Together at Last!

Thanks to my awesome photographer sister, Jen, we have some priceless photos from the airport last night. It was a night we'll never forget. We're so happy to be together--all EIGHT of us! The kids couldn't love her any more. We already feel like she's part of us forever.

The expressions say it all!







Hi Grandma Fillmore!



Landon's in love.

   

Can you believe Anya is actually 5 months older than Bennett?





Hugs!

More hugs!

  

Our new family of eight.  What a miracle.

Ahhhh, it feels so good to be done and have her here with us.  All those months of stress, tears, and frustration were so worth this night.  She's really, truly ours now. Forever!

Almost Home!

We'll, we're on American soil. It feels like I've been gone for months, yet it's only been 2 weeks! I love coming home to America where I can understand what people are saying and I just feel...at home.

We're sitting in the Chicago airport. We have a 5 hour layover here! We had to wake up Anya at 3:30 a.m. so we could get to the airport on time. It's now 1:00 am the next night, Russia time and she's has not slept more than five minutes! I can't believe she's still going strong. She was a dream on the plane the whole 11 hours (so far.) As long as there's a DVD playing with Barney or The Wiggles or something like that, she just sits there all happy and doesn't complain a bit.  I was going to try to get her to lay down here at the airport, but I don't see it happening. She's running around the kids' play area in pure bliss, enjoying her freedom--celebrating her American citizenship! :)

I am so. so. so. so. glad to be done with the adoption. The last two weeks have been exhausting. I didn't realize how much it was impacting me until Jeremy showed up in Moscow. I had been bottling up my emotions for the past 12 days and when he walked off the plane, we both just wept. We have never been apart longer than a few days. It felt good to have a good cry that night and sort of catch up emotionally. It's not that anything is bad...it's just that I'm just not whole without my honey. Plus, it's exhausting traveling with a "toddler" that you're just getting to know!  Especially one who is experiencing real life for the first time! But she's awesome and happy and adjusting to normal life better than I ever imagined she would! I can't believe what a trooper she has been through all of this.  

The Titus family was a HUGE blessing to Katrina and I and eventually our husbands, in Moscow.  We had comfy beds, hot meals, rides to the airport and our Embassy appointment, an interpreter, and free calling to the states!  Emily was a total angel. She spent all day with us at the Embassy, then lead us on the Metro to Red Square, then drove us back home. Any American who can actually drive in Moscow is amazing...let alone one who can speak a little Russian!

Vahnya and Anya with the three Titus boys

It was really something else being at Red Square.  I told Jeremy he can tell people that he flew all the way to Moscow to see Red Square, then flew home the next day! That's pretty much all he had time to do. But he got to bring home a pretty sweet package. :)

Here are a few pics from Moscow.

 I took this one in the car on the way back to the Titus' after picking up Jeremy from the Airport Sunday.  Moscow has so many amazing buildings!

One of the "Seven Sisters" in the background.

These are all in Red Square. What an amazing place!

The Fillmore's and Nine's with our new little bundles.

Poor Anya and Vahnya had to sit in their strollers for five hours that day between the Embassy, the subway rides and touring Red Square. And the wind was frigid! But they both were so patient and only did a little complaining. I know none of my other kids would have been that patient!

Well, another four hours or so and I'll get to hold my baby Eli and hug and kiss the rest of them. Two weeks is far too long for a mama to be away from her little ones.  I can't imagine those who go for a month and do the whole adoption in one trip, like they do in Ukraine. How do you do it? I'm dying. But I guess you all wonder how we Russia people get through three trips.  Pick your poison, right?  You know, you just do what you have to do. It's hard, but you just plow through it and the Lord sustains you through those hard days, and when it's all done, you have this little human being that blesses your life!

OK gotta go. My battery is about out!

The Essence of Anya

It's been so fun seeing Anya's personality emerge as we've been together the past 5 days.

Just before we left for Moscow on Thursday, we had a half-hour time period when our driver and his friend and the apartment manager all showed up to our apartment at the same time.  When we opened the door to let them in, Anya ran up to the door, looked at each one of them, gasping (this is what she does when she sees something new that she likes) and told them hello or something in Russian. As soon as all the greetings were out of the way, she took each of the men, one by one, by the hand into the living room and told them to sit down, showing them the couch. It was so hillarious, we all laughed. She was ready to party and was excited to be the hostess!

