HOORAY!!!
TODAY WE OFFICIALLY BECAME THE PARENTS OF
AIDAN JACOB DANNENFELSER!!


We are so thrilled and excited! It’s a wonderful day! We can’t wait to pick our son up tomorrow from the baby house!!

Today, Wednesday, December 21st was a beautiful sunny day. We woke up a little anxious but confident that all would go well at court.

In the morning, we visited Aidan in the baby house for the last time, since tomorrow we’ll be taking him for good! He was happy to see us but again a little fussy once we took him down to the playroom with the other families. He settled down when we held and rocked him a little. We also tried him in the plastic ball pit, although I think he was unsure if he actually enjoyed it or not. He had that “am I having fun?” look and yawned a couple of times. Well, maybe we’ll give it another shot at Chuck E. Cheese (do they still have those any more?) in a year or two. We were very sad to hand him back to his caregiver at the end of the visit, but so excited by the thought that tomorrow we’d be with him for good!

We went back to the hotel to change and get ready for court. The judge we had prefers for the husband to respond to the majority of questions during court and to make a short speech about our hope to adopt and our feelings about Aidan. Scott wrote a great speech and practiced it while we waited for our driver to pick us up. We really felt good that all would go well, even if we had a few butterflies.

We were first of the families to have our hearing. Since we’d had pre-court, we felt pretty comfortable with the people and the process. That being said, it was still more nerve-wracking than we had expected, just because we’ve waited so long for this day! We were asked several questions, Scott did a wonderful job on his speech, the representatives from the baby house and the department of education spoke on our behalf, and 25 minutes later, the judge announced his decision, granting our application for the adoption of Aidan!! We are so happy!

Kris and Dan, and then Ann, had their hearings with the court after us, and thankfully they also are now the parents of Shaylen and Clara, respectively! It has been a great day for all of us! We then all went to the records office to get our adoption certificates and to the baby food store for rations for the little guy. We bought cereal, formula, some fruit baby food, that peach apple juice he likes and diapers.

Tonight we all went with Assia to Kazakh ballet performance. The dancers wore exquisite costumes and were very good, and performed several pieces from Carmen, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and more. The very funny part of the evening, though, was about 10 minutes into the program, when we all realized that Assia’s Russian accent (and our interpretation of it) had led us to believe all week that we were going to see “belly” dancers, when, of course, we were actually going to a “ballet” performance. That joint realization gave all of us big BELLY laughs for the rest of the evening.

Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO (AUNT) SHELLY!! We miss you and hope you have a wonderful day!!

Tomorrow we pick up Aidan and family life begins!! Christmas has arrived early here in Kazakhstan! Have a wonderful evening!