Hearing Appointment

Her hearing appointment when SO well. The doctor was amazing with her and she had adopted 4 children and we could have talked for hours. They gave her 4 different tests and she thought it was pretty neat. She sat quietly on my lap and caught on quickly to finding all the sounds. She passed all the tests with flying colors so now she has NO excuse for not listening!

SO BUSTED!

Ana took this little ROCKING CHAIR and placed it on her stool and was trying to play in the water...she was reaching for the faucet when we found her! She then made the "washing hands" sign and almost lost her balance...CRAZY girl! Look at that smile...she knows she is doing something she shouldn't do! We just had to laugh.

AMEN

For dinner every night we try to sit in the dining room and eat as a family together. We always say a prayer and we have never "made her" wait to eat during the prayer...we don't want to freak her out about "not getting food" based on her past... However, we do place our hands on hers and close our eyes and pray. Well, just within the last couple of nights...she has reached out for us to hold our hands, she waits to eat, closes her eyes and SAYS Amen! Love it!

Duct Tape!

This little girl thinks it is funny or she is just bored and she takes her diaper off and pees all over her bed. SO, I read about potty training her and she has 4 of the 9 signs...so we don't think she is quite ready. Last week we just taped the front flaps but over the weekend she figured out how to wiggle her little booty out. NOW we are taping her around the waist and it has worked. So for nap and night night time...she "gets taped"! Today we used the tape for a project Marc is working on and left it in our bathroom and she found it. I followed her to see what she would do with it and she went straight to her room and pointed to where we keep it normally to "put it away". She knows...and it doesn't seem to bother her. Stinker!

McDonald's Playhouse

I finally decided to be brave enough to let Ana play in the McDonald's Playhouse deal. We have practiced stairs, she knows "up", "down", "swimming", "car"...so we had some time to kill before swimming lessons and I thought this would be fun. SHE HAD A BLAST. However, could not figure out how to come down. Even knowing that swimming lessons were next, she couldn't figure it out. But she was fine with that and played and played and played. I finally asked this little boy to take her by the hand and gently bring her down the stairs and get her outta there! Note to self...bring a friend with a kid who can help us next time! We even made it to swimming lessons on time...

Not Working

Blogger isn't happy tonight. I'm not able to upload any pictures. I'll try in the morning! Thanks for keeping up with our family! :)

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Last Wednesday Ana had her next set of shots. She is having to do all the "baby shots" and we will have to go in once a month for 3 more months to catch her up. Well, she TOTALLY remembered "the room" where she got her first round of shots and Marc was holding her and she looked at me and asked..."Boo Boo?" I couldn't lie to her so I told her she would be okay and we laid her down and she got 3 shots in her thighs and screamed the whole time. Marc held her legs while I had her upper body and she just kept yelling "Boo Boo"...HORRIBLE! Afterwards I picked her up and we went straight to the car and on the way I told her we'd listen to "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and she got this HUGE smile on her face and everything was all better and not another tear! Thank goodness for Isty Bitsy! Sweet little girl!

Appointments

NEXT week is her hearing appt. I also realized I never updated you on what the dermatologist said. He was not very good. He didn't even really look at her scar, so I asked for another referral and GOT IT. SO, now the next available appt. is in Sept. Tomorrow is her next round of "baby shots". I'm totally dreading it. I finally heard from the speech theropist today and "Ana's team" should start forming and figuring out her plan in the next week or two. Hopefully we can have a good handle on it by next month. However, everyday she understands more and more and is being very vocal...babble wise...and my friends seem to think she will be talking very soon. She says about 6 words now.

We have decided to put her back in the crib for now. We just don't think she can handle being in a twin bed. Even though she was in a toddler bed in the orphanage. The orphanage didn't have fun things for her to play with. (In her sleeping area.) The last two weeks have been and on again off again battle to go to sleep. We lay her down at 8:00pm and she would fight it until 10:00ish...drove us crazy. We wouldn't go in her room thinking if we ignore her she will go to sleep and we would hear her on the monitor playing. She would get out of bed and get into EVERYTHING just to stay awake. We took all her books and stuffed animals out of her room and she started climbing the dressers and tearing off her diaper. Just too stimulated to sleep because there was too much fun stuff to do...maybe she was afraid she'd miss something...DON'T KNOW...but she loves the crib and SLEEPS right away now. She is still so little, and until she climbs out...she's being caged! :) She's a hoot!

Father's Day

Ana got her dad this shirt for his birthday so he could be sure to wear it on Father's Day! He really is the "Greatest Dad" and I couldn't be any prouder of him. Just watching him with Ana makes me love him more and more everyday. They have such an amazing connection. One of my favorite parts of my day is when Marc gets home from work and she squeals with happiness and is SO excited to see him. Just seeing both of them with so much love and happiness is more than I could ever hope for. God really does know what He is doing! :)

15 June - Happy Birthday Marc!

Marc turned 33 last Thurs. and we had our good friends the Gempler's over for dinner and cake. The kids (Marc included) REALLY enjoyed their cake!

We also received Ana's "American Citizen Certificate" in the mail! We were SO excited! It came with a really moving letter about being an American from George Bush. SO neat!

ROCKS are the BEST!

Rocks are our new favorite thing. She will sit outside on the patio for a good 30 minutes playing with the rocks. Putting them in and out of that little silver container (in the pic.) or her tricycle. Now we are working on "rocks stay outside", "take the rocks outside please..." She knows what I'm saying...she's just poky to take them back out...but she does it! :)

Popping Bubbles

My high school best friend, Kelly, lives in Phoenix. Kelly and her two beautiful kids came over last week and brought us lunch. We have bubbles outside and it was so fun watching the kids try to pop all the bubbles as fast as they could!

