It's Angel Tree Time!!

Angel Tree officially starts TODAY!!  As many of you know by now, My little Angel Tree cherub this year is sweet Willow, residing in Lina's former baby house for the next few months.

I say few months because Willow turns 4 in March.  That's when she will leave the baby house and be transferred to the orphanage for older children with disabilities... the institution.  I saw the progression of photos from Lina's time in the baby house to her time in the institution, and there was definite change.  After transferring to the institution, her spirit seemed crushed.  Emotionally she was absent.  She had no one in her life who loved her best.  No one to give her a random snuggle or to comfort her when she was hurt or didn't feel well.  Nothing. Just her own two fingers to suck on for comfort, her own self to rock back and forth when she longed for someone to rock and soothe her.

We were able to break Lina free from those walls and provide these things to her, and Willow deserves the same.  Right now her pitiful little grant sits at less than $100.  I do have to say- it has sat at $64 for what seems like an eternity, and I went to double check as I am writing this post- and she has received her first Angel Tree donation!!! THANK YOU to whomever donated to little Willow!!!  Her grant is now $95.50- my goal as her Christmas Warrior is to raise her grant to $1,064- adding $1,000 to what her grant was before the Angel Tree started.  Can we do it?  YES WE CAN!!

There are a few ways you can help!  If you want to make a flat out donation to Willow's grant, you can donate here:

I will be putting her donation box on the side of my blogs, or you can also visit her Reece's Rainbow page directly HERE.  If you donate at least $35 you will receive a Christmas ornament with Willow's picture!

Another way you can help: shop for yourself!!  I will continue to donate my Tastefully Simple commission to Willow all through Angel Tree season.  With Willow's first Tastefully Simple party- we raised $75 for her!! I will be adding that to her grant shortly. :) Also- there will be an online auction going on for several Angel Tree cherubs, and Willow is one of them!  When you browse through the auction items, read the entire description to see which items benefit which child.  The auction will begin November 15th so keep posted!!

My sweet angel from last year has a family coming for her, and I continue to pray I will have the same luck this year as well. :) Let's get that grant moving so we can help Willow find her forever family!!

6 month Gotcha-versary!!

Can you believe it's been SIX MONTHS already since Lina's Gotcha Day??? Yea, me neither!!  Yet at the same time, it feels like she's always been here.

Making that long trek to Pskov seems like a very distant memory...

Pskov's beautiful Kremlin on the Velikaya River.... This city dates back to the year 903 AD.  The Trinity Cathedral was founded in 1138 and rebuilt in the 1690's.

I'm not sure what this little building was on this side of the river, but it was cute. :)  The railing behind this little building had padlocks all around and I knew it had to signify something....

I asked our translator and she told us that when people get married, they place a lock on the rail to signify their love being locked forever, and they then throw the key in the river.  We had noticed several were shaped like hearts and many had initials and dates inscribed, so we figured it was something to that effect.  Love it!

I wish we had been able to do more sight-seeing in Lina's hometown.  Our first two trips were extremely cold so we weren't really able to do much walking around.  Gotcha trip consisted of running around completing paperwork and collecting Lina's documents, spending one night, getting her the next day, collecting more documents and paperwork, and taking the train back to Moscow.  No downtime at all!

Our lovely hotel, the Rizhskaya, aka the Rizky ;) with the teeny tiny rooms but very yummy food in the restaurant

the breakfast buffet

a sampling of the dinner menu 

(stole a few of these images from some fellow Pskov families as Mike is doing work on the desktop where I have access to all my pics)

....and the train back to Moscow... oh the lovely 12.5 hour overnight train ride where we got very minimal sleep, and I acquired some food poisoning just about each time I ate their food.  Didn't eat on the train the last trip!

at the train station ready to depart Pskov with our tired, tired girl who had been snoozing in the car

in Moscow running more errands, when she really started to bond with us <3  Oh how you have grown and blossomed since we left your hometown.  Love you, precious girl!

