Short Term Memories

32 Weeks!

2012-02-04T19:30:00.000-06:00

Part of me can't believe I am already at 32 weeks while the other part of me can't believe we're not at 38 weeks yet! I am definitely getting anxious to meet Baby C!

This pregnancy continues to go rather smoothly. I am still on modified bed rest, which is okay with me. I typically have 2 or 3 really busy days and spend the other days laying around a lot, which I typically don't mind as I am tired anyways! At my appointment this past week, Baby C weighed an estimated 4 pounds 8 ounces, so he's still measuring big! Well, really, just his head and femur are measuring in the 90th percentile, the rest of him is in the 60th. This just means he will be long and lean, as Cavin was. I will stop my medications at 34 weeks, the cerclage will come out at 36 weeks, and then we'll just see what my body does! We could have a baby the day they take out my cerclage, or knowing my luck, a couple weeks later!

Rance. One year ago today we were picking up his Ukrainian passport. This meant we could get his US Visa, our last step before being able to finally come home! On January 31, Rance's Gotcha Day, we had a party at a local Italian restaurant with some family and close friends. I was beyond disappointed that I didn't get to go due to being super sick with the flu. He had a blast though, and it was fun to remember where we were a year ago compared to today. Its hard to believe its already been a year while at the same time it seems like we have had Rance for so much longer.

Rance continues to do well in school, although his silly personality sometime gets him in typical boy trouble at school. He continues to really like school and has began to develop some close friends at school. He has been to several birthday parties of friends and has had fun seeing how birthday's are celebrated! He has all kinds of plans for his birthday in April!

Cavin is ornery as ever. I absolutely love watching his personality emerge. He is all boy and still into any and all balls. He likes going to "school" with me on the 2 days a week I help. He is learning a lot. Lately he has learned his shapes and can recognize at least the letter's o, i, c, x, and n. He has also began to trace rather well for a 2 year old, he does better than some of the 4 year olds in our class! He has also really began to enjoy singing and asks to sing quite a bit. He is learning all of the words to several different songs. His favorites seem to be: Take me Out to the Ballgame, Jesus Loves Me, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Are You Sleeping.

I realize this update is rather scattered, but that seems to be the state of my pregnant brain! At least its an update!

29 Weeks and Bedrest!

2012-01-12T16:44:00.000-06:00

It has been a while since I last posted, but we have been beyond busy with the holiday's and supposedly moving. We enjoyed a lot of time with family and friends over the Christmas season and the boys loved opening their presents. We found out we weren't moving, the contract we had to sell our house fell through, which was extremely disappointing for us. We love our home now, its just too small for our growing family.

So we've been trying to creatively decide where Baby C will go. Not so much him, but his clothes and all of the things needed to care for a baby! We still haven't completely decided on a solution, but we've come up with a few different ideas.

I am now on modified bed rest. Talk about another disappointing day. I went for a check up the Friday before Christmas and got a great report. I have been consistently measuring around 5cm the whole time, and Dr. T was sure I wouldn't have that appointment where I got disappointing news.

Well, New Year weekend I began to notice some things and began having some concerns. I finally called in Sunday morning, January 1 and was disappointed Dr. T wasn't taking his own calls. It is extremely rare for him to not take his own calls. But I spoke with another doctor in the practice who was great, although he sent me in to the hospital to get some tests ran. So I left all my boys at church and went in.

The house doctor that was there was horrible. Did not like her at all. I don't think she heard a word I said and she did way more than the tests needed. I am still livid with her! But what we thought the problem was, checked out okay and I was sent back home to rest. I actually spent the afternoon and evening resting at my grandparents for our last family Christmas.

Well, when Dr. T got a phone call from my hospital nurse Sunday afternoon, he was NOT happy with how things went down. He checked on me Monday and Tuesday, and finally on Wednesday he said he just wanted me to come in and get checked out so he would feel better, as his concerns were not the same as the doctor I spoke with on Sunday.

So I went in on Thursday late morning by myself, and got the dreaded news. My cervix was giving out, and was in fact, already in the danger zone. It was Dr. T's surgery day, but my ultrasound tech, whom I love, tracked him down in a surgery, had a nurse hold the phone up to is ear and explained the situation. I pretty well knew what he would say, and when she came back her news confirmed my fears, I was on bed rest.

I laid the rest of Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and finally went back to be checked again on Tuesday. I was dreading getting bad news again, but was so thankful to receive good news! My cervix had improved almost a centimeter! So after a long conversation with Dr. T, we decided to try a modified bed rest. Basically, I am on bed rest as much as I can be, but am allowed up for things I consider necessary.

I will go back tomorrow to get checked again, and am praying for things to continue to improve, or at least hold steady. I do not want to do strict bed rest with this pregnancy!

Regardless of what happens, I am thankful to be in a much better place with this pregnancy, to have a doctor I totally and completely trust and love, and to have a sweet active baby boy who will have a great chance at survival if born from here on out. I would just prefer for me to hold him when he is born, not a NICU so I continue to pray that we make it full term!

I So Love My Three Boys!!

2011-11-21T21:03:00.000-06:00

Cavin, Baby C and Rance

21 Weeks and 5 Days!

November!!

2011-11-02T13:12:00.001-05:00

I can't believe it is November already, but I am really excited that it is! I am most definitely looking forward to the holiday's this year, as we missed out on everything last year being in Ukraine. I am excited to spend time with family and friends, I am excited to bake and for all of the yummy food, and I am so excited for Rance to experience the holiday's for the very first time!

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday. My cervix looked fabulous! I was 18 weeks and 3 days, and with Cavin, at this point, my cervix was already doing its thing and I was put on bed rest by 20 weeks. So we are so thankful to see my cervix still behaving! Baby C looked great, although was sleeping! We did get the sex confirmed, 110% with a second ultrasound after seeing the doc. Will be sharing the big news soon.

I will be 19 weeks on Friday, only 5 weeks until our first big goal which is 24 weeks!! That is when Baby C will be viable, to have a chance at surviving outside of the womb! With as well as my cervix is doing, we aren't really worried about reaching this mark, but I will still feel much better when we do!

