Family Pictures

Terry's side of the family has been waiting for family pictures ever since they found out that Terry and I were going to have a child. It's been almost three years, so now that Emma's home, it was time to get it done. We decided to get them done yesterday after church and it was interesting.....three families, four dogs and a little girl who doesn't speak english and on top of that she doesn't understand what family pictures are! Yikes! Things went fairly well. The lady taking our pictures was very patient and totally understood our situation. She took lots of pictures as it was difficult to get Emma to "pose." It's hard just to get her to stand or sit in one place for a few seconds! Also, there was no point styling her hair because she doesn't understand how to "keep it nice." She's just a kid who wants to play and doesn't care what her hair looks like! We hope some turned out. We should be getting them by the end of the week and I will post them on the blog for you all to see.

After pictures we came home and noticed that our neighbor's a few doors down were having an open house. Being as nosy as we are, we decided to go have a look. Emma was quite intrigued with the beautiful house that had no furniture...lots of room to dance and play! The real estate lady showing the house was quite friendly but something made me cringe when she talked. I didn't realize it was her Russian accent until later. Once she found out Emma was from Ukraine, she started rattling off a bunch of russian to Emma. Personally, hearing the language brings back bad memories for me, and I think it did the same to Emma. She was super happy and chatty until this woman started talking to her... then she clammed right up. Don't get me wrong. This lady was SUPER nice. Her family moved to Canada from Ukraine ten years ago and she had so much empathy knowing that Emma came from an orphanage. She shared that she and her family had a difficult time living there. She told us her kids lost their russian language because they chose to...they did not want to speak it anymore as it brought back memories. This lady offered to help us in any way she could. We chatted with her for a little while and then Emma started to open up just a bit. I'm not going to get into too much detail, but Emma shared a little bit about things that had been told to her in the orphanage and how she had been treated. She only divulged a tiny bit of information before she clammed up and refused to talk again. It really broke my heart to hear just the little bit that we heard. I asked the lady to tell Emma that mama and papa love her and she gets to stay with us forever, because I don't think she totally understands that yet. She didn't show any response after that. I hope it brought her some comfort. Even more, I hope she believes it.