Envelope Fundraiser

We created an event on Facebook and asking you to help!
https://www.facebook.com/events/633468643420604/633818856718916/


**WE'RE SIMPLY ASKING YOU TO TAKE AN ENVELOPE**
There is few envelopes already taken: 

We have a wall with 150 numbered envelopes (#1-#150) that we're hoping to be claimed.

Here's what will happen if you say "YES" to an envelope...

1. I will send you a self-addressed, stamped envelope with a number on it ranging from 1-150. Also we will send you our prayer card.

2. You will place the coordinating dollar amount in your envelope and drop it in the mail. (For example, if you get envelope #37, you'd put in a check for $37.00)

3. The checks will be made payable to our names but we are - IN NO WAY- hoping to benefit personally from this, or any fundraiser, we're doing. ALL the money goes directly to our agency, or will go to pay airfare and etc.

SO...how do I get a number??

1. You can simply tell me which envelope you would like by posting a comment to this event on Facebook.

2. OR You can tell me which envelope you would like by sending me a private message on Facebook and giving me the address that I need to mail the envelope to.

3. OR you can email me the envelope number with your address to tacipe@yahoo.com.

*You can donate the money as an individual or get a group to join you - a Sunday school class, small group or friends!

We simply ask that you return the envelopes to us within a week or so after receiving them. All envelopes should be sent back to us by July 15 so that we can send money to our agency and pay the remainder of our fees.

***THE AMAZING PART****

If all 150 envelopes are claimed, we'll raise over $11,000!!!

So we pray that you'll say YES to an envelope and help MAKE ONE LESS ORPHAN!!!

What we are up to....

We are busy, our life is full of action...and it doesn't stop even for a second.

This is our last month of official homeschooling and I am happy about it. This was our first year of homeschooling, and it was not easy. I enjoy being home with all our kids, taking them places, spending extra time with each of them, teaching them something new, and just watching their progress. I know that I learned a lot myself throughout this year, and it will help us all in the next year. If everything goes well we will be homeschooling next year also.

Also, we are planning  to  do some school during summer. We will not have full day of school only 2-3 hours of school a day and rest of the time will play games, play outside, go for walks, visit parks, and just have a lot of fun.Hopefully.... :) 

What is new, and what is going on with in our family….

In adoption world:

Home study completed

USCIS already received our I800A and cashed our checks

We are getting all the paperwork for our dossier, and it is almost done

We are applying for grants;

Two grant applications are out

We did some remodeling in the house, preparing our house for our new addition

I never knew how much time and paperwork involved with applying for grants, sometimes I feel overwhelmed. We never applied for grants with our first 3 adoptions, but this time we do need financial help, and it would be nice if we don’t have to worry where to get rest of the money.  

We all can hardly wait to meet our new daughter and for her to join our family! This is so exciting!

Other news:

We had all boys in English and Math tutoring beginning January, and it will be over in two weeks

I am taking two boys to speech therapy every week; it will be over in 3 weeks

We have two boys in piano, and I take them to piano lessons every Tuesday, we will continue piano lessons though out the summer

Two older boys just finished their guitar lessons, and we will resume their lessons in the beginning of the next school year

Our life is busy, but I just love it, ok..most of the time…:)

Kids behaviors:

Let me just share this: this year was the easiest year in our lives. Homeschooling had helped us all, and we saw a lot of progress in all our children.  All kids got more mature, their academics improved, and emotionally they are more stable. I am thankful to our Lord for homeschooling opportunity. It was the best solution for our family.

My English is not perfect, and I was afraid that I can’t give my children proper English and teach them. Yes, I still worry about that, but now I understand that I can give them something that no one else can give them. We home school through charter school, and they provided us with English tutoring, many different websites with grammar, phonics and etc. Me and my kids learning English together :)  

New car sticker!

We should have done this long time ago :) I love how it looks on our "school bus" :)

March 26, Epilepsy Awareness Day!

Today I found out that March 26 is Epilepsy Awareness Day! I guess it’s time for me to share our story.

Let me start with this: 

• Epilepsy is not a mental illness
• Epilepsy is not contagious
• People with epilepsy CAN drive a car, work, play sports and have a family

Having epilepsy doesn't make you different to anyone else. People with epilepsy can live as full and active a life in terms of work, education, activities, social and family life.

Back in 2010, only after being home for 6 month, our oldest son Daniel J. was diagnosed with seizure disorder, epilepsy. After many tests, doctor told us that he has a little scar on his brain, and that was a cause of his seizures. Daniel J. remembers hitting his head back at his first home and looks like that caused some damaged to his brain. We had no information about epilepsy and it was a totally new for all of us.
Our son had total of 3 seizures before he was put on medications. First two seizures happened when he was with Sergey away from home, and they were two weeks apart. One time Sergey and Daniel J was at church, and he was taken to the hospital by ambulance (they let him go home on the same day), and second time was at Costco’s parking lot, but it just stopped and we didn’t have to take him to the hospital. His 3rd seizure, which was also the biggest out of all of his seizures, did happen at home. I was home alone with 3 children; Daniel J. was 8 year old, Daniel D. 2 year old and Elliana 3 month old. Daniel J. started to act “funny”, would look away and was not responding while he was sitting at the table and having his lunch, I knew immediately that he was going into the seizure. I remember taking him and laying him on his bed, on his side. Elliana just woke up, and I was holding her, while trying to hold Daniel J still on the bed, Daniel D was 2 year old, and was scared, would not let my leg go. It was one of the scariest moments of my life! I was able to call Sergey to ask what I should do in this situation (he was at work), and he called 911. The scariest part of his 3rd seizure, it was long, and once he was out of one seizure he would go into another one, and it was almost nonstop. While we were waiting for ambulance, he had about 5-6 seizures. 

