Our Golden Tickets!!!!

We finished our first set of Dossier Paperwork!!! I had to go get them Apostilled yesterday in Atlanta- a 4 hour round trip!! Thank God all of our documents were as they needed to be, there was a man ahead of me that said it was his 15th time there! Everything has be exact on the way that the documents were Notarized and put together or they will not Apostille them. I am thankful for the notary in Gary's office that did our Notaries for free, he saved us a chunk of money. And he did everything correctly! I had tears in my eyes as I walked out of the apostille office, this is such a milestone in the adoption process.
The apsotille is attached to the front of each set of documents, they are attached with either a staple or a grommet thing. Georgia used the gold grommets. If these are unfastened in anyway the apostille is null an void, so these things are like gold! I was laughing so hard at someone's blog the other day, she was describing this apostillin process. We have to make copies of everything, and she had to bend back the apostille to copy the documents underneath. She said she was at Staples and a lady who works there walked up and grabbed one of her documents and bent it back, she said she almost jumped the lady! I see why!
We will be mailing this to Russia on Monday-Anastasia's 7th Birthday!

Hello, Happy Friday

Sorry there is nothing new and exciting to post, we are finishing up our first set of dossier paperwork, and hopefully next week I can travel to Atlanta to have all of our documents Apostilled. An apostille it like a step further than a Notary, you notarize it, then you take it to get "Apostilled", it is for international documents, and cost $3 a page!!! And that's a steal, in some states it $20! How many pages will we have? I think around 30, so thank goodness Georgia has bargain priced apostilling!!! What happens then? It is sent to St. Petersburg, tranlated and submitted to the "ministry" Then we start our 2nd part of the dossier paperwork, apostille it, send it to St. Petersburg, and then wait for our first trip date!! I miss her so much, I cannot believe it has been only 1 week since she left. The time is dragging. Life is too easy without her, and I mean that in the best way possible. I have noone following me around the house saying "Mama Dissel Da" There is noone standing at the sink with me in the morning asking me to curl her hair or use my lotion. It is harder than I even expected, I'm not going to pretend it isn't. I look at her pictures every night, and watch the little videos we took of her. Cooper is having the hardest time. He told me "Mama I think Anastasia misses us, and I think she is crying in Russia" I told him "Yes that I'm sure she does miss us, just like we miss her" And he said "Mama, I don't think she will stop crying until we go to get her and bring her home, so we need to hurry up ok?" Break my heart! I explained to him that people can be happy and sad at the same time, and that she has friends and people who take care of her there, and she does not cry all the time.

Rufus

Our hamster, was quite the attraction while she was here. She was allowed to take her out to play with him every night. And when she started miss behaving that is the privilage we took away. I would just say "No mouseka before bed!", and usually that did the trick. I must say she is a sweet hamster, we've had her a little over 2 years, so her clock is ticking.

Middle Names

While at the airport we took a peek at Anastasia's passport to see what her middle name is. I was like, what is that, it looks like a man's name with a ending added to it. Well, sure enough it was. After researching online, I figured out why her name looked like that, and what her father's name most likely was. I'm not going to type it on here for the whole world to see. But we don't know what to do about her name. It's a debate a lot of adoptive parents have, a lot leave it up to the children, and a lot just rename them without asking. We are going to keep her first name, no we are not going to ask her if she wants a new first name. Gosh, when I was 7 I named everything Susie, I don't think a child that age needs to be naming themselves. Just my opinion. Well, her middle name is out-there here in America, I can guarantee noone here could even round about pronounce it.
So, what to do? What if we give her a new name and her father was this super wonderful man. What if we keep it and her father was some sort of monster?

Here is the explanation I found online:

A Russian name generally has three parts: a given name, a patronymic,
> and a family name.
>
> The given name is like a first name in English. Most male names end in
> a consonant, and most female names end in the sound "a".
>
> The patronymic is the one that's unusual from an English perspective.
> It's name that is based on the person's father's name. It's generally
> formed by taking the father's name and adding -ovich for a man, or
> adding -ovna for a woman (these endings can change to -yevich and
> -yevna if the father's name ends in a "soft" consonant).
>
> The family name is like a surname in English. For a woman, the sound
> "a" is tacked on to the end of the surname, but it's considered to be
> the same surname. There are also some surnames that end in -sky (or
> -ski or -skiy, depending on the transliteration). This changes to
> -skaya for a woman.
>
> Some examples:
>
> Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin
>
> His given name is Vladimir, his father's name is also Vladimir, and his
> family name is Putin. His daughter is Yekaterina Vladimirovna Putina.
>
> Anna Sergeyevna Kournikova
>
> Her given name is Anna, her father's name is Sergei, and her family
> name is Kournikova (or Kurnikova if you want a more accurate
> transliteration). Her father's last name would have been Kournikov.
>
> The most common way for two adults to refer to each other is by their
> first name and their patronymic. The patronymic would be dropped only
> in the case of a very close relationship. Using the last name would
> generally be seen as being extremely formal.







