It's His Badge of Honor

Thank you so much for praying for us! God just blessed with answered prayers today- and quickly! Mr. YH decided to not get up in the middle of the night and called Europe about the referral we were told we needed at 6 a.m. Turns out, we did not need one!! Then a gal at the local orthopaedic office that he spoke to last Friday called me this morning and said she could work us in at 11 a.m. if we could be there- um, YES!!! I made PB & J sandwiches and threw in a few other lunch items because I knew the kids would be hungry and there was no telling how long we'd wait. We headed up to Dayton Children's Hospital and filled out a book of paperwork before being called back. After the splint was taken off, the P.A. looked at him and when he winced in pain when asked to rotate his forearm, she concluded that it was more than likely a fractured growth plate above the elbow and that he'd get a cast. He was quite excited to choose a color and I decide that it was worth $35 out of pocket for a waterproof one. So, we left by noon with a light blue cast and promises of milkshakes! He'll get it off in 3 weeks- another promising cultural experience in Kyiv!

This Was Not On Our Bucket List

Mr. YH did something to his laptop and it's not reading that the camera is hooked up to it so I can download pictures. Right here, just use your imagination to {insert} a photo of The Boy with a splint on his right arm wrapped up from hand to above the elbow.

We left my parents' in Wisconsin on Thursday morning, and we stopped in Madison to have lunch with my jr. and sr. high school friend, Jen, and her 3 kids. The kids were playing on the McDonaldland playground, we were visiting, and then The Boy came up to me crying that his arm hurt.

Back on the 4th, The Boy experienced a dislocated (Nursemaid's) elbow. We took him to the clinic the next morning at the embassy, Dr. Kyril called his friend at the state hospital, they met this pediatric orthopedic surgeon in the hall, he manipulated it back in place with absolutely no tears or flinching from the child, and we slipped him 200 UAH and were good as new.

So, symptoms were similar and I decided that we needed to go ahead and visit the ER. We spent 4 hours there. The dr. tried to manipulate the elbow (it was not the same one), my son cried his eyes out, we had x-rays done that showed no broken bones, and then they splinted him and said to see an orthopaedic in a few days if he didn't feel better as it could be a growth plate broken that wouldn't show up on an x-ray.

Enter our insurance... since we are out of area, we need a referral put in from the embassy in Kyiv, the European office to ok it and send it on this way so we can see a dr. to have him decide if he wants to cast it or not. We tried to get around it by going to the local children's hospital ER yesterday morning, hoping the right dr. would be working and we'd get some more answers and everything taken care of. We have some more answers, but it's still in a splint and we need to see an orthopaedic dr.

Mr. YH will be waking up at 1 a.m. to call Kyiv to request the referral- please pray they know how to do this for us as we're military and they're State. Dept. Please pray that the request zips through and we can wake up in the morning and schedule an appt. ASAP.

Other than that, we're having a great visit! Oh- one last thing- my friend Jen whom I met for lunch needs some prayer: her mom died Friday morning and the funeral will be this week.

Thanks, friends!

Poppin' In

I'm very pleased to report that I had my triangle hair fixed today. All of the stylists in the salon came to see the cut I had done in Ukraine and simply marvelled at the bizarreness of it all! I told Deb to just do what she had to so it'd grow out well until I could either come to terms with the outrageous price I'll have to pay at an upscale salon in Kyiv or until I can somehow get to Western Europe for a decent cut!

We're making great headway on our "Things To Do in America" list. You ought to see the awesome picture I got of my mom during the water gun fight this afternoon- and like any good daughter would do, I refused to delete it when she saw it (good thing it's on my camera)! ha! Once my brother and his family leave, I hope to throw a few photos up.

Good Intentions

I thought I might post a picture of our "To Do in America" list that the kids and I made that includes things like swimming in the lake, running through the sprinkler, and going bowling.

And then I thought that I could take a picture of the {one} suitcase I packed for the kids and I for the month- neatly arranged with our packing cubes. We do have another small suitcase with Christmas and birthday gifts, two car seat bags (that have some extra shoes and jackets), and our carry-ons. Mr. YH is on his own.

Or, I contemplated getting really serious and sharing some things the Lord has taught me recently. Perhaps I'll still do that some time.

BUT, folks, it's 8:41 p.m. here in Kyiv and I have a few pieces of laundry to take care of, some supper dishes to wash, a few other odds and ends, and then I'm off to bed {if I can sleep!} because our wake up time is o'dark thirty!!!!!!!!!! We leave for the airport at 3 a.m. and our flight leaves at 5:30 a.m. We touch down in Dayton, OH around 6:30 tomorrow night- not quite 24 hours of travel. We're all quite excited to start in on our list! So, I will probably be MIA for a while as I soak up as much Americana as I can this month!

Target, here I come!!!!!!!!

Summer Day

My friends who have received pictures from me for years know that inside the Yellow Hat, we make up holidays when the need arises: Red Day, Pink Day, Cold Day, Spring Day, Pumpkin Day, etc. Some are now annual traditions and we missed two of them due to the move this year, so it was time to have some sort of holiday to break up the every-day-ness. This was held on the first official day of summer in June.

Quite honestly, I was a little tired and did not put forth as much effort as I could have. But the kids loved it and had fun which is all that really matters!

Dressed for the day.

We always have theme-shaped pancakes on our holidays.
These are starfish because of the beach connection- get it?!
The round pancakes were suns, bubbles and beach balls.
{That round shape is so versatile!}

We do not do Easter baskets. But we have Spring Day and the kids get to find a basket laden with goodies then. They follow little bunny tracks to their basket. So this is a little spin-off on that since they didn't get a Spring Day this year.

