Kara's citizenship papers are here

Her certificate and the letter from President Bush arrived today. I just wanted to share the good news!

Vorzel kids

My Kara at the orphanage
Little blondie, such a sweet smile, so absent in these photos

Meghan with Roma, the little brunette is Svetlana, she was a precious little girl, and Sasha is the little one sitting by the caregiver. She has FAS and is also very sweet.

I loved the paintings on the walls at the orphanage, isn't this one precious?

Our snowy walk to the baby house

Roma and a sweet 2 1/2 year old girl, we never got her name.

Kara and her friend, Kara made her way into the room to play with this angel. I wanted pictures of the two of them together. the little Blondie is usually smiling, laughing and waving hello.

Vorzel Kids

I was looking for some information on Vorzel, and found this link, many of the children have Down syndrome and are so beautiful. Please check it out. When we were in Vorzel the orphanage director told us that almost all of his kids had special needs as the typically developing children were taken by families as part of the new foster care system. So almost all of the children in the orphanages in Vorzel have special needs. We saw quite a few during the month we were there, and they are just precious children who have such a longing in their eyes when they see mama and papas with their kids.

I know many people say they wish they could adopt all of the kids in the orphanages where they visit, and I understand why. Like little Roma who so desperately needs a family before he ages out of the baby house, he will be sent to the mental institution this spring. He loved Meghan and our family, leaving him behind was hard for us.

Our silly girls

We just think Kara is so beautiful, her mama in Ukraine must be very pretty! We are so grateful to have Kara as part of our family.

Meghan and Kara are learning to play together, but often Kara will resort to rocking when she gets overwhelmed, as she did here. Meghan was upset because Kara kept moving the dollies. Kara and she had "words" and Kara crawled over to rock.

Minutes before they were playing and laughing, which is why I grabbed my camera, but I missed the photo opportunity!

I love hearing the girls laughing and playing, but I have to say it is usually because they are being naughty together. Throwing things, knocking things over, playing with Kleenex. They keep me hopping, and we are hoping to add one more little one to the mix. I will definitely not be able to sit much then! :o)

A picture taken tonight, before bed, Kara will love on Meghan and Meghan will pull away, but just let Kara cry and Meghan comes running to make sure she is OK.
Kara's Cheshire Cat grin, always makes us laugh, funny little girl!

Meghan finally smiling, I still have to take 20 pictures to get this gal to cooperate, some things never change. I missed her birthday while I was in Ukraine. She turned 7 on December 11.

Kara got mad at Meghan and mama got a picture, this is not a face we see often, but look at her, Meghan backed off, and mama laughed because Kara giggled when Meghan reacted.

We noticed that she laughed when the kids in the orphanage hit each other too. Hmmmm. A fan of slapstick humor I suppose. She is learning that hair pulling, pinching, and hitting hurt and stops when we say "Ouch, that hurts" so that is progress, She still pulls Meghan's hair though, Meghan tells on her often.

My friend Mary Ann

Tom wearing one of Mary Ann's hats

When I sent an email to all my friends about how to dress for cold weather shortly before we left for Ukraine, Mary Ann wrote right back offering to make Tom, Meghan, and I hats. We each kept our heads warm with her wonderful hats for our entire trip, and Tom often said "We really need to let Mary Ann know how much these hats helped us"

Mary Ann is a breast cancer survivor like me, but unlike me she had a very rare form of breast cancer called IBC, (this website is adult oriented and can be upsetting) or Inflammatory Breast Cancer, a very deadly form. Her being alive is a miracle and all who know her cherish her friendship.

Mary Ann owns her own business; making hats, she began making them for people undergoing cancer treatment who lose their hair, she also makes many great products to make that time in a persons life bearable. I encourage everyone traveling to a colder region to check out her amazing hats, they kept us all warm during our stay in Ukraine.

