Happy Adoption Day! Happy Easter!

We have had many celebrations in the last couple of weeks. What a blessing this year has been for us.

The first celebration was Happy Forever Day on April 7th. This was the day we picked Evan up from the baby home and the day that God forever reunited us as a family. When we drove up Clay quickly spotted Evan playing outside in the snow, he was all bundled up in a blue snow suit with only his cute little face showing. He ran to our car pointing and making car sounds. He seemed very excited…we later found out that the caretakers had been telling him for three days that his Momma and Poppa were coming to take him to ride in a “machina” (car). Clay called him by his name, “Denis” and he froze dead in his tracks. We were like story book characters who weren’t real and had finally come to life. He had pictures of us, a picture book, and a photo of us taped to his head board of his bed. He couldn’t remember us from our first trip when he was only 9 months old but he did know us from the pictures. He was a bit stand-offish which was to be expected. We visited with him for only about 45 minutes and he said “Baca” (good-bye) to all he had ever known. When we would ask where Momma and Poppa were, he would go get his picture book and point to our faces.

Clay and I also celebrated our 8th anniversary. We celebrated it early with dancing lessons and dinner at Stoney Creek in Duluth. Last year we celebrated it at the Snowflake in Irkutsk. We had just met Mark and Carol Schatte, part of our forever family…we also celebrated Carol’s birthday that night. We took Evan in to his first ever restaurant and he screamed the second we walked in the door. We were in a very upscale restaurant too so everyone was looking at us. Mark helped me quickly get Evan’s snowsuit off and he quieted down a bit. Of course, I was prepared with toys and Cheerios but he really like the Russian Lion King book that the waitress brought us. Mark and Clay got to know each other and bonded over baseball while Carol and I talked about adoption.

April 15th was Evan’s Adoption day. Our family came over and so did the Casola Crew, we celebrated and ate Fried Chicken in the backyard. Evan had a ball playing with Wesley, Emily, Jake, Isaac, and Hailey; he calls them “My Kids.” We sang Happy Adoption Day to Evan and ate a cake that I baked which was shaped and decorated like an Easter bunny. Evan thought the “Eata Bunny” cake and cupcakes were so funny. He loved them! Evan ate off of a plate that we made together at the local pottery place with Momi. The plate says, “Happy Forever Day…April 7th 2005 and Happy Adoption Day…April 15th 2006.” It was hard for us to pick just one day to celebrate so we decided that we would celebrate them both. April 7th was of course that we were forever reunited but April 15th was the day that made it all official.

We also celebrated Easter. Easter will always be a time that will remind us of Evan. On our first trip we had to return Evan to the baby home on Good Friday which really helped put things into perspective for us and returned home on Easter Sunday. We left for our second trip just after Easter and now the fact that we celebrate Easter with Evan here at home with us is such a precious Easter gift from our wonderful Savior.

After the party we took Evan to Build A Bear to "adopt" an animal of his own. He chose a Monkey to make. When we asked Evan what his name was going to be, he thought about it for a minute and then said, "Monk." He had a lot of fun and loves his Monk very much.

It is so hard to believe that it has been one year since we adopted Evan…April 15th. Last week was a very emotional week for us, in a good way. Each day we were thinking what we were doing exactly one year ago, like right now we sleeping our first night with Evan or right now we were meeting Mark and Carol or right now we were getting ready for court, etc.

It is really hard to believe that this is the same little boy that we brought home to GA just less than a year ago. The same little boy who only spoke Russian and had never heard English (other than the week that we were there when he was 9 months old) now talks our ears off. The same little boy who would cry every time we would take out the camera or video camera because he thought that meant that we were going to leave like the other families did, now who smiles and gives the fakest grin as he says, “Cheeeeese.” Evan is a ball full of energy and no doubt all boy and all American. He loves anything that is loud and fast, baseball, football, basketball, trucks, trains, tractors, motorcycles, etc. anything stereotypical BOY!

It seems like only yesterday we were sitting in El-Charro’s that day after we came home and Wesley asking me how to say sit down in Russian…I told him, “Sadees.” Wesley told Evan to Sadees and he ignored Wesley, Wes looked at us and said, “He won’t sadees!” When I told Evan to sit down in Russian he immediately sat down and Wesley yelled, “Look y’all, He is sadees-ing!” He needed our Russian words then, now he could care less and laughs at me when I speak Russian to him. Though he does still remember some of it and will sometimes respond, especially when I ask him if he is ready to go to bed in Russian. Sometimes I miss speaking Russian to him.

He has changed so much. I went back and was reading our blog from while were in Russia and sat here absolutely BALLING my eyes out! It is a good thing that I am hear alone right now. It was wonderful to read your comments too, thank you all so much for everything. I am so thankful to God for our precious blessing from God.

Please remember to pray for the waiting families of Irkutsk. We still have several friends who are still waiting to return and so far there has only been two adoptions since ours. We pray for you guys daily and love you very much.

Please leave us a comment! I so enjoyed going back and reading the ones you left while we were gone and will really enjoy reading the new ones too…especially in the years to come.

Love,
The Hodges…family of 3!