Glimmer of Hope

Things have been quiet here on this blog as I have been anxiously awaiting an update from Marina in Pskov.... She has still been trying to track down Lina's biological family so she can purchase and deliver our donation to them.  For those new to our story:  all Russian orphans with special needs in particular receive something similar to a disability check and they each have their own bank account run by the Russian government and handled by the orphanage director.  It is customary to donate a large portion back to the orphanage.  We handed over our donation (Lina had a rather large account since she was collecting money for 5 1/2 years), and then Marina contacted me, asking if it would be ok to split the donation into three- one portion going to Lina's former institution, one portion going to a baby house in desperate needs of funding, and one portion going to help her biological family as they are very poor.  We were honored and excited to be able to help in so many ways!  Both orphanages have received their share, but Marina has had trouble contacting Lina's biological family.  It is common for families to leave their home for the entire summer to stay with family elsewhere, but she was hopeful that they would return when the school year began in September as Lina has a school age sibling.

Well Marina contacted me September 25th to say she still has not been able to contact the family.  She asked if she should continue trying or just send us back the money.  I replied to of course continue to try to find them.  And then a ray of hope.... I had done a little investigating on my own and was able to find two of Lina's siblings online.  I am not contacting them myself, but passed on the information I found to Marina, hoping it would help her in her search.  I am still waiting to hear back.  Hopefully she doesn't think I am some sort of stalker finding this information!  I just really really want to pull this off- our plan is to donate a refrigerator full of food to them and know it is much needed.  Marina will also share photos of our family and updated photos of Lina, and tell them a bit about our family.  She will also ask if she can take photos of them to share with us, which I am really hoping for.  I would love to be able to give this piece of Lina's heritage to her.

In the meantime, I am still raising funds for sweet Willow as well as another Reece's Rainbow angel- Aisha. Aisha's Christmas Warrior contacted me to hold a Tastefully Simple fundraiser for her and I was ecstatic to add her to the fun!  I would love to add more, so anyone looking for a fundraiser for their cherub PLEASE let me know!  All you do is share the link and get people to order, and your child will earn 20% of the total for your party.  If you wish to purchase and donate to Willow, click FIND HOST at check out and enter Amy Livingston as the host.  If you wish to donate to Aisha- her party has NO orders yet!! :(  Please enter Teresa Gorman at check out.  Both parties close on October 15th- just 6 short days away!!  I have a personal goal to reach $1,000 in sales by then, and so far have fallen $243.89 short.  Please help me help these sweet girls!  I did have a party for sweet Xenia whom her parents will call Kenzi- we were able to raise $70 toward her FSP which I will be donating shortly as soon as I get the money transferred. :)  Also, an added perk- those holding TS fundraisers will still earn the typical host rewards- free products and added discounts. ;)  And you don't have to be in the adoption network to hold a party either- you can hold a party simply to earn rewards for yourself and do some holiday shopping!  My Tastefully Simple site is found HERE for any orders you are interested in placing.

And after all that yapping, I will share Lina's portraits we just had taken this past weekend.  :) In the past I have always taken my kids for individual portraits around their birthdays to track their growth and all that fun stuff.... but with four kids it's becoming more and more difficult to keep up with!  I never got to take Justin for his portraits back in June, and was holding out for our adoption session we had at a local mill, but then was disappointed in the portraits and didn't order any.  Lina's birthday came last month and now Evan's is approaching in a couple weeks, so I've decided to just get EVERYONE'S pictures taken at the same time and be done for the year! ;)  Sooooooo.... here's our Lina girl!

And my favorite...

Oh how I hope we can share these and many others with your biological family so they can rest assured you are well cared for and LOVED. xoxoxo

New ventures

Well... for Mommy anyway. ;)  I will be winding down posts on this blog regarding Lina and will be sharing her progress on our family blog, so please make sure you follow us over there!  I'm not ready to say goodbye to this one quite yet though, and have the strong need to keep advocating for the ones we left behind.  Those children now have names and faces, and not a day goes by that I wish we could have brought them all home too.  Thinking about them itching themselves to sleep at night as they are covered in scabies and fungus.... thinking about how they must still endure the awful abuse at night.  Remembering how starved for attention they were when we walked into the room.... EVERY child deserves a family.  Every. One.

