Zoya's First Taste of Ice Cream!

This needs to be a post all its own because it may just be the funniest thing I've EVER seen!  In the orphanage Zoya did not have anything cold, or even room temperature for that matter.  Everything they fed her, including her drinks, were warm.  We quickly realized, while we were still in Ukraine, that Zoya HATES anything cold in her mouth! If we give her something cold or forget to warm it up, she makes this face like she is dying!  It is way too funny for words!  We thought we'd try some ice cream, knowing she'd probably hate it, but what kid actually hates ice cream?  After she got over the cold part, I think she liked the taste and a few times even scooted back to us for more but made the same face you see in these videos every single time! I just love this girl! I have watched these vidoes over and over and laugh out loud every single time!

Just after tasting the ice cream! So dramatic!

Zoya has changed sooooo very much already.  It is actually absolutely unbelievable when I think about where she came from!  She started CRAWLING three days ago! She is up on all fours and goes so fast! She has also stood on her own a couple times for a few seconds at at time! She is cruising all around while holding onto things to keep her balance.  She can stand herself up against the wall too! She is signing "eat" a million times a day haha.  She even does it on her own in the car or while we are playing.  We make sure to give her a couple cheerios right away so she understand that she really is communicating to us her wants and needs.  The other day we were jamming to some music in the car and I was feeding her some cheerios.  She signed "more" and I asked her "More what? Dancing or eating?" and she signed back to me, "eat."  When she does something new or something awesome, I get so excited and yell really loud and give her high fives and she giggles and is so proud of herself, although occassionally she looks at me like I'm completely whacked out for yelling so loud!  She is also signing "all done" (in her own special way) and she does it at appropriate times! Like tonight I was putting her to sleep and she usually drinks her whole bottle while I rock her.  About half way through drinking her bottle, she signed all done.  I put the bottle down and she crawled up to lay her head on my chest and she was out light a light! I love seeing her learn so many new things.  My favorite things to watch are her trying and figuring out how to communicate with us! It melts my heart!

Despite being VERY ACTIVE!, she is quite the snuggle bug too! She will often stop what she is doing and just give a hug or crawl up on a lap and give a kiss or lean her forhead up against ours.  She often reaches out her arms to us and just wants to be held....sometimes just for a minute, sometimes for a long time!  She is learning how to be kind and replace the hitting and pulling behaviors with the ones she knows we prefer! She makes the same ooooo sound when she pets Mya nicely, or combs someone's hair, or puts her little hand on our faces and rubs them! She is a love bug for sure!

Here she is crawling!!

Here is Miss Zoya staning against the wall! She got to this position all by herself!

Here is our lovey girl.....

(Zoya and Grandpa)

(Zoya and Uncle Bub)

How'd we get so lucky??