Christmas Festivities

This past weekend we had a great family weekend! Shawn had the weekend off and we had plans to have breakfast with Santa! Zoya is a little bit of a Santa stalker. This is the first year she's REALLY into Santa! She could hardly take her eyes off of him for a picture! Surprisingly Mila also got really excited and reached right for Santa as well! Sofia was a little more hesitant but she caved under peer pressure! 

When Santa asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she replied, "presents...." well of course! 

Mila jammed out to some Elmo tunes on the iPod while waiting for breakfast! I've gotten so many comments about how grown up she looks lately....I know, I know....sigh.........

Sofia's down to only using her binky for naps and sleep, unless we're going somewhere new, she still needs it to help soothe herself as she tends to get a little overwhelmed in new places. 

I have no idea what's happening here.  This was the first time we've all gone out to eat in a restaurant...umm...maybe ever? Yah, now I remember why!!!!! 

Santa appeared at our table! Zoya was in shock!! 

Sofia, a bit hesitant of the big jolly guy! 

Mila waving to Santa! 

In this picture Mila had not yet noticed Santa (a little out of order)...

But she saw his red sleeve out of the corner of her eye and followed the sleeve up his arm to his face and this is the face she made when she realized he was sitting next to her!! HAHAHHA! I can hear her if she could speak in sentences she's saying, "Holy Moly, Mom! IS that really SANTA?!?!?!?"

Zoya could not stop hugging Santa...it was a real problem LOL! (not really, but she didn't understand that he had to spend time with OTHER kids too haha)

Stuffing her face, sister LIVES for food...especially VEGGIE STRAWS! 

Daddy is so funny! 

Mila has been a kissing MACHINE lately!!! Love the tongue out kisses she gives! 

Family photo! Mila was too busy watching Elmo :)

When we got home, we made some gluten free sugar cut-out cookies! Cut out cookies have always been a tradition in my family and I was happy to find a good recipe I could use with the girls! 

Tasting the dough....shhh!

Zoya decorating with Daddy!

Mila for the win! LOL 

What IS this thing? (Can you tell my kids don't get cookies often??? hahah)

This is her mad scientist face which always happens right before her crazy laugh when she loves something! 

Nom, Nom, Nom! 

And Zoya and I went on a sleigh ride to Santa's cabin with some friends that night! We decided not to take the little ones this year...and I'm glad we did! It was frigid, the drive was long because we got a little lost, and trying to carry THREE kids through snow is not my idea of fun! BUT Zoya had a blast! This was her second time going on this sleigh ride. It's really cute! 

She got to drive. The guy in charge asked her, "Have you done this before because you're really good!" and she yelled, "Yah!" 

Liv and Zoya <3 p="">

Santa! I get to see you AGAIN?! Santa laughed really hard when Zoya came up a second time with Mickey and Minnie and told him THEY needed a goody bag too! HA! 

Zoya asked if she could ride that beast! HA! 

On the way back licking snow off her mittens! Everyone else was frozen to the bone and ready to get back to the cars and she kept saying, "More ride! Not all done! More!" That's my girl! 

I love the start of all these traditions with my sweet lil' family! 

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

We've been so busy celebrating this Christmas Season! Since Mila was recovering from open heart surgery in 2011 and I was in Ukraine having Sofia's "Gotcha Day" in 2012, we decided we were going to celebrate BIG in 2013!!! 

We had some really fun activities this weekend that I'll share more about in my next post! But for now I wanted to pop in and share some sweet pictures of the girls in their Christmas Dresses :) I don't think it gets much cuter than THIS!  We are so blessed!

Those 4 pictures were the winners, although I loved almost all 100+ we snapped HAHA! Dont' you know it takes that many tries to get one with all 3 girls smiling :) We had lots of fun with this little photo shoot if you couldn't tell! Here are the "outtakes" :)

More to come soon :) 

Jesus Loves Me: Video

I thought I'd post this video to go along with the post I published yesterday titled "A Breakthrough!" Through my children i've often been reminded of how much Jesus loves us. It just hit such a soft spot to hear her singing "Jesus Loves Me" yesterday after our sweet breakthrough the day before!

A Breakthrough!

Those of you who've followed our story since we adopted Zoya know that she's had some struggles along the way....just like most kids do. For Zoya, though, her struggles have centered around anxiety. Last spring she was officially given a diagnosis of Anxiety Disorder and started a tiny dose of medication to help with her anxiety. It has helped her A TON! I talked about her diagnosis and the decision to try medication in THIS POST. Check it out if you didn't read it before!  Take the time to read that post before you read any further or you might be confused by this post!

