Day 16 Monday

Still no water and we have no idea why. Lady of the house, from who we are renting our house left to Kiev for 2 days, and hopefully tomorrow she will be back with her husband and they will fix our water.

In the morning we went to Kiev, to walk around, bought few things for baby and kids to keep them busy, and then headed to Fathers House.

It was funny when ElliAna after been told 1000 times "Don't touch the salt"! still did it. She is in the stage of exploring and not always listening. Here is the result...

She asked for some bread with Nuttela,  I was in the room, Sergey was doing something when we heard ahhhhhh..... and this what we saw. She decided to put some salt , ok maybe not some, on here sandwich with Nuttela :)))

Ukrainian Security Car, we saw by on of the stores while our trip to Kiev

Today is a holiday, and boys went to church, and we didn’t get a chance to talk to them, but we left them few things with their foster parents.

We were walking home very tired, and ready for bed. Even ElliAna who always has so much energy, was barely walking, and didn’t want to be carried. 

Day 15 –with our boys

Sunday we spend  with our boys.

We woke up to no water in the house, not even cold water.  We had to go back to old fashion way to get water. It was a blessing to have a water source close to our house. Sergey had to go outside and get our own water in the bucket and carry it home, but even that couldn’t destroy beautiful day ahead of us. I have no idea what the name of the thing is. I will post pictures. It was interesting day without water, but it was fun, and something to remember.

In the morning Sergey went to get boys from orphanage while I was making breakfast for us. Boys were very excited to spend all day with us.  After breakfast my husband took kids to play soccer on the field, so I can stay home and do some blogging. Soccer score was Sergey 4 – Danik/Stasik team 5. They were very happy, tired and hungry when came back. After good homemade pizza on lunch we were doing some activities such as books, lego, chest, crafts and more.

Breakfast/snack time

 by our house they have a field. This is where boys and daddy played soccer

This is where we were getting our water

 Lunch time, homemade pizza and tea

 craft time

 Daddy and Stasik playing. Stasik won :)

 going back

Later boys wanted to play more soccer with my husband, so we went for it.  Around 5 pm they all came back wet, tired and happy.  Boys helped us with caring water to the house, after that they got a snack and with ice cream and we headed to orphanage. It was so sad, because time flied so fast, we didn’t even notice.  In the Father’s house boys ware so happy and excited to share with everybody how exiting their day was. Danik and Stasic jumped all over place- so I couldn’t figure out where they got so much energy, because I was so tired and my husband barley could move, but this day was unforgettable.

And little bit about our boys, it’s impossible to not love them!

Danik: Shy, sweet, loves baby, and help with baby – is awesome babysitter.  Very curious, and know a lot. He is smart little boy. Have many traumas, problems with his eyes, due to physical traumas from his “dad”. He is more mommy boy than his brother. Loves to play with LEGO, and read books. He love’s math. He loves to help, to ride a bike, to play soccer. Also he loves animals. He can play with LEGO for long time. Want to learn how to play guitar, did attend few lessons. He is older, but only 3 centimeters taller than Stasik, and he is very thin.

Stasik: innocent, sweet, very funny, helpful, loves to cuddle a lot, needs daddy attention and  love the most, likes to explore new stuff, very active, likes  to run and bounce of the walls – he had hyper active disorder. He has kidish, sweet- honest boldness (what is in his mind- on his tongue). He has some speech disorder – can’t pronounce some letters. Same as his brother,  Stasik can’t wait to see us. Every day he asking when we going to adopt them, when going to take them home.  Stasis is younger than his brother but hi is a leader. When we are at home Danik sitting next to us but Stasik jumping all over place, but when we are outside it is opposite – Stasik next to us, but Danik running forward.      

*****we are heading to Kiev now, and I will try to post pictures if we will find a good place with internet there

Day 14 Saturday

In the morning, after breakfast we went to Ashan, bought some groceries to take to our kid’s family.

Went to see boys, and spend some time with them. They always very excited to see us, and we love to spend time with them. They are great boys, and all of our kids play very good together.

