Announcing......

The newest member of the McDonald clan.....

Kira Svetlana McDonald!!!

They granted our adoption, (admit it, you guys were all worried) so she is now our little girl!!

There were lots of tears (hubby's.....ok, mine)....and lots of smiles and promises to the judge and prosecuter that we will take good care of this sweet and fragile girl.

Which, of course we will!!!

They could not, however, waive the 10 day waiting period.

So hubby will return to CA to take care of the older 2 waiting at home, while I stay here and get to know the youngest better.

The director at her orphanage said that we can come tomorrow and bring Kira here to our hotel while we wait the 10 days since it's a 4 hour round trip drive to see her AND to try and keep her from getting sick again from the other kiddos there.

Sooooooo,

I know you are all dying for pics.....

Here she is:

These are not great since they were taken indoors, in the afternoon.

She is still around 11 lbs ( about the size of a 3 month old), but even though she does not sit yet, she is close to scooting ( yay, a mobile baby :).

Here are her happy parents!!!

She laughs a lot more, but will need to get used to close contact since she is more used to being by herself.

So, there you have it.... Our new girl.

By the time I get home with her, it will have been 2 years since started our journey....

With a big happy ending!!!

So, if you need me....I will be here with our girl feeding her donuts to fatten her right up :)

Stay tuned, I am getting so bored that I have been trying to think of some crafts I can do here in the hotel ( that should be interesting)

Have fun!

Almost......

K, so court went well today but lasted 1 1/2 hrs. since they asked so many questions. Mostly about our desire to adopt a baby with congenital heart disease (which was repaired at 6 months) and lingering effects from that and the fact that she was 11 weeks premature.

We do, however need to return tomorrow since they wanted an additional document that our agency is going to e-mail for us.

Therefore, this is:

To Be Continued......

Also, thanks so much to all of you who responded aout the "love locks" from yesterday's post. You were all right!

Our coordinator said some people started doing it a few years back to follow Italian traditions.They inscribe their names and wedding date on a lock and attach it to the railings of various bridges around the city.

So very romantic!

Cross your fingers again :)

Have fun!

Cross Your Fingers!!!

So tomorrow we go to court and hopefully things go well for us.....

My nerves have been raw all day and all I want to do was get it over with.

You see, I've never been to court before for anything

AND

Especially not a court where I've needed a translator, so.....

keep your fingers crossed for us as we try to finalize this adoption so we can finally bring our little girl home......to meet our other little girls (and that I don't pee my pants).

Also, I thought I would post some cool pics that me and hubby took today while out on a (very brief, since it's soooooo cold) walk.

We walked towards a church that is near our new hotel (yay! It is SO NICE and has free wifi.....finally).

When we went to cross a small bridge to get to the church/museum......we noticed a TON of metal locks all along the rails of the bridge.

It looked really cool so i took some pics and we read a few.

Looks like they are some sort of token of peoples love for each other and maybe dates of marriage.

Even though they all look really old, the dates we saw were not more than a few years, and they varied with style and engravings. Some were nicely engraved, while others looked as if carved by hand.

We tried to ask someone, but alas, my Russian is very bad (non~exsistent). So, if we do find out, I'll let you know.

Just thought it would be fun to post for now.

I'll let you all know how tomorrow goes.

Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers.....we need them all :)

Have fun!

S-S-So C-C-Cold

Well, it's REALLY cold outside!

.....And I'm having to post from my itouch, (which is hard) so this will be short :(

It's SUPER cold here, but we've been able to spend some time with kira.

She's in the hospital right now getting over bronchitis (not serious, they hospitalize the kids for evrything here), so went there to see her instead of the orphanage.

She's still so tiny, but she smiles more and we can tell that she understands more.

We'll go tomorrow to talk about the court proceedings, so we know what to expect on Tues.

More later!

Have fun!

We're Here!!!!

So Sorry about the lack of posts again......

things have been crazier than I thought!

Last week while we were waiting/getting ready to go, BOTH of our girls got really bad colds.

Then.....on Friday we discovered they both had strep.

Fun, fun, fun at the McDonald Casa!

So, we left on Monday in whirlwind (that's why no post), and arrived in Russia on Tues. at almost midnite (with no plans for today, of course).

Then we ended up sleeping for almost 12 hours!!

Jetlag. is. crazy.

We are 10 hours ahead here in Kaliningrad, so it's 6pm as I write, but only 8am at home.

There was crazy snow when we transfered planes in Moscow, but not as much here since we are so close to the Baltic Sea.

But still pretty chilly :)

We get to go see our little girl tomorrow and for the next few days after till our court date.

We are excited to see if she's grown and a little more mobile than last time,

but more importantly.....

We get to see our little girl!!!

Ta ta for now, and we'll try to get some pics tomorrow when it's light out

Have fun!

What To Do With All Those Coats?

Well, even though it's not super-freezing here......we do need jackets and the occasional heavy coat :)

So, since our kiddos are too little to hang their coats and jackets in the closet, and we always come in the house from our garage......

We needed something to go in that hallway after coming in the garage (via the laundry room), that was easy for the kiddos to use too. (no more piles of coats in front of the front closet alllllll thhhheeeee wwaaayyyyyyy by the front door!)

(Sorry about the pics of the coat racks......this is a part of the house that DOES NOT get much natural light.)

Therefore, I made a few of these very cute, but simple coat racks to hang on the wall in the hall  (hey, that rhymes :).

