What a blessed day!

What a blessed day with our new Russian friend, Anton! He slept great after getting to bed late and this morning joined us about 10:45a. As I started breakfast he came to the kitchen to help with the eggs. He pointed to them and gave me the thumbs up sign. That is a great way to communicate. Thumbs up is good. Thumbs down is bad. It was helpful that he was comfortable enough to let me know what he liked. And, boy did he like them. He gave us a thumbs down for bananas but he has eaten three of them since then. Perhaps he knows you eat things that are good for you even if they are not your favorite.

While I finished cooking, Anton got an apple and was cutting it with a bread knife. I gave him a sharper, safer knife and went back to cooking. Timothy came to tell me that Anton was carving his apple. I thought that was a strange way for Timothy to describe cutting up an apple. But, then I realized he really meant that Anton was carving the apple. Anton carved a beautiful swan from the apple. Not your everyday skill around here for a 13 year old. Obviously he has talent. He's also been drawing with his new art supplies that my neices brought to the airport last night. Great gift, girls. Thank you.

At the airport Anton received a beautiful picture from our young friend Leisel and an elaborate sign written in Russian from her brother Jude. It was obvious they had put alot of work into these projects. Thank you, Leisel & Jude. Anton was somewhat overwhelmed last night with gifts, pictures, signs, etc. But today he enjoyed the picture and read the sign at length. He then proceeded to tell me all about the sign...... in Russian. There are some times when we just all stare at each other trying to digest what we just heard. Nothing digested this time. But it did lead me to learn Becky DeNooy's favorite phrase.

'I don't understand'= 'ya ni po nyeh my you'

Gestures become an integral part of communication between people that don't speak the same language. It's amazing to me how much humor can come through even when you shouldn't know what the other person is saying. We had one of those moments today when eating cherry tomatoes. Anton showed us the little tomato and said, 'angleski' which means American. Then he cupped his hands together to show a larger tomato size and said, 'ruski'. We all laughed. He had told us that American tomatoes are tiny and Russian tomatoes are large. Needless to say we had another laugh at the grocery store when we showed him all the sizes of 'American' tomatoes. We also had fun at the story going from one item to the next in the produce section, getting thumbs up or thumbs down. Anton can make some pitiful faces, especially when David is trying to convince him that grapefruit tastes great.

We spent a great afternoon with most of the Russian Orphan Lighthouse Project group at the Oral Roberts University Women's basketball game. At half time, the kids were center court waving to the cameras. They all had fun getting together. Two of them even tried to catch chickens in the pot. We enjoyed seeing all of the kids interacting with each other. You can really see their personalities shine through when there isn't the language gap. Thanks coach for a great afternoon.

I had left a roast cooking in the crockpot so the entire house smelled delicious when we returned home today. There is really no way to adequately describe Anton's reaction. I truly wish I had a video of him. He went to the crockpot, drew in a long breath with his eyes closed and he gently waved his hand in front of his nose as if he could wave in more of the aroma. Because I enjoyed his show so much, he kept repeating it until the roast was completely gone. He really is an adorable child.

One last moment to share. The clothes we had gathered for Anton are all too big. He is much much smaller than we anticipated. So today we went shopping and needed to get pajamas. Everything we found that fit him were much too childish for a 13 year old. So we found some small men's lounge pants with a drawstring. Needless to say, they needed 6 inches removed from the bottom. After dinner, Anton and I were sitting next to each other on the couch while he played video games with the guys and I hemmed his new pajama pants. When I finished, Anton leaned over and quietly said, 'thank you.' I looked up to see his big dimpled grin and shining eyes. It was obvious he meant it.