The Wannderers: Russia Edition

Love! Love! Love!

2012-02-22T12:42:00.001-06:00

Ok, so I am finally getting around to posting about our Holland/Belgium/Germany trip… but I simply had to share my favorite picture from the bunch.

We LOVE Pawpaw!

My Impeccable Timing

2012-02-19T16:54:00.001-06:00

Isla, Nick and I are all back safe and sound in Russia!

I made it back with only a little drama – my flight from Amsterdam was delayed and we arrived in Vienna just as my other flight was set to board. I plopped Isla in her stroller and raced through the airport, jumped in the front of the line at passport control and hurried through security and I arrived just as my flight to Krasnodar boarded! Thank goodness it boarded late. Luckily, our luggage made it through even with the shorter connection. Nick made it back without much trouble too, although his flight did get rerouted from Gelendzhik to Kradnodar which made his trip from the airport to the house go from 30 minutes to 3 hours!

I am having a hard time adjusting back to Novo time (its 2:30 AM and I cannot sleep) for some reason… and I get to be up in less than 5 hours to my precious, but crazy active and busy toddler – hooray! I am thankful for my daughter at all times, but I am dreading my rapidly approaching morning.

Anyway, to help facilitate sleep, I thought I would share with you what was happening while I was gone!

There was a crazy, snow, ice and wind storm while I was gone. Power was touch and go for days throughout most of the city, and leaving the house was out of the question, roofs were blown off, cars were turned over... My housekeeper was here and she had to spend the night because it wasn’t safe to drive back to her house! I will let the destruction in these pictures tell you the rest of the story… there apparently hasn’t been a storm this bad here in 40 years!

PHEW! I am so thankful that I was not here without Nick for hurricane force winds mixed with snow and ice! In keeping with the lucky star that I was born under, my timing to be out of town could not have been better. I am one lucky girl – not the least because I have amazing parents and a grandma who were willing to travel hours on a place to meet with cranky-pants me while my husband was working in Africa… although they did to spend copious amounts of time with my adorable, joy-filled Isla so that may have been their real motivation .

I can’t wait to get my tales o’ fun and adventure up on the blog about Holland and Germany as soon as I get caught up on some sleep! Now off to catch some zedsss…

I Will Follow Jesus!

2012-02-06T14:48:00.001-06:00

What an amazing weekend I had in Moscow!!! I had the best time.

It was touch and go whether or not we could be able make it because the snow here has been crazy and Nick’s company was putting a halt to all unnecessary travel. Thankfully Thursday was bright and sunny and we were told we could go at the last minute!

I had three friends coming with me, two of my Russian besties Anya and Katya and another friend from church that I don’t know as well Alesia.

Sweet Anya trying to not look sweet!

Anya got a little silly and did some art in the car.

Katya taking a picture of me taking a picture of her!

The water in our cars windshield wipers froze so every so often so our driver would have to throw water on the windows to clean them!

Katya and Anya dancing in the snow while we were waiting to board the plane. Silly girls.

We made it to Moscow really late, after 9, and then our driver proceeded to get very lost on the way to the Conference Center so it was after midnight before finally arrived. Then the Driver couldn’t find the road in front of the center and so he stopped about a 1/2 mile away, pointed to the center and told us to walk. It was freezing, we were exhausted and vehicle sick, but we laughed the whole way up to the gate!

The best part about the conference was not the worship or even the Christian fellowship – nope. The best part were our “slumber party” evenings after everything was over. We stayed up talking until ridiculously late and laughed and laughed and laughed. You know, there have been times since we moved here that Satan has whispered in my ear and said to me “You are not making friends here. You are alone. You are not likeable.” But all of those fears have been put to rest. I am so thankful for my friends here. Friendships take time, effort and energy, and I know that the friends that I am making here will be lifelong. I love my friends, just want to say that one again! I love my friends .

But guess what? The fellowship was also amazing. I met so many new friends, and several other Americans who are living in Russia and also attend Calvary Chapel churches. One girl visiting with the American team walked up to me and really slowly said “Doooo youuuuu speaaak English?” It was so funny. Katya and I cracked up.

Also, I really enjoyed the worship and the speakers. The theme was “I Will Follow Jesus”! There were so many wondering points that we went over that I needed to be reminded of. It was very special to hear everything in English, too!

Ok, wait maybe something else was the best part of the conference! At the last minute, there was a change in the schedule – the topic – ADOPTION! There was a woman with the American team who had adopted three children, one of them from Russia and a Russian woman who had adopted four boys.

Before I go any further I just feel the need to say something. If you ever think that I think the United States is superior to Russia in any way shape or form when it comes to children with disabilities. I do not because WE ARE NOT! How on earth can we claim superiority when 90% of parents with downs babies abort them before they are even born??? No we cannot. We just manifest our prejudice in other ways.

But the fact remains that children with disabilities here are usually dropped off in an orphanage where their needs are neglected on every single level imaginable. Also, hostile as most American Christians are to adoption (a fact which upsets me greatly), Russians are even more hostile to adoption. There is almost no adoption culture here.

The fact that this was added to the agenda at the last minute was just God. Plain and simple. There was not a huge attendance, but I don’t care. God is slowly working on hearts that are very hardened towards orphans.

I don’t know why it is so hard for people to see? That before Jesus adopted us, we were so wretched and pathetic. What a testimony to the power of Jesus Christ it would be if Russian Christians (and American Christians) stepped out of the cultural norm and adopted the least of these? How many people would see that this is Grace in action and understand the Father’s love for them. Just saying…

“How deep the Father’s love for us,

how vast beyond all measure,

that He would give His only son,

to make a wretch His treasure.”

Anyway, it was an amazing weekend, I love my friends and I saw God in action! It doesn’t get much better than that.

Tuesday Tidbits

2012-01-31T23:45:00.001-06:00

This past week has been great, apart from our ridiculously spotty internet. I am so glad we are friends with the IT guy at Nick’s office! I can’t imagine how bad it would have been if we weren’t friends with him.

We have playdated with friends! Isla loooves Liosha.

There was a reporter at English Club this last Sunday who interviewed me and I am supposedly going to be on Russian TV! I am not really sure when it will be on since its supposedly on a station that doesn’t air in Novo, but all I know is that there was a reporter with a camera who filmed English Club and asked me all about starting it… I have always wanted to be on TV!
Nick and Isla helped each other work out.

Nick re-celebrated his birthday and got the most amazing photo book of St Petersburg from our Pastor, his brother and their families. It was a great night!

We had the craziest Bora wind storm last Friday and the power went out, and Nick got to come home early from work because the power was out at his office! Yay.
And on a related theme… we have had tons of SNOW! So much snow that they are not used to it in this area and Nick got to stay home from work for 1 1/2 days. Yay. This is what lunch looks like when Nick gets to work from home! . How cute are these two?

I am getting ready to leave for Moscow on Thursday by myself for a Women’s Conference through our church. Agnessa will watch Isla during the day and Nick will have her all to himself for three days during the evenings and weekends. I am so sad to be leaving them both! Especially since the day I get back, Nick leaves for Nigeria, but I am really excited to get to spend time with the ladies from my church while worshipping my Lord IN ENGLISH! Yay.
Here are some pics of Isla enjoying the snow. This was from a couple of weeks ago. We tried to go out yesterday but she didn’t like the snow falling on her face. She wanted to play outside, but didn’t understand that the only way to make the snow stop bothering was to go inside. She wanted me to make the snow stop! Ha.

Big Girl Isla

2012-01-26T05:12:00.001-06:00

First a couple of random Isla updates.

Whenever I give yogurt, she has started smearing it on herself like lotion. Gross.

But even with that… Cutest. Baby. Ever. Sweetie, sweetie, sweetie.

Also, Agnessa taught Isla how to use pockets so Isla has been pretty obsessed with putting her hands in her pockets, no matter what. Even when she wants to hold something else. Even when she can barely walk, her hands are always in her pockets.

And finally! Isla has switched to a BIG GIRL BED! Really, its just her crib with the side off, but it counts.

This past week she has been trying to climb out and she had been getting dangerously close. I had been hoping to put it off until the weekend so that we could do it during the day, and transition her during nap time. Unfortunately on Nick’s birthday she climbed out and climbed back in, and in spite of several booty spanks (she gets spankings for doing anything that might be life threatening), she decided that they were worth it because she was loving climbing out and in. And since I do not relish spanking her and I didn’t want her breaking her neck, the second Nick walked in the door, I told him we needed to change out her crib.

So the whole thing was done very hurriedly after dinner, but Isla was very excited about her big girl bed! She kept saying that she had a “big girl pillow”, “big girl blanket”, etc. We also somehow couldn’t find the guardrail clamps so we had to put her toybox up to the bed in the mean time.

I wanted to take a picture of the bed all pretty, but someone was so excited about it that she wouldn’t let me officially make it up!

Isla cried a little bit when we tried to leave her, so we stayed with her until she seemed comfortable. Then I told her I was going to check on Daddy, and that I would be back. I left for 10 minutes and by the time I came back, she was out like a light!

Big changes for our Little Wann!

Birthday Boy

2012-01-26T05:03:00.001-06:00

Our internet is back up and running after being out for a week! So I will be playing a little blog catch up.

Nick turned 29 yesterday! Wild to think that we only have one more year before he turns 30. Completely wild. Thankfully I still have a year and seven months left….

Most years (I am ashamed to admit) I don’t really do a whole lot for Nick’s birthday… why you ask? Because he honestly doesn’t care. He doesn’t care if we do anything, and he would rather not have me get him a gift. My love language is gift-giving, Nick’s love language is a little different. Its one that is uniquely his, and that is, he likes me doing everything possible to NOT spend money. “Oh Stori… thank you for not getting me anything.” And he’s serious.

But Nick has fallen in love with a certain little gadget called the iPad 2. It is the greatest thing if you travel as much as we do. I have one, but Nick and I travel apart often enough that he is without one most of the time, and come to think of it, when we travel together I don’t like sharing mine. So when Nick expressed interest that he would like his own iPad, I leapt (leaped?) at the chance to get it for him. Actually I told him we should wait until the iPad 3 comes out to get another one, but then I secretly bought him one when we were in the states. I am so glad that he will have one before he goes to Nigeria in a couple of weeks.

I woke up Nick with breakfast in bed, French toast… Right after I took this picture, Nick said “Don’t take my picture…” I think he should have let me take another one because, well, this picture speaks for itself. HA!

Then I went and I woke up Isla 30 minutes early so she could bring him his present! I love the way Nick’s face lit up when she walked in carrying his present. He didn’t mind me getting a picture of him this time. He loved his new iPad!

Then he had to go to work, where I then proceeded to call and harangue him about making sure that our internet got fixed (not the best birthday move on my part but it had been out for a WEEK at this point). However, when he got home, I had his favorite food waiting for him, lasagna, and his favorite dessert – oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (they have replaced regular chocolate chip cookies in his heart)!

All in all, I think he had a pretty good 29th! I hope that this last year of his twenties is the most memorable and blessed one yet.

The House that IKEA Built

2012-01-19T07:00:00.001-06:00

So after reviewing these posts here and here, I realized that I felt the need to identify where each item of furniture came from – really, I should have just said that everything came from IKEA.

In case you were wondering, I am not an IKEA nut. Before we moved to Russia, we were told that our furniture would come from a manufacturer in Poland. I wanted to buy a few extra things, namely Isla’s bedroom furniture (its all ours), the kitchen Island, and the storage unit in the entry way (not IKEA, Sky Mall). IKEA seemed like a good way to go since everything comes prepackaged in a way that would ship around the world well, plus my friend had an IKEA island that she highly recommended. Once we got here, our apartment’s Landlord was different than the other families and had bought all of our furniture from the IKEA in Krasnodar. So between the furniture I bought, and the furniture that was already here, our house is 98% IKEA furnished.

Also once we got here, IKEA is the only furniture store that has “American” style furniture. Russian-style furniture is very, very different from American, and not really to my tastes… so anything extra that we bought here in Russia, also has been from IKEA, like our barstools and our extra bookcase.

I don’t know why I feel the need to qualify this other than if I could furnish my dream home it would not be from IKEA – it would probably be from Craigslist. I love getting deals on there. After living here, although I am grateful for our very nice apartment with brand new furnishings, I may never step foot in an IKEA again!

Anyway, Nick and I recently rearranged the furniture in our living room and Isla’s room. We wanted more seating in the living room to accommodate our English speaking bible study that we have here, and in Isla’s room we wanted as much floor space as possible to accommodate any kids that needed to come and stay while their parents were in bible study. We also moved the big book shelf into the “study” area, but I didn’t want to take a picture of that… feeling lazy. The study now has just the desk and the bookcase, we switched walls on the desk.

I love Isla’s room. I rearrange it every other week, but it just makes me happy to be in there. It really is so sweet. I love the fact that it is so BIG! It will be great for sharing with a sibling one day since we only have two bedrooms in our apartment. For the record, I am all for siblings sharing small rooms too, but when you live in Russia in an apartment without a yard, its nice to have bigger rooms for your very active toddler to run around in!

I love, love, love our new living room arrangement. I may not move it again. Its so nice to have both our couches in here. We almost did it this way at first, but I was nervous about putting our brown couch in front of the radiator. Now that I have a little bit more experience with radiators, I don’t mind it so much.

So that’s what our apartment looks like right now, and you also know my true feelings on IKEA .

The Black Sea in Winter

2012-01-18T09:38:00.001-06:00

Travel Forecast Update

2012-01-18T00:02:00.000-06:00

March/April 2012:

JORDAN!!!

On the agenda right now:

- The Dead Sea

- Petra!

And most especially…

- Bethany Beyond the Jordan (where Jesus was baptized)!!!

And also home to one of my turn verses… I cannot wait. I am so excited!

"Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world."~John 1:29

Everything’s better with a little sugar…

2012-01-17T11:21:00.001-06:00

So, I know that I have been updating quite a bit the past few days about what is going on in my life even though there really isn’t anything going on! I hadn’t planned on updating today because we did nothing at all other than take a little walk and stare at the snow…

BUT, I had to share about Agnessa feeding Isla today. At the very least, Cookie will get a kick out of it.

Agnessa gave Isla pomegranate for the first time, and although Isla was gobbling the seeds up without any extra encouragement…

Agnessa insisted on putting sugar on them!

And then I got to put my Yonanas to good use for the first time since we’ve been home and made blueberry-pomegranate “ice cream”, and although Isla was gobbling it up…

Agnessa insisted that we stop feeding it to Isla, because it was too cold.

I refrained from giving Isla anymore of her Yonanas because I adore Agnessa, however for dinner, this American Mama let Isla eat her f-f-freezing cold Yonanas to her heart’s content.

Yum yum!

Lazy Monday

2012-01-16T11:43:00.001-06:00

But first, a sneak peak at our Sunday…

I promise you Sunday was not a lazy day for me. I pretty much spent the whole day doing productive things. I rearranged our closet and put away our suitcases, I cooked for my family, I cleaned, I went to church… I did not cause this mayhem. Nope, this happened all around me while I was on the move.

After I washed all the dishes that wouldn’t fit in the dishwasher and put them in the sink, turned on the dishwasher, and turned around, ready to call it a day, this is what caught my eye…

I laughed and then I picked up… although I am thinking that maybe its time to start working on teaching Isla to pick up her toys… and wondering how I can delicately coach my husband in the same thing?

Really, what else can I do but laugh? At least Isla and her daddy had a good time. Am I the only person with a small child (and one big one) whose house regularly looks like this?

Don’t worry, everything is now spic and span. At this point in my life, I am a reformed messy person!

Today we woke up to this view from our window. SNOW! On the rooftops. A perfect day to stay inside. Isla and I played, cleaned, cooked, spent time with a friend; it was a lovely day.

Isla also did not nap today. Literally the second I said “Let’s go sleep in two bed right now”, our neighbor started drilling through the wall. To which Isla said “loud”, and it was all downhill from there. I think that I really need to chillax about her napping and be thankful that she sleeps 11+ hours at night!

That’s it. That was our day. I am looking forward to tomorrow!

The Wonder of the Greatest Love Has Come!

2012-01-14T23:48:00.001-06:00

Now for the surprise that you have all been waiting for… we spent the evening last night with my friend Alesia (read HERE and HERE)!

Let me catch you up on what has been going on with her family since I last shared with you about her!

Alesia had a very difficult time finding a job here in Novo, in spite of the fact that her English skills are some of the best that I have seen, partially because she has no formal education. She was really hoping to get a job at Nick’s company, but at the time, there were no positions available. Thankfully Nick was able to refer Alesia to one of his contractors, and they immediately saw what a gem she was and snatched her up!

