Great visits with BOTH girls!!

Last night, we were pretty exhausted, and so we headed to bed pretty early.  We brought some simple foods with us, like Easy Mac and those Bear Creek soup mixes, and crackers and peanut butter, and instant oatmeal, so we made a dinner out of Easy Mac and some bread and cheese and salami, and then headed to bed!!  We slept a lot and felt pretty great this morning. :) 

Feeling well rested, we were excited to go visit Emily for the first time this trip!  Marina had told us she had seen her a couple of times in the interim, but we were so excited to go see our silly little monkey! :)  We were NOT disappointed!! :)  She has definitely grown!  She has gotten much more hair and it's DARK!  She has also started walking!!!  Not a lot, but she takes a few steps at a time.  She still crawls to get places, because she's faster crawling. :)  She had a lot to tell us today - and while she was shy at first getting to know us again, we got some of her winning adorable smiles!  She was VERY busy and seemed to get a little over-stimulated after awhile, but we got some snuggles and kisses and had a great visit over all.  Here are pictures from our morning with Emily:

 She loves her little photo album, would lean over and give herself and us kisses in the pictures and crack up.

 Look at all those teeth!!

 She would throw this ball and yell...."Opa!"

 She loved taking things in and out of this bag today.

 She would crawl over to me and lay down on my leg.  :)  She would also sometimes instead of crawling over to sit in my lap, she would scoot backwards on her bottom, until she was in my lap. Silly girl.

 She loves to sit at this little table to look at her books.

 C'mon mom....let's walk!

 Giving mom some slobbery full-tongue kisses. :)

 After a lunch break, we went out to visit Dasha.  She was in a great mood today, was extremely engaged in her play with us, and we had a great visit with her. She really wanted to play with us - not just with the toys near us today - which is awesome to see.  She was especially interested in playing with Brandon today.  :)  We had a treat today as well - a world famous Russian children's performing group gave a concert for the children at the orphanage, and we were able to watch it with them.  All the children loved it, and Dasha did as well. She loves music and loves to sing and dance. :) 

 Brandon was juggling these balls and she was trying to juggle, just like him. 

 Trying to figure out how to juggle....

 Attacking dad/kissing his head. :)

 Doing mom's hair.  She knew exactly how to get my hair tie in.  She put it on her wrist, held my hair into a ponytail, slipped the rubber band on, wrapped around a second time, and then pulled my hair apart to slide the rubber band up/tighten it. 

 Dad got the sparkly clips....

 Time for our daily check up....

 Love the smile on her face :)

 "Reading" the thermometer, to make sure I didn't have a fever. 

 She was looking at her photo album again, and was so excited to be able to point out each of us.  She was SO proud.  I love her smile in this picture!

 This is the Russian children's group that was performing.  They were really good - and the children loved seeing them!

 Giving dad some hugs and kisses (and checking out his ears) before we said goodbye for the day.

  It was a really great day - and so we treated ourselves to dinner at the buffet downstairs.  It's great food, inexpensive - and we could eat there every day and never eat the exact same meal. :) And it's literally right below our apartment!  Here's our dinner....both trays cost less than $10 USD!!!

Tomorrow, we visit Dasha in the morning and Emily in the afternoon.  We're getting closer and closer to our court hearing!! :)