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!

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Mina's huge day of ACCOMPLISHMENTS!

There is several posts today so scroll down to see the others.

This morning when we arrived at Mina's groupa they tried telling us something in Ukrainian and of course we did not have a clue or understand so we just stood and waited.  A few minutes later they came out with a little chair from the groupa for Myla and played with her for a couple minutes and then went back in the room.  So we just hung out in the front room area and waited.  About 10 minutes later Svetlana the head nurse came walking down the hallway with Mina and handed her to us. Not sure where she was or what she was doing but she was now with us and ready to play.  We went down to the ball pit area per Myla's request.  I think that is her absolute favorite place in the orphanage. 

Today has been an EXCITING day of accomplishments for Mina.  She has been doing so awesome and has progressed so quickly in such a short period of time.  Today she held her own bottle to drink out of it for a min, rolled over several times, and sat up in the stroller for a good long period of time.  We are so proud and excited for all the changes we see in her. It's amazing what a little attention and Love can do for a child! Just 2 weeks ago she couldn't do any of these things.









Waiting Patiently with the doll she brought for Mina!

Standing in front of the giraffe to see how tall she is.








Mina playing with her baby doll.  Becky makes these amazing dolls and she is doing it for her fundraiser for their adoption.  They are absolutely adorable. 

Check it out!  They would make awesome gifts and you would be helping save the life of another orphan.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/justplainbeckyw  Is her Etsy site to order your custom doll and she has many more adorable things that she makes and sales there as well!

http://waitingforthegirl.blogspot.com/ is her blog for their adoption of Alina!




 
More kisses from sister! Oh how Mina loves kisses!! :)



 
Daddy didn't know I took this picture. He was actually humming to her and swaying around like he was rocking her. It was so precious.  I tried to video it but of course by then he realized and stopped :)



 
Look at Mina holding on to her bottle by herself!!!






 
Mina rolled over today!! She does it once in the beginning.  She did it about 4 other times before that but this is the only one I could catch on video.


This is a shop that is right by the orphanage. This has been one of the main landmark pieces I always looked for to know if we were about to the orphanage.



This is the baby hospital in Khmelnitsky. This hospital is only used for the birth of babies.  This is most likely the hospital where Mina was born.






 
After our morning visit Julia, Darla and I headed down the market and on our way we stopped for some lunch at an amazing Ukrainian restaraunt.  Jim, Rob, and Myla went back to the city center and got pizza then back to the apartments while us girls spent the afternoon shopping.



 
Darla and I






 
The Menu was a thick wood piece with the menu carved into it. It was so neat!






 
This is all the things they brought to our table to set our table to get it ready for our meal.



 
Borscht- traditional Ukrainian soup. It is very very good!!!! We both loved it!! It has pork, beats, cabbage, and lots of vegetables!



 
This is a castle picture hanging on the wall in the restaraunt.  We are actually going to go see and hopefully get to tour this castle tomorrow so that is very exciting and will be lots of fun! Looking forward to it!





The post from the rest of today continues below on the next post!!

3 comments:

nicole said...

Hi im very intrested in beckys dolls..could you post a link to were i can go buy them please??thanks..

Sarah said...

Amazing!!! Please continue blogging when you return home....most people fall off the face of the planet and never blog again....people NEED to see the accomplishments she will continue to make. What a testament of God's love! What an amazing parallel to how we grow once we are adopted by God!

Is your "10 day wait" almost up?

the Gower Fam said...

Nicole, Sorry i forgot to get the link to put on there. I edited the post & it includes her etsy site & her adoption blog. Go to http://www.etsy.com/shop/justplainbeckyw

Sarah, we have 2 days left till we can finally get her out! Yay!! So excited!! We do plan to continue our blog when we return home because I know your blog has been a blessing for me and I loved watching Zoya's progress & looked forward to your posts so hopefully our blog can be a tool & blessing for someone else as yours has been for us!