New Pictures

Hey Everyone! Sorry its been so long. Here are some new pictures of New Years, Brison singing in church choir, and Falancia and Sivencia's birthdays (March 3 and 4). Everyone is still alive and doing well. We have our good and bad days, but overall it continues to get a little easier every day. Hard to believe the girls have been here over 4 months now. The Creole is pretty much gone, we only really hear it in songs now. They speak English to each other, but hard to understand Jiovenda and Sivencia at times. Falancia is doing really well with her reading and spelling. Looks like she will have no problem going to 2nd grade next year. Jiovenda will be in Kindergarden again next year, but that is okay because she has a November birthday. She needs the extra year to catch up on her vocabulary. Sivencia is doing well in 3-school and will go to preschool 4 mornings a week next year. She is doing much better with staying on task in class. The boys continue to do well academically and otherwise. Adjustments have been hard at times, but overall they have done great with gaining 3 sisters.

Again thank you for your thoughts and prayers!

Love,

Allison

Pictures from the holidays!

Walker in our street (we got around 3 ft of snow).

Ice Rink

Falancia and Brison

Family watching TV

Girls braiding Aunt Ginger's hair

Girls in the snow

Nanny, Great Poppop, mom and kids

Walker turning 5!!!!







Christmas!

All of us on Christmas Eve (we are blocking the milk and cookies).

Kids opening their one gift on Christmas Eve (skates).

The family breaking bread together.

Happy New Year!

Okay so I'm a little late, but that is how things go now a days. The girls have been home for 2 months now and we were so blessed to be able to celebrate Jesus' birthday with them and to bring in the New Year! The holidays were insanely busy and I am personally glad they are over. I am happy the kids are back to school this week and we can get back to our boring routine life. All of the kids had a great Christmas and got a lot of presents from Santa, including a new Wii. This has been in a big hit in our house, in fact the entire family is playing on it right now (except me). My mom, grandfather, brother and wife all came up for Christmas. So we had a very full house, but it all worked out well. The kids (except Sivencia) all stayed up until 12:00 on New Years to watch the ball drop.

Falancia is enjoying the first grade and is working on her reading skills. We worked hard on some phonic and sight words over the break. It is funny, because she is picking up some of our slang. She keeps saying "Oh man", when she is playing on the Wii.


Jiovenda is coming out of her shell and seems to have a smile on her face a lot (except when being disciplined). She loves to give hugs and sit on her daddy's lap. Her English is improving and she is growing more confident with it daily (even if we don't always understand her).


Sivencia is also greatly improving her English. Her favorite question is "What is this?", but she always said in Creole. In the past few weeks she now says it in English, along with a few other phrases. We are working on getting her to use her "words", instead of just pointing or asking for things with one word.


Brison loves being the big brother, especially to Sivencia. Him and Falancia are getting along a lot better lately, but still have their spats. He is doing great in 2nd grade and we are very proud of him with his piano playing.


Walker loves having more kids to play with. He treats the girls like his brother though and is constantly tackling them and knocking them down. Walker's new thing is chess. He has learned to play through a "no stress chess" game we have, where you use cards to pick the pieces you are to move. He is very good and it is a little scary to play him. He turned 5 on 12/26.


The latest thing at the Shira household is our skating rink Brian and his brother put in our backyard over Thanksgiving. It finally froze over Christmas break and the kids have had a blast skating on it. They all got skates for Christmas and they have loved being on it. They are all pretty good at it for beginners. Falancia scares me most of all, because she has no fear. She skates all out and just falls down. Emergency room here we come... The neighborhood kids have also enjoyed skating on it and we love having everyone over to skate.


Well that is it, hope you all had a Happy New Year! Hope to write again soon, but you know how that goes. If you have specific questions, please ask, it helps with ideas to write about.
God Bless!


Love,
Allison


PS Tried to upload some pictures, but am having problems with my computer. I will try again later.

