John Deere take heed

This week we have some dear friends with us. We were in small group with John and Corrina for a couple of years before they moved to northwestern PA to pastor a church. We appreciate that we can enjoy their fellowship again when they make their annual pilgrimage back to Wilmore for minister's conference. One of the commonalities we share are agricultural backgrounds and conversation last night drifted to the fact that their twin boys are currently crazy about John Deeres. They told us about some of JD's creative products geared toward's kids and specifically, the t-shirt above. We immediately went online to see if we could find one for Ellie, knowing her Grandpa would love it. As Ellie's a bit small for it right now, I e-mailed the link to my parents and told them that Ellie would like this for Christmas in a couple of years. My mom immediately wrote back, "What about, 'My Grandma Drives a Deere'?" Oops. John Deere, you might want to take heed. Grandmas drive tractors too!

Waiting for snow...

I've been anxious since coming home to get a snow "shot" of Ellie. This morning the flurries started falling so I grabbed Els and tried on a hat and coat she had never worn before, something perfect for that "snow bunny" look. By the time we made it outdoors, it was already over. I guess we are south of the Mason Dixon line, after all.

I love her look in the lower photo. The mouth and eyes say it all. It's like, "Okay, Mom. Are you done yet?"

Here she is (in warmer conditions) with my former college apartment-mate, Kami, visiting Saturday from Nashville.

Early admission...

Talk about early admission! Ellie received this in the mail last week. Click on the image above to see a larger view.

ADDENDUM:
What's funny is that I shouldn't have been surprised when this arrived in the mail! For a year and a half I worked in the College's admissions office and one of the responsibilities I had was to provide the hand calligraphy of the baby names and birth dates for these certificates (mailed to the children of every alumni who submits the information to the alumni office). Now I see that my handicraft has been replaced by MS Word's "Monotype Corsiva." Oh well, we are in the 21st century now, right?

A beautiful Saturday morning in the bluegrass...

With the sun just beggin' us to go outside this morning, we took a walk to the bank and post office, then finished off the little hike with a stop for a ride on the swings at the Wilmore mini-park. I don't think we could have been on the swings long enough in Ellie's opinion and she vehemently let us know as we began the balance of the walk home. Finding her thumb a short while later she settled in to enjoy the rest of the view from over her daddy's shoulder.

Audio messages online about adoption

I don't know how long these links will stay up, but if you have some time at your computer, take a moment to listen to these interviews/stories about adoption featured this week on Focus on the Family:
When Love Isn't Enough (1/24/07)
The Bentleys, A Radical Journey of Faith (2 parts) (1/25-26/07)

Had a bad day? This'll make you smile!

These were shot just before bedtime. As you can tell by the mess in the background and the photos below, we had a fun night.

Tuesday picts/Wednesday news

One of Ellie's favorite places to be, bundled in the stroller! She doesn't seem to mind the winter temps. Here we are on our way to the college cafeteria for lunch. (Incidentally, it was a short trip -- I really think she wanted to go back outside! Hopefully it will be a longer visit next time.)

This book arrived in the mail yesterday from a friend. Ellie reached right for it with eager hands!

Ellie hanging out with Mark and Faith during a meeting in the office. As you can see by the lollipops, we had serious business to discuss and Ellie wanted to join in.

Wednesday news:
Ellie's First Steps assessment went well this morning. Briefly, it was determined that she will qualify for therapy, and the assessor was optimistic that given her cognitive scores, she should catch up soon. The next step will be for us to select the therapists that will work with her. Pray for us as we will embark on that process soon. We have some friends with children who have been in the same program and hopefully will be able to provide some recommendations based on their experiences. Everyone we have spoken to has been very enthusiastic about First Steps and we are thankful that we can have this help for Ellie now, because as our pediatrician said, early intervention is critical for her to reach her potential and the help of trained professionals is obviously way more than we could do for her by ourselves.

Though I didn't feel like Ellie was showing her true colors during her assessment, she relaxed and was a lot of fun the rest of the day. While the individual moments in and of themselves may seem rather mundane to many, we continue to marvel at the gift she is, whether it's dancing in the kitchen to the CD player after supper, or making silly sound effects while putting on jammies she gives us so much joy! We are so blessed.

3 weeks home -- a progress report

With family in town this weekend, we got a chance to get some family photos around home. It was a bit tricky, but here are some of our favorites above!

Many of you have been asking about Ellie's progress and the follow-up on her appointment with the pediatrician. While we're still waiting on the last of the lab work to come in, Dr. Taylor reports that everything looks pretty good so far! On Wednesday someone will be coming to our home to perform a formal developmental assessment on Ellie. From there we will learn what forms of therapy she will require to catch up to her peers.