CJ HATS

More pictures and prayer request

My family in Ukraine November 2007

Our friends are arriving in droves to Ukraine, you can click on their names to read their blogs, the Urban's, the Cornishes, KellyB, The Mc Cs, and the RSGs.

Sadly things can go wrong in adoption, which my family can attest to, and some of our friends are having a rough time. Please add the Cornishes and the Urban's to your prayers as they ride the adoption roller coaster in Ukraine. The links to their blogs are above if you would like to offer support by way of comments as well.

Both families felt called to adopt these special little girls and moved forward in faith to do so, they are special families with loving giving hearts and faith in the Lord. They need prayers to make their adoption dreams come true. Please tell your friends to pray for them as well.

Rocking and rolling

I thought I would include a video of Kara rocking, though it has lessened, she still does this. This video was taken when we were still in Vorzel, she was with me for 5 days. When she rocks now she giggles, she loves to watch her shadow while she rocks and does this in the hallway, so I suppose that is an improvement. There are some days when she wants to be put down so she can rock. She also reaches up to be held and cuddled quite often.

It always makes mommy feel bad to see Kara rocking herself, but she has done so for many years, it will be a while for her to stop needed it for comfort.

We notice that her back has a severe curve from rocking, like kyphosis, but at the mid to lower back, you can see it in the video. She will be seeing a chiropractor soon to address this, we are not certain anything can be done however, we will try.

Reopening our blog

Kara in Ukraine, with our wash tub (her lala in the tub), even though washing our clothes in a small tub was difficult, I actually miss the simplicity of life there. Yelena our facilitator told me that once I was home for a while I would miss Ukraine, and I do. I miss the snow, the food, the walks around Vorzel, and I miss seeing Yelena.

Kara in Ukraine, what I wouldn't do for lips like hers! For some reason her lips were really pink in this picture!

We have two friends from RR in Ukraine right now, The Cornishes and the Urbans. (More families are going there this month too) Both families are adopting children with Down syndrome, and they need your prayers, please add them to your prayers as they go through the adoption process.

We have had so many people ask us about our blog, and we hope the reasons we needed to close it have ceased to exist. We want to share how Kara is doing with friends and family, so we will open it once more. Praying that it is the right decision.

Our favorite picture of Ukraine

Meghan and I walking to the Internet cafe during a snow storm. Tom took this picture, and he was so proud of it, as he usually does not take very good pictures, at least he says so! We miss the snow, and we miss Ukraine, Tom is talking about going back, when we were there he could not wait to go home, go figure!

Meghan's trip to the dentist

Poor Meghan had to see the dentist again, meaning they put her under to work on her teeth. We sure hate when she has anesthesia, she is always so out of it and sad afterwards. She seems fine now, happily watching TV even though she needs to be in bed!

Kara was a good girl, crawling around the office and checking things out. She is so happy to see new things. We were of course very happy that she was declared beautiful by the staff at the dentists office. We agree, she is a doll!

Settling in

What can I say about Kara, do you have a few days? People have asked me to post an update but there is just so much to say. It is not a short answer to their questions.



Kara is settling in, she has been to numerous grocery stores, the movies, rides in the car to take her big sister to school everyday. She did not complain when she went into her car seat at the airport when we arrived home, and she has not since. Maybe she was scared riding without one in Ukraine? It is pretty scary riding in cars there for safety conscious folks like us!


Our daily routine with her consists of getting her out of bed to take sister Julia to school. Now Kara is pretty tired because she does not like going to bed early.


We get home and both girls are changed and then we eat breakfast. Since Kara only eats soft foods, she has hot cereal, applesauce, yogurt, or similar. She also drinks either a juice, only apple because others give her a rash, or kefir. She will not drink milk or water, but we try. We know she needs to be checked for food allergies. We cannot get her into her doctor until February because they are moving offices and have very limited hours.