Planning to take boys for a day to our place on Sunday, Sergey will go in the morning and come back with boys.  Close to our house we have a place where kids like to hang out. It’s not a park, it’s kind of big field with grass and trees.

Boys are very excited to see us, and like always many questions when we take them home, how many days and etc. We can’t’ wait to get it done with a process and be back home with all of our kids.

We had tea with foster parents, and whatever we been told before about them, it’s not true. They are very nice people, and they do care about kids.

Got home, did some laundry, and spend evening doing nothing.   

Also we got a chance to skype for few minutes with kids back in US. Without video, but at least we did talk a little. They are doing ok, and they miss us a lot. I can’t wait to get home, and hug them. Miss them so much.

*Please pray for our paperwork to get sign as soon as possible, we still didn’t hear nothing from our facilitator. 

Day 13 Friday

We had breakfast and started to get ready to go to Kiev.  My uncle came to Kiev for personal business and we had a little gift from US (my parents) to give it to him.  We were in a hurry, and waited for marshrootka for about 30 minutes – never showed up, and we had to walk to main road to catch different one.

We met with uncle Vasya, my dad’s younger brother. We spend 2 hours together, before he had to go catch his marshrootka, and go back to his city. We had lunch together in Puzata Xata, and then headed to nearest subway station.

Khreshatik is getting ready for Euro 2012. They have many construction projects going on, and it would be nice to see if they will finish it on time for Euro.

*we are at Father's House spending time with kids. They have wi-fi here, and I will try to transfer as much as I can from Word to my blog, and will try to post pictures. 

Day 12 Thursday

In the morning we took marshrootka to a big store called “Ashan”. It’s 30 minutes of walking and then 20 minutes on marshrootka. This store is huge like Costco/Winco stores, and has everything from food to clothes and more. You do have a choice to buy in small quantities. We did buy some food and prices are much better than in other supermarkets.

 In this new apartment we have a nice kitchen and it has everything I need to be able to cook and make homemade food.  

Went to see boys, and like always, there is thousands of questions: “When is court?”  “How many days till court?” “ When will you adopt us?”  “When we will go to America?” and etc. And all this questions are repeating in 20-30 minutes again and again. J  

Day 11 We moved again

In the morning my husband bought some breakfast called “Kiev’s perepichka” , that was very good. After that we stared packing to move out.  We paid for apartment in advance, and if we will return keys to the office at 12 noon they agreed to reimburse money back.

 Around 10:30 very mean lady came to our apartment and without explaining anything rushed inside. My husband stopped her and asked: “Can I help you?” On what she replied: “You are leaving at 10:30!” He said: “no, not till 12 pm “After that she rudely slammed the door and left, without saying hi, or bye.

Then at 12 pm Sergey return keys back to office and start putting stuff in taxi cab. Same lady showed up again. She was not happy for any reason and start yelling on us to give her keys back. She started getting very angry because we didn’t give her keys back. My husband told her that keys in the office and you need to talk to them about rules not to us. We got yelled for what we been told to do.  Anyway that is how we checked out in Ukrainian way. J

  

At 1:30 pm we moved to new apartment. Its private house, owners live on second floor and we are renting first floor. House inside very nice, we have 2 rooms and it is very comfy. Owner is still remodeling upper part of house, and sometimes they come to use kitchen downstairs.

Unfortunately owner didn’t have time to make internet for us, but at least we close to the boys. We do have mobile internet now, but it’s not that great. We are thankful for what we have.   After unpacking our stuff we went to see boys, this is when we discovered that it is 30 minutes’ walk to the orphanage. At first our legs hurt but thank God we had some training walking in Kiev so it was no bad for us. Danik and Stasick were very happy to see us; we spend very good time together and went to the local store to buy Russian dumplings for breakfast.  Then we rushed back to apartment. 

Day 10 - Tuesday

We went to pharmacies to buy few things for my parents and Sergey mom to take it back to US, and were preparing to move to little city Petrovske, where our boys live. Tomorrow by 12 pm, we have to be out of our current apartment #3.  I don’t think we will have internet there for a while, but I will try to keep track of everything what is going on.  

