A Couple Weeks in Photos: February 23rd

Hi!  How are ya?  We are just fine and dandy.  Many good things are happening- in our family and in Wide Awake.  I wish I had the time to just sit down with each of you and give you all the details, but alas, a blog post of pics will have to do.

We are deep in the throes of homeschool and language lessons and Romaniv trips and Young Adult nights and Legos and orphan advocacy and Barbies and parenting and all kinds of other stuff.  No day is like the one before. It’s not all glamorous, in fact I wouldn’t classify any of it as “glamorous”, but it is our life and we wouldn’t trade it for the world. (except some days when the copious amounts of unglamorous snot, saliva, and poop threaten to overwhelm…)

Hehe…anywayssss…time for pics!

*There are a couple of boys in this post that are available for adoption.  I gave them aliases to protect their identity.  FYI.  Mommy and Daddy, are you out there???  🙂 

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A playground in our neighborhood

 

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It’s the little things. 🙂

 

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We found an ice road!!!

 

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Hava decided maybe she COULD write some letters! I’m glad I didn’t push her earlier.

 

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I can’t resist. My baby is so cute!!!! Yep, he’ll always be my baby.

 

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This is “Micah”! He is available for adoption and I can’t wait to write a post all about him and find his family!!! I’m just waiting for confirmation on his diagnosis. Pure sweetness.

 

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“Stephen”!! Stephen needs a family too. He is blind and needs so much sensory input. Running him in the halls is the best. He can walk, but sometimes he likes a ride. 😉

 

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Please keep praying for our sweet one. Little love needs a miracle.

 

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Hava Rudy the Cutie

 

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Sweet loves with Tanya, a most amazing volunteer. She loves the boys so much.

 

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Seriozha. He loves to say “Beep beep!” He is normally silent, so when he perks up with a loud “beep beep!” it makes us laugh so hard!

 

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Ez Pez Dominez

 

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Still can’t resist.

 

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Addy Maddy Baddy

 

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Seffer Boy-o

 

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Luckiest mom evah! Right here.

 

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Yaroslav. I can’t even explain to you how much I love this boy. The smile, the squinty eyes, the thumb-sucking. Too.Much.

 

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Micah! Someone see this boy. He is beyond precious. I have video and more pics. I’ll write more soon. But let me just tell you that our whole team is in love with this boy.

 

 

A Week in Photos: February 10th

Hi Friends!  Time to unload my phone again.  Every time I go to make a picture post I have to first delete like 50 or 60 pictures of Seth.  He’s a selfie-aholic.  Really.  We may have a problem. 🙂

Life here has been quite a ride lately.  Good times, hard times, happy times, scary times.  Mostly I just can’t believe this is my life.  I am the most blessed girl.  Not every day is easy- but sometimes it just hits me that the life I’m living is basically the life I’ve dreamed of since I was a tiny girl.  Wow.

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Our dear friends Andryi and Olya got married! Hava was the flower girl. It was such a fun party!!! We danced and ate and danced and ate. It was awesome. We are so happy for them!

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Addy and Nastya at the reception

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The bride and groom’s table.

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We had to take a jaunt to the Embassy. It felt really strange to be there. I realized it was the first time in 16 months that I didn’t feel guilty for speaking English in public. Wow.

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We need help. Professional help.

 

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My cousin Hannah is teaching English in western Ukraine this year. She came to Kyiv for a visit and then to our house! We ended up being in Kyiv on the same day. Super special!

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Last Tuesday our boy was doing really well. He definitely isn’t declining anymore. Now we just need to pray for more improvement in his health.

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Hannah and Addy. I love my family.

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Helping our boy keep his body safe.

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Seriozha and his accordion. I can’t even tell you what a blessing he is to the Boys- and to us! Ilya obviously likes it! 🙂

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Some friends from church came over to give us girls a “Beauty Night”. They did nails and cut hair and let my girls put makeup on them. It was so special.

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No boys allowed!

 

A Week and a 1/2 in Photos- January 29th

It’s Thursday! Can you even believe it? So, yeah, I missed my phone-pic-emptying-post on Sunday. Oops! But it’s because I felt so strongly that I just had to tell you about one of our sweet boys who desperately needs a family.
*check out the end of the post for an update.

So here’s some pics to catch you up on the everyday shenanigans around these here parts!

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My kitchen reality.

 

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A few of our loves. Seriozha loved that little baby doll. Hava wanted to give it to one of “her Romaniv Boys”.

 

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This is what happens when the road is blocked on the way to Romaniv. Snowball fight! Nice shot Roma 😉

 

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Arrrrrrrr! (Not sure why the eye-poking one, but he insisted on it)

 

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Just another night of Just Dance on the Wii. 🙂

 

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I am the CHAMPION!!! No one can ever beat me, except that one time that shall not be mentioned when I’m pretty sure I had a malfunctioning remote…

 

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After FIFTEEN MONTHS of emptiness, the tooth is finally emerging! We thought this day would never come!

 

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In the meantime Hava is losing hers. 🙂

 

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Addy and her friend Nastya at a benefit concert for MTU! Addy loves Nastya. I really need to work harder on getting them together.

 

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Valerchik!

 

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A little Boris lovin’

 

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Seriozha loves Masha. We do too.

 

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Play is the work of children. 🙂

 

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Speaking of sweet babies needing families, who will step up for this one? Contact me for more details. 🙂

 

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Stop the cuteness!

 

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Our bus stop. Perty eh? Haha

 

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On the bus. I think Addy took this one…

 

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Off to the market to do some flower girl shopping! We have a wedding this weekend!

 

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More dancing…did I mention I’m the champion???