God KNEW exactly where she should be. She is now working with Nick on a weekly basis and will soon be working with him on a daily basic once she gets moved out to the site! Not only that, but it is so helpful to have someone with her level of speaking skills working for his contractor since very often his company snatches up the best translators. Of course that was where she was supposed to be all along. God KNEW because not even a week after she got the job, a position in Nick’s company opened up, but it was too late. Amazing.

But what came next was a very long journey. With Alesia’s job, came a long commute. Up to 3 hours (one way) daily from the little town of Abinsk where they were living at the far end of an unpaved road. Even with our big SUV it was tough to get to their house and it took 1 1/2 hours. You can imagine that it was very hard with four children to be away from them so much. So for Alesia, the search for a house was ON.

But they had no money! Her salary is pretty good by Russian standards, but it still doesn’t go far when you have four children, a husband, and both of the grandmother’s living with you. So what did her company do??? They are so thrilled to have someone with Alesia’s speaking skills on board, that they offered her 20,000 rubles (over $600 USD) towards a house or an apartment PER MONTH. Amazing. Something she would have never received with Nick’s company. God KNOWS.

Unfortunately in Russia, you cannot just call up a realtor and find a place in the area you want. It was a long, several months before she found a place that was within their price range with good access to transportation for herself and her two children who are in school. I went with her on a few house hunting expeditions, and it has been such a tough time for them.

Well, where did we spend the evening with her??? At her HOUSE! Praise God. It is nice and large by Russian standards, and it has a beautiful yard (jealous over here!) and a sauna (again, jealous over here!). No, I am not really jealous, just so happy for them. The best part for me is that she is so close. For a while they talked about staying in Abinsk, but here I will get to see her all the time!

Last night was so nice. She and her husband are such sweet, easy company and a blessing from God. We talked about everything from the restoration \of Babylon to American politics. And we had some awesome Shashleek (Russian grilled meat – so GOOD). Shashleek makes me happy!

Yuri, Alesia’s husband, bringing in the shashleek! He saw me with my camera and snapped to attention as a joke – haha, he looks so serious in this picture though. Not like he is joking at all.

Sweet Eva, and Yuri’s mother. Alesia’s mother joined them at one point in Russia, but she has decided to return to Kyrgyzstan for the time being.

Precious Christina – she is so sweet, and little Ilya (Elijah).

Christina was sweet to Isla and played with her the whole time.

Good fellowship – I kept trying to get candid shots, but not having photography skills whatsoever, I mostly just got people between bites and looking weird.

Eva and Isla! They are only one month apart. Are they not so darn adorable?

I didn’t get any pictures of Benjamin, their oldest boy because he is very shy and mostly kept to himself. Plus I didn’t take nearly as many pictures as I wanted to since I was so busy gabbing!

Yuri was a film producer in Kyrgyzstan and made films for a local Christian channel. At the end of the evening he shared with us some of his films on what God was doing there, and also some of his footage of the revolution. His office used to be right across from the Kyrgyzstani White House, so he was able to film some of the destruction first hand. There was some very difficult things to watch. I am thankful that my friends made it out to Russia safely, but I ache for those left behind. I am sorry that Yuri and Alesia had to live through that, but they firmly believe that Russia is where they are meant to be right now. I cannot wait for Christ’s return, when He will wipe every tear from our eyes so that people do not have to go through such terrible times.

Now before I go, I have one more prayer requests for this precious family - Would you please pray that Yuri is able to find a job, but not just any job, a job in film? That is his passion and his heart. He has undergone such a transformation during the past year, like Christ, he has been making himself the first servant to his family, but it must be hard not being able to provide.

I have a feeling that Alesia and her family will be making it to the blog quite a bit more in the future! We love them and are so thankful for the opportunity to know them.

Two Beds

2012-01-14T06:27:00.001-06:00

Today has been pretty quiet. Nick usually has to work Saturdays here so they are like any other weekday. We up at the same time, and get him moving so it has been just Isla and I.

Random comment of the day – I think that when Isla was a baby I suffered from IDOB by proxy – IDOB for in denial of baldness. When I look at pictures – she was a total Elmer Fudd, but I never thought she was bald at all, and I don’t know how I didn’t see it. Well it seems like all of a sudden her hair is getting really long, and my favorite think about her long hair – her adorable bedhead! The only thing cuter than a little baby mullet, is a bed-headed baby mullet.

Another random Isla cuteness – today I was trying to get her into her little hooded towel, and she very decidedly went and grabbed a hand towel and wrapped it around her waist – just like her dad.

Now for today’s nap – thank you everyone who sent me a message. I will be getting back to you tonight with further questions because many of your ideas intrigued me and I need a full investigation of how you implement your suggestions and what exactly you think is the secret to your success.

I got this email from my mom, which I thought was hilarious. Oh to be a grandmother! I am thankful that Isla has a Cookie and a Boo who love her to pieces.

Isla is not stubborn, she is an angel!! Seriously.no way would I let her scream for more than 20 minutes. Seriously think about how good she is almost always, if naptime is her naughty time don't judge her personality by that short little time of day. What does baby wise say? I would scream too if I was penned up for 2 hours or more. Bring her home!!!!! Lighten up, love you lots!

The thing is after last night, I remembered why I am always such a stickler for naps, and that in my experience as a mom – a well rested Isla is a happy Isla. And last night she was so bad! I was at my wits end by the time Nick got home. She peepeed her pants about 3 or 4 times, when she has basically been peepee at home potty trained for months. She dumped out her food. She was fussy. She was disobedient. She was unhappy and frustrated with everything. She was not her usual cheery self. I resolved to make today a different day.

Then I had a little breakthrough on my own. I remembered in the Baby Whisperer she mentioned that Active-type babies (which Isla definitely is) need all visual stimulation blocked out before they can nap, or that it at least helps them nap. I theorized that maybe that was the reason why she didn’t have any trouble getting to sleep at night, but why she had such trouble during the day. She has a big window in her room, and even a tiny crack in her window treatments lets in a lot of light.

At first I was kind of a Nazi about keeping it dark during the day – see this post HERE – for her naps. In case you haven’t guessed, I am kind of a Nazi about naps in general. However, lately some of the duck tape has come apart, and I have been closing the curtains and it has been lighter, but I figure that Isla should learn to sleep in a semi-light room during the days at this point. But yesterday I thought that that might be a mistake, and so I decided to try putting her down in a place with no outside light, with all visual stimulation blocked, that is… BACK IN OUR CLOSET!

As much as I am afraid of her developing a love for burnt orange by osmosis, I was willing to try it. I hated putting her in there when she was a tiny baby before we got her curtains figured out, but she is a big, sturdy girl now so I don’t feel quite so guilty.

And what did Isla think??? She LOVED it. She took one look at it and said “two beds”!

A little bit of background, Isla has been really into a baby doll that my penpal got her in May. She loves “baby”. My MIL also got her the same baby doll when we were in Texas this summer, so I just left one at my mom’s house (one for the states, one for Russia). Well she had to bring “baby” when we went back to the states this Christmas, and when she got to my mom’s house and realized that she had TWINS – oh my! She was over the moon. She immediately said “TWO BABIES!” and she has been inseparable from them ever since. Also how she knew to say “two babies” is beyond me – I have no reasonable explanation other than she might be a genius.

Anyway, ever since then she has been into having TWO of everything. Two Grovers (Another Monster at the End of this Book App plus two Grover dolls that she got for Christmas), two night nights (blankets)… At our house we have potty(guest bathroom) and two potty (our bathroom), you get the idea.

She has even started saying her prayers like this “Bless you Boo. Bless you Cookie. Bless you Pawpaw. Bless you two Pawpaw.” Its pretty cute.

So needless to say she was pretty excited about having TWO beds. She went down without a saying anything other than “night night two babies”, and she slept for an hour. Now the nap was shorter than I would have liked, but I sort of rushed her this morning by a good hour. The first yawn I saw I put her to bed. I got the worst migraine that I have had in a while and I was anxious to go lay down.

And I have been taking it easy all day, the reason – I wanted to be well enough to go out tonight because we are going to see a certain someone! I plan on doing an blog post on my night tonight tomorrow, and I don’t want to ruin the surprise – but I think you will be very excited to hear who it is!

Ugh HELP!

2012-01-13T05:00:00.001-06:00

I need some serious advice. Isla has been having major naptime issues.

At night – she goes out without a single fuss and sleeps through the night for 11 to 12 hours. So I KNOW nothing is wrong with her physically.

However at naptime – oh my goodness.

IF she falls asleep at all, she falls asleep for 20 or 30 minutes and then awakes with piercing shrieks!

Then she screams off and on, off and on, off and on for HOURS.

She will not fall asleep if I rock her or lay next to her crib and let me hold her hand.

I have tried CIO with checking on her at varying intervals, because sometimes she has gone #2 and needs me to change her.

However, she has gone for as long as an hour without me checking on her and she can still keep it up!

I tried moving the start of her naptime around to no avail.

Finally she falls asleep around 3 o’clock, and she is OUT, and I usually wake her up around 4:30 pm because I don’t want it to run into her nighttime.

It makes my heart break. She is such a stubborn child and she has always needed extra work, time and help to fall asleep, but this is the worst.

I am simply at my wit’s end and I don’t want her to be upset. I know she still needs the nap, and I do not think that she in anyway knows what is good for her, so letting her not take a nap is not an option.

I could really use some mommy advice.

The “Me” Time Myth

2012-01-12T00:17:00.000-06:00

I have been feeling very dissatisfied with myself and my “performance” in my role as a wife and mother and I am ashamed to admit that having Agnessa come twice a week to help did not free up my time nor did it improve my ability to parent Isla or be a good wife to Nick. On the contrary, it only increased my want and desire for more “ME” time. God revealed to me one day in prayer that the more I resisted his efforts to help me die to myself, the unhappier I would be. Selfishness only breeds more selfishness.

“The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” John 12:25

Then for good measure he sent this article along that cemented it for me. It really hit home! I promise you I was not searching for it. Here is an excerpt:

Me Time is a myth. It is an unattainable, always interruptible, never satisfying piece of junk psychology. Me Time, by its very name, suggests that who we are during the daily grind is not who we truly are. It begs us to search for fulfillment outside of the titles of “wife” and “mother.” It accuses precious little ones and God-given spouses for suppressing us. It reduces motherhood to a disease in which little dirty faces and endless monotonous tasks slowly suck the life out of us. It says we can never be refreshed by spending time in the presence of those we care for day in and day out. It points out a perceived hole in our world that needs to be filled, a tank that must be refueled, a monster that will swallow us if we neglect to feed it Me Time.

One sentence really hit home.

We will snap at our children any time they try to draw us out of our precious time alone.

OUCH!

You can read the full article HERE.

I want this year to be about becoming less and dying to myself so that He can become greater. I hope you find this article as challenging and as encouraging as I did!

Fashion Bug

2012-01-11T05:04:00.001-06:00

Isla has been getting more and more into “fashion” lately. I didn’t think that an almost 21 month old could be so into clothes, but lately she has been. I have never made any secret of the fact that I love to dress her up like a little doll, especially when she was smaller, and I think that that may have rubbed off!

My mom and I love to go through her outfits and pick out her clothes and before we left, we made her let us try many, many outfits on her for a mini fashion show – which she seemed to enjoy. Also, she has been picking out certain things when we go to stores that she really loves. Mostly I just let her hold it until I can distract her although my MIL does like to indulge Isla when they are out together and Isla likes something. We love Boo!

Anyway, today Isla accessorized this whole outfit by herself. I put her shirt and pants on, but she picked out her boots and vest, and then she grabbed this hat and made me take this bow out of another hat to put on it! And I just need to add the disclaimer that I had not had any plans to accessorize this outfit – today was an indoor day, she got the idea all on her own. I thought that she looked ridiculously cute.

This is the view from Isla’s room. I had always assumed that it was just a little play area since there aren’t any buildings really, just sheds, but now I actually think that it is a daycare. The kids looked like they were having so much fun playing outside. I feel a little bit guilty for keeping Isla at home this Spring, but I am thankful for friends and Nick who support me and encourage me in my decision. Maybe in the fall I will be ready…?

Also, when I die I plan to come back as a ghost and haunt whoever has bought the apartment below us. They have been redecorating and it sounds like they are about to drill through the wall in Isla’s room! And of course, they always seem to think that the hours between 11 and 2 are the best time to do it – right in the middle of naptime. I finally just got Isla out of bed, much to her delight, and she came and sat with me and worked on her “laptop”, while I worked on mine. Honestly, it is soooo loud, and it scares her .

In keeping with my New Year’s resolution to stay away from technology more, I have not been getting on the iPad or Laptop when Isla is awake, but this makes Isla’s naptime even more precious to me. It can get really lonely here without being able to connect with my friends and family back in the states. And with that loneliness, I would like to actually interact with my husband when he is home… so that rules out nighttime too. Having us both work on our laptops for about 15 minutes was a great compromise for when Isla isn’t napping!

****Update****

One more thing, I found this sign on Kelly’s Korner blog a while ago, and I thought it was so neat, unfortunately I didn’t get to ordering it right away, and then I couldn’t ever find which post it was on. Thankfully she reposted it the other day and I am ordering one for Isla. I love it. I want Isla to know how beautifully made she is… because she is. But she is also so sweet, which the most important thing!

It says “The King is enthralled with your beauty. Honor Him, for he is your LORD.” Psalm 45:11 and it will have Isla Frances Wann on the top.

All of us ladies would do well to remember this verse! We are all fearfully and wonderfully made.

Back in the (Former) USSR!

2012-01-10T11:15:00.001-06:00

I think that some of you are wondering??? How is it possible that Stori has lived in Russia for 10 months and NOT used that title… I am the wondering the same thing myself. I loves me a Beatle pun.

Thank you for everyone who was praying for us. Our trip back Friday was nothing like our trip from Russia to the US in November. It went so smooth. Nick was flying business and Isla is still a lap infant (we are milking her under 2 status for cheap travel as long as possible – yes, that’s with my blessing), so our plan had been to send Isla up with him so that she could sleep in a bed (their seats fold flat and wide – awesome). However upon boarding I was met by a representative who told me that Isla would not be able to sit with her dad since she was booked on my ticket, which was ridiculous IMHO. She’s his daughter and she is still a lap infant without a seat or a meal – why can’t she sit with him (I was struggling with my contentment resolution a little bit)? I think the trip from November was still kind of fresh in my mind – it was seriously so awful.

I argued politely, but they did not budge, however they did offer me two seats in a different location than the crowded bulkhead that turned out to be three seats in an empty row! I told Nick to stay up front when he was sleeping but to check on us every now and then if he was awake. We would be fine, I was/am an old pro at this by now. Thankfully this trip was a throwback to my first trip back to the US with Isla – she was delightful. I loved the one-on-one time with her. When we are in the states I feel like I don’t get to spend as much QT time with her since there is no way I can compete with Grandparents and I want them to get as much time with her as possible. But on the plane she was mine-all-mine. She played and napped and ate was just so adorable. Eventually Nick came back with us for good since he couldn’t sleep and between the two of us we got her to sleep for a long time. Also, the flight was only 11 hours as opposed to 14 so that really helped things. Another thing that helped the flight be enjoyable… not vomiting.

We arrived in Moscow on Saturday and spent the night at the Marriott Aurora. We tried to stay up as late as possible but somehow Nick and I found ourselves all snuggled into bed with Isla between us at 5 o’clock, not smart since we wanted to get snacks in the lounge at 5:30, and by 5:05 PM we were out! We all slept until midnight then we up on and off at various times until breakfast at 6:30 AM.

Sunday the flight to Krasnodar and the the 2 1/2 hour drive home were uneventful. We have been doing great with the jetlag, maybe we are getting used to this expat life… either that or Benadryl. Last night I made it from 7:30 to 4, Nick from 7:30 to 6:30 and Isla from 7:30 to 7… and its now 9 and I am still able to keep my eyes open. I think by tomorrow we will be back up to 95%.

Ok that was a lot of minutia. Here’s a condensed version of what we have been doing in our two days home.

Yesterday was so nice, I unpacked and played with Isla. And today we saw Agnessa and our favorite driver Andrei! We love, love, love Agnessa. She is so sweet.

I also made my first batch of homemade pasta today – spinach pasta. I am pretty pleased with how it turned out, although I need to master the art of removing the noodles from the processor without letting them stick together. Here are some pictures of it, and also some pictures of Isla for the grandparents. It is so hard to get a good picture of her these days!

That is it. I must go to bed now… zzzzzzz.

With an Aching, Yet Hopeful Heart

2012-01-09T00:02:00.001-06:00

I want to share this post from Micah Six Eight that I read this morning. You know that I believe that God is changing hearts for the special needs orphans living overseas – but still so many suffer. So many children are laying in cribs, just wasting away. My heart breaks for all of them – but especially the ones who are stuck in their cribs – being driven slowly insane by lack of stimulation.

