Hey guys! Just wanted to say Merry Christmas and I hope you all had a great day. We have had a great Christmas but are missing our Hannah something terrible. We booked our flights to return last night. We will be leaving Charleston on Sunday January 13th and will arrive in Almaty, Kazakhstan on Tuesday January 15th and on that day they will bring Hannah to us at the hotel. We will all three be returning home on the 20th of January for good!

 

We have been getting things ready for Hannah to come home. I have been having a blast shopping for all this girly stuff! Check out the new pink convertible Hannah got today (Thanks Kathy and John!!) It's a walker that looks like a convertible, it even has lights on the back and a horn! It is the cutest!  We also bought her a pink highchair and some cute new clothes including a party dress for her Welcome Home party/ shower. 

 

I just want to thank everyone for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. This has been an awesome experience and we can't wait to get Hannah home so that you all can meet her. Please continue to pray for us. We will keep you posted with any new information we get. We love you all!

 

 

Hey guys! Sorry I haven't posted in so long, the internet in the hotel was down last week. So I will catch you up on everything now. Friday we had our court hearing, we were so scared but all went well. First Tamara our facilitator gave a speech and a little background on Hannah, then the doctor from the orphanage that has been with her since she was born gave a little speech and then the lady from our MOE interview gave a little speech and after all of this the judge asked us a few questions and then told us to leave. It was all over in about 7-8 minutes. They did this with all of the families before they gave any of us the the verdict. After all of the families had been through he called us all back in together and told us that our adoptions were approved and congratulations! It was the best day of my life!

 

Saturday we had a very nice party with Hannah's caregivers to celebrate and to thank them for all they have done for her. Hannah walked around the the room in her walker the whole time and ate a little bit of everything that was on our plates. She loved the sausage and cheese and then one of the caregivers gave her a bite of cake and she gagged and gagged! She hated it! Saturday evening was our last visit with Hannah. Leaving the orphanage that night was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I cried like a baby. It does help some to know that they take good care of her there but it still ripped my heart out to leave her. I can't wait to go back and get her.

 

Sunday we spent packing up to go home. We flew from Karaganda to Almaty Sunday night, and then caught our flight to Amsterdam Monday morning at 8:00.  All went well until we got to Detroit. They had delayed our flight by an hour and then they delayed it another hour and then finally thay cancelled it! They said it was for mechanical issues on the plane. So they put us up in a hotel in Detroit for the night. Yesterday we finally got out of there at about 3:00 pm and were home by 4:00 pm. It felt good to be in our own bed last night. Even though we are still having trouble getting used to this time zone. We finally got used to Kazakhstan's time and now that we are home we are once again not sleeping through the night. It will take us a few days to get back in the swing of things.

 

We are missing Hannah so bad we can't stand it. If all goes as planned we will be able to go back and get her January 14th. We can't wait!

We love you all!

hey guys! Well we had our MOE interview today and all went well. They asked us about five questions and then they looked at a photo album that I made of pictures of us with Hannah. They laughed and said that Hannah looks like Josh bald head and all. It was not nearly as intimidating as we expected. We are happy to have this behind us. Our court hearing is Friday morning at 10:00 so please say a prayer that this will go good as well. Our travel plans have changed somewhat. Instead of flying out of Karaganda Friday night we won't be flying out until Sunday night. This works well for us because it means that we will get to spend one more day with our Hannah. Thanks for all of the prayers and please keep it up. We love you all and Hannah sends kisses!

Hey guys! Today was our fourteenth visit with miss Hannah! She was in such a great mood today. Again when we went to pick her up from her room she was in her walker and she started jumpng up and down and clapping. And again we turned into mush! She is soo precious. We can tell a huge difference in her personality now that we are in the mornings rather than in the evenings. In the evenings she was more subdued and in the mornings she is a wild child! She is so much more active in the mornings. She sat up a played with her toys for a long time this morning. She has also taken to trying to mimic what we do. If I tilt my head she tilts her head, if I stick out my tongue she sticks hers out etc. She loves gold and diamonds. No matter what she is doing, if she sees my ring or earrings she stops what she is doing to touch them. I told Josh he's in trouble in a few years!

 

Our translator said that our MOE interview is likely to be tomorrow so please pray that all will go well. We are very nervous about this. On one hand I just want to get it over with but on the other hand it scares me to death!

 

We love and miss you all.

Hey guys! Sorry there was no post yesterday, we don't have internet access on Sunday's. We didn't do much yesterday, we just went to the outdoor bazar with some of the other couples. We didn't get to stay long because it was so cold outside. It just isn't much fun shopping when it is only 8 degrees outside! The only thing I bought was a hat! It was so cold I finally broke down and bought a tobogan. Between it, the earmuffs, my scarf and my coat, it was still barely tolerable.

