Hannah & Hayley Larsen

After lots of debating and conversations with Zac and Jaiden we've finally decided on names for the twins. We've decided that they'll keep their given names as their middle names and we'll be giving them new first names. Xenia will now be known as Hannah Xenia Larsen and Sophia will be known as Hayley Sophia Larsen. We can't wait to bring Hannah and Hayley home to meet all their new friends and family.

Bet you didn't know!

We learned an interesting fact today. It's believed here in Kazakhstan that women that cook while wearing silver rings on all their fingers cook better. I've already let Jon I like this custom and that I hope he's ready to go shopping when we get home.

Next step in the paperwork!

Good news! The next step in the paperwork is underway. They took pictures of the girls today that will be used on their Kazak passports. Before we know it the girls will be coming home.

Apartment Life

Zac and Jaiden have been wanting to see where we live. Here are a few pictures from the apartment.

More pictures of the girls sent via phone.

Up Close with Xenia!

Xenia is a very busy little girl. She's always willing to walk when you're holding her tiny little hands. She sits up on her own and is crawling everywhere. You can't leave the door open or she's out of there!

Up Close with Sophia!

This is an up close photo of Sophia. She's going to be our singer. She loves to hear herself talk and babble. She's very comfortable walking in her walker but very hestitant to walk without it. We started working with her on Friday and Saturday. Today she was more than ready to try again. When we first started playing with her she wouldn't sit by herself very well. Today during play time she sat unsupported for about 20 minutes. She's doing great and will catch up with her sister very quickly.

A Typical Day at the Orphanage!

We've been asked what a typical is like for adopting parents in Karaganda. We're finding that our days are very structured and have been laid out for us for the most part. We wake up about 7:30. We're off to the orphanage by 9:40 arriving by 10 am. We're allowed to visit the twins from 10 to 12. At noon we return to our appartment for lunch. Our driver picks us up again at 3:40. Our afternoon visit is from 4 to 6. Visits are allowed Monday through Saturday. No visits on Sunday.

When we arrive in the morning we head to the nursery to get the girls. They're usually dressed and ready to go. It's so cute to open that door and see them come running to us in their walkers. After we pick them up from the nursery we head off to the play room. There are lots of toys to play with. There's even a giant tiger and alligator on the far end of the room for the kids to climb all over.

When we arrive for the afternoon visit the twins are just getting up from their nap so we get to watch them get dressed and then we feed them their cereal. It's amazing to watch the caregivers feed all those babies in record time. Xenia and Sophia on the other hand think that mom and dad feeding them is play time. They like to bite their spoons just to see our reaction. They can really bite down hard! Our little cuties each have 4 teeth - 2 on the top and 2 on the bottom.

And they sleep through the night!

We can happily report that mom and dad are finally sleeping through the night! It's taken some time to get use to the time differences but we think we've finally adjusted to the change of times.

Picture of Proud PaPa

Here is a photo Zac received via cell phone, doesn't Jon look happy!

Zac said it would be twins!

We went back to the orphanage again this morning and held the other child I mentioned yesterday. That's not meant to be. We spent more time with the twins and everything is falling into place. Come to find out that the boys (yes including daddy) have been scheming against me the entire time. Did I mention the early morning call? Yes another topic of converstaion "mom it's right I know it is". Not to mention Zac texting me every 2 minutes while we were at the orphange yesterday wanting lots of pictures sent to him.

I'm sure you have lots of questions about the girls. Here's what we've been able to find out. The girls were born on February 7, 2007 at 40 weeks. They were moved directly from the hospital to the orphanage on February 12th. Xenia (white/red slippers) was born 3k 300 grams and Sophia (blue slippers) was born 3k 530 grams. If anyone can translate this to pounds that would be helpful. The girls have excellent medical records that are being translated so we can bring them back to the States with us but we've been given a quick overview of everything. Long story short the girls are very healthy - no illnesses other than Sophia had bronchitis last May and then again in July. They both have a small patch of dermatitis that we'll be able to treat with a cream when we get home. They both have a lazy eye that can also be treated when we get home. A huge thank you to Dixie for helping us get a hold of Dr Clark to review the medical information we've been given. A big thank you to Charles for taking the time to review the information as well.

Oh did I mention the twins are identical! They only way to tell them apart is the red band on Xenia's hand. Even the orphanage works have a hard time telling them apart. Should make life interesting as they get older.

What's next? We continue the bonding experience until court which will be around February 12th. Then we come home for approx 3 weeks. I have a list of things to be done during the wait like getting a nursery ready, buying baby clothes and lots of toys. Jon of course can't wait to buy matching pink camo overalls for them to wear.

Early morning phone call.

Much to our surprise we received an early morning call this morning. Jaiden decided that he needed to talk to his mom and just called. We talked for a long time about the daily happenings at home and how he's doing at school. I can happily report that all is well on the home front. He just needed to have some one on one time with mom. Boy I love that kid!! Before we called it a night we had a quick math lesson on the time zone differences. He was surprised to learn that 3:30 PM in Utah means 4:30 AM in Karaganda. Does the time difference really matter? Not as far as we're concerned. We're having a heck of a time adjusting - living on short naps at this point!

First Days at the Orphanage!

Our first visit to the orphanage was on Wednesday morning at 10am. There are lots of beautiful children to pick from. We spent the morning playing with children and getting medical information for those we were interested in. The morning was pretty emotional. They say very rarely do parents pick the same children. Wouldn't you know that would happen to us! After lots of prayers we felt that Anya wasn't meant for us and went to our new friend Aspa from Philly.

During our morning visit Larisa, she's our facilitor, mentioned that hey had twins available and offered to show them to us (Xenia and Sophia). Given the lateness of the morning, we only got to spend a few minutes with them but asked if we could see them again that afternoon along with another child named Olga. By the time, we got back to the orphanage that afternoon we had decided that we would just play with the twins. The twins are beautiful Russian girls with blonde hair and blue eyes. When we got back to the appartment that night I felt like something was missing but decided we should spend another day with the twins.

We spent today with the twins and I still feel like something isn't quite right. We're going to ask if it would be possible to see a couple more children tomorrow. There's one child that really stuck out today in the baby room and we feel like we better ask before we settle 100% on the twins (this baby has dark hair). We'll see what tomorrow brings.

We have internet and cell access now!

Sorry it's taken so long to send out an update. We arrived in Karaganda late on the 22nd. Our appartment is amazing - better than we ever expected! They installed our internet connection last night so we've been reading and trying to respond to emails as fast as we can. I can happily report that my cell phone is finally working - a huge thank you to Jared for making a few calls. I think Zac was pretty surprised to hear his phone ring during class (oops forgot about the time zone thing).

We're on our way!

We left our Sunday morning to make a 1:21 PM flight to Denver. After lots of tears (mostly from mom) we checked in for our flight and made it to Denver around 2:30. From Denver we flew to Frankfurt, Germany, then to Astana and finally arriving in Almaty on January 22nd around 2 AM. The temp. is 22 below and it makes the weather in Utah seem warm! We'll be leaving Almaty in a few hours for Karaganda and thankful that this last flight is a short one. We're getting excited to go to the orphanage but a little scared at the same time. Life will never be the same. We'll post another update as soon as we can. Hopefully our next post will contain pictures of our new addition! Thanks again to everyone back home taking care of our boys!

Travel Plans

We received approval late last week to go ahead and book our airline tickets. We'll be traveling to Kazakhstan on January 20th.