Hola!

Sorry for the long pause, but Daniel got his first stamp in his shiny new passport and we just got back from a lovely, relaxing week in Cancun Mexico. It was a great vacation. We spent loads of time together, just the 3 of us and had a lazy week playing around in the sun.

Going down the water slide:

Daniel got to practice his 3rd language - Spanish! He got really good at saying Hola! and Gracias!

Enjoying the Mariacchi band:


















Contemplating this great life:

Cincinnati Reds Baseball game

Daniel had a good time at the game AND it was a winner!! With a water bottle and a fan - we were still HOT HOT HOT!

Babushka and Dadushka!

We went up to the Cincinnati area to visit Jason's Aunt and Uncle this weekend. Daniel calls them Babushka and Dadushka. We had a great time visiting with you guys - thanks for having us! The visit was just too short!

Puzzling

New bedroom

Who remembers the great paint debate right before we adopted Daniel? Jason wanted to paint the 'kids' room before we left for Ukraine and I wanted to wait until we knew what we were getting and could really decorate the room for the specific kid. Well, wisdom prevailed and 2 weeks before we left we painted Daniel's room a boring bland taupe color.



So now, here I am 2 years later - finally getting around to doing Daniel's room. It took me awhile to come up with an idea, then to gather the bedding, details, etc. And now we are in the execution phase of the great bedroom re-do. I didn't want to do something too childish since Daniel is a big 7 years old now and getting bigger and bigger by the moment. So I decided on an astronaut / outer space theme. First step, paint the ceiling dark blue - like the night sky:


This turned out way brighter blue than I expected. I said to Jason, 'I think we accidentally painted Daneil's room U of K blue! YIKES!' (of course - this is with the flash on my camera, but still - Geesh!)






And then Daniel decided he wanted bunk beds. Well, he didn't need 2 beds so we got him a cool loft bed from Ikea. It is a full size bed on top and empty underneath for a desk or storage or play area or whatever. This weekend it was time to put the bed together. What a big job! The good news is - I am married to an Engineer. I can just leave all this to him. He can design and fix an electrical problem on an Explorer - surely he can put together this little boy bed.




We broke it up into 2 building sessions. It was a family affair - we all pitched in. Here is brave Pop, letting Daniel use the mallet:








Daniel was so excited. An hour into day 2 of the bed build and we discovered a screw is missing. It's just one screw. One tiny (big headed) screw. But it's a weird shape and has a purpose. So, I called Ikea and in 9 - 14 days we will be able to finish putting up the bed. UGH!!!









And then for the ceiling - my plan is glow in the dark stars. But after some reading on the internet, I guess those stars lose their glowy stuff after awhile. The sticky stuff wears off. It didn't sound very good. But I found some glow in the dark paint. And - it comes with stencils for the constellations. How great is that? Cool and Educational!! And they send a CD rom that explains how to make your own ceiling mural. Exciting and a bit intimidating. Will I be able to pull this off? Hmmmm...only one way to find out. More to follow...





And then on Sunday for a nice treat - Jason decided Daniel is finally grown up enough to inherit his army men that he played with as a little boy. Mom went shopping. Pop and Daniel had a big time playing, scheming, setting up, destroying, plotting, sorting and battling with the army men. Too cute:

Bless you!

We're sitting at dinner last night and Daniel sneezed into his hand. Then he says, 'Mom, I need to go wash my hands because I Bless You'd into my hand.'

We're still filling in our English!

:)

Weekend visit

Daniel and I went with my mom and dad over the holiday weekend to visit relatives in Northern Ohio. We didn't make it last year, so it was great to get up there and see everyone. Daniel had a great time......

Riding the Four Wheeler:

Catching Lightning bugs:

Visiting family:

And of course, trying not to catch anything on fire with our Way Cool sparklers!

Riding without training wheels

Happy Fourth of July!

Camping Trip!!!

For those of you that know me, you know that camping would not be my first choice (or 2nd or 3rd) of a great time. But, now that I am the mom of a boy I told Jason I thought we should go camping and create some of those fun memories because while I don't think it's great Daniel would probably LOVE it!



So, we bought a tent, loaded up the car with everything essential I could think of and off we went to the lake for the weekend. Our friends from Indianapolis met us there with their boat and camper and we had a big weekend. We spent the night in our brand new tent on Friday. None of us got much sleep, I think from the excitement and strangeness of it all. Daniel was so excited!!! Then on Saturday we had a fun day on the lake, boating and riding the tube then we came back and roasted hot dogs, marshmellows and made s'mores and had great fun telling stories around the campfire. This is exactly what I had hoped for - what a great camping trip! Saturday night we were beat and knew we would sleep really good on our 2nd tent night.














