Today is Hannah's 1st birthday! We had her a party on the 15th of this month, and she celebrated like a true princess! She even had a little princess dress that said "Birthday girl" and a tiara that said "It's fun to be one". Too cute!  She had her own little birthday cake that her aunt Wendi made for her. She loved eating the icing off of it and made a royal mess! But she had fun making it! Today Josh and I took her out to breakfast and she had pancakes and eggs. She loved them and ate every bite! She has transitioned into table food very well and prefers it over baby food any day! Josh had to go to work at noon today so I took Hannah to the park for the first time. She had so much fun! She loves to swing, she laughed the whole time she was in the swing. It was so cute!

We have spent the last few weekends partying as we have three birthdays in one week in our family. My nephew Elijah turned four on the 24th, Hannah turned one on the 26th, and my nephew Isaac turns eight on the 29th! We went to North Carolina for the boys birthday parties this past weekend and had a blast. The easter bunny even left Hannah a gift in NC as well as in WV!

Hannah is now crawling on all fours, we had seen her take a few little steps on all fours but then she would go back to army crawling, but Monday night she just got up on all fours and took off and now she crawls that way all the time. She is also pulling up on the couch, her toybox, my leg and anything else she can get a hold of.  She has learned how to give kisses now too. It is so precious. She woke up from her nap yesterday and we noticed that she was getting two new teeth on the top at the same time, well today I noticed that she is not only getting two teeth she is getting FOUR! All at one time! Two on the top and two on the bottom. Three of them are through the skin and one has yet to make an appearance. We had no idea, She hasn't even been cranky! She is handling it like a champ!

That's about it for now, we will try to update again soon!

Hey guys! I was looking at my webpage and noticed that an update was long overdue! Life is great. We are enjoying our time with our baby girl. Hannah is doing so well. She went to the doctor last week and they said that she is 20 pounds 5 ounces (50th percentile) and 28 1/2 inches long (75th percentile). They also said that developementally she has completely caught up and is exactly where she should be for her age! That was great news! We knew that she was a genius but it was nice to have someone else confirm it! LOL! 

 

 Hannah now has three teeth with a fourth one coming in. She is crawling and will walk along the couch when you stand her up, but after a few minutes she gets brave and lets go and falls.  She has gotten the hang of her pincer grasp and can now feed herself puffs and other small things. She had her first cold this past month and she was a real trooper, she didn't really get cranky or anything until you would wipe her nose. She hates having her face wiped at all and cries every time! Her little personality shines through more and more every day. She has such an awesome little personality and we love to see how she changes every day!

 

Hannah has a big birthday coming up soon. She will be one on the 26th of this month. We are having her a party this Saturday and I can't wait! It is of course in a princess theme (what else could it be? lol) . All of her family and friends will be there and I am sure she will as always be spoiled by all!

 

On the work front, I was panicking about having to go back to work and putting Hannah in daycare five days a week.  Since not working isn't an option for us, we were praying that God would open up a door that would help us be able to be home with Hannah more. Good news, God answered our prayers! I will be transferring from the operating room to the second floor and my schedule will work out so that one of us is always home with our baby girl! I will be working 3 nights a week while Josh is home with Hannah and we will only have to have childcare for a few hours on Monday and Tuesday mornings. Josh's dad has been kind enough to offer to watch her during these hours. This means no daycare for miss Hannah! Yay! We feel like Hannah needs to be with her mommy and daddy and would make any job change necessary to help accomplish this.

 

We love this baby girl so much, It still takes my breath away. She is so attached to us it is unreal. If mommy or daddy is in the room, no one else has a chance. This of course makes us feel great!

 

I guess that is about it for us this time around. I will try to post again after her birthday party.

 

 

This poem was included in a card that I recieved from my friend Sarah. It is so beautiful I thought I would share with all of you.

 

The Chosen Heart

I dream of all the joy you'll bring

Imagining even the littlest things

The way it feels to hold you tight

And tuck you in every night

 

The drawings on the refrigerator door

And childhood toys across the floor

Your favorite stories read again and again

Hours of games with make-believe friends

 

The day you took my outstretched hand

A journey ended but our lives began

Still mesmerized by your sweet face

Still warmed inside by our first embrace

 

A promise to give you a happy home

And a loving family all your own

A house you've now made complete

With laughter, smiles, and tiny feet

 

A parent is one who guides the way

Know we will be there every day

Rest easy as each night you sleep

A lifetime of love is yours to keep

 

