The First Thanksgiving

No, not the one with the Pilgrims, but the first one for Amber and Dennis since it's an American holiday that is not celebrated in Ukraine.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 2011

The preparations for Thanksgiving Day actually started on Wednesday when Brian took Amber and Ashley out shopping for the food we would need for the big day. That afternoon they started preparing the food by working on the home made pie crust, made/cooked the pumpkin pie, and prepared the apple pie filling. Amber loved working with the apple corer peeler machine.

 She can have fun with anything

Makes nice earrings, eh?

Thanksgiving morning Brian was up about 7:30 to get the stuffing ready to put into the turkey and get it in the oven. Then he and the girls made some waffles in the new waffle makers for breakfast. I made some pumpkin bread (which is no easy task for me since I'm horrible at baking). The kids spent most of the rest of the morning outside on their bikes in the circle or racing up/down the cul-de-sac.

 Ashley & Amber racing

 Ashley & Amanda

Amber & Amanda

Then the big girls decided they were going to torture Amber's baby doll by dragging it around all over the place - swings, slide, toy truck, and then tossing it up in the air as high as they could ... and they failed to catch it!!!

 Baby meets "Princess"

  Baby slides with Mama

 WEEEEEE ..... they didn't catch her! :(

Soon it was time to help Daddy with the rest of the food preparations. The girls took turns kneeding the dough, rolling, cutting, and brushing the rolls with butter. The recipe was handed down from Brian's mom and we have used it every year! Then mashed potatoes & gravy.


<--- Daddy needed a little cooking advice from his mom regarding the size of the rolls!

 Kneeding and rolling the dough

 Home made cranberry sauce

 Mash those potatoes, girl!

 Classic Amber & Papa - no explanation needed!

Making gravy - MAMA NO MORE PICTURES!!!

Not everyone liked every part of the meal, but everyone had to try one bite of everything and then could decide what they liked and/or wanted more of. The hit of the meal was that everyone had their own bottle of sparking cider!!

 WHAT? We each get our own bottle?

 Amber's 1st Thanksgiving Meal

Troy got some leftovers, too!

Some more Thanksgiving fun!!

 The last of the fall leaves - everything else is bare!!

 Amanda & Sam playing Wii

To view all our Thanksgiving Day fun, visit Dennis' blog http://macyadoption.blogspot.com/ 

and also the entire album on FB here:  

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2687464067275.147298.1276629484&type=3

One Month Home

November 14th marks one full month that Amber has been home! We celebrated by having a Costco take-n-bake pizza at home (oddly enough she HATED pizza when she was here for hosting, but now asks for it frequently and cheers when we have it!) and some cinnamon rolls that I purchased at the local market bakery. (We have kids that have issues with food coloring and chocolate, so those were removed from the options.) Oh, we also had home made milkshakes - each child got to choose their own flavor of ice cream! Due to food coloring and chocolate issues, the options were vanilla, dulce de leche, and pumpkin! :)

I don't have a lot to say for this post or many new photos, but I did want to put a blog up marking our 1st month home! I think it has gone about as well as could be expected during our first month home. Many people talk about a honeymoon period, and how it comes to a crashing hault!! I think because of hosting being just a month prior to our adoption and then having her with us 24/7 for 3 weeks in Ukraine that maybe we won't have such a harsh adjustment and abrupt end to our honeymoon period.


Having said that, I can't say that the first month has not been without its ups and downs! However, I really cannot complain too much about it! Having 5 children is always and adventure!!! Add a foreign language, new siblings, a new school, starting 7th grade (don't think that needs any explanation), missing friends/relatives, teenage attitude, hormones (and not just hers), and I think anyone would have a hard time being perfect all the time! Other than that, she is nearly perfect! :)

 We did go and get our family photo updated. We had done this back in February when we brought Dennis home, but we definitely needed to re-do it for the holidays! They will be in just in time to put them in Christmas cards and I'll be sure to update one of the blogs with them!

Here's some of the scenic drive in our area near the Potomac and 

Shenandoah River on the way to get our portraits done.

Welcome Home Party

After only 2 days of school, Amber wanted to invite some friends to her welcome home party. We had started planning this party as soon as the jet lag wore off! We've been home less than a month, but we wanted to have a welcome home party as soon as was reasonably feasible for us and our guests. I really do enjoy entertaining, a new skill I seemed to have acquired since moving to VA. I rarely had any parties at home before we moved here, a couple of birthday parties every other year or so, but it seems like I have a couple of gatherings per year since we've moved out to VA.

Amber & some of her new friends

I created an e-invite and sent it to all my friends/family. I then created a printed version to send to the extended family that lives in PA that still doesn't have internet yet (no digs to PA, just digs to the previous generation who still can't get on board with what's happening in this generation). She saw these and wanted some of her own. Said she wanted to invite the kids in her class! 

