First of all, props to you if you're still reading our blog! We've been home just over a month, and I've hardly posted anything!! So thanks for sticking with us - I wish we had lots and lots of fun news to be posting about, but to be honest, it's been pretty low key around here!!!
We have almost everything ready for our court dossier - still waiting to get 2 things in the mail before we can notarize, apostille and send it on its way! I've never watched the mail SO closely in my life!! Our preliminary dossier contained lots of paperwork we had to do, this court dossier, is 98% stuff we have to have other people do - which is frustrating, because I can't control how fast or slow they do it!!!
We did find out this week, that all court dates for the month of September (in our region) are already full. So that means, it will be October now before we'll be heading back for court. I was bummed about that - but there's nothing we can do about that, so I can't get too upset!! We've started working on the girls' room and getting the house ready for two kiddos - so we have plenty of other stuff keeping us busy! :)
After my last post, I received a few more questions, so I will do my best to answer those!! :)
Joanna asked - I was wondering if the girls will get to meet each other before you bring them home? Just wondering if it would be easier on them to know that there will be a sibling right away or not!
Probably not. I am going to ask if we might be able to arrange a meeting between the girls, after our court appearance on our next trip - but I'm not going to hold my breath that it will happen! Their orphanages are about a 45 minute drive apart - which isn't too bad - but I have NO idea if they will let us arrange for the girls to get together or not. I would LOVE for them to be able to. We will be taking updated photos to give to the girls, which show us with them, and the other one as well - we weren't able to print photos while we were there to show them the last time - they each had a photo of the other one in their photo album, but it wasn't a photo with us. Hopefully this will help them to understand that there will be a sibling. :)
Angela asked - Love this post. I have a question, are you guys learning any Russian to be able to talk to the girls right away?
We are trying!! :) Russian is a difficult language to learn, so it's SLOW going, but we're trying! We won an iPad just this last week, which is going to be an awesome tool for the girls - but we downloaded some Russian language apps to see if that will help! :) Brandon is doing better than I am - he is a natural at languages! He has taught himself the alphabet, and has a couple of books that he's been using - I do better if it's more interactive - so I'm hoping the apps will help me with that! :)
Anonymous asked - When will the girls meet each other? Or have they already? Do they at least know about each other?
A similar question to Joanna's - they haven't already met each other - as Abigail has been in her current orphanage for 2 years - and Emily is only 19 months old. :) Abigail WAS originally in the same baby house that Emily is in now - but she was transferred to the older child facility before Emily was born. We did show the girls pictures of the other - and explained who everyone was in the photos (mama, papa, kitty cat, aunts, uncles, sister, etc...) - but because the photos aren't of us WITH the other child, I don't know how much either of them understands. I think being able to take updated photos with us on our next trip, will help for sure, even if we can't arrange for a meeting before we have "gotcha day"! :)
That's about it for now....not a whole lot to report. I'll leave you with a sneak peak into the work we've been doing around the house. :) A glimpse into their room! My mom made these awesome quilts for the girls....
We have almost everything ready for our court dossier - still waiting to get 2 things in the mail before we can notarize, apostille and send it on its way! I've never watched the mail SO closely in my life!! Our preliminary dossier contained lots of paperwork we had to do, this court dossier, is 98% stuff we have to have other people do - which is frustrating, because I can't control how fast or slow they do it!!!
We did find out this week, that all court dates for the month of September (in our region) are already full. So that means, it will be October now before we'll be heading back for court. I was bummed about that - but there's nothing we can do about that, so I can't get too upset!! We've started working on the girls' room and getting the house ready for two kiddos - so we have plenty of other stuff keeping us busy! :)
After my last post, I received a few more questions, so I will do my best to answer those!! :)
Joanna asked - I was wondering if the girls will get to meet each other before you bring them home? Just wondering if it would be easier on them to know that there will be a sibling right away or not!
Probably not. I am going to ask if we might be able to arrange a meeting between the girls, after our court appearance on our next trip - but I'm not going to hold my breath that it will happen! Their orphanages are about a 45 minute drive apart - which isn't too bad - but I have NO idea if they will let us arrange for the girls to get together or not. I would LOVE for them to be able to. We will be taking updated photos to give to the girls, which show us with them, and the other one as well - we weren't able to print photos while we were there to show them the last time - they each had a photo of the other one in their photo album, but it wasn't a photo with us. Hopefully this will help them to understand that there will be a sibling. :)
Angela asked - Love this post. I have a question, are you guys learning any Russian to be able to talk to the girls right away?
We are trying!! :) Russian is a difficult language to learn, so it's SLOW going, but we're trying! We won an iPad just this last week, which is going to be an awesome tool for the girls - but we downloaded some Russian language apps to see if that will help! :) Brandon is doing better than I am - he is a natural at languages! He has taught himself the alphabet, and has a couple of books that he's been using - I do better if it's more interactive - so I'm hoping the apps will help me with that! :)
Anonymous asked - When will the girls meet each other? Or have they already? Do they at least know about each other?
A similar question to Joanna's - they haven't already met each other - as Abigail has been in her current orphanage for 2 years - and Emily is only 19 months old. :) Abigail WAS originally in the same baby house that Emily is in now - but she was transferred to the older child facility before Emily was born. We did show the girls pictures of the other - and explained who everyone was in the photos (mama, papa, kitty cat, aunts, uncles, sister, etc...) - but because the photos aren't of us WITH the other child, I don't know how much either of them understands. I think being able to take updated photos with us on our next trip, will help for sure, even if we can't arrange for a meeting before we have "gotcha day"! :)
That's about it for now....not a whole lot to report. I'll leave you with a sneak peak into the work we've been doing around the house. :) A glimpse into their room! My mom made these awesome quilts for the girls....
4 comments:
love the quilt!
Cute crib ;)
I can't wait to see your first family photo together :)
oh precious quilts!
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