I should post pictures of Halloween, the boys had so much fun. They both went as Spiderman, as that is the only costume we have for Rance that fits, and well, Cavin of course had to be just like Rance! We went to our church's trunk or treat on Sunday, and then trick or treating with friends Monday night. It was so fun to watch all of Rance's excitement, and surprisingly fun to see how much Cavin got into it!

Baby C, 18 Weeks, 3 Days

A Day at Home

2011-10-20T09:52:00.000-05:00

Life has been extremely busy lately, and I feel like I can't catch up! Today I get to be home all day! Rance has school and Matt work, but they will be home all evening, thanks to the weather being to cold for Rance's soccer practice.

I am planning on putting a big pot of chili on the stove to simmer and baking some pumpkin bread and pumpkin seeds! I also have a lot of things I need to get done around the house that have been put off far to long. I have a small list of things I want to accomplish today, so we'll see how it goes. It will be hard to get out of bed when I am still feeling so tired and Cavin has been so snugly lately!

Baby C Update

Tomorrow I will be 17 weeks! I am going to the doctor every other week for right now, because my cervix has been looking great! This week it shortened a bit, but nothing to be concerned about. This appointment and the one two weeks before, our sonographer has tried to tell us the sex of Baby C, but so far we still have question marks at the end, although she is pretty sure. I am hoping our next ultrasound will provide confirmation complete with exclamation points!! I have been put on a very light rest regimen due to some cramping last week that still comes and goes, but has been much better. I am still allowed to do life, just to take it easy when I can, especially if I am having any cramping. Baby C is growing like a weed, crazy how quickly they grow and change!

Rance is currently in his first full week of school! We were definitely blessed with a local private school that is just a few miles from our church, in which Rance attends. With him being in school we have definitely been reminded of how short of a time we have had him! He has adjusted so well it is easy for us to forget we have only had him just over 8 months. Although it was a really hard decision to make to put him in school, we knew that is what he needed most. So far he has loved it! We have been busy trying to learn all of the ins and outs of the school and how they do things. Its kind of weird to be parents of a second grader already!

Cavin also goes to school, and will bug us about it from the time we drop Rance off until the time we get to his school! He will constantly ask about his school and seeing his teacher! I help a teacher at the preschool at our church 2 days a week, so Cavin hangs out with our class as well. Although he is only 2, he will sit and color as long, if not longer, than our 4 year olds! Between learning at school and me working with him at home, he has learned his colors (big thanks to Fruit Loops and his obsession with them!), he can count and is beginning to recognize his numbers and letters. He also knows all of his shapes. He is growing up so fast and changes everyday!

Well, if I am going to get my small list accomplished along with resting, I had better get started!

Good News!!

2011-10-04T16:49:00.000-05:00

So a couple of things...

First, we have decided to call this baby, Baby C! Although we find out the sex, we keep the name a secret until the baby is born. However, I don't like calling the baby "it" or just he or she all of the time. So we try to come up with a fun name for the baby during pregnancy. Cavin was Baby Red after his Aunt Redner. Baby C is named such because this is my third pregnancy (third letter of the alphabet), and whether it is a boy or a girl, there will be a "C" somewhere in its name!

So, today was my first appointment since the surgery. My cervix checked out great, measuring at 4.4! Baby C was super active, we even got to see him/her moving its mouth! Baby C is growing perfectly, he/she actually measured 2 days ahead!

Everything looked so great, Dr. T said instead of coming in every week like he was thinking, I was able to make BI-WEEKLY appointments for the rest of the year! Definitely exciting!

We also found out what we were having today, but since it is still so early in the pregnancy, we're going to wait until after my next ultrasound in two weeks to share the big news!

We are so thankful this pregnancy is off to such a great start, and we continue to pray that God will keep Baby C safe in my tummy until I am full term!

Tired and Thankful

2011-09-28T14:47:00.001-05:00

I am already tired of bed rest, and its been 2 and 1/2 days, and I've been able to sit up, fix my own food, and meet my parents for dinner to pick up my sweet boys. Trying to figure out how on earth I laid flat for well over 3 months, not sitting up, with a 10 step allowance for walking at a time, a 5 minute shower allowance that I fought for, and Matt fixing my food for me each day before leaving for work.

I have no idea how I did it, but I am so thankful that we were able to do the cerclage this go around, and praying it will keep me from strict bed rest!

I am feeling great. My lower back is still a little sore from the spinal, and my lower tummy is sore when I bend or move around a lot, but both of those should continue to gradually fade away. I wasn't sure what I expected to feel like afterwards, but I know I didn't expect to feel this good!

So today should be my last day of rest, then tomorrow I will be allowed to start slowly exploring the limits of what my body can handle. Still, there will be things I am not allowed to do, the hardest being not allowed to pick up Cavin. While I will be sure to find other ways to get my snuggles, it will be hard for him to understand why I can't pick him up.

Last but not least, I am also thankful to have the most giving husband in the world. Typically being pregnant requires a lot of sacrifice on the mom's part and little on the husband's. However, in our situation, it requires as much, if not more sacrifice for Matt. I am hoping this go around won't be as much as the last, but I know whatever it takes, Matt will do without complaining. He is already stepping up to help out with the things I am no longer able to do, and I am so thankful for his willing and giving spirit.

A prayer request outside of this pregnancy, Matt and I are really thinking about and praying about putting Rance in school. While he is excelling with home schooling, we feel he really, really needs to social aspect of school and being around kids his age. Matt is much more at ease with putting him in school, but his protective mom is having a hard time letting go! So we continue to pray and seek out what will be best for Rance.

We also are praying to close on our home at the end of October, and in the meantime that God leads us to the perfect home for us in Wentzville.

Lots going on in our family, but I will try to do better updating our blog in the midst of the craziness!

As Perfect as Can Be

2011-09-26T16:52:00.000-05:00

I am writing this post from my hospital room, but I will be going home tonight!!

Our morning started early, 4am, giving me time to get showered and ready, drive the 45 minutes to the hospital and have time to stop and get Matt his morning Coke and breakfast!

We got here and the process got started right away. I got me some lovely green hospital gowns and the coolest booties! The only part I was really nervous about was that they had me down for going under general anesthesia, and I wasn't sure how I felt about going all the way under. I was praying that they would let me do a spinal with local anesthesia. All of the nurses with the beginning stuff commented on how much they too love my doc, which I completely agreed with!

