A little Christmas party

Since we missed Christmas and New Years and Ukrainian Christmas (we arrived in Kiev that afternoon) we invited the students for pizza on last Tuesday evening while we were between company (I had originally thought we'd do it Friday but it was Karina's birthday and she was hosting a party at the girls house. Garry bought her flowers, which she said was the first time someone had given her flowers, a common gift here).

I made pizza and  filled the stockings I had bought at the dollar store for them, mostly with practical things I had bought here- like toothbrushes and paste, small boxes of laundry detergent, shampoo, a little candy, and for the girls bracelets with their initial I had bought at Walmart in Canada and for the boys a match box car (a bigger hit than Garry thought when I showed him) and Canada wallets which they are all using now. They were quite thrilled with their gifts, and one of the boys announced that no one had ever given him such wonderful and practical things.

everyone loves UNO!

The group home families came too (I had given them presents earlier in the week) and after lots of pizza eating ( I discovered this time that Karina who won't eat pizza likes yogurt) there was UNO playing. Then we handed out the stockings and they opened their presents, except for Sasha, who had to work that evening (he did eat lots of pizza before leaving, don't worry).  Maria told him to stop in after finishing at the barn, which he did.

Valera posing with his stocking