Gee, I can’t believe another two months have gone by since we last posted. It’s amazing how quickly time goes by! So much has happened, but I’ll try to go back and catch up on everything. We completed our first post-placement report and everything was sent through to CHI. It was so fun to have our social worker meet Grace!

In our last post I mentioned that Grace was finally saying some real words. I was so concerned because it seemed delayed. In February, she had two words – uh, oh and bye bye. Now she tries to say almost every word that we say. Her regular words are Mama, Dada, Gama, Gapa, hi, thank you, moo, quack, yellow, purple, red, blue, ball, bubbles, and more. I was packing my lunch the other day and I was holding Grace while I was doing it. I said, “Okay, let’s pack my lunch.” She repeated the word “lunch.” She repeats a lot of the words that we say at the end of sentences. I sing a lot of songs to her. Surprise! Anyway, I have been leaving off the last word in the song that I’m singing. Grace has been singing the last word to finish the song. One of her favorites is “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” I’ll sing the song and not sing the word “low.” Grace will finish the song for me by saying ‘low.’ It is so cute!

On March 29, we celebrated our six month anniversary as a family! It’s funny, but we honestly can’t remember when Grace wasn’t a part of our lives. We look back at pictures from when we first met her and the change is unbelievable. She is so expressive now and so affectionate. She laughs all the time, especially when tickled!

I was on Spring Break last week. It snowed!!! It just wasn’t right! Grace didn’t seem to mind, especially when I got the sled out. We went sledding around the yard both Monday and Tuesday. By Wednesday, the snow was all gone, but Grace still wanted me to get the sled down. She kept pointing to the garage wall where the sled was hanging. Hopefully, we are done with the snow for awhile.

On April 8, Grace turned 18 months old. We had her 18 month check up with her pediatrician. Grace is doing well. She has continued to gain weight and has grown over an inch since her 15 month check up. She is still petite and still wears 12 month old clothes. Developmentally she is just where she’s supposed to be or a little ahead in some areas.

We took Grace to a local park that has a nice playscape. She loved the slides. We could hardly get her to leave them to try some of the other things. She wasn’t real crazy about the swings, which surprised me. However, we tried the swing over at our neighbor’s and she really seemed to like that. We’ll keep trying the park’s swings and see how it goes!

Grace made her first visit to the zoo. We bought a membership, so we can go back as often as we want. We had such a good time. I’m not sure that Grace really understood what was going on, but she was looking around and taking it all in.

We took Grace to the farm at a local Metro Park. We saw cows, horses, pigs, goats, sheep, ducks, chickens, rabbits, etc. There were absolutely darling baby goats, sheep, pigs, and a calf. Grace got to pet a two-day-old baby goat. I started to cry, because it was just so precious! Greg didn’t get it!

Easter was so special! My mom bought Grace the cutest dress. She looked absolutely gorgeous! We went to my parents for the weekend, so we went to church there. Grace was the center of attention as always! After church we had an Easter egg hunt. Grace had been on an Easter egg hunt on Saturday with a friend, so she already knew what to do. Here’s a picture of her when her basket was pretty much full!

Well, I think that catches everybody up. We are so blessed!

Boy, we’re sorry it has taken so long to post an update! We have been so busy and enjoying every moment with Grace that we haven’t taken the time to write in our blog. I’ll go back in time to fill you in on some of the things that have been going on.

Thanksgiving was so much fun! We went to my parents to celebrate. Grace met my Aunt Connie and Uncle Sam and a bunch of cousins for the first time. She did so well, especially considering all the new people she was meeting and sleeping at my parent’s house. Here is a picture of Grace with some of her cousins.

Grace was baptized on December 14. We had her baptized at my church where I grew up. It was absolutely beautiful! The whole church has been so supportive of us since we began our adoption journey. It was perfect to have my church family a part of this celebration! Here is a picture that Greg took of Grace when we got back to my parent’s house after her baptism. Isn’t she beautiful!!!!

Christmas was so much fun! While she loved the presents, the bows, paper, and boxes seemed to be the biggest hits! I had two weeks off for the holidays and a bonus Snow Day gave me some extra time. Greg had the week between Christmas and New Year’s off too. It was so nice to spend all that time together. We celebrated Christmas at my parents and then Greg’s family came to our house after Christmas. We had our family photos taken for the holidays. They turned out so good. Here is one of our favorites.

