Category

bucuresti

the goodbyes are the painful part

By addysengrace, bucuresti, christian, family, mercyadoniyah, romania

as our departure gets closer, the reality is setting in. we have been trying to simply enjoy each moment. here are few of my favourite photos. <3 bulgarian day trip fun!

our last community group, including gluten free chocolate cake and a beautiful wooden puzzle of romania with the names of everyone in our group. <3 park fun with good friends.

special dolls and special skirts.

our last sunday. <3

goodbye autumn, hello christmas

By addysengrace, bucuresti, crafts, family, holidays, mercyadoniyah, romania

EB73852D-C37C-4243-A80F-A1284F651DD3

3147DF3A-1B8C-4C65-871A-1DE701DBBCCC

77278DF8-4E1A-47D6-A895-06D9C9332970when you want pumpkin purée but they don’t sell it, you buy a gingantic pumpkin, bake it, blend it and freeze it!

73626247-11B7-4982-B7D4-9E237DB831D1

80227F76-0715-4568-A997-85C809471FF1pumpkin cookies…pumpkin cake…the possibilities are endless!

E9F56F40-A341-419C-9F06-F6B8ECC0F5D7

52F4C7D0-1B7D-4EB8-A360-6184DBA7B91Dmaking bone broth or turkey soup tends to turn into a science experiment. we like to break open all the bones, rebuild the spinal cord, you get the picture.

B2C239AA-C156-460D-ADF9-9E130608EC2D

57AED227-C4CE-43E5-9B1C-0E606EEB5060

AD900DAC-3982-4169-902E-DDB60DC27E79the last of the pumpkin activities. 🙂

0CE1B12B-A5B8-4FC1-9609-D63FE8BFE6BA

234872C9-6310-43DD-B515-86D44C623128random successful “tofu” made from chickpea flour and our awesome veggie turkey!

BB4B7AD4-7D87-45F2-89F1-CE7643A7D3A2

D3AB8158-20C7-4680-9C23-A6F4AAEC274C

AEDB77A5-ABC5-44A6-B9DF-10861D2A5046

AAB5CE57-A51D-4E42-BE67-7C2C3B1D7880

48A7CF76-20BC-492D-AA73-92B772D8DFC6coffee filter turkeys from here.

4E4957F3-BACF-4EB0-8781-255125BB6044

74C21DE3-F6F7-4768-A60F-C85610104B30

918080B4-F269-483B-A371-617D11E583D4

E52118F1-5DAC-44AA-BD3A-AFDE38DC2D53you can find tutorials all over the internet but the idea is simple…dribble or drip paint on pieces of paper and scrap it off using a credit card or something similar. after ours dried, we cut out christmas trees, glued them on greeting cards and decorated them with anything and everything.

9FB32AE2-8F53-499D-B0A4-D05573CE1555

12050042-C6EC-45AC-9D07-05394CF0569F

F5EAD43E-A28A-49BF-ABB3-9B4FC65BC8CA

B64014D1-1826-4F96-B5F4-0AD5C6843F81there is never a reason to not paint paper in my opinion. 😀 seriously though, the craft possibilities are endless. we cut our paper into strips and have numerous crafts planned.

1723DA42-6E20-4BF4-AD9A-7E1F2AFDD045

EC8662D1-DFAE-4F94-ADC2-D616ECA14D8C

C5BA9A38-C59D-4852-B396-569DDABAD9A1

B33F7EFC-4474-48EF-9DA8-FAA4F88B0398

CEB25FF4-780A-46CF-B20C-893EA41AA654one of our crafts using painted paper strips, pretty simple yet fun (inspiration found here).

29A4DA09-2FEE-4063-860C-008D3659CB74we actually bought a legit piece of clay, softened it, shaped it into ornaments, let them dry, pained them, sealed them and made them into gifts. it was a fairly lengthy process that i would put away occasionally. both addy and mercy were happy with how they turned out!

autumn projects

By addysengrace, bucuresti, crafts, family, holidays, mercyadoniyah, romania

as much as i do enjoy autumn crafts, including halloween and thanksgiving…i have to confess that really my goal is to start christmas crafts. :-p but because we need to experience all things, we did a couple autumn crafts and might do a few more. 😀

IMG_0521

IMG_0527

lego challenges are the best…they are suitable for any age because you can make them easy or hard or in between. you can give your kid a step by step picture (just search on pinterest for lego challenges) or a picture of the finished product or you can simply describe something. for this one, i saw a “mosaic fall tree” floating around, so i showed it to them one time (extra challenge!) and told them to work as a team. this can actually make the project even harder because at 6 and almost 9, they have very different opinions, ha!