This is an amazing post because it shows us how far Reece’s Rainbow has come, but how much more work still remains to be done. Let’s get moving church – there is work to be done!

Please take moment to read about The Lost Boys of Easter Europe and what God is doing in their asylum HERE.

And now I want to share with you about one beautiful boy. Little Valentin. Honestly, he is so handsome that I had noticed him on Reece’s Rainbow many times before. He is one of the lucky ones who has a beautiful picture.

There were several families who adopted from his orphanage in Eastern Europe last year, actually, not just his orphanage, from his room. Just as these families were adopting three children out of his room – Valentin was transferred in. I have shared about several children who were in this room before (HERE). It is one of the horrible “laying rooms” where children are left in their cribs day in and day out with minimal care and zero stimulation.

The families who met with Valentin said that he seems like a normal little boy who was only a little bit delayed.

I got to spend a few moments with him when he was first transferred into the room. He was healthy looking, sweet, responsive and aware. He smiled for the camera and interacted with us. They even put Yuri into his crib and he was kind and gentle. That was a year ago.

Found HERE.

And thankfully, someone heard about this beautiful boy and they were coming to rescue him! He had a family.

Unfortunately the family arrived and found not the Valentin from a year ago, but the new Valentin who had been left in the room for over a year.

Being left in the room had caused significant delays in Valentin. And I want to emphasize CAUSED – it is criminal the conditions these children live in. Valentin would have been a fairly normal boy if he had not been left there – drugged and unstimulated. I cannot stress enough that these children who would otherwise be fairly normal are made this way by institutional care.

A family went to visit Valentin and reported his condition. Friends.... the child they met is a completely different child than I met a year ago. He is head banging. Having screaming outburst for no reasons and has delayed terribly. The child I met was delayed from lack of stimulation but seemed cognitively fine. Now.... ?

What heartbreak for Valentin… oh Lord, some things are hard to bear.

The family panicked at the new Valentin – they could not care for a child with such special needs with the children with special needs that they already had at home.

All hope for Valentin seemed lost, but for our God. A new family has come forward who will go and rescue little Valentin. A family who will give him the love and time that he needs to heal and become the little boy that he used to be – the little boy that he SHOULD be. Trust me, God can work miracles in his life.

His new family is HERE! And they need YOUR help.

They have already adopted two special needs children in the past several years and they have exhausted every single fundraising opportunity at their disposal. They are trusting the body of Christ to step forward and help them rescue the least of these! Come on church – let’s get moving!!!

Can you please take a moment to help them out? Can you donate $5 or even $10 to them? Seriously, every dollar – every penny counts and will be huge help to them.

You can donate to sweet Valentin’s new family HERE, and you can read all about his adoption HERE.

Thank you precious and blessed friends! I simply cannot wait to see his after picture.

Resolutions 2012

2012-01-06T11:38:00.000-06:00

As I mentioned before – I love having and meeting goals, and I love that we have a holiday that is all around goal setting! Did you know that having a goal makes you a million more times likely to achieve a goal??? Ok, I made that statistic up, but I did read somewhere that actually writing down your goals makes you more likely to accomplish them. Looking back on my goals in 2011 and 2010, I realize that I achieved every one of those goals, ok, 2011’s goal was pretty lame, but it is still cool to realize that I did well.

This year I have enlisted Nick’s aid in meeting my goals. We plan to have several talks about them over the next several weeks to discuss concrete steps on how we can achieve them. I also love action plans!

So here are my goals

To continue to give more, I don’t like to give percentages, but I have a fixed percentage over the last two years in my mind and I plan to achieve it.
To be content with what I have. I sometimes think that I am content, but then I think about all of the things that I want, and I am sure that I will NEVER, EVER have (sarcasm) and I get all anxious. If I continue to seek first the kingdom and His righteousness, what I want will be added to me in His time. Or not. Either way I will be content. I am crazy blessed right now.
Ok, now to stop sounding so high and mighty and move onto more worldly things. I want to start living a healthier lifestyle in general. We have had a lot of sickness around us in friends and family, and it has reminded us to not take the blessing of our good health for granted. I don’t want to be obsessive, but I would like to preserve my health now and so we are going to work towards making better eating choices and making exercise a priority.
I want to start school time with Isla and be creative about keeping her entertained. I had some concerns about us going stir crazy in our apartment in Jan/Feb/March when the Bora winds get bad, its cold and hard to get out, so I looked into a school/daycare program so that she could spend time playing with other kids. But when it came down to it, I couldn’t do it – I wasn’t ready even though I am sure that there would have been some positives for Isla. So she is stuck at home with just me! But I am going to come up with a new Winter routine, figure out fun things to do, and look around the city for some good indoor play areas.
I want to become a “student of my spouse” in the words of our good friends and bible study leaders from Madisonville. Nick said something to me the other day about something that had been such a sore source of stress for him, and it cut me to my heart because I hadn’t even noticed. Bless his heart – I need to work on meeting his needs sometimes without him asking or letting me know. I can’t guess all of his needs, but I can get my head out of my booty occasionally and try to figure out what’s going on with him.
And finally number 6 – I have a technology addiction that causes me to ignore Nick and Isla at times when I am on the computer, iPhone, iPad, blogging, online shopping, researching random nonsense, emailing friends… the list goes on. I have got to stop and get a handle on this because it will only get worse the more ubiquitous technology becomes. It will be hard because I do not want to lose touch with friends, I do not want to stop blogging, and I do not want to stop connecting with RR friends, but I will figure something out on how to manage them all. I will also pray about it (duh Stori).
One more, I want to blog more on Little Tummy Yummies – I am thinking once a week minimum. I also used a Williams-Sonoma gift card to buy one of the pasta making kits for my Kitchen Aid mixer, so I want to master the art of making my own pasta. I am really excited about it!

So those are my big goals for the year.

2012 travel forecast

The Netherlands in Feb (me and Isla)
Nigeria in Feb (Nick) – not exactly a vacation, but its travel
R&R some place warm in late March/early April
Texas in July
Possibly meet my parents again in Instanbul sometime in this timeframe
R&R some place in September
Texas in Nov/Dec

Not a very good forecast – if anyone has any suggestions for R&R trips, I am all ears, so far I have come up with ideas to go to Madagascar (crazy expensive), Bali or the Maldives (too far), Jordan (still researching), but I just can’t think of anything. We would like a warm climate, and the few non-warm climate places (Paris) I have suggested Nick isn’t crazy about. And in case you are wondering, yes it is pretty surreal to look at my husband and say “Why don’t we take a trip to Paris this Spring?” in the same way I used to say “Maybe we should go to the mall this Saturday?” I cannot believe that this is my life sometimes.

Lord, I thank you for this life you’ve given me. I hope that this is the year where you truly become greater, and I truly become less. You alone are good and worthy of my praise, you are the Hope of Nations and I pray that you would be glorified. Thank you for the blessings in my life.

I have this weird feeling that 2012 is going to be amazing! I am so excited to see what God has in store.

2011 in Review

2012-01-05T22:39:00.001-06:00

What to say about 2011??? What a busy, full, crazy year. I have finally decided that I am going to stop saying “Well, when things calm down I am going to…” You know what? Things never calm down, that’s life! I really wanted to do a little photo collage to go with this post – but it ain’t happening folks, and this post is already a week late.

In many ways, 2011 was the hardest one yet. I had lived overseas as a child (in Venezuela and the Netherlands), but always my parents were there to buffer the sticker-shock of living in another culture and climate. But this time I had to navigate it without “adult supervision” (sometimes I still can’t believe that I am the adult). Those first few months were interesting.

Nick and I have also experienced probably our hardest year of marriage. Those early days in Russia were hard – we were both so out of our element and looking to the other to solve our problems – imagine two drowning people trying to cling to the other for safety! Of course that never works. Thankfully we both realized early on who we need to look to when we are having difficulties.

There have definitively been some really hard things about moving to Russia – but God has once again shown that he is able to do more than we could ever ask or imagine. We are not just surviving in Russia – we are thriving in Russia! I am so thankful for all of the friends we have made and our church.

One thing that really stands out about 2011 was all of the travel – we spent the first five years of marriage only taking one vacation longer than a four day week-end and in one year we have had trips to Orlando, Moscow, St Petersburg (me), Dubai (Nick), Ireland, Italy and Scotland, not to mention our trips back home to Texas. Wow. I definitely feel guilty sometimes that we get to do so much traveling, and even more guilty when I sometimes think that I will be ok with never taking an away vacation again once we move back to the states! Traveling is fun, but I have also found it to be very stressful.

Isla has grown so much this year too. I know that a lot of people say that babies change so much their first year – and they do, but I think this second year has been the biggest transition. She was still such a baby when she turned 1 in April, but now she is walking like a professional, talking, copying everything I say – Wow again. She is Nick and mine’s greatest source of joy. I think the hardest part of the year was after she started walking and before she started communicating so well. I simply cannot wait to see how she changes this next year.

This has been a wonderful year of growth for Nick. Wow once more. I am so proud of him. He has grown so much in his role as our spiritual leader, and he has continued to put Isla and I first in spite of his very stressful job that requires him to work a lot of overtime, not to mention leading a bible study and participating whenever possible at Church functions. How he is able to be a great husband, best father, and hard worker who does well at his job is beyond me. I could never shoulder that burden – but thankfully God did not design my shoulders to do that. Its my job to support him and take care of him.

The end of this brought along a lot of heartache for people close to me. Friends, family, even acquaintances who had touched me in the short time I knew them, seemed to have all suffered from significant loss. Nick and I were just on the perimeter praying and supporting, but I really hope that next year is better for our loved ones.

And also, I cannot close on 2011 without touching on Reece’s Rainbow. My heart has been forever changed. There are many worthy causes that I support and believe in – fighting human trafficking and enslavement and missions are two that come to mind because I know that they are also the heart of God, but this has grabbed my heart in a way that will never let go. I feel like I can help make a tiny little difference for these babies.

2011 has been tough, but blessed year, and I am looking forward to what God has planned for us in 2012.

Parents Only

2012-01-04T00:50:00.001-06:00

Nick and I have always heard that its important for us to have date nights and make sure to keep some “couple time” away for just the two of us. My parent’s pastor recommends 2 weekends away a year if you can manage it! However, we have been terrible at keeping this up since moving to Russia. We already have Agnessa stay with Isla (in our apartment in another room) two evenings a week while we are in our Russian lessons, so we just don’t have the heart to leave her with someone yet another night a week. And actually we didn’t do very good at keeping up with it in the US either – we just don’t like being away from her, we were too broke to hire someone to stay with her, and we didn’t have parents nearby.

So as soon as I found out we would be returning to the US for a while over Christmas, I told Nick that I wanted to try to plan a small away trip for just the two of us and leave Isla with one of our parents. As it turned out, Nick had to go to Scottsdale, AZ (right next to Phoenix) for a skill development course so we combined the two trips. Best part – part of the trip was on Nick’s company and because of this we got to stay at a beautiful resort right near where his class was.

Before I visited Phoenix I would never have thought that I was a desert person or a sunset person, but oh my goodness Phoenix is a beautiful city. I would live there in a heartbeat, and they have the most gorgeous sunsets – they just light up the whole sky! (I stole this picture from HERE).

The beauty of combining our trip with Nick’s work is that he was gone during the day so I had the days to myself in quiet – completely undeserved, but I loved it. I got the idea from “The Power of a Praying Parent” to set aside some time once a year to meditate and pray over your children (I also added my hubby) to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal specific things that you should be praying about for them throughout the year (in addition to standard things). I loved that. So I spent my days praying, relaxing, and working out. It was lovely and I have some very specific things to pray over for the two of them for the next year.

We had three evenings to spend out. The first was the night we arrived in Phoenix, we had to eat out and we found out that there was a Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse very nearby and I have always wanted to go there. Nick of course has been because he gets taken out to all kinds of fancy places working for an Oil and Gas Company and I had been dying to go. I basically made him take me, but I realize now that it was a mistake. Nick does not like taking me out to fancy restaurants, even though he is completely delighted when other people take him out (and pay for it). It puts him a in a bad mood and he is totally unable relax and connect with me. Not to mention that it annoys me how he is constantly trying to get reorganize our orders so that we get out of there as cheaply as possible! Ugh. Big mistake. I should have known better.

So our first night out wasn’t such a hit. However I learned from my mistake and I recommended we go to Red Lobster the second night – Nick’s kind of place… yum cheddar biscuits. And we had a blast! Our self portrait from dinner.

I have always, always, always wanted to go to a really cool Putt Putt Golf place, you know, the kind with windmills and crazy weird courses. I have only been to Mountasia in Houston when I was a kid, which is totally lame IMHO. Since we have never been to one that I can remember, we decided to go to one there after dinner.

So. Much. Fun. I can’t believe we have been together almost 9 years (in April) and have never done this!

This is kind of random, but I loved that our balls were pink and blue. .

My favorite spot was a Haunted House putting green! Oooohhh I love scary things.

My blair witch pose! So scary.

Yes – this place had WINDMILLS!

I just liked this particular one – I love that they had a US themed course (there were four total). It made me think of Frontierland at Walt Disney World.

Although it turns out that I am not a terrible putt putter – the evening was not without mishaps! Ooops. Thank goodness for my gallant knight and ball rescuer.

We played two courses and had a lovely time, although the second course had a lot of uphill ramps that were very frustrating and by the end of that one, we were ready to head back to the hotel.

Our third and last night in Phoenix, I really wanted to go to dinner and movie. We only went to the movies about two or three times a year before we moved to Russia, but since we cannot go to the movies there (they are all dubbed in Russian), I now really get the urge to go when I am in the US.

We started the evening by going to a Cuban restaurant. I was so excited about this!

I heart black beans and fried plantains. Yummo. I love it so much that I even took a picture of my food. Is that weird?

After dinner we realized that there was absolutely nothing out in theaters that we wanted to see. I really wanted to see either Moneyball or Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which were only available at a far away dollar theater. Normally we would be all over that… but then we realized that we could see both of those movies on pay-per-view from the comfort of our hotel room, snuggled up in bed. Most people who know me, know that I am vehemently against TV in bedrooms… but, it is kind of nice when you are on vacation.

So after dinner, we returned to our hotel for dessert, went back to our room, changed into our PJs and watched Moneyball together. It was excellent by the way – I don’t normally like anything to do with sports, but the whole idea of using statistical analysis to build your Baseball team was AWESOME and completely appealed to my inner engineer.

The next night we were on a plane back home to our baby girl. It was a delightful trip. I treasured the time alone with my husband and we had such lovely talks. That time alone was much needed – we have had quite the year!

And in case you were worried about Isla – there was no reason to be. She had a blast with her Cookie!

Isla saw all three of her cousins from my side while she was with my mom.

Finn.

Aiden.

Kendall.

Also – this video – sinful! Seriously. I was horrified when I got it and I texted my mom back that I would never have let Isla do this if I had been there. Also, I am pretty sure that my mom and Nana would never have let me do this! Old age is making them soft I tell ya’.

Ok, I was only a little horrified because it is kind of funny, but I still would never have let Isla do this!

I think everyone had a great time during our time in Phoenix, but we were so happy to be reunited with our girl when it was over!

Merry Christmas

2011-12-31T01:08:00.001-06:00

Ok, so I have been a bad, bad blogger. I know that I am going to regret not documenting our trip back to Texas in greater detail, but this has been a very full season in our lives. It also hasn’t been the happiest season in our lives either – I tend to only like to blog about good things. Nick and Isla and I are doing wonderful, but there has been a lot of heartache that has touched both of our families and we have been consumed a bit by that.

Some of the heartache isn’t mine to tell, but one thing I would specifically like everyone to pray for is Nick’s grandfather who has suffered from a stroke. Nick idolizes his Papaw, and we are praying for a full recovery both mentally and physically. And also for Nick’s grandmother – it is very difficult to watch your husband and best friend of 60+ years go through this.

But – I do love to chronicle our lives on this blog so here are a few of the ups of the past 5 weeks (we head home next Friday).