Once ambulance came in, they gave him a shot to stop seizure, and it did stopped for about 5 minutes, and then he went into another seizure. Sergey left work, and drove directly to the hospital where Daniel J was taken and 1 hour later, Daniel J. was still having seizures. Finally doctors were able to stop it, and Daniel J. spent two days in the hospital. Doctors told us that he should been given medication when he had his 1st seizure. Also, all 3 seizures did happen on days when he didn't sleep in and didn't get enough sleep. First two happened on Sunday, when he had to get up earlier and go to church, and 3rd one happened next day after we were visiting our friends, and kids got to bed late. Now, all our kids have the routine, and I always making sure they do get enough sleep.
Our son was on medications (KEPRA) for 2 years, and he been off his medications for the last 2,5 years.

He is our pride and joy! I can’t imagine my life without my oldest son! He does have many academical, emotional and social struggles, but making progress in all areas! I can’t even imagine what would happen to him back in Ukraine. He would probably end up at mental institution. We are blessed to have him here today, and we do believe in the Healing Power of Prayer!

*******Usually people can’t remember what happened to them during seizure or right after it. I will always remember moment, when Daniel J was coming out of one of his many seizures and going into another, I heard his sweet voice: “Mommy, so sorry I puked on my bed, and you will have to wash it. Please forgive me?!” and me whispering “It’s ok my baby, it’s ok my little son, don’t worry about it, it’s not a big deal!”

Please do not be quick to judge, discriminate, criticize or stigmatize others when you are not walking a mile in their shoes.

You can help by being more considerate and understanding towards others especially when you have no knowledge about their condition. We can all play a part in raising awareness of epilepsy.

Moving to Facebook

Most of our adoption related stuff I will post on Facebook page we created. Please like our page if you want to follow and support us during our adoption process. I will also post more family updates on Facebook. This is our 4th adoption, and this is our first time going public :) I will still post here on the blog, but little updates and most I will share on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/thereislifeafteradoption

God Bless you!

Announcement!

We have something exciting to share with all of you! 

Kids tried hard, and this is their first video. I am proud of them. They were nervous in the beginning , but  by the end of this video they were more relaxed :) I asked them to write down what they want to say, and it all came from their hearts! Of course, for ending we all had to come up with something, and they were so natural! DD always makes everyone laugh :)
Enjoy!

5 years home-DJ

Our oldest son, DJ, been with us for 5 years already. I can't believe it's been this long. We landed in San Francisco airport 12/26/2009, and our life never been the same :)

To be honest with myself and everyone, I will just say that first 2,5 -3 years was not easy, and we had more bad days than good days. School days were not peaceful at all. We regularly were getting phone calls from school about DJ behavior, and he been regularly suspended from school.
We had meeting after meeting, and talk after talk with school staff, , psychologist, principal, behavior specialist and etc. We didn't know what to do, we didn't know how to help him.

I was  six month pregnant at that time, we had two year old in the house , and DJ was seven almost eight year old newly adopted , all this didn't help our situation.

Our newly adopted child was smart, smiley, helpful, loving but also stubborn, independent, active, with huge impulse control issue. Sergey was working from 3pm till 11 pm at that time, and he was taking care of all school issues. My bond with DJ was instant,  he was loving and great son, always around me trying to help. DJ didn't want to accept Sergey, and was having problems with his authority. He was not taking any orders(especially in school), and didn't accept ANY authority.

We tried many different ways of disciplining this child :) and he didn't care.  Even if he cared, and it was important to him he was stubborn enough to take it all the way to the end and "prove" that he doesn't care. Consequences didn't work for the first 2-2,5 years. Usually if he gets in-trouble, and we tried to redirect, he would take it to all to the new level, all the way to the end. He couldn't stop if he is already was in the "mood".

He was athletic, rough, and even if he tickled someone, that someone would end-up in tears, our DJ was just way too rough. He would hit, punch and just get physical with anyone who would get in his way. I am thankful that he never been aggressive, and never hit anyone in our home.

I remember, one day, principal called my husband in his office, and told him that she been a principal for many many years, and saw many children. She said something like: "Your son needs some medicine, he will not be successful without medicine. He can't control his impulses and its needs to be control by medicine. He needs drugs to make him more calmer! "

Our response was:" No, thank you very much! " Drugging our son to become a zombie, was not an option. I respect people who decide to  use drugs to control some behaviors in their children, but it was not an option for us and our son.

We knew that most of the issues our son had was lack of parenting, trauma,  neglect and just living on the streets.
And then something happened...Our son started to response to consequences. If he did something, it was not someone else fault anymore :) He started to control his emotions and etc.

I just know that I am not the best mom out-there, and we made many mistakes as DJ's parents, but we are thankful to God that through out these years He been with us! We all survived :) I am not sure what had help the most, maybe because we were always on top of things, and consequences finally kicked in. We tried to be consistence with consequences, even if they didn't work at first.

Maybe because we did adopt two more boys  at the time when DJ been with us 2,5 years. DJ felt like a big, responsible brother?! Anyway, what ever it is, it did help :)

After we hit 3 year mark, we got totally new child.
 Anytime I would come to school, staff would greet me and brag about how good our DJ was, how responsible, and how mature :) We were so proud of our son, we still are, he is amazing, loving, helpful, gentle, active, and just handsome young man.

Don't get me wrong, there is many more things we still working on. The most I worry about his confidence, his education, and lack of motivation for anything.

I can't believe that DJ will be 13 in one week, and officially we will  have teenager in the house!
He is our oldest, and he takes his role of an older brother very seriously! He still loves his mommy the most, and if he could, he would always be around me :) We are proud of him and love him to pieces!
First picture was taken in DJ's orphanage, and two recent pictures of our son.

Proud of you!