The Chosen Hearts

It has been two weeks since Kinzy arrived in the USA. It was an adjustment for everyone in the beginning. She had a rough time on our first flight from Moscow to London with it being a 4 hr flight and her screaming for 3 hrs of that flight. I ried right along with her for 45min I think. She and I both were so messed up on our sleep. Then I warned the passengers around us on the flight from London to Dallas that the last flight did not go so good. She then slept at least 6 hrs of that 9 hr flight. We introduced her to the pool the day after we got home and she loves the water. I purchased a jogging stroller and she loves riding in that as well. She checked out great with the doctors weighing in at almost 23 lbs and 29.25 in tall. She is in the 50-75% for weight and 25-50% for height. She eats very good with un introducing table food right away to her. As they did in the orphanage after her meals we started this week sitting her on a potty chair af...

Hello from Perm, Russia. I left Sat morning to return to Perm to pick up Kinzy. I arrived Monday morning and by 4p I had picked Kinzy up from the baby home. We had a great first night. She slept from 8:15p-6:15a, got up had alittle milk and then slept for another 45 mins. We went down for breakfast this morning and she had oatmeal I thnk with some peaches and yogurt. She has been a wild woman crawling and walking holding on to things around the room. We will be leaving thePerm region on Wed evening to fly back to Moscow until Sat. We will be going to the American Embassy in Moscow to get her visa to come home on.

Today, July 29th is our little girl's first birthday. Even though we are not all together, she is here in our hearts. Dexter and I made her a name sign for above her bed. We painted it, glued it together and them added an old piece of an apron from my Great-Grandma Dimple for the hanger. It was so much fun working together on this project for Kinzy. I also posted some pictures of her room that we have set up for her. ENJOY!!!

Court House After Court with Valentine and Olga First outside visit day of court Dada and Daughter Dinner out with Valentine and Olga to celebrate court

Today was a day of celebration for us in Russia. We were granted permission to adopt Alexandra and change her name to Kinzy Alexandra and register ourselves as her parents. She is officially ours on Aug 18 which just so happens to be our 13th wedding anniversary but due to that being on a Sat we can not take her out of the orphanage until Mon. Aug 20th. I guess the number 13 is a lucky one for us this yr. Another thing we both found interesting was she was given up and papers were signed for her to be adopted on Aug 7th which is Chris' birthday. We did have the opportunity to go visit Kinzy again this afternoon. Today we arrived and the children were outside taking walks in strollers. We were given our own stroller and continued to stay outside with her by ourselves. We then took her back in and fed her dinner. After each meal children as young as 6 months are sat on potty stools. It was so cute to see these little babies sitting on the potties. If we could have with out...

Greeted us this morning in her fancy dress Taking some steps Lunch was very good Spicy carrots, chicken, tomatoes and onions We left our hotel today at 9:15 am and returned back at 7pm. It was a very busy day. We visited with Kinzy this morning and then also again this afternoon. We met with our translator to go over paperwork for our court date tomorrow. She told us court should last 2-3 hrs. Russia is taking precautions with their adoption to the US due to the cases where Americans have abused or sent back children from Russia. We heard in the airport the day we flew out about the lady that sent her 7 yr old back to Russia by himself would have to pay $246,000 to care for the child until he was 18. I feel that is not a good enough punishment for her. Our visits with Kinzy went very well again. She is such a happy little girl. She was brought to us this morning in her fancy dress. I think we were both surprised. We have been so used to seeing her in several layers...

Well, we have arrived back in Moscow and are waiting for our flight to Perm for the third time. We will visit with Kinzy on Monday. We can not wait to see the progress she has made since seeing her one month ago. Will she be walking? Will she be trying more sounds? Any more teeth? Will she still blow her food back in our faces? haha. As with all of our previous trips all of our flights have been good. We were happy to not have a 17 hr lay over this time in Moscow. We requested to stay at a Hilton this trip. It is located away from downtown and the night life. It also has air conditioning. It is so hot in the other hotel with no air and to have any breeze you must have the windows open but then you can not sleep because of the traffic noice and partying that goes on all night long. Chris said on the flight over, he wonders if the buffet breakfast will be as good as we have had on our previous trips. He is always thinking of his food.:)

Afternoon visits she was a sleepy girl. Big girl This is the amount of food she is given. Now this time she did not eat very much rather she played and spit it out. Playing with her food and oh so cute Drinking tea, not milk or water, from a coffee cup Well our second trip is coming to an end. Although we did not accompish anything on this trip we did get to spend time with our little girl. Russia's court system is having some problems due to the horrible people in the US that have abused or even killed their adopted children. We have met two other couple over here from the US in the same situation. Of course they say this all happened towards the end of last week as we had already traveled to Russia. They say not to worry and this does happen. The courts do have our paperwork and they will give us a date to return for court hopefully within the next two months or so. Up until this evening (Monday) at 7p we were still unsure as to if we would be staying for another...

Two more Teeth

Our shopping trip Sandcastles from the festival down the street Swimming pools set up at festival Cathedral in Red Square Band playing in front of our hotel Sidewalk bars