ABOUT MINA:

Mina is a precious little girl recently rescued from an orphanage in Eastern Europe who is now finally home with her forever family! She had been without a mother or father to love her & care for her each day. No one to rock her, kiss her gently or tell her she's loved. She is blessed with an extra chromosome known as Down syndrome, which for her that meant a life of being viewed as worthless in the country she was born into & a life without hope. Because of this her parents gave her up at the age of 6 months when they found out the diagnosis & from there her life progressivly went down hill. We are the Gower family residing in OKC who recently adopted this little angel. She was extremely malnourished and unable to do just about anything when we first met her. She will be 2 in January & is the size of a 3-6 month old weighing 14lbs. She continues to amaze us at how quickly she is progressing with love and nutrition. She has learned to sit up, roll over, feed herself finger foods, hold her own bottle and loves to interact with toys and other children. Her life has changed so much in such a short period of time and will forever be changed! Thank you Lord for putting a burden on our hearts to rescue this little blessing and making her apart of our family!

Monday, August 16, 2010

Hot weather, naked baby, more ball pit fun!

This morning Rostik (our driver) called about 10 min before he was supposed to be here and said he was far away so he called a cab for us. He will be out of town for the next couple days. So we waited on our taxi to get her & arrived at the orphanage a little late. One of the caregivers had Mina already and met us in the hall with her. Perfect timing! After our morning visit the driver was supposed to come back to get us but we waited or about 20 min and he did not show up. Thankfully the taxi that pulled up to pick up our friends from OK was a van with 2 rows of seats so we all piled in. We went out to lunch with them and got once again.... PIZZA! Surprise! :) I told Jim once we are back home no more pizza. After lunch we walked around some shops and just looked a bit before heading back to the apartment to put Myla down for her nap. For the afternoon visit I just walked about 10 min down to the City center and road with them back out to the orphanage. So that worked out nicely so I didn't have to try to get a cab & then ride by myself.


This is how Mina was brought to us this morning!




More fun in the ball pit area! We are really enjoying it because it is on the lower level and so it feels a little cooler down there.













More pics of the cute little guy Voldya!! He is just so precious!!








And now to the naked baby pics.... well, she's not quite naked :) I stripped her down during the afternoon visit cause I took a little dress to try on her that I brought from home to see how it fits! She was so hot & sweaty so I thought I'd just leave her little dress she had on off for a bit so she could cool off! She sure liked it!












Don't know if you can tell... but look close at the diaper below the yellow tabs & you will see her name (Margarita) written on her diaper :) I guess they wrote her name on all the diapers we brought up there for her cause everyone we've seen has her name on it.  very funny!




Skinny little girl!




More cute fishy faces that I love ;)




Here's a pic with the little dress I brought her. This is about the best one I got :)




After our afternoon visit we had the taxi drop us all off at the supermarket/ mall area and Jim and Myla met us at the mall. We looked in a few baby shops & then went down to the supermarket & got a few groceries & more diapers! On our way back home we stopped and let Myla play a bit! She sure is going to miss all these fun play areas everywhere when we go back home!


3 comments:

Jamie said...

An outtie belly button, cutie pie :)
Is Mina a nickname for Margarita? My grandma's name was Margarite (i think i misspelled that one), we called her mum-mum. Thanks for the updates!

the Gower Fam said...

Most all the kids we've seen have little outie belly buttons :) Mina isn't a nickname for her, that is the name Reeces Rainbow gave her and we always referred to her as. Everyone in the orphanage calls her Margarita but we are naming her Mina.

Michele Marie Mastroianni said...

Oh, how Mina looks like she is loving that ball pit...what great sensory stimulation for her. She fits in to your family so perfectly!