She's Here!

We got to the airport around 10:30 to discover that the russian flight had not taken off from JKK yet, it was being deiced. We kept getting word that they had taken off from the airport, then word that no they had not. We had a long night, but the boys were wonderful, Cooper slept for several hours, and then when he woke we just laid on a couch and cuddled. Daddy got to go to the gate with the New Horizons people to help bring the kids up from the gate when they arrived. They landed at 3:00 and did not make it up to us until almost 4:00 I think. The train closes at 1:00am so they had to walk the very long distance!! She was very very shy last night, happy but shy.
I couldn't get a picture because she would hide her face.
We got home around 5:45, the boys went straight to bed and I showed Anastasia around. We stayed up for about 1.5 hours gettting to know each other. She "wowed" at her room a lot, and at all the things in the closet, asking "me?" When I would say yes, she would say "OHHH Thank you" and "WOW" She sat on the floor by the closet and tryed on her new shoes. She then crawled over several feet where I was sitting and said, "Mama, thank you" and hugged me. She was so thankful and excited. She was talking russian telling me all sorts of things that I couldn't understand, but wished I could. I changed her clothes, she was quite stinky from being bound up in a pair of tights, jeans, 2 shirts and a winter jacket. She had blisters on her feet and a rash on her leg that was bothering her from where her jeans had rubbed her raw, poor thing. A little sympathy seemed to make it better.
We sat on the bed and looked at all her pretty little things, and she immediately picked out a pink purse I had bought at the goodwill to put them all in, and she has carried that with her everywhere we go. She loves the baby and stroller we had put in the room for her, she was wheeling it around and singing to the baby so sweetly when Gary walked in from putting the boys to bed. It was a different girl from the one he had seen on the way home from the airport hiding her face.
She loves Ginger, she giggled so hard when Ginger did all her crazy jumping around. She kept closing the door, she did not want me to leave the room. So I went and got ready for bed, and laid down with her, she just grinned. I started rubbing her hair to help her go to sleep, and she did the same to me, she's so sweet. She put her arm around me and was asleep in 10 seconds. I woke up several hours later, and went to my bed. All the kids woke at 9:30. I gave her a much needed bath, which was a little scary, because her body is so stiff she kept slipping. She was just laughing, it was me it startled. She ran to her closet after getting dried off and asked something which I figured was something to the effect of "what can I wear" I told her to pick anything, she said "WOW" She picked one of the princess dress up dresses, and as soon as she put it on she said something in russian followed by Papa. I know enough little girls to know what she wanted. So I asked her "do you want to show Papa your dress?" She nodded yes with a big smile. So we went and showwed Gary how proud she was of her new dress.
Gary took the boys to school and I stayed home and took a shower and got "real" clothes on her so we could go to Cooper's Christmas program. She sat well through that, and afterwards we went to Chick fil a.
Her host parents from this summer said they had taken her there, and she recognized it and was very excited. She ate a lot of chicken and french fries and red HI-C, which I actually persuaded her into calling juice. After she got done eating she kept looking at the play place, but I was nervous because I was not sure with her legs if she'd be able to get up the initial stairs that are pretty high. Gary saw her looking and asked if she wanted to go, and she immediatly got out of her chair and headed for it. She was a little slow, but she did it, for about an hour!! She would climb up and go down the slide and everytime, she would yell "mama" and wave to me.
I'll cover this evening and how her relationships with the boys are forming tomorrow, I would love to tell more tonight, but I need to get to bed. We got Cooper's and Cody's Christmas parties at school tomorrow, so I have to get up on time!!
Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers, this is such an exciting,yet of course challenging time, and we appreciate it.