One of Grace's favorite presents that she got for Christmas was the sled that Uncle Darrin got her. It's a tiny little sled with a seatbelt and wide bottom just for little ones. She absolutely loves getting pulled around in the snow. This is probably no surprise, since she liked the wagon so much. This is just like a little red wagon for the snow! She likes to scoop up snow with her mitten as she goes along, and then bring it up to her mouth and eat it! She winds up with snow all over her face and just laughs.

Our last blog entry said that Grace was starting to take a few steps by herself. It’s about two months later and she's walking everywhere now! It seems just overnight she made the decision that she would rather walk than crawl. Of course, she fell down a lot at first, but seems to get better every day. It's so much fun to see her learning so many things and trying out her new independence.

I’ve been so concerned about Grace’s language development. I’ve spoken to our speech therapist at school. She tells me not to worry. Riiiight! She told me to work on things like “Uh Oh” so we’ve been doing that. And sure enough, she’s starting to say it, or at least something pretty close. So her first word seems to be Uh Oh. She also says “num” when she likes what she is eating. I know, it may not be a real a word but it has meaning, so it’s good enough for me. She also says “bye bye” but Greg has yet to hear it so I don’t think he believes me. But her daycare provider says she heard it too, so I have a witness!

She’s still very small for her age. She’s 16 months now, but only wears 12 month clothes. But at her 15 month checkup, she was finally on the charts for both height and weight. We haven’t found much that she won’t eat, so that is helping her to gain weight. Her favorite foods seem to be peas and bananas, but she hasn’t met a fruit or vegetable that she won’t eat yet.

Sleep has been a little rough lately. Grace usually wakes up two or three times each night. Luckily, she usually goes right back to sleep, but there have been some nights where we’re up with her for two or three hours at a time. With three new molars in the last week, we think we may know why she’s restless, although they don’t seem to bother her during the day at all. Last night she slept through the whole night though, so maybe things are looking up! Yay!

I think that should bring you all up to date. We’ll try not to wait so long between posts next time. Thanks again for visiting our blog. Take care.

Hello, everyone! Yes, we are doing wonderfully! We apologize for taking so long to post on our blog. Believe it or not, things have been very busy. And, of course, we have wanted to spend every moment with our beautiful daughter, Grace.

Everyday, we are more and more amazed at how well she is doing. She is eating well, sleeping (pretty) well, and gaining weight. Her personality is probably the most amazing thing that we see develop everyday. She is always smiling, laughing, and talking (in her one year old language). She loves to blow kisses to everyone! She waves hello and good-bye. Most of the time, she can point to her nose and her hair if you ask her where they are. She is taking about five or six steps by herself. Greg and I sit across from each other and she walks back and forth between us! Usually, she ends up getting so excited that she is walking by herself that she falls into our arms. She loves music! Of course! I’m sure you’re not surprised to know that music is happening in our house almost 24/7. Either I’m playing the piano and singing, or her Sweet Pea 3 player is playing some of her favorite songs. She dances and moves to music every time she hears it. She has beautiful long fingers, so I just know that she’s going to be a pianist! No pressure here though!

Since we’ve been home, we’ve celebrated her first birthday. Here is a picture of her trying her cake. She was having fun, but wasn’t really into the cake.

We celebrated her first Halloween. She was the cutest ladybug ever! We didn’t go out trick or treating, but she helped pass out candy to those who were trick or treating. She also carved her first pumpkin. Here she is by a pumpkin patch, too.

She loves to take a bath! She splashes the water everywhere and practically floods the whole bathroom! My clothes end up soaking wet by the time that she is done. She touches her face to the water and thinks that it is so funny. She has some squirt toys in the tub with her and she loves to squirt herself with them. She just laughs and laughs!

My parents bought her a wagon. This has been her favorite thing to ride in so far. She hasn’t been super crazy about strollers! She has tolerated them, but not for very long. But the wagon, she can ride in forever. The weather is pretty yucky and cold here in Michigan now. But we had some beautiful days a few weeks ago. We went for 2 to 3 mile walks together with me pulling the wagon. Whenever I’d pull her up the driveway and the sidewalk to our front door, she would hang onto the sides of the wagon like she didn’t want to get out. So I’d just keep on walking!

