Silly Saturday!

It was a laid back Saturday at the baby house, and we only took 9 pictures of Leeza! That is a record!! She was a happy girl today, and very silly, cracking herself up and laughing at her crazy brother. She was happy to see Tatiana today too. It was nice having Tatiana with us on our visit today. She is so sweet and just fun to be around! It was also nice to get a picture of the 3 of us...so thanks Tatiana!! We also finally got to see some other American's today-albeit very briefly! Kelly and her husband Doug, from Maine, are here and another gal, Natasha, is also adopting, thru an agency called MAPS. I think we will see a lot of Natasha since she is adoptiong a child from Leeza's group. I would imagine we'll hav the same vistitation times. I had "met" Kelly thru our blogs, while we have both waited a loooooooooong time to come to Kostanai! It was nice to meet her in person! She recognized me and said Hello, and Happy birthday to Leeza and Hi to Sean. I was glad, because I am not sure I would have known it was her. Her and her husband seem very cool, and I am excited to get to know them better. There are apparently 2 other couples here too,from AFTH (another agency), but we haven't seen them at all. They really do try to keep us all seperated, and the coordinators seem weirded out if we talk to each other. I really don't get it, but maybe they are afraid we'll trade stories and compare or something? I don't know-all I can figure is that it's a culture thing.

Leeza woofed down her soup (as usual), it wasn't beets today, but turned her nose up at the second course. She was very busy with her stacking cups today. She was into her birthday Peek a Boo book and her cups, but Tatiana was having fun playing with her Elmo/cookie monster toy. We were talking about how much Leeza has changed since we met her 5 weeks ago. It really is so amazing to witness! She is such a silly, sweet lil thing! She likes to dance by rocking back and forth. I still remember on the first day when she was rocking because she was so scared, and my heart just broke and I wanted to just LOVE HER UP! Now, she rocks because she is jamming to the ABC bear sing. I MUCH prefer that, and she sings too, quite beautifully, may I add.
It was much warmer out today... I was able to wear my sleeveless beaded tank top from Steinmart and my denim shorts and sandals quite comfortably. We also took Leeza outside for a walk. It was warm, but Leeza was bundled up. Sean and Tatiana went to the store to get snacks, and Leeza tried to grab her mommy's diet coke. It was cute!






Breaking news at the Dolphin Baby House

The big news around the baby house is that Dr. Irina is retiring! She turned 58 in July, and apparently that is the age that women can retire here...and it's 63 for men (according to the lovely Tatiana). We'll find out more on Monday, but, I think she is already gone and her replacement has been named. I am sad because I really liked her, and her reputation is so widespread! When you say Dolpin baby house you just think Dr. Irina! There is even a picture of her at the Kostanai museum with a picture of some of the babies in the baby house!! Joe is bringing with him a big donation of things from 2 Hearts for Hope. I was (well, I still am) so excited to bring it to Dr. Irina and to explain what 2 Hearts for Hope is and how much the Americans love the children of Kazakhstan.

A wonderful charity
Two Hearts for Hope is a WONDERFUL charity put together by two wonderful women, Stacy Segebarth and Kim Prud'homme
who adopted from Kaz and now have an organization that gives to orphans in Kazakshtan. I have enjoyed shopping for the requested items each month and shipping them to Stacy, who keeps track of storing and distributing the goods. It is a charity that we will continue to be involved in when we get back home. In fact, I am sure my friends and family will become very familiar with this charity because Leeza Grace and I are going to be big advocates of it! I am thinking walkathons..strollathons....car washes...cute baby contests......who KNOWS what!!! Being here and meeting these children and the caregivers and seeing this baby house is TRULY a life changing experience. I am so thankful that Stacy and Kim had the foresight and knowledge to start such a wonderful organization that gives back! They do so much here for the children and they have so little. I really wish we could adopt them all! The kids are SOOOOOOOOOOOO precious!
The website is www.heartsforhope.blogspot.com if you'd like to see the kinds of things they are collecting now.

Of course, I am still excited to bring all the wonderful stuff that is being shipped to us, and to explain it, but we will be presenting it to the new person in charge, whoever that may be. I am sure they will really appreciate it as well, just as Dr. Irina would . Dr. Irina won't be in court with us either, which is a bummer, because she seemed to like us. :) Sean's hair is getting VERY long-he looks like a girl. I have told him he needs a haircut before court,but he insists that he'll let his Dad trim his bangs ONLY. {sigh}

Dad's on his way back!!! yay!!
Joe has booked his flights back and bless his heart, he has many stops to get here.
He is going Tampa-DC (Dullus)-Frankfurt-Almaty-Astana-Kostanai. ICK! He overnights in Almaty and leaves early for Astana. The good thing is that his layovers are short...a 3 hour layover in Frankfurt is the longest one, and then he arrives at almost midnight in Almaty and takes off for Astana at 6:15 am. His visa should arrive on Wednesday. Good thing he applied for it the DAY he got back!
He arrives here a week from Sunday, the 14th (yay!!!) at 11:35 am. So, he will be able to see Leeza Grace's sweet lil face on Sunday after he arrives! I think he will be suprised how much smarter and more beautiful she has gotten in the short 2 1/2 weeks he has been gone.

Only 11 more days until court! Our homestudy arrived yesterday-that was the last document that we were waiting on. Our agency closed before it was apostilled so I was a tad freaked out about it getting here, but our adoption angel was on our side. I have been singing "Our God is an awesome God" quite a bit!

Sean is busy because his first week of make up work has arrived. He is working on his vocabulary now!

Camping in Kostanai!

We have something else exciting to look forward too...the water in the entire city of Kostanai is being turned off Tuesday night and being turned back on Friday night. I have filled up our empty 5 litre bottles of water (we have 3 so far),a bucket, and our pans and kettle full of water so we can flush.
It will be oh so fun, we can pretend we are CAMPING! It will be back on by the time Joe gets here on Sunday, so I'm sure he is disapointed he can't go camping with us.