Our friends, Jen and Justin, had sent a box some time ago and I set the toys for the kids aside to add to the loot I was putting inside the pails. Big Girl got these fun balloons, The Boy got a helicopter toy, and Baby Girl got bubbles.

I printed off ABC dot-to-dots and mazes that were summer related as well as some other coloring pages and made a little booklet for each of the kids. They decorated the covers with pictures and stickers.

We typically have food that goes with our theme, but it's a bit hard to come by here in Ukraine! So it was picnic type foods on our fish plates. We did have "ants on a log!"

Before lunch, we walked down to the grocery store and I let them pick out their own ice cream treat. Obviously, summer is no fun without ice cream!

The End of 2nd Grade Celebration

This past Friday, we finally finished Big Girls' second grade course work! We're so proud of her! We began last August, and she worked her little tail off with few breaks so we could finish a semester before our impending December move. And then when orders were changed from Germany to Ukraine, she rolled with it and patiently awaited until another 9 weeks worth of materials arrived in the mail at the end of February. Add another unexpected break in there at the beginning of May due to the delay of our HHG delivery that contained the remaining 9 weeks. Needless to say, both student and teacher (yours truly) were thrilled to bring closure to it all!

Her favorites this year included the books we used in language arts about horses (Misty of Chincoteague, White Stallion of Lippiza, Mustang, Wild Spirit of the West), a history/geography book about missionary Gladys Alyward, and Robin Hood. When I asked her about math, she replied that she liked "the easy stuff." She does just fine with math, she just has that verbal bent! She also really enjoyed the science experiments we did this year- her final project involved circuits and she and her daddy built a little lighthouse. Big Girl has been thrilled beyond measure to finally learn cursive, too!

Last year we began a tradition of doing something special to celebrate the end of the school year. I called a couple of friends to see if they'd like to join us for a night at the ballet. Marci and her daughter Emily (also military) and Ingrid and one of her girls, Sabrina (missionaries), came along for a fun evening at the National Opera House to see Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty.

This was Big Girl's first time at the ballet and she thoroughly enjoyed it! She may even switch activities this fall and begin ballet; we're praying about it.

{I was trying to bend down for a head and shoulders shot,
but Mr. YH did no further coaching- it's why I look a bit Pisa-esque.}

We had box seats on the first balcony towards the center
so the girls could see and so that I could observe the pit
( tidbit: I studied with one of the trumpet players last time).
For the two of us, tickets cost $47.
You can get seats for $12- they're at the back of the box.

Curtain Call

How about you? Do you enjoy the ballet?
Do you have to go with the girls or will your husband go, too?!

Welcome to My Bathroom

Seriously, did I just write that?!

Back to the home tour. I took some photos of the master bath the other night when I gave Baby Girl a bath and got pictures for my kids' activity post. Multi-tasking is my middle name. The photos pan around the room from left to right.

In the event that you missed this post, that little white thing is the bidet (still affectionately called the bu** washer by The Boy). It has actually come in handy for little people to wash their hands as it is not used for anything else.

That door leads to our very own sauna. Mr. YH has used it once but the air was so dry here in the winter in general that he has not used it since. It currently acts as our pantry because the kitchen balcony is not climate controlled and we didn't want our American food to get ruined.

Saunas are actually quite common in Ukraine and usually it's a single gender activity which will involve alcohol. They even have sticks that they beat your back with as you come out to make your blood flow better. However, since this is located in our master bath which is in our master bedroom, it's not like we're going to ask our friends to come into our bathroom to enjoy the sauna- know what I mean? That'd just be WEIRD.

The jacuzzi tub- which does not run because the "safety officer" of the embassy said it's not safe. I'm skeptical, but as it involves electricity and water, we're not going to press the issue.

There is a tall white cabinet to the left. You will notice that a door is missing. {Upon seeing this piece for the first time, I told Mr. YH that I didn't like it because it was dangerous and would tip easily. Guess who was right? And the second one in the kids' bathroom was promptly moved out.} That ugly box is our transformer so we can run American appliances through it. Those plastic drawers have been with us 10 years and in every bathroom we've had (6, but who's counting?). While not glamorous, they have been quite useful.


And one last little thing- there is a small white square to the right of that hand towel up there. It's the control for the floor warmers. VERY nice feature in sub-zero winter temperatures. The warmest spot is in front of the toilet! ha!

Failure for the Fourth

I already posted once today.

And it's past my bedtime.

But Mr. YH is in bed and I need someone to commiserate with me.

Or laugh.

How about a moment of silence first?

Does that look like chocolate fudge yummy-ness?

How about now?

Yes, these are my token of undying love and affection
for my very own airman.

You might know them as cupcakes.

Except we'll use that term loosely tonight, shall we?

Another angle.

It's really quite distressing. My muffins turn out. My brownies turn out. The pound cake I made turned out. But every.single.time. I make gluten-free cupcakes here in this tiny box they call an oven, this is the result.

It's so depressing when you just want to meet a man where is heart is.

Is it the large granules of beet sugar
I must buy here throwing the recipe askew?

Perhaps I really don't understand the settings
on this foreign oven that came with zero directions?

Or maybe it's my 5 speed mixer with turbo speed
that I bought for $10 at the rynok
that only has one speed and
makes a slow whirring sound as I mix batter?

Oh well.

{sigh}

Have a Happy 4th!!

My 4 Yr. Old Reads The Economist

P.S. We don't drink Pepsi.

Recipe for Fun

Ingredients:
Bath tub- size does not matter

Excited child
and
Paint brush
(for smaller children, the sponge brushes also work well)

Paint with water sheet,
Tape,
and, of course,
water!!

1. Fill tub with water.

2. Tape painting sheet to tub wall.

3. Deposit child in tub.

4. Hand child paint brush and have fun!

I'm linking this with Kelly's SUYL kids' activities {better late than never!}.