The fun continues!

We took Keira to her first hockey game last night, she was awesome. She stayed awake through three periods of hockey, overtime and a shoot out- which is more than I can say for her brother Zane. The cotton candy and snow cone might have had something to do with keeping her up. She also went to her first easter egg hunt this week, which she loved. After that she kept wandering around the playroom with a basket filling it full of stuff and clapping for herself every time she put something in. Now we are hoping her first vocabulary of 5 or 6 words won't expand with any of the hockey fan favorites.

A little update

All is well in Jenkins land. Keira has gotten much better with eating, as long as it is something she can feed herself with a fork. She has no interest in being fed anything and is not real fond of using her hands. Maybe it is from listening to us tell the boys 7,654 times a meal to use a fork instead of their hands?

I have noticed that she is getting much more friendly with people when we are out and about, as long as I am holding her or have her close to me in a cart or stroller. If she is down walking around and someone tries to talk to her, she immediately grabs my legs and starts kissing and hugging my knees. If that won't make a Mommy tear up, I don't know what will!

We are having a little trouble with the boys and Keira, they just won't leave her alone! I had to go buy Zane an alarm clock today so that he will know what time he is allowed to go into Keira's room and "check on her". He has been sneaking earlier and earlier, to the point that this morning he had her up at 5:30. I'm not a big fan of being awake at that hour. I guess there are worse things than having brothers that love her too much!

Things she loves

We are getting to know so many things about this beautiful little girl. We already knew she loved to smile and play and was easy going. Since she has been home she has discovered:

Songs- "Itsy bitsy spider", "twinkle twinkle", "If you're happy and you know it" and the "Superman" Dinner prayer (sung to the tune of superman theme, "thank you god, for giving us food..thank you god for giving us food..we are prayed, we are fed.. thank you god for giving us food"- arms held out like Superman)

Food- she loves any kind of fruit, we are trying to limit her to two bananas a day. She spotted some strawberries in my salad tonight and banged the table until she got them from me. Not a lot of luck on meat, but she will eat bacon! She can smell chocolate from 100 yards and loves suckers.

Toys- the big hits are still her stacking cups, her purse and a ball. She also has a princess wand that she walks around with quite a bit. Her very favorites are my phone and the remote control. We had forgotten how much fun it was to look for the remote control in every drawer in the house.

Clothes- she is not a fan of socks or shoes, but inexplicably breaks out into giggles every time you put tights on her. Maybe it is the look of utter confusion on my face as for how to get them on her. Not so big on hairbows or clips, I think her personal best is 8 seconds keeping them in.

Activities- she loves to dance (big fan of hip hop!), take bubble baths, climb the stairs, go toilet fishing (yes.....), and get into the dogs water bowl and "wash" her hair with it.

And of course, most of all- she loves being loved. Luckily for her, that's not something she'll ever run out of!

Poking and prodding and peeing in a bag.....

Keira had her asessment at the Vanderbilt International Adoption Clinic today. I think we are very lucky to live in a town with a clinic dedicated to International Adoption. They did a full assesment of her social development and bonding, physical development, and motor skills/language development. The news today was pretty much what we expected- she is right on track for gross and fine motor development. Her only noticeable delay is in language, but that is fully expected from a child that has been in orphanage care, and they do not consider it to be a delay requiring intervention until she has been home 6 months. From the way she is chattering away in her babble talk, I feel like it will not be long before her words come. If she is like the rest of our kids, we will forever be asking "Why did we teach her how to talk?". As far as her physical development, they did a lot of blood work that will look check for common blood illnesses, liver and kidney function, and be sure that her immunizations were effective. Her height is in the top 84%, weight is 26% and head is 43%. A beautiful healthy girl!

We had a baby shower on Sunday at church. Keira did great with the crowd and we were blessed with a complete summer wardrobe, and her favorite gift- a princess wand and crown. This little girl will want for nothing!

Paka Paka Kazakhstan!

We are home! The trip was great, Keira recognized me as soon as they brought her and proceeded to be her usual happy easy going self for the few days we were there. We had no problems with the medical or embassy. There were a few glitches with our flights home, but they were eventually straightened out after much nail biting and fighting back tears. For those in process, if you are flying home KLM, be sure you have a paper ticket for your infant. Everyone in our group with e tickets had problems and they cannot issue paper tickets at the airport

The flights home were long, but Keira was great. She did not sleep at all on the first flight, but she got 6 hours in on the second and slept from takeoff to landing on the third. We were SO grateful we were able to upgrade to business class with points, it gave her plenty of room to play on the floor and to stretch out when she slept.

