Home Sweet Home!

We may be awake together at 3am at times, but we are all home safe and sound!

Wow, do we feel like we are going through a lot of changes now! Beyond the 11 hour time change that Vanya has to go through (as well as his parents!), beyond the fact that Vanya has never had 2 people so intently and consistently devoted to him day in and day out, beyond the change of being with the 7 other children in his group to only being with us, beyond the changes of moving from an orphanage to a house, from Russia to the United States, from a highly routine daily schedule to a chaotic one, from spending all of your days in an orphanage to multiple car rides and 4 several-hour-long airplane rides, from a consistent menu plan to a whole new world of possibilities, from seeing dogs from a distance or through a fence to having one right in your own house! How he can go through all of these changes and remain sane and secure with us, I do not know. Vanya has been extremely resilient through all of these changes (Praise be to God!) and seems to have also opened up to us even more than before!

He's been in our home now more than he has been any other place we have taken him, and he is showing us what a happy, goofy, and creative 2-year-old he is! He sings and dances by himself A LOT! Just randomly he will start chanting away at a song, bobbing his head from side to side, and waving his arms back and forth or side to side. It is very cute to see, and for how often he does it, it is very funny to watch! Plus he is talking a lot more now! When we were visiting him in the orphanage, he probably said a total of 8 words in our presence through multiple visits. Now he is talking almost non-stop! He seems like he is getting so secure with us, and that he is having so much fun with these changes, that he is trying to reach out to us with his words.

He is picking up on a little English every day it seems. Just this morning at breakfast he said to Dave, "I love momma! Momma and dadda!" When he's done eating he will stand up in his chair and say, "All gone!" He has identified a few other things around our house by their English words too, so we are quite happy with the way he is picking things up. We remain competent enough in our Russian to communicate with him what his needs are for the moment, which may be a big contributor to the ease of his transition with us.

We've had a few near-sleepless nights with him, but we are able to tag-team it, and remain relatively healthy (all three of us, that is!). Last night he slept from 7pm to 4.30am, and for an 11 hour time change, we feel that is pretty good! Things are looking very good for Vanya, as far as we can tell.

There are still a lot of things that we have yet to do, most significantly, we have yet to unpack our luggage! Granted we have spent time with family, celebrating Christmas and introducing everyone to Ivan, but we can't post any more pictures until we find the card reader for the camera! Sorry for the boring text-only posting! Wednesday we also had a little issue with our kitchen sink, which decided to back up. Vanya's uncle Tony came over with all of his tools, and worked for quite a while to try and unclog the problem. We're glad that he might be able to finish today, and we can once again wash our dishes and get the clutter off of the counters!

Bottom line is that we're home, we're happy, and we think things are going to be ok. We'll keep posting every so often because so many of you have been following this journey of ours for years and years, and we'd like to keep sharing this great experience with as many of you who are interested. We are so grateful for all of the support that we have had to bring us to this point, and for all of the gifts that we have received that have meant so much to us as well!

Thank you to so many people out there for so many different reasons! Thank you all and happy New Year!