Almost One Year...

I can't believe we've been home with Dasha almost a year. I just Fed-Exed our application for our 12 month postplacement report and couldn't believe that this time last year we were waiting to find out when we'd be able to go back to pick Dasha up and bring her home. What a merry Christmas this is going to be!

In the last year, Dasha has grown 4 inches, learned to speak English (sometimes too well!), been to the ocean for the first time, had her first pony ride, her first birthday, her first Christmas tree....wow, it's amazing how all of our lives have changed! I am so blessed to be her mama and be able to watch her grow!

Dasha riding a pony at the Old Time Fair

Our little ladybug on Halloween

Our baby is three years old! She loved her Dora cake!

Dasha loved helping to decorate her first Christmas tree. She hung all her ornaments on one branch!

Apple Picking and other stuff

Sorry it's been 2 months since our last post, chasing a two and a half year old takes up most of my time these days! So here's a quick update for our friends and family still following our blog. I'll try to do better with updating more often. Dasha's birthday and Christmas are just around the corner so we should have lots of pics to share in the coming months.

School is back in full swing and Dasha is loving her new preschool. Since August we have been apple picking and to the Old Time Fair at Chris' work. Dasha got to ride a horse and she loved it! Dasha goes to Tumblebus at her preschool every Tuesday and I may be biased but we may have a budding Nastia Liukin on our hands! The jumping and flipping is great for her energy level, she's quite an active little girl.

I'll post again soon with more pics from Halloween, the horse ride and her school picture.

One Year Ago

It was one year ago today that we received the call that would change our lives in ways we didn't even know yet. Standing in the middle of the teacher store, my cell phone rang and when I answered, our family coordinator said she getting Chris on the line and then that she had good news for us, a referral for a little girl born on December 5, 2005 named Darya and that she was beautiful. We raced home to see her pictures that were emailed to us. I could not get home fast enough! Then, since we have dial-up, we couldn't get the pictures to open fast enough either. So we went to my mom's house to tell her we had pictures of her grandaughter and we needed to use her computer to open them. She was thrilled! I will never forget the first moment that I saw the top of her head, then her eyes, then her little nose, and her perfect cute little mouth as the picture opened. She was ours, we knew immediately that we would be meeting our daughter soon and that she would be with us forever.

We love you Dasha!

My, How My Baby Has Changed

It's hard to believe how much Dasha has changed since we met her last September. Here are a few pictures showing how much she's changed, she hardly looks like the girl we met on our first trip and her personality has changed so much too. She was a sad, angry little girl when we first got her and now she is a giggly, happy little girl. I am so proud of how well she has adapted to her new life, what she's been through would cripple most adults and she has thrived. I love you Dasha and I'm so proud of you!

Trip One- Sept. 2007
Trip Two- Jan.2008

Home 1 month- March 2008

Home 5 months- July 2008
By the way, our first postplacement report arrived and has been apostilled and Fed-Exed back and should be on its way to translation in Russia. We took Dasha with us to get the report apostilled. I think the ladies in the Secretary of the Commonwealth's office enjoyed meeting her!

Six Month Post Placement Visit

I can't believe we have already been home with Dasha almost 6 months. We had our 6 month postplacement visit on July 3rd (we have three more to go--12 months, 24 months, and 36 months). It was surprisingly painless, just a lot of questions about Dasha's adjustment and how we felt she was doing. The social worker looked at Dasha's room, but did not inspect the whole house the way she did for the homestudy. It only took about 45 minutes for the whole visit. Finally, a Russian adoption related event that was actually easy! (Although, maybe I should not say that yet, since we still have to get the report and have it apostilled to send to AWAA!)

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day! I wish you a day enjoying the freedom allowed by our country and the freedom that only comes from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Cherry Cobbler

Last weekend our cherry tree in our backyard fell over, so we had to pick the cherries that day. I picked enough to make a cherry cobbler, which turned out delicious! Dasha loved helping pick the cherries and eating the cobbler. We were getting ready to share a bowl of cobbler a few days ago when a friend of ours came to the door. I went to put the cobbler on the stove so we could answer the door and when I did, Dasha ran after me yelling, "Mama, share! Mama, share!" I think she thought I was going to eat it all by myself. It was so funny! I guess she really is learning what sharing means and she wanted to be sure I was going to share with her!

A Bunch of Firsts

Sorry it's been so long since I posted! Here are a few of Dasha's firsts from the past six weeks:


Here's Dasha feeding the giraffes on her first visit to the zoo.


Dasha attended her god-sister's birthday party. Hmm, whose legs are those in the background? That's right, they're Elmo's!
Here is Dasha with Mama at her first visit to the Children's Museum. We met her friend from the orphanage who now lives in Hawaii (they were in town for a wedding) at the museum and they had a ball playing together.