We're tapped out and going back isn't an option for us, but that doesn't mean we can't still help.  We still have contact with our facilitators in Lina's former region, and we still have Reece's Rainbow.  We were blessed to have found much support through the Reece's Rainbow community as well as through our friends and family, and I have the need to pay it forward.  You may recall my sweet friend Noel held a Tastefully Simple fundraiser for us, and we were able to earn $400 toward our adoption.  Yes, adoption is expensive, but that's a good chunk of change!  We were also able to earn a substantial amount in free products, and with that I bought the largest gift basket they make to offer as a prize in our giveaway.  Our Tastefully Simple fundraiser was a HUGE success, and I want to pay it forward by doing this for other families and waiting children as well.

So I did it.  Something I swore I'd never do (just like I swore I'd never own a minivan and swore I'd never fly to Russia)... I signed up as a Tastefully Simple consultant.  Yes, I hate cooking.  But you know what? These products are perfect for people who enjoy cooking as well as people like me who despise it! :) Add water and cook? Yea I can do that.  Add a bottle of beer and bake? Heck yea I can do that!

No, I did not start this venture to add income to our family.  As much as it would help, I need to help these kids get HOME.  I will be donating the majority of my commission (holding a small part to cover myself for taxes) to Reece's Rainbow families and waiting children.  I have two parties going on right now- one for sweet Willow who is in Lina's former baby house:

Willow's grant is a measly $64.  We can do better than that!  I have also signed up to be Willow's Angel Tree Warrior, so come Christmas time I will be pushing extra hard for her.  I pray she finds a family before she is transferred to an institution.  Right now she's in an excellent baby house headed by an amazing director.  Not a day goes by where I don't wish we could have found Lina sooner, before she had to experience this transfer.  I can't imagine how traumatic it has to be for these children.

The second party I have going on right now is for sweet Kenzi:

Her Mommy and Daddy traveled to meet her for the first time a few months ago and fell madly in love.... and the judge in their region is not making things easy for them.  And... Kenzi needs heart surgery.  Expenses have been piling up with all the extra hoops they are having to jump through, and currently they need $3,500 more.  

If you wish to help Kenzi's family, during check out on the Tastefully Simple website, click "Find Host"- and enter Priscilla Morse as the host.  Select her party and Kenzi will get 20% of your total.  If you wish to help Willow's grant, enter Amy Livingston as the host, and 20% of your purchase will go to Willow.  Easy peasy!

If you love Tastefully Simple products as I do and wish to keep reordering products, please think of me and order from my site.  I'm not currently doing in home parties, but if you'd like to hold an online/catalog party I'd be happy to hold one for you.  You will still earn all the regular host benefits and I can even hook you up with samples to have your own little taste testing party.  You can let me know which child or family you would like me to make a donation towards, or I can simply add my commission to the current fundraiser.  It always feels good knowing you're helping someone else along the way, doesn't it?  

Happy Birthday, Lina!!!

Hey, you say you have something to tell me?

ooooooooooo it's something special??

It's my BIRTHDAY?

Not sure what this birthday thing is you talk about, but I GET TO BRING COOKIES TO SCHOOL FOR SNACK???? WOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!!!

Is this day really here?? Is my babygirl really home to celebrate her birthday?? Hard to believe one year ago we were holding our big Birthday Bash fundraiser to raise money for Lina's adoption. We were still submitting paperwork to complete our homestudy, all the while dreaming of traveling for the first time to meet her. We did not know her actual birthday until we received her official referral just a couple weeks before traveling in November; we just knew it was sometime in September.

And now she is HOME celebrating with her family for the very first time. I don't know if the orphanages ever acknowledged the children's birthdays or if Lina even knows what that is. Wondering how she will handle all the attention from family and friends as we celebrate both her birthday and her Baptism this weekend. We haven't had any big holidays to celebrate yet since she's been home, so this will be interesting to see! :) We've had a few family birthday parties to warm her up a bit to the occasion.

