God has a sense of humor...

...and so do we! If we had any doubt that God guided us to hosting Nastya, the silly pictures in this post should prove it. She's as wild and crazy as we are! 

Photo bomb!

Not even sure what to say about this one...

Many of you have commented on how much she lookes like Samantha. Ironically, she is also very much like Samantha in personality as well. Sam has always hated going to sleep and this kid is no exception. We've made a joke about Nastya saying in a sing-song voice "no sleep". Picture this said with a cute Ukrainian accent, and you'll know what we hear almost every night. 





This kid loves her "booble bat", which is good because she also likes to play with ink pads!

She is pretty particular about what she eats but she can devour a plate of chicken wings and leave very little but the bones behind, she's a huge fan of pizza and anything from the potato group (especially chips..."cheeps"), and she loves chocolate (my kind of gal). She's told us she doesn't like spicy foods so our diet has been pretty bland, but I've been impressed with her willingness to at least try any new things we offer (usually with a little bit of proding however).

 
















You already know that she loves skating and anything that involves being active, but she is also very focused when it comes to playing board games. We have introduced her to Memory, Zingo, the Busytown Game, and a few others. She may actually be the luckiest person I've ever met because she wins nearly all the time (which is good because I'm finding that she's not a great loser!)


Auntie Mer made us matching braids!

Wild hairdo time for Mami (payback for my poor braiding skills?)

She says she has studied English for 5 years so even though we don't get a lot of sentences spoken, I'm fairly confident that she understands us a lot of the time. I am really impressed with her because she often takes the initiative to practice while she is here.

She enjoys playing our kids' MobiGo game system that has alphabet games on it. She has been willing to watch some of the Netflix selections that teach basic English (Leapfrog stuff...geared toward toddlers and such). And she has instigated games like "my name is____" with us where we point at something and say what it is in English. I keep telling her that I'm proud of her and love watching her face light up when I tell her how smart she is for practicing.

She has shared with me that she does go to church (or rather church comes to her) back at the boarding school in the Ukraine. I had not purchased a Bible for her yet...just a storybook version...so I was happy to hear her say that she would like one and have ordered that for her to take back home.

After this past week's church service I asked her what she thought about our church. She said it was very different (we happened to have a more contemporary musical presentation this week to add icing to the cake). She is familiar with an orthodox service so I'm sure it was quite different than what she's used to. So far she has sat through services, but I could tell she was bored.

Next week I plan to take her to Samantha's Sunday school class so she can see what that's all about. They usually have a basic lesson and a craft and I think she will enjoy that a bit more than sitting through a service in a language she doesn't understand.


Just put on a silly face

It's hard to believe it, but we are already past the two week mark of her visit. Time is flying by! We have a few more big outings planned while she is here, but I am also looking forward to the week I have with her after Sam and Trevor are back in school.

I feel like we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg with her and I'm hoping that the kids being in school will slow the pace down and provide the opportunity for me to have some more meaningful interaction and some quality time chatting on Google Translate with her. We shall see!



Just one of the (crazy) family