Almost Six Weeks

Jiovenda' 5th birthday

Have the girls really been home almost six weeks now? Time flies when you are having fun (sometimes not so much fun). It has been a tough six weeks, but it has honestly gotten easier every single day. The girls have fallen into some wonderful routines and it has helped all of us get use to each other. Having five children forces you to be very organized and on top of your game. But it also forces you to drop things that just don't matter, like a clean house. People that come over can just say, "well she does have 5 kids", love having that excuse!

The first few weeks were the most difficult, but after a lot of teaching and love the girls are really beginning to understand how we do things around here. We still have many struggles and constant reminders, but we still have that with the boys as well. The best thing we did was to put them into school right away. They all love school and enjoy going. Falancia and Jiovenda have a lot of catching up to do academically, but we are working on it. Falancia and Sivencia are still learning how to act and behave in a classroom. Jiovenda, the quiet one, loves school and having friends and has had no behavior issues. She did cry when it wasn't her days to go to school, but she has gotten over that. She will probably repeat Kindergarten next year, but it will be good for her confidence with English.

The boys are doing great with the adjustment and are eager to teach. Brison and Falancia butt heads at times, some control issues there. Brison loves playing with Sivencia and babies her to death. Walker is a little jealous over this and sometimes wants his big brother all to himself. Overall, they love having siblings and more people to play with. We have a lot of normal sibling clashes (maybe as many as me and my brothers growing up).

Christmas is coming and life is very hectic, I basically live in my car. We are running all over the place shopping and running lots of errands. The girls have all been to the doctor and dentist. They had a few immunization shots to be caught up on, as you can imagine they loved that. Lots of good girl screaming.

Poor Falancia went sledding with some neighbor girls and chose not to come home when everyone else did. She got turned around coming home and started running the wrong way up our street. Carrying three sleds (because Jiovenda left hers at the hill) she could be heard screaming a mile away. Thankfully some of our friends up the street heard her and came to her rescue. She didn't seem too traumatized by the whole event, but she might think twice about going sledding again.

They are all eating well. After a lot of trial and error we have discovered some likes and dislikes. But as we do with the boys, if you don't like what we are having, you can wait for the next meal. No one has starved yet! We have even all gone out for pizza, which is a huge hit with everyone! Another popular food is Italian, lasagna, stuffed shells, spaghetti, etc.

I'm trying to think of more thing people have asked me. Oh I know, hair. I am getting much better and am not intimidated anymore. Falancia's hair is so short, so she just wears it with a head band. Jiovenda and Sivencia I have on rotating weekends. It takes me about 4 hours to do there hair, so that is what I do on Sunday afternoons. I have done beads the last two weeks and Jiovenda's is my best job this past week. Christmas color beads. It is much easier now that I discovered the bead threader that one of my friends bought me. Beads are better with Sivencia, because she can't rip them out as easy as clips, so her hair last longer.

Brian and I are doing well and life is getting into a nice "busy" rhythm. Friends have been wonderful with food and helping to watch the kids. We have been out twice and have to hire 2 babysitters at a time to do it (well worth it). The second time was easier on the girls then the first. They are getting to know our babysitter next door better as well, it helps that she brings a jewelry making kit.

Hope to write sooner next time, but the Lord only knows when I will have time. Thank you for all of your love, support and prayers!

Love,
Allison

Pictures

Kids all together watching TV, I think first day home.
Girls at Babtist Mission zoo (if you could call it that, it was very small).

Just a few days ago, Brison and Falancia watching TV and I caught them leaning on one another. Sivencia jumped in when I started taking pictures.

All of us at the Haitian gathering this past weekend. Molly and Joyce flew up from Haiti and surprised all of us!

Everyone gathered to sing a good-bye song to the girls, very awesome moment!

Our room where we all slept (roosters and dogs right outside those windows).

Molly and Joyce, two very awesome people that God has put on this earth to work for Him!

Haiti, view from our place.