When we were on the train, I decided to walk through a few cars to the snack bar so I could get us some dinner.  I had to take Anya with me because Katrina couldn't watch both of them at the same time. On the way past all the passangers, she tried to stop as often as she could so she could say hi to people.


When we made it to the snack bar, we had to wait in line for about five minutes. I had to pick her up so she wouldn't run off.  Three men from England joined us in the line. Anya immediately reached out and tapped each of the men on the arm and told them "hello" in Russian and asked them who they were.  The men all smiled at her and asked her some questions and held their hands out for high-fives. She gave them all high-fives and loved it so much, she wanted to keep doing it. After about ten times going through high-fives with the men, I thought the novelty had probably worn off for them, so I had to put her down and just hang on to her as tightly as I could.

Here in Moscow she's loving our time with the family we're staying with. She loves rough-housing with the dad on the floor and playing with their dog and their boys. The mom, Emily had a friend come over yesterday for a few minutes. When Anya saw her, she immediately gasped and ran up to her, then motioned for her to go sit down on the couch and told her something in Russian.  Emily's friend just laughed and commented on how adorable she is.  She told me she could tell that Anya was definitely well-socialized!

I know I've said this before, but I have no doubt that one of Anya's missions on this earth is to spread happiness, make people feel good and remind them of what is important.  I just feel so grateful that she will get to do this now, instead of being hidden away for the rest of her life.  Even when we see Russians, who aren't used to seeing people with DS out in public, their faces light up when they see her. I hope I can always keep this perspective in mind when times are stressful, because I know we'll have our moments. It's easy to forget miracles after time has passed. I don't want to ever forget the miracles that have taken place in our lives so that Anya can do what she was sent to this earth to do.

On another note, I'm SOOO excited to see Jeremy tonight! He'll be here in a few hours. It will be so great to be together again and watch him enjoy his first experiences with Anya outside of the orphanage.

Life is good. It will be even better in two days when we get to be all together as a family!

Trip to Moscow

I haven't been the best at blogging every day this trip. We've been a little busy for the past few days!  It's Saturday afternoon now and we're in Moscow, staying with an American family who works for the US Embassy.

Let me just tell you, one of the great benefits of being Mormon is that you have connections with great, clean-cut, honest people, literally anywhere you go in the world. We have had the best drivers, babysitters, and people to stay with because of my LDS connections.  We found our St. Petersburg driver, Boris, by asking someone we knew back home, who had served a two-year mission in St. Pete, if he knew of someone who could speak English and could drive for us for a reasonable price. This saved us $30 every day we used him (whenever our coordinator didn't require us to use hers) The Nine's used Boris, and so will the families who are coming in the coming weeks.  Anyway, Boris was away on a vacation while we were here this time. So he lined us up with his friend, Alex, (pictured with us above) who was also such a sweetheart and spoke English very well.  It was so fun getting to know him all those tedious hours in the heavy city traffic.

Before we came for this trip, we knew that it would be challenging to take our newly-adopted children to the passport agency, since we would have to wait in line for several hours in a crowded room. (Usually one spouse stays with the child so the other can go do this, but ours are not here!)  So... Boris lined us up with Olga, a cute church member and University student who lives near our apartment.  She was adorable with the kids and spoke a little English, which was very helpful to us!  We loved Olga and she looooved Anya and Vahnya.


As soon as we had the kids' passports, we dropped of our coordinator, Elena (pictured below,) went back to our apartment and packed our suitcases for Moscow.  That evening, Alex picked up Elena and brought her to our apartment to help us get to our train.

It was bitter sweet saying goodbye to Elena. She had worked hours and hours to make sure that our babies could come home with us.  Her job is controversial here because many people frown upon foreigners adopting their children.  (That's a whole discussion in itself...) Anyway, as grateful as we are for everything she does, her particular personality didn't always blend with our casual, American ways so we had our moments. We were ready to part ways on both ends!  But at the same time, a little sad.  Kind of hard to explain.  It takes a special person to do this tedious, stressful work day after day.   We admire her for her devotion to her work. She truly cares for these children and will do whatever she has to do to make sure they come home to their families. 

I

The train station was right at the end of our block! So Alex brought a friend over to help us transport our  huge suitcases and our bags. Elena came to help, as well. We needed all six of us to carry everything plus the kids.  But we boarded, hugged Elena and Alex goodbye and got all settled in our little spot.  Thank goodness Katrina had a little point and shoot camera in her pocket. She got some good action shots for us.

