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!