Feeding Kara has been interesting and sometimes frustrating because she cries when she eats. She will start crying when she sees her food and until you spoon that first mouthful in, and then in between each bite. Since I picked her up at the orphanage this has been a source of stress for me and it literally makes her ill, so I have helped her slow down how quickly she eats by playing with her. I hold the spoon up and say "Yummy, yummy, yummy" and the spoon dances around before it comes to her mouth, This makes her smile or giggle. It has worked so far and she eats half as much and leaves her high chair satisfied, where before she would sob when we removed her after 3 full bowls of food and a juice. She also does not vomit after she eats as often, though that does still happen from time to time. She has also gained a couple of pounds since she got here, so we know she is eating enough. We are setting up a eating specialist consult for her, as she still just sucks her food down, no chewing.


Another breakthrough has been to actually get her to hold her spoon and feed herself. She is also holding her arms up and not against her sides any longer. Of course I have to hold the spoon and her hand to get her to eat with it, as long as my thumb is on the spoon she will feed herself, as soon as I let go her arms drop down to her sides and she begins to whine.


Yesterday she actually picked up the spoon and fed herself, and after she was done eating carried the mostly empty applesauce tub around digging into it with her spoon and feeding herself. I took a little video of it, if I can figure out how to put it on here I will.


Kara and Meghan have been spotted actually playing with one another... Meghan has the green eyed monster disease right now, I am sure Kara would play with her more, but Meghan is irritable with her. Only time will help that one. I asked Meghan if she was happy to have her new sister here, and she said YES! So that is a good sign at least.

They got along well enough to empty an entire box of kleenex out all over the living room. I was cooking lunch and came in because both were giggling, and they were covered in kleenex! Hard to tell, but the white surrounding Kara in the picture above is the kleenex. :o)


I am having a hard time getting Kara to leave my side to play, since we left her here to take Fred to the emergency room, she has been a clinging vine. We are thinking of ways to get her away from mom, or dad if I am unavailable, but at least it seems like she is attaching to us, but not in the most healthy way.

Of course I have been so ill there is little I can do with the girls right now. Leave it up to me to stay healthy in Ukraine for 6 weeks (more or less) and come home and get a bad cold TWICE. I am getting better slowly but being away from my family did take it's toll on me. I was able to help sort and fold some laundry today, and I am sure DH is grateful as he has been doing everything when he is home. The last week has been such a challenge for me in caring for the girls when I could barely stand. Antibiotics seem to be helping my lungs clear, and the strep throat and ear infections to leave. DH did take some time off of work to get Meghan in to see a doctor, she had pink eye (which I also caught) but they could not see her and they called in an antibiotic.

I am just so happy it is a three day weekend because I need tom here to help me get stronger, I have not felt this weak since I had my 12 hour surgery, it stinks.

We are very grateful

We have been home for two weeks, finally feeling a little better, and as I sat and thought about the last year I also thought of all the friends who donated their time and money to help us adopt Kara. We could not have completed our adoption without all of you. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

In a minute, everything can change

Fred, the day we were leaving for Ukraine

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at the hospital with our oldest son Fred, who appeared to be having a heart attack. Thankfully he is OK, but those few hours while we waited were spent in silent prayers, knowing how fragile life is, and how much we can lose in a second.

On December 30th I lost a very good on-line friend to a senseless accident. One caused by a drunk driver going the wrong way on the freeway and killing her, her three daughters and her step daughter. In a moment they were gone from this world because of a careless act. She had written to me a couple of months ago because she was pregnant and the quad screen came back indicating her sweet baby may have Down syndrome. She wanted to know where she could go to get prepared just in case, she was going to love her baby, who she did not know the sex of then, no matter what.

Her daughter was born the beginning of November, right before we left for Ukraine for our adoption. She was healthy and did not have Down syndrome. However she passed away December 30th. My heart is still aching for those left behind, and I am so far away, I cannot attend the services. I still feel like it is all a very bad dream.

I read some rather unkind things about our family in another blog AGAIN. You know life is just too short to harbor resentment or to listen to or believe rumors.