Our hall isn't very wide, so I needed something that could go on the wall, so sadly no adorable standing coat rack or bench/coat rack thingy.

But, this is super easy to make and is inexpensive to boot.

Just cut some wood to whatever dimensions you need/want (mine are 22" long and 3 1/2" tall). I had hubby route the edges on these, but just a plain piece looks totally cute too!

Paint it and distress the edges, if you like. Then, lay out the hooks and drill some pilot holes to make them easier to screw on. Your pilot holes can just be small.

*Pilot holes are just small holes you drill into the wood to help guide the screws as you screw them into the wood. It also helps relieve stress on the wood while the screws go in and prevents the woods from cracking under the pressure*

Trust me......it's worth the extra few minutes to drill the holes versus possibly ruining your whole board and having to start over....I know from experience :)

I got my hooks at Home Depot for $1-$2 bucks each.....but you could also look for old ugly coat racks at your local thrift store that still has good hooks you could take off and use.

Now, attach the hooks and hang your pretty, but oh-so-useful coat rack.

I made one for "big people coats" and one for our "little ones coats" to make it easy for them to put theirs away (just one LESS thing I have to do in the winter months).

Have fun!

Grounded!!

Well, as you can see by the countdown I have on my sidebar.......We aren't leaving tomorrow anymore.

Some paperwork didn't get filed on time, so we can't keep our original court date (not our fault or our agency's).

So, we are gonna go next Monday, and hope we can get a court date soon after. We felt like it will be better for us to go ahead and go over and hope for the best.

So, keep us in your thoughts and prayers for things to happen the way they need to happen  :)

I'll be here for another few days, so since I've got everything ready and we're just waiting to leave, I think I can post a few crafts before we take off!!

Yay!

I have'nt crafted in over a week........I'm starting to go through withdrawls :)

Have fun!

"Frightful" where you live???

So, we leave next week to go back to Russia and bring home our sweet little girl!!

So please forgive me if I lag on my blogging......

I promise I will keep on trucking and try to post at least once a week while we are getting ready and gone.

Thanks SO MUCH for all of your support, prayers, and kind words......we really do feel them all!!

Now,.....

On to the craft!

I know alot of you are experiencing weather that is quite "frightful," (NOT US!!....hahahahahahaha!)
 so I thought I would show this cute craft that I made for Christmas (but ran outta time to post, if you can believe it!)

First......run right out to Ikea and get one of these!

It's the 9"x 9" size.

I cut the phrase out of vinyl backwards and stuck it onto the inside of the glass (you can use stickers or rub-ons too).

Then, I randomly put a bunch of snowflake stickers on too.....steering clear of the middle~ish.

Be sure to mask off the front part of the glass to prevent overspray onto the front. I just used my handy-dandy painters tape :)

Now, trot right on out to your garage and spray on some Krylon's frosted glass finish till you like it. It's kinda hard to tell when it wet.....so just go with your gut on this :)

I sprayed in circles, so the middle wouldn't be sprayed and it would look kinda like a "frosted over window."

Remove the snowflakes, and voila!

The frosted look.

Put it all back together and it looks so very cute.

I added some ribbon for some extra color.

These are great since they can be hung up OR it can sit on your shelf.

Have fun!

Clotted WHAT!!!

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

Hope you all had a great celebration last night......I know we did

AND

one reason I like living on the West Coast, is that me and the girls were able to watch the ball drop in NY at 9pm and then we all said Happy New Year!!!

and then they went to bed.

at 9:05.

awesome.

So, today I made something that I've been craving for over 6 years!

When hubby and I went touring around Europe (yup, we were cool.....and didn't have any kiddos yet :), we stopped in England......

and we were introduced to the.most.delicious.stuff.ever.

Clotted Cream!!

Yeah, I know it sounds yucky, but

It's SO yummy!!

(and bad for you too.....so you KNOW it's yummy!)

Anyhoo, I finally found the right ingredients that I need to make it!!

On an episode of Good Eats, awhile back, Alton Brown showed how to make it, but you need to use heavy cream that's NOT ultra pasturized........and since you probably haven't ever tried to find NOT ultra pasturized heavy cream, you don't know that it's impossible to find.

So, when my sis told me that Trader Joes recently started selling it.......I ran RiGHT out to get some (2 weeks later)!

You just need:

• A fine mesh sieve
• Coffee filters~next time I'll use unbleached....I promise
• Medium bowl
• Spatula
  
  

Put the coffee filter inside the seive and rest it on the lip of the bowl.

Pour about half the cream into the filter and put it in the fridge.

Then, about every 2 hours, take it out and (gently) scrape down the sides of the filter.

Then, the whey will separate from the cream into the bowl.

Once it's the consistancy of very soft cream cheese.....it's ready!!

You do need to be patient, as this takes almost all day.

Now you can put it in a container and stir in 1-1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar to taste.

Now, it's ready to ENJOY!

It's great on fresh berries......

or some yummy crusty bread....

or scones, or muffins, or biscuits. Alot of people even put it in their tea (it's good that way too).

Although, the Brits that we saw......liked to put jam on the bread first, and then the cream. But I was outta jam, so I'm making more tonight!

Half of a container of cream makes 1-1 1/2 cups of clotted cream.

So, go out and get you some cream to make some for yourself and see why I'll probably be packing on a few pounds soon :)

Also, as you can see by the widget I added at the top of my page,

We leave to go back to Russia soon!!!!

Yay!

Have fun!