So, any input? If we give her a new middle name, I am leaning toward giving her mine, Anastasia Michelle, but that is really long. I don't know!!!
Oh, and if we keep her middle name, her initials would be A.S.S.

Yes Everyone Cried

As everyone knows we had to take Anastasia to the airport yesterday. Who was the first to cry? Cooper, yes you heard me right. As we were waiting in line to check her in, his little lip popped out, his face turned pink, and the tears started streaming "I don't want Anastasia to leave." Oh my goodness, of course that made me cry.
Once all the children were checked in, we got to hang around for a while and visit. We got to meet Liza, Anastasia's good friend who is being adopted by another Warner Robins family. I got a gate pass so that I could take her to the gate since she has to be wheeled. Once they called for all the kids to gather and start walking, yes, most everyone was crying. The thing that got me was seeing the kids crying. Anastasia had already cried several times, but now she was crying really hard, she gave hugs to the boys and Gary and we had to start walking. The orphanage director and I were trying to comfort her, and the orphanage director was looking at me, and said, "Anastasia can come back and visit you in the summer, yes?" I realized then that she must know that we are adopting Anastasia. We were not allowed to tell her, but I think the Hosting people did. So, of course I said "YES, we would love for her to come back this summer." That perked Anastasia up a little bit.
Nastya's Host Dad walked with Anastasia and I because we got seperated from the group due to the fact that we had to take the elevator. When we got to the gate, she cried so hard, I just held her and cried and reminded her that we would see her this summer. She told the translator that she wanted to stay forever with her Mama. She told me over and over, I love you mama, I love you. I love you too, is all I could say. She has no idea how much we love her, as our daughter, and how much work is going into bringing her here forever. It's so hard to not be able to take care of her when she hurts or explain to her that we do love her as a daughter. It's horrible to think that she doesn't know that she IS wanted.
Once I got back to the boys, Cooper yelled out to me "Guess what Mama, next time we see Anastasia we get to keep her!!!" I can't really explain the love these boys have for her, they were so kind and patient with her. What a blessed family I have!
Well, I've got to go clean my house so I can take pictures for our Dossier paperwork.

Departing

Hi all, we have been very busy preparing for Anastasia's departure tomorrow. She also had her dental work done yesterday. She did so awesome, they were impressed by her.
She has been crying telling us "no airport", and she says "ohhhh, my cody-bug" That is is one of my nickname's for Cody. I was crying with her, but at that point had to laugh. She loves her brothers, especially Cody. And I must say, they have been so sweet to her, beyond anything I ever expected. What wonderful boys I have!
We went to school with Cooper one day this week, which she loved. She has taken a liking to Cooper's teacher from the beginning. She also really likes Cooper's "girlfriend" Madison. It was a great day for her. During story time, she sat between the girls who were most dressed up that day, and all she did through the whole story was look at what they were wearing! I was trying not to laugh out loud.
Her English has exploded the past 2-3 days! Beyond what we ever expected. It's so sad she has to go back and lose all that she's learned, hopefully she'll retain some of it. Some of her favorites right now are "stop it", "come on", "hold on", "in a minute", "Ginger go potty", etc...
We had a Birthday Cake for her tonight, I tried to explain to her that her birthday is in 2 weeks and that she would be 7, not sure if she understood or not. But she was so excited that it was for her!
We haven't had much more of the behavior issues, she knows Mama don't play, and she corrects herself quickly.
She told the orphanage director that she wanted to buy a gift for her grandmother. We were told that her grandmother had passed and her grandfather was alive but too elderly to care for her. Maybe it's the other way around? We really hope that if she is alive, that we will be able to meet her, and get information and maybe photos for Anastasia to keep. I don't know what her parents were like, if they suitable or not, but no matter, I would still want her to have photos of them, it's part of who she is.
We are going to miss her so much. I hope the time goes quickly. This time with her has been such a gift. Having a child added to your family for a month then taken away is very hard. Children are so full of life, having one not there changes the whole household. Although I've tried to spread myself out well, I know the boys need some extra Mama time. It's kind of like having a new baby in the house, so she needed extra attention.
Please pray for our family tomorrow. Cody says he is going to try not to cry, but that he might! Cooper says he just wishes she could stay longer.

Our God is an Awesome God

Just wanted to give everyone an awesome update on the little girl Liza we had sent an email out about. I got a call yesterday saying there was a couple, who had gotten the email and was very interested. That couple is right here in Warner Robins!!! For their privacy I'm not going to go into detail about who they are. But they went to meet her today and are moving forward!!!! All that we needed was email, prayer, and a lot of heart, and a little girl whose future was at huge risk has found a home!!! And a family with a lot of love to give has found a daughter! Once Anastasia and Liza are both home they are going to flip over the fact that they get to be in same town nd visit each other!!! Can you imagine! This is one of Anastasia's closest friends. God is so good and when you are open to what he could do through you, even if it's just sending an email, you never know what could become of it!!