Spending time in Temple with Nick’s mom and dad, especially playing with Isla at the Whistlestop Park!
Playing Mexican Train with anyone and everyone who would agree to play with us (I am really good y’all). Nick: QUESTION – Why is the Mexican train black and not brown???
Christmas in College Station with my brother and the rest of the family!
Nick and mines “parents-only” trip to Phoenix! (more on that later) and Putt-putt golfing.
Having Kai reach his Angel Tree goal and also obsessively checking the Angel Tree to see who bumped past their goal!
Connecting with all of the other Angel Tree Warriors on Facebook – what a treasure they have been!
Meeting up with fellow bloggers and friends, Melissa, Lauren, Adrienne (ok so Adrienne left us but I know she’ll be back!), Jessica, Emily (now Emily… she may not come back!), and Krista!
Plus meeting up with other friends who do not blog but not everyone and never for long enough!
Finally seeing more of It’s A Wonderful Life than just the end where Zuzu talks about an angel getting his wings. Its about time considering my original blog name was a pun on the movie… also I am I the only one who found it totally hilarious when the Angel is like “NO! You don’t want to see Mary… she’s… she’s an… an OLD MAID!” An OLD MAID! DEAR GOD NOT THAT!
Opening presents on Christmas Eve with just my parents and Nick. It was so nice and peaceful.
Isla opening presents Christmas morning – she caught on SO fast. I was worried she would want to play with the presents she opened, but she just opened one and said “MORE!” and/or “TOYS!” and quickly moved on. It was so funny. Of course after swearing I would scale back this year, I ended up getting her way too many gifts. Years of Infertility + Gift-giving as my love language = A mother who goes overboard at Christmas. It’s just me. I can’t help it.
Isla, getting so grown up and saying SO many words.
Celebrating Hallie Irene’s first birthday! Yes, you heard me right – she is already ONE.
Seeing my old boss and friend.
Holding my sister’s hand at the Christmas Eve service at church. I miss her all the time in Russia.
Spending time with baby Finn! He is the best little chunk ever… he’s so good that spending time with him is giving me baby fever!
Finding out that Isla and I will get spend over a week in Amsterdam with not only my mom and dad, but my Nana as well! Poor Nick will have to go to Nigeria . He had to get a yellow fever vaccination and will have to take malaria medication, while I will be eating my gouda and smelling tulips. Doesn’t seem fair.
Going to the Sul Ross senior center dance in Waco with Nick’s granny. We were the youngest couple there by at least 35 years, and they made us come up and hand out door prizes. Before you laugh – that was the best live music band that I have ever heard, and it was fun – because as I have said before – my husband really KNOWS how to two-step.
Going to the Container Store and HEB – not sure why, but those two stores make me happy! Call them a Texas girl’s Tiffany’s.
Watching way too much House Hunters – I do love to make fun of most (not all) the people who go on there (some people are totally unreasonable in their requests). I have to add the “not all” disclaimer because a certain family I love from Mandeville is going to be on the show! They are in this post HERE.

Its late and that is all that I can think of for now… tomorrow I hope to share more on 2011 and my hopes for 2012.

And the iPad Winner is…

2011-12-26T15:53:00.001-06:00

SYDNEY MARTIN!!!!! I am so glad that it is going to such a deserving person, sister-in-christ and fellow Warrior.

Congrats ma’am! Send me an email letting me know your color preferences (black or white) and a mailing address.

Thank you to everyone who participated in Kai’s fundraiser. You were so generous and every dollar that you gave will go toward helping his forever family bring him home!

Please continue to spread awareness about the plight of the orphans at home and overseas and the work that they are doing at Reece’s Rainbow.

Thank you thank you thank you!

Miracles

2011-12-24T01:49:00.001-06:00

Yesterday… I witnessed a miracle.

Remember my post about the littlest seed? I am going to share a story with you about a BIG seed! And although yes, it was a big seed, what followed afterwards was nothing less than a miracle!

Yesterday afternoon, I got an email from Andrea Roberts, the Director of Reece’s Rainbow.

An anonymous donor had given us RR Warriors a “bump” challenge! Meaning that for every child that we “bumped” up to the $500 category, the donor would then “bump” the child who was next closest to $1000 up to $1000 and help that child meet their Angel Tree goal. And the offer was only good until yesterday at midnight. We had 10 hours.

I have never understood the term “going viral” until yesterday! I mean WHOA. When the challenge was issued, there were still over SIXTY kids who had less than $500 in their angel tree funds, and there were over EIGHTY kids in the $500 to $1000 category.

Someone, probably Sydney Martin because she never forgets WHO we serve, wondered – could we get all SIXTY kids bumped up to $500? With the matching grant, that meant that we would only need to work to get the funds for 20 or so kids to meet their Angel Tree goal.

Impossible (I thought), no way could we get that many kids bumped up, there were a lot of kids still in the $200 range.

Impossible – but for GOD.

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” – Matthew 19:26

Over the next 10 hours I watched in awe as all SIXTY children reached the $500 mark!

Amazing.

I mean I was FREAKING OUT. Every time I refreshed the Angel Tree page I watched another child’s grant jump. And another's. And another's!

I have no idea how that much money was raised in such a short time. I only know that God is good.

When I started out as Kai’s warrior – I really only wanted to be Kai’s warrior. I set aside and saved a large amount of money to give to him at the end. I wanted him at the TIP TOP of the Angel Tree. We all know how competitive I can be.

But then you know what? I started connecting with all of the other Reece’s Rainbow Angel Tree Warriors on Facebook, and my heart was changed. I have found such a treasure in these women and girls. They have been encouraging and cheering one another on through the past 7 weeks! They have rejoiced with each precious baby that meets their Angel Tree goal.

One woman even donated $4 to Kai just so that he would move up to the $2500 category. How sweet is that? With as much money as he has compared to the other children, it touched my heart. Just because she couldn’t stand him being right there on the brink of $2500 and NOT be pushed over.

So slowly, slowly, slowly, the big fund that I had set aside for Kai was emptying. And then it emptied. And then I had to dig around and find some more pennies and dollars on several occasions. I just had to help out the Warriors who had been such a wonderful gift to me these past few weeks! And meanwhile, God was taking very good care of my Kai (with a little help from my precious friends ).

But we Warriors – we really, really want to see ALL of the Angel Tree babies meet their $1000 goal.

So, for the last 24 hours of my giveaways, I am extending them to ALL Angel Tree babies who have not met their goals. I was hesitant to do this before, but its Christmas, and I have a feeling that no one will mind me stretching the rules for a good cause!

Here’s how you do it!

Go to Reece’s Rainbow’s Angel Tree HERE.
Select any child UNDER $1000. Preferably the ones who have the least in their account.
DONATE ANY AMOUNT! ANY AMOUNT. Donate $1 to every one. Or $5 to the bottom five. Or $50 to one.
And then go HERE to enter my iPad 2 giveaway and enter a comment stating I donated to (Child’s Name) with your name and contact information.
And then go HERE to enter my 13 Cup Kitchen Aid Food processor giveaway and enter a comment stating I donated to (Child’s Name) with your name and contact information.

You can have a separate entry for each child you donate to! And the other sharing rules still apply too.

I only have one rule. PLEASE DO NOT ENTER ON A CHILD THAT YOU HAVE ALREADY DONATED TO BEFORE DEC 24th. I cannot enforce this rule, so it’s the honor system! But the purpose of this is to encourage people to donate to those children who are lagging behind. I am hoping that this last minute extension will help just a little bit.

Here are some other giveaways that other Warriors doing if you are interested! Please consider checking them out if you donate. Even if you do not want an iPad or new Food Processor, you may see something else that you want to win and be encouraged to donate!

Angel Tree giveaways!

And this one isn’t a giveaway, but it is an advocate blog for two little girls who are also on the Angel Tree. I want to share in case their forever families happen across this!

http://caring4celineandcoralynne.blogspot.com/

Blessings to you all.

AND MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!

The Littlest Seed

2011-12-21T22:06:00.001-06:00

I wrote that when I started this Adoption Advocacy thing I was clueless… and a little scared.

The reasons for not doing it seemed very big to me:

I have a small audience on my blog and a relatively small “friend” list on Facebook.
Who would listen to me since I am not adopting? All of the other blogs that are making a real difference are done by family’s who have walked the walk, not just talked the talk.
I hate asking people for money… won’t people think – if Stori is so passionate about this, then let her donate her own money and not ask for ours!

And there have been times over the past 6 weeks, where I wondered if I was a fool for advocating for Kai and Reece’s Rainbow.

But then last Friday, I received an email that stopped me cold -

Hi, I'm Amy. Just came across your blog. Do you know how long Suzanne has been in the institution? My husband and I have been thinking about adoption - we actually took a 6 week church class learning all about it. Right now we're not on the same page as to "when." But I just had to inquire about Suzanne. If by the grace of God we were chosen to be her family, would it be too late? After all the paperwork and approvals? Right now all we have are passports. I just wanna scoop her up and love on her. Precious. Any info would be appreciated.

Amazing.

She came across my blog.

Please continue to pray for this family as they consider whether or not to bring Suzanne into their family! Doesn’t this beautiful girl deserve a home? Instead she is in an adult mental institution. How is it possible that she has been passed over for so long? Oh Almighty Father, do not let her be moved to the In Loving Memory page on Reece’s Rainbow!

I have read over and over again in the Bible how God takes the tiniest offering and multiplies it into something something so BIG that it can only be called a miracle.

And I am watching it right now. The work that is being done over at Reece’s Rainbow is being multiplied. Not just in the USA – but in these children’s home countries as well. Go the My Family Found Me Page, and you’ll see at least 13 children on there because they were adopted DOMESTICALLY – in countries where adoption is incredibly rare!

Amazing.

God is stirring hearts for the Orphan.

“But You, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand. The victim commits himself to You; You are the helper of the fatherless.” Psalm 10:14

Today I was talking to a friend of a friend, who told me that she would love to donate to my cause if she had the money… IF.

I was taken aback a little bit, first because I didn’t bring up the subject, and secondly because who doesn’t have a dollar in the USA? Or $5. It doesn’t take much. Just a little bit given in faith to the One who is able to do more than we could ever ASK or IMAGINE. To the One who is responsible for miracles! Not us. We are not in the miracle business – only He is.

The iPad and Food Processor giveaways are ending in a few days, however, Kai’s Angel Tree fundraiser will continue until December 31st. Over the next few days, even if you have already given – please consider giving a few more tiny little seeds.

To my Kai. My advocate work for him will NOT end with the Angel Tree fundraiser.

To Suzanne.

Or to sweet Spencer.

Then sit back and watch in awe.

Be amazed.

The Death Sentence

2011-12-05T20:35:00.009-06:00

I promised last week that I would share about a few other babies that have been on my heart. I also shared with you about Eastern European mental institutions. In some countries, like the one on the video, these babies with Downs Syndrome are sent to these places from birth, which explains little Katerina’s condition.

In Russia and other Eastern European countries it is done a little bit differently. These children are kept in “Baby Houses” as infants and then somewhere between the ages of 4 and 7, they are transferred to the mental institutions or “Internats”. This is what happened to little Vanya, the first boy that I shared with you.

90% of children with Downs Syndrome WILL DIE within the first year of being transferred.

For children with cerebal palsy and spina bifida, who are immobile and cannot walk, it means a life time of being confined to their cribs only to be taken out to be changed. They are fed lying down. They are never touched. They do not receive therapies. They rarely have a toy or any kind of stimulation. In the “Internat” the children’s heads are shaven, like prisoners in a concentration camp, because who wants to be bothered with brushing or grooming them? Instead of toys and games, they hear the moaning of the other inmates. Everyone who has ever been in one says that the smells are unbearable. Read about this one little boy’s story of his year spent in the asylum before his family came and took him home… its heart breaking.

Here is one little girl before and after she was transferred. I don’t know her real name, but thankfully a family came for her and took her away. You can tell by the picture that she didn't have long. Thank you Jesus.
Today I want to share with you about a few children who have already been transferred and who are waiting on the Reece’s Rainbow Angel Tree.

Look at this beautiful girl. Her name is Susanne. She has already been transferred; she has so little time left. Isn't she a little doll? That girl absolutely does NOT deserve to be anywhere but at home in her mother's arms, and certainly NOT in a mental institution.
And Spencer. He has been waiting for a long time for a family. God in heaven, how you must weep.

If these children’s families don’t come for them soon; it will be too late. I want so badly for them to find families… so I am extending my giveaways to them in the hopes that we can raise enough money and awareness that SOMEONE will come and take them home, and give these children a crown of beauty instead of ashes, and the oil of gladness instead of mourning.

Please click HERE to donate to Susanne and click HERE to donate to Spencer. Once you have donated, please leave comment HERE to be entered to win the iPad 2 or HERE to be entered to win the Kitchen Aid Food Processor.

"I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.'" Matthew 25:45

Is it worth it?

2011-12-01T17:54:00.002-06:00

I promised you that I would share a little bit more about Katerina Hope in this post here.

Before I can share more, I need to correct one little error – I mistakenly said before that she weighed 15 pounds, here are her correct stats:

Weight – 10 pounds, 9 ounces
Length – 29 inches
Head circumference – 16 3/4 inches
Waist – 12 inches
Leg, hip to heel – 12 inches
Foot – almost 4 inches
Upper thigh circumference – 5 inches
Ankle circumference – 3 inches
Arm, shoulder to fingertip – 10 inches
Upper arm circumference – 3 1/4 inches
Wrist circumference – 2 3/4 inches

YES! 9 years old and less than ELEVEN pounds! I also need to clear another thing up – Katerina’s Down Syndrome did NOT cause the way that she is… I will let her Mommy say it:

And no, Down syndrome did NOT cause Katie’s condition; profound neglect of her needs on every level since her birth caused Katie’s condition. I have stated this before on this blog, but it always bears repeating. What has been done to her and the other little children in her former orphanage who are severely damaged by neglect was totally preventable. We know a little girl with Down syndrome of Katie’s age who plays the piano, reads, climbs trees, has an excellent vocabulary…

Here is little Katie-bird now – with her Daddy, I’m such a sucker for pictures of girls with their Daddy’s. She has been with her family for two weeks now, and she is now growing healthier and stronger by the day. This little girls is FIERCELY loved, always by her heavenly father, and now also by her earthy family.

The amount that it costs to bring these children to the USA from their home countries is staggering – usually at least $25,000 and it can climb as high as $40,000 in some regions of Russia. That’s a lot of money. I wonder what the people in these countries think about that? Obviously these children have very little value in their own counties and here are crazy Americans spending double, and sometimes triple what would be a year’s salary over there to bring these children to the US!!!

And you know what? These children are worth every penny. EVERY PENNY. And more. They are precious to our Father!

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. Matthew 10:29

Let me share with you just how worth the money these children are!

Meet Julia – who spent her first 4 and half years on her back in an Eastern European Orphanage “laying room”. She would very soon have been transferred to the asylum where statistically she would have died within the first year.

She has been home for 6 months where she is loved, treasured, and adored! She has gained almost 13 pounds, and is almost sitting up on her own. Isn’t she so beautiful? I just can’t look at enough pictures of her! You can read about her family HERE.

And here is little Bodhan! He was taken from the same room in EE as Julia above. He’s hardly bigger than a baby even though is over three years old.

Bodhan now in the words of his Mama! You can follow his story HERE.

He weighs a whopping 22 pounds!! (13 pounds in January). He is drinking from a sippy cup (I have to hold it tho). He gets all his calories from a spoon. He can stand with his braces on. He is quad crawling a lot! He loves to play and snuggle. He gives bunch of kisses and if you are doing dishes he will come and hug your leg unexpectedly. He is so precious!!

Little Hailee, also taken from the same room as Bodhan and Julia. She was so little and malnourished and suffered from major emotional trauma from her first 5 years of almost total neglect. Yes, she is almost FIVE in this picture!

And Hailee now after a year and a half home! I don’t know if there is a child anywhere who is more loved! She has gained weight, can WALK on her own, is interacting, and growing strong! You can follow her story HERE.

I also want to share about one little boy named Theo. Although, I do not follow his story personally, I am going to start reading it HERE! This is Theo at FOUR years old.

Theo after 1 year home, now 5 inches and 15 pounds bigger! And also STARTING KINDERGARTEN!!! God is amazing. What truly redeeming love!

You can read more stories of redemption HERE.

Foreign adoption is expensive, but these children are worth it! And until their countries hearts, minds and laws are changed, it’s the only chance at LIFE that they will ever get.

So with that said, please consider donating to my little Kai. He deserves an after picture too.

You can donate by clicking on the link to the left of my blog, and guess what??? If you donate, you can also be entered to win a brand new iPad 2!!! For details, click HERE.

Thank you.

Our Eyes Opened

2011-11-29T13:05:00.002-06:00

***UPDATE***

I wrote to Katerina's mommy to ask for permission to share her story on my blog. This is the response I received:

Stori (what a lovely name), of course I am very glad for you to share Katie’s story—the wider the truth spreads, the better. Did you know that the Katerina on the S*rbian video is not our Katerina? Our Katerina was nine years old this year, and was from B*lgaria. We just named her for the little girl who God used to open our hearts to adopt. I know I need to address this in a Q & A and plan to do that soon!

