Kindergarten.........

Lots of people have asked me how Kasey is doing in kindergarten.
He's doing just fine. It's a learning process just like everything else he has encountered in the past year and a half.
When he was in preschool he had a lot of acting out issues, biting, pinching, hair pulling...but the teachers were excellent at working with him through these behaviors. They really did a good job with him. His new kindergarten teacher is really great too, very patient and kind with her kids. He has had only 1 incident so far and I think that shows how much he has grown just in the past couple of months.
His language skills are coming along really well, so is writing his letters. Now he can even sound out a few written words ! :) So I think he is a smart little cookie....and nope, I am not biased ;)

Just for fun I'll let you know what Kasey loves: fishing, fish, dad's trucks, dad's tools, dad's lawnmowers, grandpa's 4-wheelers, shooting guns(pretend) bike rides, swinging on swings, gymnastics, climbing ropes and climbing up doorways (I know!!!),
his toys-he loves each and every one of his toys, animals--wolves, bears, sharks, cows, pigs, tigers, lions.......the list is endless, mom reading books every night at bedtime, and most of all, he just loves spending time with his dad in the garage or outside.

favorite bible verse

First Corinthians, Chapter 13


If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Kasey's 6th birthday

Last Sunday was Kasey's 6th birthday. Hard to believe he is 6 and in Kindergarten already. He is a very fast learner, he has a very good memory for words. He comes home with a new word everyday, and has entire conversations in almost perfect english. I think he is amazing :)

yeah baby...yeah

shoes and socks off!!! yeah, he is wearing socks and sandals---so what?????

toes touching grass probably for the first time ever.

yeah baby, sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

walking in the neighbors yard because they haven't mowed yet and it is nice and long.

and full of mosquitos, so we left quickly.

he put his shoes back on after dad made him walk on the GRAVEL driveway to go get the ball. stinker:(

Kasey, a couple of days after we met him...

Kasey, a couple of days ago. Ham:)

How is Kasey doing??????

Kasey is doing pretty darn good. He uses a lot of English words and phrases. We don't have a lot of communication issues now, we understand each other a lot better. He has a lot of fun playing with his new toys, riding his bike with daddy, and playing outside. I started to teach him how to throw a baseball last week by throwing it up against the garage door. He used to throw the ball by whipping his arm sideways, but now he throws overhand, like the pros ;) Now we can't get him to stop throwing the ball, he loves it. Last week at my mom's he had a bike, big wheels, scooter, and a jeep to drive, and he was bored........BORED??? He laid down on on the driveway with his head in his hands and just sighed.......poor kid.......I really felt sorry for him, ya know?? NOT!
Almost everyone we meet tells me how lucky he is, and he is a lucky kid. But we are the lucky ones. God had a plan for all of us, and He is the one who placed Kasey on our path to parenthood. He was there all along waiting, we just had to go and get him.
The state of adoptions in Ukraine right now is pretty bleak. Couples are coming home without children. My heart breaks for them, and I don't know what to say, except that there is a child on your path, and they are waiting patiently for you. Trust in God's plan for your future.

Memorial Day...

JOHN 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Dad headbutting Kasey. That is not a look of pain--he was laughing hysterically.

This is Grandpa's barn. For some odd reason he won't let anyone play in there........

Me, my Grandpa, and my cousin hanging out.

Dad and I, sitting on the naughty chair.....again. :)

This is our first haircut. He did pretty well, a lot better than I expected. He never cried or tried to get out of the chair, just waited patiently while the nice lady asked him questions, I don't think she ever caught on that he didn't speak English.

Kasey is getting pretty good at riding his bike. He still hasn't quite figured out yet that everytime he looks back to see where I am or if I tell him to slow down and he just glances at me, he falls off the bike.....:) I think he will figure that out eventually.
Today when I dropped him off at pre-school he went right for the sandbox. Only problem is, they took out the sand and put water in the tub:( So, when I left him he was happily playing with the rubber duckies in the water, didn't even notice when I left.
Of course, when I went to pick him up he was wearing a completely different outfit then what I dressed him in this morning :) Water is FUN!! His teacher said he had a very good day, no tantrums or scratching, so he is getting a lot better in school. I am very glad that he has a whole year of pre-school yet. Bye!

:)

So, yeah, it's been a while since my last post. I've been busy ;) Kasey has been doing great, attachment and bonding really haven't been an issue. He knows who his parents are. The last 2 weeks we have been home have been busy with meeting family and friends, getting new toys, learning to ride a bike and a scooter, and learning new English words everyday. He also has been going to pre-school 2 times a week. I'm sure he is driving his teacher crazy:)
We have lots of fun at home, playing with toys, learning his ABC's and 123's. We do have some ups and downs. Last Sunday at church we walked in and he saw the piano. Well, he is obsessed with piano's. He ran straight to the piano, which someone was playing at the time, and tried to help her play. I caught up with him just before he hit his first note. He was not at all happy when I dragged him away from that piano.
We had to take him downstairs where I told him he couldn't touch that piano. He started crying and screaming, which lasted about 5 minutes. When he was done he said he wouldn't touch the piano, but I know he wasn't happy about it.
We have our funny times, too. This morning I got him all dressed up to go to his pre-school class, hat, mittens, backpack. We walked out the door and Kasey stopped right when he stepped on the cement. I told him to keep going, but he just looked down at his feet and then looked up at me with this funny face. I looked down and realized I forgot his shoes!! It was about 35 degrees this morning, so the cement was just a little cold with just socks on!
I'm not going to update the blog all that much, but I will keep it going. I want to thank all the friends and family that have been reading about our journey. It was nice to have that communication when we were in Ukraine. We looked forward to posting and informing people of our day and what Kasey was up to.
I am posting a few pictures, so enjoy!
Shannon

Kiev!