Well, at 2:30am we started hearing thunder and at 3:00am the storm rolled in. So I thought, 'OK - this isn't terrible - it will rain for awhile and then tomorrow the sun will come out and dry everything off.' Yeah, right. What actually happened was it POURED down rain for five solid hours. I mean it was a total monsoon! Just when I thought it couldn't possibly rain any harder, it did. It was crazy! At first, it wasn't bad but after a few hours I started feeling drops on my face. Uh oh! We pulled our air mattress more toward the middle of the tent and pulled the blanket up over our heads. Daniel slept through the beginning, but then he woke up and said, 'Mom, we need to go home!' We couldn't pack up in the rain so we just hunkered down and toughed it out.


(on a side note - often when Daniel complains about something I will tell him, 'That's part of the fun!' Like this - 'That's part of the fun of eating a taco - a lot of it will drop out of the end.' OR 'That's part of the fun of splashing in puddles, you will get your feet wet.' OR 'That's part of the fun of eating s'mores, your fingers will be sticky.' So we are lying there trying to survive the monsoon and Daniel says to me, 'Mom - This is NOT part of the fun!' How right he was!)






The next morning, it was still raining. So we packed up all of our wet sleeping bags, duffel bags and sopping wet tent and headed home. We pitched the tent in our backyard to let it dry out before packing it away for our next adventure. When will that be? Hmmmm.....it might take me awhile to forget about this one and be willing to do it again. It was the perfect camping trip, right up until that crazy storm!

King Daniel

They were learning about Queen Esther this week at summer camp, so they were talking about kings and queens. When I picked Daniel up yesterday he had a crown and this cool armor.

It was so fun to see how excited he was by a box covered in reynolds wrap! He kept putting it on and taking it off to show everyone. What a sweet thing. This may seem too juvenile for him, but he didn't go to preschool and get to do all this fun stuff when he was 3 or 4, so it's still new and interesting to him.

So, once they had all of these kings and queens all decked out - they had a tea party! Daniel told me he was worried that the kings would have to pick a queen and they would have to stay together for the whole party. Yuck! But they didn't have to do that. Whew!

Chores

For the summer, we have implemented a few new things at our house that we wanted to work on with Daniel but have been too wrapped up with school to think about! One of those things is weekly chores and an allowance. Not that he doesn't help out around the house but I made a list of all his chores for the week and put a chart on the refrigerator. Every time he completes a task, he gets a sticker. (It's really surprising to me how motivating a simple sticker can be!) At the end of the week, if he has completed most of his chores, he will get an allowance. We are going to use this opportunity to teach him about tithing and saving too.

Can I just tell you, it's a lot of work! It's so much quicker for me to just fold his laundry or run the dust buster in the bathroom myself, instead of supervising him doing it (which involves whining, correcting, complaining, dawdling, disctractions and all around silliness). But, I know it's important for him to contribute to the household and have some responsibilities. He is also very excited about earning some money!!

We have been totally lax about bed making (I know - my mom would be apalled!) but part of our chore chart is for him to make his bed every day. The first few times it was new and fun, but that has worn off and now it's just a chore. Not his favorite chore! But he is very meticulous and does a great job placing all of his 'pets' (as he calls them) in a nice lineup!

And, I have to show you this - I came in to his room the other day and he had written up some signs and taped them to the wall over his bed. It was so sweet, I just left it up. That tape will probably take off the paint, but it's just paint.

(I don't know if you can read that last one, but it says, 'God you are the best and you are a great God!') WOW!

Things I love this week

- Hearing Daniel pray 'Thank you God for making this earth, so I can play in it.'

- We are a complete family again - Pop is back from Michigan!

- Good dinner with good friends - we love you Bible Study group! Have a great summer. See you in the fall!

- Chick-fil-A YAY! (Daniel and I have been rhyming this week - this one was my favorite!)

- In this week of thunderstorms I am noticing that my umbrella stand contains: 3 pirate swords, 2 baseball bats, 1 kite and zero umbrellas. Ha! Not very organized, but what a sweet sight!

Passport

We finally got Daniel a US passport. When adopting internationally, every country is different but in Ukraine the child is allowed to retain their citizenship. So, Daniel is a dual citizen of Ukraine and America.