We received her Certificate of Citizenship in the United States of America a few weeks ago! I just cried when I opened it. What an amazing thing this all is! We just received her Russian passport back with the stamp from the Russian embassy. I have ordered her Michigan birth certificate, but haven’t received it yet. Should be soon! The next steps will be to get her a Social Security number and U.S. Passport.

It’s funny that we’ve only been home seven weeks. It seems like Grace has been with us forever! We can hardly remember what our life was like without her. All that matters is our lives together now!

Happy Birthday!

Wow, it’s already Wednesday and this is our first blog entry since we returned from Russia late Saturday evening. Sorry for the delay, but we’ve been trying to catch up on our sleep and get our new little girl oriented to her new life here in Michigan. Today is also our little Grace’s first birthday! We didn’t really do that much other than wish her happy birthday about fifty times today. The family is coming over on Sunday to celebrate with us, so we’re really looking forward to that.

But let’s get back to where we left off. Our flight left Moscow on Saturday at about 1:00. It went just like you would think an 11 ½ hour flight would be with a 1-year-old. She slept a couple of times for a total of about 3 hours maybe. The rest of the time, we just tried to make her as comfortable as possible, which meant walking down the aisles about 100 times, feeding her when we could, and trying everything else we could think of. Needless to say, it was a long flight.

We arrived in Atlanta on-time, went through passport control, customs, and immigration, which took about two hours. When that was all over, we still had three hours before our flight to Detroit left. So again, we walked her around the airport, fed her, and did everything we could to keep her happy. She was soooo tired. She finally fell asleep about a ½ hour before we left Atlanta, and slept the whole flight. She didn’t wake up until we got out of our seats to leave the plane!

We made the long walk to the baggage claim area. When we arrived, the new grandparents were there waiting for us! It was so good to see them after being away from home for 28 days! They helped us with our luggage and drove us home. We got home about 12:30 AM Sunday morning. We figured that we had been up for 34 hours straight. Mom and Dad spent the night, so they wouldn’t have to drive home so late, and so they could spend Sunday with us. Grace slept the entire night, until 9:00 the next morning without waking once!

Aunt Julie came to visit on Sunday afternoon while Mom and Dad were still here. Other than that, we tried to unpack a little, and start to get things organized. On Monday, I did laundry when Grace was asleep. When she was awake, I just played with her. Greg went in to work for a few hours Monday afternoon.

On Tuesday, we had our first outing with Grace to the pediatrician’s office. It went very well. She didn’t scream like she did at the doctor visit in Moscow. That is at least, until we went to the lab to have her blood drawn. She started screaming when they were just looking for a spot to put the needle. She doesn’t like having her arms held down like that. When the needle came, it was even worse. The first try, they couldn’t find her little vein, so they went to the other arm and tried there. They finally finished, but by the end, poor little Gracie was just drenched in sweat and shaking from crying so hard. We felt so bad for putting her through that. We headed home and she fell asleep on the 10 minute drive.

Today, Wednesday, we had our second excursion in the car. We went to our favorite place – Target! We had a few essentials we needed to buy. She did very well, taking in all the new sights and sounds.

We’re trying to get Gracie on a regular schedule of sleeping and eating, so that she doesn’t get overtired or too hungry. Either of those things can make her kind of cranky. Tomorrow we plan on changing it a little more. We’re experimenting to see what works best.

So our adoption journey is coming to a close, and a new chapter is starting with our life as a family. Thanks to everyone who supported us, through your kind words, prayers, thoughts, or even if you just read our blog and never commented. It all means the world to us. This doesn’t mean we’re done posting, but they’ll likely be less frequent. Having this blog has been so helpful to us in so many ways, we can’t imagine going on this journey without it. They say it takes a village to raise a child. We feel that it also takes a village to adopt a child as well. If we can help anyone with their journey, please drop us a comment. We relied on so many others before us and we’d love the chance to do the same.

Last Day in Russia!!!

