From Russia, With Love : Family: Four orphaned sisters arrive here to begin a new life with a La Habra Heights couple. The adoptive parents aren’t worried about the language barrier.

In the blink of an eye, the Norman family doubled in size Wednesday.

Four orphaned Russian girls stepped shyly from an airliner at Los Angeles International Airport, embraced their new mother for the first time and set off for a new life in La Habra Heights.

“You’re home,” Patti Norman said quietly as she gazed at her daughters for the first time. The girls smiled and then, one by one, reached up to clutch her hands tightly.

The sisters--5-year-old twins Ashley Olga and Amy Svetlana, 7-year-old Stethanie Irina and 9-year-old Lindsey Raya--are from Ledanye Pole, a tiny village 250 miles north of St. Petersburg. They have been adopted by Patti and Mike Norman, already the adoptive parents of two young sons.

Mike Norman, 41, a manager for a television network, traveled to Russia three weeks ago to pick up the four girls while his wife stayed behind with the boys.

While 32-year-old Patti Norman waited, she finished outfitting the girls’ two new bunk beds with Snow White coverings. And she practiced learning how to phonetically say phrases like “it’s time to brush your teeth now” in Russian.

“They don’t speak English and we don’t speak Russian,” she said. “But I think we’re prepared. There’s an international language called love.”

The unusual adoption got its start when the Normans saw a television program two years ago about Romanian orphanages. From the lawyer who had helped with their earlier adoptions in this country of Timothy, 2 1/2, and Andrew, 22 months, the couple learned that Russian orphans were also looking for parents.

Paperwork, home-visit inspections and other requirements of international adoptions took months after attorney Ron Stoddart of Brea put the Normans in contact last fall with a group searching for a home for the four sisters.

When the Normans decided to adopt the girls, they called British Airways in search of cheap tickets. Impressed, the airline offered to fly Mike Norman and mother-in-law Gwen Erwin to Russia and fly them and the girls home for free. The airline tossed in a stopover in London and an expense-paid shopping spree for the wide-eyed girls at a major toy store.

“They called from the orphanage before they left and said, ‘Hi Mama!’ ” Patti Norman said as she awaited their arrival Wednesday afternoon. “I’ve only seen one color photocopy of a picture of them. But they had such sweet little voices.”

Norman said his wife had made the girls tiny backpacks filled with crayons, Barbie dolls and rag dolls, necklaces and bracelets and photo books of the sisters’ new family. But there were tears when the girls left the orphanage where they had lived for two years, since being abandoned by their parents.

It took several weeks in Russia for Norman to get all the approvals needed to take the girls out of the country. At first, the girls were shy around him because there are no men at the orphanage, he said. “The second day we came back, Irina jumped up and down and yelled in Russian, ‘Papa, papa, you’ve come back just like you said you would,’ ” Norman recalled.

Norman left the village with the children on Friday. During the last few days of traveling they have gotten to know each other, he said. “Everything they do, they are doing for the first time. They rode their first elevator yesterday--we rode it for 20 minutes. Children in America have so much that these girls have not had.”

The Normans said the girls will be enrolled in public schools this fall in their suburban neighborhood 20 miles southeast of Downtown Los Angeles. Before that, they will be immersed in English.

“At first it will be hard, but they’ll pick up on things quickly. The boys are at a stage where they’re learning words, too. Everybody will be learning together,” Patti Norman said.

“We have the cheat sheet with phrases spelled out phonetically that someone with an adopted Russian child passed on to us. We have some Russian-speaking friends. I think we’re prepared.”

Young Timothy has already begun including his new sisters in his nighttime prayers. “He can name them by name,” she said.

“Their little nightgowns are hung up and ready to jump into. Their dollhouse is there. Their clothes are ready.”

Suddenly a large family, the Normans walked out of the airport terminal hand in hand. The girls had been welcomed with flowers and balloons by about 150 friends from the Normans’ Whittier Hills Baptist Church.

“We’re not special. This is what God has chosen for us,” Patti Norman whispered. “We’re blessed.”