It's official!!!!

The 10 day wait is over and As of 5:00 (Ukraine time) Miss Mia Kareen is now officially and legally OURS!!!!

Born January 15, 2007

Born into our family June 9, 2011

Today marks the 5 year anniversary of Reece's Rainbow. What a perfect way to celebrate this anniversary...with one more child finding a family!

What? You mean I officially have a family now?

We had a very nice final visiting day at the orphanage today. We took our gifts for the caregivers in Mia's group and the note we had translated for them.

The caregivers invited us into the room for awhile and we handed out the toys we had brought for the kids.

We had picked out some rattles and little handheld toys for each of them and when they saw us pull them out of the bag, they all squealed with excitement! It was so cute! We got to hand one to each child and they were so happy! We also gave each of them a hug! We had picked up a special one just for our little "N". Oh how we have fallen in love with her. I will be praying for this little one to find a family somehow! We also left some bigger toys for the kids to play with later.

We made a deal with the ladies that we would be bring a new dress and shoes

if we could take this dress that we met Mia in and they agreed, and had it all ready for us today.

The little red shoes broke last night so it was perfect timing for some new shoes for them. We also donated a few other outfits and hats for the kids. I am so grateful to have something from Mia's baby days to keep for her.

The ladies pulled out a photo album with pictures of some of the kids and the caregivers over the years. We hoped that they would have had baby pictures of Mia but they only had one of her in the background. As she was showing us the album she motioned that she wanted us to leave the board book we had made of our family with them so they could keep it on their shelf. They loved that it had a picture of Mia in it and they loved having the pics of Bree and our family so we let them keep it. We also somehow managed to get across that we wanted to exchange an email address. So maybe we can send them updates of Mia in her new life.

It was mixed emotions a little bit today as we talked with these ladies. We could see in their eyes that they care for Mia and are really going to miss her. We are pretty sure that adoptions do not happen often for them. Usually they are probably saying goodbye to the kids and watching them be taken to the institution instead of a family, so we can tell that they are so happy that Mia is going home with us. The one caregiver, Marina, was very sad because she might not be on her shift tomorrow when we are coming to get Mia. We are planning on getting her at 4 and Marina doesn't get there until 5 so we are hoping it takes us longer to finish things up so that Marina can see her off. We are pretty sure Marina may have said her goodbyes to Mia today because she had dolled her up in a dress and a cute fancy hairdo this morning for us. We have really come to love these ladies and although we are thrilled to be taking Mia out of the orphanage, and we know they are thrilled for her, we also know they will miss her....I mean who wouldn't?

We were trying to explain to her that tomorrow we were taking her out of here forever

Tomorrow her life will be forever changed

and she has no idea what is about to happen



Practicing her scary noises


and learning how to make silly faces




Too bad the lid is on....

She is getting really good at giving kisses when we tell her to.











Final dinner at "our restaurant" Tequila Boom! This is my Tequila Boom face and my "I now have 4 kids face"
After dinner we walked along the boardwalk along the river

Mia is spending her last night at the orphanage tonight. In the morning we will be running around with our facilitator to get Mia's passport and new birth certificate and then we will meet with the director to finish paperwork. Then the plan is to get Mia around 4

Then we are busting out of this place for good!!!!