Changes

Tonight I was preparing for a doctor's appointment that Dasha has on Monday and I needed to get some papers from one of my adoption files.  After I got home from Ukraine and got her social security card and citizenship paperwork dealt with, I relegated that whole crate of documents to the far corners of the basement, hopeful I wouldn't need to look at it again for a while.  As I was sorting through everything this evening, I came across her passport.  I don't think I ever shared her photo.  Sometimes when I look at pictures of her from before she became our daughter, I have trouble believing it's the same little girl we have with us now.

So much different from this:

Just 5 months later.  This is her preschool picture!



Here comes the bride

After having my wedding dress shoved in a garbage bag for almost 11.5 years, I have suddenly decided that I must immediately get it dry cleaned and preserved. So, before taking it to the cleaners in the morning, Dasha and I had a little fun this afternoon. Truthfully, I was the only one having fun. She was kind of miserable and had to be bribed with Halloween candy to smile. :)

First Day of School

It was back-to-school time at our house again this morning.  Actually, it was more like to-school-for-the-first-time.  Dasha started preschool today!!  Initially our plan had been to keep her home this year, then send her for a year of preschool next year before starting kindergarten.  However, it became clear pretty quickly that she would really benefit from going to preschool.  She is SO curious and smart and I knew she would love school.  She just wasn't ready in September, though.  She has really struggled with the fear that we are going to leave her (either leave her some place and not come back for her or just leave the house without her).  While the fear is not completely gone, she's doing much better feeling okay about being away from us and being confident that we'll return to her.  I think a lot of the improvement comes from her understanding English so well now.  We can communicate exactly what is going to happen in a situation and she gets it.  She has been anxiously awaiting her first day of school and practically couldn't stand the excitement when we went backpack shopping last week.  The big day finally arrived and she had a great time at school!  When I picked her up and asked how her day was, she said, "I love it!!  It was fun!"  She's already asking to go back again tomorrow.  :)

What a big girl! 

Heading off for her first day!

She asked that her teachers call her Rachel.  I guess I need to get on board with that since she really prefers it over Dasha. 

She did great at drop-off.  No tears, only smiles.  :)

I stuck around and spied on her when the class went outside to play.

  She made the bracelet and said it was her favorite thing she did.

Happy Halloween!

Dasha had a fun first Halloween.  Here are some highlights of the evening.

Helping get the Halloween pizza ready for the oven

Getting ready to carve her pumpkin

The Bobbsey Twins.  Dasha was going to be a dog until Caleb decided on the delivery man costume.  Then, of course, she changed her mind and had to be that, too.

What a scary bunch!  :)

The big guys

Off and running

We got A LOT of candy!!

Waiting by the front door to pass out candy. 

My four little pumpkins' four little pumpkins  :)

Happy Halloween!!

Pictures!

I haven't posted many pictures since Dasha's been home so I thought I'd share a few random ones from the past couple of weeks (some are a bit older).
  

Posing after a fun day at the water park.

 Dasha got to meet her grandma (Baba) from California earlier this month.  They had Skyped and talked on the phone many times prior to the visit, so she was really comfortable with her and they had a lot of fun together. 

 Every day she wakes up from her nap just in time to watch for the school bus to drop off the older boys.  She's always still a little sleepy but she doesn't want to miss out on a minute of the action. 

 Visiting Daddy at work for the first time.

Being silly

That's blue frosting from her first cupcake on her mouth.  :)

These two have become such great buddies.  They are ALWAYS together playing and whatever one does, the other must do.  It's been very fun to watch their relationship develop. 

Playing Just Dance on the Wii.  :)

The Simple Things

Dasha loves popcorn.  She gets it whenever she can...the movies, the soccer field, Target, basically any place she sees it.  Until tonight, we hadn't made it at home with her.  I'm pretty certain it will be a regular event from this point forward.  These are my favorite kinds of moments.  Watching her experience something so simple for the first time and seeing her excitement and happiness is so special and we consider it such a privelage.  We love this girl so much!

