Mushroom picking

A week before Thanksgiving we went mushroom picking. The drive was easy, and no one threw up :) which was awesome.

The weather was not that great, but most of us enjoyed foggy and rainy day.  We miss rain, and we don't get much rain here in California and our car was warm and cozy so our whole  drive was enjoyable.

It was raining almost none stop, and little ones only took a short walk in the forest, got few mushrooms and went back to a warm car. We were not prepare for rain, and didn't take much extra clothing, and rain jackets for everyone. I told kids if they get cold, or wet, or just want to stay in the car, they could.

It was beautiful! 

I did all the cutting, and putting in little piles. Boys would go after me, and pick all the mushrooms. I was soaking wet  after 1 hour. 

This child usually not happy with being wet and dirty. He enjoyed mushroom picking, and was following me everywhere.

DA didn't like it, and after about 5-6 mushrooms was done :) 

Princess went outside, fell few times, and was done

  My smiley boy did great job in the woods, but after 5 minutes was back in the car, he prefers warm and dry car :)

My biggest help, and he was picking mushrooms with out complaining, he would not go to the car.

He lasted the longest from all of our youngest boys. I asked him to go back to the car, he didn't want to leave.

 Was following me everywhere, my little protector! Told me"I will watch you, so no one will take you away"!

We got a lot of mushrooms, and my freezer is half way full!

Happy Birthday DD!

Its hard to believe that our sweet, funny and crazy DD is already 7! Happy Birthday my bundle of joy! Here is little slideshow done by my husband. On every birthday my husband does a little slideshows, and this is Slide show for DD's 7 birthday! 

Our hosting experience

Many people are asking us about our hosting experience. And I would like to share more, and if anyone has any questions will be happy to answer them.

Who been following our blog for at least a little while, knows that we were hosting Alisa, 15 year old Ukrainian beautiful girl over this summer.

We had many worries, we were praying hard, we were not sure and didn't know if all will go well or not.

As many of you know, we did our first adoption out of birth order, actually all our adopting are out of birth order. :) And still we were a little worried about how everything will turned out, and how our boys will react to having someone older than them at the house.
Especially our DJ(our oldest), was against it. He always reminded us that he is the oldest and want to stay this way. When we told him that God keep telling us and we have in our hearts to host a 15 year old girl, he was not happy. We were thinking and deciding between me and Serg, and when we already had Alisa in mind , we talked to all the kids, especially we had many talks with DJ.

We all sat down by our computer and had photo-listing open with all the kids on it. Then we asked DJ and our kids, "Can you just look and tell us which older girl you think will be a good fit/you like the most on this photo-listing?" All our kids looked through about 30-40 orphan faces, who were listed on that photo-list, and DJ pointed to Alisa. You should of see my and Serg faces :) It was one more confirmation and God's way of showing us that everything will be ok, and Alisa is the one.

We had many many more worries while preparing. I was  worry about everything, what she will be like? What kind of foods will she like? Will she enjoy her time with us? How will she react to small house packed with so many kids? Like I said, we had many many worries.

All our worries went away when she got here. We had awesome summer, and hoping to see her again. We were planning to adopt her, but she has a Ukrainian foster family, and she already living with them. Alisa has many relatives, and they all against her going to America. Alisa liked her time her, she liked our family and we all bonded well. We miss her so much, but believe that God had a plan. I am not sure who were blessed more our family or Alisa. She especially bonded well with our oldest DJ and our baby ElliAna.

We always will love her, and no matter where our life will take us, we always be her family.

Sweet girls

We are officially homeschooling this year!

Who been following us, and especially our friend on Facebook, they know that we are homeschooling all 7 children this year.

It was not very smooth and awesome in the beginning. We still have our "bad" days, but there is more good days now, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and I can clearly see it :) so it's all so worse it.

I don't have a degree in teaching, and English is not my first language, so we all struggling here.
Kids struggling-because they are not use to do everything and all their assignments, and they had many excuses at school to not do their assignments, and it's just not working with me :) I am not asking to do everything perfect, but I am asking to at least try and I know what my child is capable of learning and doing. So kids are working very hard and trying to complete most of their work during our lessons.

I am struggling also, and everything is completely new for me. I am good at math, so it's easy. Only one of my children is behind with math and rest of them learning quickly.

I am not so good with science, and history. But I am learning to love these subjects. I can honestly say, that after 5 weeks of homeschooling I am just starting to enjoy science and history. First 3 weeks of our homeschool, I barely touched science and history textbooks. It's not like I don't like these subjects, or textbooks, I just didn't know where to start. I wasn't comfortable teaching these subjects, because I never learned those materials myself. As of today we are behind with science  but I am hoping to catch up soon.

English is something that we are learning together also. When I move to US, I was almost 16, and did attend only my 11th and 12th grade in America. I never had a chance to learn all these nouns, pronouns, and proper grammar :) Now I have a chance to catch up :)

Overall I love homeschooling our children. I love to see my kids all day long, and spend my time with them. It's awesome opportunity, and I am thankful that we have this time together.

