First Visit to Grandma's House!

Today was sure a great day!

Adam found some battery-operated-I-don't-know-what's-it while playing outside. He said it was in the street, but who knows. (*gulp*) Anyway, it had wires and a flower with a light inside that lit up. He stripped the flower off and had a ball playing with the batteries, wire and light all afternoon. We'll have to rig up some cool science experiments with him in the weeks ahead. John's wheels are already turning.

Tonight we took the kids to Grandma and Grandpa's house for the first time since they've been home. We stayed a whopping 3 1/2 hours and they did really, really well. They got to go play at the park midway through the visit, and they got their all-time favorites to eat for supper; pizza and ice cream! Aleksa got sidetracked and had a little tinkle accident on Grandma's carpet outside the bathroom, but she sure tried hard to make it in time (I saw the dance she did trying to hold it in. I had to giggle to myself about how cute it looked... Sorry Aleksa!) Good thing Grandma had some extra clothes for her... and some carpet cleaner! (She must have stocked up on that stuff knowing we were coming!)

Speaking of clothes, I got to look through the patterns that Mom Fisher had for little girls. Talk about FUN. The girls are at the stage where if you want to dress them alike in frilly foo-foo pink, etc., we'd better do it NOW while we can still get away with it. I've been daydreaming of trying to sew some matching dresses for them myself, so I was able to borrow a really cute pattern that looks relatively simple (yeah right). We'll see how it goes, but I really hope they turn out. I just can't believe we came home with two girls! How FUN is THAT?! I feel like I've hit the lottery or something!

I forgot to mention that last night when I tucked the kids in, Liana told me I was a "big princess" and she was a "little princess." What a smart girl she is! (That's my kid!) Then I called her "Princess Liana Valentina" and she loved it. She asked me what my name was and I told her it was Shelly. She said, "Princess Shelly" (though she can't really say my name right), and she decided that was not really a good name for a princess and let me know that she didn't like my name. I told her I didn't blame her because I haven't ever much liked it either. So, she thought up some new names for me. She listed off some that she liked. She liked Victoria, Tanya or Marina, but she decided on Marina for me. Okie dokie! So, tonight when I tucked her in, she called me Princess Marina. Alrighty then!

Speaking of princesses, (Ok, this is a stretch since this isn't really about princesses, but it is about dressing up fancy), Mom Fisher gave me a wrap skirt that she had been given in a box of fabric or somewhere, and when we got home, I put it on over the top of my clothes. It was way too small, but then I took it off and wrapped it over my head like a middle-eastern dress to show the girls what they could do with it themselves. The girls had a blast playing dress up with it for a little while before bedtime tonight. I'm definitely going to have take the advice to go to Good Will to buy up some of their gaudy clothes for the kids to play in. They LOVE that stuff.

I got to thinking today of how close we came at one point during our adoption process of veering away from Ukraine altogether. The process had gotten more difficult just as we were trying to make the decision of what country to adopt from, (as it has again, unfortunately). I had mentioned this to another friend who had adopted from Ukraine, and she said, "Shelly, yes, Ukraine is getting more and more difficult, but if you feel like God is leading you there, then just trust Him to take care of the details." (THANK YOU JULIE!!!) Those weren't her exact words, but I hadn't thought of it that way before, and ever since then, I KNEW we were going to Ukraine. I'm sooo thankful we didn't chicken out. I know there are lots of readers out there who are still in the preparing-to-adopt process. Please don't lose heart with all the negatives floating around. If you know your kids are in Ukraine, then put on that mother-bear mentality and go fight your way to get them. Walk through the fires, man your battle stations, do whatever, but GO GET YOUR KIDS. Sweet little children like these are out there, and they need you very, very much...

Children from the orphanage (Btw, these are three of the children whose shoes I posted a picture of while we were in Ukraine.)

Adam's Groupa