Great Day

We are so thankful we were welcomed to visit with D today. We had a great visit with him. Our visiting hours are from 10-12noon...after about an hour he got pretty restless. He is a precious gift, I know no other way to describe it but I feel like he was made just for our family. Today as his little pants continued to fall off, I am reminded of just how tiny he is, and to remember he is 6 is a bit hard for me to comprehend. He did well today, always laughing, always wanting to try to walk.  Half way through our visit we had the nurse cut up a banana for him as we were told we could bring bananas/apples/yogurt...for him...when she got back he was sound asleep :)...so he never got to eat his banana. Tomorrow we will try to feed him first because we do sense he is very very hungry. Today we did notice his cleft palate and it seems pretty severe. We also noticed from baby pictures he had a cleft lip, he now has a scare there so we are assuming at some point his cleft lip was repaired. Our plans as of now are to take him home to SD long enough to unpack, wash clothes and have some family time...then we plan to take him down to Denver Childrens. However if he does not eat well or if we notice him to not be thriving as well, we will take him straight to Denver Childrens. We will play it all by ear.He does show characteristics of being in an institution....he does some shaking of his head back and forth and some thumping of his head with his fingers....all of these we know to behaviors picked up by children who are institutionalized. He displays these behaviors but they are pretty minimal. We have heard and seen such wonderful testimonies of what love and proper care can do for these children once they leave the institution and join a family. D has a long road to go but he is very much an able child, he is a blessing.

And this was so sweet....we told some of you of little girl V in the same facility as D...Mike and I prayed hard about adopting her as well on this trip but decided we would keep praying for her and maybe, Lord willing after getting our family and D settled come back and get her...our hearts are so burdened for her. Well today guess who passed down the hall...little V, I could not believe it, out of 300 or so children and we only saw maybe 25 today and one was her!!...and she too is TINY for 9 years old....we waved to her and guess what she said to us...she smiled and said Momma, Momma, PaPa, PaPa :)

Here are some pictures.

 He thinks PaPa is so funny

 Today we brought a ball, a really soft lamb that moves and makes music, a musical puzzle and some books. The lamb he was not interested in, the puzzle we did not even get out, it is far to advanced for him now. I did read to him a book and he loves to sit still and listen and we worked today on grasping a ball, he did very well with it.

 That sweet face melts my heart :) All 5 faces of my sweet children melt my heart! I am blessed!!

 He loves to be loved.

 Anna, Naomi, Luke and Beth...remember this picture you made for Dmitriy? We gave it to him today :) Daddy also tried to do spider on a jeep with him really slow and he loved it!

This girl is a resident here at the facility. She walked by and ran to me and would not stop giving me big hugs...so I just kept on hugging her, she is precious. She saw my camera and got so excited...she wanted her picture taken, so here it is precious girl. I may try to find a way to develop this for her. I think she would love to have her own picture.

We saw many children today with various conditions...all tucked away to be forgotten by others but not by the Lord...He is the father to the fatherless.

Today our facilitator told us we could possibly be assigned a court date soon...we could hear of our court date tomorrow or Wed...praying court will be soon.