Please help V

V (also known as Alexis) is a very kind-hearted girl in an orphanage in Russia. She is 10 years old. She is known for being very obedient, smart, and always helping or standing up for the younger children in her home.

For awhile, Alexis had 2 best friends(more of a sister type relationship) to live with. Over the last 2 years, those 2 friends have found their forever family and been adopted. After the first friend left, V began sneaking over to the 2nd friend's bed to sleep together each night. To avoid getting into trouble, this was done after the caretaker left the room The day the 2nd friend left, V cried on the shoulder of the new adoptive mother and begged her to, "take me too, please take me too". Over the last year, she has pretty much given up hope on getting a family. Her one big disadvantage to being adopted is that she is older. Being special needs, whether physical or mental, puts you at a disadvantage. If you are older, that is another strike against you.

V is getting ready to enter a new phase in her life. She has gotten to the age where they will transfer her soon to the institution. Once you enter the institution, you will never get the opportunity to be adopted again. Here is a statistic: 90% of the children that are put in the institution die within the first year. It is not a place any of us would want to be.

There is a very kind, generous family in New Mexico willing to adopt V. They happen to be the proud parents of one of her best friends from the orphanage (Katie Aunna). Over the years they have adopted several children. Some are grown and living on their own. They have been blessed with children from the U.S., Ukraine, Russia, and Serbia. They so desire to bring V home forever. They are willing to make all the sacrifices required for adoption and raising a special needs child and have lots of experience in this area. With Russia there are many grueling requirements. Tons of paperwork, expenses, and 2 trips of being away from your family . Lots of unexpected problems and delays along the way. Duane and Trisha Gartner (journey2rfamily.blogspot.com/ )are able to come up with most of the required money to bring V home. They just need help raising $5000. Any amount can help, and it is tax-deductible. If you are able to spare any extra, please consider helping V. This little girl has really touched my heart, and I so want her to be with her family.

catching up

Hi,
Daniella went for her 2nd evaluation with her neurodevelopmentalist. She gets reevaluated every 4 months, and her program gets updated. She has changed so much, since she started the program. The doctor told us she feels Daniella will be caught up to her age level in 2-3 years. Now, that is exciting!! God is amazing. We will see how it goes. Patience and consistency with completing the program 5 days a week, every week, is the key . I can see her changing each week. The possibilities for her future are opening up. One day she may be able to choose to do whatever she desires/God has chosen for her. That is amazing considering how she was when we met her almost a yr. ago. Maybe I am being too optamistic ,but we have to give her the best chance possible. Then if she is still unable to be at a normal age level as others, that is o.k. We will, of course, love her the same. We will at least know we/she gave it our all. She is so compliant with whatever we ask her to do; even though most of her program causes her to do things she does not like or is difficult. Each day she does her program with such a positive, happy attitude. What a girl!
Dan has started increasing his amount/frequency of program he does. He has always been our resistant one, but he's coming along. Thankfully for him and us, he learns quicker and easier. That is good; since he is not as self-motivated. He is doing a great job. It is so neat to see them change and grow.
All the children performed in a talent show (except for Dan and Charlie). B, Z,D, and T sang a song together with pictures they held up. J did a magic act. They all did super. As soon as I can get my computer to work right, I'll post the video of the singers. We wondered how Daniella and Truman would do with being up in front of a crowd, but they did great!! Both loved it.
guess I better go for now,
hope you have a great day,
Vickie

enjoy the little things

Hi,
I just wanted to share some of the accomplishments going on around our home. Let's start with Dan (3 ).
1. I was thrilled when he ate his first hot dog today. Yeah Dan!!!! He has some sensory issues, so this is big with him. He has always had issues with any type of firm roundish food in his mouth (peas, hot dogs, green beans, etc.) He mastered the vegetables several months ago --although he does save them for last, out of protest. Too funny. That's o.k. As long as he eats them, we don't mind. Now he has conquered the hot dog. Yeah!!! I know typically hot dogs are not the most healthy food, but we buy the all beef ones without any hormones/nitrites/nitrates in them. The importance of this issue is that he is overcoming some of his sensory issues. That is great!!
2. He has started to try to mimic a few sounds correctly. He started his sound therapy last week, and it seems to be helping. Yeah, getting closer to talking.!!
3. He now is using his spoon and fork to eat with and drinking out of a straw. Super!!!!
4. He is running( sort of a mid-speed lope, but hey that is great.)
Hoping he has more success with the toilet training this yr, we'll see. I would even be thrilled if "#2" could at least be done solely in the toilet.