First day with the girls, outside where we were staying.Brian with the girls right after we first met them. Me and Jiovenda, just after we first met them.

This is the couch they were sitting on when we first came in the room and saw our girls!

Settling In

Has it really been over a week since we got home! Well it has been a challenging one to say the least. Brian went back to work today and he is probably glad to go. We ran around like crazy last week, with doctor's appointments, getting the girls signed up for school, and a million other little things. Falancia started 1st grade and Jiovenda started Kindergarden on Thursday, Sivencia started preschool on Friday. They love school and needed the routine, plus they love learning. We are still working through many discilpline things at home, but as we have been saying, it gets a little bit easier everyday. We did their hair and it turned out pretty good. Falancia is easy, now that we got the extensions out of her hair. Her hair is short and we just put a headband in her hair. I braided Jiovenda's hair, half one night and the rest the next morning, it takes several hours to do. Falancia did Sivencia's hair, but her rubber bands are breaking and she pulls out her clips. Hopefully it will last till the weekend and then we can redo it. My finger tips still hurt.

The boys are doing very well, just a little sibling rivalry going on at the moment. I promise to have pictures soon, that is my next project. Please be patient, remember I have 5 kids now! Again, thank you for your many prayers!

In Him!
Allison

HOME AT LAST!!!

We are finally home, we rolled in around 12:00 this afternoon. Sorry I was not able to blog or email earlier, but I did not have access to a computer, nor would I have had time. Yesterday morning we left for the Embassy at 7:00am, still not knowing if our visas were printed or not. Our flight left at 12:40, we weren't sure if we should try to back up our flight or delay it until the next day. Very nerve racking! We got to the embassy around 8:30 and met with an awesome woman, who sympathized with us greatly. We literally begged for the girls' visas. She told us to wait and she would get back to us. We sat for about 45 minutes, in a wonderful government issued waiting room. We only had about 15 more minutes before one of us would have to leave and change our flights at the airport. She finally called us up and there she stood with our packets. She started going over all the information and we all started crying. She said the people in the back were nice enough to print them up early. Usually they don't get them out until about 2:00pm. I'm sure she had a lot to do with getting them printed. She was an amazing woman and God sent. I just wanted to dance like David at that moment, we just kept praising God! I can't tell you how stressful that was. Right after that they took us to the airport. We flew out to Miami, bye bye Haiti!!! We got to Miami and then sat in immigration for awhile and just made our connecting flight to Detroit. We got in at around 10:00pm with only one piece of missing luggage, Brian's, oh well... We stayed the night in Detroit and drove home this morning.

It has been a very difficult week and we are trying to decompress and relax. It feels so good to be home with hot water and wonderful roads. Trust me, none of us should ever complain about a MI pothole again. We have no idea what potholes are. Anyone out there that works on our roads, give them a big high five and say thank you! It is great to be able to use the sink water to brush your teeth.

I want to give a big thank you to Molly and Joyce at GLA. You guys are awesome, you were such big helps and so sympathetic to our needs. Thank you for putting your own agendas aside and focusing on us. The two of you amaze us and we are honored to know you. You are truly walking in God's path. Thank you to everyone else at GLA and Bethany that tirelesly helped us and sypathized with us!

Our girls are wonderful and we are so glad they are home. They have lived a very hard life and it is reflected in their attitudes. We hope to be able to melt some of those old habits and ways of thinking. It is going to be a long, difficult road, but with God's help we know it is all possible. We also ask for a lot of patience from many of you as will, especially with those of you that are close (in proximity) to us.

Thank you for all of your love and support, it has definetly been felt. Trust me, it held us up through this past week that has been very difficult. We knew what we were coming home to and that so greatly comforted us. I have never in my life missed MI so much, so much so I think I can handle the snow! Thank you for the signs on the house, they were great to come home too.

I will post some pictures when I get around to it, but other things are beckoning me, oh yeah I have 5 kids now....

Love,
A Michiganer and American and Mother of 5!!!