Posting a picture with no words makes me think of my friend Rachel, whose pictures blow mine away. 'Course, now it's not a picture with no words...

You say "Obamanation"

... I say "Abomination".

Either way, It's not good.

Anybody else willing to admit to being bummed at this election, even though it is not the "spiritually correct" reaction?

...or maybe it is.

Fun weekend

We never trick or treated when I was growing up. I used to think that people who did were devil worshipers or something! Even though this is true for some people, somewhere along the way I have changed my mind. Yes, I know about the pagan roots of the day and all but other holidays we celebrate have very pagan roots and Christians have taken them over! I like the victory in that and am proud of it. Now, I don't pretend to make Halloween into a Christian holiday but I do recognize that it has been "secularized" into pretty much a celebration of candy and costumes for much of the general public. Us included.

I don't blame or look down on those who don't celebrate it. Of course not! I can see both sides quite well. But really, for us, I see it as a kind of statement we make by celebrating it without the ghoulish parts.

Anyway, I go on and on sometimes...

We took the kids to trick or treat with some friends on Friday and on Saturday our church had it's annual Fall Festival which the kids all love. It was the first year for the boys and they were in awe!

Enjoy a few of my favorite pictures--in all mixed up order:

Hannah, Max, Misha, Annette, Vitali and Ivy

We split up at the church. Annette loved being biggest kid with Ivy and Vitali.

Vitali bragged about this one to the other boys. This policeman let him talk into his radio.

WHEEEEE!!!!!!

Having a good time!

Butterfly-Annette

"Police mam" That's how Misha says it.

Soldott. or in English, "Soldier" Vitali

What else would Ivy be?

Spider Max!

Family portraits

I had all the kiddos draw family pictures today during our school time. I loved seeing our family through each of their eyes.

Hannah did this one. I think it shows how she enjoys having a big family and is proud of being the oldest. She drew everyone Oldest to youngest. Ivy is wearing a princess dress because, well, Ivy is a princess around here!

Annette draws such sunny pictures that are so full of the idea of movement that I feel like we all must be dancing in her mind! She also drew everyone oldest to youngest. I think she likes to wrap herself in family. She is a perfect middle child because in her mind, the family all around her is like a big hug. She reminds me of both my dad and my mother-in-law in that way. They love to have their families all gathered around them.

I had a hard time getting a good picture of Ivy's. If you click on it, everyone is labeled. I taped their papers to the table to minimize the arguing over space but, despite the fact that her paper is fixed, Ivy seems to definitely think at random! Everyone is floating in all directions. The grass is sideways and the sky is on one side of her picture with the sun on the other. I guess she figured they needed to be on the paper and it didn't really matter where! I love all the fingers!

Max usually puts more detail into his drawings so it is unusual that he drew us as eight floating heads. This picture is unusual because there are no eagles or American/Ukrainian flags in it. There are some crosses across the top of the cloud though.

This one is Misha's. It cracks me up! See the description over on our adoption blog!

Vitali's looks like a bunch of floating squid. I am proud to be the giant red-head.

This was such a fun activity! I loved seeing how they each view our family and their places in it.

Accepting the challenge:

One of the blogs I frequent is Mary's over at Owlhaven. She is mom to ten kids (You thought our house was busy!) and I enjoy her daily posts about life and this and that. It's not really a family blog, not to many kid-pictures, although I am sure she has enough material to keep a blog pretty full!

Anyway, today she posted a challenge, To post the sixth picture of the sixth file from your pictures files. I did it and since it wasn't an unflattering picture of myself, I accepted the challenge. (Just keepin' it real, folks! Well, semi real--not so real that I will show the unflattering photos; just real enough to admit it.)

Here's mine! Where's yours? If you accept, leave a comment below with the link to your post so we can come and visit you!!

(My little Ivy at the petting area of the Knoxville zoo a couple of years ago)

I hope you'll play along!!!

Look what's for dinner!

So, I was looking in the "can cupboard" the other day for some miracle of deliciousness to serve to my hungry family for dinner when I came across something that caught my eye. Does it catch yours?
Thanks for the laugh, Hannah. :-) And what good comedic strategy to bury your joke in the back of the cupboard for over a week and not tell me about it! I am so proud. (Sob, Sniff)

A bunch more random photos from the trip

On our way to New York, we imposed upon my brother and his family on the day which also happened to be Hannah's birthday. We walked in to see balloons tied to the chairs and a delicious looking cake on the table. (I should not that this also turned out to be delicious tasting, too!)

The present stack looked better than the bag contents were but Hannah posed next to the carefully balanced pile, just the same. There was a karaoke machine in the big one on the bottom which kept us entertained well into the evening!

