The animated cartoon Anastasia.

So I ran across this video on Hulu the other day and had to watch it.  The story is based on The Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia.  The animated film was based in St Petersburg and covers her bother Alexei's sickness, Grigori Rasputin link to the Romanov family, Bloody Sunday, and the capture and assassination of the Romanov family.  When the film was produced in 1997 it was still believed that Anastasia may have escaped but in 2007 it was confirmed that she did not.  Anyway, the movie is a bit odd and choppy at times but it does cover some of  Russia's history without too many gory details.  They do show several animated shots of St Petersburg.

Back to School

Our school district offers a Peer Model Preschool program.  This program is for 3 and 4 year old's that appear to be developmentally on target and transition well from activity to activity.  These kids are mixed in with kids that have delays in development in 2 or more areas.  I'm so happy that Polina was chosen to be a peer.  She now attends school at the same grade school as her brothers.  Sometimes she sees one of them in the hall.  I'm also proud that she is doing so well, that she was qualified to be a peer.

And here are her brothers headed to 1st and 4th grade.

Remember when....

I don't know how others feel but since Russian adoptions have closed I've gotten a little down with regards to the amount of blogs I'm finding and not seeing the faces of the new children coming home.  Following blogs was one of my favorite pass times and it seems almost non existent now.  

Although I don't have a lot to say about my little Princess P since she is doing amazing, I thought a would post a few pictures showing what we've been up to.

The end of May I spent time making minor updates to the house.  Here are some fun things that I added.

I've always used this wall to display the kids art work but now it's a little more classy!  Oddly enough, the shadows are just from the lights.

I have always marked the kid's height on this wall and then got a tape measure out to see how tall they were.  Now I don't have to.

When we traveled to St Pete, we traveled with The Baker family both times.  Last week we were once again able to get our families together.  Jamie and I have made a lifetime friendship through our adoption experience and I am thankful that we are able to maintain those ties for our children. Both of the younger children are from the same Baby Home and the other little boy is from St Pete as well.

Here are a few more pictures from our trip.

Oh to be a little girl again!

Polina's room is just to the right of our staircase and our family room is just to the left.  A few months ago I came up with an idea to build a playhouse under the stairs.  The door is off of Polina's room and there is a window looking out into the family room.  Tonight Polina decided to make a drive-thru restaurant out of the window.  Too funny!

My Favorite App!

I found an app that I just love and thought other mothers out there could use it too.  We all need to teach our kids about the value of money.  For my kids though, it seemed like they either lost the money or never had it with them when they wanted something.  So I found this app called "KidsBank" that makes me their bank.

How it works:
When the kids get money from Birthdays or tooth fairies, they can give the money to me and I add it to their bank account.  In addition to that I set up a list of chores and how much each chore pays.  When the chore is complete I credit their account.

Things I like about it:

• They always have their money with them.  
• I no longer decided what they can have and not have.  They decide if they want to spend the money on that item.
• The app allows you to determine the percentage that your kids have to save and how much they have to give to charity.
• I will allow me to print an account statement that shows them where they spent/earned their money.

If you have a smart phone, check it out.

Eye Doctors

Polina saw an eye doctor when we first came home and he thought her eyes looked good but wanted to see her back in 6 months for a follow up.  We went back in the fall and he noticed some drifting and had us use eye drops to blur one eye to let the other one work harder.  After 6 weeks things looked good but shortly later it started to drift again.  Polina has now been diagnosed with Strabismus.  This seems to be very common in kids adopted from Eastern Europe.  She has started to loose vision in her right eye so we have been patching her left eye for 2 hours every day.  She will have surgery in May to correct her alignment and hopefully that will be the end of it.

Strabismus also known as squint-eye and crossed-eye, is a condition in which the eyes are not properly aligned with each other. It typically involves a lack of coordination between the extraocular muscles, which prevents bringing the gaze of each eye to the same point in space and thus hampers proper binocular vision, and which may adversely affect depth perception. 

Rhea Lana

For the past several years I have seen ads for consignment sales around town but I never bothered to go.  Last fall I went to one for the first time.  I had no clue what I was missing out on!  This sale is held at our local convention center and it is huge!  With Polina growing out of some of her clothes I decided that I would try to sell some items this time.  I entered 87 items in the sale and sold 70.  My sales totaled $397 and I brought home $275.  Beats t he heck out of giving it away.  

Growth

So Polina is now 37" (38%) and weighs 27.5 (10%) lbs.  She is 3 years and 3 months old.

The first picture was taken Nov 18, 2011 and the second photo was taken Jan 14th, 2013 (14 months later)

Nerf

My oldest boy turned 9 this year and is crazy about Nerf guns.  He ask me for a Nerf party so I googled it and found some pretty great ideas from people that have way more time than I do!  You see, Polina's birthday is the end of October and my 2 boys and husband are all within the first 2 weeks of December!  So I have become a master at outsourcing during this time of the year.  I came up with the idea of hiring the 2 teenage boys that live next door to be the platoon commanders.  In November I sent this email to each kid...

Subject:  Telegram for (child's name) 

I found long sleeved camo shirts at Old Navy for $4 a piece.  My son and I came up with 2 names for the teams.  We created logos for each on the computer and then I printed them on special paper and ironed them on the back of the shirt.

Golden Vipers

Silver Hawks 

I found a place on Amazon that made personalized dog tags 2 for $5!

Each one was engraved with their name and  team.   

My dad picked up a bunch of boxes from a local appliance store and my husband and neighbor boys set them all up in the backyard.

 

Needless to say the kids all had a BLAST!  It was hands down the easiest party I ever threw and the kids were talking about it weeks later.

The birthday boy.