 

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Loveliness

 

For all who are wondering about our sweet boy who is failing, please continue to share him and his story. We have had a couple serious inquiries, so that is encouraging.  Thousands of people now know of him and hundreds, maybe thousands are praying.  Maybe his family is in those thousands?  I pray it is so.  We saw him on Tuesday and he looked worse.  I got to just sit and hold him for a couple hours and he was at peace during that time.  Some donations have come in (THANK YOU!) to provide him with extra care, so after we meet with the staff and make a plan we will implement it as quickly as possible. Nothing happens quickly here, and as much as we want to snap my fingers and get a quick fix, it just doesn’t work like that.  But please know that we are doing all we can to help him as quickly as possible.

 

A Week in Photos- January 18th

Happy Sunday my friends!

Lately I’ve been getting some requests to show more of our daily life here on the blog.  Thank you for asking!  It’s hard for me to know what people like/want to see here in this space, so I love suggestions and requests!  Keep them coming please!

Due to popular demand (hehe) I decided to try something new here.  Every Sunday I will unload the pictures from my phone on to the blog.  That way you can see what seems noteworthy on a daily basis. You can see what we’re up to and just the daily living that goes on around here.  If you follow us on Facebook or Instagram (@kimandjed) some of these pictures won’t be new to you, but I know a lot of you only follow us here on the blog.  So, here ya go!

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Our friend Vadya came for tea. We love him. Our kids love him. The end. 

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For Youth Night we had a masquerade! Tanya, one of our awesome volunteers, made these masks!

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I absolutely adore this life my kids are living + Kostya is an awesome MC. 🙂

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This is the amazing team from Chudniv (a town not far from us). They work at Romaniv with us on Tuesdays and Fridays. Amazing people.

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Our home church in Oregon sent us a Christmas box and it arrived on Thursday!!! We are so spoiled and loved. Thank you Salem Vineyard!!! We love you!

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Late night preparation of gifts for Romaniv Nannies.

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Irakli!!! This sweetest boy needs a family. Could it be you?? He is such a joy.

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On Friday we had a party to thank the nannies for all their hard work. Their job is not easy and they need to be seen and honored. We had a team of 16 volunteers from 3 different churches who came to serve the boys and serve the nannies. It was BEAUTIFUL.

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This is Misha. On Friday Misha walked in to our gathering ON HIS OWN. He chose people over isolation. He chose chaos and noise over rocking back and forth in his bed. This has never happened before. He is changing. Miracles are happening. Praise God.

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My babies.

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Ezra tried to avoid the camera on the bus. I won.

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I always feel bad for this store in our mall. Poor little guy. Hehe

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Ezra got a hold of my camera…and this happened.

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My Dima. I love this boy something fierce.

PS: If you want to see something specific here on the blog, please tell me!  What’s become normal to us might be interesting to you.  Special requests are welcome!

 

 

 

Bullet Points on Tuesday

Eleven days since I last came to this space. Wow! Days are flying by.

Since I wrote the last post about being still and trusting that God is on our side we've gone through some stuff that made living out those words pretty stinkin' hard. Sheeesh. This fighting for the orphan thing is rough stuff! But, worth it. But still rough. 🙂 There are seasons of heartache and seasons of joy in every life, right?

Our family as a whole is doing just fine. Our work may be heartwrenching at the moment, but our family is good.

Here's what's been up with us:

  • This is the last week of school for Addy and Ez, and then Christmas break! Their schooling plan will change after the new year, so stay tuned!
  • Havalah and Seth go to a private little kindergarten (Hava won't let me call it “preschool”) twice a week while Jed and I are at Romaniv and they love it. Today when I picked them up the teacher said they understand her so well and that Hava speaks a lot of Ukrainian in class. Yay! Comin' along, comin' along.
  • We are right in the middle of renewing our registration. We have to renew every year in order to keep our temporary residency. Stamps, stamps, and more stamps…woot! Ukraine loves stamps.
  • My cousin, aunt and uncle will be in Uzhgorod (a city in western Ukraine) this weekend and we are trying our best to get there for a visit. We were waiting to see if we could get our residency paperwork done in time to be able to leave town, and we finally got done yesterday…but now there are no available train tickets! The lady at the ticket counter told Jed to come back and check tomorrow morning. The train is really our only option. A bus ride would be at least 12 hours over rough roads and Hava gets super carsick on the short, smooth, two hour ride to Kyiv! We can't torture her like that. The train ride is 16 hours…yikes, but worth it to see family. 🙂
  • Next week is Christmas!!!! We've been rockin' the Christmas music pretty much nonstop around here. This will be our first Christmas alone, just the 6 of us, so that will be really different. Last year Jed's parents were here visiting. Did you know Ukraine doesn't celebrate Christmas until January 7th? Fun fact.
  • Our favorite Tom and Emma are coming for a visit on New Year's Eve! They'll be with us for a week and we're counting down the minutes till their arrival. Eeeeeeek! Tom and Emma visited last February and it was so amazing to have them with us. Best Christmas present ever.
  • My mom secretly asked a bunch of people to send us Christmas cards. Oh my word!! It has been such a special treat! I really can't tell you how special it is when we get mail. Our whole family screams and hoots and hollers and jumps up and down. Seriously. We love mail! Thanks Mom 🙂 And thanks everyone who has sent us cards. It makes our day. Big time.
  • We're working on a couple special Wide Awake videos for Christmas. In the videos we'll introduce you to two of our special boys. I can't wait to share them with you!
  • I've been working hard to get all the details figured out for the boys from Romaniv who are available for adoption. After Christmas we will start really advocating for them and I'm so hopeful we'll find them families. Stay tuned for that too. Children were made for families, not insitutions. 🙂

Welp, I guess that just about does it.

Maybe next time I write it will be from Uzhgorod…if we survive the 16 hours on the train, that is! Ha!