Vanja and Uncle Caleb at airbound trampoline park. Waiting to go into the dodge ball area. I had to drive down to Charlotte to get Jenna's parents from the airport so Vanja had to go shopping with the girls this morning. He survived ;)

Vanja didn't like the cow at Chick fl a. But the cow liked him :)

Movies not showing on the blog

Pastor Guldberg,
The videos I sent with Inna's blog did not show on the blog. Please let me know if you are having trouble with uploading them.
Cosette

Inna

Hi everyone,

This is also our first time posting on a blog. Here is three little videos that Inna agreed to post on the blog portraying the wonderful time we're having with her. It has been a tremendous blessing to have her with us this Christmas. The kids love her and she seems to bond well with all of us.

The first video was taken at a youth event and she was competing with Sean my husband. She is very proud of herself because she did outrun Sean at one point.

The second video was taken at our house when we did a surprise birthday party for her. She turned 14 this month. She wants to make sure that I tell you that we woke her up from her afternoon nap to surprise her and that is why she looks groggy :)

The third video was also taken at our house on Christmas morning. The video speaks for itself. It is my favorite!!!

Cosette

FW: Our family made the news!!! Andreii & Diana

 

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From: terricorsner@hotmail.com
To: troycorsner@gmail.com
Subject: Our family made the news!!! Andreii & Diana
Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2012 22:23:17 -0500

 
 
Hi there. I haven't blogged much so I hope you can all see this. In our area of NC we were featured on the local news for doing this program. I was contacted by a reporter I have worked with in the past (and remembered me talking about this) and asked if we could be filmed for the 11 o'clock news. We were all excited to have the crew come to the house and watch us all play and interact. I do have to put out a disclaimer . . .we NEVER mentioned that it was through our church, we DID mention that it was through Homes of Hope. The achor woman assumed that since it was religous it must be through the church . . . sorry about that. . . but here is the link if you want to see it. http://www.digtriad.com/news/article/260518/57/Local-Family-With-Six-Kids-Adds-Two-More-For-Holidays
 

Christmas morning at the Guldberg's. Merry Christmas! A savior has been born for the world.

Meeting of friends half of whom speak Russian and Ukrainian. Vanja was having a hard time with typing his language and they showed him how to fix it :)

Katia/Katherine

I am not sure if I doing this correct! I have never "blogged" but love this idea. Katia, who would like to be called Katherine, is precious! We fell in love with her the minute we met her in the airport, and it has only grown. Our bond is deepening although she is reserved and shy. We took her shopping for some needed items on Thursday and on Friday, we took her to Cheesecake Factory (at the mall, you can imagine how crowded the area was a couple days before Christmas!). My husband has an employee who is from Ukraine who went to lunch with us and so we had a translator. That was amazing and we asked a million questions! Katherine told my girls that we could ask her anything about her life. We are slowly but surely doing that, but do not want to overwhelm her. Her favorite thing to do is to hang with my 3 teenage daughters and also play Just Dance. She is really good at it! Yesterday, the girls helped me wrap lots of presents, and Katherine has her own way to do that, and her wrapping is quite beautiful. She is very artistic! Today we are going to our 9am church service and then up to the Blue Ridge Mountains to my sister's lake house for Christmas Eve Eve lunch. Tomorrow, we will go to a Christmas Eve service at Passion City Church. So far, SO GOOD!

Denis

Hey everyone! Thought I would share some of my experience so far!

Denis is very willing to communicate with us, whether over the phone or trying to speak it. He has told me so much about him and where he lives in Ukraine.

Thursday he slept almost the whole morning away. When I finally got him out of bed, we wrapped Christmas presents and played cards! He also worked out with Stephen before dinner because he told me he liked to "pump muscle!"

After Thursdays dinner we have had a tough time, not because of Denis though. My daughter who is 21 months old got admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. It is coming on Sunday morning and she is still in the hospital. Prayers for her are very appreciated! Because of Kenley being sick, Denis has kind of been shipped around.

Friday he stayed with Mary Beth, a HUGE blessing. He enjoyed seeing her and Anya and having boys to play with. Saturday he hung out with Yuri some at the Vickers house. So blessed they were able to help us!

We are taking everything one day at a time, but hopefully we will be home soon. Denis has been amazing, especially with the craziness. I am ready to bond even more once things are "normal!"

Today (Sunday), Denis will come to church and then back to check on Kenley. I hope everyone else is having a great time!


Aaron Reneau

P.S. he has eaten great!!! Except he does not care for Olive Garden!

They were short players so Vanya got to play! And he scored a goal!

Vanja is taking in an indoor soccer game that my son Luke is playing.

Ukrainian monkey

I'm not sure if we are hosting a boy or a monkey. ;) Today Nazar was following me down the hall, and when I turned around, I saw that he had been walking on his hands the whole way!
He is apprehensive and shy when we try something new, but he has obviously opened up around us. We were blessed with a snow day yesterday and were forced to stay home all day. It made for a great bonding day. So far, things are going very well.

Sent from my U.S. Cellular® Android-powered phone

Welcome

Vanja stopped in for the 8th grade Christmas party at Forsyth Academy. We worked on a little conversational English today. He did well.

Translation Software.  I spoke to some of you at the airport and there are a few paragraphs in the training manual, but how are you talking to your child?

I like LEC.  The translate back helps.  But we just use Google Translate because it's easier and has a bigger box for words.  On the iPad it has a translation check.  The normal one may have that too, I just didn't notice it.  My laptop doesn't have a microphone, but the iPad does.  It's nice to say a phrase or word and have it appear instantly, but it's not always reliable - it'll hang or lag so I found typing on the PC faster.  Vanja can say Russian into the iPad but it only says what he wants ~50% or so.  The iPad (probably the iPhone and iPods too) remembers everything that is typed in so that is how I asked him about the bathroom and drinking and eating.

The Kwikpoint International Travel Translator helps too.  It was a great place to start for breakfast.  Vanja takes this with him voluntarily.

Vanja is 13 and has quite the vocabulary.  If I push him he can read and knows alot of words.  He's not confident.  Overall it's going well.

Meals!  I know it may seem a little odd to detail diets, but this Christmas I think it could help.  Comment on what your child liked and didn't like.

Vanja ate a big breakfast.  Two pieces of toast with alot of butter, an egg sunny-side-up, and a sausage patty.  So far he had a couple sips of OJ, but didn't finish the glass.  I gave him a license to not finish anything or for that matter eat anything.  He's been hitting the water hard.  I've been reminding him often to drink and there is always a bottle a water within arm's reach.

After a trip to the gym and a shower he had melted berries under plain greek yogurt with home-made granola.  I can give the granola recipe if anyone wants it.  The Russian word for granola sounds like "granola".  NICE!

Lunch was a round steak with a mushroom gravy over a whole baked potato.  (My wife hosted our church's ladies Christmas luncheon and we had some left over.)  It seemed like alot, but he ate it all.

He had noodles with ketchup dressing for supper.  I think this might be a go-to always-work meal.  I don't know who said ketchup went on noodles, but it was true. (One of my six year old twins likes this too.)

He just read a book to me! The boy knows a good amount of English! It's work for him. He doesn't want to go to school ;)