The Cluttered Pantry

Earlier this evening, after the girls were asleep, I went back downstairs to finish a painting project (yes, I underestimated the number of coats of paint it would take to make our dining room walls red.)
I’m not certain how long she was calling out for me, but I didn’t hear Elena until after she [...]

After a long day of the Wee Kahunas letting me know, in not so subtle little kid manner, that they don’t approve of this whole Daddy going away for 14 days thing. (By testing every limit and rule – including laws of nature like -gravity.) I gratefully climbed into bed early to try and catch [...]

We returned from our last trip to Siberia in late 2008. Making 2009 our first full year as a family at home with the Wee Kahunas. I haven’t really felt compelled to mark our court date  (the date we legally became the girls parents) nor the day in October that we flew home with the girls, [...]

It’s been 5 months since we brought home our two new, adorable, tiny daughters from eastern Siberia. We’re so unbelievably happy to have them in our lives, and we’re even more happy that these two sisters get to stay together. That day in October, when we finally began our 18 hours of air [...]

Ok, I’ll admit it. The routine being routine is starting to get to me.
The girls are still recovering from ear infections and the weather here in Chicago has been blustery (go figure!) so we have been mostly trapped indoors. And I’m running out of things for us to do.
Don’t get me wrong, shredding up the [...]

To be certain it has been a blur. If that amazingly kind judge in Chita hadn’t waived the ten day wait we would have only been home for a couple of days.
The routine is, well, routine. Bed time, wake time, snack time, lunch time, nap time, bath time, diner time…. All relatively predictable.
What is [...]

They told us the girls would gain weight quickly and make up for lost time. I had no doubt, but never expected the first week to result in so much of a weight gain for each girl! Elena has gained a few ounces more than a pound and Zhanna has gained a pound and [...]

So, we’ve been home for a week now, and the man on man defense we started with works pretty well. Two parents – two children. The next stage of settling in requires the real world transition to a routine that involves Mark back working in the studio. On thursday we realized that with the [...]

Howdy! Boy, you all are a pushy bunch! Emails and calls letting us know we better stop hogging all the time with the girls and better start posting pics and whatnot. . Tee-hee, we get it…following along for ten months warrants the follow through.
So, where do we start?! I’ll go with the [...]

Two toddlin’ girls now the proud owners of US Immigration stamps and paperwork are currently running circles in the hotel room to blow off all that pent up energy we stored up while at the embassy.
We’ve hit a pretty good grove, managed naps and meals and traversed some pretty nasty results of mistakingly thinking that [...]

Wow…and we mean WOW!
The six hour flight lasted seven and a half hours with a delay on the ground then multiple circles around Moscow before finally…finally…finally landing to much applause by the passengers of the plane.
All in all, we did really well. Mark experienced his first diaper change at 30k feet and it was [...]

Tuesday night in Chita, our last night in town. The day was great, with super last visits with the kids. As we grownups are becoming antsy and a bit impatient to get the show on the road, we sense the same feeling in the Henderson girls too—-like, if zhanna could communicate in English, today [...]

A wonderful wonderful day!
Playing with our daughters…little voices practicing words in English…little mighty hands throwing a ball so far that we think we might have a future solution for the whitesox bullpen if they can get over that whole “throws like a girl” myth…trying on little crocs on tiny feet (which lead to spending our [...]

Sunday today, mostly sunny, but the sun comes up late, stays low, then departs early—throws the bodyclock off….that, and the waiting. For what? Well tho the adoption happened on Friday, the kids are all still staying at the orphanage, and we can’t see them on the weekend—no visiting during weekends. That means we’re all [...]