Ava's Spring Coat

I think Ava's pink jacket has officially been retired till next winter. Poor little girl has been in that huge jacket while the weather here is heating up by the day. Today we had our translator with us for the first time in many weeks and so we went to the outdoor market to look for a lighter coat. We also found a lighter, knitted beanie cap which was basically free so we got a couple of those.
Today when we got into the visiting room and Ava saw Svetlana our translator, she hid on my shoulder and became suddenly very shy. This is both good and bad I guess. We are glad that she is so bonded to us and treasures our time together but she may be in for a shock when she gets home and realizes that the three of us wont be able to spend every waking moment drawing and going for walks :-)
We hope that you all have a wonderful, safe weekend. Surprise surprise, there's another holiday this Saturday so we will be heading down to the town square after our visit to check out the festivities. There's also an important holiday in America this weekend...Mother's day! Happy Mothers day to the two best Mommies in the world. My Mommy and my Mommy-In-Law. James and I feel so prepared going into parenthood b/c we had two of the best Moms to ever walk the earth. Happy Mother's day to all you Mothers out there. Enjoy your special day!


Ava looking just lovely in her new spring jacket and hat!


What a doll


This picture cracks me up! Today we were doing walking lessons and James would swing Ava around when she'd walk to him. Well, the kids outside thought this looked like fun so they began walking back and forth and then wanted James to swing them around too. Ava needs her arm out like that sometimes to help with balance while she's still learning. This group of kids is too cute. We want them all!


She's always curious to see what others are up to.


It was a wonderful day for a stroll...


And everyday is a wonderful day for playing around with Dada

We got a little closer to a smile this time...we'll keep trying

Ava the Escape Artist

Happy Thursday! We spent most of the day outside today which was a lot of fun but very tiring so we apologize ahead of time for any misspellings or comments that just don't make sense.
Every time we go outside Ava tries to walk out the front gate of the baby house. She seems fascinated with the cars and the world that exists beyond the baby house boundaries. Today her group took a little field trip outside of the gates and so we joined them and again tried to guess what was going on in that head of hers...


"I'm finally free! Oh how I've waited for the day when I could leave the baby house grounds and explore the outside world."


"Wow, look at all the people and cars and trolleys. There is so much I haven't seen."


"I just don't understand why Dada keeps stopping me from walking closer to those cars. Now I'm gonna get fussy."

"Please stop taking pictures of me and trying to distract me. I know that we are back inside the gate and I'm not happy about it."

"Mama and Dada tell me that someday very soon I will leave the baby house forever and come live with them. This is very exciting! For now, I have to stay here and play with my friends until that day comes."

This was my favorite picture from the day. Ava was so excited to explore the streets outside of the baby house and it was fun to watch the joy and excitement on her face. Don't get us wrong, the baby house is a warm and loving place with great staff but children are meant to experience all that this great big world has to offer and they definitely deserve to have parents that love them and encourage them to discover new things!

Being the crazy mother that I am , I saw this panda bear and realized it matched Ava's outfit for the day. Although my child hates stuffed animals I tried to force her to hold it for the sake of a cute photo. This is the best shot we got :-)

As we were packing up, Dada was making the phone vibrate on Ava's arm which she found very silly.

We thank you all for keeping up with our very long adoption adventure in Kaz. We love reading your comments and it helps a lot to know that there are people thinking of us and keeping us in their prayers.

Ava...like a bird

Well, today was another typical day with our little Ava D. That's right...Ava. Before leaving for Kaz we decided that it would be wise to refer to the child by her birth name on the blog until the court decision was final, but we just can't help it! She is not Darina to us anymore, she is our Ava. We have been using the name Ava for many many weeks now and she responds to it when we call her. Her new room at home has beautiful birdies painted on the wall b/c we learned that the meaning of the name Ava is "like a bird". This seems to fit her so beautifully. In fact, the first time we met her, she was a little scared and so the caretakers took her to the window because they said she liked to watch the birds outside. We can't believe that she is the same little girl we met 2 months ago. She has come so far.


At lunch today we were able to chat with my parents via skype. We were also able to do this with James' mom last week. How nice it is to see the faces of family! It makes this great big world not seem so big after all.


Tonight we had dinner with Peggy and her parents who just flew in from Belgium. They brought Regenwormen with them so now we officially have our own copy of the game! Peggy also gave us a couple cute outfits for Ava. Thanks Peggy and Jan!


As always, here are a few pictures from our day at the baby house:



Ava watching Dada color. She can't get enough of it!