Yesterday, I was given a gift....a painful, yet amazing gift. After 3.5 years home, we're still on this healing journey and still learning things about our Zoya girl. Yesterday while the little ones were napping and Shawn was at work, Zoya asked to watch her "Ukraine Movie" as she calls it. You can see the video she's talking about HERE. We've watched this with her hundreds of times and I started by narrating her story out loud while she watched the video. I would say things like, "Mommy and Daddy were waiting to meet YOU in that picture!" and "That is the place you lived before Mommy and Daddy could get to you," or "Look! Zoya gets to go home forever with Mommy and Daddy." One thing I've always been careful NOT to do is insert emotions into my narrative or my story telling to her. Over time and watching the video so many times, she's been able to retell her adoption story. In fact, she LOVES hearing me tell the story, she asked for "Ukraine story" and when I tell it she usually likes me to hold her like a baby. I indulge her, I figure it's a great bonding and healing moment. Sometimes over the past year she's inserted some emotion into her story and said simple things like, "sad" or "happy" for certain parts, but that was about it. It's also worth noting that she did not like to watch the video when she was newly home...it usually made her upset, so we gave it a break for a while and then on each year anniversary home we would watch it with her. Sometime over the past year she has taken a much greater interest in it and in hearing her story overall.

Anyways, yesterday she was excited to watch the video...she watched it about 5 times narrating it each time and then moved on to something else. I video taped her watching it because she was so happy and doing such a great job narrating parts of her story. After playing for a bit she again asked for her "Ukraine Movie" and I let her watch it again, I'm so glad I did.

I put on the video, and walked into the kitchen (any other time she's watched it, Shawn and/or I are always with her watching it too). Shortly after it had started Zoya started yelling, "Scary!!!! Scary!!!! MAAAAAAMA SCARY!!!!" So I came running in having no idea what she was talking about. I said, "What's scary Zoya?" She said, "Born in Ukraine Scary!" I said, "why is it scary?" She just kept saying, "born in Ukraine scary!" and she genuinely looked scared. I felt as if the air was sucked right out of me and teared up. What do I say? I can't tell her it WASN'T scary because I know in my heart it was. We've always felt that Zoya went through some pretty traumatizing things, but have never KNOWN for sure and have never heard her talk about it. So I told her that Jesus was with her during that time and He kept her safe and that I was so sorry Mama and Daddy couldn't be there with her during that time. I told her I was sorry she was scared. I sat down on the couch next to her and just held her sweet little 5 year old self. In that moment she felt so little to me. As another picture came on the screen Zoya said, "sad" and I asked who was sad, she said "Zoya." I held her some more and she said clear as day, "I was so scared." A complete sentence of only 4 words but those words said so much. It was as if it wasn't even Zoya that was speaking....it was really one of the most surreal experiences I've ever had. I had to keep checking myself to make sure we were really having that conversation. I tear up just thinking back to it. The part of the video where we walk out of the orphanage gates with her came on and she got very very quiet with big eyes. When the picture of Shawn holding her up in celebration in front of the gates came on, she said, "always safe now, thank you Mama." I looked at her eyes, mine now full of tears, and held her face in my hands and just kissed her over and over and over. She just kept saying, "Thank you, thank you mama, thank you." I told her how much I loved her and reminded her she'd always be safe with us and she never has to be scared alone again. I told her whenever she is scared she will have a Mommy and Daddy to make her feel safe. I felt as if I was talking to a much older person, the whole thing was just so surreal. I never in a million years imagined at 5 years old, she'd have that conversation with me, EVER!

When Shawn walked in I still had tears in my eyes, sitting on the couch with Zoya and tried to relay to him what had just happened. She has since watched the video and said a few similar things, but not to the conversational level that happened yesterday! I could not get this event out of my mind...it was all so vivid but almost seemed like a dream!  A few hours after it happened, I remembered the night before I was thinking a lot about my Grandpa. I've blogged about him and how I believe his spirit followed us on Zoya's adoption journey HERE. I talked to my Grandpa as if he was right here sitting next to me and told him I missed him. I thought about the times I felt his presence shortly after his passing and through Zoya's adoption and told him how much I missed him and that I'd love to know he's still with me. I do believe this conversation with Zoya was a gift from him. You may think it sounds crazy, but I've learned to graciously accept these beautiful unexplainable things in life as gifts. I suspect the Lord used my Grandpa's spirit to facilitate this "breakthrough" of Zoya's.

Even though the conversation was fairly minimal, the words she did speak said so much....they confirmed the things I've suspected over the past 3.5 years. They gave me yet another layer of understanding to her underlying anxiety. I truly feel as if yesterday's events were a huge breakthrough on Zoya's path to healing, and on my path to help her heal. The fact that she was able to express herself and share her heart with me in this way is a gift I do not take for granted.  In those quiet moments together, she felt safe sharing her heart with me and the thought of that is so very overwhelming and magnificent. This new insight has been such a beautiful blessing!