McGilvray Family

My Uncle Lester (my dad's brother), Aunt Carol, and cousins Kristin and Danny got here last Sat. to see Ana and to do their "Arizona Vacation". They are staying over in Scottsdale (about 30 mins. away) and we have gotten to see them everyday. Ana was SO excited to see them again for dinner tonight. She has had a blast playing with Kristin and Danny! It was sad to say bye to them tonight, as they head onto the Grand Canyon in the morning. They are such an awesome family!

Everyday Life

Ana has come out of her shell a little more and more each week. She is still a very happy little girl and seems to be adjusting SO WELL. For the last 4ish days she has been giving me some 2 year old attitude and we are having to discipline now. She responses well to having to sit up against a wall for about a min. and when she is done whining and fussing I tell her she can get up and she does the "all done" sign and we hug and kiss and move on. At swimming lessons on Mon. the instructor tells me, "she is a little more assertive this week"...is that what you call it? Assertive?
We have gotten ALL her test results (blood work) back and she is healthy! :) We had an eye appt. today and no issues there either! Next week is the ear doc...however, I think she hears just fine...when she wants to!

1st Lemon

"Sure, I'll try anything you give me...."

"What the heck was that?"

"No thanks, I'm not up for that again!"

Where did it go?

Lester, Carol, Kristin, and Danny stayed at a resort in Scottsdale and had this enormous jaccuzi tub in the master bedroom. Danny started this game with Ana of playing with a bath fizzy ball in the tub and it kept her busy and contained for a good long while!

Aggie Girl

Texas A&M University is VERY important to the McGilvray side of my family and low and behold it wasn't long before the brainwashing begins for Ana. Lester and Carol got her this adorable TAMU dress and I must say burgundy...I mean maroon (hee hee)... does look good on her! :) (Yes, the sunglasses must go everywhere with us STILL!)

Base Tour

Lester, Carol, Kristin and Danny came out to the base this past Mon. This is a pic. of Marc taking them out to the flight line and explaining his everyday life! Ana and I didn't stay outside long because jets were taking off and I was worried about her ears...even though she did have her ear plugs in!

First Rain

Yes, it does rain here every blue moon or so...and with Ana being such a water baby I thought she might love to play in the rain!

She wasn't so sure at first what was going on...

However, she got the hang of it and played, laughed, screamed, and ran...had a blast!

All done...time to go inside. Rain stopped! FUN TIMES!

Tired Girl!

Too tired to make it up to her eyes I guess! We were driving home from one of her doc. appts and I looked in the back seat to check on her and she was ASLEEP with her glasses in her mouth! SILLY GIRL! (Yes, I pulled over to take the picture!)

Edwards Family

After a fun week in Sedona; Brenda, Lloyd, Tyler and Brian stopped in before they had to fly back to Austin. Brenda is my dad's youngest sister and she and I have always been close. She has such a neat family and it was awesome to see them all! We will miss them!

Weekly Review

We had a speech therapist come out today to evaluate Ana and low and behold...she is indeed "behind for her age". We knew that and this is normal for her "life/background" but I want to be able to have enough information to catch her up as quickly as possible. We will be assigned a team who will work with her weekly on speech and our "American sounds". They are much different from Russian sounds. However, she only spoke about two words in Russian and she learns new words everyday so we aren't too worried. She doen't SAY the words but points to the object etc. She understands us so much better now and we have taught her a lot of sign language and she REALLY responds to that and uses it. So, I'm looking into a sign class also. Tomorrow (Wed.) is a dermatology appt. for her. She has a scar on her face and I just want to get it checked. See if they can figure out what it is from and how we can get rid of it. We are very involved in "kids stuff" now in the mornings. Monday is swimming. Tuesday is a 'playgroup'. Wed. is story time at the library. Thurs. is a workout class with your kid. Fri. I've left open. We try to be home in time for nap and then we hang out at the house in the afternoons... go swimming, go for a walk, play in the grass... until Marc gets home to "take over"! Pretty awesome life I must say!

Swimming Lessons!

Yesterday (Monday) was our first swimming lesson. SO FUN! She was the best baby there...I have to say. All the other kids cried and got into stuff and Ana was patient and waited her turn and was just happy. There are 3 kids per one teacher and two classes together at the same time. She is in the "guppy" class right now, but the instructor said she was "such a natural" that she will probably move up to "turtle" after a couple of more classes. Hee hee!

Much needed haircut!

We took her to "Little Choppers" to get her haircut. They had quite the set up I must say! Very fun. Movies, suckers, fun chairs to sit in. Of course we had to sit in the airplane. She did great. Her hair was pretty shaggy and needed some shaping. Much better now.

Great Aunt Brenda- hee hee!

My aunt and uncle and cousins got here last Sat. and visited for the day. They drove up to Sedona for the week and plan to be back on Friday and leave to go back to Texas on Sat. SOOO neat to see them all. They brought Ana a tricycle! SO fun. Tyler (one of my cousins) taught her "high 5" and Brian (my other cousin) supervised her while we were out together for a yummy German dinner. I wish he could be there for all our outings! :)

Shopping with Katy

My friend, Manda, and I took our girls to the mall the other day. We had a great time. Little different kind of shopping...but still fun. Katy is about to be 3 and notice how much bigger she is than Ms. Ana...and Katy is SMALL for the average 3 year old. Ana has some growing to do. Next week we check her weight again and see how she is doing.