PICTURES!

Yep, I know it’s been a few days, so here are some pictures!

The kids all dressed in their gear- show jackets, hats, 2 shirts, 2 pr pants, all the goodies… We’d just gotten back from a looong walk up Basiena when I took these and it was snowing! :)

 

Happy little critter! It’s hard to take his pic because he was thrashing around while he grinned, but even tho it’s not the greatest picture, it shows the sparkle in his eye!

And this little pixy… she’s calmed SO MUCH.  What a beautiful little treasure she is!

Chris and Wesley just chillin

One of the most valuable resources I’ve brought with me—MY BAGS! I love these!! My sister gave them to me a while back and I brought 4 with me on this trip.  Here they are—all full after shopping for Christmas presents and then grocery shopping.  The handles are long enough to go over my shoulder which is REALLY nice when they’ve got 4 or 5 liters of drinks in them!

The giraffe that we would like to kill.  It sings the ABC song and thankfully Aleksa can’t do it herself! LOL  She’s entertained by it tho so it’s good!

Wesley chilling in his PJs

 

Christmas eve night… our “stockings” under the tree!

Santa presents on Christmas morning! 
Aleksa got a doll, Wesley a “chicken'” toy, Chris got gingerbread patty cookie thingies, and I got a bag of chocolates.

Chris and Wesley playing with toys

Aleksa eating breakfast on Christmas morning… oatmeal (I took a pic of the directions and asked Nadya to read them to me so we could make it!).

 

Almost all of the snow was melted by Christmas morning!  We didn’t have any more snow until this afternoon, and then only flurries and only in one part of town.

After he drooled on the top of his PJ, Wesley hung out like this for a bit.  This couch has tall arms so he can be propped up in the corner and that’s how he eats—or in his stroller.  It was HOT in the apartment that day!

Aleksa chilling waiting for food, sans shirt for the same reasons (she’d made a mess!)

 

Two sweeties in matching red shirts for Christmas morning… I tried hard to get a nice picture of them both…

We didn’t give out Christmas gifts until Aleksa “discovered” her doll under the tree!  She likes it!

And wesley likes his chicken toy!

 

For Christmas lunch we met a friend, April, at TGIF.  Here’s the 3 little orphans-no-more as we were getting ready to leave.  The kids all did great!

When we got back to the apartment, it was a Skype Christmas with our families back home!

 

Wesley liked it!  He giggled through it all…

Then Christmas with Chris’ fam…

The kids played with these punching balloons a BUNCH!  There aren’t too many places to play, so the bed is one of the fun places to hang out.

 

This is Wesley sucking down a french fry :)

 

And our lunch all spread out as we got ready to eat lunch today

We went out to Hillsong church and met up with friends who happened to have extra tickets to the musical they were doing today.  It wasn’t a typical “church Christmas musical.”  It was much more like a professional playhouse production!  It was great (after some ado about getting in a good seating arrangement and after Chris had given up all hope of it being a decent endeavor since she was separated from me and Wesley—she had Aleksa—and it wasn’t going very well for her!  After Aleksa came to me and we got Chris a seat and she took Wesley, it was great!).  Our friend even sat between us and translated for us.  More on the show later maybe ;)

The kids each got a gift after the show, too!  Inside was a  pink stuffed bunny and some candy. 

That’s all for now, Wesley’s timer is up and it must be dinner time!  Blessings from Kiev!