Since Lina really has no understanding of the English words "Happy Birthday", we pulled up Ms. Google Translate to help us wish her a Happy Birthday in Russian. Yea, we played the audio several times trying to pronounce it correctly ourselves, and then we gave up and played the audio for Lina to hear herself. ;)

Happy Birthday: С Днем Рождения pronounced "S Dnem Rozhdeniya" - try saying that 10 times fast! Try this link if you'd like to hear Lady Google say it for you. Lina did smile when we played it for her, so we are thinking she may understand what it means... but still don't think she knows what all she's in for this weekend. ;)

Today at preschool we brought cookies to celebrate the big day. :) It's sometimes difficult for me to remember she is actually turning six years old.... She is attending a 4 year old preschool program, still about the size of a 4 year old just going into size 5 clothes, and developmentally she's about at the level of a 3 year old on average. We're still waiting for all the official assessments through the schools so I will keep you posted on all that.

Of course I forgot to snap a pic of the class birthday book- we completed pages with photos of Lina and listed all her favorite things... it was super cute. I did snap some pics of Lina throughout the rest of her day at school:

Listening at storytime

making a special birthday crown {that she only kept on for about 5 minutes}

playing in housekeeping

and making a craft- a self portrait :)

So, Polina Mae... you really are home, and you really are OURS. You captured Mommy and Daddy's hearts the first time we met you, and we're blessed to call you our daughter. Sure, your brother and sister may squabble with you from time to time as most siblings do, but they still tell us how much they love you and are so glad you are home with us too. Happy Birthday, precious girl, we love you SO much!!!

First purchases made for the Warm Shelter baby house with our auction money!!

I shared this on our Facebook auction page but wanted to post it here too.... because YOU help make a difference in the lives of these orphans!!  I am THRILLED we are able to continue helping the children in Pskov as it is much needed.  Our auction was a HUGE success- bringing in over $1,500!!!  We had two plans to get the money to our facilitator in Pskov... Plan A: send funds to one of the board members of the CRA (Congress of Russian Americans) who can transfer the money directly to our facilitator in Pskov.  We transferred a smaller amount first ($200) to be sure it all went through successfully before transferring the entire amount.  Our Plan B was to send funds with our trusty adoptive family who made purchases for us a couple months back and brought the goodies to our facilitator to deliver to the orphanage.

Well the money was overnighted to our contact in the CRA on a Thursday and the money was in our facilitator's hand in Pskov that Saturday!! WOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!  She recently delivered her purchases to the orphanage and shared this note:

Yesterday I went on the market and bought warm things there (in the market of a thing usually cheaper, than in shops). It is overalls and jackets for autumn and winter and some small things for the rest of money. When I told to the hostess of things that I buy it for a orphanage, she gave me one more overalls free of charge. Today I was in the Warm shelter and gave all things. [The nurse] was very glad and surprised that all things new and beautiful. She told that inhabitants of Pskov often bring absolutely old things. The personnel doesn't want to offend people, and thanks them. But then they doesn't know what to do with these things - after all for small children important to observe hygiene. Your things certainly were pleasant to all. At first we considered it with the personnel . Then just children woke up and all started to try on clothes with pleasure. (Though then children were a little afflicted, as they hoped, they are going to conduct for walk). Laura, excuse that I not always do everything quickly. I haven't enough days off, but I want to make everything whenever possible better. For example, if I bought things in shop near to my house, they would be more expensive almost twice. One overalls there cost nearly 3 thousand rubles, and I could buy thus only two and several trifles. And in the market I bought four sets (moreover the fifth get as a gift), hats, a little knitted trousers. I am very happy with result and it was pleasant to me to see pleasure and gratitude of children and the personnel. [The nurse] wrote the small letter. There it is written approximately so: 

From office the Warm shelter: By us it is received from [our facilitator] warm clothes for children. With huge gratitude to all philanthropists - now we can walk with children in a cold season. Thanks for your kindness and understanding! 09.05.2012. 

And once again I thank you - you and all donors is such good fellows!

And below is a photo she shared of the children excitedly trying on their new clothes :) I did blur it for privacy reasons.

We will be transferring the rest of the funds from the auction as soon as we hear back from our CRA contact as he was just leaving for vacation when the first amount was transferred.  And now that we know we can transfer the money easily, we will be holding more fundraisers for the Warm Shelter baby house! :) I will keep you posted!

Be on the look out for a post tomorrow... since it will be LINA'S BIRTHDAY!!!! :)  You can read all about her first day of school HERE. 