Longing for a child to love

I'd wish upon the stars above

In our hearts we always knew

A part of us belonged to you

Hey all! Hannah is sleeping so I thought I would take this time to post an update. She is doing so good, and progressing by leaps and bounds each day. It is amazing to watch her learn new things. She is so funny. Her little personality has really started to show, she loves to laugh and always smiles. Yesterday she was feeding herself a biter biscuit and after every bite she would raise her hands and say Yay! and then laugh. She has taken to calling me "Mom" instead of mama. If I leave the room she will come crawling down the hall yelling "Mom, Mom". She now says mom, dada, hi, bye, no, and yay. But when you ask her to say something she will say the opposite and then laugh and laugh. Josh told her to say dada last night and she would look at him and say Mom and then laugh!  We went to the doctor last week and she now weighs 20 pounds.  She is a healthy, happy little girl.

 

She brings such joy to our lives. Sometimes I am so overwhelmed with emotion when I look at her and think about all that she has been through and all it took to get her here. There is no doubt that she is the child God had chosen for us, she fits into this family so perfectly. She is definately my little "angel from heaven" as I call her. God has truly blessed us.

Hey guys! Please note the "Two hearts for hope" logo on my page.  This is a program that was started by two adoptive moms of Kaz angels like Hannah. They take up donations and send them to the orphanages in Kazakhstan. This is a cause that is close to my heart and if any of you could find the time to look at this page and possibly send them some donations I would greatly appreciate it. The orphanages do the best they can but due to the lack of funding the children do without some basic needs like shoes, clothes etc. Think of what a difference we could make for these kids just with a small donation. These ladies have started a great program and could use any help they can get. Just click on the logo to be forwarded directly to their site.

 

Thanks,

Miranda

Hannah has now been home for almost three weeks and she has had so many firsts. She is so smart and she catches on to things so quickly (can't tell I'm a proud mama huh?!). Since my last post Hannah has started crawling. She army crawls and it is so cute, she is getting faster at it too. She can get anywhere and into anything she wants. She has also cut her first tooth (not a fun couple of days)! Her vocabulary consists of the words Dada, Mama, Hi, and Bye Bye. We have now had two baths that did not include tears! She is also holding her own bottle now. She is still working on her pincer grasp which I am sure she will get down soon.

 

Hannah's personality has really started to shine also. It is amazing how much she has changed in just the three weeks we have been home. She has such a fun personality always laughing and smiling. She is also starting to show us some of her independence, she will definately let you know when she doesn't like something! We love getting to see how she changes from day to day and watch her personality grow. We love her so much, it is hard to imagine our life without her. God has truly blessed our family.

 

 

Hey guys! Sorry it has been so long since I have updated but life is busy these days. We have been home with Hannah for one week now and everything is going great. She is a happy girl and has adjusted very well. She sleeps good, waking up only once a night for a bottle. She also eats very well, she loves everything that we give her. We had a shower/welcome home party Saturday. Hannah celebrated in true princess style! There was around 75-100 people there and Hannah was the center of attention, she loved every minute of it!

 

We went to the doctor and she now weighs 18 lbs 9 ounces and is 28 1/2 inches long. The doctor said that she looks great and that she is completely healthy. She got two shots :-( We are working on crawling and feeding herself per doctors orders! She catches on to everything so quickly I don't think this will be a problem!  I will try to update again soon.

 

Miranda

Hey guys! Today is our third day home with Hannah. It has been such a joy and a blessing to be able to watch her progress during the time that we have had her. It is amazing just what a few days will do. Hannah is doing much better now that she is home and is beginning to get a routine down. No more 5:00 cranky spells!! We finally figured out that this was her way of fighting sleep. She is such an active baby that she doesn't want to sleep because she is afraid that she will miss something. We are getting her in a nap routine and her night time sleeping is excellent . She has no problems going to bed at night and sleeps straight through until usually around 4:30 and then gets a bottle and goes back to bed. We have definately been blessed with that. She is in the process of meeting all the family and she does very well with this. She is still a little hesitant around men due to the fact that she has never been around any but Josh but she is starting to come around on this too.  Today was her first shopping outing, we went to Wal Mart to look for shoes to go with her party dress that she is wearing to her shower Saturday. She loved Wal Mart and was amazed by all of the things and people. She turned quite a few heads and really enjoyed the attention. She loves children I think she misses being around kids at the orphanage so she gets really excited when other kids come around.  We have a doctor's appointment in the morning, so I will post with any new info we may get.