Later afternoon we went to a local market again, and bought more things for boys ( books, notebooks, etc.)

***We moved and we had no internet for almost 3 days. I made notes in Word, and now will transfer everything to a blog.

Please pray

Please pray for our paperwork. All paperwork is ready, it just needs to be sign by one last person, and we will have court. But by today's law, this person has 10 business days to sign :((( And our facilitator said that sometimes they are not in hurry to sign. Please pray for Gods hand, so this person will sign this week or early next week.

Thank you

God Bless you

Day 9-with kids

We had a great morning with boys. By 5 pm we had to take them back to "Fathers House", and it take almost 2 hours to get there, so we had breakfast at home, Sergey went with boys out and got some food.

They were hungry  :)

 We made tea and stayed home for breakfast

Kids loved to stay on the balcony, there were some workers outside, kids watched them

Played with some toys

We went to eat lunch, o my, they have so much energy in the morning !

 Puzata Xata , kids room.

Kids had icecream

We took subway

then marshrootka

Daniel and Stasik foster parents are super nice people Nazar and Natasha. They are young but they are doing such a great job of taking care of the kids. All total they have 6 kids, that live with them in same apartment, and it's like family type. They make their own food, they have their own budget, and rules. I will take more pictures, and will post more about boys home(for now).

We did had a nice chat with foster parents, and had tea. We left their place and headed home, because it was late.

We had a wonderful day!!!

Day 8-Boys are with us

In the morning we wanted to go to local market to buy few things for boys, and get their airplane bag(gotcha backpack) ready in case I will have to go back US earlier and Sergey will stay during waiting period. But we remembered that markets on Sunday and Monday are closed, and we decided to go there on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Around noon we called an orphanage to see if we can come and see boys. We asked if we can take boys to Kiev with us to spend a day together and a night, and bring them back to the orphanage next day. They did let us!!!
At 3 pm we got to the orphanage and boys were already ready with their backpacks packed. Sergey had to write a note, and put the time when we will bring them back, and sign, and this was it, we were off with our handsome little guys.

Daniel A and Stanislav N are great little boys, and we feel so blessed to hold them, kiss them, and have opportunity to become their parents. I will write different post about their personalities and other info.
Here is our day in pictures! I hope you will enjoy it  we really did!!!

Our princess eating borsh for breakfast.

 We had to take 3 different public transportation to get to boys.  Subway for 30 minutes, we dont have pictures from subway. Then a big bus for 10 minutes,

  and then a little bus for 40 minutes.

 This sigh says: Stops request loud and ahead of time and the red one says: There is no stops here and there :) This made me smile

 And then a 20 minutes walk  to get to the orphanage.

Back to Kiev we took a taxi, because we didn't know how boys will act,and if they will be a good boys :)  And actually we are so proud of them, they were great behaved boys all the time! We did enjoyed them a lot!

 We ate at Puzata Xata, and I think this is the cheapest place to eat. We try to eat at home, but at lease once a day we go for hot food to Puzata Xata. We don't have a frying pan, or any other things to cook with at our apartment.

 These two are so cute together. Daniel A love his little sister, he is huge help, and he is always watching after here.

 There were a lot of things going on Kreschatik Street, and it was closed for weekend, and 1530 years of Kiev City. 

 My little cuties :)))

 Cotton Candy

 Stasik

 Daniel A, ElliAna and Stasik and they called me mommy :))) I am so blessed

 Playing with this little thing, that you can throw high in the sky with rubber band. It was fun, everyone was waiting for their turn.

Boys wasnt' sure if a guys is alive! It was funny, Stasik made everyone laugh when he came running back, yelling," Mommy, mommy I saw his red eyes, and they moved, he is alive " :))))

 Helping daddy to get stroller up the stairs:) They love to help

Big brother reading to his sister :) He offered to read to her

Before bed, skyping with boys and gram-ma at home

 That night they had this huge live concert outside, it was on  stage that was build earlier that week

 It was thousands people everywhere

 This is the stage

We are so thankful for this opportunity and we did enjoyed our boys!  We got to know boys better, and we are happy to have this time. God is great God!