After all of the preliminaries were taken care of we were taken back to another room where we met and talked with my doc about every detail of the procedure. I talked with him about not wanting to do general anesthesia, which he understood, and said I was lucky, because I had the best anesthesiologist there. He said if anyone would be willing to do the spinal, it would be him! I love answered prayer!

Right after we finished talking with Dr. T, the anesthesiologist, Dr. B, came in, who was super sweet with his accent, and after introductions, his first words were: "I would like to do a spinal rather than general, because I feel that is safest for the baby...." I didn't even have to ask! I love how God loves and takes care of us!

So once Dr. B got the iv started we were off to the operating room. A nurse was there from labor and delivery to listen to the baby's heartbeat. She really never found it, and the longer it went, the more nervous I got. She just wasn't used to finding heartbeats on baby's so small. I just continued to pray, and in walked Dr. T. He took one look at my face, gently took the dopplar, immediately found the baby's heartbeat, then looked at me and winked. I love how he knows and understands my fears, without even asking.

Next up was the spinal, which wasn't bad at all, Dr. B was awesome. The first time Dr. T asked me how I was doing, after I said good, he said, well, I'm already about half way done! It only took him about 15 minutes to put the stitches in. Got to hear the baby's heartbeat again, and then I was taken to recovery for an hour, and finally a room upstairs in the "nesting ward." One of the nurses looked at me and said you look familiar, have you been here before? I just laughed and said yes, several times with my last pregnancy.

It took a while for the numbness to wear off, and the dizziness finally went away once they let me eat! Since then I have been feeling great! Little to no cramping, absolutely no contractions, and little to no bleeding. We couldn't have asked for things to be going better! Now we are waiting for Dr. T to come after office hours to give me my do's and don'ts list before discharging me!

Thank you all for praying, and praise God for graciously answering!

So Begins...

2011-09-25T20:34:00.000-05:00

A new, yet the same, journey for us. We are expecting Baby Richards number 6, due March 30th!! I took the home test while Matt was away at church camp at the end of July, and boy, was it hard to wait for him to get home and share the news Friday night!!

We are all very excited. Cavin loves babies, and loves to look at the ultrasound pictures of his baby! Rance's first questions were, 1: How does the baby come out of mommy's tummy" and 2: What does it eat? The joys of having a seven year old who has questions about everything!!

I am currently just over 13 weeks, and am still feeling exhausted, but thankful to be over the nausea for the most part. I began to show rather early, definitely was showing by 10 weeks. I expected it, with it being my third pregnancy, but it still caught me off guard when I looked down and discovered a hard baby bump!

Tomorrow is a big day for me, I will be having a cerclage, in which they will stitch my cervix shut. It is a rather easy procedure, but could stir up contractions and will cause bleeding so I will most likely be in the hospital until Tuesday to be monitored. I am a little nervous about the procedure, but trying to lay my nerves at His feet and rest in the peace of His good and perfect plan for this pregnancy, whatever that may be.

The goal of having the cerclage is to keep me off of bed rest and out of the hospital! Definitely goals I want to achieve having 2 active boys at home to keep up with! Not wanting to repeat the almost 4 months of bed rest, flat on my back, like I got to have with Cavin along with the multiple scares that he would come early.

I am so thankful for my doctor. I love that he does things just to reassure my nerves, that he realizes not only is it crucial to get my baby to full term, but to do so with a mommy who is not anxious and nervous the entire time. But most of all, I love that I can trust him completely. I love that I know he will tell me the truth, and not try to sugar coat it. I love that when I showed up to my first prenatal appointment he had already spent time coming up with a plan to give me the best possible pregnancy he could. I also love that he will most likely bring me donuts tomorrow because I made a joke about it being cruel not to let a pregnant woman eat for so long!

So, we would love your prayers tomorrow morning, for a completely safe surgery, and that my body will easily adjust to the stitches. I will update after the surgery while I am in the hospital, I am sure, as I will be stuck in bed and missing my boys, who will be busy helping Papa with the cows and not missing me at all!

3 Rules to Driving

2011-09-22T20:33:00.000-05:00

According to Rance...

1. You have to drive where the cars are.

2. You have to drive to where you are going.

3. You have to drive where mom tells you to.

We about died laughing on the last one! Ha! We asked him why he said the third one and his answer was:

"Remember that one time we were going to a park and dad went the wrong way? Then mom told us the right way?"

A total laugh out loud moment for us!

Ohhh Twoooodles!

2011-08-22T20:47:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday our sweet baby boy turned 2. Still can't believe two years have already passed since he was born. It has went so fast! We celebrated with a Mickey Mouse party, one of his favorites, with some family and friends. It was a good time and we were able to stay outside for most of the party until it started sprinkling!

Some things I love about my sweet boy..

How easy he laughs. I love his laugh, and I hear it so much throughout each and every day. I love that he is so happy and easy going!

I love that he is so much in love with balls. Baseball and basketball have recently been his two favorites, although I think baseball is by far the top choice. It is not uncommon for Cavin to request a baseball shirt in the morning when getting dressed, and pajama's and blankets to sleep with need to have balls on them as well! We spend a lot of time during the day playing ball, basketball, playing catch, golfing, or hitting the baseball when we are outside.

His second love is choo choo trains. We are big fans of Chuggington at our house, and Cavin was so excited to get Chuggington choo choo trains for his birthday! He wouldn't even share with his Grandma when we first set up his track! He would rather put them away than share! Thankfully he is sharing them better now!

I love to watch how he tries to keep up with his big brother, even to the extent of following him to time out! It has made him grow up so much quicker I am sure, but I love how much he loves his brother and wants to be just like him. (In typical big brother fashion I think it annoys Rance sometimes!)

I love that he is all boy. He is all about running and jumping and wrestling with his dad and big brother, and he loves to be outside.

I love that he is generous with giving his mommy kisses-at least most of the time!

I love that he loves books. He asks to read books almost everyday and we will sit together and read 8-16 books in a sitting.

I love that every time he hears the word "pray," he folds his hands together. It melts my heart. He is even starting to say prayers on his own.

