THE DAY WE MET OUR LITTLE....

OH WHAT A DAY!!!! 

Where to begin...i guess at the beginning is appropriate! Lance and I actually had a relatively good night's sleep the night before...we did wake up about every two hours paranoid we were going to over sleep our alarms!! 

We enjoyed a DELICIOUS breakfast at our hotel...croissants, meats, cheeses, crepes, fruit...and the most delicious fresh juices EVER! I pretty much needed to eat my orange juice with a fork because it was so think and full of fruit! YUM YUM

Our coordinator and driver picked us up at 8:40am and we started off across town to the Committee (Like the Ministry of Education, just called something different). This is the government building where they house the information on all orphans in this area. We arrived an hour before they opened but it was explained that we wanted to be one of the first families in line to be called back because the baby houses only have intake hours from 10-12 and this committee doesn't open until 10...so to maximize your time at the baby house you want to be in the front of the line!! We were the second family to be called back. We learned the basic information that they had in their database...date of birth...recent medical info...social info. We were asked to share our family album with her and she LOVED it...commenting on Rowdy and how loved he looks, and how cute he is...she even called a friend in from the hallway to look at our photobook too! We were probably there only about 10-15 and we had our permission slip in hand to go visit the baby house.

Off we went back in the wonderful world of traffic!! I can't believe the traffic, and chaos that goes on on the roads! Its quite comical. Cars weaving in and out, pedestrians not using crosswalks, i think we witness at least 3 people almost get hit by some sort of vehicle every time we are out and about!!!

We got in the car and drove about 45 mins outside of the city...into what our coordinator called "Sleeping Districts" literally just blocks and blocks of high rise apartment buildings...SO MANY apartment buildings!! Then we slowed down and circled the block and in the middle of a block of apartments we saw a little building with colorful play equipment outside...and pulled into the drive way.

This is where our little lives. It was a cheerful looking place. We walked around to the side of the building and entered through door that immediately led us up stairs. We were asked to put little scrub like booties over our shoes before we left the landing at the top of the stairs. There was a long hallway in front of us...I could see staff at what looked like a kitchen pass through filling us trays with food. We were greeted and instructed to follow. We walked down that long hallway and then up a flight of stairs and entered the office of the director on the right. The director seemed very kind in her demeanor and how she spoke to our coordinator. We sat down on a comfy couch across from her desk while she looked through our photobook of our family. She asked us what we did for a living and then asked us if we knew of any known causes to Down syndrome...she said her country is in early stages of investigating if exposure to computers has any link to Down syndrome. We learned that the director is also the chief physician. After about 5-10 mins in this office we were told to follow...we wen't down the stairs and down another long hallway...with a door at the end, we could see brightly colored toys and i knew this was the play room...and judging from the voices and commotion coming from that room, i knew she was going to be there when we walked into the room!

BE STILL MY HEART!!!!

We walked through that room to find our sweet girl standing in her pink dress and piggy tails, looking up at us like "Hi, how are you." She was stacking rings on a toy elephant, one at a time, so carefully. We took our coats off and went immediately onto the floor to play with her.

I am SO amazed at how amazing developmentally wise she is!! She is walking wonderfully...we were told she feeds herself, drinks from a cup, tries to dress herself, loves to color, play with baby dolls...she understands EVERYTHING she is being asked to do...they said she is parroting syllables...just doing AMAZING! She was mimicking all our gestures when we were playing with her, it was so precious! 

We were able to have her caregiver there while we played to relay any info about her. SHE SEEMED GENUINELY KIND and so excited to show our little off to us. She said although they really try not to show favoritism, they really can't help it, she is their favorite!! She pulled out her personal cell phone and showed me probably 20 pics of our sweet little girl...coloring, eating, playing house ironing her clothes...she really loves our little girl, this was a specific prayer of mine from the beginning, and the Lord provided her a caregiver who really loves her.

Rush was so friendly! She loved playing with us, we brought along a toy that lights up and plays music and the LOVED that, wouldn't put it down after we gave it to her! She would start waving her hands in the air and start dancing, bopping up and down...it was SO CUTE!!! She gave me a kiss and gave us both GOOD bear hugs.

She is good sized too! She is definitely much shorter than Rowdy, but will fit right in to this "Husky" family! :) She is a little chunky monkey. She has big chubby hands and the most beautiful eyes. Her cheeks are a yummy as the pictures tell. She is squeezable and kissable and oh so so amazing! I will need to take some measurements because when i asked what size she was wearing, her caregiver said its hard to know, not always in american sizing. So good thing I brought my sewing tape measure! I can hardly wait to sew up some dresses for this girl!!  We had about a 45 min visit with her today...seemed to fly by too quickly but couldn't keep a smile off my face ALL DAY!! 

We will go straight to the baby house in the morning to spend time with our little girl...couldn't have had a better first visit!! WE ARE IN LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!!

My favorite pictures from my good camera I can't get on to Lance's computer, it won't recognize it for some reason, but I am glad that I had our coordinator take these photos with our little point and shoot camera...my favs will just have to wait until we return home...along with some SUPER cute videos!!

ENJOY