Gossiping is about the most evil thing one human can do to another. All it ends up doing is harming innocent people. I do not have time or energy to waste on this any longer. Let people say what they will, we are moving forward and embracing the joy in our lives. We are such a boring family really, just completely ordinary, why in the world would anyone even want to talk about us?

Most of us here are feeling a little better from our very bad colds, DD Julia is finally catching it. We are hoping she is spared the worst of it.

Kara is getting used to her new home, and we are all of so happy she is the child God chose for us. Yesterday was very hard on her because we had to leave her home with our Julia to go to the hospital with our son. She cried while we were gone, and poor Julia could not console her. She would not sleep in her crib last night because she was so upset we had left her, and slept with her head resting on my shoulder for most of the night.

Kara feeling homesick

We think Kara is feeling a little homesick, poor baby. I expected that she would experience grief; but I thought it would present itself before now. She starts crying and just sobs, and nothing we do helps her. It is heartbreaking for all of us, Meghan is beside herself with worry for her sister.

She is also having trouble sleeping, and refuses to just go to bed like she had done just days before. Adjusting to a new home, new language, new food, and all of our family, it has to be very stressful, plus she caught this cold I have. We spend a lot of time just holding and hugging her, and she never seems to tire of sitting in our laps. Kara hugs are just heavenly, and every time we hug her we cannot believe she is home with us!

DH and I are experienced parents; so we know we will be alright, but our hearts hurt for little Kara, she has had to adjust to so many new things in such a short time. Personally I think she has done remarkably well and I was in awe of her coping capabilities. I think I have had a harder time adjusting to being home than she has!

I just saw a good article on this. ARTICLE ARTICLE2

Sometimes we just have to turn the other cheek

Beautiful little Daria

This was our angel Eva, if you read our blog, you know why we came home with Kara and not she. However, I have read on an adoptions blog of people that we are being depicted as a family who "Abandoned her because we changed our minds in Ukraine". We find it interesting that none of these people ever asked us directly what happened in Ukraine, they never cared to, they made up their minds about what happened and that was that.

No one can know the pain we feel at losing her, and maybe in their world they think we could have made the SDA give us the referral back after they took it away from us? However, we were there and know the truth, and I say to all who are severely judging our family; "Please realize that another angel with Down syndrome has a family, that even healthy children die in mental institutions, and Kara will not be one of them now".

We have a precious daughter whom we love, who will not spend her life in a mental institution, after all we have gone through to get her home, our friends in the international adoption circles could at least rejoice for Kara, if not for us.

We are saddened and hurt by their behavior and their attitudes.

Feeling better

With big bother Fred, she smiles, I snap the picture, no more smile...digital cameras!

With brother Eric on Christmas morning. Kara loves paper and plastic wraps, she holds them and sings la la la la la.

Finally home again with her sister, both girls get jealous if the other is sitting with Mama. They each seek out Daddy in that case. Kara loves sitting with each of the kids, she crawls over and puts her arms up to be held. She will also do this to any stranger, so while it seems nice, it isn't; she has no fear of strangers. I knew this would probably be the case. We have some work to do there.Kara slept almost the entire time in each of the 3 flights, she was restless during the flight from DC to Phoenix, and it was the only flight where I was finally exhausted and wanted to sleep. I held her while she slept for most of the flight, she would not let me lay her down beside me.

Kara on the plane leaving Ukraine, neither one of us was quite awake. Ukraine outside her window. We said Paka paka Ukraine. I do not miss those grey skies, no sun for 6 weeks, no wonder I came home sick!

Everyone seems to be getting over the worse of this cold-flu bug Kara and I brought home. Meghan and Kara still need their noses wiped constantly (so much fun! lol) but they are no longer feverish or miserable; thank goodness. I am 80% better too and now looking at the mounds of laundry needing to be done. So far DH Tom and Julia have not succumbed to this virus.