Happy New Year!

We had a great time with friends at our house last night & Anya was excited to see the "new year". She asked if everyone would receive presents (in Russia, they exchange gifts for New Year's, but not Christmas). I explained that here we exchange gifts at Christmas, but not New Year's. She asked if we could make a cake - so that's what we will do today. Thank you all for your prayers! Anya is adjusting so well and really wants to learn everything she can. She has been very receptive to our teaching about manners and how to behave. Considering she has not had parental training for almost 11 years, she is really doing great and soaking it all in. Faith and Caleb have done great adjusting as well. They all enjoy spending time together and when I woke up this morning, everyone had migrated to our bed at some point in the night. I looked over and there was Jack, Caleb, me, Faith and then Anya and we all slept in until after 9 AM. Our days have been filled with playing outside riding bicycles and playing with animals. Faith & Anya are great helpers and did a great job yesterday cleaning their room and the play room. They are both very willing to help around the house and definitely enjoy cleaning together. I'm excited for us to start school. We will begin some things next week and then will be in full swing after Nastya goes home. I have ordered an English course from Rosetta Stone for Anya and can't wait to see how she likes it. She will also be doing her own math course, but will do phonics and reading with Faith. I bought some books for Anya at a Christian bookstore while I was in Russia and she has devoured them (they are in English and Russian). They answer questions about God and our Christian faith and she has really enjoyed reading them. Also, she has started asking me to pray for specific things when we say prayers at night. I can't wait to know exactly what she's thinking. Faith has learned so much through all of this and now speaks a combination of English and Russian - I never really considered teaching Russian in the 1st grade, but it will definitely be part of Faith's 1st grade experience! I hope to post some pictures soon - we've had a great Christmas season!