3 Month Milestone

We flew into the US 3 months ago today. What a roller coaster it has been! A lot of it hasn't even been Ira. LOL. Speaking of her though, she has made huge strides in these last 3 months. We had a nice little honeymoon stage when we first got home, followed by a few weeks where I was wishing I could take her back to the orphanage. Really wishing.

The last little bit though, I have seen a huge change in her. She is much more kind and loving with Little One. She is not defiant and disrespectful to me. She has become quite the little tattletale and has even lied to me a couple of times (that I've caught her anyway) but for the most part she is a completely different child. Much more like the one I saw last fall. No more do I hear how much she wants to go back or that she doesn't love me. Her English is coming along very well. She understands almost everything at this point and speaks quite a bit too. Little One is still annoying at times, but Ira deserves it just as often. LOL. They are acting as sisters now though, instead of enemeies. I love to listen to them giggling about something together.

Here's hoping the next 3 months bring even more positive changes! Bring it on! :)

Sidewalk Chalk Art

On Saturday Mom and the girls and I went down to the Gateway to see the sidewalk chalk art they had down the middle of the street.  It was pretty cool.  I'm amazed at what people can do with a piece of chalk.  Or, lots of chalk, I should say.  Here were some of my favorites.

Kinda creepy, but cool. :)

I love ones with lots of black, for some reason.

I loved the detail in the horse.

Ah, I love Tangled. :)

This was even more creepy.  Such people were on every corner.  Super weird.  No, I did not get a free hug.

This one was even cooler. :)

Loved the look of this one.

Not sure why I liked this, but I did.

I loved the idea of this one.  She writes a story and it paints a picture.  So true.  I love reading....

Cute

There were fun things in the bubbles of this one.

This one was super cool. :)

Classic

This was probably my very favorite.  Mostly because I got to see the real painting a few weeks ago.

It was so neat watching him draw this. :)

Very cool.

He did a time-laps somewhere on the internet.  I haven't looked for it though.

We tried to get some cotton candy while we were there but there was a HUGE line.  We stopped at the store on the way home and got a treat instead. :)  We could have gotten our hair spray-painted.  I'm such a party pooper though.  Ira would have really liked it, and I'm thinking Little One would have too.  I'm not big on weird hair colors though.  Sorry kids.  Should have picked a different Mom.

Funny

I forgot to mention something cute that Ira said yesterday.  She came in with quite the attitude on her face that screamed, "tattletale."  I knew she was going to tell me something that Little One had done.  Before she could start I said, "Happy face."  After she ignored me I said again, "Happy."

Then, still walking toward me, she says, "No Mama.  This NO happy." LOL

I can't even remember what it was that she was coming to tell me about because I was laughing so hard. :)

By the way.  Yesterday was 12 weeks since we flew back to America.  I'll probably start counting by months at this point, instead of weeks though so our three month mark won't actually happen until next week.  Still, I thought 12 weeks were worth mentioning.

Wow, It's Been Awhile

How time does fly.  It's been almost 3 weeks since I last posted.

The last week of school was nice.  Ira had a couple of really fun field trips.  The whole school went over to the rec center to swim one day and the other the whole 6th grade went to Classic Skating.  She had a blast both days.  Friday of that week was the 6th grade graduation.  The slide show had super annoying music, but other than that, it was a nice program.

She is in the middle with the b/w polka dot dress.

She wasn't quite sure what to do when the principal tried to shake her hand. :)

Since school got out we've had some changes in our family.  Details don't need to be mentioned.  Even though it's been rough on all of us, there are some good things coming out of it as well.  Ira and Little One are the biggest ones.  All of a sudden they are acting like sisters.  They still have their moments where they really bug each other, but there has been a huge transformation.  They ask each other to play a game, for example, and then enjoy the time instead of fight.  I've heard them giggling together.  I've come in and seen them on one of their beds, doing separate thing, but lying together.  This hadn't ever happened before.  I haven't heard, "I want Ukraine!" even once from Ira in the last couple of weeks.  Or, "You love Little One, you no love me!"  It has just seemed to disappear from her vocabulary.  Not that I truly expect it to have completely gone away, but I'm amazed at the difference nonetheless.

Anyway, we've got things planned for the day so I best get going for now.

Goings On

Here are pictures of some things Ira has made/drawn over the last few weeks.  I keep a few things here and there, but mostly I enjoy for awhile and then take a picture and throw the thing away.  I'm not a clutter person and can't stand random things lying about.  JPEG's are much easier to keep track of. :)

She made me this flower at school.

This was a fun picture she came home with another day.

This is my favorite.  If you look, you can see it spells out I-R-A. :)

It's been interesting watching her as she's been back to America for a few weeks now.  She still tells me (whenever she's upset about something) that she wants to go back to Ukraine.  This last time it was, "No Mama, no Papa.  Orphanage."  LOL  Yes, I honestly CAN laugh about it.  I don't take it personally.  This isn't to say that if she catches me on a bad day that I won't take it personally, but still.  This didn't happen to be one of those days.  She wants to live with her godmother.  She just KNOWS that she would take her in once she ages out of the orphanage.  Ah well.  I just told her that she is welcome to go back to Ukraine once she turns 18.  I will miss her a lot, but if that's what she wants to do, she is welcome to.  When she's happy about how things are going, she doesn't really seem to want to go back though.

She and Little One have taken over my yarn stash.  There are crochet hooks flying all over the place.  Today Ira made me a little bag.  Not sure what I'm going to do with it, but it was sweet of her. :)  Little One is practicing chains like no other.  She's making everyone "necklaces."  Ira just came and asked me if she could make me a blanket.  She's also working on a doily out of string.  I just hope my hooks don't disappear on me.