Check it out - he is ready to travel now:

Summer Days

The cord for my camera is still missing, but Jason is my hero and found me another cord so my pictures have been downloaded and now I can update you on what's been going on with us! It's been a busy few weeks....

Daniel tested for his GREEN belt in Karate:

He's really excelled at karate and you can tell he is more comfortable with the moves and the routine. We're taking a break from karate for the summer, but we will probably pick it back up again in the fall.

We've been trying to get outside and enjoy this nice weather. We've been geocaching, bike riding, going to the park, splashing in the fountains, rolling down grassy hills, playing soccer and enjoying some family time. A friend got Daniel a super cool rocket launcher for his birthday so we've been having fun with that too:

Last year was such a success with Daniel's tomato plans, this year we decided to plant two! We have one plant for BIG tomatos and one for little guys. Now we are wanting the rain to come back! We'll let you know about our progress by the end of the summer...

I am really trying to be deliberate this summer about not filling our schedule up with too many things. It's a short summer and there is lots of fun to be had. I just want it to be family fun with us spending time together and not just bouncing from activity to activity but really having quality time together. Our sweet boy is growing up so fast and I know it won't be long before he is too cool and/or too busy for us. We are enjoying this time, making memories and cherishing these days.

Goodbye First Grade

Thank you Mrs. Peterson for all of your hard work with Daniel this year!

Summer is here!!!!

I can't believe the school year is over and summer is finally here! I am the mom of a second grader - WOW! Sorry I haven't been posting lately. I can't find the cord to download the photos from my camera and what's the fun of posting if there are no photos? Hopefully it will turn up soon. Daniel had a great end to the school year. He got his green belt at karate. We went to Holiday World for the day. We've been busy!

One of the really fun things about the end of the school year is that all of his writing notebooks have been sent home. These are books that he worked in all year. It's been fun to see his progress and see what he writes about, what is special to him. He writes a lot about U of L basketball, treasure hunting with pop, playing and having fun, and check out this gem:

What a sweet boy!

Almost done with First Grade!!

I have been totally delinquent in posting lately! With mom's surgery (she is doing great!), Daniel's birthday, Derby, Mother's Day - who has time for a blog!! Daniel only has 3 weeks of school left and then he will be out for the summer. I was trying to explain to him last night about having the summer off school. He doesn't remember last summer and totally didn't realize he will get 2 1/2 months of NO SCHOOL!!! Maybe I shouldn't have explained it so well - now he is totally excited!





We are so proud of all he has done and accomplished in just 2 short years! We put him in Kindergarten just to learn English thinking he would repeat, but they said he was too smart so we sent him on to First grade. So we let him to to first grade this year, thinking he would just repeat if needed. Now here we are at the end of the year and the school says he is too smart to repeat first grade, so he is going on to 2nd grade next year. WOW! We are so amazed at how great he is doing. He is behind his peers on his reading level so we are going to get some tutoring this summer, but overall it is really hard to believe. Part of his reading problems still stem from having a limited vocabulary. Case in point - a couple weeks ago, we were driving to church and I was going to give Daniel a quarter for the offering. I said to him, 'Do those pants have a pocket in them?'



What mom?



Do your pants have a pocket in them?



What mom??



I have your offering here, do you have a pocket in those pants?



I don't know what you mean mom?



I have a quarter, do you have a pocket you can put it in so you don't lose it?



I don't understand?



Finally, I said, 'Look at mama' and I put my hand in my own pocket. 'See, I can put money in my pocket.' Then he said, 'Oh! I get it. Yes, I have a pocket.'



He totally didn't understand what I was asking him. I think because he is so smart and because he has picked things up so quickly, I often assume he knows things that he might not. This was a really eye opening exchange for me because it highlighted how much he doesn't know still and made me think about how much goes on during the day that probably flies right over his head. It's not like we have never used the word 'pocket' before, but in a given day there is just so much he has to figure out and remember. Poor kid! How stressful and exhausting that must be!

Update

Praise the Lord! Mom came home from the hospital today. Thank you so much for your prayers. Her surgery went really well!

Daniel also turned 7 this weekend. I can't believe he is seven years old already! So big!! What happened to that little four year old? We finally let him have his very first party this year where he was allowed to invite the kids. He was so excited!! We had it at the karate studio and it was a good opportunity for him to show off all he has learned. It was really a good time. What a big boy!