Endings and Beginnings

It has been extremely difficult to keep up with the many happenings at the Passanita Nut House. All the crazies come out whenever there is a minute of down time for mama. So here it is in a nut shell:
Endings:
- School year ended - last time to do Kindergarten - I was extremely touched that the book Vanya chose to write for his year end project was "I love my mama!" All the other moms loved it too. Had to fight back the tears. Will miss all those fun kindergarten things but no more little chairs Woohoo! Victor had a good 1st grade year and wrote his non fiction book on the Earth and why should take care of it. He did his sideways, of course. He marches to the beat of his own drum and is very creative. Still loves to dress up in costumes, put his clothes on backwards, and be tickled. Yuri fit right in in 2nd grade although is now realizing that he is actually a lot older than his classmates. His class did a dress up like a character in a book day and Yuri picked a Magic Treehouse book and was Jack from the story. He read his summary of the book in front of the class and make a diorama of one of the scenes. He loved wearing mamas old reading glasses from college.

- 3 baseball schedules ended (Hallelujah!) with Yuri's team winning the championship of the 9 and under kid pitch league. Veecha did a great job and loved playing catcher this season. He even got his very own catchers gear. Vanya finally got it together and behaved through the last 3 games and even got several outs and was able to hit the ball off the tee and into the outfield a few times.

- Mayra moved away to DC :( This is a picture of her with her new room mates

- Travis moved away to Northern Virginia :(
- bible study if over for the summer :(
- Yuri's Royal Rangers is over for the summer
- Mamas alone time is over for the summer :( :( :(
- Sleeping in is over until August (Bigger :())
- Vanya finished the first week of VBS with the Saddle Ridge Ranch theme. I'm seeing more VBS in his future.

Beginnings-

- Yuri began his second decade as we celebrated his 10th birthday with a pool party. Most of the kids came to this very first out-of-school party he has had. This is the first time we have had a real birthday party for him because we have always done games and such in their classrooms and had cake and ice cream and were able to avoid him getting all kinds of gifts. He was really overwhelmed with the presents and just wanted to take the time to open and play with everything as he went. Needless to say we had to put the kibosh on that right away or he would have been opening for hours. All the kids said that it was the best party they had been to. Pretty cool way to begin your second decade of life. Now how to deal with getting rid of some old to make room for the new. For his special birthday dinner he wanted to go to "the crab place" (Red Lobster) so off we went to enjoy the seafood specials. He really likes any time he gets to spend alone with mama and papa.
- Summer school began for Yuri and Victor to keep their skills up in math and reading. Vanya didn't qualify because he is at or above grade level.
- Vanya did start swim team which I was excited about until I found out that it was going to be at 8am every morning and that the meets would be hot and muggy and last 6 hours! We now have to get up earlier than we do during the school year and honestly I wish I had not signed him up. He has begun to like it a little bit but the first 2 weeks it was a struggle for all of us and everyone is still tired all the time which produces more fussiness which there is no lack of to begin with. If all the boys were doing it then it wouldn't be bad but dragging the other 2 to a meet where their brother only actually swims for about 2 minutes is very difficult to sell. At least most of the places have a playground or something.

- Papa is starting to sell! Thank goodness for small favors. Things are more than extremely tight but I rely on God to provide and we haven't had to go live under a bridge yet so I can't complain.
- Mama and another adoptive mother have started the Ukrainian Resource Center as a way to help prospective adoptive couples go through the paperwork process to adopt children in Ukraine and we also will do summer and fall hosting programs to bring kids over to the states. In addition we will set up missions trip to expose people to the plight of the orphans in Ukraine and encourage people to get involved by adopting, sponsoring a child to come over, or going to Ukraine to make a difference in a child's life over there. As of right now there are 3 couples in Ukraine as I write this and 2 more couples on their way in a couple of months. Missions team will go to Zaporyzhzhia from Aug 20 - Sept 2 with about 14 people. Things are going pretty well so far. We have a website that is up but still needs a lot of work. http://www.ukrainianresourcecenter.com/ Keep praying!
- The boys are excited about getting go to Disney World with Babushka in August. Should be interesting given that they have never been on a roller coaster and still get overstimulated on the school bus ride. I know they will love it, but I hope all those around us will be able to love it too!
- Jessica Wyman is going to come visit next week which is a real treat. She is the English teacher at the orphanage in Ukraine that our missions teams go to and where Yuri came from. What a great treat to be able to spoil her like she spoils us when we are there.
- BIG NEWS - Our grandson, Cameron, was dedicated on Sunday and his father (our son in-law) has excepted Christ and is now a practicing Christian! What a joy it was to be able to be part of such a day. I got to hold the baby and feed him and love on him . The boys just LOVED being able to hold him as well. They all are very nurturing with Cameron which is so nice to see since they are not very nice to each other most of the time. It was nice to see Travis there as well although I didn't really get a chance to talk much with him with all the other festivities going on.

SO BUMMED because all the pictures I took of the dedication I inadvertently deleted in the process of trying to transfer them onto the computer. Agh!!
- We finally gave in and got the boys fishing poles so they could fish in the pond by our house. They all LOVE to fish and mama looks for every excuse not to take them because it is like watching paint dry to me. I do take them every once in a while and endure getting fishing line out of the trees and out of the bottom seaweed patches, etc etc. It is all worth it to see the smiles and sense of accomplishment they get from casting well or catching something.

OK that sums up all the things I can think about at the moment. Happy Summer to all!

Sleepy mama mama mama