Yes, she was really THAT excited over watching the kernels pop.  :)  Caleb, who HAS seen this happen before, is only reacting like Dasha because he has to do everything she does.  :) 

Watching Star Wars with her brothers.

An Update

I know it's been a while since I posted, so I thought I'd give a quick update.  We've been home 9 weeks now (at least I think that's what it is) and we are doing GREAT!!  Things are going much better around here since school started and we have a routine.  Dasha continues to amaze us daily with her English.  She speaks no Russian anymore and doesn't want us to.  In fact, if we do use a Russian word, she usually corrects us with the English equivalent.  She's using 3-4 word sentences pretty regularly and can count to 10 and say most of the ABC's.  Some of the stuff she says is very funny.  I love to hear her say, "Oh my gosh!" in a totally frustrated tone with a big sigh.  It's like I'm listening to myself!!  :)  She also asks, "Why, Mom, why?" a lot.  She frequently gets into arguments with her older brothers and they tell her, "Be quiet!" and she always responds with, "No, you be quiet!"  She don't take it from nobody, let me tell you!  :)  While in Ukraine, I was told that Dasha didn't speak Russian well and that she was difficult to understand.  Now that she's speaking English and I can understand what she says, I hadn't noticed any major problems with her pronunciation.  Nevertheless, I wanted to have her evaluated by a speech pathologist just to make sure everything was okay.  Her results were great!  They told me she is speaking like a normal 4 year old born in the U.S. (minus language development), so no speech therapy for her! 

In all other ways, she is just adjusting so well and is such a happy, sweet, helpful, and polite little girl.  Her favorite foods are pancakes, hot dogs, mac and cheese, fruits, yogurt, jelly sandwiches, rice pilaf, and of course, chips.  I've never met anybody in my entire life who loves chips like this girl.  Her favorite is original Doritos and I've got orange stains all over my house to prove it!  :)  She is really doing great with eating a variety of foods.  She's done a complete 180 since she first arrived home and would only eat bananas and refused to even taste anything else.  Now she eats whatever we're eating and will try anything we ask her to try.  We've discovered she likes broccoli, tomatoes, carrots and steak, among other things.  We're working on increasing the amount she eats because, although she's good about trying new things, she doesn't eat much.  We're also working on getting her to eat a bit faster because she is S-L-O-W.  It takes her about 50 minutes to eat one pancake at breakfast.  I'd like to speed that up just a bit if possible so that I'm not cleaning up breakfast and breaking out lunch 30 minutes later!  :)

Dasha loves to watch Barney and the Little People (as in Fisher Price, we have a bunch of videos that came with the toys), color and draw, and play outside with her brothers.  She really wants a bike and has finally agreed to wear a helmet, which is something she was not willing to do until recently, so we need to get busy and look for one before it gets too cold to be outside.  Dasha's favorite thing to do is play soccer.  She enjoys it so much.  She goes in the basement everyday to practice kicking the ball into the goal.  Once our older boys' soccer seasons wind down, we are going to register her for Little Kickers and she is sooooooooo excited!  She knows she gets to wear a uniform and cleats just like the big kids!!  She's actually quite skilled from what we can tell and is very aggressive (I know...hard to believe), so I'm sure she'll be a good player.  It will certainly be fun to watch.  :)

I definitely feel like the adjustment phase is behind us and we are all feeling settled.  Dasha is happy here and glad to be out of the baby house, that much I know because she tells us.  She feels loved and knows that we are her parents and she will be with us forever.  In my opinion, she is fully attached to us and thinks of herself as a member of our family.  Although it's only been 9 weeks, I truly cannot remember what our lives were like without her.  She makes us laugh, frustrates us, teaches us, and inspires us all on a daily basis.  I am so thankful we took a chance and did something crazy, because we have been so blessed by the outcome.