Merry Christmas!

Anna Loves Santa!

My kids are just so darn CUTE!!!

Some success with birth family search!

What a wonderful man our searcher is! While he had almost nothing to go on, he was still able to get us a tad bit of information and perhaps some birthfamily contact can be found in the future. I was able to get pictures of the house the birthmother grew up in and some info from a close neighbor who it seems still has some contact with the birthmother. I don't know quite why I feel this way as I really never thought finding the birthfamily would be of any importance to me.....but it just feels good. Even if nothing further ever happens, I at least know someone who was close to the family has seen Anna's pictures and can see she is happy and healthy and perhaps pass this along to the birthmother/father someday. And even if this is all the info and pictures I ever get for Anna, she can get some sense of her history and know I tried the best I could. I was also able to get some answers that explained why it took soooooo very long for Anna to get released for international adoption. I guess I like knowing even just a few more pieces to her history and the path Anna had to take to find her way HOME to US!

Thank you searcher Illich. I feel he did a wonderful job and charged us an extremely fair price for all he did. I know its a very personal decision to each family to search out the birth family. I just wanted to share what a positive experience its been for us overall, even without the best ending.

No such luck

So our birth family search will not have a happy ending at this moment. Our searcher will not get to show her the wonderful cuteness that is Anna and let her know how much we love and adore her. I think I still somehow hoped that having this knowledge would somehow give her a bright spot in her probable pretty hard life. I was so hoping to have a picture so show Anna some day of the woman that gave her life and perhaps some type of communication. But, not now.....perhaps later, I don't really know....maybe never.

Wish us luck

Our birth family searcher just said he found "traces" of Anna's birth mother. So, I have spent all evening writing up the birth mother letter and trying to narrow it down to 12 pictures to send (yes, double what he recommended but how can I limit such cuteness??) I'm trying not to get my hopes up but I think I am anyways.

We just returned from a wonderful long weekend away in Sedona, Arizona to celebrate my big 4-0 and our 11 year anniversary. Auntie Manda and Gramma watched the kiddos and I know they had a BLAST. They made the cutest halloween cupcakes! Anna did really good but I'm pretty sure she wore out my sister who has no kids.

Gotcha 1 year Anna

We rather quietly celebrated the 1 year mark of walking our little girl out the baby home in Artem, Russia. It just fills me with such emotions. She was such a brave little soul as we left the home she'd known for 17 months. One kind caregiver saw us off, without much to-do.

I just heard back from the searcher we were going to use for the birth family search. He does not see any way he can help us. The information is too scant and incomplete. I guess that is why it took us 13 months to get a court date. I feel very sad by this news. Somehow, no matter what the circumstances were, I just wanted someone from her birth family to know what a joy and special child Anna is and that we are trying to give her the best life possible. I'm not sure what all I was expecting, as I know her start in life was difficult, but for the moment I just feel sadness. I can just focus on the fact that we persevered and were able to walk her out of that baby home.....WE were meant to be her family.

One year as Anna's parents!!

One year ago we sat in a Russian courtroom and our petition was granted to be Anna's mommy and daddy forever. Wow, sometimes I don't think Anna has grown and changed that much since we got her as she still seems so tiny, but look at the difference! She has just finished her first week in preschool and its going quite well, but drop-offs seem to be getting harder. The teachers assure me she only cries for a few minutes after I leave, but its still hard. But, when I pick her up she's always happy and tells me she had a "good day". I got her a little gift that we will give her this evening, even though she really won't have a clue why we're celebrating. Still, she'll love her new Buzz and Woody. Anna just continues to amaze me, is such a happy girl, so social, and just a precious gift to our family.

3rd Birthday and other updates

Fun at Gymboree





At The Alamo

San Antonio Riverwalk

Anna just LOVES swimming and jumping in the pool



I keep thinking I should probably stop this blog. I keep passing up many milestones that I should be posting about. Two days ago marked 2 years since we met Anna. I can't believe its been that long, I guess mainly because we haven't even had her home a year yet. Its time again for our second Post Placement Report. Hopefully our agency will get out here in the next few weeks. I'm having to bug them.

At the beginning of the month we flew to Texas and visited with extended family in San Antonio for a week. We had the BEST time and the kids did amazing. After returning from Russia, a few hours in the air just seemed like a piece of cake. We'll definitely have to do it again soon and keep in touch with all the fabulous family we have there.

I will just leave with a slew of pictures from the last month. We are enjoying our summer. Its going to be very hard to switch gears in 2 weeks when the kids start school.

Pretend City

This place is a blast for little kids. Anna and Dylan both loved it. There's a grocery store, fire station, cafe, music stage, farm, beach, doctor's office, and more. Anna wanted to do everything, but mainly loved driving her little car around the city and was afraid to do anything for too long because she didn't want another kid to take "her" car.

Another Haircut

So I was taking pictures to post how short they cut her bangs and how terrible they look, but the pictures came out so cute!! I think she's just totally photogenic and a little cutie pie because the haircut reminds me way too much of the bad baby home cut. I shouldn't say that, the bangs are just too short, but I know I just have issues as I soooo don't like the little boy cuts they give the girls in Russia.

Anna and Mickey

While waiting in line to take a picture with Mickey Mouse we met a woman who was actually on a layover before heading home, who had just come from Taiwan and adopted a 7 year old little girl. She chose to stay 3 days at Disneyland with her before heading home to South Carolina. Wow, thats waaaaay more energy than I would have ever had! I just love it when I come across all these amazing families. Its just so wonderful that you can feel such instant connections to people and children you've never met because of this incredible process of adoption!

Swimming fun

Long time no post

On the way to the pool with Gramma

Yes, I've sunken to very bad blogger status. I don't know that we've been all that busy, just moving on with everyday life. Anna is doing great, her vocabulary is blossoming, and she is growing....just slowly. She is now 34 inches tall and 25 lbs at just shy of 3 yrs old. She has qualified for free preschool thru our school district, which will save me about $450/month so I figure that helps with some of the adoption costs! And, it really is a wonderful preschool (a 5/1 ratio) and is actually at the elementary school that Dylan goes to....so great all the way around. She really was just barely outside of the "normal" range and I thought she would just qualify for the group speech classes, but they felt she would benefit from both so we'll take it. I'm so happy we're in a great school district. It'll be 4 days a week, 3 hrs a day and they don't care that she's not potty trained. That's a project for later, mommy's not ready yet. She'll start in August and I think she's really excited about starting school. We've been enjoying Disneyland, Gymboree, the river, and Dylan's little league season wrapping up. Her progress amazes me. Do I still worry that we will encounter problems later? Yes. Does it consume me the way it did those first few months....absolutely not.

Happy Easter!!!

Professional Pictures

For being JCPenney I was very pleased, much better than our attempt at Christmas with The Picture People and soooo much cheaper. Dylan and I getting in the picture was actually a last minute decision and I'm so glad we did. The picture quality of course looks better in person. I can't seem to figure out my scanner setting and photo editor on this newer computer we have. My old one did a much better job scanning pictures. Its still the same scanner, but different photo editor...? I'm sure its me doing something wrong! Two of the pictures my mom scanned and I saved them off her Facebook. They look good (I'm sure you can tell which ones they are).

I'm also seeing quite a few posts about birth family searches and know I need to get on the ball as the further and further out we get I know it will be harder and harder. I'm just having a tough time wrapping my brain around doing it. I'd love to hear thoughts from other families starting their searches and thoughts from others who've already completed their searches. Positives, negatives...?