Thanks to All Of You

First of all, I want to thank all of you for the support and prayers you have given to us and our family. We are just in awe how supportive and wonderful all of you are! Thank you for your comments, we love them, and thank you for everything!!!!! Sometimes you never know what you have until something like this, and this has made us feel so wonderful to have so many friends and family interested in our journey.

We have been getting to visit the girls, we went today and brought them some new clothes. They were so excited!!! We also brought some hair bows that Bryanna Slade and I bought before we came, and Bryanna, they loved them. Maria told me that she wants to grow her hair long like mine. Both of their hair is wavy and thick, it is beautiful. We bought them some jeans and jean jackets to match. They were very cute. The weather has changed drastically here, from very hot to very cold. So it hard to know what to buy. Masha (our translator, I just found out it is Masha, not Marsha, that is short for Maria!) told us it may be hot again next week. I also found some adorable jean skirts, it was so much fun to shop for girls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Maria was looking through our pictures on our camera of us shopping the day before for them. She saw a picture of me holding up a very frilly yellow dress and got so excited, so started kissing and hugging me. I think she thought I had bought it for her, so I had Masha tell her that I will buy her a pretty dress, but I hadn't bought that one! It was so cute.

Today we had the girls draw pictures of our family. Maria was so excited because she drew all of us and then wrote all of our names. It was really cute. I have no idea what Nastya drew because our translator wasn't with us at the time. But the amazing thing is these kids don't care that we don't understand them, they keep talking like we know everything they are saying to us. It is so cute, especially Nastya. Maria is now excited to learn English, she wants to learn Gymnastics and is constantly doing the splits for us, and backbends. Both of them are very loving and give lots of hugs and kisses.

We brought snacks for them, and brought them in a little cooler to keep them cold. We brought them juice boxes and yogurt with candies on top. The girls didn't eat their yogurt so I kept asking Masha if they liked it or not. Finally Maria told us that it was too cold! They don't eat things cold here, and I had to laugh. I have two little boys who will not eat anything hot, and now I have two little girls who will not eat anything cold!

One thing that did touch my heart was when we were leaving Maria started tearing up a little. She said that she cried yesterday because we didn't come see her. She is so precious and I can tell she will be very sensitive. I really admire her faith and willingness to come with us and be part of our family. I am also amazed at how willing they are to accept us. I know that God has definately worked on their hearts to soften them towards us. I did ask Maria about her mother before, but she didn't want to talk about it. She said that when she did she cried. I could sense I would need to be very careful about this subject and let her tell me when she is ready.

We took the girls to their group and talked to her teacher for a little bit. The children are really cute there and it breaks my heart to know there are so many there. I don't know why they are not available for adoption, but there are so many. I want to bring all of them toys, and I am sure they feel bad when these girls come back with all their clothes and toys. I wish I could buy these things for all of them!!!

Many of you have been asking what you can buy for the girls, what sizes they wear, and what we need. They will only come with the clothes we buy here, so we will need everything. There has also been emails about many of you wanting to do "showers" or something. We appreciate that so much, but I think we only need one, so maybe you all in Gilbert can coordinate something together. It is hard to know their sizes, but judging from boy's sizes, which I hope are the same as girl's sizes, Maria is a little smaller than Caleb, she probably wears a size 7, but maybe could go up to an 8. Nastya, we will probably call her Anastacia when we get to America, was wearing pants that said size 6, so she is probably 6 going on 7. Maria's foot is 20 centimeters long (I don't think I will ever learn the metric system here), and Nastya had on shoes that were size 2, I am hoping that was an American size, but her foot is just a little smaller than Maria's. They are almost the same size!

Another sidenote, after the visits we came home, ate lunch, and then Masha took us to get the boy's hair cut. It only cost about $4, and they do such a great job. They take the time, shampoo it, blow dry it, and really take their time! It was a fun experience. While we were walking home we got caught in a huge downpour thunderstorm. We were soaked all the way though! As I said before, the weather here changes fast and you never know what to expect!