Steve's Uncle Richard invited us to stop by his farm on our way out of town to pick grapes. We jumped at the chance and picked quite a few! We're still eating them. Most of the kids have been averaging at least 2 bunches a day and there is still a day left! Mmmmm! Thank you, Dick and Stephanie!!

The kids had fun getting the last of their wiggles out for the day on this spinning teeter-totter like contraption. I don't know what it was, exactly, but it was fun!

Steve's parents home was overrun with pets. Theirs and visiting animals. Four baby kittens were excellent entertainment. This is Misha pretending to like the kittens. He really doesn't know why we all held them or why his brothers and sisters carried them all around. He did notice that holding a kitten and smiling would win him a spot on the camera. :-)

Wendy and Little-Wendy.

Steve helping his soon-to-be new little sister with her homework. Selena loves her Uncle Steve. My family will get a kick out of the fact that he is, hands down, her favorite uncle. As in, she cried for an hour in her bedroom after we left. Ha! Beat that, Aunt Elise. ;-)

Max and one of the four kittens. This one's name is Oreo. Another of Steve's new little sisters told me his name. Trouble is, she doesn't say her "r" sounds. So she said "Owee-owe". It took me a minute...

Ivy and a kitty watch Vitali color. He wants no help from the kitten.

But look at this trick, Mommy!
My next words were, "Ivy! don't do that to the kitten!"

Ivy as a flower girl again.

Pretty Annie

Vitali

All but two of this generation of the family tree.

Steve dancing with Hannah and his youngest sister-to-be, Yasmin.
(pronounced Jasmine, for some reason)

Okay, that's it for now. I think the next photos will be about something else.

Panama Rocks

We decided to go to Panama Rocks instead of Niagara Falls this time with the kids. I think it may have been Mary's suggestion. All I know is Steve asked me which I wanted to do and Panama Rocks sounded great. I was not disappointed in that decision!

Panama Rocks is full of great, big, huge, rocks. And, it is in Panama, NY. Hence, the name. There is a path to follow but there is no risk of being lost forever in the woods if you wander off the trail. Good for us because that is the whole fun of it: Climbing up rocks, seeing if you can fit through crevasses, daring to find out where that light at the end of the tunnel is coming from...

Also, there were a lot of nice woodsy things like moss and ferns and fungi. The only time fungi is nice, by the way. Even hollow trees.

The bummer for me is that my flash ruined the pictures by bouncing off of things unnaturally but when I turned it off, things tended to blur. The odd processing of some of these pictures is my attempt to save an otherwise lousy picture, so bear with me. I really need to figure out that f-stop thing!

We found a couple of sprites in a hollow tree. Aren't they cute?

Moss.

All of us. the third, but finally successful photo.

Leaf.
(In case you're stupid and need a caption)

Another sprite.

Fungi.

Fun Guys.

Climbing.

Happy, Hugging Cousins.

It's amazing how these trees manage to grow on top of the rocks by
stretching their roots around until them they find dirt. It's also fun to climb them.

If you like nature and are in the western NY area, Panama rocks is a great place to go! We had the perfect fall day for it, too. But there will be many more fall days left for you to enjoy!

Wedding

We went up north for Steve's youngest brother's wedding. Ivy was their flower girl. She looked so beautiful. All her siblings told her so. The little ring bearer did too. She was in her glory!

Enjoy the photos!

venting but smiling.

(Vitali, looking all sweet and innocent.)

I woke up weary this morning. No one to blame but myself for staying up too late. (I got a new book at the library.) I am promising myself a quick nap this afternoon...we'll see.

Vitali has been trying my patience lately. I think he has five-minute-willpower. And that is a generous estimate. For instance,

Me, the other day: "Vitali! Don't bang on the walls with your hammers. That is the third time this morning I have had to tell you." It was 9:30am. "You may not play with your hammers any more today."

Time passes. approximately four minutes. Vitali and Ivy are arguing.

Vitali: "I had it first!!!"

Me: "What?"

Vitali: "I had it my malleto!"

Yes, you guessed it. 'Malleto' means 'Hammer'.

Arrrrgggghhhh!


He was cute last night, though. I was singing with my little malinkees (small ones) in their bed. Vitali loves to sing along. His rendition of this one, complete with arm motions, is so .... so .... so "Vitali":

"Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
little ones to Him belong; they are weak but he is MUSCLES!"

Off to get ready for school today...
Melissa

Ps. Oops! I meant to post this on the adoption blog. I just put it over there, too. But with a different picture. for variety, you know.

John Piper: Abortion Is About God

I saw this on another blog this morning and watched the entire 8 minutes and 26 seconds even though I had intended to only get the jist of what he had to say.

What he has to say is not new to me but so close to my heart that I thought I'd share this.