In this photo Ava is frustrated that she couldn't unfold our giant map of Pavlodar that we let her color on the back of. We get similar expressions when we tell her that Mama and Dada are tired of coloring.



Ava was quite the explorer today. She led us all around the baby house grounds.



Pretending to drink from her Play-Doh container.



The day ended by rolling around on the floor with Dada.



She found him!



.

Long Road to Court...

We found out yesterday night that our court date wasn't scheduled for a couple weeks, which is much later than we were hoping. A lawyer has been meeting with the judge to see if there is any way to move our court date up. I guess we have to wait to see if the judge can move her schedule around a bit; we'll let you know as soon as we here anything new. Please keep praying for a quicker court date.

In the mean time enjoy the pictures from our day. Darina was very happy today, and we even spent a good amount of time outside. On our lunch break we bought some photo albums and developed nearly 300 photos... and these are only our favorites! On average we take 150 pictures a day. Of the 150, we'll end up deleting about 50 or so and then pick out our favorites.

Sometimes Darina wants to be carried. This particular time she wasn't too specific as to how she wanted to be carried.... something tells me she didn't mind the little mix up.

We found this gate by one of our favorite restaurants here. Maybe since we've been here so long they dedicated the gate to Kari Letterneau?

Holding Mama's hand on the swing.

Today we walked around outside and looked at all the murals around the Baby House.

Darina enjoyed a little model session on the bench.

Looking at another mural with Dada.

In addition to murals, we also walked around and pointed to all the flowers.

Our Little Cutie...

There is still hope for hearing a court date by today. Our wonderful coordinator has been waiting at the court house all day today for the judge to finish all her hearings. We took lots of pictures today b/c we had a very happy little girl on our hands. She was full of smiles and we had a lot of fun playing indoors for the entire day. The weather here is so strange...two days ago it was almost 80 degrees and now it's back in the 50's and raining. We'll update once we hear from Sveta about court!


Today we brought out the picture cards that we packed from home. We went over numbers today and James showed Darina how to write each number.

On the baby genius DVD there is a song called Vinko the Dancing Bear and we change the words to Darinka the Dancing Bear and dance around with her.

All smiles today :-)

Most days Darina doesn't smile at the camera by choice but today Dada made it into a game and we got lots of great smiles!

Such a sweet face

Darina loves to use the pen in her coloring book which doesn't make for a very pretty coloring book but is good practice.

We mentioned earlier that we go to the same pizza restaurant almost every day. Well, we also have the same waitress everyday but she doesn't speak English so the communication we have with her is strictly concerning food. Today we finally showed her some pictures of Darina and she asked if we were teachers. We said, no "Mama, Papa". We think she understood. Then she told us that her name was Darina. Very strange huh?

Fun with Friends

Happy Saturday! Today was a very warm day for us...high 70's. The children were still all bundled up but the jacket did come off towards the end of the day. There was a group of children playing outside and Darina had a wonderful time playing with them. We hope to have news of a court date on Monday...keep praying :-)


This is Darina with the head teacher at the baby house. She is the sweetest lady and is so great with the children.


Although this isn't the greatest picture, it is one of the few we have of all three of us.


Playing in the sand with our friend.


It was difficult to get to her to look at the camera while she was digging in the sand.



All the kids at the baby house have buddies that they hold hands with when they go outside to play. This little boy took Darina's hand b/c she was the only one without a buddy.

Happy May Day!

Today was yet another Kazakhstan holiday. Since we’ve been here there have been four holidays; which is interesting to observe but isn’t helping us get home any quicker. Because of the holiday the baby house directors were off work and we only got to visit Darina once today. She was very excited to see us and was full of smiles and giggles.

Tonight we played games with Peggy and Kevin. Kevin, Peggy’s brother, is leaving to go back to Belgium on Sunday so we will also be going to a goodbye dinner for him tomorrow night at Classic Pizza…yummy! Peggy has a great game called “RegenWormen”. Her husband is going to buy it in Belgium and bring it for us when he comes back! Watch out America, RegenWormen is coming!

Thanks for continued prayers and encouragement. We are anxious to hear about court on Monday and hope that the end of our trip is now in sight.

Darina definitely loves being swung around by Dada!

The puzzle is fun but coloring ON the puzzle is so much more fun! Oh, and coloring on the back of the puzzle pieces is even funner. Darina is getting pretty good at her farm animal puzzle.

We've been missing home more and more each day. We brought this stuffed animal to "introduce" Ava to her new puppy, but we also use it to cuddle when we miss our puppy. Sorry Dora, we don't have a kitty stuffed animal... =^/