When we got home she was pretty overwhelmed by the greeting at the airport, and probably a little grumpy because we had to wake her up at landing. At home we discovered she was not crazy about the dog. She has quickly warmed up to her brothers and decided they are very funny. She loved running free in the yard yesterday.

Last night she slept in her own bed from 6:45 until about 3 a.m., then got in bed with us and slept until almost 7. That's pretty much the routine the boys had at this age too. So far at home she has decided she likes biscuits, waffles, bacon and southern style green beans. We'll have her saying ya'll soon!

Life is awesome with our family of 6, we are blessed!*

I'll fly away, oh glory!!

Tomorrow is the big day and I can't wait! I am not looking forward to the flying part. Still torn at this point whether to enjoy a sleeping pill or the free food and drinks. Leaning towards the sleeping at this point, especially since we will be flying overnight. I am very glad my sister is coming with me to keep me company. Hopefully we won't be too tired to enjoy seeing a little of Amsterdam on Sunday. We will get to Almaty at 5:45 on Monday morning (5:45 pm Sunday central time). The current schedule has Keira arriving at about noon that day. We are still hoping to have an apartment but may have to be in a hotel because so many families are traveling at once. We should have just enough time to get settled in a bit and head back to the airport to meet Keira and the escort. I can't wait to see my girl!!!!

Never been so happy to miss the Super Bowl in my LIFE!

Laurie (my sister) and I will be leaving this weekend to go to Kaz! We had a slight change of plans, we will be coming back on the 9th. That means a few more days in Almaty than we thought at first, but the awesome part of that is that we were able to book our roundtrip first class tickets using American Express points! I knew saving the points all those years would be worth it.

We will also be celebrating Laurie's birthday in Almaty, I guess we'll have to find out where to go for a celebratory dinner with a new toddler.

No news is NOT good news.

Still no travel dates. Still no news, no updates, only a request to quit asking. We are still expected to travel at the end of January or early February, but since the end of January is next week, I don't have a lot of hope for that. I am frustrated, I am tired, I am over it. It seems that as long as we aren't told we have a problem, we are to assume there is not one.

For all of my friends in Kaz adoptions that do get weekly updates from your agencies, don't take them for granted. Send your coordinators a thank you, tell the agency how much you appreciate it. The cone of silence approach is not easy to live through. Never in my life have I been described as someone who needs a lot of coddling or hand holding, but this is breaking me. It probably doesn't help that in my past life I managed to be sure that a couple of thousand clients were regularly updated about the process of class action litigation. Its an excel spreadsheet, here's where your case is, here's what the next step is. I could complete it in about 15 minutes for hundreds of people. Apparently that is just too much to ask here.

Where's Yoda when I need him?

I have no more patience, young jedi. I want Keira home NOW- scratch that- I want Keira home yesterday! I know we will get the call soon, and I know the staff in Kaz are working hard to get her home, but the waiting is just plain hard. As I told one of my adoption friends, its as though when I was pregnant someone had taken the baby out, let me play with it for a few weeks and then said "Sorry, we've got to put him back for 6 weeks!". I know that this is in God's hands, and it will happen on His time. Unfortunately, I just don't have enough of His patience! So most of all, I ask that you pray for her to come home soon, and pray for us to retain our sanity until she does.

She's ours! Now we just need permission to come get her!

I talked to LMI this week and the judge is signing the adoption decree today (actually it was probably last night Kaz time). That means that as far as the Kazakhstan government is concerned, she is fully legally ours. Keira Dayana Jenkins is just waiting for us! Now we just have to wait for her new birth certificate to be issued, at which point the agency can apply for her passport and visa. Once those are processed, we will get the call to come get our girl! We are hopeful that it will be in the next 2-3 weeks.

In the meantime, we are trying to enjoy our time with the boys. I am taking long hot showers without worrying where the toddler is, leaving sharp knives and sharpies laying around and leaving the bathroom doors open. I know that soon enough unrolling all of the toilet paper will be daily toddler fun!

Her room is almost ready and Keira is the proud owner of 4 pairs of shoes so far, which I'm thinking is just a dent in a little girl's wardrobe. She's got to keep up with Maya Serges after all (she's the daughter of one of our travel companions, her mother may have an even bigger shoe problem than I've got!). Word from another traveling family is that Keira has been the unfortunate recipient of a very bad orphanage haircut since we have been gone, so I am thinking until that grows out she may be living in the cute little gymboree outfit with matching hat that our friend Stephanie gave her.

I can't wait until this summer, I am hoping several of our Semey travel friends will come to Kazapalooza so that we can see how these kids blossom once they are home. They were all such amazing kids under difficult conditions that I know they are going to be incredible people as they grow up in homes where they are surrounded in love.

Come on Passport!!!!!!!