Photo Shoot

Today Katerina and I were photographed by the local paper, The Journal News, for an upcoming article on how different people celebrate the Lunar New Year. I was interviewed about 2 weeks ago and told that the photographer would come today and just take a few pictures. I was asked to dress up in our party clothes. The photographer ended up staying 1 1/2 hours and in addition to tons of still shots, conducted an interview on video and took lots of video footage for their website. I was so not prepared for this and hope that it came out OK. Before the photographer got here we took a few photographs ourselves since we were already dressed up. Couldn't let party clothes go to waste now, could we?

With Nancy, her babysitter

Katie's Birthday Party - 1/20

Katie was 5 years old on January 3rd and had her birthday party today.

Whooppeee!

Movin' and Groovin'

Yesterday as I was getting Katerina ready for ballet class, she said: "It's movin' and groovin' time"! I ask you...where do they get these things? And move and groove she did.

Two Years Ago Today...We Saw Her Face

January 4th, 2006 was the day we received our referral. I got the phone call at work late afternoon. Our agency had limited details at that time; name, age, height, weight, province and orphanage. That evening they were able to email the referral pictures to us after scanning them in. As we opened the jpg file there was a scream heard round the world; IT WAS ME! I fell in love with that little sad face and couldn't wait to bring her home and put a smile on her face.

THEN

AND NOW

New Year's Eve & Day

New Year's day is the feast of St. Basil (Vassilis) "the Great" who was an archbishop in the Greek Orthodox church from 370 to his death in 379 and considered one of the three Hierarchs of the church.
It is the Greek tradition to exchange gifts on New Year's day and not on Christmas day. Lucky for us, we do both! On New Year's Eve, Katerina's godparents and our close friends George & Deb spent the evening with us to celebrate Christmas and New Years. Typically we spend Christmas Eve with them but this year it did not work out. On New Year's day, Constantin's sister, Popi and her husband Ed spent the day with us. New Year's day is also Constantin's Mother's Name Day, as she is named after St. Basil (Vassiliki)

It is tradition to bake a special cake (more like bread), Vassilopita with a gold or silver coin hidden inside, and after Happy New Year wishes are exchanged, the cake is cut: one slice for St. Basil, one for each family member, one for each other person there, the pets, and for the poor people of the world. In one of these slices is hidden the coin, which brings blessings to its recipient throughout the year. And I got the coin on New Year's Eve!! The cake was baked by George's aunt in Greece and shipped to us. We cut another one the next day that Popi had sent from the Greek Monastery in upstate NY and Constantin's father got the coin. He was so excited because, in 80 years, he has never gotten the coin.

Happy New Year to All!

More gifts under the tree

Katerina eating her slice of Vassilopita

Reading Time

New Year Gathering - December 30th

We went out with a few other FCC families for dinner on Sunday night to celebrate the New Year. Katerina loves being with the older girls and they are very nurturing with her. What great role models they can be.

Christmas Day

We had all these plans for Christmas Eve. We were going to go to church, leave cookies and milk for Santa, read Twas the Night Before Christmas, track Santa's progress on a website I heard about and build the excitement. But instead, Katerina decided to catch up on her sleep. We found her at 6pm with her head on her Dora stool sound asleep.

When she woke in the morning, we took her down to the family room to show her the fireplace doors were open. Proof that Santa had come down the chimney.

Constantin and his mother showing Katerina how Santa entered the house

We then went to the living room where Constantin had quickly placed, next to the tree, half
eaten cookies and swirled milk around the glass this morning while I kept her occupied.

Her major gift was a new kitchen - stove and refrigerator. Thank you whoever posted about it on the Panda Yahoo Group. It's a pink wooden set that looks very similar to the Pottery Barn set, but much cheaper at Costco. There were several other gifts from Santa, us, Joe, Uncle John & Aunt Sue and Constantin's parents. In typical Katerina style, she spent time on each one before moving on to the next. I actually had to encourage her to open the gifts. At one point, when there were three more gifts to go she had had enough and said she would open them later. She just wanted to spend time with what she had opened already.

And then, time to go to Uncle Bobby and Aunt Susie's in her beautiful new dress that they gave her for her birthday; complete with the jaunty little beret.

Disney Trip Day 9: Saturday, 12/22

Catching up on some shopping

Finally, I got my Mom out from behind the camera

Katerina took this picture of us in the lounge car of the train at the wine and cheese party.

Yessssssssss! I did Disney!

Happy, happy, happy!

Disney Trip Day 8: Friday, 12/21

Katerina had a high fever last night (105 at one point) and we decided to keep her in for the day and nurse her in the hopes that we could stave off her typical response to colds which is to develop bronchial infections. We were leaving the following day, on Saturday and it would be a nightmare if she was sick on the train home.

Constantin took Mom to the airport in the morning and we basically just took it easy all day. I played several games of Candy Land and watched Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. I spent a good deal of the day catching up on reading Panda posts, downloading and organizing pictures and was overly optimistic that I'd also be able to update my blog. As you can see, I was not even close on that one! We also packed so that we could leave early in the morning and get just a little more Mickey Mouse time in if Katerina was feeling ok in the morning.

Disney Trip Day 7: Thursday, 12/20

We started off the day by exchanging Christmas gifts with Mom since we would not be with her over the holidays.

Katerina loves snow globes. She had picked one out to give to Grace when they came to visit yesterday and also pointed out one that she would like. Of course Mom circled back and purchased it for her. For a mother who was so careful not to spoil us she throws all caution to the wind when it comes to Katerina.

Snow White doll

You did good, Grandma!

Outside Cracker Barrel after breakfast

Whoaaaaa, steady now. This Rocker really moves!

And now, reporting for duty and ready for action.

Jiminy Cricket was a nice surprise. Caught him before a line built up. I'm not sure how she knows Jiminy Cricket since she's never seen the Pinocchio movie, but she got all excited when she saw him.

And of course, everyone needs a picture with the castle in the background. I'm always the one taking the pictures and I wonder if Katerina will know that I was actually at these events as well.

Disney Trip Day 6: Wednesday, 12/19

Today was very special; Grace and her family came to visit. Terrye, Grace's Mom is a member of the DTC (dossier to China) April2005 Yahoo Group (aka as the April Pandas) which I've mentioned before is an amazing group of women who began by supporting each other during the long wait for referrals & adoption and has evolved into a large network of friends; most of whom have never met each other although we are all trying to change that!

Grace is from Katerina's orphanage and is one month younger. She was adopted the week before Katerina's Gotcha Day and I was glued to the family's blog during their entire trip and continue to check it out religiously. I have always felt a special connection to this family and it was a real thrill to finally meet them. I know so much about the family from the Yahoo posts and their blog that it was like getting together with old friends/family. There are so many "shared" experiences. Terrye and I wonder if Grace & Katerina may have been crib mates. Their referral pictures were taken in the same crib.

Terrye, Doug and Grace drove an hour and a half from Tampa just to meet and spend time with us. We had a nice lunch and then hung around the resort area where the kids got to decorate Christmas cookies and we got to talk, talk, talk. The time went too quickly and we all agreed that we would make it a point to keep in touch and visit. This is a wonderful connection for the girls to have and a real bonus that we all enjoyed each other so much.

Hey, you look familiar!

Come on, let me show you around my vacation digs.

Immediate Friends

The guys with their little girls

Wow, I love pink ice cream

The Moms and their little girls

Time to go, but we will definitely get together soon!

On Friday night we were supposed to meet another family, the Wiltsie's, but Katerina got sick. They live in southern Florida and were passing through on their way to the family farm. We'll catch up with them next time which will probably be sometime next year.