We had our interview at the American Embassy today. It went really well. We were there with Monica and Little M, and the family from New York. We also met some people from New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, who were adopting with different agencies. When we first got there, we found a very long line of people, and we thought we were in for a long wait. But they let us go ahead of the line because we were there for adoptions. Those in line must have been there for other things, since they didn’t seem to have any kids with them. We had to take a number and wait for them to call us up to the window. There was a really nice man there who just described what all the documents were and what we needed to do with them, so it wasn’t much of an interview really. Then we waited again, not very long though, and they called us up to get Grace’s passport! She travels on a Russian passport with a US visa, the opposite of ours. Then as soon as we’re on US soil, she becomes a joint American/Russian citizen. Now we have everything that we need to come home! We explained it all to her and she’s really excited! Actually, her biggest interest in her passport was with how it tasted.

For dinner tonight, we went to KFC! Wow, what a way to celebrate our last night in Moscow! Grace was a little cranky. Because of our appointments, we had to wake the poor thing up early from both of her naps today. She was absolutely exhausted by dinner time, so we didn’t think she would be able to make it through dinner at a restaurant. There’s a KFC about three quarters of a mile from our hotel. We put Grace in the baby carrier and walked to KFC. (Grace isn’t real fond of the stroller, but she loves the baby carrier!) We were hoping KFC had an English menu. No such luck! But one person there spoke a little English. We were able to order chicken and fries. We brought it back to our room and ate it here. It was pretty good. Not exactly like KFC at home, but close enough.

They pick us up for the airport tomorrow morning at 8:45. Our flight leaves at 12:55 and lands in Atlanta at 4:30. That’s an 11 ½ hour flight. We have a five hour layover in Atlanta during which time we have to go through customs and immigration. Then our plane for Detroit leaves at 9:30 PM, arriving at 11:30 PM. It will be an extremely long day, especially for the little one, but we’re anxious to get it over with and start our new life together. We really need to get Grace on a regular schedule. With all these appointments and flights, she has meals and naps at different times each day so it’s been really hard on her. But we’ll be able to fix that in just a day or two now.

Monica and Little M. will be on our same flight to Atlanta so we’re really happy about that. Our new friends from New York fly out the same day, but on a different flight. We wish them safe travels back home.

So today, on our 27th day since we left home (yes, we’re counting), we are making our very last post from Russia. The next one will be from home!

Baby saw the Doctor

Today is our first full day in Moscow. We arrived at the hotel last night from the airport after 11 so we didn’t post anything yesterday. Luckily, the flight was only behind schedule about 15 minutes, not 3 hours like Andy and Kathy had to endure the other day. Gracie’s first airplane ride was a little rough. It was way past her bedtime, and we had some trouble making formula for her on the plane. It seems they have bottled water at room temperature or hot water for coffee. That’s it. So now we have a better plan for the next flight. She was pretty fidgety for most of the two hour trip, but finally went to sleep for the last fifteen minutes or so. She was exhausted and quite frankly, so were Mom and Dad, but we made it. On the way from the airport to the hotel, our interpreter had me fill out forms for the embassy. It was difficult to write while riding in the van, so I’m not sure how legible things will be, but there are many forms to complete, and Monica had to do hers as well.

Today they picked us up bright and early at 8:00 AM to go to have Gracie checked out by the embassy-approved physician. We were there with Monica and Little M. and another family from New York with their new son. We had to wait quite a while before the doctor got there, so the kids were getting pretty impatient. Of the three, Gracie went last. The exam was pretty quick, the doctor was very nice, and spoke English quite well. But Gracie HATED that exam! She just screamed while we just had to sit there watching in the chairs we were told to sit in. She’s pretty uncomfortable around people she doesn’t know, especially men. And this man had a big bushy mustache, a white lab coat, and was holding on to her while looking in her ears and mouth. It was really hard to watch. When it was over, like ten minutes later, we went back to the van, and she went right to sleep on Kyley’s shoulder. She was wiped out!

We went for a couple of walks today around the hotel here. On one of them we stopped at a local supermarket and got more baby supplies and water. It’s only a few blocks from the Holiday Inn Lesnaya where we are staying. If you go out the lobby door, turn right, go down the street and take the second left, go two blocks and its on your right, on the corner. It has pictures on the side of produce and stuff, so it’s hard to miss.

