ladies, Friends, and Neighbors who we are so blessed to have surrounding us. We treasure your friendships and thank all of you for the well wishes, support, love and beautiful gifts you so generously gave to Ella. She will enjoy with squeals of delight - each and every one of them!

Almost 5....Need Help With Ideas

Ella's birthday is almost here. She is going to be 5 years old. We want to plan a little something for her but nothing that is too overwhelming. She has a few babies but she has not been introduced to barbies, princesses, Disney...etc. Any suggestions for her birthday - keeping it simple but memorable as her first birthday with her forever family?

Taking the Plunge...

Today we took the plunge....swimming of course! Christian, Carson, Ella and I (Lisa) opted for the pool today after school. The boys really needed the break from homework. We arrived at the indoor pool and Ella thought we were going to a restaurant as she kept yelling with excitement "EAT!" "EAT!" Once we were inside she was equally excited when she saw the pool. We went to our respective dressing rooms and put on our swim gear and headed out to the pool. Now, everything echos at an indoor pool so her normal LOUD shriek was amplified! Christian and Carson were dutiful big brothers and gently helped her into the pool, went to get her a life vest, and then a paddle board which she LOVED! She played with them for an hour. Jumping off the side of the pool and going under about a hundred times until the slide opened. She cannot swim but didn't seem to mind going under or being "dumped" off the end of the slide. Everyone had a great hour of fun! I think it will become on Wednesday activity for the day. I didn't take the camera this time...sorry. I will next time, promise!

Ella's Story

This is not a new post however, we have had several emails asking where did the post go so we decided to post it again....

Documented in court papers, this is Ella’s Story...

...Ella was born to a healthy 18 year old mother as the first birth in a normal pregnancy in October, 2003. The court documents translated state, “the mother is a registered resident in the city of (X) however; she does not have a permanent place of living and resides in various places with various partners. She is of low income and social background.”

In March 2004, Ella (5 months old) was placed on full state support at the Child House on the request of her birthmother. At this time, she stated she did not have a place to live or income to provide for Ella and therefore, could not properly care for her. Over the next few months, Ella’s birthmother made monthly visits, in time, those visits became further and further apart until eventually the birthmother stopped visiting completely. Since then, the birthmother has not expressed any further interest in Ella’s state of health, made any attempts to initiate contact with Ella, or attempted to contact the Child House or state bodies to inquire about Ella’s upbringing, offer support, or request help to assist her in getting through her situation in order to regain custody of Ella. No additional family members visited or inquired about Ella or her status while at the Child House.

In October 2005, Ella’s birthmother married and took the surname of her husband and has not made any attempts to petition for Ella.

In May of last year, court convened to terminate the birthmother’s rights. The court notified the birthmother of the date, place, and time of the hearing however, she did not appear before the judge and her rights to Ella were terminated. Shortly after her parental rights had been terminated, she appeared at the court. Advised she had missed the hearing and her rights had effectively been terminated, she was advised she had the right to appeal the decision within 10 days of the judgment. No appeal was ever filed.

Ella was now able to be placed into the “system” and made available for adoption after the mandatory waiting period.

Ella’s file arrived on Friday, August 15, 2008 at the SDA and we were shown her file on Monday, August 18, 2008 at our appointment. Ella’s file was the first of the two files we were shown.

Please remember it is not for us to pass judgment on the decisions Ella’s birthmother made. We believe she made the best choices for the health and welfare of Ella under the circumstances she found herself in. It is obvious she loved her baby and made choices to ensure she would be provided for. We are forever thankful to her for the gift of this smart, happy, healthy, and spirited child. She is an absolute joy. We are blessed and thankful God had her in mind for us.

One, Two, Three...

Time just manages to slip away no matter how hard you try to hold on to it; and no matter how you use it. It has been three short weeks since we brought Ella home and it is amazing how much she has changed already. She is so attached to her brothers and loves to spend hours outside on the saucer swing with them and they love taking her to the park to play. They have adjusted so well to having a little sister in the house - it is truly a blessing how well this new combination fits together. It's like she has always been here.

Some things we have learned about Ella over the past few weeks:

She has absolutely no interest in T.V. - None.
She loves her baby dolls, jewelry, dresses, and pink glitter slippers.
She loves to take a bath (although we have had to work on not drinking the bath water).
She is a great little Mama's helper.
She sucks her thumb when she goes to sleep.
She does not like bedtime and usually breaks down in tears when she knows it is time.
She will eat you out of house and home if you let her.
She likes to teach you Russian instead of her learning more English although she is progressing.
She is warming up to dogs but she is still not so sure about them.
She is great at playing possum (fake snoring LOUDLY while answering your question with a nod).

We have kept consistency with her as well as routine the last three weeks. She understands about 80-85% of what we say to her. For example, if I say Ella we don't need the lights. Can you turn them off please. She does. If we ask her to put her shoes in the closet she does. If we say it is your turn to pray she does - although we have no idea what she has said because it is in Russian except for the "Amen" at the end of her prayer.


Here are some pictures of our weekend at the Amigo Air Show.



How do you drive this?





The view from here is much better.



This is my kinda ride




We are family....all my brothers.....Papa and me....

Stopping By....

Stopping by our blog?

Well now that you're here leave us a message we would love to hear from you!

The Nose Story...

Okay, here is the what happened to Ella's nose....

The last day we were in Ukraine, Ella and I went with a friend of mine to the park to let Ella play and expend some energy. She was doing great, swinging, playing, climbing and having a great deal of fun while I was taking pictures. The park was beautiful and right off the river....my friend asked if I had seen the river from the park...I hadn't. Just as I took a couple of steps towards the wall to take some pictures I heard screams - Ella's and my friend. Ella had tried to climb across the money bars without assistance in the blink of an eye. There was no time for my friend to have reached her and she fell flat on her face in the sand. It looked bad however, there was no broken bones, lost teeth or anything of that sort. She had a mouth full of sand, skinned her little face up and bruised her hip. It has since cleared up and there is no lasting scars.






This is right after the fall and clean up.



Ella today (9/27/08)