Chen Chronicles

Today, we got to witness a miracle!  It's amazing that they state that our child has significant, so-called "psycho-motor speech delay."  During our visit today, we witnessed her music time and they did the Russian version of the Hokey Pokey & some other songs we didn't recognize, but she imitates others well and she does babble/sing (we're not sure if she's actually singing since it's in Russian), but feel VERY confident in her language skills.  Yes, we are realistic and know she will have a lot of catching up to do, but we FINALLY got an accurate weight and knew she was tiny, but she isn't as underweight as I thought.  She weighs 21lbs currently and is 2 1/2 ft tall.   She did SO well (oh and RUNS across the room) and she doesn't even turn two until October 10th.  Katie, we will celebrate with you in spirit, baby girl!  Just wait til' Gotcha Day and Christmas!!!  Perhaps Russia's loss is our gain!  In fact, I would say it definitely...

Today, we visited Katie again at the baby home in Ussirysk and returned to find out that the entire city of 800,000 in Vladivostok has no water today.  They turned it off apparently to fix pipes before the cold season.  This is really roughing it for us! No showers tonight and no laundry either.  I was going to wash some clothes, but we will just have to do without tonight.  Often, as Americans, I think we forget some of the luxuries we are afforded when others in this world, like our Katie are not so lucky.  But WE are the ones who are eternally blessed that God allowed this match between us to happen. Here are some photos from today.  We will have to save the videos to upload when we return next week.  The internet is just too slow here.   Ussirysk Baby Home #3 Waiting for them to bring her to us today... She LOVES bananas!!!!  She already really loves walking around holding BOTH our hands... My favorite l...

There are not enough words to describe how much we already love this little girl.  We took video of her first words to us in English today.  She called us Momma and Papa.  We really think she knows who we are because she went right to us when we entered the visiting area at the orphanage.  We would love to post the video, but we can't because we do not have enough bandwidth, but will post them all when we get home.  Tomorrow, we will visit her again and also Thursday and Friday.  Then, it will be so sad on Sunday when we have to leave to come back without her, but all the more incentive to get the remaining paperwork completed. Here are a couple photos from today.   We have the same face shape!!!  She already loves her daddy!!!

We'll let you judge for yourself because I'm so tired and Aaron has already gone to bed.  It's late over here, but we will let you judge for yourselves how beautiful our new daughter is!  We absolutely can't wait to see her again tomorrow.  Here are pictures from today's visit.  It was an amazing first visit.  Our Miss T didn't even cry one bit and came to BOTH of us with open acceptance.  She's so laid back and what's even more amazing that makes me know that this is THE child God has chosen for us is because she looks like she would be our child.  Enjoy!  Oh, and one final comment....she ALREADY has her Daddy wrapped around her little finger.  All that talk about being gruff and tough lasted about 0.5 milliseconds.  Ha!  Granny Rose, his dad and Granny Judy all had him pegged!  He's in love and so am I, for that matter.  We'll get to see her again tomorrow!!!!!  We have an early day so we must go to bed for real....