I recently started refurbishing and selling Strawberry Shortcake dolls on ebay.  Just wanted to share with everyone if you are interested check out my store.  :)
https://www.ebay.com/str/strawberryshortcakecentral

Here is an example of one of the dolls I rehabbed.

Updated family photos.

By today's standards 4 kids is a large family.  I never dreamt I would have 4 kids.  When I found out I was pregnant I was not excited.  I had everything planned out and life was starting to get easier.  Having 4 kids is very difficult.  Everything from managing their schedules, homework, playdates, laundry, and feeding them.  I feel like my task list never ends.  With that being said, they are so sweet and so funny.  They make everyday have meaning.  Julianna is a pistol and she is constantly telling everyone what to do.  Polina is a sweet little girl that always wants kisses and to say I love you.  Don't let her fool you though, she would stab you in the back for a piece of candy!  LOL Jaxon is funny, smart, loving and has a way about him that is just peaceful.  Brett is turning into a teenager and can be a little self involved, but I love his competitive nature, his ability to make friends and be comfortable with who he is at such a tough age.  He's funny and you can't ask for a more sincere kid.  All of my kids bring me immense joy and I wouldn't trade one of them.  They are worth all the work that comes with this big family. 

Essential Oils - Do they work?

So it seems like everywhere I turn someone is talking about essential oils.  Do they really work?  Who knows.  I decided it was worth a shot so I will be testing them myself.  I bought the introductory package of oils.  Here is a list of things that I'm hoping essential oils will help with.

1.  My dad has had sleep apnea for years.  It has gotten to the point where he can hardly sleep at night.  Every time I see him he looks exhausted.  I read an article where a lady swore by one of these essential oils.  So I bought the kit and he is now defussing while he sleeps.  I will let you know what he thinks.

2.  My dog has severe allergies.  Nothing outside of a cortisone shot gives her any relief.  Unfortunately the shot only helps for about 2 weeks and then she is back at the scratching.  She scratches to the point of having bloody sores on her body.  I read another post where a lady swore EO for the olny thing that helped her dog.  I will let you know how it goes.

3.  I have sun spots on my face that I use a high dollar skin care line to control.  I read again that EOs can fade sun spots too.  We will see.

I actually really hope this works but I am skeptical.

Here are my "spots".

And a photo of the kids just for fun!

Pregnancy

I was never one of those that enjoyed being pregnant which is one of the reasons why we pursued adopting. This pregnancy however, was the worst by far.  At nine weeks I started to get morning sickness that of course lasted all day.  By the end of the pregnancy I had such bad acid reflex that I was throwing up several times a day.   At one point I even threw up in my sleep.  I had lost the feeling in my fingers by the 7th month (still waiting for that to return).  I was swollen and VERY uncomfortable for the last 6 to 8 weeks.  I was going to the doctor 2x a week.  At 38 weeks they told me that the baby had flipped and I was going to need a C-Section.  With my boys I was induced at 41 weeks.  Needless to say I did not want a C-Section!  At 39 weeks and 1 day my water broke.  They did a quick ultrasound to check on the baby and she had flipped again!  Yeah, a natural birth.  Julianna Lisa was born 12 hours later.  We are so in love!

4th of July

The Baby Shower

 Polina and her cousin Charlotte

Julianna Lisa

 

I got something for Christmas that wasn't on my list!

In October of 2009 I started researching adoption.  I read, watched videos, requested info from several agencies, and made several phone calls.  I had a burning desire in my heart to adopt from Russia.   For many reasons my husband did not share my passion.  So in the Spring of 2010, as a compromise, we went to a fertility clinic to see if everything was still working.  At the time I was 38 so they recommended that we use some fertility drugs to boost our chances.  We never used the drugs but we did try to conceive on our own until December of 2010 when something changed my husband's heart and we decided to pursue our adoption plan.  We quit "trying" and put all of our focus on the adoption.  By December of 2011 we were home with our daughter.  Our family was complete...or so we thought.  Last December I noticed all the typical signs of starting but I never started.  So about a week later I thought I would take a test just to put my mind at ease.  Holy cow! It was positive!  How could this be?  I'm 42 for gods sakes!  I found out on Christmas Eve.  I was so stressed out I couldn't function.  I was one year way from having some freedom during the day.  We only have 5 chairs for our kitchen table.  We are out of bedrooms in our house!  So many things were going through my head.  I'm 14 weeks now and have had time to let this sink in.  I'm starting to get excited.  The baby is genetically healthy.  I'm exhausted and have horrible morning sickness.

Polina is doing well.  She has been enjoying square dancing with my parents.  She goes to gymnastics once a week.  She has preschool Monday-Thursday and most the time enjoys it.  She loves to play and rough house with her brothers and dad.  She also loves to scribble on paper, often asking what you would like from her kitchen.  Over the past several months Polina has been doing a lot of rocking, thumb sucking, and humming.  I don't know for sure why it has increase.  I finally took her for an OT evaluation today so we hopefully will know more next week.  Tomorrow Polina is scheduled for eye surgery.  She has strabismus and we have been patching for over a year so we are hoping this will help.

We'll I better get to sleep.

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.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I love this time of year.  I like to get out our Chirstmas decorations right after Thanksgiving so I have lots of time to enjoy them before the season ends.  Shortly after Halloween I started showing Polina Christmas DVDs and reading Christmas books to help her start to understand the season.  She has since become VERY concerned about the big guy.  We have since given him the code name "Harold".  For about the past week or so, the first words out of Polinas mouth were "mom, where Santa?"  This would go on the entire day.  So last Sunday we took our annual trip to see Santa.

As you can see she was not nearly as excited to see him once we got there.

By the time we left the play place she was saying "Santa, watch me"

Before we left the house, I ask the boys to put on something with Christmas colors and these are the shirts they chose.  LOL

 Every year after we see Santa we stop at Fritz's.  The food is horrible but this kids LOVE the train that delivers the food to your table.

After Fritz's we always check out the gingerbread houses and then head to the Westin and on to Union Station for some of the Seasons best decor.

Brett thinks he's getting to old for this "Santa" stuff but I love how he has taken on the role of "caring" for his little sister.

I have been taking my kids to the same Santa every year since my oldest was 6 days old.  I told Brett when we got home that he is under contract to have his picture with Santa until the age of 18.  He finger printed the contract before we would take him home from the hospital. At least that is what we have told him.  He said that was entirely not fair...but he believes that he's stuck and has to do it!  LOL