Anya was pretty excited about the whole adventure. 

I was thinking, "Oh boy, this is going to be a long four hours!

Once again....DVD's to the RESCUE!  Yeah.  They were glued.

 Two hours later...9:30 pm

Anya was glued to that little DVD player the whole time. I worried her eyeballs would fall out of her head. :) At about 10:00, I tried turning it off and getting her to fall asleep. Nope, not gonna have that.  Back on it went. Oh well, whatever works!

Our agency's Moscow coordinator came right in to our train car and found us right when we arrived. Her husband lugged our heavy bags for us and we made it to their car.  We piled in and they took us to a little apartment that's next door to the US Embassy.

Definately nothing as nice as our St. Pete apartment.  And just as much money! We decided we would only stay there one night.

 Here's the view from the apartment. Hellooo Moscow! It was loud there.  Good thing it was 1:30 am when we finally went to bed, so we were nice and tired!

At 6:00 that morning, the doorbell rang. It was the doctor who works for the Embassy, here to do the kids' medical exams.  We had to wake them up and strip them down after only four hours sleep!  They were amazingly cooperative through it all (or at least Anya was, hee hee) and they went right back to sleep after he left. Anya was wiped out!  I liked how our sheets matched her p.j's. Cute, huh?

After the kids woke up, we hung around the old rickety apartment for a few hours and waited to hear from my new American friends, the Titus', who had offered to have us come stay with them while we're here in Moscow. The husband, Jeff works at the US Embassy. (Again, friends of friends, and members of our church.) They have three cute boys and they live in a beautiful American-style, sort of mountain-resort-ish community just outside of town. We'll be here until we leave either Tuesday or Wednesday.  They have been amazing hosts.  We are so grateful. They are saving us a lot of money and a LOT of headache. Anya and Vahnya love having buddies to play with, too!

Here are the cuties on the way from the apartment to the Titus' home.  All bundled up, in seat belts for the first time in their lives and happy as can be!

 

 

 Wow, that took a while to post!  Sorry for the "travel log." This blog is a record of this whole journey for us to print into a book so we'll remember as much of it as possible. I'm trying to get in as many details as possible without completely boring everyone. :)

Today and tomorrow are real relaxing, low-key days. Tomorrow, Jeremy and Mike will be here to help us get home. Monday is our Embassy appointment and our agency will file our papers at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We're really hoping she will be able to file Monday so we can fly home on Tuesday!  We're planning to go visit Red Square that day, as well. 

I miss my kids terribly and can not WAIT to see them again.  And the best news is that we'll get to see more of our 9 year old (tomorrow!) son, Max's play performances than we thought.  His school is doing The King and I and he's one of the Asian school children. His sister dyed his hair black for the whole affair.  He's normally a blondie, so it'll be funny seeing him when we come off the airplane.  I'm so excited for everyone to meet Anya. They are going to love her!  She's great entertainment. Life will never be dull with her in our family. Bring on the fun!

What have we done while waiting for passports?

 Well,  we've done a little painting.

A little eatin' and cheesin'

a lot of snuggling and bonding

a little Pilates :)

 

 

a little organizing

 

and of course...a little shopping!

I should have brought my camera when we ventured out to the mall today. The kids loved it and they were so adorable there. We ate at the food court, then stopped at a big toy store and bought some cute Russian books, dvds and toys.  Vahnya and Anya both were totally fine with the crowds and really didn' t pay any attention to anyone but us.

Anya used her first sign today!  When we were eating fries at the mall, I was trying to just give her a few at a time (gotta watch that waistline, you know...) and she was of course in love with them. She first asked me for more by tapping my arm and pointing to them and saying something like, "didooba".  I ignored her.  So she surprized the heck out of us.  She signed "more" by putting her fingertips together!  Katrina and I both gasped and made a big fuss over it. Of course I gave her more. So she did it again and again until I finally threw the rest of the fries away so she couldn't ask for any more. Ha ha.  Anyway, I was amazed that she learned that in 2 days!  She's on her way to communicating already. Also, when she points to a picture of herself, I ask her, "who's that?" and she says, "Ahna." Dang, we should have left her name Anna. We changed it Anya because it was closer to Tanya, which she's used to hearing. But she can't say the "y".  Too late, it's already on her birth certificate. I wonder what year she'll be able to say her name right.