Sunday was awesome!  I took Ira down to hear Elder Hall speak.  He was the one that was so kind as to interpret for Little One in primary one week while we were in Ukraine.  It was really nice to break from routine and go down there.  Little One wanted to see him again, but not on a Sunday.  She said her friends would wonder if she was sick. LOL  Elder Hall's talk was wonderful and just what it should be.  You can always tell the really good missionaries and he is one of them.  It was fun to see his personality a bit more than I'd gotten to see the two times I saw him in Ukraine. :)  I got to visit a bit with his father while Elder Hall visited in Russian with Ira.  His father is also very kind and if I'd known his mom was his mom, then I would have introduced myself to her.  Hopefully I'll have the chance another time.

In case you forgot, this was us in Ukraine.  Elder Hall is the one next to Little One.

Here we are at the homecoming!

School is drawing to a close and I don't know what in the world I'm going to do all summer.  Ira has really enjoyed school and isn't looking forward to it ending.  I've quite enjoyed it too and am also not looking forward to it ending!  Hopefully we'll all manage instead of reverting back to how things were a few weeks ago!

Her English is coming quite well.  She seems to be understanding more and more all the time.  We really enjoy having Elena come over once a week to help her as well.

As for Russian, I'm coming along too.  Not nearly as fast as she is with English, mind you.  However, I don't exactly use much with her.  I'm learning more for me than for her.  I'll talk to Masha a bit here and there though.  I keep asking her grammar questions. :)  I've been really liking Rosetta Stone, but I've been very glad to have someone to ask things of.  Speaking of Masha, I've gotten to chat with her a couple more time.  That's always very nice.

Well, I suppose that's all the updates for now.

Kimball's Coming Home

Yesterday yet another family arrived home from Ukraine after having adopted 2 boys.  This cute family had a very long trip, with many twists and turns.  They arrived in Ukraine just a few weeks after we did.  They had hosted a brother/sister and wanted to adopt them.  Things didn't work out quite as planned, however, when they found out they were just a little too old for the younger of the siblings.  Despite traveling across the world to try and get the two of them, they were not allowed by the government.  Disappointed, but not giving up, they decided to travel about as far away from Kiev as you can get to meet a boy that had been recommended to them.  They decided to adopt him and then also decided to adopt a younger boy from the same orphanage.  A happy ending after all! :)  Welcome home, Kimball's!

Us waiting.  Kim, Nan, Andreas, Anne and I were all there.

This cute girl (Anastasia) was just adopted last August.  She was from the same orphanage as these two boys and her mom is the one to suggest them to Christy.

Little One and Heather (Anne's) had fun together while we waited.

Finally they come out!

Happy faces all around.

More hugs

She was saying he's gotten taller since she saw him in August!

Christy and Nan

Kimball's

My traditional picture. :)

Friends

Checking out the camera

More friends. :)

Playing on the escalator

Improvements and Poker Chips

So far so good on things still being better.  I was afraid after my last post that it was going to be more along the lines of, "famous last words."  Not so.  At least yet.  LOL

I still get attitude now and again.  It's usually short lived though.  There was a green bean incident a few days ago.  She doesn't like them and said they'd make her throw up.  Now, I know there are some things I just don't like to eat.  If she would confine comments about throwing up to a select few things I probably wouldn't make her eat those things.  When it's anything she doesn't feel like eating though....  She was very dramatic about putting a bean in her mouth and then grabbing her drink with both hands (very quickly, mind you) in order to wash the bean down in one piece.  Good grief.  I just ignored her, for the most part, until I couldn't stand it.  I offered to show her what she looked like.  I did and then asked her if it was cute.  She still complained about eating the rest of them (she'd only been given a few) but at least the drama was gone.

The glasses have gotten slightly better.  She's been taking them off at school, I've found out.  Now that I've been on her again, she's been better.  At least the last couple of days, she has.  She's also having trouble teasing the boys still.  I've talked to her about it again so hopefully that will diminish as well.

We're a couple of weeks into our new poker chip system.  There are 4 colors and each is a certain time.  Red = 15min, blue = 30 min, Green = 45 min, and black = 1 hour.  On Sunday both girls get 2 hours worth of chips.  These are to be used for anything electronic.  Movies, computer time, iPod time, Skype, Wii, etc....  If we watch a movie together it doesn't cost them time, but if they want to do it on their own (or even the two girls) then it does cost them.  Every once in awhile I will give "free" time as well, but never when asked for.  It's actually been working out quite well.  At first I thought 2 hours wouldn't be enough for a week, but considering that Grandma's house is free and the limited time they really have to use them anyway...it's worked out well.  It's also good incentive to be good.  Like Ira got 30 minutes taken away the other day for not having been wearing her glasses at school.  Little One gets time taken away when she keeps refusing to speak English.  It's more like Engski.

Ira is doing quite well on her English.  She still has interesting words for things though.  Root beer was "blueberry." LOL  She also called her toes, "fingers."  Makes me wonder if they have the same word for both fingers and toes in Russian.  Speaking of toes, she showed me last night that she can play cats cradle (remember that string game??) with herself.  She uses her toes as well.  Quite the talent. :)

We've had lots of rain lately which has made for an adaptation on my running schedule.  Now that I'm far enough into the program that it's a straight run I can go up to Mom and Dad's and run on the elliptical machine.  I've been really enjoying the difference.  It works my thighs a lot more than street running.  Street running works my lungs more though, so both are good.  I like switching it up during the week.  The nice thing about the elliptical machine too is that I'm still plugged into my iPod but I can set it down and watch something instead of just listening to music.  Yesterday I watched a Star Trek: Next Generation episode and it was awesome. :)