Ana's ballet program

Saturday Ana had her ballet recital, Swan Lake. She was so cute and smiled the entire time and did a wonderful job.

Cute girls playing in the rain.

Brett and McCall visit

We were going to celebrate Grant's bday, but he being sick, we just had dinner. Brett and McCall were in town to snow board and Brady's family came over so it was a little party. McCall has grown about 5 inches since he came for Basketball camp last summer. As you can see he towers over the girls at the counter. He was definitely the main attraction, all the kids wanted to play, wrestle and hang out with McCall. It was fun to see everyone and visit.

So for dinner we made a huge pot of Borsh, had a couple salads, bread and for dessert chocolate mouse. All in all pretty tasty. The Borsh seemed sweeter than I remembered it being in the Ukraine... anyone know if it's sort of supposed to be kind of sweet? Glad Wendy made it first and people commented, we did buy shredded cabbage and carrots to make it a little easier. Too bad you can't buy shredded onions and beets, what a mess. The kids wouldn't even come into the kitchen until all the onions were in the pot!

snow and bug report

Ethan and Ana have a bug report due this term. Ana's insect is a Fire Ant and Ethan's is a Stink bug. They have to create a 3D model and a poster. So what to do on a snowy day? Create our 3D models. Here is Ana with her Fire Ant and Ethan with his Stink bug. They did awesome jobs with wax string and play-doh.

Grant's birthday is this week and every year we have been here it has snowed the week of and/or on his birthday. Here we are the first week of March with a beautiful snow day.

Showing off Ana

Ana has wanted her hair braided around her head like a crown. So I decided to see if I could remember how to french braid. Something I haven't done since I braided my barbies hair as a kid. But we did it and with a little more practice maybe we can try for the braided crown.

then we are chopping it to her chin. She has been growing her bangs out since she got here and they are down to her chin, so she wants to cut her hair so it's all the same length! She has to wait a couple more weeks till after her ballet recital. I don't think I can do a bun with chin length hair ; )

Ana with bangs in Ukraine. Her hair grows so fast.

basket ball

It was a crazy basketball week. Tuesday's game determined if they would go into the finals. Grant had a pretty good game and actually scored the winning point in the last two seconds of the game. It was great fun to be there and watch him have a good game. So they played again on Thursday and one again. Grant had a ton of rebounds and looked great. They won again and played on Friday. It was a team with a few huge ball players and I had been worried that Grant would be intimidated going up against them. So when we got to the school and he looked pale and acted funny I thought he was having some anxiety about the game. He wouldn't talk to me and Troy asked him how he was doing before the game and he just said he was tired. He didn't have the greatest game and just looked pale and weak. They lost the game and on our way home we got talking and Grant was just shaking and said he couldn't get warm. So when we got home I felt him and he was 102 degrees! We kept him on ibprofin and Saturday night he said his thoat hurt when the meds wore off. So off to insta care... yep he has strep. Poor kid was sick all day Friday, but didn't want to miss the game.

Lunch

Just finished my lunch at Leatherby's, I cant' believe no one could make it to the SAC lunch today. I was so sad, I couldn't make it last month and will be gone next month. I so want to hear how everyone is doing. Send me some emails.

sent from iphone

Hmmmm

I keep meaning to upload last years blog and get it printed into a book. I know it will take me a few weeks to edit it and so I keep putting it off. So instead I sit and blog. I haven't posted for a bit because I've been a bit worn out. February was a really difficult month for me with the kids and I'm sure there was some winter blues in the mix too.



Tanya and I do some therapy together and it was getting more physical, as in we are supposed to snuggle. And for her being miss cling and having to pet everyone I thought this would be easier for her than me, but if I tried to hug her or put my arm around her she would about punch me in the face. Stiffen immediately with fists protecting her face. So of course I backed off, which was bad in two ways. One: It reaffirms in Tanya's RAD mind that I can't love her, her mom was her abuser = mom's are bad, and she pushed me away and pushes Troy and I against each other and two: It makes it twice as hard for me to try again, thus causing a lot of un-needed pressure and stress. Plus I don't like to be touched by her anymore, because she was so clingy when she got here and totally invaded my personal space in inappropriate ways and there is all sorts of trauma there... not either of our faults, she has attachment issues due to neglect and abuse, and I only thought I was dealing with PTSD. Didn't have a clue about RAD at the time. So we are both learning and actually she has come a long way since we started with our amazing therapist. So in the end I was on edge and very stressed and trying too hard and she was on edge and stressed and avoiding. So it broke while we were in St. George over Presidents weekend.



I told her and our therapist I was done for a bit and needed to get me back into a good place. My last 9 months has just been the Ukraine kids, doctor appointments, English, Ukraine kids, more doctor appointments, more English and more Ukraine kids. I guess I forgot there was anything else going on in the world besides Ukraine kids and their needs This past month I found myself grieving to just be with my biological kids and having that family back for just even a day. I was falling apart. Plus a new round of Doctor appointments let us know Ana probably has FAS and ADD and so more testing and appointments - I'm so ready to have one week without any medical appointments. So I begin reading and researching so I know what we are dealing with, but of course read all the worst case scenarios... more depressing, we may have two kids now living with us the rest of our lives. I was done.

My sweet sister reminded me to step back and let every thing go for a little bit. Their lives here are better than if they were still in the Ukraine, so what if they stagnate for a bit. And that I need to step back and look at the big picture and give myself time. I have been pushing to have things normal around her by the kids one year mark. Guess what IT AINT HAPPENING. Guess what else these past two weeks have been good. After I told Tanya I was done for awhile (I pretty much told her I'd be her friend, but I wasn't going to be her mom anymore. I was just being done with her treating me like trash. She already had a mom and I was tired of the fight to be her mom). It may have been a good thing. Later that week was her first session where she really opened up to our therapist and piles of stuff about her mom came tumbling out. Some major wall(s) came down, even our therapist was amazed and happy, because it's been difficult. Tanya has spent a lot of her sessions learning what emotions are and and how to express and talk about them instead of blanking out and living in her head. Which is what she does because her head is safe, so I still think we are still at the surface of stuff (and she still acts about half her age), but that we took one huge jump forward.


I've been taking a brain class that has to do with re patterning reflexes with the hope that it would help our adopted children. Funny thing is that it was mostly to help Tanya, but her issues seem to be all emotional as her reflexes seem to be on. It has been more beneficial for Ana and Morgan. I have only worked through half of the reflexes on the kids so still have a bit of work ahead of me. Six kids is very time consuming. Especially when half are so needy you don't get to spend time with the other half... so I've decided it's ok to spend time with my biological kids and not feel guilty, ok I still feel guilty, but it has done my heart a bit of good.

And in that class I had a good reminder that we can't fix people. Problem number one, I'm a fixer, I like to control and fix things. It hasn't been working and it's because we can't fix people. We can't fix or change these kids, but we can care for them and help them when they want to change. She also talked a bit about finding joy in our lives and being happy and setting an example. Kids watch us and learn how to do things by copying us. They can want to change by wanting to be like us. It's all stuff I know, but for some reason I needed to hear it again so I can just chill for a bit. I'm still scared to death for summer to come, but with some therapy : ) and lots of planning we should all survive, right? Can't be as bad as last summer... things are already so much better than last summer, looking back I don't really know how we are still here, but we are and that is good too.