Both Katrina and I are really glad we took our kids from the orphanage Monday (against our coordinator's advice) so we could have a few days to bond with them, with nothing to do but just be together, before heading to Moscow.  They have both come so far already. They are recognizing things we say and responding to our non -verbal cues and our words more. They each know who their mommies are.  Anya comes to me if she wants anything. Whenever I come in the room where she's playing, she motions for me to come over by her, then she scoots herself over right next to me. When I put her down at night, she cries, unless I lay by her for a few minutes. She even cried when she got hurt today and stopped when I gave her a hug. Great signs of attachment already!  Anya has been through so much change in her short life, yet she seems so trusting of me. I'm really amazed. I'm not saying her behavior is perfect. She definitely has a mind of her own, people.  But I can already tell she is going to thrive in our family.  

My fears of her being aggressive with younger kids was put to rest this week. She has been nothing but gentle and sweet with Vahnya, who is about the same size as our Eli.  What a relief that is! 

You know how you just worry about things?  All these months, I've worried about dumb little things and now that I have Anya, I just think, "Why in the heck did I waste my sleep worrying about that?"  If you're thinking about adopting or if you're in the process, you know what I'm talking about, right? I guess I can't speak for everyone, and I don't have her home with the family, so I probably shouldn't go tootin' my horn, but all those dumb little things that I worried about really don't matter any more now that she belongs to us.  I don't know if I'm making any sense. But I just thought I'd put that out there for all you worriers like me. :)

Tomorrow morning, we're headed to the passport agency to pick up the magic little papers that our kiddos need to travel. We have a babysitter (a friend of our driver, Boris whom we love and trust,) coming to stay with the kids so we don't have to make them stand in line with us for hours.

Then, we'll come back to the apartment, get packed and hang out for a while longer, then we'll walk to the end of the block where the train station is (how perfect is that?) and hop on the 7:30 train to Moscow. It will take four hours to get there and our Moscow coordinator will have a driver there waiting for us.  

We're planning to stay in an apartment downtown that's close to the US Embassy for the first 2 nights, then move to some aquaintances of ours' house (a sister of one of Jeremy's high school friends who's husband works for the Embassy there) for the remainding nights. Our hubbies are coming Sunday. We miss them so much and can't wait to see them.  We're hoping to go home next Wed. but it might be Friday. We'll have to see how quickly we can get things expedited. 

I'll probably blog again on Friday after we get settled and we're done at the Embassy. Until then, Paka!

Gotcha Day, Part 2

I was in such a hurry to get our pictures up that I forgot one of the best parts of the day. It was watching my  daughter eat for my first time. I am so amazed at the manners she has at the table. She slowly ate each bite of her lunch, so politely. And just like a Russian, she held her fork in her right hand and her piece of bread in her left hand throughout the whole meal. 

I've read about kids coming out of orphanages and devouring their food like it's the first time they've been allowed to eat. Not these two. It was very apparent to us that they have always had plenty to eat and have healthy relationships with food. 

For her first five and a half years, Anya was taken care of and loved as much as her caregivers could love her. For this I am very, very grateful. I know that most here in Eastern Europe who are born with special needs are not so lucky.

So it looks like the Mac-n-Cheese got a thumbs-up.  And the apples and bread, too!

I walked to the store to get a few things and when I came back, they were both in the bath, happy as can be.  Another surprise for us.  They told me at the orphanage that they shower the kids once a week and don't give baths because it would take too much time.   Anya was a little hesitant when Katrina was filling the tub, but as soon as she saw Vahnya get in and start splashing away, she thought, "that looks fun!"  She was much more calm than him, since she's more mature and all. :) She just poured water from one cup to another the whole time. Neither one of them were a bit happy when it was time to get out.

All cozy in their new jammies.  Don't you just want to eat 'em all up?

 

 Today was Anya's first day ever in her life with no nap.  She was too hyped up from the excitement to settle down for one and I didn't want to fight it, especially since I've never had a child this age who takes naps!  I'm lucky if they make it to age three!

So she was pretty tired by 9:00.  It took her about 20 minutes to finally give up. But the whole time she was getting there, she had to have some part of her body touching me. If I moved, she would snuggle closer.

Tonight, my little girl experienced something she's never experienced in her five and a half years on this earth.

A mommy to snuggle next to.

Thank you, Dear Father for giving me this perfect child.  

I don't know why you chose me, or if I'll ever be worthy of this calling.  But thank you. 

She's simply beautiful.