BF8F847B-3982-49D5-94DB-A15D02245F5C

IMG_0370

IMG_0371

IMG_0511

this is a great one for the million leaves your children might be collecting or a great reason to go on a treasure hunt and collect leaves. you could twist this project a million different ways. i told them to make “something that resembled a person plus a scenery and tell me a story about it afterward.” both kids enjoyed this one. one of these days i am going to start recording their elaborate stories because they are getting good at creative writing!

C5942241-8D67-4613-8A8B-A0EF3E7C7976

B907F648-DC8C-496E-A783-E7A2D84C6909

79E04035-8F55-4479-AB22-77F616431511

A23ED307-F47C-4DDD-8270-9098C94EEDCB

2095F1BF-ABDB-4DC0-98BE-A0C6E2C84B86

0A1018DB-DB62-4883-A17C-3B004440EA00

2BF0DCB5-2263-436E-A3A7-D95EC4A16DE9

F4FAE797-47CE-4482-9EB2-E3DA641B003E

01990DF1-28E6-4E84-BCF6-93BFB868A5DF

7A04D661-F641-4F8E-8B94-1214C01C8A86

we truly had an everything fun filled party on the 31st. halloween is not quite the same holiday here but we enjoy celebrating the non scary version as mercy does *not* do scary. plus my kids love nature so halloween-ish + nature-y themed foods only make sense. we used apple slices (tossed in lemon juice), nut butter, strawberries, raw pumpkin seeds, raw sunflower seeds and gogi berries to make monster faces. we used hard boiled eggs (notice ours are small cause they are quail) and sliced black olives to make eyeballs. bananas, coconut powder and skewers made ghosts. we used an eggplant and skewers and grapes to make a huge spider plus plums, toothpicks and raisins to make little spiders. mandarins with celery greens became pumpkins and i can’t remember what else. we also decorated pumpkins but went with painting, glueing and glittering them (pumpkins here aren’t for carving but are very thick walled..think hours of cutting!).

6D0CE064-9EFD-49D7-B1B3-9C144AEE7DD6

E60A482C-82F9-4896-AEA9-D1AE1CF4512E

C56F0A1B-0378-4A2A-87C6-396EFE96BCF9

A61138AB-9D3D-4B0B-A3C8-B045AF17B6D6

another simple but longer process project…leaves using contact paper. just cut a square and tape it sticky side up and cover it with tissue paper (red, orange, yellow, green) in any way you like then place another piece of contact paper sticky side down to seal it all together. after that trace and cut different fall leaves and tape them to your windows! my 6 year old is magical with scissors so she did most of the cutting. (random fact. when she was little, we noticed giving her scissors and something to cut calmed her and stopped a tantrum!)

no joke. this is currently happening:
E7C5237D-2BB0-4B2A-AB53-12A05F5BC12B

where did we go?

By addysengrace, bucuresti, family, mercyadoniyah, ministry, noelantruth, romania, school

IMG_1705

Eesh. Wherever did I go? This might be one of the longer(est) breaks I accidentally took from blogging. So I decided to review the past (gulp!) six+ months and tell you what we did and what I’ve learned.

IMG_1704

2017 brought a grand life lesson: under no circumstances should you move right in the middle of the school year. But if you do, you should not commute your kids to their old school.

IMG_1710

Unfortunately I would do it all over again. (Aha! I must have been one of THOSE kids!) We moved in March…let me tell you, it was fast. In mid-February we talked a little about the idea of moving, still leaning towards the idea of moving over the summer. We were also attempting to find a better school. We were pursuing something called a “viza de flotant” which is basically when you know someone in the zone you want to be and they loan you their address. Come to find out it is harder than it looks. We connected with one of the directors of a great school right in the center, hoping she could help us understand this confusion. We didn’t know anyone living this this area and for some random reason we looked online at the apartments in this area and we found ours. Our apartment is really a gift. It is in the centre, five minutes from a metro hub AND an affordable price. Our owner lives in Israel and wanted to get our apartment rented fast. Which is how we went from “talking” about moving during the summer to having the keys to our new place on March 1st.

IMG_1709

But this enabled us to register Mercy in one of the better schools during Class 0 registration (2 weeks during March). The good schools are hard to get into, and ours is either the second or third best school in our sector. Enrolling Mercy during registration allowed up is transfer Addy as a sibling at the end of summer. The hard part is that we finished the school year at their old schools (Mercy needed to finish kindergarten anyway, so Addy finished also). Our spring pretty much went like this – wake up, rush around, leave at 7:00a, drop kids off by 7:50/8:30, go to language class, pick kids up by 12/12:30, get home by 2p, eat lunch, get homework done, prepare for the next day, make and eat dinner, bedtime, repeat, repeat, repeat. I don’t know which one of us was rejoicing the most when school ended on 16 June.

