Readoption Day!

Yesterday we celebrated Maella's Readoption court hearing. This court hearing was not mandatory and Maella's adoption was already official. But this event allows us to get Maella a US Birth Certificate, which in turn means we can get her a Social Security #, which in turn means we can get her a savings account, life insurance, and so on. We were also able to include our family in this hearing, which was meaningful since we couldn't have them there in Russia with us. It was nice for our boys to be able to participate as well. The judge asked the boys if we should be allowed to be Maella's parents and Ethan shyly nodded his head yes and Owen emphatically said , "yes!". The judge declared, "After that affirmation, how could I do anything but approve Maella's adoption?". =) Both sets of our parents were also there and my sister, Kris.

In a couple weeks we will have our six month post placement visit. So hard to believe we are approaching 4 months home, this coming week. (the visit and report have to be done early enough for paperwork to be in Russia by 6 mos.) Maella continues to amaze us and bring joy to our life. She is such a fun little girl. Lately we have been seeing how much she enjoys books! That girl is not happy if you lay her down for a nap or bedtime without a book, or two, or three! She'll reach for her book basket and cry. Her favorite book is a cute little lift-the-flap farm animal book. Who says moo? Cow. Who says quack quack? Duck. I was reading her another book and in it she saw a duck. She started making quacking sounds. :o) She is starting to say more. Alot of her babble still sounds Russian to me, plenty of k and v sounds. But we're hearing words like bye, hi, ball, "hu" for hug, and papa (that's what we call our grampas, but i don't think she associates that word with them yet.) She says da-dee but again, not sure she associates that word with HER daddy, so I haven't officially marked that one down yet. And she hasn't said mama yet. I did get a "more" out of her once, but most of the time when I ask her to sign more for more snack she goes to the floor and pouts. She kinda knows how to lay it on thick. But her momma and daddy have been around the block... we know how that works and she doesn't fool us so easy!