I love that he is ornery and mischievous, I see so much of my Grandpa Tuley's personality in him, which warms my heart.

It really is bittersweet to watch him grow up into a little boy, learning to do all things little boys should. Just hard on mom that it all goes so fast! I am so thankful for the blessing of our Cavin Luke, he has brought much, much joy into our lives.

Happy Second Birthday my sweet boy!

A High Calling

2011-07-30T16:22:00.001-05:00

To me, being a parent is a high calling God has placed on my heart. One of the most important "jobs" God has called me to do, and one of the hardest!

We had always discussed me staying home with our kids, and when I looked into Cavin's eyes for the first time I knew this is what God had created me to do, to be a mom. What an honor and privilege it is that he would trust one of his children, one of his souls to my care. That he would entrust me with loving, guiding, teaching, and leading my child into a loving relationship with Christ. For me, it goes even deeper than my child loving God, I want my child to serve God, to be active in His kingdom and bringing others to know Him.

I want my children know how big God is! I believe this is my high calling, to teach and lead my children towards Christ. To help them truly understand the vastness of who God is, the master artist He is in creating, the humility He endured in becoming human, the sacrifice He gave of living a perfect life yet dying with the world's sins, the grace He gives in loving each human unconditionally, and the jealousy of God when we stray. I want my children to know all aspects of God and to know the power in His story. I want them to choose to love Him, and to desire to serve Him because of how great He is and how small yet significant they are to His kingdom and the continuation of His story.

This is our high calling, this should be our primary goal as parents, that our children will choose to have an active relationship with Christ.

Everything we do as parents should point them towards Christ.If we can achieve this calling, then their faith becomes the basis of our parenting and how we will help guide them through life until they leave our
While some mom's may envision their children being a doctor, or engineer, or a famous athlete, my heart imagines my boys going to Bible college, serving as a minister, or a missionary, or having a job outside of the church and being one of those youth sponsors who you love as a minister because they consistently serve and want to be involved in every aspect of your ministry.

I feel so often Christians strive to become Christ like in so many ways ,but to me, one of the greatest qualities of Christ is his servant's heart. A quality that so many push aside so easily. Definitely a topic for another day! Matt and I want to raise our children to have a servant's heart, to serve not just with a couple of hours here and there, but to serve with their life, as Christ served with His.

Per Request!

2011-06-21T09:41:00.000-05:00

A blog update!

I realize it has been quite some time since I last blogged. I have began a couple of new posts and haven't finished them. For some reason I just haven't felt like writing, even just a newsy update on the boys!

We have been extremely busy! Since I last updated....
-We celebrated Rance's 7th birthday with a kite theme! Unfortunately it was rainy and we had to move the party indoors, which was a bummer. It was Rance's first birthday party, he loved his cake and of course, actually getting presents!
-We also celebrated Easter!
-Rance graduated from preschool! We will be homeschooling him, starting in earnest the first part of July. A post on our reasons for homeschooling may follow at some point.
-We have had family at our house a lot! Our boys love when their cousins come to play!
-The boys went to my parents house for the first time by themselves with their cousins! We were worried how Rance would do being away from us for the first time overnight. Boy, were we silly to worry! We called everyday and he barely wanted to talk to us! They had so much fun on the farm with their cousins, Papa and Grandma!
-We traveled to Oklahoma City to watch our niece, Cat, graduate from high school! Due to tornado's though, the graduation got cancelled so we were bummed about that. But it was good to spend time with family! It was Rance's first time meeting his Aunt Mary and cousins, Catherine and Christin.
-We have been to the pool! At first Rance was really scared, but after the first couple of times he has overcome his fear for the most part, and is actually swimming! On a side note, we have puddle jumpers, which are life jackets, for both of our boys, and we absolutely love them! Unlike most life jackets they actually allow the boys to lay on their stomachs, keeping their head out of the water, allowing them to learn how to float and swim!
-Cavin has had 2 febrile seizures. Scary stuff. The first one he had while we were eating Sunday lunch, so he choked as well. It really scared us. The second was at the pool. Had no idea he was even sick, and the seizure lasted almost 5 minutes. The scariest part of the second seizure was that it took Cavin over 45 minutes to come to and be responsive. Definitely praying to be done with those!
-We have made a couple of trips to the zoo. Both of our boys love the zoo! One time we even petted sting rays, which Rance loved!
-We had VBS! Rance did okay with it, he's still not a fan of huge groups of people and loud noises, both of which were in full effect each night of VBS! But, he still had fun! I helped out with the fourth grade group this year, which was much easier than being in charge! It was a great and exhausting week. Over $3,000 was raised for a feeding program in Haiti!

In our downtime we have had a lot of fun hanging out as a family, playing games, Wii, playing oustide, going for walks, watching movies, wrestling, cooking, and taking it easy! I love the relaxed, easy going atmosphere summer brings for our family!

Rance is thriving! While he still has a lot of English to learn, his vocabulary is impressive! He speaks only in English now, sometimes without even an accent! The other day he had to actually think about counting in Ukrainian. We have had a lot of conversations here and there about his life in Ukraine in which we have learned a lot about. We have also been really pleased with the progress he has made with his social skills as well. He still loves music. We sing a lot at our house, and its fun to watch both of our boys learn about Jesus through music! He is an amazing big brother. He plays really well with Cavin and has really begun to take on the big brother role in helping and protecting his little brother as well. He is growing, changing, and maturing more everyday!

Cavin continues to be Cavin, trouble! When we are home I am normally trying to get things done around the house and I typically have to take a break to from my cleaning to clean up a mess he has created. He is just into everything! He is obsessed, still, with balls! Baseball is currently his favorite thanks to an animated baseball movie both of our boys love! But golf, soccer, and basketball are still well loved! His only requirement to getting dressed is that there is a ball somewhere on his outfit. Sometimes I get lucky and can get away with an outfit without a ball! Cavin loves his big brother. It is a common occurrence when the boys have been separated for Cavin to run to his big brother and give him a hug. When Rance is not around Cavin will constantly be asking for him, and when he is around, he is constantly trying to keep up!