Dasha took her first trip to the ocean this past weekend. She loved it!!! She has not stopped saying "Dasha swimming ocean!" since we got home.

First Sick Visit to the Doctor

We had our first sick visit to the doctor on Monday afternoon. Dasha has an ear infection, and she was running a really high fever. Poor baby! She seems to be feeling better some, but still not herself. Pray that she'll feel better soon! Thanks!

I hope to post some pics from our first zoo trip soon. I can never seem to find enough time to upload the photos (imagine that!).

Funny Walmart Story

On our last visit to Walmart, we had just run out of Cheerios to snack on so I knew I didn't have much time left. I was hurrying through the produce section trying to pick up our last few items. I put a bag of onions into the cart and for some reason Dasha decided that she had to have them. But I didn't want to give them to her because I was pretty sure they were going to get thrown across the store since that's usually what happens when we are out of Cheerios and patience. So she starts screaming at the top of her lungs "die, die, die," which any good Russian adoptive parent knows is just "gimme, gimme, gimme". Unfortunately, the shoppers at Walmart didn't know that and I found quite a few people staring at us probably thinking that I had a demon-possessed two year old telling me to die! Hmm, maybe throwing onions wouldn't have been so bad!

Home Three Weeks, Settling In

Dasha loves to clean, I have never seen a two year old who loved to clean so much and is actually good at it! Here she is with my Swiffer mop, wearing her favorite purple hat (I had to wait until nap time to take the hat off, she cried everytime I tried to take it off!). Her great-grandma has since made her a tiny Swiffer of her own so we can clean together! This past weekend we took Dasha to the mall for her 1st American haircut. She did so well, sitting still for the stylist to cut her hair! Another cool thing, the stylist is an adoptive parent himself!
Dasha loves her "fluffy" outfit, I think it makes her look like a little Easter "chick".
The teacher in me is proud to say that Dasha loves to read books. Here she is sitting in her book basket before bedtime.
We're settling into a routine now and I can honestly say that I can't imagine not having her here with us. What in the world did we do with all that free time we used to have! It's going to be so hard to go to work and take her to the babysitter! I feel like we are just getting started on all that we need to do together to bond and grow as a family. At least summer is not too far off, two sweet months at home with our baby!

My, How Time Flies!

I can't believe we've been home for two weeks already (only two more weeks til I have to go back to work, awww...I really don't want to go back so soon). Dasha's sleeping a little better now (and therefore so are we), we've put an inflatable mattress in her room and we take turns sleeping in there at night. She still wakes up but not as often and she doesn't scream anymore. I wonder if she's just afraid of being alone at night, she's been sleeping with lots of people in the room for the last two years. I guess it would be really scary to suddenly be all by yourself in the dark in a strange place.

I'm posting a few more pictures now that we've set up our new computer. Am hoping to get some new ones from since we got home downloaded soon, so these are still pictures from while we were in Russia.

Here's one of Dasha and Papa playing on the little ice slide.

This one is of Dasha in the closet in our room at the Renaissance in Moscow. She loved to drag all of her toys and the hotel magazines in there and just sit and play.

Home Sweet Home

We've been home for nine days and it feels so good to be in our own surroundings again! Dasha is very busy learning about her "dom" (home) and she is learning English quicker than I expected. She says no (big surprise, huh?), shoes (her first English word!), puppy, yum, Noel (our cat), more, apple, please, banana, hello, bye-bye, turtle, fish, night-night, potty, here you go, bunny, mama, papa (guess technically those last two are also Russian but I think they count too), cookie, twinkle twinkle little star (she sings this, it's very cute), and I'm sure there are others that I'm just not remembering right now.
She's adjusting pretty well, still having trouble sleeping though, she screams when we leave the room if she is still awake and then also if she wakes up during the night (last night at 10:30, 1:00, and 4:30, ugh...). She gets pretty overstimulated by too many toys or going out for too long. We are trying to get her on a good schedule. We find that she doesn't nap as long as the orphanage said, though two hours seemed a little long anyway. She eats almost anything that we give her, but she doesn't like many veggies, peanut butter, or jello. She loves pancakes, chinese food rice, chicken, mashed potatoes, chicken noodle soup, spaghettios, water and apple juice!
We are working on helping her with frustration at us not understanding what she needs and when we don't give her what she wants. She can be quite aggressive when she gets mad (bites, scratches, kicks, etc.), Chris and I both have some battle scars from the airports (the 3 hours at JFK seemed like 3 days!). The doctor at the orphanage said that they usually just gave Dasha what she wanted because she threw such a fit when she didn't get her way. Boy, are we reaping the consequences of that now. (Oh, just an aside, if you are at the US Embassy in Moscow, there is a playroom downstairs just past the bathrooms. It was very crowded in the waiting room when we were there and we were there for about an hour.)
Overall, we are doing well. Dasha seems happy in her new home, she loves to dance and sing, and she loves baths! I'll try to update the blog as often as I can now that we're home, but needless to say there's not much free time anymore to get on the computer:0) (Oh, yeah, sorry there won't be any more pictures for a little while. When we got home, we found that the mother board in our computer had gone bad so we just had to get another computer today. So it might be a while before we get it set up and download our pics from the camera to the new computer. Am typing on a laptop that we were given right now, and don't have the right program to download the pics to the laptop.)