We had dinner in the hotel restaurant tonight with Monica, Little M, and the family from New York. Kyley and I both had the Beef Stroganoff and it was very good! This hotel is so much nicer than the Korvet in Astrakhan. When we checked in, they gave Gracie a little stuffed animal. There was fresh fruit, a Kit Kat bar, big fluffy towels, and even a robe in our room! It’s nice to be pampered a little after spending almost a month in Astrakhan.

Tomorrow, we get picked up at 1:00 for our appointment at the U.S. Embassy which is our last thing to do before we get on the plane for Atlanta on Saturday. Can’t wait!

Our First Full Day as a Family!

First things first. We promised some pictures and here they are. The first was taken in the Director’s Office yesterday, Gotcha Day, only moments after they brought our Gracie (yes, that’s her name) out to us. The second was one we took the other day that we just liked.

We had a really great day today. We put Grace to bed a little after 8:00 last night and she was asleep by 8:30. She slept all the way to about 7:00 this morning without waking up at all! First thing after changing her, we got her a bottle. She drank the whole thing without stopping! Then we all went down the hall and had our breakfast with Monica and Little M. They served these French toast-like things in the shape of small patties that were pretty good, along with the standard yogurt, cheese slices, and bread. Grace sat in her stroller while we ate but got pretty fidgety toward the end. When we got back to the room, we made her some cereal which she devoured. We were a bit worried yesterday because she didn’t seem to want the Biphodok (a thick milk product with nutrients, we think), but now we know this kid likes to eat!

Then we gave her a bath. The bathtub here is large and really deep, so we thought we’d try the bathroom sink. She had to hang on to the faucet to keep from sliding down onto her back. We were laughing our heads off and she just looked at us like we were nuts, or had no idea of what we were doing. It’s actually probably a little of both. We hope she’ll forgive us. Then we put her down for a nap and she went right to sleep. She slept for almost two hours. When she got up, we ate our lunch while she played. Actually we ended up all playing keep the bag of chips out of Grace’s reach. She was very determined to get that bag.

Then we walked down to the mall with Monica and Little M. Grace rode in the baby carrier strapped to Kyley’s shoulders. This was a test run to see how she would put up with being confined in the carrier and how the traffic and people would affect her. She did great! No crying or anything. On the walk back, she was even humming! She liked how the sound of her voice would change every time Kyley took a step. We’re planning on using the carrier for the airports. We have four of them to deal with soon and we wanted to know how she’d react. So far, so good.

When we got back to the room, it was time to eat again, of course. Grace had a jar of chicken, a jar of squash, a couple crackers, and some juice. She liked them all, especially the juice! She’s just learning to drink out of a cup. We don’t think the baby home had sippy cups, because she doesn’t seem to want to drink from one. When we use a regular cup, most of it goes down the front of her, so we just put it in a bottle. That worked much better. Then we played some more, and we put her down for a second nap. Again, she went right to sleep. We’re just waiting for her to have some kind of total meltdown since we’re in strange places, doing strange things, but so far, she’s been pretty happy and content.

At dinner time, we decided to go out to a restaurant, since Grace had been doing so well and since it is our (and Monica’s) last night in Astrakhan. Since the Chocolate Café was the only place we could think of that was non-smoking, we went there. Both Grace and Little M. were great! Grace ate a few crackers while we had our meals. She didn’t get a little antsy until the end of our dinner and wanted to grab everything on the table, but what one-year-old doesn’t do that?

So now we’re back at the hotel. Grace drank her Biphodok from a bottle tonight with no problems. She even cried a little when it was gone as if she wanted more. Now she’s sound asleep again in her crib. You know, we always hear people say how lucky the adopted children are, to come to the U.S. from an orphanage in Russia, where they’ll have more opportunities, etc. and I suppose that’s true. But we are the lucky ones. Our little daughter is just amazing.

As we mentioned, this was our last night in Astrakhan. We have mixed emotions because our little girl will be leaving her birth place and her country, but we so desperately want to come home. Our flight leaves tomorrow evening. Our next post should be from Moscow.