2 Weeks in Ukraine!

Today marks 2 weeks that we have been in Ukraine! It seems like we haven't been home in months! I look at pictures of our house that we put in our photo album to show people here and I almost forget what it feels like to be there! We did get some potential good news today.  The head of the interpol department has told our facilitators that our interpol clearances should be ready today or Monday.  One thing I've learned from being here is not to get my hopes up.  So I'm having a little quiet celebration in my head hoping this will really be the case! If so, we will be able to have court Tuesday and hopefully the judge will finalize things on the same day.  If so, then we would either start our 10 day wait here (which would be more like 13 days because the 10th day is on a Friday and we couldn't start any paperwork until the following Monday) or the judge will say that our ten day wait is waived (still secretly hoping that is the case!)  We still haven't completely decided if we will come home to wait or stick it out here.  We have pros and cons for both situations and will just keep praying about that. 

When we visited this morning Zoya was happy to see us! She is starting to remember us more and more.  We took her outside and of course she fell asleep in her Daddy's arms! We always try to put her in the stroller but she usually cries because she'd rather be held.  Today she started crying in the stroller and we made her stay in as long as we could stand it because let's face it, going through the airports, she may have to be in a stroller! She is only 20 lbs. but she is 20 lbs of lead! So once we picked her up she fell asleep.  Once this girl is asleep you could do anything and it would not wake her up! So we put her back in the stroller and strolled her around for about an hour.  She got to wear a new pair of pants today....see?

Here she is inside right after she woke up.  She is usually a little slow waking up and confused at first, but then shortly after she perks up and is soooo soooo happy!  In the picture below she was a litle annoyed because her Daddy was laughing at her bed head! This is her, "I don't think this is amusing" face.

We told Zoya not to take herself so seriously and that she kinda looked like Ellen Degeneres with her new do.  She thought that was hillarious and you can see she was thrilled to be compared to Ellen!  See?

Sweet girl loves to give kisses!

And more kisses...

This is the face she made after she knocked her book off her tray for the third time.  She thought it was funny.  I tried not to laugh. Stinker! She will throw things and then look at us with raised eyebrows to see what our reaction will be!

For lunch today Zoya ordered this appetizer.  It appeared to be a piece of bread with some orange liquid, cabbage, and peaches...we call it GROSS! We mush it all up and then try to feed it to her, although all the orange liquid kinda just shot back out her mouth.

And for the main course Zoya ordered the Carb Feast.  She had mashed potatoes, stuffing, and some more cabbage with carrots. We also mash all this together until it's the consistency of baby food.

Here is the bottle they give her with the warm broth or fruit juice in it.  They cut the hole in the nipple really big.  They do this because they don't have time to sit with each baby and actually have them suck the bottle down.  This way it can be poured right into their mouth.  I don't think it works so well with Zoya.  She either gets too much or it all comes right back out.  The first day they had her use a regular bottle with a regular sized hole and that seemed to work better.  She was able to suck out of it with no problems. We tried a cup with her but she isn't ready for that yet.

I love this picture because both Shawn and Zoya are looking at that food like "seriously?"

Usually when we leave, Zoya gladly goes back with whatever care taker comes to get her.  Today when it was time to leave she did not want to go back :(  I had to pass her over with her still grabbing for me.  That broke my heart a little. It did make me happy to see the bond that is forming between us though. 

We are getting ready to go back for our second visit of the day with our sweet angel girl.  We are still in need of many prayers that things will go smoothly with the interpol situation and with our upcoming court date.