On June 25, 2008, we first learned of our son’s existence.  We weren’t sure if this beautiful boy whose photos we were gazing at over and over was really our son.  But we tried to be cautiously hoping he might be…and looking at his photos, we think taken around the time he was 12 months old, was kind of like looking at the “sonogram” of our baby we’d been waiting & praying for. When we decided to go meet him in Russia, it felt kind of like we were jumping off the edge of a cliff and praying God would hold us up and lead us on. 

Back when I saw Colin’s face for the first time, I honestly thought his eyes were more of a blue.  Now I’ve been noticing they are more hazel in color–sometimes looking blue/gray and sometimes looking green-gray.  It still makes my heart leap up when I get to look into his big eyes and see joy there.  When I became Colin’s mama, I became a first time mama with a “newborn” 20-month-old baby to teach how to live in a family, loved and protected.  

Parenthood has been a little backward for us because we just now experiencing infanthood for the first time ever with Dara. We are enjoying introducing her to foods and my heart sings when I get to see Colin and Dara enjoy each other.  Baby girl squeals a special squeal just for her big brother who delights her no matter how silly he acts….And Colin can’t hide that he does enjoy his funny baby sister…at least part of the time. He enjoys seeing the mess she makes as she tries foods for the first time and he does sometimes admit that he wanted a baby sister Can’t believe that she’s been in our family for over 8 months now!