IMG_1708

I also learned that stress can wreck havoc on your body. We are holistic beings, there is no doubt. Me physically is connected to me emotionally and me spiritually. And a year and a half ago, my son was taken away from me and it crushed me. Last summer was a dark and long road often filled with doubt and feeling utterly exhausted. I kept wondering when I would be able to shake all this grief.

IMG_1707

But my body was very bruised and worn out and I didn’t realise it. I just thought I was dragging. I got a cold in December and I never really stopped being sick from December to March. I had a foggy headache every day, sometimes all day long. My body had weird aches and pains. Long story short, I finally had blood work done and was diagnosed with Adrenal Fatigue. I realise now that the past two years, losing Eisley and then losing Noelan were so much harder on me physically and spiritually and emotionally than I could even comprehend.

IMG_1706

I should mention that Adrenal Fatigue has been really humbling for me. Somewhere along the way, I guess I put my identity in my abilities. The ability to go to bed at 11p and wake up without an alarm, ready to go at 5am. The ability to go and go and go and never stop. I don’t wait well and I don’t rest well. Well, I didn’t — because let me tell you, I have been learning! I am not 100% better but I am getting better and I am feeling better. And I am learning what it means to rest and what it means to say no when I can’t do something.

IMG_1702

I also learned that we can love and laugh and be a family again. Not surprising, I don’t remember last summer. As in truly there are blank parts. I know we took our yearly road trip and I know we were in crisis mode most of the time. I know Mercy spent 11 days in the hospital and then 6 weeks quarantined. That right there sums up my memories. I look at pictures of last summer and I am stunned. Our faces hurt. You can see loss in our eyes. You can see doubt and pain and confusion. This summer was opposite. We drove to Hungary and saw my cousin and her family. We enjoyed ministry camps (actually we enjoyed and survived ministry camps). We took a road trip and it was a blast and it was without crisis. I found myself comparing pictures, shocked. The joy on the girls face this year versus the pain on their faces last year is drastically different. I found myself daily standing back and realising that we were laughing and smiling and enjoying each other once again. I found myself realising that in the midst of crisis I was actually clinging even tighter to Jesus, beating my fists against his chest, asking him, “WHY?!” Yet it keeps going, this story. Because this summer, when the pain began to lift, I found myself left with even bigger areas in my life ready to be filled with joy and peace and happiness. Don’t get me wrong. I miss my son so much. Adoption loss sucks. Yet I also know that I was chosen for a reason to be his mama last year, to hold him and rock him and wipe away his tears, to choose medical procedures that would protect him and to show him true unconditional love. And somewhere along the way, during this summer, still clinging to Jesus, I found myself no longer asking why but instead whispering “thank you” for the opportunity to be Noelan Truth’s mama.

IMG_1701

And that is almost the current version of where we are. 😉 The girls started school at a new school. They mostly like it, hahah. My kids are wandering free souls so sometimes the traditional institution of education drives them batty. They take after their mama and wish all things could be learned through art and mess. Yet things really are going ok. Ministry is going well as we prep for Summit 2017, the largest all things included adoption conference in Romania. Please be praying for Christian and I as we are helping with the entire conference plus we will be sharing about adoption loss. Also, praise! My parents are here! My mom arrived Monday and technically my Dad arrives tomorrow (thanks to a certain little event called the World Series and the Dodgers, ha!). We are so blessed to have them here and already we have taken advantage of being able to be run to meetings or appointments child free! They are staying through December and we are so excited!

IMG_4164

IMG_6348

IMG_6185

IMG_6451

spring breaking it

By addysengrace, bucuresti, christian, family, holidays, mercyadoniyah, romania

freckles –

weird zucchini –

science –


crafts –



date with mama –

that time it snowed whilst on spring break so mama bought organic gluten/soy/corn free chocolate that costs an arm and a leg –

cute new dresses from grandma ducky –

that time we finished unpacking almost two months after moving (does not include putting things on the walls) –


hair cuts –


buns and more buns –


game nights –


lazy mornings –

painting a big and little version of the sun –

come on, it’s obvious (aka strumful cu ochilari = the smurf with glasses) –

the sun came back and the freak winter weather went away –




little girls that buy gifts for their big sisters –

so much lego construction going on –


and lots of dress up too –




exhaustion –

easter faire

By addysengrace, bucuresti, family, holidays, mercyadoniyah, romania

nothing as great as free fun within walking distance! the easter faire is right next to us so we walked down and enjoyed a craft, seeing the bunnies, a train ride and a carousel. we ended with the girls deciding to use some of their own savings for “shopping!” all mercy wanted was a “iepuras rosu!!” {red bunny} while addy picked blue and silver earrings. 🐰