Surgery

2011-04-05T10:10:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday Rance had strabismus surgery on his eyes. The surgery center where he had the surgery was phenomenal with him, so the actual surgery went perfectly. Because Rance's eyes are so little they had a hard time keeping them open wide enough during the surgery which caused more swelling and bruising than normal. For most of the day on Wednesday his eyes were swollen shut. Top that off with being a very sick little boy from the anesthesia and Wednesday was a rough day. I was so thankful that my mom was able to be here to help with Cavin so I could just focus on Rance.

When we first got home from Ukraine Cavin was fighting a cold and ear infection and was not used to sleeping in his crib so we decided not to make him "cry it out" while he was sick. So the first couple of nights we were home Cavin slept with us because he was sick. So Rance remembered this and informed us, actually told his Grandma, that he would be sleeping with his mom and dad because he was sick.

I of course couldn't say no, and it really was easier having him in bed with us than having to get to his room in time to help him while being sick. We didn't plan on, however, Cavin crying half of the night and also eventually ending up in bed with us. I think little sleep was had by mom and dad although the boys seemed good to go!

Thursday we saw drastic improvement. Once we got his eyes open Rance was starving and ready to eat. I was thrilled to see him acting like himself and finally eating and drinking and keeping it all down! From then on, he has been fine and healing perfectly. His eyes are still a little bruised and they could be red on the parts where the doctor did the surgery for up to a month, but his eyes are fixed and are working together, and we are so thankful for a successful surgery!!

Rance has really begun to understand and even speak a lot of English. Most days I hear more English than I do Ukrainian, which is really fun for us! "What is this, _____?" is a question we hear a lot! Some of them have been really hard to answer, like, "what is this because?" How do you explain what because is with the few words he understands? After two attempts he hasn't asked again, so maybe he got it, or maybe he just gave up!

Very rarely do we have issues of sharing toys, mostly the boys play really well together. Yesterday was a day I will treasure forever. The boys played together all day. They ran in circles and around the house playing peek a boo and laughing whenever they found each other. Then they played on the couch, rolling from the top of it to the floor, which really isn't allowed on the couches upstairs but it was so cute I couldn't tell them to stop!

Cavin is still trouble, more ornery than ever, and busy keeping up with big brother. Right now it is most entertaining to watch Cavin try to jump and do like Rance does. He still hasn't quite figured out how to jump off the ground, and its pretty cute to watch!

Cavin mostly keeps busy with his training. He got a basketball hoop for Christmas and he spends most of his days shooting hoops or working on his dribbling. You can't help but laugh in shock at how good he actually is! When he's not busy with basketball training he tends to play with one of the other hundreds of balls in our home, and if we're lucky, he might venture out of the ball zone to play with some blocks or cars!!

Here is one of my favorite pictures of the boys we got done a while back. It melts my heart!

A Big Day of Firsts!

2011-03-20T21:37:00.000-05:00

The boys woke up way earlier than normal this morning and I have been pretty sick with a cold and sore throat so I didn't get lunch prepped so we ended up eating at Arby's for lunch after church today. I was barely able to keep Cavin awake the short drive to Arby's let alone the 15 minutes home!

As a result, Rance got to experience curly fries for the very first time! He thought they were great and kept calling them circle fries! I don't think he understood curly and I didn't think to compare it to my mess of curly hair! He just saw them as circles, which the really curly onces all stuck together are!

We came home and transferred a sleeping Cavin from carseat to bed and shortly after Rance joined him for a nap of his own. After naptime they were begging to play outside but unfortunately both Matt and I had things that needed to get done inside. This is where I wish we had a fenced in backyard that was safe for the boys to play in! One of the big reasons we are wanting to move! So I got a little creative and put our spare baby gate to block off the deck stairs to create a safe place for them to play on our empty deck! I had Matt take out the basketball goal and some cars to for them to play with. I know it wasn't exactly how they were wanting to play outside but at least they were able to enjoy the beautiful day today and get some fresh air!

I did give them a popsicle for a snack, which they both loved! Another first for Rance!

It was so incredibly nice out today that before we left for small group I made Matt go down and grab the tub of clothes/shoes I have gradually been collecting for this summer through clearance and garage sales. I dug out a pair of flip flops for both the boys to wear! Cavin hates wearing socks and shoes, they typcially come off during the car ride, but for some reason the flip flops manage to stay on!

Rance thought he was pretty big stuff wearing his new flip flops, his third first for the day! He just kept walking around the house staring at his feet. It was pretty cute. Even at smallg roup he didn't want to take them off!

Tonight at small group we were outside the entire evening. I think all of the kids loved playing outside!

I definitely think I could get used to lots of days like today (with me feeling better of course!)

Rance is on spring break this week so I am hoping to plan a few fun things to do, I am thinking his first picnic is in order for sure, and maybe his first time swimming!

Slammed

2011-03-08T21:59:00.003-06:00

I cannot get over how busy we have been since arriving home! I have loved every second of it, especially reconnecting with our family and friends after being away for 2.5 months.