Love and blessings!
Susanna

I would never have intentionally mislead anyone into thinking that this was Katerina's orphanage if I had known, and I am so sorry. This was just the impression that I received from reading the Musser family blog! I also know that they did not intend to mislead anyone as you can read from above. I don't think that this changes much though - that orphanage DOES exist. Katerina received the same level of care that those children did (and still do) receive at her orphanage. These beautiful children live in inhumane conditions, they don't have much time, and we need to move on this NOW.

***END UPDATE***

It often amazes the responses that I hear from Christians when they find out about the orphan crisis – the 147 million children worldwide who do not have a mother or father. Often I hear them say that prefer to keep their money at home, to donate locally and help orphans living at home, the implication is that this isn’t the problem of the USA or Americans. I agree up to a point, but not to the point of doing nothing.

The thing is, my God LOVES the WORLD. He is the defender of the fatherless no matter where they are from. And WE are his CHURCH. His beloved bride, his hands, we are the ones who He has called to live in His heavenly kingdom on earth. He commands us to “defend the cause of the weak and fatherless.”

Is this little girl not your problem? 9 1/2 years old and only 15 pounds!

Her name is Katerina Hope.

Do you want to see where she spent the first 9 years of her life? Only the very brave will watch this video – I promise you, your eyes will be opened.

Did you see Katerina’s precious little body in the video? Holding onto the reporters hand and not wanting to let go? Do you know that her mental institution is considered one of the good ones in her country? YES – the one on the video. She has an amazing story that I will share a little bit about tomorrow.

We are His Church. This is OUR problem. We can make a difference! And tomorrow, I am going to show you just how much.

"Once our eyes are opened, we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows what we know, and holds us responsible to act." Prov. 24:12

I know that you think that this is a big push for money. It is a little bit – my little Kai-man needs a family! But there are other things that you can do to help.

You can spread awareness! I didn’t always know about the orphan crisis until I happened upon it thanks to the miracle of blogging. You can tell others about it, send emails, blog, tweet… be creative.
You can sign up to be a Prayer Warrior through Reece’s Rainbow. I believe fully that prayer is the BEST weapon against the enemy.
You can ADOPT one of these kids. Yes you really can! All the money in the world is nothing if Christians will not step up to the plate for these children.
You can sign up like I did to become an Orphan Warrior/Christmas Warrior and learn the joys of pestering your friends and family for money. I kid, I kid.

And of course, you can also donate money! It is so needed, and believe it or not, all over the United States God is raising up families to bring these children into their forever families, and they could use some help. Kai’s future family will need help, and if you do, you also gain the chance to win an iPad 2! For details, click HERE.

In the upcoming days, I am also going to extend the iPad giveaway to a few other children that are on my heart – waiting for the forever families. I hope you fall in love with them like I have.

Veritas

2011-11-28T18:57:00.001-06:00

I have neglected poor Kai shamefully the past couple of weeks! That precious, wonderful sweet little boy. I have nothing but excuses – our internet was out for five days, I was busy getting ready to go back to the states, I returned to the states, and now Isla is having another bout of laryngitis...

BUT GUESS WHAT??? It isn’t about me or by my doing that Kai’s ransom will be raised and he will come home! Its all about God and His Glory. Have you seen how his fund to the left of my blog has slowly been tick, tick, ticking upwards? Thank you Lord. You are more than enough to cover my inadequacies. Nick and I have not donated a single penny to Kai’s fund, other than the giveaway prizes. I have sat down a thousand times to do it, to take matters into my own hands, but each time I feel God telling me “no”, sit back, watch what I will do!

If it were your precious child chained to a crib, lying cold in their own mess, wouldn’t you sell everything to the point of madness to bring them home? I keep asking, how precious are these children to the Father?

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

He knows every hair on their heads too.

This is not a fundraising post that I plan to post on Facebook. I do not like posting my blog on Facebook status and “advertising” it. I don’t want it my blog to be a famous blog, I just want it to be out there for friends and family who love me and mine. It’s a very vulnerable thing to be out there like this and I suffer from a terrible “fear of man”, so maybe I will the next one..

But oh my goodness??? How can I do nothing?

Once our eyes are opened, we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows what we know, and holds us responsible to act.

Thank you so much to any friends and family (and friends I haven’t met) who have donated. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I know there are many of you who have donated and have not told me because you want to remain anonymous and have not entered to win the iPad.

I still have one month to raise money for Kai and his ransom. There is so much more to share, and I am going to share it!

If you want to help raise the ransom for Kai’s forever family and maybe win an iPad 2, please click on this link HERE. Or you can donate directly from the link on the left of my blog if you do not want to win the iPad 2, but you really should! I am the worst about anonymous donations, but now that I am the one asking for money, I am dying to know and to thank each and every one of you! Bless your hearts.

A Perfect Hamlet

2011-11-28T09:21:00.001-06:00

Ok, first off – how cute is my niece??? She’s a keeper! Remember her outfit?

We originally wanted to go and see Balmoral our last day, but it was closed. This is actually a very good thing because given that we are all slowwww movers, there’s no way we would have made it there and back and to the airport on time.

Thankfully Dunnotter castle was less than 30 minutes away and also the place where my favorite movie version of Hamlet was filmed! The 1993 Mel Gibson Hamlet was hands down the best Hamlet. I have seen TWO different versions after all, so I consider myself an expert.

Its pretty breathtaking.

I think Isla looks so cute in this outfit!

I love this picture!

Dark and dreary! Just like a castle should be.

I just like pictures where Isla looks small since she’s getting so big lately.

She’s happy because she’s cute!

Family shot.

Isla started to get really possessive about other people’s hats… see how intently she is staring at Hallie’s hat?

Uh oh, there she goes!

And she eventually got Aunt Tiffy’s too!

We all thought that it would be the coolest thing if Hallie took her first steps in Scotland…

Can she do it???

Uh oh! Not just yet.

I guess she’ll just to have take her first steps in the great state of Texas!

We loved the castle, but eventually we had to leave. Boo.

That was the end of our trip in Scotland. We left straight for the airport from there, but we cannot wait to get back!

Thanksgiving

2011-11-27T09:06:00.001-06:00

Isla and I are safe and sound in Texas! Whoo hoo. We love the Lone Star State :). And I am sipping Cookie's hot chocolatey heaven right now, all is right with the world.

We had the worst trip over, EVER. Thank goodness I can laugh about it now. I was already feeling pretty discouraged before we got on the plane because Isla was being so busy amongst other things that I wont get into (DME is the least kid friendly airport in the world - I may start looking for different routes home for that reason) and within an hour I started feeling something funny in my tummy... I am sure you know the feeling, the feeling that very soon, something will be coming... UP that is!

Of course being the Godly young woman that I am I immediately start blaming God - ugh, God, I asked you to prepare the way for me? Didn't I pray and ask you to make this trip easy for me? Couldn't you make Isla into a calm child for ONCE? Why does she have to have so much energy? Why won't she sit still and watch TV? And now on top of everything I am SICK! Lord, please don't let me get sick! You are awful for doing this to me!!!

And then like any righteous martyr I started to compare myself to Job because just like Job, everything external was going wrong, and NOW even my health was being taken from me. But then I snapped back to reality, and I quickly realized that I am nothing like Job. He went through far more than I ever have and never once sinned or lashed out at God in anger. I mean, I was upset because I had to corral a busy toddler on a 12 hour flight while sick... Thank goodness I had a busy toddler to corral, Job lost every single one of his precious children!

And then I prayed a different prayer, that I would have patience. That I would lean on God for the next several hours. That I would suck it up, die to myself, and watch over my baby girl patiently. That I would be joyful always and give thanks no matter what my circumstances. And the next several hours were the hardest of my life, but I got through it somehow, and was able to relay the story to my husband with a laugh.

I told him all about how Isla kept running into business class and all over the plane while I chased her down aching with fever, how I hit the bathroom and up-chucked during the worst turbulence of my life and thankfully managed to get it all in the toilet and not on myself since I didn't have a change of clothes on me, how Singapore Airlines - famous for their service - had the least helpful flight attendants on that flight, and somehow they had lost the reservation for a child's meal for Isla so she had nothing to eat but the snacks I had brought and the ONE jar of baby food that the flight attendants could scrounge up, how we had a head wind the ENTIRE time that turned it into a FOURTEEN hour flight, how Isla broke a glass on the floor that took forever to get cleaned up so I had to hold her squirmy, fighting little body on my lap, and finally at T-minus 2 hours Little Isla Frances vomited all over herself, the chair, the floor, leaving us only one seat to sit on that was untouched.

It was a tough trip! But we survived by the Grace of God. Nick got sick too, so there must have a bug that hit our family. And I have to be honest, once I got to my mom's house, I couldn't believe that I had done it.

Anyway, I didn't do a Thanksgiving post on the day, but I want to do one now because I am very thankful right now.

I am thankful for the following things-

My God - he made the heavens and the earth, and yet He loved me enough to become human and die on the cross in atonement for my sins so that I could be right with Him and spend eternity worshipping Him.

My trip is OVER and that I am at my parents, and I don't have to do that flight by myself again until Isla is much older because Nick will be with me on my way home to Russia.

My husband. I love him so much, and he loves me too.

My baby girl, we prayed for so long for her and she is the most blessed, funny thing in our lives.

Our parents, both mine and Nick's, we are so lucky to have TWO sets of amazing parents.

An extra one for my mom, she was waiting for me when Isla and I got up at 5 am, ready to snatch Isla up and feed us breakfast!

My family. They know me best and still love me.

My friends, the new ones in Russia and the old ones in the states, I have been blessed with the BEST friends.

Nick's job, we have everything we need plus a little extra, and we get to live in and travel to some amazing places.

Our health - we are all pretty healthy and that is awesome.

For technology that allows me to keep in touch with people from all over the world, and get home in two short days.

For my new warm winter jacket, I've really been needing one and the one I ordered from Land's End is perfect.

That it, there are probably a million and one small things that I am thankful for but those are the ones that come to mind right now!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Serendipity

2011-11-24T04:11:00.001-06:00

Isla is a Scottish name – it’s a river in Scotland (and I also just found out – a famous whiskey). The Scottishness of Isla’s name had nothing to do with the why of why we named her. Its just an extra little tidbit of trivia that I have never really thought that much about it.

When I told people that we were going to Scotland, they all said that we should go and see the River Isla, but I just blew them off. I didn’t even bother to look up where it was, even though I wanted to do it. I figured that one of two things would happen 1) it would be too far away and I would be disappointed because we couldn’t see it or 2) it would be close enough, but inconvenient so I would do everything I could do cram it into our already limited free time.

So what happened when we were driving back from Loch Ness was pure magic. We took a different way back from Loch Ness than the way we had earlier and it was getting dark, and right at twilight as we were crossing a bride, I saw a sign for…

THE RIVER ISLA!

Of course we had to stop. We had to.

The setting on the banks of the river was so picturesque. There was a beautiful stone bridge across a shallow, rocky, babbling river. There was even an old cemetery to the left that you cannot see.

Standing over the River Isla.

Papa and his girl.

Me and my baby.

This was the BEST part of our trip, for me anyway.

I love my little Scottish lass.

I’m a Believer!

2011-11-24T04:02:00.001-06:00

We only had one full day where Nick was not working in Scotland and even though it was kind of far (3ish hours) and we had two little babies, we knew that we had to at least try to visit Scotland’s most well known tourist attraction and get a glimpse of a certain prehistoric creatures that lives in the depths of the famed Loch Ness.

We went to Inverness first and ate at the just-fancy-enough-to-make-my-husband uncomfortable Mustard Seed restaurant, which of course turned out to be not even that fancy, and also remarkably kid friendly and inexpensive. Seriously, the kids menus in the UK were out of this world! No macaroni and chicken fingers for those British kids, they get full kids menus filled with all kinds of neat and fancy foods – USA, take note! Then from there, we went onward to Urquhart Castle, which is said to be the best castle from which one can view Nessie.

Our biggest goal for the day was to try to get good pictures of these cute little baby princesses in their matching dresses. An even more impossible goal – I think – than spotting Nessie, yes they are cute and incredibly photogenic, but they are ultimately also very squirmy. Isla did at least get the gist of what we were doing and did her best to smother Hallie with her hugs, which was cute, but we didn’t get too many face and smiling shots.

This one looks a little treacherous! The girls were perfectly safe, I can assure you.

Isla, giving Hallie the lay o’ the land.

Kissing cousins.

Brother and sister.

I love this one!

How green is this valley?

I know people say that Ireland is supposed to be really green, but I have been to Ireland in the middle of the summer and Scotland in October, and Ireland has got NOTHING on Scotland. Nick kept asking everywhere we went what the grass was called (yes, he is like Hank Hill when it comes to grass-care), and all he got was blank stares because no one thinks anything about how amazingly green and soft their grass is!

The beautiful Highlands.

Four girls.

The family.

The highlands again.

In spite of the fact that Nessie decided not to reveal herself – it was a pretty awesome day… and coming next! The BEST part of our Scotland trip!

Scotland: The Beginning

2011-11-24T02:47:00.001-06:00

So, I am finally getting around to posting about Aberdeen, Scotland…

Nick was in training for the first four days that we were there so we kept it pretty low key on those days. Monday I just worked on figuring out how to get to downtown Aberdeen from the hotel we stayed at near the airport using the train – in case you haven’t heard, I HATE TRAINS.

I took our broken iPad in to the Apple Store at Union Square, and I fully expected it to cost $350 to repair, but the guy at the Apple store replaced it for FREE! It was amazing. That guy was a heavily tattooed and pierced angel. We also ate at TGIF – a lot. Here are Isla and I eating lunch alone.

The whole family eating lunch at TGIF later that night.

Tuesday I just shopped, and then Wednesday, Nick’s sister flew in with baby Hallie! We spent the day downtown and Nick met us for dinner at Wagamama’s which I have been hearing a lot about so I wanted to try it.

Nick, Tiffany and Hallie on the subway home.

Thursday was the best day! Nick was still in class so we went to this place outside of Aberdeen called Storybook Glen. It’s a beautiful piece of property where the owners have built statues of different storybook characters. Its was so pretty and the grass was so green and soft. It was the perfect place to let Isla run around, and there was almost no one there.

If I had known how beautiful it was going to be, I would have brought my good camera and taken more pictures!

This picture cracks me up. Since there was no one there, we left Hallie asleep in Isla’s stroller while we walked over to another statue about 100 ft away. Isla got so upset that we were leaving “baby” that she ran over and tried to push Hallie over to us.

Storybook Glen is a beautiful place, and a must-see if you have kids and are visiting Aberdeen!

I loved Aberdeen, and I would love to move there one day. Nick’s company has an office there so who knows??? Maybe its in our future.

Christmas in November

2011-11-23T12:48:00.000-06:00

Since we are leaving this week for the USA, and we won’t be getting back until January 8th or 9th, I decided to go ahead and assemble two of the Christmas presents that I bought for Nick and Isla at IKEA last Thursday. I am so thankful for my driver, Andrey. He is the best and a huge help. Since its 2 1/2 to 3 hours away, it already promises to be a very long day, but Andrey comes with me, and runs interference for me and helps me carry things so we can get in and out of the mall quickly. He is awesome!

First, Isla got her very first little play kitchen. Its so cute, and she loves it! It keeps her very busy while I am cooking. The little IKEA dishes and pans that you can buy separately are so realistic, so she thinks she has ones just like mine – which makes her more likely to play with them. Notice the little hooks that you can hang utensils and pots and pans from? Adorable.

For Christmas for Nick, I bought him a HUGE world map from IKEA. He loves maps and I have had this bare wall for 7 months now, and I couldn’t decide how to arrange the family photos on it. I have also been on the look out for a Russian painting, but I haven’t found one I like in my price range. In the mean time, we both love this. Its better than the TV! We spend very long periods of time staring at this – if we were both better at geography then it might not be so fascinating, but every time we look at it, its like we are realizing where everything is for the first time!

We are trying to keep Christmas small this year. We don’t really need that much, but I think that we will get a lot of enjoyment out of these two presents!

Vanilla Harvest and a How To

2011-11-23T03:47:00.001-06:00

Last month, I harvested my first bottle of vanilla! My post on vanilla farming several months ago generated quite an interest and a couple of people asked me how to do it, but I didn’t want to do one until I had confirmed that I could make delicious vanilla that worked well in cookies and pies! And I’ve tried it, and its so good, and it doesn’t have any weird ingredients or sweeteners and I really enjoyed making it. Plus it was cheap.

Here is my stash! There are 10 0.5 liter bottles there.