 

Today we got switched to morning visits with Hannah. She is so much more active in the mornings. When we went in to get her she was in her walker and she started laughing, jumping up and down, and clapping her hands. It melted our hearts! She is so precious! We got to feed her some porridge this morning. I had as much on me as she had in her! Daddy made her laugh while she was eating and she spit her porridge all over my shirt! The babies here eat out of a huge bowl with a tablespoon and you can't feed them fast enough to make them happy. She also drinks hot tea out of a cup for breakfast. She has no trouble drinking out of the cup but she prefers the bottle still. (We do too, it isn't as messy! :-) )  We got her translated medical information this morning. There were no suprises. Everything was just as they told us on our first day. She is a healthy little girl and has been checked of by a whole list of doctors. Well that is about it for today. We expect to have our MOE interview sometime within the next couple of days, so say a prayer for us. We love and miss you all.

Hey guys! The internet was actually available this evening! I doubt we will have internet tomorrow so if we don't post, don't worry.  Today Hannah was a little cranky and very tired. She fell asleep on Josh halfway through the visit while I was doing paperwork with our translator. We filled out our applications for court and all of the documents pertaining to us adopting Hannah. It was so great to see her new name in print on legal documents.

 

We didn't do much today, we went to UYM (zoom)  with one of the other couples and developed some pictures of us with Hannah for our MOE visit. We also bought her some souveniers for her room. We bought her the stacking dolls, and a decorative camel that is traditional in this area. We had yet another peanut butter sandwich for lunch. After this trip I will be happy to never see peanut butter again! I think we are going to eat in the bowling alley this evening if we can find someone to translate the menu for us. Well that's about all for today. We love you all and will see you soon.

 

Hey guys! As seems to be the trend we are again posting late. For some reason the guy that runs the business center has not been here in the evenings so that we can get our posts caught back up. Yesterday was a pretty boring day for us, we didn't do anything all day except hang around the hotel and wait for our visit with Hannah. Our visit went well. Hannah was in her bed when we went to pick her up yesterday. We had never seen her bed or the room where she slept so it was a little overwhelming for me. The room where the babies sleep is a room that has probably 10- 15 cribs in it and each one has the name of the baby that sleeps there posted on the headboard. It broke my heart to see how many children there were in there and to think that there are six more rooms just like it. The caregivers are wonderful and they try to provide as much one on one with each child as possible but I am sure that they are overwhelmed as well trying to take care of so many children. There are typically two caregivers to each room on any given shift. The baby house is a very nice place and they keep it spotless. We are very pleased with the care that the children receive here.

 

Hannah is a doll. She seems to always be happy and giggly. She loves to play and is very ticklish. She is also very observant, she loves to sit and watch people. If someone comes into the room speaking Russian she listens intently and sometimes if they say something funny she will start laughing just listening to them. It is so cute. She is responding to her name very well now and also to some other english words. She loves it when I sing to her. If I start singing she will stop what she is doing and put her ear to my mouth and listen until I stop singing. It is so sweet. We are enjoying our time here with her and are already a little sad that this will be our last week visiting her. We leave Karaganda on the 14th and will not see her again until January 14th. Please continue to pray that our MOE appointment will go well as well as our court hearing. We love and miss you all.

Hey guys! Sorry for the late post, the internet was down yesterday once again! Yesterday was our Tenth visitation day with miss Hannah. It seems like we have known her forever so it is kind of crazy to think that we have only known her for 11 days! She was a little cranky yesterday and all she wanted was to be held. Of course we didn't mind. :-) As you can see in the pictures Hannah sat up all by herself yesterday and played for about 5 minutes before taking a tumble. This is a huge improvement! We are soo proud of her. We work with her everyday to try to catch her up to where she should be and it is really helping. Her caregivers in her room are just great and she really seems to like all of them. Some of them have even started to call her Hannah now, so that is helping us as far as her recognizing her name.

 

We went shopping yesterday morning with two of the other families. We went to a store called UYM (pronounced zoom), the city mall, and to Mickey house (a children's clothing store). We finished buying everything that we needed to leave with Hannah so that she can be escorted to Almaty. We had lunch at a resteraunt in the mall called Assorti and it was great. It was the closest thing to American food that we have found so far. After our visit with Hannah a bunch of us went bowling here in the hotel. Our hotel has a great bowling alley in it and it is reasonably cheap to bowl here. We had a lot of fun!  We finally have gotten over our jet lag and are able to sleep all night. Of course we are only here for another week and a half and then we get to do it all over again in the states! We miss you all and we love you all!