Some Firsts for Rance:
-Lots of food! We've been introducing him to mroe and more new foods, and for the most part, he loves them all!
-Lemonade-He loves it!
-First Pediatrician Appointment
    He had to get his finger poked and he cried more than Cavin did, and he got 3 shots! Other than that, he did great! He is 44 inches tall and 39 pounds!
-First Eye Doctor's Appointment
    We are thankful some friends of ours referred us to an amazing pediatric eye specialist. They were so sweet with Rance, while I was impressed with the amount of English Rance had learned already! We were pleased to confirm that he basically has 20/20 vision. He will be having eye surgery on March 30, it should be an in and out kind of deal.
-Wii
    A fellow in our small group introduced Rance to the Wii and he has been addicted since! We got him a Diego game which is perfect for his English level as it illustrates each direction given. He also loves bowling.
-Babysitter
    Matt and I were invited to a trivia night with some friends of ours, and while we wanted to go, we were hesitant to leave Rance. However, it just so happened these friends had adopted 2 girls from Russia about 5 or 6 years ago, who are now a sophomore and a senior. They also have two boys, a seventh and fourth grader. So we decided to give it a try. Rance did fabulous and we enjoyed our first night away in months!
-Challenge
    Rance attended his first Wednesday night class, after some convincing, all by himself. It helps that he clicked with another boy his age who was in the class as well! He really liked it, especially his teachers!
-Magic House
    We were blessed by some friends of ours who allowed the boys and I to use some of their guest passes and hang out with them for the day! Both boys had a lot of fun. I think Rance's favorite was the bubble room!
-Playtime Party Center
    Oversized McDonald's playground, lots of video games. Both of the boys had fun. Cavin of course loved the little mini pop-a-shot, and Rance loved the brightest games that made the most noise!
-Red Robin
    If you know Matt well, you know how important this is! Lol.
-Movie
    A local theatre here hosted a winter family series in which they showed old movies for free. We managed to make it to the last one, How to Train a Dragon in 10 Days. Rance loved it! We were also surprised at how well Cavin sat and watched it.
-Family Pictures
    I am curious to see how they turned out, it seems when one boy was cooperating the other wasn't and vice versa!
-Gymnastics
    This is something Matt and I debated, mainly because its kind of pricey for our budget, but Rance loves to do handstands, summersaults and backwards summersaults to flip up onto his feet. With his eye condition sports at this time aren't a great option, and with him being underdeveloped physically for his age, well, we decided it would be worth the financial sacrifice. He had his first class on Monday, and he smiled from ear to ear the entire time! He absolutely loved it. His teacher was impressed with his natural ability, and even more impressed when she found out he had no other training and just came from an orphanage a bit over a month ago. I think it will be well worth a little sacrifice on our end!

In other news, Rance continues surprise us with how quickly he is learning English and how well he continues to adjust. School is slowly growing on him. I actually think he really likes school, he just doesn't want to leave home or his family. He is really learning a lot. Rance also loves music. Anytime we are in the car he asks us to turn on HIS music! I don't mind so much but I think Matt kind of misses listening to talk radio on his way to work on the days he takes Rance to school! He knows most of the words to a lot of songs. We have a lot of fun singing together as a family and teaching Rance the motions. It melts my heart when we're out and about to hear Rance sing, "My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do..." his favorite song. I doubt he truly understands what he is singing orhow big God has already been in his life.

Cavin is in one word, trouble. He is into everything but his toys it seems! He does love to play basketball with his new hoop he got for Christmas! He's getting pretty good!! He has learned he is just tall enough to get into all kinds of new trouble. On his tippy toes he can help himself to a drink of water from the fridge dispenser, pull things off the cabinets and open the doors.

The other morning I was helping Rance for a few minutes when I felt a cool draft of air. I looked up to see the garage door wide open. I hurriedly slipped on some of Matt's shoes that were by the door and ran outside to find Cavin almost all the way down the driveway, in his jammies, happy as can be. As I scooped him up into my arms he giggled away. I seriously can't take my eyes off him for even a minute or two!

The boys have totally bonded. I always go inside to pick up Rance from school. I had stopped to talk to Matt, but Cavin had kept walking to where the kids were waiting. As soon as they saw each other, Cavin excitedly started laughing and began to run towards Rance with his arms outstretched, while Rance excitedly yelled "Cavin!" and ran towards him, picking up Cavin in a hug with lots of giggles. A moment my heart will treasure forever.

Christmas!

2011-02-21T22:53:00.000-06:00

This past weekend we traveled to my parents house to finally celebrate Christmas together! We are so thankful our family was willing to wait until we were home with Rance to celebrate! It was definitely weird wrapping presents, decorating a Christmas tree and filling stockings in the middle of February! It was so fun to watch Rance do all of this for the first time! It truly was treasured time with family!

Thursday evening we decorated the tree, well, mostly Rance and his cousin Gracie decorated the tree. My mom had found some plastic balls on clearance for them to use along with some candy canes. They were so proud of their decorating!

**First for Rance
-Decorating a Christmas Tree
-Spending the night at Grandma and Papa's house!
     He got to sleep upstairs with his cousins! It melted my heart to hear their giggling after they had been tucked into bed!

The weather was pretty nice on Friday so the kids were able to play outside and enjoy being at the farm. Rance loves being outside, although I think he was a little unsure of all of the animals!

I think the highlight of our day was when Rance and our nephew put on their new costumes. Rance loves Spiderman and was elated with his new and first costume. He and my nephew began jumping on my sister's bed, wrestling around and being boys in costumes. The funny thing is every couple of minutes Rance would jump down off the bed to look at himself in the mirror. At first he would just look at himself, but eventually he began acting silly, showing off his muscles the costume provided and making faces. The rest of us sitting in the living room were rolling with laughter watching him. It was moments that will forever be embedded on my heart. Moments that every child should experience, much before the age of 6.

**Firsts for Rance
-Haircut
    First thing on Friday Matt and Rance went to get haircuts. They went to an old school barber so I'm not loving the cuts, but I suppose its better than the shaggy hairdo's they were sporting! He did great!
-Swinging
He tried to swing on his own, which was pretty funny and quite cute, but I think he was starting to get it figured out by the end of the weekend!
-Seeing farm animals
    He got to see some brand new baby calves, horses, and a duck. Probably more.
-Playing in the haybarn.
    Definitely not scared to jump around on those haybales!
-Playing with sidewalk chalk.
-Riding a bike!
-Opening Christmas Presents!
    Friday evening we opened our gifts from each other, except for those from my parents.
-Wearing his first costume!

Saturday we awoke to three months of shopping from a person who loves to give gifts. We heard Rance's favorite word, "WOW!" with every present he opened. It broke our hearts yet filled them with joy at the same time. With one gift we even heard a "Really Wow!" We're not even sure where he learned the word really, which made it even more sweet.

Saturday was a relaxing day with our traditional family brunch after opening gifts, then time to play games, and enjoy being together. The only thing missing was a fire in the fireplace, but it was just too warm. My mom tried to convince my dad to turn on the a.c. to balance out the fire, but he didn't go for it.

**First for Rance
-Christmas morning, presents and stockings.

Sunday morning we got up and went to church with my parents. It had been a long time since I had been to the church I grew up in. With Matt working every Sunday we normally come home on Saturday nights. However, the church family had been so supportive and encouraging to us through the adoption process I wanted them to be able to meet Rance. So while Matt went home Saturday night, the boys and I stayed behind. Everyone loved meeting Rance and Grandma and Papa loved showing off their newest grandson.