Now for Daniella(7):
1.She is very close to being at a 4 y/o level with her memory work. Yeah, that is almost a 2 yr. growth in just 4 mths. Super!!!
2. getting joy out of life-- Last week we had a warm day. We all went out and flew kites. Daniella took off running down the sidewalk with the kite following close behind. After a few seconds, I yelled to her. "Daniella, it is flying." She turned her head to see with a big smile on her face and kept running. Then a couple of seconds later, she yells, "Wow!!!". We all got a good laugh out of it. We all need to find the joy in the little things like her. Children are such a blessing. They help remind us to enjoy life. Thank you Lord for allowing Matt and I to have such blessings (children) in our lives.
til next time,
have a great day,
Vickie

gotta have faith

Seems like I have been preoccupied since Jan. 1 with a lot of concerns for the future.
-- It started with concerns for our country with new leadership taking over. (religious freedoms, children's protection act--jail time for spanking, not fully vaccinating children, basically not raising the children as the govt. thinks is best, abortion issues, same sex relationship issues, etc.).
--Then I got all out of sorts because of the stopped adoptions from Serbia to the U.S.--thankfully that one has been resolved. I don't know what the new requirements will be, but hopefully it will all be o.k.
--Then the natural gas supply being cut off to Serbia weighed on me. That seems to be alright for now with other European countries donating some gas. I'm hoping that is all resolved soon.
--Then there is the law that goes into effect Feb. 10th--no more selling used children's clothing or books for children 12 and under after that. For some that will not be a big deal, but for the rest of us who depend on used clothing and used books ; it is very disturbing.
I know I just need to pray more,have faith, and snap out it. I am trying to concentrate more on more positive things , but just needed to write a short entry to get it off my chest.
I'm sure some of the issues I mentioned will be controversial, so I will now prepare myself for the flames coming my way in comments. Have a great day.
Vickie

Finally back online

Hi,
Sorry for the delay in posting. I have been unable to type on my computer for a month now. I didn't realize how dependent I was on the computer. Well, I'm glad to be back. My withdrawal symptoms were very painful. :)
Christmas was a big hit with D & D. We had a total of 7 of them. Yes, I know--overkill. Each grandma and great grandma want their own, so our Christmas events are spread out from Oct.-Jan. with most of them being the last week of Dec.
With the first one, Daniella was very excited. She spent most of the day going around saying "Christmas, Merry Christmas". I asked her what Christmas was, and she very excitedly stated, "I don't know, Merry Christmas." After we went to the first Christmas with gifts and food. (2 of her favorite things in the world); she knew why the rest of the children were excited. It was a great 1st Christmas home for D & D. I just loved watching their excitement and thankfulness for everything. What sweeties!!
New Years was not real eventful. Matt and 4 of the children made it to midnight and drank some sparkling grape juice. Mama snuck off to bed at around 10:30p.m. (hehehe) I knew if I said I was going to bed, there would be loud protesting; so I just disappeared until morning came. Now, I decided that since I haven't gotten to get a full nights sleep for the last 8 months (hence Charlie--8 mths. old)it was o.k. to miss out on the midnight action. Next year will be different. We usually like to go to Oklahoma or Alabama for our church's New Year's gospel meeting. We all come together at about 11:30 p.m. and sing in the new year . All the voices singing hymns together, is just beautiful. The children's favorite part is staying in a hotel and swimming in the indoor pool.
We are all glad 2009 is here. The day after Christmas was quite difficult. We put plans into action in 2007 to move to the family farm, but Matt was unable to find a new job in 2008. We were able to keep up with the 2 house payments for a yr, but we do not see any end in site with the economy problems. We were just not able to "have it all", so we chose to just stay where we are for now. Maybe the Lord will say yes to moving to the country later. There were a lot of tears as we packed up our belongings and tried to cram them back into our original home. It was great to have a vacation home, as such, for a year. We are thankful for that. God knows what is best for us, we just have to be faithful and let Him lead us.
guess I better go for now,
blessings,
Vickie

hymns

Hi all,
We got our first snow of the year here. Of course, the children were excited. This was Dan's first time to play in the snow. Not sure about Daniella. After worship this morning, fun was had by all. Until................................
Truman decided to knock over the girl's snow ball tower. This led to Zarah pushing him. Followed by Jack pushing Zarah down and rubbing her face in the snow. Then came Baylie to defend Zarah. After some hair pulling and shoving, they both ended up on the ground. Next came Zarah( our informant) into share the story with me. Let's just say it was not one of my proud mom moments. I do like when the children stand up for each other, but this nice family brawl was not appropriate. Big sigh. A perfect example of why we have character study in our school curriculum. May need to increase that subject to twice a week, huh.
Now, back to the title of this post. So we are sitting in church services this morning. We were singing "Bringing in the Sheaves" . The children were doing a lovely job of singing out. I took a moment to enjoy Truman's (3 y/o) sweet voice. I noticed on the first verse he sang, "bringing in the sheep" and the third verse "bringing in the sheets". Too funny!!
Daniella goes for her 2nd evaluation with her neurodevelopmentalist this week. She has improved so much since we started this program. I am so glad we found out about it. It will be interesting to see how the appointment goes.

Well, I'm a little later than most on posting these. We typically let the children dress up during the day and visit the nursing home residents . Yes, I know get off the fence about this holiday. We don't like all the sugar candy, the trick or treating , or darker overtone part, but I hate to have the children miss out on the fun of dressing up. So we settled on this compromise; they are serving others and having fun too. The Eagle superhero, batman, spiderman, 2 princesses, a giraffe, and tiger had a great time.