Hey guys! Today was a good day with Hannah, she now recognizes us when we go into the room to get her and she starts to smile and laugh. It is great! Natalya ,our translator, said that when she goes into the room in the mornings that Hannah will look around to see if we are coming in behind her.  She is so alert and attentive and she is also starting to recognize her name some. We always call her Hannah and at first of course she did not respond to this because she wasn't used to it, but now she will turn her head and look at you when you say her name. It is an awesome experience to see all of the progress that she is making daily. We love her so much.

 

We did not do much today we stayed in the room and watched TV and I read a book. Josh found another couple that has DVD's of the show King of Queens so of course he is in heaven! They have been switching out DVD's which makes it nice! We went down to the Apollo cafe here in the hotel for lunch and had soup. One thing we have  noticed here is that no matter how many times you order the same meal in the cafe it will always be different. The food here is not bad and no we are not starving. They have quite a variety of foods and you will usually find something you can eat. Neither of us has gotten the courage to eat horse meat and don't plan on it either. We got our list of things that we need to buy to leave with Hannah so that she can be escorted to Almaty when we pick her up and there are a few things that we still need to get so that might be our adventure tomorrow. We will have to see how cold it is. Today it is very cold and snowing. We have gotten quite good at learning to balance ourselves on the ice here since all of the streets and sidewalks are a solid sheet of ice that never seems to melt. Well I guess that is about enough for today we ordered pizza for dinner from Mario's and Josh just came in to say it is here. We love you all!

Hey guys! Sorry for the late post, the internet was down yesterday. Hannah is doing great. She is such a joy. We love her so much. All of the babies in her room are sick so I hope she doesn't get this as well. She has progressed so much in the week that we have known her. She is starting to try to imitate us when we talk and when we make faces. She is sitting up on her own some now too which is a huge improvement. She is also trying to start scooching across the floor some. She doesn't quite have this down pat yet but she is gettting there. Even our translator commented on her progress yesterday. She still always so happy and loves to laugh. Her favorite thing though is still to people watch. She is perfectly content to sit there and watch everyone in the room. Josh says she will be fine on the plane because there are so many people for her to watch!

 

We walked to the outdoor market yesterday and bought the rest of the things that we need to leave here for Hannah. We enjoy seing the people and the culture here. Everyone here is very nice and very helpful they try their best to understand us even if they don't speak our language (which very few people do). We went yesterday to get our papers for court notarized it was very neat to see Hannah's name in print on legal documents for the first time. Our court date is the 14th of December  and our MOE appointment will be sometime next week. Please pray for us that these will both go smoothly. We love you all and miss you all. We will try to post again soon.

Today we only had one visit with Hannah. Due to the fact that there are so many families here right now they have cut our visits down to one a day. That makes the day really long! We didn't do much today, we stayed in the room and did laundry in the sink (yay). Yesterday we had no visits because it was Sunday so we went to the mall with some of the other families. We bought Hannah two outfits yesterday 6-9 months and they fit her beautifully even over the two layers of clothes she already had on. So I would definately say she is going to be wearing 6-9 months for a little while. She looks beautiful in yellow! Tomorrow I think we will go out shopping with some of the other families to pass the time until we can see our little Hannah. Love you all.

Well today was day six of our visits with Hannah. Today was passport photo day. We dressed her in her new outfit and she looked really cute. She did really well in her pictures she looked at the camera but refused to smile! They also took a family photo today for paperwork here. She did really well in this one too except still no smile! We never have trouble getting her to smile I guess she just thought she would show us a bit of her independence today! As soon as the pictures were over she was back to her normal smiley self.  She is so great, all we have to do is talk to her and she will just laugh and laugh. She is also getting stronger, on day one it was all we could do to get her to roll over but yesterday she started rolling over like it was nothing! She rolled four times in a row and just laughed and laughed! Also today we noticed that she is starting to sit up some on her own of course we are spotting her in case she decides to tumble but this is a huge improvement from day one. It is amazing to see how much these kids progress with a little love and attention and goodness knows she gets plenty of both!

 

Josh and I had a pretty uneventful day between visits, we stayed in the room and watched movies today. I am feeling some better, my throat no longer hurts but I am still really stuffed up. Hopefully this will pass soon as well. The temperature changes between the baby house and outside is unbelievable and I am sure this has something to do with my cold. In the baby house it is no less than 80-90 degrees with all eight families in one room and then you go outside and it is about 20 degrees!  There are no visits with our little Hannah tomorrow since it is Sunday so we will probably have a pretty uneventful day. We will still try to post something tomorrow. Love you all.