Its good to be home once more, although I again face unpacking, laundry, and trying to find a place for all of the new toys the boys got. I am so ready to have my house organized!!Tomorrow I will begin shopping around for some cheap shelves, tubs or whatever I can find to help me get organized!

Today I got some things done, but it takes forever when you're having to rearrange everything to try and squeeze in the new things. I did finally take down our Christmas tree and the few decorations I had gotten out! I was sad at first, as I love Christmas, but then I remembered I could get out my hand painted eggs from Austria, which I also love.

Finally

2011-02-15T16:57:00.000-06:00

We have absolutely loved being home, but boy, the unpacking has been brutal! It would help of course if we were home!

Saturday we traveled to Palmyra to celebrate the life of my Great Uncle Walter Tuley, Sr. While most people hardly know their great aunts and uncles, Uncle Walter was in many ways like a second Grandpa to me. In fact, after my own Grandpa passed away, I remember Uncle Walter coming over to me, putting his hand on my shoulder and telling me it would be ok, he would be there for me, and he was. Uncle Walter and my Grandpa were alike in so many ways, so while a few of his grandchildren shared memories of their grandfather, I couldn't help the tears that came to my own eyes as many of their memories were just like mine.

**First for Rance
-Drinking out of a Water Fountain! Hilarious to say the least! Not sure what received more water, Rance's clothes or his stomach!!

We had been debating on if we should take Rance to church on Sunday or not. However, we figured if he had survived the massive Tuley family with flying colors he could definitely handle church! Rance was a little more shy on Sunday morning but he did great. He played with Cavin and I in the nursery the first hour and then went to church with me the second hour. During church he couldn't get over the big "television screens" and he absolutely loved the music! He clapped away and tried to sing along! We were again impressed with how well he did in completely new surroundings and meeting lots of new people!

**First for Rance
-Eating his first donut!! He loved it!

Monday we took Rance to his first day of school. Although he is 6 and should be in Kindergarten, we decided preschool would be a better fit for him at this time. I am not sure what Rance's perception of school is, but every time we have asked him if he wants to go, he says no. So I had to literally drag him to the car Monday morning to leave for school. We went into the Valentine's Day party and he was able to meet his friends (he was again shy), and participate in the party. He didn't want to give his Spiderman valentine's away at first, then I showed him that the other kids had valentines to give him. Once he realized what was happening, he was happy to put a valentine in each box. I think he really liked school and he told Matt last night during his bath that he went to school and said yes when Matt asked him if he liked it. He did ask to go home a few times, asked to go play with Cavin once, and still says he doesn't want to go back to school!

**Firsts for Rance
-Going to School
-Using scissors and glue
-Valentine's Party!

I was really tired yesterday for some reason, so my plans for a big homecooked meal complete with Matt's favorites for Valentine's day didn't happen. Instead he ended up going and getting 2 Little Ceasar's hot and ready pizza's. I fell asleep at 7:30 while Matt watched KU lose to K-State. What a romantic Valentine's day, huh?

Tuesday, finally a day at home for the boys and I! I wanted to take Rance to school, but we don't feel he is ready to be left alone yet, and I desperately needed a day at home to catch up. So we stayed home so I could get some stuff done! I have finally caught up on the laundry, I have one more load to fold and then I should be done for a few days! I jokingly told Matt if this is what laundry for a family of four looks like, maybe we'll be done having kids! I was able to get my kitchen cleaned up although I still have a lot of deep cleaning in there that I want to get done. But my big accomplishment was getting everything unpacked and put away. I have swept my hard floors but still need to run the vaccuum on the upstairs carpet. Not to bad, I don't think, with lots of breaks inbetween to play with the boys, help them with something, feed them, change diapers and the like. It feels so good to have my house somewhat organized and cleaned again!

Firsts for Rance
-Blowing bubbles! Someone gave him a bottle and he has been dying to use them. Finally this afternoon we went outside and he blew bubbles! Lots of giggles!

Tomorrow, we try school again....praying Rance does well!

The Long Awaited Pics!

2011-02-12T18:50:00.000-06:00

This is our second family picture taken of us. It was taken just a few days before we were finally able to pick Rance up from the orphanage forever! It was taken the day we had brought the clothes we had bought for him to try on.

Love my boys!

Wow!!

2011-02-11T08:30:00.000-06:00

I can't tell you how many times we have heard this word. Everything is so new to Rance. His eyes light up, his smile is big, and with awe he will whisper "wow!" It melts my heart!

We arrived home to discover a couple of surprises. We hadn't done much to prepare for the addition of our newest son, since we were so unsure on ages and sizes and interests. We knew Rance would be sharing a room with Cavin, so we cleaned out the closet to make room for Rance's things and rearranged the room to add a toddler bed in the mix. The rest I was planning on figuring out and organizing when we got home.

After finding out Rance was 6, some of our closets friends decided it would be helpful and fun to get the room ready for us. I am not a fan of surprises, and I am a perfectionist, which creates two problems. One, I am sure my house was not up to my standards yet company was in it. Secondly, I am typically really picky on how I want things, to the point normally Matt just stays out of the way.

I will say I knew something was up, as my friends had my mom trying to hint around and ask questions without letting me know what was really going on. But I wasn't expecting anything quite so big. Rance has his very own twin sized bed, complete with the comforter I had been saving up to buy for him! They also redecorated the walls a bit, something I was wanting to do after we got home. They also bought a nice 6 cube shelf for the closet to help organize clothes.

Rance walked in his room and his eyes lit up, and with a look of awe on his face he said, "Wow!". Matt and I wholeheartedly agreed! All four of us really love the room! Although it might of pushed me out of my comfort zone a bit, it has been a tremendous blessing to us!

They had also organized a "shower" or sorts and we walked into our living room to find several gifts for Rance. He had fun opening each gift, although like any child he much preferred the few toys over all the clothes! We had bought only 1 pair of pants and 2 shirts so it was perfect that we had some clothes here for Rance to wear!

Rance slept great in his new bed and Matt and I couldn't get over how comfortable our bed was! Cavin slept ok for not feeling well, and was up at 4:30am.

