If my friends could see me now!

A long overdue update on our Kyrgyz princess. Lana is 4 years old now. She attends a wonderful preschool and enjoys ballet class, riding her bike and playing with her friends. She is happy and heathy and full of herself.

The entire Guvernator clan is well. Luba is in her third year of college as a Parks and Recreation major, Quint is a sophomore in high school and continues to enjoy music and languages and Chris and I continue to be blessed with good health, satifiying work and fun and crazy family. Life is good.

Now the big news, we are adding to our family again through adoption. We hope to soon travel to India to bring home Lana's new sister. Her name is Laxmi Priya and she's 3 and 1/2 years old. We have been in the process for a little over a year but things are starting to move now and we hope to travel sometime this spring.

We have started another blog to follow our journey to India. Please feel free to join us at:

http://joinourjourneytoindia2011.blogspot.com

Lana Likes To...

Swim
Swing
Slide

Laugh
Look
Explore



SMILE

Many Milestones

It's been one year since Chris and I first met Lana. I couldn't let this anniversary pass without an update for our cyber friends. These past couple of months have brought quite a few milestones and changes for the Guvernator family.

Lana celebrated her second birthday on August 17 with a big family get together. She loved the cake and ice cream and all the attention. Her favorite gift was a leopard print bathrobe with a hot pink collar, very diva.

Big sister Luba went away to college on August 30. We miss our Bubba, but I'm happy to report that she's settled in nicely and she's having a great time.

In the midst of all the celebrations we lost our wonderful babysitter to an unexpected move. With a lot of help from Mee Maw, or as Lana calls her Maw Mee, we made it through a few crazy weeks while we scrambled to find child care. Fortunately, a really good preschool with before and aftercare had a last minute opening. Lana started preschool on September 3. Check out her first day picture with her apple "pack, pack" and matching "box". She likes carrying them into school each day. She loves school and had adjusted amazingly well. She has new friends, great teachers and plenty of wonderful activities to keep her happy and busy while we're at work.

When you ask Lana what she wants to do, she always says "pool". We spent lots of time there this summer and she's is doing very well with her swimming. She even jumped off the diving board. Chris is taking her to the inside pool for swimming lessons now and she just loves it. She also loves boat rides and even enjoyed going tubing. She is also working on learning how to pedal her tricycle. She just got a new scooter and she loves it. She rides her scooter while Buddy rides his skateboard. They are quite a pair.

The most recent picture of the bunch was taken this morning. Lana wore her Wolfpack gear to school today and she seemed quite proud of herself. She even stood still while I put her hair in pig tails.

As I reflect on the past 12 months, I feel so blessed to have this wonderful little person in our lives. I am also grateful for the help and support of our family and friends, without whom, we couldn't have made it through this wonderful, stressful, joyful and complicated year.

Lana Update

I'm happy to report that Lana is having a great summer. She loves the pool, the boat, the fountains at the Botanical Gardens and all things involving water. She was baptized at church on July 27th. She splashed and poured water on herself like she was playing at the pool. One of the children on the front row commented, "oh no, she's drinking the water!". I wish we had videotaped it, she was hilarious. Then she walked down the isle waving at everyone. I don't think anyone has enjoyed their baptism any more.

Lana is talking, but not putting words together much yet. She still understands both Russian and English quite well. She has renamed most of our household. Luba is now called Bubba. Quint is Buddy. Our dog Sophie is So So and the cat, Woody is called Dee.

Lana's new trick is taking out her prosthetic eye. When she's in her bed she takes it out and throws it across the room, just like she does with her pacifier. When I get her up she will get her pacifier and place it back in her bed, then get her eye and hand it to me. When we are in the car she takes off her shoes, pulls out her hair bow and then takes out her eye. Fortunately, it's easy to put back in and it only takes a second. We've really gotten over the ick factor. It must not hurt at all because she doesn't even flinch. We're just afraid we're going to lose it. She now reminds us to put it in before we leave to go somewhere. She looks at herself in the mirror and says eye, eye. I don't know what we are going to do when she goes to preschool in the fall. I hope she doesn't take it out there.

Guvernator, Party of Five

Here we are on our way to church on Easter Sunday as a family of five.

Lana gives Luba (who she calls Bubba) a hug as she heads out to the prom.

A wonderful day at the Botanical Gardens with Lana and Quint enjoying the new World of Wonders exhibit.

As you can see, we are enjoying every moment with Lana. She has adjusted so well it's hard to believe she's only been with us since December.

Life is very hectic right now with Luba finishing up her senior year. This past week she presented her senior project. It included a scrapbook she made for Lana about her adoption and information on her very successful car wash for Diapers for Tokmok. She did a great job, and she's glad to have the presentation behind her. Saturday she had her final Russian exam and this week she decides on a college.

Quint is on the crew team. Lana is enjoying all the attention she gets from the big kids at the Saturday regattas as she cheers for her brother.

















Chris and I are struggling to keep up with the hectic pace (thus the extended time between posts, sorry), but loving every minute of it. If it weren't for the help of my mom, our wonderful sitter, helpful and understanding coworkers, kind friends and great kids, we wouldn't be able to make it work. These past two months have been a lesson in prioritizing for me. They have also forced me to let go of many things that I used to worry about, like a clean house and ironed clothes. Our cat, Woody, is particularly pleased with our new, too busy to sweat the small stuff, attitudes. He used to be an indoor cat, longing for the outdoors. Now we don't have the time or energy to keep him from bolting out the door each time it opens. Not only is he happier, he's lost quite a bit of weight.



Chris asked me last week if there was such thing as an adoption vasectomy. We decided that cutting up all our credit cards would probably be the closest thing to it. But we better keep them open, Luba is heading to college. And you never know what life has in store (just kidding mom).

Brown Eyed Girl

It's amazing, Lana has two beautiful brown eyes. Thanks so much Dave LeGrand!

More photos coming soon.

Update

Good news to report from the eye surgeon, Lana's eye is all healed. She will get her new lens on March 7th, three months to the day from when she arrived. An Ocularist (an important new word in my vocabulary) will make a lens that looks just like her other eye. It only takes one visit and she goes home with a new eye! It's an amazing process.

I went back to work in the beginning of February. We were lucky to find a wonderful Russian lady to take care of Lana during the day. She has a little girl just a bit younger than Lana, so Lana has a playmate during the day. She speaks with the girls in Russian, so Lana is learing both Russian and English at the same time.

We have had several questions about The Princess and the Little Fairy. Luba wanted me to explain the outfits. She was dressed up for a theme party. Lana had just received a package in the mail with the fancy pants and the wings (Thanks April!). I couldn't pass up the photo opportunity.