Never ever ever, in my wildest dreams, before I had children, would I have ever thought we would buy tickets to see....

 

 

That is right my husband and our friend Mark took the boys to see Monster Trucks and motorcycles.

 

What is next?  WWF or Big Time Wrestling?  Oh the horror of the thought!

 

The boys loved it of course and Nikolai said he got scared when a car that shoots "fire" came roaring out and just for nostalgic purposes Larry took pictures to show me!  How thoughtful  and just so you can see what I missed here is a picture of a truck and one of the boys wearing earplugs.

 

 

 

 

Saturday was the first day Larry and I went out without the boys, since returning from Ukraine with Oksana.  When I had been looking for ways to fundraise for our adoption, I came across the Secret Shopper website.  I signed up and so far have done three shops.  They are fun to do because you get refunded an amount for your meal.  Well on Thursday I got a message for one at a very nice restaurant, which is a bit pricey.  So I decided to let the boys spend a couple of hours with grandpa, and we took Oksana to eat.  We had a nice dinner and we even had desert!  It felt different to be without the boys, but it was a nice change of pace. 

 

On another note, do you ever have one of these nights?

 

Monday was a Holiday for us all so we spent the day enjoying the time off.

 

Oksana and Larry went to the grocery store, while the boys and I went to see Charlotte’s Web with my Sis in Law and nieces.  Although it was a cute movie, I secretly must admit I like the cartoon version better.  It brings back so many memories, and I could totally relate to Fern growing up on a farm myself. 

 

Anyway we spent the rest of the afternoon playing in the snow, getting ready for school, and having dinner.  The kids were exhausted and went to bed by 8:00.  I was very tired as well, so I lied down to watch TV, and fell asleep.  I awoke later and turned off the TV and went to bed.  Around 11:30 Larry came to bed, which woke me up.  Then around 1:00am Larry was restless and tossing and turning, and the dogs were too, so that woke me up.  I tried to go back to sleep, but Skye the Psycho dog kept growling and doing a small warning bark, at some unknown intruder.  The house was making lots of settling noise, since the massive amounts of ice are melting and water is dripping.  Our other dog kept barking thinking she was going out, because she could sense I was not asleep.  I was so restless, but I dared not look at the clock, as I had to be up at five am.  Finally I must have dozed back to sleep and BANG a loud sheet of ice slid off our roof.  The Psycho Dog and her Stormy must have thought, the end was near, as they barked in utmost warning and panic.  Then two little scared boys ran into our bed, crying and wondering what had happened.  We sent them back to their beds, but Vitaly snuck into Nikolai’s bed for comfort.

 

Then the alarm went off telling me my restless night was over- sigh.

 

 

Well Oksana has exceeded expectations from her therapists.  She is sooo smart and can sign anything she is shown once or twice.  She has awesome speech for the words she knows but sadly her CP repair is keeping her from getting those pesky consanants besides M.

 

So everything is vowels and M.

 

So today she signed her favorite color bowl- decided between pink, blue and yellow and picked PINK (thats my girl)

 

Then she called the dogs... Now many thought we named our dogs as a theme but actually we never thought about it.  They were rescues and frisbee dogs and we renamed them accordingly. So Abbey (Psycho dog starved to almost death and rescued Border Collie) was renamed Skye (Skylar).  Then we adopted a Humane Society Rescue border collie/aussie mix named Bluebell and renamed her Stormy.

So we had Stormy and Skye.

 

Well they now have new names thanks to Ms. Oksana

 

There names are My (skye) and Me (stormy)  or Me and My

 

So for some reason we all call them Me and My now.  The poor dogs are having an identity crises.

 

Funnier yet are the boys are now Nikolai is and Vitaly which means they are now My and Me as well!

 

So now our house is full of My, Me, Mommy, Mine, and then Dad when mommy doesnt do the job!

 

 

 

 

We have had even more snow but that seems to be the norm right now. 

 

Pre valentines day and the storm I stopped at the grocery to get some cards and something small for the kids.  Although V Day is not a tradition persay, as I am not a creative mom in decorating for off holidays, I decided that I would buy the kids something special.  Well it was pre (a huge winter blizzard) storm and I could not believe they didnt even have bread left and this is a major market.  So I bought Oksana a little Kitty metal purse and the boys some chocolates with Snoopy keychains (hey that was all they had left that was Vday themed)

 

I got them all cards and some extra candy.  Well V Day morning I went downstairs before work and put out the cards and goodies.

 

When V was ready to go downstairs I told him to go make his breakfast (with a sly smile on my face knowing he would see his surprise).

 

Then I heard:

 

V talking  " Nikolai come here!!!!!"  ( the tone of a child that just found a dead frog stuck in a mud puddle)

 

Then Nik " What?"

 

V again " Nikolai come here!!!"  (same anxious voice with more stress on here)

 

Then they went downstairs with hubby and I heard the gleeful sounds of children finding an unexpected surprise of love and each opened their card.  Of course Oksana went down and said "MINE" as she located the purse.

 

When I came down for breakfast the boys were giddy with their snoopy and candy. 

 

I even let them take the "goods" to the babysitter. 

 

Oksana has been carrying her purse everywhere since- grocery store, speech therapy, grandpas house....

 

Then after returning from shoveling grandpa's, daddy even picked up a dozen beautiful red roses.  Then I got a card from daddy that "Oksana picked out",  which was very funny if you had just met and not been married over 16 years.   But in my heart the card had even  more meaning, because my daughter had picked it out, for her first Valentines Day card to her mommy.  

 

 

 

 

 

It is COOLLDD!!  We are in a deep freeze and it is miserable!  Even the dogs do not want to go out!

 

I would love to live somewhere warm, especially on days like this.   I just saw a commercial for Aruba earlier.  I know now why they play them this time of year.  Take me there and fast! 

 

Speaking of moving I am heartbroken that my brother and his family are moving to another state.  We live less then five minutes drive apart.  Nikolai and my niece are best friends, and Oksana and their youngest daughter are around the same age.  I so wanted them to grow up and go to school together. 

 

I have a new work schedule and I am working an extra hour per day, which in turn allows me to have every other Friday off now.  It is wonderful and so nice to have three day weekends at least twice per month.

 

I will probably only update once a week or so now, unless something truly exciting takes place.  So check in, especially around the weekends, to see the lastest happenings..