Changes

Fast forward a month and we should have three little children living in our home. These adorable little feet are those of our third child, who has been given to us by an initial court ruling of a judge in Russia. The ruling will become final on October 23rd in Russia...if you want to get technical, that will be the 22nd here since the region in Russia is 16 hours ahead of CST. David and I traveled to Russia in September. We had to undergo medical exams in Russia (in addition to the two ones we had to have in the U.S.--one for our home study and one for our documents for Russia) and then also had our court hearing. On September 21, 2012, the judge in the Primorsky Krai regional court determined that David and I are baby girl's new parents. Court consisted of two hours of intense questioning.....we were asked everything under the sun and then some. We can't wait to go pick up our precious daughter---we only got to spend about an hour with her on our recent trip to Russia (we didn't have a say in how often or for how long we saw her and so we enjoyed the hour that we did have). There is a 30 day mandatory appeal period on civil court cases (including adoption) in Russia and the decision for us to be baby girl's parents will be final at the end of that time. It is surreal to me that we have a third child, but she is literally around the world and legally not able to be in our care for another few weeks....we miss her and love her and can't wait to bring her into our family.

The trip and all the busyness surrounding it explains why there has been a month without blogging :). 

                              David and me outside the court building in Vladivostok, Russia.

The kids continue to thrive, grow, and enjoy life!
Elise is 18 months and talks quite a bit---she will say "good" if you ask her how she is doing and she verbalizes "please" (in the sweetest little voice) instead of using the sign language. She absolutely loves her baby dolls and insists on bringing them with her out of her crib in the morning. She feeds herself really well with a spoon and uses her left and rights hands equally well. She loves dogs, shoes, Elmo, dolls ("babies"), music, dancing, playing, being held, reading, and going outside.
John Harrison is maturing so much and grows to love and serve his sister more each day. John Harrison loves building with his Duplo, magnet sets, and train set. He has recently become much more engaging when he plays--examples: role-playing conversations with Duplo people and acting out stories/scenarios with his trains instead of just wanting to build one new track configuration after the next. He loves games, playing outside, riding his trike, and doing anything that has to do with learning about Jesus. his prayers are extremely conversational---I have been convicted by his faith and honest prayers and reminded of how our faith in Christ should be like that of a child (not in an immature way, but in a heart-gripping, risk-taking belief kind of way). Tonight, John Harrison declared that we needed to pray for Raleigh, our dog, since she was sick: "We need to pray for Jesus to make Raleigh better. 'Jesus, Raleigh is sick and we need to pray for Jesus to make her feel better.' Jesus said that we need to feed Raleigh dog food, not cat food." I admired his thought to listen for Jesus to speak (although we have never had cat food in our house).

Two years ago, I got some adorable pictures of 19 month old John Harrison in the cotton field near our house. I missed my opportunity last year and was determined not to do so this year--I saw a harvested cotton field today and urgency set in. Tonight, I took the kids over to the cotton field and tried to watch them, pose them, and photograph them all by myself. I wouldn't say it was a complete failure, but it was a lesson in patience. I did get a few cute shots, though, so it was not all in vain.

I was born with straight hair. I always wanted curls. Instead, as I got into high school and college, I had a strange wave to one-side of my hair that wouldn't even be straightened completely by a flat iron. Over time, my hair changed and got ever so slightly more wavy....just enough to look a little frizzy when it air-dryed. I would try curl-enhancing products only to find the silly looking one-sided wave getting stiff and crispy looking when it dried. Yuck! Fast forward two pregnancies and several years and my hair has gotten to where it will form some loose ringlets when it air dries. I don't know if the change is hormonal or what----I have heard of women's hair changing during pregnancy (no I am not currently pregnant!), but never put too much weight in crazy stories. I don't perm my hair and being a mom of two (soon three) young children, I rarely even get the time to dry or curl it. I found a curl-enhancing product that was supposed to help natural curls form on air-dried hair without a frizzy or gelled look.....it got great reviews, but I was still a skeptic---I tried it today for the first time---I towel-dried my hair and applied the product----the picture above is how my hair turned out. I still have some stubborn sections in the front that won't curl, but I can over look those.....my once-straight hair will now form loose ringlets. Maybe two pregnancies was just what I needed---in addition to ending up with wavy (and much darker) hair, after my first pregnancy, I no longer froze when everyone else was warm. Seriously---before having kids, I sat on the beach in Hawaii shivering and wearing a fleece. David and our friends all laughed at me and I told them I couldn't believe they weren't freezing, too! I had a summer job during college where my fingers turned blue and numb each day as I typed away at my computer. When my boss would go out of town, I would find a blanket and wrap up to try to warm up my numb fingers. Everyone else in the office was comfortable with the temperature. Ten years and two pregnancies later, I am the same weight as I was before having John Harrison (lest you think baby weight is to thank for my cold-nature going away), but my body seems to have shed my extreme cold-nature.