A year ago today.....

A judge in Veliky Novgorod declared me Mama to my sweet baby girl. It was one of the happiest days of my life. Of course at the time all I could think about is how I wanted those 10 days to fly by as fast as possible, Jan. 26th could not come fast enough (as I knew that was the day she would leave the baby home forever!)

Here are some pictures from Jan. 13th (in the entire week I was in Russia before court I was only able to see her one day for 2 hours)

Wow, a rare smile.
Even then I knew her little personality
was in there...just waiting
for her family to make her smile every day!

This picture just cracks me up:
This was the face I saw most of the
the time while visiting with her.
She was very "serious".

Sweet baby!