Gardening, Tree Climbing Boys and bonding

Steven climbing our apple tree.


As Alla our translator would always say, "Boys will be boys." Today, we spent a lot of time outside getting the garden ready for planting. The boys love digging in the dirt, therefore, they were more than happy to help me prepare the soil for planting. They helped me rake and dig up the weeds that grew over the winter and early spring and just digging holes anywhere in the backyard they had the desire to dig. Of course I was doing my best to keep them focused on the garden but at times I just let them go even though we had a few divets in our yard.

At one point a wiggly worm appeared and Steven, being the bug lover that he is, picked up the wiggly worm. This little worm open the door to him first sharing with me about some memories of the deskydom (orphanage) and of his birth mother and birth family. Here I am digging and pulling up weeds when he starts to tell me of the worm him and his "brothers" (other boys in the orphanage) from the orphanage found in the orphanage garden. He then went on and told me a few other stories about what he remembered about his birth mother and family. I was surprised, but yet thankful that Steven was so open and free to express his memories and his life in Ukraine. Periodically I would ask some questions, wanting to find out as much as I could (since he was ready to share) and mostly to make sure that his experiences were positive ones. I am pleased and am thankful to say that he was treated good in the orphanage and that he has positive memories of his birth family. I was surprised when he talked of his birth mother that he showed no emotion (positive or negative) when he talked of her. I made a point to mention that his birth mother loves him very much and I'm sure she misses him and Evan. He didn't react the way I thought he would. He just kept talking and kepting playing in the dirt like I was talking about a stranger. I know he was young when he entered the orphanage, about 3 and a half years old, however, it surprised me that he remembered so much and was willing to share so freely.

Evan hugging the apple tree.

Later on that afternoon, we walked up to our apple tree in our yard and were checking out the buds on the trees. Since the branches were low enough to the ground the boys of course started climbing up the tree. I used to love climbing the trees in our yard growing up, and remember hiding from my brother, David, by climbing to the tippy top of the tall oak tree in our backyard. He was so furious that he couldn't find me that day since he was supposed to be watching my sister and I that day. Anyway, here are a few pictures of the boys climbing our apple tree.

2 More Cavities Filled - 4 more to go

Well, we barely made it through this appointment. Steven was more wiggly and was losing his patience during this visit at the dentist. Whether he was nervious or got tired of his mouth having a contraption in it to hold it open or just plain scared of the drilling sound...but he had a harder time at sitting still. The dentist finish filling the cavities, thank goodness. All the while, I was doing my best to calm him down and talk to him, hold his hand, while I was sweating it out trying to keep my cool at the same time.

Our pediatric dentist is wonderful with children and ever so patient. I don't know how she does it day in and day out.

Well we have 4 more cavities to fill before we can relax. I set up another appointment to get the rest of them filled. Hopefully the next appointment will go a little more smooth.

The Greatest Circus on Earth

Steven and Andrew's preschool put on a play, "The Greatest Circus on Earth". It was so adorable as the children all had a different part. Steven was a biker bear, which entertained the crowd riding on tricycles and Andrew was the strongman...imagine Andrew (one of the smallest kids in his class) the strongman. Andrew gets nervous infront of an audience, believe it or not, since at home he is the comedian of the family. Here are some pictures of Andrew, Steven and Evan posing for the camera hamming it up before the show. Too cute.

Mommy & Poppi

Isn't this picture so adorable. The boys were trying on Daddy's shoes and Ukon hat. Too cute.

Steven and Evan have notice that at times Andrew will call me Mommy instead of Mom or Mama. Both Steven and Evan picked up on it and would call me Mommy from time to time. I prefer them calling me Mama since that is what I am used to with them and Andrew. It just reminds me of how we became a family and our first few months with our children.

This week Evan assumed that since changing Mama to Mommy was the correct thing to do, he changed Papa (what they call Robert..means Daddy/Father in Ukrainian)to Poppi. It is so adorable to hear him call Robert, "Poppi". Andrew and Steven picked up on it and now are calling Robert, "Poppi".

Steven Started Preschool

We started Steven in preschool a couple of days a week to get him familiar with the structure of school and what will be expected of him once he attends public school in the fall. He sees how Andrew goes to school and how we pick him up every day at the preschool to bring him home. It's been obvious that Steven has taken a liking to the school when we pick up Andrew and now since Steven is fluent in English we thought it would be best to give him a feel for school and what is expected of him. This way it will help to prepare him for September when he will start first grade. Of course we are still homeschooling the other days Steven doesn't attend to get him up to speed for first grade since he is skipping Kindergarden.

The teachers, Miss Debbie and Miss Brittnay have been wonderful to Steven and very helpful with redirecting certain behaviors of his into the proper behavior. They tell me he is a quick learner and a very sweet boy. Thank you Miss Debbie and Miss Brittnay for all of your help with Steven and Andrew!

Daddy's Birthday -Tubing in the Poconos

We surprised Robert for his birthday and took him tubing in the Pocono mountains for the day. We all had a ball of fun. At first it didn't look like there was any snow on the ground until we arrived at Jack Frost Mountain. There was plenty of man-made snow there, which worked just fine. We arrived early in the morning, which was perfect since there weren't that many people on the slopes and the snow was still on the icy side, which zoomed us down the mountain at top speeds.

Can you believe I forgot my camera! UGGH! I would have loved to take some pictures and videos of Daddy especially, laughing histerically all the way down the mountain. Too funny. Evan was so funny, how the tube just about swallowed him up. He looked like a turtle sitting in the tube since he would hide his head down in the tube and then pop it up when he was done tubing down the slope. After our 4 hour time frame was up, we were all exhausted. It was a good thing we got there early since the crowd starting rolling in and made our wait in line a bit longer.

Cavity Fillings for Steven

I was not looking forward to this appointment, however, I knew it had to be done. Steven got his 2 cavities between his 2 front teeth filled today. He did pretty good for the most part. He cooperated for the dentist and was a little apprehensive at times, but he got through it. Praise the Lord! I'm not sure who is more tired, him or myself.

We set up the next appointment for 2 weeks later to fill some of the molar cavities. Boy, I'm looking forward to having these dental appointments behind us. I'm sure Steven is too.