Els continues to enjoy laying on her back to play with her toys and gets frustrated when toys are out of reach. She is also still refusing to eat food off a spoon. We've been testing the strength of her legs by standing her up against furniture. This afternoon she stood for several minutes on more than a couple of different occasions to look at a book (see photo below). She is sleeping well (~11 hours at night and a 1.5 to 2 hour nap in the afternoon) and she also seems to becoming more and more amused by our dog, Reagan. I think when she can move around on her own, he may want to watch out! Though at the moment, the feelings seem to be mutual. She continues to explore her world and her vocal ranges! This afternoon my heart stopped when I heard what I thought was a scream coming from her crib during naptime. It turns out she was squealing from excitement as she had activated the "talking" feature of her praying stuffed bear.

Another favorite activity of hers is to enjoy the coolness of the out of doors! So, this morning we bundled up and leashed Reagan for a quick jaunt with the stroller around the neighborhood. In the process we got to introduce Ellie to a couple of neighborhood friends. Speaking of wanting to go outside, she quickly oriented herself to the layout of our home and lets us know quite intensely if we are carrying her the wrong direction, or fail to go through the appropriate door! (Her favorite door is the front door, of course.)

That's all I have for now. In counting the days, we've now been home as many days as we visited her in the orphanage. Amazing! Thanks for continuing to demonstrate your interest and concern for Ellie! It means so much.

Grandpa Van almost went home without getting a photo with Ellie! Here they are right after Ellie woke up Monday morning and as the family was headed out the door to drive back to Illinois.

Visitors from Illinois Arrive!

Els and Grandma Van
Tesa Hannah has the touch! (and the cool bracelets)

Yes, I'm generally pretty happy most of the time.

1/17/06 in Wilmore

Our dainty eater playing with her cup after lunch today (that's soup which had several veggies, but it looks like the peas won the color war in the blender)

Ellie with the cabinet! They're going to be her best college-aged friends!

This cake was bought for our homecoming 2 1/2 weeks ago, but didn't get served so we froze it and just thawed it today for tonight's cabinet meeting.

Elisabeth and Ellie play with an alphabet magnet board book.
Ellie spent the rest of the cabinet meeting sitting in her toy bin wrinkling agendas.

Miscellaneous Photos

The backpack was supposed to help keep my hands "free". Not so for Miss Ellie yesterday who insisted I help her hold her sippy cup with one hand (note the cleaning rag in the other).

Contrary to the portrayal of the photo above, Ellie was not her usual sweet self most of today. I believe a new molar was the source of her unusual mood swings. Fortunately nearly everyone who dropped by to meet her got at least one or two beautiful smiles before she eventually disintegrated into tears.

Tonight we attended the Student Development staff party (which was conveniently held here at the student center). There were several folks anxious to meet Miss Ellie! Her attendance at the party was brief, cut short by a desire to get more to eat, then it was bedtime!

On the development front, Ellie is getting the knack of mimicking her mom and dad. Sunday it was blowing. Noticing that she likes the wind in her face, I would blow the hair on her forehead as it made her giggle. Then I noticed that she was blowing back! It was a riot! Then today, when making the animal sounds for each of the animals in her wooden barnyard puzzle, I'm almost 100% sure she "moo-ed" back at me!

Today Ellie entertained a lot of visitors! With classes starting on Tuesday, our student friends are beginning to roll into town and some of the dropped by the center this afternoon and evening to meet Ellie.

We have also had full guestrooms in the center this weekend (parents of returning students) so we started some laundry tonight so as not to die from an avalanche of sheets and towels in our hallway. I happened to set Ellie down nearby while I transferred some sheets to the dryer. I started the machine and turned around to find a pair of eyes glued to the sight of rolling fabric visible through the little windowed door. Several minutes later she was still enamored with this new form of entertainment so we felt it justified a photo. This particular photo above doesn't do justice to the extent of her curiosity, but I liked that Reagan happened to get in this shot.

Family Fun

Take a hike!

This afternoon we had to take Ellie in to have her TB skin test read. Thankfully, she was fine and no chest x-ray required! While we were on that end of town (near the famous baby store), we stopped in to see if they had a baby back-pack. As you can tell from the photo, we found one we liked! Ellie has been increasingly demanding that we hold her so the decision to buy this was an easy one!

By the way, it's a great sign that she wants to be held! She will either hold her arms up or reach for our hands as her way to communicate that she wants to be held. For us, this is huge. Oh, and it's usually accompanied by a whine. Another fun and exciting experience has been to watch her personality emerge. My mom put it best when she said that Ellie appeared in her video to becoming quite "boisterous." I couldn't say it better myself. She literally gets giddy from laughter each night and it's a blast to experience. Tonight all it took was a paper sack to start the giggles goin'.

