Settling in and finding our new normal! :)

Hard to believe we have been home 3 weeks now!!

We have been settling in, figuring out likes and dislikes and learning the family rules.

It has been an amazing process and we are ALL learning :)

everyone likes ice cream!

blue lollipop!

 the first couple of days home were very hard for Reilly. Everything was so foreign. Everything smelled and tasted funny, she couldn't understand anything being said anywhere. She was grieving the loss of her friends, routine and language. She barely ate anything the first couple of days home. She withdrew into herself and barely talked to any of us. It was so very hard on all of us. The kids did not understand what was going on. But we can say we survived!!

first time she met her aunts, uncle, grandparents and cousins!
a bit overwhelming for her, she stuck pretty close to me :)

Danny turned 13 right after we got home.

we celebrated Adam's birthday along with danny's :)

Reilly loves to do hair :)

her very first happy meal, she LOVED it :)
We have had no more food issues, she pretty much eats everything!

a good Ukrainian cleaning up the trampoline.
when she first got home she did not like to go in at all.
I asked her to sweep it up for the girls and she went right in, cleaned up and then started bouncing :)

now she happily goes in with the kids and bounces and bounces!
just don't tell her it is exercise!! :)

she took this picture of me :)
she was pretty afraid of the pool at first, kept saying it was cold.
She didn't realize that the deep end is as deep as it is (9') and went right under the first day.
I had to rescue her, but she went right back in and stayed in the shallow end :)

beautiful girls
crazy boy!

getting more adventurous! floating along happily :)

we spent an entire morning cutting and chopping food
she loves to help cook

getting ready for borscht!

we also made olivye (Ukrainian potato salad)
It was delicious!!

took a break to float in the pool again

our borscht was SO yummy!!
everyone in the house ate several bowls of it!!

we showed her how we chop, split and stack wood :)
she stepped right up, never complained and kept going till we were all done!

we had our first girls day, had manicures done!

bought some pool noodles to help her float :)

she is such an amazingly sweet spirit
she is 14 on the outside, but younger on the inside
it is so cool to share so many firsts with her
she loves to giggle and giggle all the time

everyone has skates and she was happy to show Victoria how to do it!
skating was the one thing she said she did in Ukraine and wanted to do in the US too

we have seen wildlife! lots of bunnies, chipmunks, squirrels and even some mating turkeys!! right in our front yard!

we went to movie night at Wegman's and we ate, watched the movie and colored

she was very proud of her picture

sweet sweet girls!

gerri and danny were in the bathroom :)

they all fight over who gets to sit next to her :)

we made varenkyi too!!

danny wanted to help :)

stuffing them with a pork mixture

they were SO good! we ate them ALL!

Happy Fathers day :)

Grampy with his grandkids :)

she created a new outfit for SuperLu out of paper and a glue stick :)

first play date with a friend of the girls, she was right in there with them!

first shopping trip to Justice! :) three changing rooms for three girls!