So I don’t think that there is any real science to this. My mother just cuts up a bunch of vanilla beans, puts them in a bottle of vodka or tequila and let’s them sit for 6 weeks… and she is the BEST baker in the world. That was what I originally decided to do, but I made the mistake of telling Nick about this, and he got very interested in the process and looked up more precise methods of making vanilla (like beans per ml of liquor). If you look it up online, people use all kinds of different methods, but this is just what I did and what Nick found online was the “correct” method (I doubt that there is a correct method).

How I do it:

Ingredients

1 0.5 liter bottle of vodka (you can also use tequila)
13 grade B vanilla beans/pods
a sharp, sharp knife

Step 1: Start 1/4 inch from the top and cut down the middle of the pod until you get to 1/4 inch from the bottom of the pod. Keep them attached at the top and bottom. If you accidentally cut it too much and its not attached at the top and bottom, its not a big deal.

Step 2: Put the pod in the vodka bottle.

Step 3: Repeat for all of the pods.

Step 4: Store in a dark cool place for 6 months. Occasionally take it out and shake it. I do this a little too much – I’m like Gollum and his precious…

Step 5: So I just leave the pods in, and pour the vanilla directly out of the bottle into whatever measuring spoon I have.

That’s it! That’s what I do. Its so easy and very therapeutic.

Miscellaneous Facts:

I have a TON of vanilla beans. More than I will ever be able to use. They were all bought in two bunches off eBay and each cost under $25. The second batch had much bigger beans and also contained a bunch of grade A beans.
Some people recommend scraping the little beans from the pod and not putting the whole pod/bean in. That seems like a lot of work to me, and I want ALL of the little beans to go in.
Also, some people recommend removing the vanilla pod after the 6 month period. This also seems like a lot of work to me, and leaving them in doesn’t harm the vanilla, I think it only gets more awesome over time!
Another thing, if you do remove the pods, some people recommend putting the used bean into your sugar. I haven’t done this but I want to try it. Here in Russia you cannot buy vanilla extract, only little packages of flavored vanilla sugar. I haven’t tried baking with it yet.
All in all, you can make so much very inexpensively.
Random comment: my fingers smell so good after I make vanilla that I keep doing this creepy, intense Mary Katherine Gallagher thing where I smell ‘em! I smell ‘em!

So as you can see, there is no real right way to do it, just make sure you are happy with the smell and color of your vanilla before you use it, but I promise you that whatever you make will turn out.

Happy Farming!

Warning–You are about to experience BLOG overload!

2011-11-23T03:43:00.001-06:00

So, our internet has been out for the past five days, and of course I handled it with my usual grace and wasn’t bothered or annoyed by it one little bit… (oops, my nose just grew).

So the downside, is that no internet brings out the worst in me.

BUT there’s always an upside and in this case, it would be that I was able to catch up on a lot of blogging thanks to Windows Live Writer. I leave in 2 days and I am going to schedule the 6 or 7 posts that I wrote (between my two blogs) to go out over those days!

Happy reading.

Independent Playtime Breakthrough!

2011-11-15T12:10:00.001-06:00

Ok, I have wanted to share about our breakthrough in Independent Playtime for a very long time and how I managed to get Isla to do “room time” for 30 minutes a day.

First of all, let me give you some background. It is from the Babywise books, and it is no secret that I am crazy about them. For me Isla’s independent playtime is when I pray and have my quiet time with the Lord. I cannot get through my day without it. We do it right after breakfast.

What is independent playtime?

Independent Playtime is a block of time each day that your child plays alone in their room. On Becoming Preschoolwise states that "The most important aspect of this time is that your child is learning to focus on what he can do with the things he has" (page 120).

What are the benefits of independent playtime?

On Becoming Babywise II lists several of the benefits to Independent Playtime on page 73:

Mental Focusing Skills

Sustained Attention Span

Creativity

Self-Play Adeptness

Orderliness

Who wouldn’t want those benefits for their child? I do! I definitely don’t believe that these are traits that happen by accident, and that even if your child isn’t prone to being this way, you can encourage and nurture these traits in your child.

It is important to note that Isla does not decide when she gets to do independent playtime/room time. I decide it. It is a great tool for teaching Isla that sometimes she has to obey me and does not always get to have her own way.

You can read a lot more about it HERE.

Our background story:

I started Isla in playpen time when she was very little. She would do really well whenever we were in routine, but we did have trouble. Sometimes she would cry. Sometimes she would fall asleep. When we found out we were moving to Russia, we were out of routine a lot, and I felt guilty letting her cry, which she would do every time we started it up again, so I thought that I would put it off until we got to Russia. I thought maybe having a bigger play pen would make it easier for her. It didn’t. So I stopped, again feeling guilty because we had just moved and it was a lot of change to process. Finally I decided to start her in room time. Which she also hated and cried about but by that time, I decided that we needed to follow through. For starters, I wanted Isla to have the benefits listed above. Secondly, I wanted her to have the opportunity to practice obedience. It is never too early to start.

How I did it:

Once I made up my mind, we started small. Having an egg timer helps, although I bought/tried to buy THREE and not a one of them worked so we do it without. I am going to get one in the US. Anyway, I started out putting her in her room for 2 minutes at a time. I made sure she had her “night night” (blanket) for security. I would tell her that I was going for 2 minutes and I would be back. At first she cried the entire time. After about 3 days, she understood what “back” meant and she would repeat it back to me and not cry. I would always make a big show when I came back about how she was such a big girl and did so well! I had to shut the door because otherwise she would get upset if she saw me.

After about a week, she started walking me to the door and kissing me good-bye! That is when I slowly started lengthening it by 5 minute increments. Sometimes it would be a little too long and she would cry, but we would just push through it.

We have now worked our way up to 30 minutes at a time. This time of the morning seems to be around the time she goes #2, so sometimes that happens in the middle of room time and she gets very upset so I will check on her and change her halfway through.

Some future things:

When we are in the states for 6 weeks, it will be next to impossible to do this. We are going to continue with blanket time. That is where I put down a blanket and Isla must play within its boundaries for a set length of time with me right next to her.

I also want to find an egg time that WORKS. It helps your child to see it and hear it when it goes off. It makes them feel like they have some control over when it ends. I think she will do much better once we get one.

If I had it to do over again, I would have persevered earlier, but mommy guilt over the move got in the way. But by the time I started, she was old enough to understand what was going on and knew that I would be back. Also, we waited and went straight to room time, and I feel bad that she missed all that time in playpen time. That foundation would have been very good for her.

So that is it! That is how I did it. Like with most parenting things, like potty training, once I made up my mind to DO it. It was much easier. And I think it was pretty painless for the both of us. Its also one of those things that you are constantly working on through many setbacks, but the pay offs are amazing if you persevere. I really want Isla to be able to focus and have a good attention span and I think that its possible!

Tuesday Tidbits

2011-11-15T04:29:00.001-06:00

Here are just a few things happening at the Wann household.

I leave for the USA the day after Thanksgiving. I am so excited about seeing my family! And baby Finn . I am really missing my mama.
After I volunteered to speak at English club, I have sort of been appointed the unofficial chairperson of it... we had another one last week where I talked about Texas A&M (word on the streets of Novo is that it’s the BEST university in the USA – and if you want people to hear differently, then you better come and tell them yourself!), and Nick is going to talk about Thanksgiving this Sunday. I am hoping that we can rotate the Americans/English next year so that we get a good mix of speakers. Its been so much fun to meet new Russians who have interest in the language.
Nick also started an English speaking bible study with our Pastor at our house on Wednesday nights, and we had some unbelievers come! I am so proud of him.
Nick’s boss just told him he could leave several days earlier for Houston so he can squeeze in some business meetings there, but he might not. The reason – he doesn’t want to miss his last English bible study, which means he will just have to use days he was going to take a vacation to work and go to meetings. We are working on an alternative, but I am so proud of his commitment to this bible study. So proud. This is our mission field and we take it seriously.
I really need to get our Scotland posts up, I only have three or four, and I do not want it to become one of the trips time forgot, like Isla’s first Halloween or the second half of her first Independence Day or the second half of my mom and mine’s St Petersburg trip.
Isla is making amazing progress with her potty training. After 6 months of starting and stopping and trying different methods, it turns out that all we needed to do was put her in big girl panties for a few weeks and just deal with the messes. Yesterday she only had ONE accident, and being the proud Mama that I am, I am not even counting it because she went into the bathroom by herself, sat on the little potty by herself, and tinkled all by herself. The only catch? She forgot to take off her underwear when she sat down! .
Isla is weaned! It was pretty easy. I am sad and I miss it, but it was time. I slowly got her down to once per day and then I stopped. I nursed her one time a week later when I got uncomfortable, and then nothing for nearly two weeks. I hope that I have the chance to do it again!
I love our church here in Novo!
I need to get serious about Russian lessons again. We are still taking them, but you know when you are trying to learn and when you are just faking it. Well I have been faking it for the past month since we got back from Scotland. Its going to be my top priority next year! I really want to be able to converse with the people at my church.
I am going to try to make Chicken Parmesan tonight. Wish me luck!
I love Agnesa! Her mother is not doing well. Could you please pray for her?
Isla’s naps have been very short lately, less than 1 1/2 hours. I don’t know what to do, but I am experimenting with different things. I know she is not getting enough sleep because she wakes up super cranky.
I am going to Krasnodar this Thursday. 2 1/2 hours to Ikea. Not fun, but I want to get Isla the little play kitchen from there.
Isla is really into cooking. She gets “bows” (bowls) and then I fill it with crackers and raisins and wooden spoon and she mixes it up and pours it from bowl to bowl. Its so cute. It’s the first thing she wants to show Nick when he gets home. She runs up to him with her bowl and says “cook”.
Lately I am turning into a Ruskaya Babushka… whenever Isla and I go outside, I spend about 30 minutes looking for any kind of outerwear to throw on her so she doesn’t get cold.

Also, don’t forget about my fundraiser for little Kai man! We are raising the ransom to bring him HOME, plus you have the chance to win an iPad 2. How cool is that? For details click HERE.

Where your treasure is…

2011-11-14T14:05:00.001-06:00

“…there your heart will also be.” –Matthew 6:21

What do you spend your treasure on? Do you spend it on video games (guilty!)? Do you spend it on vacations (double guilty!)? Do you spend it on over-the-top adorable clothes for your children (triple guilty!)? Do you spend it on highlights for your hair (phew, no… finally I can judge someone else!)?

No, seriously. If you sat down and counted out where your money went… Where would it all go? The bible tells us the things that we spend our money on, are the things nearest and dearest to our hearts.

But then ask yourself? Beyond your basic necessities, how many of these things have eternal value?

It is really humbling to look over my own bank account and see that even as much as I think I am giving, still more is spent on fleeting pleasures (hmmm chocolate) or things things that I spent too much money on because I hate to shop around (clothes).

And then ask yourself, how precious is this child to the Father?

How precious is he? So fearfully and wonderfully made! Right down to the magical extra chromosome that he carries in his DNA. He so loved.

THIS is where the Father’s heart is, and this is where mine should also be.

When I think about these precious orphans I think of them…

Suffering from terrible neglect,
Unloved,
Sexually and physically abused,
Destined to be bedridden their entire lives,
Transferred from the orphanage to a mental institute at the tiny, tender ages of 4 or 5 or 6.
And most importantly, I think about how they will never, ever know the love of a Mother or Father on this side of heaven…

… and there are only two words that come to mind:

“Jesus wept.” John 11:35

We are the body of Christ. This is our problem.

Now I know that this is asking a lot. I know it. But today… today, consider donating a full $35 to Kai’s fund.

You will not only help save the life of THIS child.

You will also get a really great ornament for you tree! (at this point the emotional blackmail ends)

For donations of $35 and higher, Reece’s Rainbow will send you the beautiful ornament above. As a special favor to me – if you order one to hang on your tree, would you consider praying over that ornament every night? Pray for little Kai, pray that the ransom would be raised to bring him home, and pray that his forever family would find him.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” Matthew 6:19-20

Show the Father where your heart is!

And don’t forget, for a donation of ANY amount, even a $1, you can be entered to win an iPad 2! Just click HERE for details.

Thank you thank you thank you.

Like LOST… But with ZOMBIES!

2011-11-13T10:26:00.001-06:00

We interrupt my scheduled series of orphan advocate posts to bring you… something completely different.

So those who know me, and amazingly still love me, know that I love being scared. I love, love it! It runs in my family, especially my mom’s side. We are all weird like that. It comes from living in small town Carmi, Illinois for so long!

Anyway, since Lost went off the air, there has been a big hole in my TV viewing schedule. I have tried to fill it with shows that I like, The Closer, Leverage, and various other dramas, and they have been good, but none of them have filled the void. Plus they are all established shows and I haven’t found a “new” show. I don’t watch that much TV or have it on that much so I want to really like the shows I do watch. I loved Lost because it always left me wondering what on earth was going on and I wanted to see what would happen the next week!

Oh boy, oh boy, I think that I may have found an even better show than Lost, IMHO. Ladies and Gents…. its called the Walking Dead and it premiers on AMC, a channel that has already proven that it knew how to create top notch shows after Mad Men.

Lost elements it has that I love:

Mystery/Science Fiction Genre
Good and Evil juxtaposition between the two main characters Rick and Shane, a la… well, just about every main character in Lost, but I was specifically going to say Jack and John Locke.
Flash Backs(!!!) that let you see what the characters were like in better times.
Arg, and they even have their own “I-won’t-put-the-word-on-my-blog-but-Laura-knows-what-I-am-talking-about” Kate. And unlike Kate, it did not take me 4 seasons to realize what an awful tease she is. Lori annoys me so much! She’s awful.
I can’t stop thinking – how on earth will they get out of this mess? Is there every going to be a happy ending for these people?
SO MANY unanswered questions, like “How did this epidemic start?” “What did Jenner say to Rick?” “How long was Rick in a coma?” “Did Merle make it?” etc.
They aren’t afraid to kill off or get rid of main characters so that keeps things spicy.

Things not in Lost that I love:

The first time I saw an episode, I was terrified. I hadn’t been that scared by a show in YEARS. I LOVE being scared… when I am in the comfort of my own home with the door safely dead bolted.

Things that freak me out a little bit:

The Zombies. It can be a little graphic! A little too graphic. Like that gross zombie in the well. Yuck.

Yes, I know I’m weird. I can’t help it. I blame my parents.

But seriously, if you can stomach the Zombies, check this show out. Its really good. Although I somehow have a feeling that not a single one of my fellow Losties (shout out to Adrienne, Laura, Jessica, Elysha, Kristen and many others) will jump on this bandwagon with me .

PS. Most of my TV watching time these days is more write up my blog posts on Kai, so don’t think I am a completely horrible person for enjoying such a macabre show!

Baby Einstein

2011-11-10T15:52:00.001-06:00

Not only is she an astronaut...

YouTube Video

And an escape artist!

YouTube Video

She's also a cow girl. :)

YouTube Video

What a smart little chunk!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

And then I saw your face…

2011-11-10T14:15:00.001-06:00

I was just put in touch with this Casting Crowns song through another blog… beautiful, beautiful. It might be my new favorite.

Signing up to be a Christmas Warrior is not just about raising the funds for these precious ones families to bring them home. Its also about finding them families. Or helping their families find them.

There are a few other children that I want to share with you. They are ones that I have been praying for. They have been on my heart and I can’t stop thinking about them.

The first little one is Artem. I just love him. I want so desperately for him to find a family. If we were in the states, he would be mine, but it would so much better for him to go the US and get the therapies he needs. He is getting close to aging out of the Baby House, and will soon be transferred to the asylum. He already has almost $14 thousand in his fun. Please, please think about making him your son!

Little David, like the mighty warrior king. He desperately needs a family to love him. Poor little man, he lives day in and day out in a crib with almost no stimulation or therapies. He would thrive with just a little love. Click on the picture for more information.

And finally, sweet Kai. Every child deserves to have a family! Every child. How could you resist that precious face?

Even if you cannot bring him home… Please, please consider donating to Kai to help his future family bring him home! And maybe have the chance to win an iPad, for details, click here:

http://storilayne.blogspot.com/2011/11/help-kai-and-win-ipad-2.html.

Remember the promise of my Lord:

“I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you.” John 14:18

The Cold War is Over

2011-11-08T13:00:00.001-06:00

Now let’s be friends!

The Last Straw…

2011-11-08T03:42:00.001-06:00

Over the next few weeks, I am going to share some of the resources that I have been reading since I first learned about the Orphan Crisis over 8 months ago.

I know that I probably shouldn’t start with what finally pushed me over the edge, but its so fresh in my mind. And besides, everyone reaches that point where they realize that they have to do something at a different time so maybe this won’t do anything for you or maybe it will – who knows?