 

Amber hamming it up with her fall-ish decorated cake

So, on Friday, without much hope of anyone actually coming since they'd only known her 1-2 days, I let her take them to school. I got 3 RSVP's through email!!! Four girls showed up + 1 from our church that she already knew. Come to find out none of those 4 girls were in her ESL classes - they were locker mates and/or in her PE class! Parents drove all the way out here into the boonies for a girl their daughter's had just met! I was actually floored!

Abigail & Amber

Everyone had a really good time! The party lasted from 2:30pm (when the first guest arrived) until almost 8:00pm (when the last guests left - they arrived after the end of the original end time for the party - 5:30pm).

Gotta love some 7th graders on kiddie swings! :)

Guests of all ages were there. Friends from church, mostly. The youngest guest was 4 and was adopted from Ethiopia. She and 3 of her sisters came to celebrate with us, along with their mother.

Betel, Grace, & Eliana

The food was just snack stuff: chips & salsa, veggies & dip, fruit, crackers & crab dip. Then we had cake! We also had hot apple cider, just to give it that fall-ish flare. 

Pastor Victor & his wife from Russian church

The Haak Family

More friends

To see the rest of the party photos, go to FB here: 

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2587591330519.145198.1276629484&type=3

.

Celebrating 1 Month "Adoption Day"

Today is the 1 month anniversary of the day we "officially" became Amber's parents. By this I mean the day the court decree was received and her new birth certificate stating our names on it was in my possession. Sometimes this is also "gotcha day," but in our case the inspector was out by the time we got everything done, so we had to wait until the following day for the official release from the orphanage. However, October 4, 2011, was the official day that we became Amber's parents!

So, we decided to have a little mini celebration with just the family out for a nice dinner. This was good for me, too because tomorrow is her welcome home party, so the less dishes for me to do beforehand, the better!

Yes, a total Daddy's girl!

She choose the Japanese steak house/sushi bar that we took the girls to during hosting. I think she just likes the big fire, but she does actually eats rolls and a few pieces of sushi. The other kids don't! But, honestly that's fine by me ... I didn't even know sushi existed until I was like 20-something! I didn't eat it for about another 10 years!

California Roll and Volcano Roll

The onion volcano!

As usual the food was good. For dessert they serve small bites of an orange. She ate the oranges, plus the rinde! YUCKY!! SU MUCHESHI, AMBER NOELLE MACY!

For the rest of the photos, to go FB here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2587574850107.145197.1276629484&type=1

First Day of School

We have been preparing for Amber's first day of American school with a mixture of excitement ... and fear and trepidation! Well, the fear and trepidation is mostly her (and Daddy)! :)

First week home we took her shopping for school clothes. She's asked several times per week when she would start school. We had to keep saying we didn't know, because we really didn't. Most days she said she didn't want to go to school!

We also did a bit of home schooling while we waited to start public school. Not much, just some basic math, copying of her name and address to familiarize her with English letters, and started some English lessons. We liked using busuu.com for alphabet and livemocha.com for basic introductions and learning personal pronouns (which we still have struggles with her calling everything "she's" instead of he's or it's). Our church also does ESOL on Wednesday nights, so she's been to that class twice (tonight if she goes will be her 3rd class).

Second week we registered her for school, confirmed ESL level 1, and got the medical stuff done. Trying to get her a cleared TB screening was a nightmare! If you have EE kids, please email me and I'll see if I can help you wade through the issues you will likely face and hopefully you can avoid 6-9 months of unnecessary medications!

Third week we waited to hear back from the school about grade placement, bus routes, and when she could start. Yesterday there was a bit of confusion as the school thought she was starting NEXT Wednesday, while we thought she would be starting THIS Wednesday!!! 

They confirmed the bus route to school will be easy - a straight shot leaving our house just before 8am (later than the other 4 kids). The route home is not so easy and will remain to be seen how long it takes her to get home (I'll update the blog about this tonight when she gets home). But, a friend she already knows from church attends her school and takes the same route from her school to the other middle school, which is a bus hub to get the kids to the more outer lying regions such as ours.

So, today she woke up just after 6:30am and was dressed and ready to go before 7am! The little kids get on the bus around 7:20'ish and Ashley's bus comes around 7:40'ish. She waited inside with me for the first bus and I forced her into getting pictures taken! Then, Daddy started up the sports car and she waited there while he took Ashley to the bus stop (at the end of our short street).

Brian called home about an hour later saying that she survived! He said she was scared and saying "Papa, home?" but she did it! Yeah - so proud of my brave little girl ... and her daddy! :)


UPDATE: Bus got her home at almost exactly 5:00pm. I'm not too pleased about it, since school gets out at 3:28pm, so that's 1.5 hours on the bus(es). However, it does save us the hour+ round trip and the gas for that. Since she doesn't have any homework right now, I guess 5pm is fine.


She was pleased about her first day! She said it was good! She was surprised when Dad told her she was going to ESOL class at our church that night as well! She was excited for her 2nd day of school as well! :) Made some more friends, in fact a boy called our house for her after only the 2nd day!!! She wants to invite everyone in her class to the "welcome to America" party we're having for her this weekend. I agreed! :)