Turkeys and Pickle Juice

I don't know what I was smoking yesterday (and I don't smoke!), but I forgot to mention a few highlights...

Our kids LOVE pickles. I mean LOVE. We bought a giant jar of pickles a few weeks ago and they polished off the last one yesterday. So, as I headed to the sink to dump the Pickle Juice, the kids asked what I was doing. When I told them I was dumping the juice they screamed "NOOOOO!" They insisted I pour them each a glassful. Ok, can you say "gross?" Only Aleksa said she didn't like it after gulping down a few swigs. The other two asked for more and begged me to save the leftovers. (Didn't happen. Mama was too grossed out.)

Another thing that happened was that John was trying to give Liana and Aleksa something or other, and he didn't know which to give to whom so he put them both behind his back and he said to Aleksa, "Which hand?" Aleksa then sweetly raised her own hand waaaaay up high. John grinned ear to ear and gave her the what-cha-ma-hooey without correcting her misunderstanding. It was cute. Mighta had to be there, but I sure chuckled.

And another Aleksa incident that was cute enough to comment on. The kids were playing outside and they kept running in and out and they kept forgetting to shut the door behind them. Aleksa forgot too and so I yelled down from the kitchen, "Shut the door!" Aleksa obediently came in, walked around to the other side of the door, pushed it shut, and then without a word stared at the door like, "uh-oh, I'm on the wrong side. I'm supposed to be outside, not in..." I giggled and said, "Aleksa, you can go outside, just pull the door, don't push it." "Ok, Mama!" she said, and cheerfully went outside to play. Oops!

I taped Adam counting/talking today. I wanted to record some of the last of his Ukrainian. It really made me sad. I asked him what he did today, and he struggled *hard* to answer in English, and then when I told him to answer in Ukrainian, he also struggled hard to answer, and when he did, he was replacing words with English here and there. It is really becoming evident that they are having trouble talking. Especially Adam. The girls seem to be handling it a bit more gracefully (I think girls have a better knack with languages in the first place, and their age is on their side bigtime besides.)

The highlight of the day happened this evening though. My brother had mentioned that he'd like another one of my felt turkeys like the ones I made last year as a fundraiser. So, I pulled out the sewing machine tonight and got busy. The kids were sooo excited! They Loved watching that silly turkey come to life, and I was all reminiscing about last year's Turkey Making Expedition. What a pain it was! (Not nearly as bad as the pies though) But how worth it! I can't wait until they can understand when we tell them of all the things we did to save money to go to Ukraine and get them. I remember sooo well last year sitting at the sewing machine wondering what our kids were like, and having no idea how long we'd have to wait to get them, and thinking that the waiting was the killer. I wondered what we'd spend our days doing, and wondered how old and what genders, our "two kids" would be. (That was long before we entertained the thought of three kids!) (You'd never have convinced me last year that we would actually come home with THREE kids this year!) Anyway, it was sure fun to remember all that we went through to bring home these kids. Looooong labor, that's for sure! Notaries, documents, re-doing documents, re-notarizing, social workers, petitioning two governments, red tape GALORE, learning another language (or trying to!), reading, reading, reading, reading, and then on top of it, having to come up with the money to pull it all off. Unbelievable labor. Good thing our family is "complete." I don't want to ever have to do that again! *shiver*

Aleksa's Puzzle
Mama Liana (note Lego on the floor!) :O)
Pickle Juice! (Not the greatest picture, but I laughed when I saw it, so I had to share...)
Tree-Climber!