5 months ago today, a judge said "Da."

Exactly 5 months ago today, Mike and I stood nervously in a Russian courtroom and poured our hearts out to a judge and prosecutor about how much we loved Polina and were prepared to bring her home and make her ours.  Wow... has it really been 5 months?  Seems like just yesterday I was envisioning missing court and being sent to a Russian hospital instead, yet it feels like Lina has always been a part of our family.  I really have to try hard to remember what it was like without her, just like it's difficult remembering what it was like having just one child! :)

We bring Lina places like to Evan's playgroup, over to friends' houses for playdates, and out and about on everyday errands, and no one would know she was not born to our family, aside from her big chocolate brown eyes in contrast to our blue and green eyes.  No one would know she has only been my child for just under 4 months as she has an EXTREMELY strong bond to me as her mama.  No one would know English is her second language, and that she has only been exposed to it for less than 4 months as she understands and follows simple directions, and has a large signing vocabulary.

Yes, we still have our obstacles.... Lina still has a difficult time getting through dinner as she despises vegetables and most meat.  It can take her over 2 hours to get through dinner- and that's eating a pretty small amount.  We have found that she does like ketchup, so that's been our saving grace for the meat department.  For veggies- when I'm desperate I will give her one of those little fruit/veggie squeeze pouches you find in the babyfood aisle.  I need to invest in a juicer or start making smoothies- any advice in this department would be wonderful as I have never made either!  I think she'd do better if she could drink it instead of having to chew- she just gets so lazy with chewing when she isn't motivated to finish.  She will take forkfuls and forkfuls and just hold it in her cheek pocket like a little squirrel, but refuse to chew, hence making dinner a 2+ hour long process.  I am not comfortable letting her up from the table when she still has food in her mouth, and she has literally sat with the same mouthful of food for an hour, chewing once every minute or so.  Painstakingly SLOW.  We've tried enticing with treats afterward, but she will often lose interest and just opt to get down without getting her cookie or ice cream.

Our other big obstacle has been the little Russian souvenirs she came home with from the orphanage that were living in her skin.... the scabies.  Lina herself has been rid of the scabies for a few months now, but apparently she passed some of the lil buggers on to Justin unbeknownst to us.  Long story short- I have been taking Justin to the doctor since June for this unknown rash that wouldn't go away and kept spreading to different places and getting worse- scabies was totally off the radar since this was after we finished treating Lina and myself for them.... The pediatrician's office (multiple staff members) were attributing it to some sort of allergy/eczema and tried several different creams and oral medications.  I finally got sick of this and took him to the dermatologist who quickly diagnosed it as scabies.  And wouldn't you know it- I got them again too.  And to sweeten the pot- both Justin and I are allergic to the cream to treat the scabies.  Justin had a much worse reaction than I did- the poor thing was covered from the neck down in eczema and his hands broke out in blisters- looking like he had chemical burns.  We are still treating his poor hands and feet from the reaction, and the dermatologist gave Justin and I an oral medication to take instead of the cream for our second and hopefully last treatment against the scabies.  Praying this does the trick!!

For our next steps- Lina was recently screened to qualify for special education services through the county schools, and will begin further testing next week.  We're hoping to have her enrolled in the special education preschool class by October.  She will begin preschool 3 mornings a week at a local Christian preschool in September, and we plan to send her to the special education preschool the other two days a week so she can receive the bulk of her therapies there.  Lina is going to need a LOT of speech therapy- that is her biggest weakness right now.  Her fine motor and self help skills are excellent, and gross motor skills aren't too bad either, though she could definitely use some work there also.

We recently had a family photo session through Red Thread Sessions, and to say I had high expectations is an understatement.  I have seen countless *perfect* photos on their site as well as many other photographer sites and wanted that perfect photo of my very own.  Sadly, I didn't find out about the Red Thread Sessions until the hot summer hit Maryland, and we were all absolutely miserable in the scorching heat.  Lina was drenched in sweat, Evan was constantly running in the opposite direction, both Evan and Lina took a spill on the pavement at one point or another and scraped their knees... and it just went downhill from there.  You can find a sample of our photo session on their site HERE.  I'm thankful I got the family photos from church! :)