Day 13 - Guess what I did today....(double click for pics)

Monday, July 10th--Day 13 Visitation

Today we get to visit Landen again. It’s amazing how much one day apart affects you. We are ready to have him with us all the time!

The morning (or late night) started with a little plumbing problem back in GA. With great people looking after things for us, we will not worry about the problems. Thanks so much! Rylee was up again at early dawn, which is 6:45am. Just a side note: It is light here from 4:00am till 10:30pm (wow). Bobby put the usual bird food out for his feathery friends and we had a simple breakfast of oatmeal, cereal, green tea and coffee. Guess who had what? Then, Bobby went down to the internet cafe to post our blog from yesterday.

Lena is out of town, so it was just Sergi that picked us up for our first visit! When I got upstairs, Landen was in a swing---I was allowed to take a photo to capture the moment! They got him ready, and tried to put on this hot pink sweater outfit in case we went outside. Somehow, through hand motions, I explained that we were not going outside. The caretaker seemed to understand and handed the outfit to me in case we did. She put the pink hat on him, anyway, which made for a great photo! Bobby quickly removed it when we got to the music room. And for those of you that have been wondering....we have confirmed that he is a boy! He comes with all the necessary equipment :-) !!!

We had a TERRIFIC visit! It started out quite spitty,.....yes, big sister got an official initiation into sisterhood! Landen tried to redecorate her favorite shirt with his favorite onion soup spit-up! (this moment was captured with a photo). She was totally disgusted!!! It took about an hour before she wanted to be within 10 feet of him again. Luckily, Mom had an extra shirt handy! We took advantage of this moment and changed him into some clothes that we had brought! He seemed to love them!.........And, guess what???........Landen started crawling on his knees today!!!! It's amazing what a little love, affection, and attention can do!!! We were so excited that we were able to witness this milestone!

Landen was extremely verbal today! He kept saying Da Da Da Da! I would say it in a rhythm and he would copy me. This is one of the first times he has repeated me like that. He is started to get used to hearing us speak in English. For a while, he would only respond and repeat the people that spoke to him in Russian. We feel this is just another great sign that he is starting to really bond with us.

When stopped off and got a couple more rotisserie chickens after our 1st visit. I can tell we will be getting these every couple days. After a little lunch, Rylee decided she needed a little cat nap. Believe it or not, our days are very tiring. She slept for about an hour and it was time for the trip back to the baby house for our 2nd visit. We arrived about 10 minutes early, but the caretakers went ahead and woke Landen up. I felt really bad, but was so glad to see him. He did not seem to mind being woken up. He was in a terrific mood, and all four of us had a super time playing! We had to make sure he still remembered how to crawl.....Yep, he's getting to be a pro!!!

After our visit, we went straight to the apartment, because our American friends were coming over for dinner. We had...you guessed it...rotisserie chicken...along with, potato dumplings and refried beans (they have figured out to make them here---they were DELICIOUS!) The girls built a little fort and ate dinner in their fort and then watched "Ice Princess" in there, too! They said they were trying to get pointers on ice skating. I don't know what we are going to do when they leave...we have had such a great time with them. I think we are all going to go ice skating again tomorrow---since they are leaving on Thursday. We had a great time sitting around sharing our adoption war stories! Hard to believe our journeys are so similar! It's nice to have someone to relate to!

It's getting late, so we are going to close up shop this evening, as we have another big day planned tomorrow! Poka, poka!