There is still so much to learn, and so much to work on, but with God's help we can do it! I am sure that we will not get things done on some days, and I am sure that we never be perfect homeschooling family, but it's not what is important now. Peace in our house, peace in our hearts, are more important! I see how our kids transform, I see how they grow spiritually, and I have more time to teach them about God! All our adopted kids enjoying being home, and staying closer to mom. In this short time since we started homeschooling our kids they are much calmer, and we see them grow emotionally and starting to make better choices in their actions.

I am thankful for many many friends who did help and still helping us, guiding us through all the steps of homeschooling.

Saying Goodbyes!

The hardest part of hosting is saying goodbyes!

We are praying and hoping to see Alisa again, but for now we missing her  a lot! Almost all kids cried at airport. Only 2 kids didn't cry, 1 way to small to understand what is going on, and another was holding up until we got home and then he lost it.

Sad day, but we have hope...
We took Alisa to airport yesterday. I couldn't sleep and had zero sleep a night before.
Alisa was a mess a night before, and slept about 3 hours.

Where did it go....

Seriously, where did our summer go? Where did our time with Alisa go?

Alisa came to our family on June 25, and its almost time to leave,only 6 more days, and she will be gone.

We had great time together. I am not sure who got more blessings, us or her?! She is super sweet, beautiful, helpful and smart girl.

We took her many places. I wish we could do more, but with only one income and many kids its hard to plan and do big things.
But with Gods help, and many good people around us able to take her to.

We went to San Francisco many times, 1 time to the zoo, and many times just to see, play and swim at the ocean, spend a week at Lake Tahoe
Alisa experienced many firsts, and it was fun to be there with her and just enjoy her reaction to everything.

I am grateful for every single person, who prayed donated and just been there for Alisa and our family!

I will share many pictures and some videos once I have more time.

Thank you everyone and God Bless you

Hosting-here we come

Alisa made safely to our home on June 25th. From our 2nd day together it felt like she is belong here, and been with us for long time. She is super sweet girl, and we love her already.
She is kind, smart,  loving, gentle, helpful,and  super intelligent
She love music, and plays on Ukrainian instrument called Bandura professionally
Her favorite color is black
She is awesome little girl but also she has so much pain in her life, she is hurting.
Our arrival pictures

Blessed to have Alisa here!

Thank you everyone who help us bring Alisa here for summer! She is amazing girl and really needed to get away from everyday life at orphanage.

6-12-2014 Last day of school

Yesterday was last day of school for my  kids! We are all excited for school to be over, and I am sure I am  more excited than my kids :) I was getting very tired, and was constantly under stress while kids were in school. Now its over!!! I would get phone calls from school almost every day about one of our son's behavior. Also did I mentioned, I don't' like homework! Boys would come home from school and we would start on their homework, and would not be done until it's time to go to bed. Now it's over!!!
I took a first day picture of my boys, and also I took a last day of school picture. I cannot believe how much boys had grew, especially DD and Denny, my two kindergartens.

First day of school August 2013

Last day of school June 2014

 No more school, SUMMER BREAK!

     

I cannot believe how much each of them grew in the past year! 

Mother's Day 2014

A day before Mother's day, Sergey told me that he doesn't want to see me in the kitchen on Mother's Day! I argued just a little :)
Here is our day in pictures:

I woke up to this sign in our living room :)  and two kids with tears , not happy that Mama is off today :)

Got some beautiful flowers!

DA and SN were in the kitchen, it was their day to help.

 Sergey were working on breakfast, and let me tell you, it was so yummy!

 Making special omelets for us. 

 Kids are happy with their breakfast

 My breakfast :)

 Also I had dessert for breakfast. Sergey made it all by himself, Panna Cotta.

After breakfast I read all the cards from kids. It was fun, and I enjoy them a lot!

I got some coupons for free hugs, kisses, and etc. :)

From ElliAna

From EE, I really liked the fact that he took his time to do it. He spelled almost everything correctly, and got all the name correct on his card. 

From DA

 From EE

This one DJ made it, and asked all the kids to sign it. It will rotate, sorry about that. 

I have few more cards from kids, but didn't' take pictures yet, have no idea where they go. 

Later we played, talked, laughed, I took a shower, and we all got ready to have lunch. I did help with lunch preparations, but Sergey did all the grilling. We had few more meals, but it didn't' make it to the pictures, we had grilled asparagus and mashed potatoes

 My dad is a truck driver, and my mom was alone, so she joyed us for lunch.

 Sergey made a Mother's Day slide show, and we all enjoyed it. When Sergey will get it in correct format, I will post it here. 

 Can you see me, I am opening my present :) 

 We drove to Sergey's mom to say Happy Mother's Day. 

 And then went to part, to spend some time there. 

 Me and my beautiful mom! 

 My little bunch :)

 We decided to take pictures before we let kids go and play, just to be on the safe side :) I mean have a clean kids for pictures :)

 And this our family on Mother's Day!

I am blessed to be a mom! Happy Mother's Day 2014