Anna's 1st Christmas!!!

Wow, I just never thought this day would be here, and simply cannot imagine Anna not being here and being a part of our family. She is doing amazing, and caught onto this holiday thing like a pro! She did great amidst all the chaos. I tried not to over-do it with gifts, but I must have failed as she still hasn't opened all her presents. She just kept wanting to play with the gifts as she was opening them, or play with Dylan's toys, and didn't want to be bothered with opening more presents. I just can't express how lucky I feel this holiday season. It was such a long road to get here, and while I haven't forgotten the 13 month wait between trips, the pain and stress is beginning to fade. My heart goes out to all those families still waiting to bring home their children.

Wordless Wednesday

A few Xmas pictures

Anna wouldn't smile for the Santa picture, but hey, she's not crying! Thats more than I can say for anytime my mom tried to take ME to see santa. Wednesday I'm going to try to do professional Christmas photos of the kids. Her eyes are looking pretty great. There is still some redness and a bit of tissue/swelling on the inner eye of the left, but just barely. Its going away.

Its POURING rain here. Doesn't make it too fun to do all the last minute Christmas stuff. So, for the rest of the day, we will be making fudge and watching Christmas movies.

How best to help?

So I'm struggling with how to best contribute and help the lives of these precious orphans. While I'm still in the midst of paying for our adoption, making our huge deductible for Anna's surgery, and all the fed ex fees associated with the PPR's (yes, our agency is already doing the 6-month PPR), I still want to do what I can to better the lives of these kids, or maybe even just one child. I would love to think contributing via Reese's Rainbow to one of the children would help to get them adopted ( to me, that would make the biggest difference, but could we do enough to help?). Or should I put together a box of supplies to send to a baby home or older children's home, or specifically Anna's baby home (I realize it wouldn't arrive in time for xmas but does that really matter?) I look at Anna and just feel so thankful. She has made an incredible difference in our lives and I know we have changed her life, I'm hoping for the better! The need of these orphans is just so great I get overwhelmed by it all. I am fully aware that we have needy children here close to home, but so many of these children in Russia don't have the basics like diapers, toilet paper, and clean water to drink, much less toys to open at Christmas. We have been given a little miracle and I feel like even giving back in some small way could improve the life of another child. I hope many others out there feel the same way I do and want to make some kind of difference.

Eyes still red and swollen

So I'm still waiting to take any sort of xmas or santa pictures as Anna's eyes are still red and the left eye still has quite swollen tissue that seems to be going down very slowly. I was prepared for the rednesses, but the swelling and visible white tissue on her inner eye had me freaked out. We see the doctor again in a few weeks to make sure the swelling is down and the tissue is gone. I hope it goes away because I'd hate to have to have her eye bascially scraped. They tell me its normal and "usually" this tissue goes away on its own, or just requires additional time on the eye drops. Anyone with any experience with this?

I'm so excited, today I went to a banquet with Steve and won a Flip Video! Woo hooo, I needed one! My old small digital camera kinda broke and no longer took short videos so this is a perfect prize! I never win anything. Now, maybe I'll get on the ball and actually post a few videos of our little cutie pie.

Post Surgery

The surgery/hospital stay was much more traumatic than I thought it would be. She did fine waiting right up until the nurse came to wheel her crib to the OR. Even though I was walking with her she started freaking out. I held her but she continued to cry, and then they bascially had to take her out of my arms screaming, crying out for mommy. I knew she would be asleep in minutes but that was tough. I then waited just over an hour and went back to post-op as she was waking up. She pretty much picked up where she left off, crying but very out of it. Again, hard to watch. She couldn't calm down so they finally gave her a little morphin and she eventually fell asleep in my arms. Every time she would start to wake up, she would realize her leg hurt from the iv and cry again. She would go back to sleep and a nurse would come in to take her blood pressure and the crying would start again. Finally, they took out the iv and she perked up a lot. By the time we left, she gave out of few smiles and told the nurse "thank you " and "bye bye". She then slept for about another 4 hrs, then started returning to her happy self later in the night. She slept great last night, and is in good spirits today. Only once she started to rub her eyes and fussed a bit and said "oooowie". Anyway, I'm glad its done and over. Surgeries and little children is just a sad combination.

Surgery tomorrow

Anna's eye surgery is tomorrow morning instead of Monday. I hope it goes well. I'm having a hard time imagining our little girl getting wheeled away from me for surgery. This means an end to the patching, hurray!

Reptile party was a success. No rain, beautiful day. Now party stuff is put away and out comes the Christmas stuff. I can't wait to get the new stockings I ordered for the family. Of course I couldn't just get Anna one, I had to get new ones for ALL of us so they matched. Nothing else too exciting going on. Actually, I've been impressed with her "infant teacher" thru our county regional center and she's making definite progress with speech. She continues to be a delight and really has a fun personality. She doesn't really throw any tantrums, but she can pout pretty good (and its pretty cute so you want to give in but I try to restrain myself).