One Year Ago Yesterday...

The Day We Met You! :) Age 10 1/2 months, Moscow City, Baby Home #14
She is looking at the photo album we brought her to leave behind and get on the final trip.
...we met our Russian Sweet Baby, Cassiana! :) I would have loved to have posted yesterday, but between working a full day, power washing the house getting it prepped for painting over the long Fall Break weekend (love these teacher vacations!) and then getting the kids to bed, I just couldn't do it last night. Plus, I had the flu for 2 weeks and only recently started to feel better.



My how our lives have changed since this time last year, all for the better! Cassi was still an orphan, 10 1/2 months old, Dan was a stay-at-home dad, I was working in sales, traveling all the time, and Kai was in kindergarten. Now, Cassi is almost 2, doing fantastic, Dan is finishing his degree and working part time, I am an elementary deaf education teacher (love it!) and Kai is a big first grader.



One year ago yesterday, was an amazing day! We went to the Department of Education, completely jet lagged, running on adrenaline and met a table of 5 Russian women who showed us the picture of our future baby. She was not was I was expecting, with her sparse dark hair and deer in the headlights big black eyes (see picture to the right)! She looked very scared in the picture, but you could tell she was a cutie. So we went to meet her.



Walking up to the baby home for the first time was so exciting! I was not particularly nervous, more anxious about, "Would this be our baby? Would we know right away?" We were led inside by Max and escorted into the big music room. Masha began to go over the medical history with us and in walked the baby home worker with a beautiful baby girl with coal black eyes. She had her bottom lip sucked in because she was so scared and I remember being concerned that her lip wasn't formed right--lol! She had on baby blue boys clothes and big black boots, probably a size 4. I know now that she wore a size 1 or maybe smaller (she still has tiny feet--only wears a size 3 now!). I wonder if they were trying to conceal her teeny feet? The worker handed me to her and she began to cry, so I walked around the room and talked to her and kissed her sweet cheeks and hair. She soon calmed down and let me sit with her snuggled to my neck, while we tried to focus on what Masha said about her history, as this would be the only time we would hear it! Talk about difficult! All I wanted to do was see my new baby, head to toe, and to tell her how much we already loved her! She was definitely our daughter, no doubt!



That day, we took about 1,000 photos and several videos. We got to see her the next day and then signed the intent to adopt and it seems like we saw her one more day and then had to go back home until court November 10th. That was tough leaving her, however, they had kept her safe this long and I figured they could do it a while longer.


Here is Cassi the day after we met her, a year ago today...

And from the other day, by the way, her hair is NOT that big! lolol This shirt is from her "twin" sister, Dagny, who has a matching one. So sweet of Dagny to give the shirt to Cassi! :) They were in the same groupa at the orphanage and we are still in touch and will meet in person one day. Dagny and Cassi knew each other before we knew they were our daughters! :)