Back in Moscow

We are back in Moscow at the Marriot Renaissance, so much better (and closer to home)! Dasha had her medical exam in the hotel Thursday right after we checked in, then we went to have visa photos done, then to the Embassy to drop off paperwork and pay. Yesterday we went to have our visa interview and pick up her visa packet to give to immigration in the US when we land. Today we are being lazy in our pjs, having room service breakfast and might venture out for a walk and then maybe a trip to Red Square for pictures. Monday we'll drop off paperwork to the Russian Consulate and then Tuesday pick up her registration. Then Wednesday it's back HOME! Hurray!

Here she is!

Here she is, our beautiful baby girl! We picked her up Saturday morning and she has kept us on our toes since then! Can't wait to get her home!

Last visit

We had our last visit today at the orphanage. Dasha played outside in the snow. She loves to go down the slide and play on the seesaw with her Papa! She looks like a little penguin the way she walks all bundled up in her snowsuit. So cute! We get to pick her up on Saturday morning at 10:00am (so it will be 10:00pm Friday night at home when we go). I can't wait! I'll try to post some photos (of her adorable little face!) Saturday or Sunday. Only thirteen more days til we are home forever!

Court is finished

We had our court appointment on Tuesday and everything went well. There were a few surprises but everyone's prayers availed and we were granted permission to adopt Dasha. Yay! We are getting to visit her everyday except weekends and she seems to be growing more attached to us with each visit. We should be able to pick her up on Feb.8th or 9th. Though I'm not sure where we'll put her in our tiny Hotel Krasnoyarsk room with our two twin beds:0) I'll post some pics after we get her. Not sure about the rules on posting photos before the 10 day wait is up and don't want anything to go wrong at this point. Thanks for your prayers! Keep praying for our bonding process to continue to go well and for us to not miss home too much!

Moscow

We are in Moscow right now, we leave tomorrow night for Krasnoyarsk. We did our 8-doctor medicals last night. Strangely, we saw seven doctors, but there were 8 signatures and stamps. Hmm... They weren't too bad, but we were at the clinic for five hours! A lot of sitting around waiting. Imagine the amount of time you'd spend in waiting rooms if you had 8 doctor's appoinments in one day and I guess five hours is about right. We went to KFC on Tverskaya Street for dinner to celebrate finishing the dreaded medicals. Today we ventured out to find a McDonald's and found one a couple blocks away. We stopped at a Russian grocery store to get bottled water and some noodles to make for dinner. It's really snowing here and the wind makes the snow a little sharp when it hits your face. We'll try to update the blog again once we get to Krasnoyarsk. Can't wait to see Dasha on Monday! Yay!

We got the call!!!!

We finally got the call this afternoon that we have a court date. Hurray!!

We leave the U.S. on January 22nd, spend a couple days in Moscow getting our medical exams done, then travel on to Krasnoyarsk. We have court January 29th, then we should get to pick up Dasha on February 13th and travel to Moscow on Feb.14th. We arrive back home February 20th.

We have been busy tonight booking flights and filling out visa applications and trying to figure out what to pack (the temperature was -33 degrees today, yikes).

Please keep us in your prayers as we travel and start this new part of our lives!

Merry Christmas!

Yes, I know that we celebrated Christmas two weeks ago. But January 7th (which it is Jan.7 right now in Krasnoyarsk because of the 12 hour time difference) is Russian Orthodox Christmas, so today is Christmas in our baby's homeland. So Merry Christmas Dasha!

We are hoping to hear about a court date soon. Over the holiday break, we received an email that one of our documents had a mistake and needed to be redone immediately and sent directly to our facilitator in Krasnoyarsk. Sounds like good news to me, it means they are looking at our paperwork and need it to be in order. We checked with Fed-Ex and Krasnoyarsk is so far away that it is not even in their delivery area! We also checked with DHL and they could do it pretty fast but their only international shipping office is at the airport and would be over $100 to ship the document. Luckily, there is a woman we know from our Yahoo group who kindly agreed to take it with her this weekend and deliver it for us, since she is picking up her daughter this week. Thank you Lord for your perfect provision! Please keep this woman in your prayers as she brings her little girl home.

We are hoping for a court date the beginning of February (the 5th is my birthday, so that would be really cool!). If not, we will continue to rest in God's arms as He prepares our hearts to be Dasha's Mama and Papa. He has done such amazing things so far, and He will finish what He has started!