Last week, I read a book called “The Boy From Baby House 10”. I read it in one night. I stayed up until 2 in the morning because I could not put it down.

Then I stayed up even later because I could not stop thinking about what I had read.

The Boy from Baby House 10 is the TRUE STORY of a young boy named John Lahutsky with a mild form of cerebral palsy, born in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even though he was a bright, engaging boy, he was incorrectly labeled an invalid and an imbecile and he was locked away in a room at Baby House 10 until he was 6 years old.

I am tearing up right now just thinking about what he went through in Baby House 10. It was horrible. Horrible. He endured drugging, abusive caretakers, and full on neglect. I read and I cried and I ached for this little boy. I didn’t think that it could get much worse.

But you know what?

That was nothing. NOTHING compared to what he endured once he was moved to the “Internat”. Baby House 10 was a loving, wonderful place compared to where he was sent.

In Easter Europe and Russia, all children with downs syndrome or who are deemed to be of lower intelligence are sent to Insane Asylums at the age of approximately 6 years old. Roughly 95% of children sent to these places DIE before they reach adulthood.

These are no place for children, no matter what their mental state, but many of them are fully cognizant, just like John.

Let me share with you a quick excerpt from “The Boy From Baby House 10” about the day that John (Vanya) was dropped off at the Internat…

Already traumatized by his journey through the asylum, Vanya (John) stared in horror at the scenes before him. The room was crammed full of cribs. Not wooden ones like in the baby house, but bigger ones with high metal bars, like cages. In each crib was a bare mattress. There were no sheets or blankets. On each mattress lay a child. Some were naked. Some were wearing only a dirty undershirt. They were lying in puddles of their own urine. One was lying in his feces. Another child was banging his head violently against the bards of his crib. They were moaning and crying.

Before he could say anything, the deputy had taken Vanya from Svetlana and torn off his coat and boots and dumped him in an empty crib. As Vanya struggled to pull himself up, he noticed the boy in the crib next to him was tied up in an old sheet so that he could not move his arms. He was rocking from side to side.

Vanya grabbed hold of the bars of the crib and looked around frantically for Svetlana. She was by the door, not looking at him.

“Svetlana, Svetlana. Why am I here?” he shouted, breaking the silence. “Why has she put me in this crib?”

“Oh he can talk can he?” said the deputy director, surprised. “You’ve brought us a talker – a troublemaker? As though we haven’t got enough problems already.”

Suddenly the terrible truth hit Vanya like a punch in the stomach. “You’re not leaving me here are you?

…

Svetlana never turned around. The deputy ushered her out, shutting the door behind him. Vanya hurled his body against the bars of the crib and screamed as loud as he could. “Don’t leave me here Svetlana.” He heard the key turn in the lock.

For the next 10 months, John was never held or cuddled or talked to by anyone who worked at the asylum. He was drugged so that he would always sleep and not be a problem. He was only taken out of the crib to be changed and fed. He was left for hours naked or half naked, freezing, lying in his own filth. He was slowly losing his ability to talk, to chew food, to do any of the previous things that he had been able to do. Eventually his story had a happy ending, but for most children like John, there is not a happy ending.

You can’t forget something like that. After reading this book, and I encourage you all to read this TRUE story, I just knew that I had to do something. That was when I contacted Reece’s Rainbow and agreed to be a Christmas Warrior for Little Kai. Trust me, I have more information coming, but Chinese orphanages are not much better than the one that I have just shared with you.

Please, please take notice of the Orphan Crisis and especially the plight of the special needs orphans – PLEASE CONSIDER DONATING TO LITTLE KAI! Help his future family raise the funds to bring him HOME.

I’ll leave you with this quote -

“In every Internat we always find one or two Vanya’s, children who are obviously intelligent. Among the screams and complete silence, there is one boy or girl who is able to converse with us and begs for a toy.”

“There are still 5,000 children in Russia who live in what is called permanent bed regime, that is, they condemned to spend their whole lifecycle in bed.” ~Sergei Koloskov, Russian Children’s Advocate

You can find out how to win iPad 2 AND help a special young boy find his family by clicking on the link below: http://storilayne.blogspot.com/2011/11/help-kai-and-win-ipad-2.html

Help Kai and WIN AN iPAD 2!!!

2011-11-07T04:44:00.001-06:00

Ladies and gents, we have a picture of our boy. I shared here about deciding to become a Christmas Warrior for him.

Look at that precious face! Doesn’t he deserve a home and family to love him?

Sweet, sweet, sweet boy.

Ok, this is the Fundraiser Giveaway for Kai. If you donate ANY AMOUNT to his fund through Reece’s Rainbow, even just a dollar, you can be entered into a drawing for a 32 GB iPad 2!

Here’s how you do it:

For your FIRST entry, Click on the link on the left of my blog and donate to Kai’s fund through Reece’s Rainbow.
Then leave a message below stating “I have donated money for Kai” WITH YOUR NAME. You DO NOT have to be a follower of my blog, just enter the comment as anonymous with your name in the comment along with your email address if you are comfortable with that.

Its that simple! At the end of December, I will do a drawing and announce a winner. The winner must then contact me, and I will have the iPad 2 shipped to them.

But there’s MORE, you can earn additional entries in order to win the iPad 2.

Here’s how you do it:

Second Entry

For your SECOND entry, If you have donated, please do a blog post on your own blog promoting the fundraiser with a link back to my blog.
Then, leave a message on this blog post stating “I blogged about Kai’s fundraiser” along with a link to the blog post.

Third Entry

For your THIRD entry, if you have donated, Like our Facebook page “A Family for Kai” - https://www.facebook.com/AFamilyForKai. And then share it on a Facebook status update with the AFamilyForKai page tagged in your status.
Then, leave a message on this blog post stating “I shared about Kai’s fundraiser on my Facebook page”.

Fourth Entry

For your FOURTH entry, if you have donated and if you are a Tweeter (I am not), share this blog post on your Tweets.
Then, leave a message on this blog post stating “I tweeted about Kai’s Fundraiser” with your Twitter ID.

Even if you cannot donate, please consider sharing about the fundraiser on your blog, Twitter or Facebook, however, please do not enter to win the iPad.

Some entry rules

You must leave a comment in order to have an entry.
You must leave a separate comment for each entry.
You don't have to do all four entries, but you must to the FIRST one to enter. I will know if you have donated or not, although I will not know the amount.
One entry per comment.
You must fulfill the rules of each entry for each entry to count. I will check.
Entries will be accepted until Saturday, December 24th.
The winner will be randomly selected at random.org.
The winner will be announced here on the blog on Monday, December 26th.
If you would like, you can add your email address to your entry. If you are the winner, I will email you to let you know. You do not need to add your email address in order to win. I understand not everyone wants to share their email addresses with the world. I will announce the winner on the blog, so you can check the blog Monday to find out if you won.
Once the winner is announced, you will have two weeks to contact me or another winner will be chosen. Be sure to check back. The only thing worse than not winning is to win but not realize it in time!
US Shipping addresses only please.

Thank you thank you thank you!

Oh, and PS. If you donated money, feel free to hop over to our baby food making blog for the chance to win a 13 cup Kitchen Aid Food Processor, found HERE!

****UPDATE****
I am extending this fundraiser to Suzanne and Spencer.

You can gain additional entries into the fundraiser giveaway by donating to Spencer and Suzanne! Donation to one child means one entry, donation to two children means two entries, and donations to all three means three entries.

These two children have transferred to a mental institution and they do not have much time! Please consider donating to them and helping their future families bring them home.

A Forever Family for Kai

2011-11-05T16:01:00.001-05:00

I have sat down to write this at least a dozen times over the last few days, but I just can’t figure out the right words to say, and the words are so important, and I am so clumsy so I will just do my best.

About 8 or 9 months ago, I was blog-hopping at I found the blog on my sidebar called “No Greater Joy Mom”. I began learning about the world of special needs orphans in Eastern European and Asian countries that I never knew about, one that I almost wish that I didn’t know about now.

I was horrified as I read about them, but I kept reading anyway. And I kept reading. And I’ve kept reading. I’ve read just about anything about it that I can get my hands on. I’ve read just about any blog that I could find on the subject.

Occasionally I have posted about a child that needed prayer or a family that was in need of help. I’ve helped out here and there financially and with fundraisers. I’ve been praying on the subject almost every day, but I’ve stopped myself from really committing to helping further.

The truth is, I didn’t get more involved because I just felt so much shame. Ashamed because at this time we cannot adopt one of these children. Ashamed because there feels like so little I can really do. Ashamed because there are so many amazing families out there who are doing so much, while I do practically nothing. Ashamed as I watch these child who have known only the four walls of their crib their entire lives blossom and change when in a loving family, knowing there are still thousands of children out there slowing dying… And what am I doing? I sit in my pretty apartment and I globetrot and I take frequent daytime naps and I have a comfortable life, and I do nothing. Shame on me. Shame on me. Shame on me.

But one day, as I prayed, I realized, I was believing satan and his lies. His lies that I shouldn’t do anything because I couldn’t do everything. He is so smart. So. So. Smart. And very good at what he does. Making people believe his lies.

God revealed to me that even if Nick and I cannot adopt a child right now, there is still so much I can do.

So I took a scary, scary step! Y’all I am so scared, and I don’t know why.

I have committed to becoming a Reece’s Rainbow Christmas Warrior for a little boy in China named Kai. He is fearfully and wonderfully made by my God. He is loved by my God. He just happens to have an extra chromosome in his DNA.

What does this mean?

This means that I have committed to help raise the funds that will help Kai’s future family bring him home!

All over the United States, God is raising up people who want nothing more than to be the Forever Family of special boys and girls just like Kai. The only thing keeping them from coming and taking them home is money. International adoption is very expensive.

When I committed to becoming a Christmas Warrior, I fully expected to receive an Easter European child because that is the region whose adoption practices I am the most familiar with, but God is so tough on me sometimes. Not only did I get a little Chinese baby, a region that I do not know as much about… but I also don’t even have a picture to share of him! Nothing helps fundraise better than a picture of precious child. But he is the one God wanted me to advocate for. I am sure of it. And beside, God is God, and he able to do abundantly more than I could ever ask or imagine. And doesn’t Kai deserve a family too?

So, what else does this mean?

I know, I am terrible at getting to the point.

Between now until Christmas I am going to be tirelessly advocating for the funds to help Kai’s forever family bring him home!

So, that’s all that I am going to say for now. But it will also mean that we are going to have an AWESOME GIVEAWAY for anyone who chooses to donate to little Kai. I want to go ahead and set up the link off of my blog where you can donate, but over the next few days, I will be organizing the giveaway prizes and setting up a Facebook page. I am afraid to set a target, but I have been told that $10,000 seems to be the point that gives the families who are interested the courage to take the step forward and trust the God will provide the rest of the funds for them to bring their babies home.

I am so nervous, especially since I don’t have anything remotely resembling a famous blog, but I know that this will be worth it. If you have anything you would like to donate as a giveaway item, I am accepting all donations. Even if you don’t we have some really great things that I know you will love!

And I am especially accepting prayers . Those are free and those are the only things that will help Kai’s Forever Family find him.

One more thing. ALL DONATIONS ARE TAX-DEDUCTIBLE. Yay!

I covet your prayers right now.

Italian Vacation Recap

2011-11-01T14:12:00.001-05:00

Rome

Florence

Venice

The City

Miscellaneous Memories

It’s the little things…

2011-11-01T14:01:00.001-05:00

…that make a vacation. My favorite memories in Italy were not of the things we saw or places we visited, but the time that I spent with my favorite people.

I’m thankful for dear friends who watched Isla so that Nick and I could go on a much needed date alone in Florence.

I’m thankful for Texas country music and husband who knows how to Two-Step. Our last night in Florence we danced and danced on the solarium at our hotel and we did moves that I haven’t done since college! Isla even got in the action. I’ll never forget how amazing it was, listening to Corry Morrow sing our song while we watched the sunset over Tuscany.

I’m thankful for long car rides, where we talked with Nick and Jessy and John for hours about anything and everything… all while driving through incredibly beautiful countryside.

I’m thankful for laundry mats in Venice. Doing laundry late together as a family might have been the most fun I had the entire trip. We were even serenaded by a Violinist! I have such a fun family.

I’m thankful for these two. My silly husband and adorable daughter.

Even though we got off to a rocky start, what an amazing time we had. We are exceedingly, abundantly blessed.

Meet Agnesa!

2011-10-30T13:23:00.001-05:00

I have never done a post introducing our housekeeper, Agnesa! She is amazing. She is one of the many Russian angels that God has put in our life and I am so thankful.

We needed a housekeeper originally for two reasons – 1) We needed a regular person to watch Isla in the evenings 2 nights a week while Nick and I take our Russian lessons and 2) We also wanted someone to help alleviate the housework during the times of the year when I am working. Although, the truth is I basically work to pay for her … that way I don’t have to feel guilty about not cleaning my own toilets since my income and not Nick’s pays for her.

Anyway I asked around and I was quickly introduced to Agnesa, and her becoming a part of our lives was definitely from God! Originally I felt weird about having someone here TWICE a week, but we needed her that many times because of the Russian lessons, and one thing that I have learned, is that the mess in your house expands in proportion to the number of people you have to clean it up!

First, I want to tell you a little bit about her:

She is Armenian-Russian. I love Armenia! I had a friend in high school who was Armenian-American and I learned a lot about that extra special country because of him. Most especially I love that it was the first country ever to declare Christianity its official religion.
She has a husband named Yura, two sons name Arthur and Peter, and four grandchildren named, Agnesa (after her), Robert, Levon, and Sava.
She has a HUGE home that is very nice. She invited me over one day and she has a beautiful garden that she is constantly working on and also bringing me goodies from. She lives on the bottom floor, her first son Arthur and his family live on the second floor, and her second son Peter and his family live on the top floor!
She is a Christian, and pretty much has a big open heart that will take anyone in.
She was a total Daddy’s girl and loved her father more than anything. He helped her build her house and taught her not be prejudiced against anyone, ever. It shows. She has such a kind way about her, and everyone who meets her LOVES her.
She loves shopping! But hates to grocery shop.
She works HARD, but she also spends time gabbing with me, which I love. She doesn’t speak but a few English words, but she’s great to practice Russian with. We talk a lot, and we somehow manage to communicate.
She loves children.

So that’s a little bit about Agnesa’s character, but I want to tell you a little bit about what she means to us in our home.

Yes, she cleans for us (and irons – hallelujah). She works so hard! But she does a lot more than that.

She is such a huge help with Isla. She doesn’t watch Isla normally other than during our Russian lessons, but she is always willing to listen for Isla when I have to run to the grocery store during her nap, and about once a month, I have her watch Isla instead of clean so that I can meet Nick or someone for lunch or run an extra long errand.

She is such a good resource when I get stressed out about something related to Isla! Like when Isla won’t nap or she is sick (more on that later…). She has raised 6 kids in her home between her kids and grandkids, and so she knows a lot about them.

She adores Isla and Isla adores her and is always willing to stop and play with Isla. She is also so good at cleaning and entertaining Isla… a skill that I have never mastered.

Also, she is so good about giving me advice without being pushy. She has helped a lot with potty training since all Russian children are potty trained early (Isla is getting there but she is the OLDEST child I know here not potty trained completely!). She will always give me advice on how to feed Isla and other behavioral things, like working on sharing. She does it in such a nice way that it is not offensive at all, just so helpful. And actually she frequently does take over, but she does it in the nicest way. I pretty much let Agnesa do whatever she wants! If she’s happy, I’m happy.

Sometimes though, I have been inclined to snicker at some of her dietary suggestions because they always involve a lot of sugar… like a lot of sugar and while flour products. I usually just let her when she wants to cook for Isla though because its only once every few weeks. And like I said, she can do whatever she wants .

Well, I will never snicker again!

Isla has had a terrible hacking cough at night, and on Friday I told Agnesa about it. In her sweet Mary Poppins way she started taking over and quickly gave Isla a cup of boiled milk (with sugar, ha!) explaining that it would help get the mucous out. Milk is usually the last thing that I would give someone with a cough or cold. Then she said that she would give Isla a massage before her nap time and that would also help get the mucous out. I thought that it would be a gentle massage…

but it was a full body rigorous massage of Isla’s front and back chest that lasted for 20 minutes! I mean Agnesa was karate chopping and beating on Isla’s back, and Isla thought it was great fun .

I had to catch a few pictures.

Anyway, Isla didn’t cough for the rest of the day, but that night she started coughing again. Nick went into her room to check on her and quickly called me to get a towel because Isla was coughing something up – clear mucous! Isla coughed that stuff up for over an hour.

And you know what? She hasn’t coughed since then and seems to be doing much better! I am never doubting Agnesa again.