Below are some photos I took of Ellie several nights ago. She's in my Grandpa vanOrman's childhood rocking chair.

Ellie goes to the doctor...

Elisona shows off her "battle scars" this morning from yesterday's doctor's appointment.
(The band-aid on her leg is from the flu shot, her left arm is the TB test, and the right arm is from her blood work)

Wednesday saw us at that UK Clinic for Elisona’s first doctor’s appointment. Ellie did remarkably well especially considering the number of times needles were involved! We finally got some updated measurements for Ellie. I can tell you from experience that she feels like she weighs much more than the 22 pounds the scale read. She also has ‘grown’ more than 10 cm since her Albanian passport was issued (her height was just estimated while sitting in her stroller for the passport). I can tell you that she looked really cute in her oversized hospital gown! Ellie especially liked playing with the paper that covered the examination table. It didn’t take long for there to be several rips in the paper, and every time she would hear it crinkle beneath her, she would giggle. This general good mood lasted until the needles arrived for her TB test, and flu shot. To say that she was happy to leave the room after those pricks would be an understatement. I was worried about her mood since we still had a lot of blood to draw for the complete battery of tests they were going to run on her, but mom was smart and had the antidote – lunch! After a filling lunch eaten in the hallway outside of the lab (no food or drink allowed inside), Elisona was so content, she almost fell asleep in my arms. It wasn’t long until Bonita was ready for us. Bonita is the child specialist in the lab for drawing blood, and she was good! Elisona would have started crying immediately if she knew that the accordion list of labels were for all of the vials of blood that they would need from her. Mom was of little help in this section as she hid in the corner behind Bonita so she didn’t have to watch. Bonita explained that the more Ellie cried, the faster the blood would flow, so she purposely took her ‘thumb-sucking’ arm and went to work. She was successful in her first stick and Elisona was successful in her crying, so even though there were more vials drawn than I cared to count, only the one stick was necessary. The experience was exhausting for all of us, but only Ellie got a nap!

a few more photos of Tua

Sorry for those of you who don't know the vanOrman family! I'm taking advantage of this platform (it's easier than trying to track down e-mail address which I've possibly got on any of 3 different computers) to post a few photos of my niece for the rest of our family who have been clamoring for some new pictures of Tua. Bug and Seth were supposed to get their phone line installed yesterday so hopefully internet for them will soon follow (they are nearly finished renovating their 18th-century Vermont cottage). These came via Seth's mother (thank you, Cathy!).

I will post an update about Ellie's visit yesterday to the pediatrician soon after this...

Testin' the waters

As you know, Ellie does not exactly enjoy bathtime. I thought every child enjoyed splashing around in wet stuff and bath time was a fun diversion! Not so for Miss Ellie! Dad (Nathan) got the brilliant idea photographed above (to put her bath toys in a pot of water). For a few minutes she seemed to actually enjoy herself. First she tested the water with her index finger, then she would try to grab her toys by the parts floating above the water line. The fun ended when her palm got wet and a rivulet of water started to run down her arm, then she was looking for a place to dry off. Baby steps!

Monday, January 8

Sunday morning (I look like I just woke up, sorry!)

It's beginning to not seem so strange to find a high chair sitting in our kitchen these days. Or Tupperwares of puree`d food in the fridge. Or baby toys strewn about our office. Or little socks in with the laundry in the dryer. Yes, it's nice to be home and feel settled in!

Nevertheless, we get the joy of continuing several fun "firsts" like yesterday's first visit to church! What a joy it was to be worshipping in our home church again and to be welcomed back so enthusiastically by friends. In addition to a mention in the bulletin, Ellie got a special gift from Mrs. Hillis (on behalf of the church) and a rose on the piano in the sanctuary in her honor! Though she was really unaware of all of those things, she did great in the nursery. She had some super helpers in her room who were really interested helping her have a good first experience in the nursery. It was so good in fact, I don't think she wanted to leave! We pray it's that way every Sunday!

This week is going to hold some other firsts, like her first visit to the pediatrician (Wednesday), her first post-placement visit with our social worker (Thursday), and her first Ohio State football game (tonight) -- which is going to be a big one!

Thanks for your continued interest in Ellie, in us, and in our adjustment, growing together as a family. Last we checked, this blog has been read by over 260 different IP addresses in over 100 cities and 9 countries (Ukraine, Hungary, Taiwan, Canada, Paraguay, Phillipines, Albania, Honduras, and Kenya). We are blessed by your friendship and prayers!

Ellie & her dad, decked out for tonight's big game

New Ellie Video...

Bed Head

These were snapped this morning, straight out of the crib!