New Names

We have had a very full day, and have returned to our room to rest for the remainder of the evening.  We spent the morning at the DINAF offices for a psychological evaluation and an interview with a social worker.  Alicia and I each met separately to answer their questions.  The children were entertained by some of the other staff members.  We completed our interviews around noon.  The social worker was very excited for us, and she commented that she saw a difference in the children from yesterday, when we first met them and they were both very quiet and overwhelmed to today, when they were both very interactive and active.  She thanked us for following the Lord's leading to adopt these children.  She encouraged us to pray that the process will move forward quickly so that the children will be home with us before Christmas.  She said that she believes it is a real possibility for that to happen.

Today, we had to declare if we were going to change the children's names.  We decided that we were going to give them new names that fit with their life story, and since all of our names begin with the letter 'A', we had to give them 'A' names.  We also decided to keep their middle names. 
We decided to change Sinia's name to Alia, so her name is now Alia Jasmin Crossgrove.  Alia means Noble, and from Heaven.  We believe these children are from the Lord.
We decided to change Brayan's name to Ashton, so his name is now Ashton Joel Crossgrove.  Ashton means Strong and Protector.  For so long, he has been the protector for his sister and we wanted a name that honored his story.

The afternoon was filled with getting copies made of pictures of our family for court tomorrow, and filling out forms in Spanish.  Thank you to Carlos, our driver and translator and Google translate.
Here are a few pictures for you:

 Alexa made each of us a bracelet, so that the whole family has the same bracelets as a promise that although we have to leave for a few months, we will be back for them, and our whole family will be together.

 Alia is learning the art of the "selfie".  She loves to take pictures.  A lot of them have her fingers covering half the picture, but she is figuring it out.

 We were also given permission for us to post pictures of the children's faces.  We have been holding off until we had permission.  This is a picture of all of us at DINAF with the social worker who did our interview today and our lawyers.

This was at lunch at the food court in the mall.  We have found that Ashton enjoys eating almost anything.  Alia is a bit of a picky eater, so we tried Popeyes chicken nuggets.  They were a hit.  You can see by her stance that she is quite a character.

Well, that is enough for now.  Thanks for all of your messages, and words of encouragement.