Last Full Day with Vanya! :-(

Today (Thursday) was the last full day with Vanya! (Big pouting going on in the Decker household from everyone--including Teagan!) So, I thought I'd sweeten us all up by doing a donut run. As you can see from the pictures, Vanya was a big fan of his donut! Tim's parents came over again to visit, and they helped us eat all those donuts! :-)





















As mentioned a few posts earlier, today Vanya had to decide which toys he wanted to keep here for a future visit and which toys he wanted to take with him back to school. We again reminded him that the toys he wanted to take with him probably would not be his toys for very long. All the children in his school (all 200 of them!) would be sharing them. He made very wise choices: he packed up all the crayons, markers, stickers, and coloring books to take with him. He also took his small, plastic snakes and left the frogs and bug here. (We're trying to figure out if he doesn't like snakes, or if he's going to scare some other kids with them!) He was sad to leave his cars (well, really Tim's niece's cars!) and the soldiers here. But, I believe he understood that he'd see them again when he returns. He was very solemn when he made his choices, and we had to laugh when he would split a pile of something in two, so that half could stay here and half could go with him!

After we divided up the toys, we used the translation website to ask him how many good friends he had. It took several attempts, but once I explained why I wanted to know, he told us he has three very good friends. We were told that we should take him to the Dollar Store so that he could pick out some gifts for his friends. This was a big deal because we had not yet taken him into ANY store. (We read that even a grocery store is too overwhelming for them-- they probably have only been in a small corner grocery store!) So, to the Dollar Store we drove (without getting sick, thank you very much!) While his eyes grew wide when he saw the selection, he again made some great choices. He decided on a play "cell phone" for one friend and some action figures for the other two. The cell phone must have been for his very bestest good friend because we let Vanya pick a toy for himself, and he chose a cell phone too.













It was back to my school's playground after the store. This time Tim was with us, so we all had a terrific time playing on all the equipment. We even got Vanya to smile when we took a family "self" portrait.

























Dinner was a huge success tonight: Sloppy Joes, sauteed zucchini, corn on the cob, and roasted tomatoes. We really should be writing all this down somewhere, but I guess we'll figure it all out again when Vanya returns. For our last evening together, we played around outside for awhile and then came in for a family movie night.











Tonight's video was my personal favorite, "Monsters, Inc." We all snuggled on the couch and even Teagan joined us occasionally. The ending credits were barely beginning when Vanya shouted that it was shower time! He finally decided to save us some money on our hot water bill by taking a much shorter shower tonight. After the shower it was time for our bedtime ritual. Vanya finds a book, Mama settles him in his covers, Mama sits on the bed with him to read the book, Papa sits on the other side, and Teagan usually joins us. Tonight Papa grabbed the camera to shoot some pictures. When the book is over, there is much kissing, and "we love you's." It seems so weird that tonight was the last night for a long time that we could tuck him into bed. We gave him lots of extra kisses tonight in hopes that they would last until we see him again.