 

Miranda

Well we finally made it! We are home with Hannah and everyone is doing well. We have decided no more plane rides until Hannah is a teenager! She cried the entire way home! We are talking eight hours straight! But we are home now and she is adjusting well. She has had a busy day today with a lot of visitors but she has been happy all day and loves all the attention she is getting. She is in bed for the night now so I finally had time to check my e mail etc. I will update with new pictures soon.

 

Miranda

Hey guys! Today is our fourth day with our little angel. All is well. All of the babies are a little cranky I guess due to the change in routine, food etc. Hannah does really well until the evenings but she is doing better each day. Today Hannah and I went for a walk to the grocery store with Lynn and her daughter Krista. Hannah fell asleep halfway there and slept for an hour or so. Other than that we haven't been getting out much because it is just so cold. Josh has taught Hannah how to shake her head yes and now she does it all the time. Any time you ask her a question she shakes her head yes. It is funny unless you are trying to feed her and she is shaking her head yes making it hard to hit a moving target! I hope all is well at home. We can't wait to get home and begin our life as a family of three. Love You all.

 

Josh, Miranda, and Hannah

Hey guys! Well today is day two with our precious angel. Only 3 more days until we come home! We can't wait to get her home and get settled into a routine. Hannah was a little cranky yesterday evening, ok a lot cranky! But we finally figured out that she had a tummy ache and gave her some gas drops and all was well with the world again. She went to bed at 8:30 and slept until 2:15 then she had a bottle and went back to sleep and slept until 7:30 am. We slept pretty good last night as well. Today we had no appointments or anything so we have just stayed around the hotel. We are in the resteraunt right now and Josh is feeding Hannah while I post this. We are all going to go out to dinner tonight with some of the other families. That is about it for now. Hope you all are doing well. We love you all

 

Josh, Miranda and Hannah

Hey guys! Sorry I didn't post yesterday but I just figured out how to work the internet here! We made it to Almaty at 5:45 as planned and was told that Hannah would not be arriving until 1:00 due to a train delay. We were dissapointed but decided to take a nap until she arrived. The phone rang at 11:30 and it was Adel (our coordinator) telling us that Hannah was here. I don't thnk we have ever moved that fast! When we came downstairs Hannah was asleep on the couch in the lobby (that didn't last long)!

We picked her up and of course woke her up. When she woke up she was a little disoriented at first but it only took her a few minutes to figure out what was going on and then she broke out the smiles! She remembered us right away. She has had no trouble adjusting to us and she is loving all of the attention! Her personality is really showing, she has a lot to say and laughs even more than when we had her in the orphanage. We were a little worried as to whether or not she would sleep last night being in a new place and all but she had no problem at all. She had some cereal and formula at 7:30, went to bed at 8:00 and slept straight through until 5:00 am! She slept betther than Josh and I did. We woke up at 3:00 and never could go back to sleep. Gotta love that jet lag!

 

We went to the SOS clinic today for Hannah to have her physical. She did great! She weighs 18 pounds and is 28 inches long. They took some blood from her finger for her labs and she didn't even flinch! She just watched them draw the blood and put it in the tube. (Maybe we have a future nurse on our hands?!) lol.  Well that is about it for now we are all doing well and having a blast spending time with eachother. God is good!

 

Love,

Miranda

Today is the day! We are finally leaving to go get our baby girl and bring her home! We are so excited! We fly out this evening at 4:00 and will arrive in Almaty Tuesday morning at 5:45 am. We are ready to get Hannah home and begin our life as a family. This has been a long process but it has been worth every minute of it.  Thank you all for your prayers and support. We love you all and will see you next Sunday when we bring our baby girl home.

A week from today we will finally be leaving to go get our baby girl. We have been going crazy missing her and can't wait to see her again. This month without her has been the hardest wait we have encountered so far. We fly out on Sunday and will return home with her the following Sunday. I can't wait! In two weeks our precious angel will be home for good. This has been an awesome experience and we thank you all for your prayers and support. God has been good to our family and blessed us greatly.  I said in my first post that God had a perfect plan for our adoption and boy did he, that perfect plan is Miss Hannah. She is everything we dreamed of and more and we thank God for her. Without him none of this would have been possible.  For all of the waiting families out there reading this please just know that there is a reason for every delay and bump in the road that you encounter. If we had traveled when we thought we should have Hannah would not have been available. Everything happens for a reason and we see that now more than ever. God is good!

 

We will be posting on our blog while in Kazakhstan with new Hannah pics so stay tuned! Again thank you all for your prayers and support and we love you all.

 

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.