Happy Metcha Day Sofia!/11 Months Home!

On Saturday (11-30) we celebrated Sofia's first "Metcha Day." Lots of people in the adoption community celebrate "Gotcha Day" (the day they took their children out of the orphanage) but we like to be different and celebrate Metcha Day instead :) The first time we laid eyes on our girls and physically held them is the day they were "born" to us, in our minds :)

I was reading back on some of my old posts from Sofia's adoption and I had to laugh :) I think one of the very early on posts I titled "Live Wire".....and I was definitely right on with that description!! But, clearly you can see she was much more reserved for our initial meeting ;) She promptly fell right to sleep in her Daddy's safe arms!

Looking back on these pictures, a year later now she seems like a completely different child....both on the outside and inside. She looks so pale in these pictures with dark circles under her eyes and dry skin and lips. Her eyes in these pictures look so much emptier than the eyes we see today! She has so much life behind her eyes today. Emotionally, a year later, she's learned to be loved....which sounds really easy, but for such an independent spirit has been a somewhat difficult road! She's learned she needs a mama and daddy to love her and tickle her, sing her to sleep, and scoop her up and coddle her when she gets a boo boo. Even this far into the journey, we're still seeing positive changes. She's been seeking us out much more for no other reason than to just be picked up and held. She requests "more" (one of her only words so far) when my first round of  her special song "You are My Sunshine" ends. She's a big Daddy's girl and loves snuggling with him, wrestling with him, and following him around the house like a little shadow!

Her "firey-ness" is part of her personality and we'd never want to change that, but it's pretty awesome to see the softer side of her coming out as well. It's a beautiful thing to watch a child figure out that they NEED and WANT to be loved and taken care of. I was pretty sure that was an inborn characteristic of all children, but it's certainly taken Sofia a little longer to be able to completely surrender her control and feel safe and peaceful trusting us to take care of her. A year home, she finally BELIEVES she is loved and wanted!  For being such an independent, seemingly confident little girl, some major insecurities were uncovered on our journey over the past year. She never should have HAD to have been so independent at such a young age. She never should have learned to guard her heart by 15 months old, but she did and that breaks my heart. She is so resilient, though, and I know she'll continue to heal with love! I'm hoping that our second year home will bring more healing and a continuation of trust-building! Sofia's joy and sense of humor keep us laughing every single day! She takes some of the most serious moments and turns the mood to a much lighter one. Her sass, dirty looks, and antics often make us turn our heads to laugh (so she doesn't see us!) She is so much trouble and so much joy wrapped into one adorable little bundle! She's taken several years off my life already with her stunts and attitude, but the joy and laughter she brings must give me a few extra years, so I think it's all balanced out!

A couple pictures taken a year ago today:

There were many more happy/excited pictures I took a year ago today, and those are the ones I've always looked at/posted. Looking at these two pictures today I can see now what I should have seen then-emptiness and loneliness.....a look of an empty tank needing to be filled up....a child lacking confidence and self worth. The second picture, I can almost hear her saying, "I want to be loved so badly but I'm not sure I deserve it." Maybe that sounds a little crazy, but I can see it in her eyes in these pictures. And now, after knowing her and loving her for a year it's even more clear to me. Her fragile spirit, once overshadowed with a boisterous personality, has been uncovered and is beginning to mend. 

Watching a broken heart heal never gets old. Being a part of that story....well I certainly feel unworthy, but I'm so thankful I get to be the one helping to mend her sweet heart and soul! 

I love this girl something fierce, even if it's taken me a little longer to figure out how to be the mama she needs!

And I thought I'd end on a funny note with this video of Sofia! One of my absolute favorite things about her is her ability to laugh at herself and find humor and joy in so many little moments throughout the day. One of Sofia's gifts from the Lord is definitely spreading joy and laughter! 

In this video, Shawn was feeding Sofia some cheeseburger pie....he snuck in a tiny spoonful of just ketchup. She LIKES ketchup, usually just mixed in with her food hahah....this was the first time she ever tasted JUST ketchup, and you can see it threw her for a loop and she wasn't sure what to think at first, then she thought it was absolutely hilarious that he tricked her! We have hardly found any foods Sofia does NOT like! Oh that laugh.....I watch this video on repeat on bad days and it always leaves me feeling happy! 

On my next "Sofia Update Post" (probably 1 year home), I'll update more about her development, likes and dislikes, so if you have any Sofia-specific questions, let me know!