Here is just one example of how good she is playing with Isla. I walked into find this . Agnesa was calling Isla her little baby and treating her like a little baby and she got Isla to be still! Quite a feat. Its so funny to watch her play with Isla.

Also, on the day Isla was sick she was really acting up at nap time and would not nap. So Agnesa just wrapped her in a towel like a burrito, and put a rag over her face. She said this is what she does with Sava, her grandson who is one month younger than Isla.

Then she proceeded to walk Isla around singing to her for 20 minutes and I thought that it worked! Sadly it did not and Isla grinned as soon as Agnesa took the cloth off and thought it was great fun.

And my absolute FAVORITE thing that Agnesa does is when she helps out at meal times. She does a full on HUGE production to get Isla to eat. It is so funny, she is so animated and she calls for the “sebaka” (dog) to come and get Isla’s food and tells Isla she better eat before the sebaka gets here! At first I didn’t like it because I didn’t want Isla to get used to the production and not eat whenever someone did do it, but that has never happened. Plus, at the time she was teething and wasn’t eating anything and I was so grateful that she could get Isla to eat anything!

***As a side note, my Russian instructor tells me that the big production is very common amongst babushkas to get children to eat! They are big food pushers and it’s the WORST thing in the world to them when children don’t eat.

I managed to capture a little bit of their mealtimes together, although I did not get the “sebaka” production because Isla was happily gobbling up the sugar laden drink that Agnesa had made for her.

You do get an idea of how Babushkas talk to babies here in Russia, and that is HANDS-DOWN my favorite thing about Russia. I wish that I could bottle up that baby talk and take it with me where ever I go! It seriously makes me smile every time I hear it… which every time I go outside with Isla. Its SO different from how English speakers talk to babies, we tend to squeak and increase the tone of our our voice, while they lower it. I LOVE IT!

Did you catch the part in the video where Agnesa is trying to convince Isla she doesn’t need the pacifier? Isla is now weaned and I gave her the binky to help with the weaning. In a few weeks I will take it away.

Anyway, that is our Agnesa. She is amazing and warm and kind, and together we three girls have A LOT of fun during the day!

Venice

2011-10-28T15:52:00.001-05:00

What to say about Venice??? We loved, loved, loved, loved Venice . I cannot wait to go back. Its one of those cities that makes you feel like you could turn around a corner and be back in 1528 AD in the middle of Carnival!

We spend a lot of time walking, walking, and walking. The city has so many bridges that it does not allow for any type of motorized vehicle, and it makes everything so much more pleasant. And when I say it had a lot of bridges… I mean it had a lot of bridges! Poor Nick had to carry Isla and her stroller up and down and up and down countless bridges. He got quite a workout!

We had a lot of fun just walking around and getting lost in the city. We saw a lot of signs like this one…

…but I have a feeling that several enterprising shopkeepers added a few segues to the route to San Marco because the few times that we were able to get our bearings, we had definitely strayed off the most direct path. Nick examining the map!

We also had the best. pizza. ever. Not an important fact, but I wanted to throw that in. Isla slept the whole time we ate so we got to people watch.

Europeans and their Nutella! I would guess that these were 3 to 5 gallon jugs… definitely HUGE. (Of course I would manage to get pictures of Nutella…)

I wish that I had taken more pictures, but the truth be told, the pictures that I did take did not do the city justice. Its just one of those cities that you have to go and walk around in and experience. Narrow “streets” surrounded by so many antiquated buildings. You really do feel like you are in another time.

We finally made it to Saint Mark piazza! The resting place of Saint Mark’s body.

Venice did not join Italy until the 19th century, and prior to that it was its own “country” and was a major sea power, as well as major cultural and political superpower. I really want to read some books on the history of Venice… someday .

Day 2 we experienced more of Venice by boat. Honestly… is there any place cooler than being on a boat??? Oh I know a cooler place… being on a BOAT IN VENICE! Isla agrees.

It was so nice to get to ride around and see all of the beautiful old palaces. The water was SO blue!

I seriously dropped the ball in photo taking in Venice! This was the only photo that I took of the Venetian Doge (seat of Government), and I think I only took it because Isla was so cute pushing her own stroller.

For the record – the Doge was also amazing. Arg. I wish that I had taken more pictures.

We also said Good-bye to Jessy and John in Venice (sniff, sniff)! We did get to spend a little time with them at the airport the following day though.

They were kind enough to take a family photo. We didn’t get too many of those while we were on vacation.

Our last night in Venice we went out for dinner as family. It was a blast but so long. Isla did pretty well but then she started to get restless at the end. She left her own little mark on the city… namely in the form of a sippy cup that she managed to toss into the canal!

All in all, Venice is one of my favorite places to visit of all time! Part of my lack of pictures is that I was having too much fun to take any . It was a wonderful time with my two loves and I cannot wait go back!

San Gimignano

2011-10-27T06:31:00.001-05:00

Our last full day in Tuscany, we decided to drive over to San Gimignano, famous for its 17 towers, and I am so glad we did. It was absolutely beautiful.

Our guides, standing in front of a tower, and perusing their Eyewitness Travel: Florence… once again, it kicked Rick Steve’s Italy in the booty. I promise I that I didn’t make them pose for this picture or anything.

Everywhere we went in Italy, Isla seemed to gather a small following… she has a tendency to do something cute and everyone stops and watches. It’s a little disconcerting to turn around and not see your baby, but then laugh because you realize you can’t see her because of the group that’s surrounded her!

Also during our trip, we had several random people stop and take a picture of Isla… I’ve always thought she was that cute, but its nice to have the confirmation .

Random photo op.

Yes these two are that cute! Even in real life. We LOVE them!

Time to head to Pisa (which I already blogged about… totally out of order!).

Cinque Terre

2011-10-25T14:27:00.001-05:00

Before we visited Pisa, we decided to visit the Cinque Terra. These are 5 beautiful cities on the Italian Riviera that are connected by a walking trail called the Light Blue Trail.

We were only able to walk from the first city, Riomaggiore to the second city, Manorola on the “Love Walk”. We only had a few hours and we wanted to see as much as we could. After that, we took the train.

We skipped the 3rd city, Corniglia and took the train to the fourth city, Vernazza. We stopped at the beautiful, historical castle there before we had lunch. The views were absolutely beautiful.

After lunch, we took the train to the fifth city, Monterosso, again, gorgeous and walked along the beach.

I realize that I am standing in front of a man in a speedo… it was a European beach! There is almost no way to get a picture without some old dude walking around showing of his “stuff”…

And of course! We stopped for Gelato .

It was a beautiful day, and I would love to go back one day with more time and hike the full trail!

Our Russian Home

2011-10-24T12:17:00.000-05:00

I blogged about our home before our sea shipment arrived here (yikes, 6 months ago!), but I realized that I never gave an update on what it actually looks like now!

Part of this is because it is still not finished. I have so many pictures that still need to be put up because I cannot make up my mind where they should go… and since the walls are all cement and covered in wall paper, if I put them up and change my mind, people will notice! So I keep rearranging them on the floor, and finding reasons to procrastinate and my latest reason to procrastinate is that I want to make a trip to IKEA to look at picture frames.

And I also always wait until my house is spotless and staged to post pictures… well I finally realized that if I wait for that time, then I will be waiting until Jesus returns before I post any pictures. So ladies and gents, without further ado… our Russian home!

The view from our entryway into our study! Originally I was going to leave the brown couch in Isla’s room for when company came. My mom convinced me otherwise, and I am so glad that she did. Not only do I love having the extra seating in here, it leaves a lot more room in Isla’s room for a play area! It really didn’t make sense to keep it in there for the few weeks a year we have company. Also, I LOVE that bookcase. It is from IKEA and it is nice and deep, but also the shelf height is customizable. It would be perfect in a kids room for toy storage and also it is deep enough to hold big binders and photo albums.

You can see that I put up my Sky Mall shoe organizer and hanging rack in the entry way. I love it.

Isla’s room, and my favorite. It is HUGE so I was able to use the IKEA bookcase as a room divider so her play area is on one side and her crib is on the other side.

I love the way her room turned out. This is what her old nursery looked like in the states. I kept second-guessing all of my purchases until I got it in here and all together and I think it looks great. I think IKEA is the way to go for kids furniture, and my PB kids splurges (rugs and curtains) were worth every penny.

Our room, not too much has changed. I have never been that into decorating our master room because we are never in there. Only when we sleep, so this is probably it for now. (Side note – fancy houses are always including a sitting area in the master… does anyone even use them? Who spends that much time in their bedrooms?) I was really excited because the wall paper accent wall that our bed is against looks really good with our duvet that we already had.

FYI – I do not normally make my bed this way, but Agnesa came and she remakes it a different way every single time. Its kind of fun to walk in and be surprised. The duvet is normally on top with the blanket folded and spread across the bottom, but you get an idea of the leafy border on the pillows (same as on the duvet) matching the leaves on the accent wall.

The balcony off of our bedroom that had become my laundry room with my dryer, drying rack, and ironing board. We had a washer/drying combination machine in our master bath when me moved in, and Nick’s company bought me a separate dryer. I am so glad they did! I used to get so behind on laundry, now I only get a little bit behind.

Master bath and only full bath in the house. I used to look at houses in the Houston Heights and wonder who could live in a home with only one full bath! Well, we are living it, and folks, it ain’t so bad.

My laundry nook in the full bath. That is our washing machine. We installed the cabinet above the washing machine.

Kitchen. Not much has changed. I love having a kitchen island and I love the bar stools. I want to get a little play kitchen for Isla for Christmas to go on the wall to the right so she can cook when I do (and also stay out from under my feet!). I am not going to show you our other balcony… it is Nick’s area and has his tools and stuff. And it’s a mess.

Dining area. As you can see we moved the bookcase to act as another room divider to divide the living area and the dining area.

Living room! I cannot decide what to do with our “mantle”, but this will have to do for now.

Isla has a little play nook in the living room. I got her the table and chair set from IKEA (seriously, so adorable and about the 1/4 the price of the set from PB Kids), and she gets the bottom right 3 cubbies for her toys and books. And she knows those are hers and not to touch Mommy’s books. We work on it, but for the most part she is pretty good.

Our half bath. We brought the mirror in our shipment, and thank goodness we did because this bathroom didn’t have a mirror. It was really last minute that I threw it in because originally I had planned to leave it. At some point, when he is not working until midnight every night, I will get Nick to redo the wire on the back so we can hang it long ways. In the meantime, its not that important.

Other half of the half bath. We also installed the above the toilet storage.

And on that charming note, we conclude our home tour. Also, I am not going to show you our one closet… it is nightmarishly disorganized. That is my project for this weekend.

It has been really cool how the apartment has slowly come together. Since I didn’t get to see what it would look like before we moved here (it was bare concrete everything when we made our reassignment trip), I was so nervous about how everything would turn out, but it was really God. It feels silly to write that, but it did bother me, and I turned it over to him, and there were some decisions that I normally wouldn’t make or some last minute decisions to throw things in that ended up working out perfectly and almost no glaring items that really stand out. So, God gets the glory and I get none, and I am ok with that!

I hope you like it, I know we do!

Representin’

2011-10-24T04:57:00.001-05:00

So ladies and gents… I am now blogging about one of the coolest things that I have been able to do since I moved to Novorossiysk!

Our church has an outreach program called the English Club that meets periodically where Russians who are interested in English can come and hear native speakers. Since the church we attend is a Calvary Chapel chapel, they tend to get a lot of Americans visiting. We had tried to organize it before but some reason it never worked out. We finally set a date and I was chosen to be the first speaker.

I did not choose the topic, but it was a subject that I was both excited and proud to talk about! Can you guess what it was from the picture below?

That’s right… TEXAS! The best state in the best country in the whole wide world. I am so glad that Ira decided to have me talk about it.

Now some people might not consider me qualified to talk about my home state – I am only a first generation Texan (Dad from California, Mom from Illinois – although both would tell you that they got to Texas as fast as they could!), I have lived less than half my life in Texas, my daughter wasn’t born there, I don’t own a gun and don’t want to own one, I hate hunting and am thankful my husband doesn’t hunt, and I don’t have an accent. But I love it with everything in me and I was proud to share all about it with everyone!

I was so nervous, but here is my support group! Nick, Isla, Izlata, Igor and Katya.

We had a pretty good turnout, over 20 people, and they were all so nice. I expected to give a quick presentation and be done, but it ended up taking an hour and a half with the Q&A!

First my presentation was on Texas history, culture, food, the rodeo, famous Texans, geography, etc. I ended it with “A Lesson in Texan” where I gave them pointers on Texas vocabulary and how to do a Texan accent and did a demonstration. It was a big hit! Afterwards people asked me questions about anything and everything. From my life in Novo – What do I do in my free time? Am I taking Russian lessons? What do I think of the Black Sea? to my favorite traditions from Texas.

They even asked me to sing the Texas national song, and thank goodness one of the other wives, Rose was there! There was no way I could sing “Texas, Our Texas” and hit those notes, but Rose and I got up and sang “Deep in the Heart of Texas” and did ok. Y’all, I have no shame!

A few times, people tried to steer the conversation towards politics and more controversial topics, George W. Bush, illegal immigration, etc., but I tried to quickly steer it away. We all know that I am not without opinions on those subjects, but either I am here to evangelize about Jesus or I am here to evangelize about conservatism, and I would much rather talk about Jesus! Although I do love conservatism .

It was so much fun. I expected Nick to jump in and help me more since he’s like 4th, 5th, 6th generation Texan on both sides, but he was too busy playing with Isla and Izlata! He had so much fun, and had so many stories to tell afterwards about all the silly things they did.

Sweet, funny, big girl Zlata!

Isla and Izlata have really started to figure out how to play together! I love it. There little kissies here are too sweet.

I can’t wait to talk at English club again. My next topic will be in November on Thanksgiving. We are also going to try to get other English speakers that moved here with Nick’s company to come and talk. I don’t think it will be a problem since you can talk about anything; it doesn’t have to be religious. Its just a way for people to have a chance to talk to actual English speakers!

It was so much fun! Did I mention that? I am so thankful for the amazing Russians that came and listened to me speak. And so, so, so thankful to be given the opportunity to talk about my beloved home state!

Pisa

2011-10-21T14:32:00.001-05:00

Three beautiful ladies .

Question: What do you do when are you in Italy and visiting an iconic location?

Answer: You make every effort to capture the perfect Christmas Card picture!

Do we go silly?

Or maybe this one? Nah, Nick looks too goofy and Isla looks too serious and I am not exactly sure about that smirk on my face.

This one is good of Mommy and Daddy, but Isla was not looking at the camera…

I like this one… but it’s a tad dark?

Pretty good, but only a partial shot of the tower.

I think we found it! We have the whole tower and everyone is smiling and looking at the camera… a small miracle. Keep an eye out for it in your Christmas cards this year .

Florence

2011-10-19T15:44:00.001-05:00

Here we are in right after arrival in Florence, just off the second worst train ride of our life! We took a taxi to our hotel because it was so late in the day.

The next day we decided to just spend the day walking around Florence. I was not very good about taking pictures here, but I hope you enjoy. We really loved Florence. There were so many streets that were pedestrian only, which made it nice. It was just as crowded as Rome, but it seemed more laid back somehow.

We walked around just to get our bearings and then we found a park for Isla so that she could work off some energy.

I love how silly Nick gets with her! He is so much better at playing with her than I am.

Sweet kissies!

And some sweet nibbles!

Florence is also famous for selling awesome quality leather at cheap prices so we passed shoe store after shoe store… since Isla’s loves playing with shoes, she wanted to stop at every single one.

Nick in front of the David replica where the original one used to stand… we were going to try to see it plus the Birth of Venus, but both galleries were so crowed and the wait was hours. Just seeing the city was enough fun so we decided to skip them!

Gardens in Florence. They had some amazing views of Tuscany!

Isla doing her thang!

I really should have taken more pictures because the city was so charming! Go see it for yourself.

Out and About in Rome

2011-10-18T07:39:00.000-05:00

Guys, we still have lots more posts about our vacation coming, so hold on tight. This one is mostly pictures!

Love these two.

We loved finding windy back streets that didn’t have cars. This made us feel like we were in the Italy we came to see!

The Spanish Steps. Some guy gave me a bouquet of flowers to hold for my picture, and then gave me a flower for free. He told Nick that he was a lucky man to have such a beautiful wife (excellent liar) so Nick tried to give him 5 euro, but he would only accept 1… Pretty crafty that feller… he managed to get Nick, of all people, to give him money for nothing!

The Trevi Fountain

I just like this one.

Piazza Navona. It was so crowded!

The Pantheon

And from here, we move onto Florence…