Yowza!

Some amazing things have happened in the last week:

(1) I shaved my legs for the first time in 3 weeks (don't ask!)

(2) I think my 4 year old knows more Russian than her father. She walks around the house with his MP3 player practicing. You can hear her say out loud, "I" "Yah", "Good night" "Spa-Coin-a Noche" It's so cute. She repeats the English word and then the Russian. I've reminded Doug, since acquiring skills in the Russian language has been steadily dropping on list of priorities, that he needs at least to be able to say, "I don't understand Russian" and perhaps more importantly if he should ever be separated from me "Where's my hotel/airport?" I laugh at my self pride in knowing my 50 or so words/phrases--like I'm gonna tell the translator her services won't be needed--It reminds me of when I was in college with Spanish as my minor. I thought I was hot stuff in the Latino world and decided I'd sit down to watch a Spanish soap opera to hone in my skills. I'm the one who got schooled! Let's see...got a bit off topic there...

(3) We have an early Christmas present! Yes, this is the big enchilada!! We have accepted a referral of a beautiful 9 month old baby boy today!!! Our case worker surprised us with a call a week ago last Wednesday morning at about 8:55 AM to tell us she was emailing us some pictures. She was surprised too as she wasn't expecting to hear from Russia until at least December. She didn't have any medicals to send us but thought she'd get something perhaps on Thanksgiving Day. Let me just tell you, it's pretty darn hard to keep your mouth closed when all your family you see over the Thanksgiving holidays asks if you've heard anything about the adoption. We knew nothing about this little boy and just wanted to keep it to ourselves until we knew for sure. (Sorry Gram, Momma Carol, Papa, Uncle Doug, etc--yes, we lied.) I was a lot more cautious this time around and purposely did not pull up his pictures up on the computer all day every day to look at this little cutie until we got the green light from an IA doctor. There is nothing like getting a piece of your heart jerked out. I will say that this time around though when Doug and I first looked at his pictures, we quietly knew he was the one for us. So we waited--Thanksgiving, no medical; Friday, no medical; maybe Monday? No medical as the inspector is still on vacay; should be here Tuesday our case worker said.

Bright and early the medicals arrived (11/30) Tuesday morning (nothing like 7 days of suspense to keep the heart muscle in shape), Dr. Davies had a cancellation in his schedule, and we were able to conference with him at noon the same day! He was very optimistic compared to our earlier November referral. We sought out two IA doctor's opinions the first time, but both Doug and I feel that isn't necessary this time. He's a healthy little guy! We've been given the option of two travel dates, and we're frantically trying to get the first set of dates working for us. So, we will be leaving soon to meet the little boy whom God has chosen to make us a family of 5! Thank You Lord for Your wonderful blessings! "Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful." Hebrews 10:23.