Kiev

The pictures of the little guy are for Russ and Cheri, Gracie, Bubba, Laynie and Madie (I'll let them share the story for you of why theseare for them.The other two pictures of Inna are for the Findlay family, Inna is doing wonderful she is so full of joy, as she waits for them to come to the Ukraine next month to adopt her. Praise God! The green outfit is because we got her out of dance class to talk to her new mama on the phone, the picture is Inna talking to her. It was precious she is so very happy and a tremendously sweet and special girl!
Yesterday we said good-bye to everyone at the orphanage, mostly the adults, the children were kept busy as we packed Ana's things and got ready to leave the orphanage for one final time. My heart goes out to the many children we are leaving behind. I can't express enough how hard it is to see them being left behind. I need for now to refocus though and concentrate on Ana, she needs all of us to help her transition be smooth. Heather is amazing with her (they are watching the Russian version of Disney's The Princess and The Pea as I do our blog). She is so closely attached to Heather already. We traveled by train all night last night from Kyvi Rig to Kiev (Heather & Ana think the train ride is cool). Today being our first day in Kiev our first stop had to be the market (Ana loves to try new foods) it is precious seeing how much she enjoys tasting new things she can't seem to get enough. For example for breakfast she had: cereal with milk and bananas, fried eggs, scrambled eggs, lots of ham, toast, grapes and juice (that is typical of her). We had some paperwork to do at the bank, after a two hour wait we were told come back tomorrow to finish. We visited a mall and Ana picked out shoes (they look like sparkly princess shoes Papa), we went to an arcade, and bought some candy. When at the apartment we play games to learn English (we try everything since she is not eager to practice, her attention span is short for studying and long for taking pictures LOL). Heather was blessed today at the mall as she realized she had never been shopping for shoes before, had never stood in front of a candy counter and been able to select a bag full of treats, had never ridden an escalator or played an arcade game. Heather and her are both like two little kids together (Salena she truly is skipping around this time, not like on the Guatemala missions trip when she said she liked skipping around with the kids for her TV interview LOL). They tickle each other almost constantly and chase each other around. earlier when Heather was napping Ana crawled up on the bed beside her and very gently stroked Heathers face while she watched her sleep it was precious. Ana is very loving and sweet. She just walked into the kitchen where I am typing the blog and gave me a kiss and hug and then looked into my eyes and said, "Mama I love you, sister is sleepy, sister sleep." How precious I'll have to cut off the blog and go spend time with my new little sweetie! Her and Heather have been snuggling while watching the movie now sister is alseep.