We finally made it to Kiev late last night. We are staying in a 1 room apartment in downtown Kiev, not near Independence Square, so we are unfamiliar with where we are.
We are staying near St. Volodymyr's Cathedral which is beautiful.

The past 2 days have been pretty long. Our paperwork chase took us to the village where Kasey was born. We had to get his original birth certificate changed. When we got there on Tuesday it was discovered that the court decree had a mistake in it that 4 different people missed, but the lady at the birth certificate office caught. So, we could not get his birth certificate that afternoon. Also, there was a mistake on the original document that severed the parental rights of the mother, the year was omitted on the document.
Of course all of this happened at the end of the day, so we could not get any documents fixed until Wednesday. The next morning Scott and I with a translator went back to the courthouse to get the document fixed. Took almost 2 hours, and they started working on it as soon as we got there. Ostap, our facilitator went back to the village to find the judge that terminated parental rights to get him to fix that document, which he did. Then Scott and I and a driver drove to the village to get the birth certificate done and pick up Ostap. Long, long day. But it all got done.

We came back to White Church by 3 and had lunch. Then we went to the orphanage to hang out with Kasey and his groupa as he said his good-bye's. He kissed and hugged everybody at least twice. All his caretakers stopped by to say goodbye. We brought him his new clothes to change into. We found a Cars long sleeve shirt that he loves. He was very very excited to put on his own clothes. When we went out the door to leave and put on his jacket he was practically jumping up and down for joy that he was leaving-I had a hard time putting the jacket on him. It was about 8pm by the time we left White Church and started driving to Kiev. He was excited to be in the car. Of course 8pm is his bedtime and he fought sleeping the whole drive into Kiev. He behaved very well.

We do have a wireless connection here, which is nice. But the apartment is not nice, and we decided to find another apartment as soon as possible. Then we may not have a
wireless connection anymore.
It's about 7am here as I am posting. Scott is out looking for food and Kasey is still sleeping. We are going to go get his new passport started today. He gets to have his picture taken again. We are hoping to get the passport expedited, if not, it will be 7 days before that is ready. I am really praying that we get it expedited.

march 11

Paperwork day. Today we are running around getting our court decree, birth certificate and passport documents started. It's a slow process today. People are not getting the paperwork ready for us in a very timely manner. But we are working on it. We had a visit with Kasey this morning, but we had no toys for him because we thought it would be a short visit, but it turned into 2 hours. So we did our best to keep him occupied with 1 ballon and Scott's sunglasses. We don't think we will be able to post tomorrow, we will be very busy with Kasey's party and taking him into Kiev. If we are lucky enough to get a wireless connection in Kiev from our apartment we will post, if not, it will have to wait until Thursday. I responded to as many emails as I could this morning, but then Yahoo went down, and I couldn't get to the rest.

march 10

Sorry about not posting yesterday, but we were unable to get a computer yesterday afternoon, and we were too tired after our 2nd visit to go the cafe, so we skipped it.
Today we went shopping and got a few things for his party on Wednesday. We bought some bubbles for the kids to blow, and we are going to pick up some cookies and candy tomorrow along with fruit. We walked a couple of miles into the city with our facilitator, Lena, who comes down from Kiev whenever we need her. Whenever we walk together she slows down for us Americans :) We picked up a few more shirts for Kasey today, but can't find a regular hooded sweatshirt anywhere. He loves to wear hoods. We also got him a new pair of jeans with a lot of pockets. He always has something he needs to put in a pocket :) We were told today that we should not feed him an orange everyday like we have been doing, oranges are not good for them. BLAH!!! Sooo, what did I do? I fed him another orange today. He askes everyday for an orange.
We are just patiently waiting for Wednesday and the party. It's been a long 12 days. It's been raining here for the past couple of days, so we have not been able to take him outside and burn off any energy.
There has been a nice Ukrainian couple visiting another little boy in Kasey's groupa, which is really nice because we were told Ukrainians are not interested in adopting children, only babies. So, that's pretty good for the little boy, who is adorable. He's the one Kasey pushed down the other day. But then Kasey kissed him so all is well. Today Kasey stole a book from Igor, the little boy. When Scott made him give it back Kasey got upset with us and started to cry. Tragic, aint it?
Well, that's it for now.

Shan

March 8

Today we were able to take him outside to burn off some energy.  Dad and Kasey played some football.  Kasey will hurl his little body on top of that football to stop Dad from getting it, it's the funniest thing ever.  Then it takes him 2 minutes to get back up again.  Today another couple visited another little boy in Kasey's groupa.  Kasey went up to him and I thought he was going to play, but instead he just pushed him down on the cement.  sigh...  he is more like his dad every day.
Only 3 more days to go, then we have his groupa party and off to Kiev.  I can't wait to get back to Kiev,  lots more stuff to do and see, and easier to get around.  
I'd like to respond to a couple of comments:  Tom, he is right handed although I don't think he realizes it, he tries throwing with his left,    it never works.  And those are nerf baseballs you are
 referring too, right???           
Mom,  I know the perfect place for that drum set, the corner of your living room.  Kasey would love to play a drum solo for you whenever he comes over :)  
Miss everyone!
Shan