One Year Ago Today...

One year ago today we were boarding a plane to bring home our beautiful Olivia Viktoria.  It is amazing how adoption works.  You can't believe a year has gone by but yet it feels like your child has been with you forever! 

Our Olivia is such a wonderful and smart little girl.  Our first year with her has been so much fun!  Don't get me wrong, two kids is way more tiring, but we wouldn't have it any other way! 
As an adoptive parent I am always so annoyed when people say our kids are so lucky.  I totally understand what they mean.  I would not wish a life in an orphanage for any for any length of time let alone their entire childhood!  I guess it just bugs me that people don't recognize how very lucky we are as their parents.  Oscar and Olivia are our little miracles and we frequently discuss of incredibly lucky we are to be their parents.

Double trouble

Well we were worried that Oscar didn't love his little sister right? They are two peas in a pod these days. Olivia is Oscar's ticket to doing things he knows he shouldn't. She splashes in the tub and he goes nuts with that. She dumps out toy bins and he runs with that. Any chance he can get to do something wrong and say "Livi did it first" he is all about. They drive us nuts, but seeing them giggle together is definitely priceless.

My little flamenco dancer and my policeman

Yes, I know I haven't posted in months and months. Yes, I am a teacher and life is crazy once school starts. I need to work on making time for myself to update our blog and just enjoy reading or something. The problem is there are papers to be graded sitting in my bag as I write. It never ends.
The good news is Olivia is doing great! She is really getting very vocal. I'm sure it helps that her brother never stops taking and is just so loud. She has to keep up with him so she is really babbling and yelling a lot.
We have been slightly bummed out that she isn't walking yet. She wants to walk so bad but her core muscles were just so under-developed that she has had so much catching up to do. She is really close though so hopefully within the next month.
As you can see they dressed up for Halloween at school today. I bought Olivia's costume in Spain this past summer on a trip I took with my students. I absolutely love it! Oscar was planning to be Buzz but when we took out the costume it was dirty so we switched it up to a policeman. Last Halloween I went to a Halloween store the day after Halloween and got a whole bunch of costumes for Christmas gifts. Oz loved them. Since the guy is so tiny I know several of the costumes will still fit him next year.
As far as brotherly love goes Oscar finally said he loved Olivia about 2 weeks ago. We have checked since then and he still loves her. For the first 5 months when we asked him if he loved her he would say, "No, not yet. I'll love her when she is a big girl." The love all started when Olivia shared a cookie with Oz in the car. I have to agree that people who share cookies should be loved.
Hopefully I won't wait another 5 months before I post again.

Update

Things have been crazy busy since we got home. It was tough coming home because our dog ran away while we were gone. It is a very long and sad story and I am trying to focus on Olivia being home now. I spent hours and hours searching and organizing searches for our Lulu and she is still not home. Although it was very difficult, I decided this week to stop organizing searches and focus on our family. I am still updating local vets and lost dog websites, but for my family's sake and mine I needed to move on. I still hope every day that she will be found somewhere and come home!
Olivia is doing great. She is VERY active! I feel bad for her because she wants to walk really bad but isn't strong enough in her trunk. She wants me to walk with her by holding her hands up all day long and my back just can't take it. We take lots of walks with the stroller to keep her moving.
Oscar is getting better but he definitely has had a tough time sharing mom. About a week after she got home he asked if she was going back to Russia. The good news is he has asked that again since and then said he doesn't want her to go back. Little by little he is getting there.
Well that is it for now!

Just one pic... Here she is!

We have a very slow internet connection in Vologda. Here is one picture just for our Oscar. She had to be introduced to Woody! Hopefully I can post more from St. Petersburg. We are headed there tonight and staying until Sunday night. We pick up Olivia on Monday and head back to Moscow on Tuesday. Enjoy!

First Picture!

So here are the little feet that will be soon taking over our house!
We just bought our tickets last night for trip 3. We are heading back next Saturday, a week from today already! We will have her home on Friday, May 6th. We have to spend two weeks there because it takes 7 days to process her passport. We are going to take a little side trip for 4 days to St. Petersburg while we wait for her passport. If anyone has suggestions for what to see or do please pass them on. We are feeling a little selfish because we aren't very excited to see St. Petersburg even though we know it will be beautiful. We just want to get her home!

We have a daughter!

Yippee, court is done and it was a success! The hearing was just under 2 hours and not too difficult at all. It helped a lot that we adopted Oscar from Russia too. The judge and the prosecutor kept referencing our son and our experience. With that being said though, it was still very stressful. It feels great to have it over with!
We did visit Olivia this morning but only for an hour. Plus, the whole time we were with her our translator was reviewing everything with us for court. On top of that, poor Olivia has a bad cold. She had this bright red nose and chapped cheeks. She wasn't the same happy little baby from our first visit. Seeing her sick just makes this next wait even more difficult. We don't know the exact date that we can come back yet. We are going to go back to the orphanage this evening before we have to get back on the train. It will be nice to have time with her with no other distractions. So excited to just get her home!