Yesterday we took Cavin to the doctor to find out he had one ear that was healing from an infection (Kiev) while his other ear was becoming quite infected. While Matt took Cavin to the doctor I went with my mom and sister to get some necessities for Rance and other things we needed for ourselves. I needed to pick up a few clothes for Cavin as he has gotten so tall, so we stopped by the Carter's outlet and I found some great deals on clothes for Cavin and of course, some clothes for Rance! I got everything for only a couple of dollars except for one shirt that was $4!

We came home to eat lunch and relax for a bit, but then we decided it was so nice to be out that we left again! We went to get Matt's glasses fixed and look at some frames for Rance. Then we headed to Target. Oh, how I have missed Target!

Next we headed to see our chiropractor, whom we have really missed! It felt so good to get adjusted! Even Rance got adjusted! After watching mommy and daddy do it, he didn't hesitate when the doctor said it was his turn. He just climed right up on the table and laid down. I had Matt check while he was being adjusted, and Matt said he had a grin on his face the whole time! As we were leaving the doctor gave him two stickers and one silly band bracelet, both items a first for Rance. To each item Rance promptly said "Wow!" in his awestruck way. I couldn't even get him to zip his coat up over the stickers on his shirt to go outside!

We made a few more stops on our way home, well I did. The boys waited in the van. We have all this lovely snow outside, so I was looking for snowpants for the boys and a couple of sleds. Rance has never played in the snow before! I think people here are a little ahead of themselves though as I couldn't find a single pair of snowpants in Rance's size nor any sleds in the Wal-Marts and Targets I looked in. I could find everything one would need to get their swimming pool up and running, swimsuits, and lots of shorts and tank tops!

Last night we had a nice, relaxing evening at home. The boys played while Matt and I began to tackle our mountain of laundry and the tedious task of unpacking. I really don't like unpacking!

Flying Home!

2011-02-10T22:52:00.000-06:00

We woke up at 1:30am Kiev time to begin our journey home. Matt and I both wanted to shower and we needed time to pack up our last minute things. We woke the boys up at 2 after Matt and Yuri had very carefully crammed all of our stuff into his car. It was about a 30 minute drive to the airport. It wasn't until we arrived at the airport that it actually began to feel like we were on our way home! Because we had two kiddos in tow we were whisked through check in, customs, and security. It was wonderfully free of stress! Both of the boys ran around like crazy until it was time to board flight one of three. Our first flight was from Kiev to Frankfurt and was rather uneventful. Once Cavin fell asleep Matt napped with him while I stayed awake with Rance.

Our layover in Frankfurt was short, just enough time to grab some coffee for me, Coke for Matt, and a snack for the boys. I got some cute pictures of both boys in front of our plane. It was a "double-decker." Rance was in awe and couldn't get over how big it was! We were blessed this time with bulkhead seats, in my opinion, a definite must for any flights with little ones, but especially long flights! There is actually space for a child to get down and walk or play in front of the seats without getting in the way in the asile.

The first part of our second flight was rough. Cavin's fever had returned and I could tell he was exhausted and not feeling well. He was crying with quiet, but still high pitched, screams mixed in. He cried for 45 minutes until I finally got him to sleep. Eventually we were able to get the bassinet put up and we were shocked as Cavin slept for 5--yes 5--hours out of our 9 hour flight. It took us a while to convince Rance that he needed to sleep as well, but once he sat still for a few minutes he was asleep as well. He slept for about 4 hours. I was able to sleep most of the time the boys were, while Matt dozed while watching a movie.

The last part of the flight was filled with coloring and playing and entertaining both boys. We were very pleased with how well both boys did during the 8 hours and 50 minute flight!!

We arrived in Chicago and Rance stepped foot on United States soil for the first time, becoming a legal citizen!! After we got off of the plane and out of the way, I stopped on one knee and told Rance "Welcome to America." As we walked towards customs Rance kept repeating "America" over and over again, pronouncing it A-mer-ri-ca, rolling the second r sound, with a sound of awe in his voice. Too cute.

Going through customs was a little stressful, you have to pick up all of your luggage, take it to get scanned and then recheck it with your airline. Plus we had two little boys who just wanted to run and exert all of the pent up energy from being cramped in an airplane for almost 9 hours, when we needed them to be still! Thankfully most of the security officers were understanding, and we made it through in okay time.

We got our bags rechecked and through security again and headed off to our gate for our final flight only to find that our flight to Saint Louis had been delayed over an hour. Ugh. We stopped at Chili's to eat a little bit and rest while we made our first phone calls in over 2 and 1/2 months!

It was hard keeping the boys calm while we waited, but thankfully Cavin took a short nap and Rance rested while listening to some music on an ipod. He is starting to sing along with some of the songs! He still needs to learn not to sing along so loudly...

We finally borded our flight to Saint Louis, which thankfully was up, and basically right back down. Rance sat next to me and we colored most of the way while Matt and Cavin played with his busy book. Rance loved seeing all of the lights on the ground, lots of "ooh's, aah's and wow's!" We landed and were off to meet family!

Papa and Grandma Tuley, Unce Nate, cousins-Gracie and Samuel, and Aunt Becca were there waiting to meet us! Rance was pretty shy, but still said hi to everyone and gave them all hugs. Cavin and Rance both slept on the drive back to our house.

We were so excited to finally be home. All day Rance had been asking us when we were going to be at his new home. When we landed in Saint Louis he asked if the airport was his house, even though he had seen pictures of our house, I think he was just so ready to be there already!

Visa!!!!

2011-02-08T08:14:00.000-06:00

We cannot believe the adoption process is finally over...its really finished...we're kind of in shock!

We to got to the Embassy, paid the fee for the visa, and then submitted another paper they were needing. Then we waited for our names to be called for the interview.

After about 15 minutes we were called back for the interview. I didn't really know what to expect, but beings they call it an interview I was expecting to be asked some questions. However, all they did was make us swear that we had filled out the paperwork truthfully, then sign all of the papers. Then we were told, "Congratulations, your visa process is completed!" Please wait while we get the visa printed within the next hour!

So we walked around the corner to a waiting room where they had some toys and books. I read a few books to Rance while Matt kept up with Cavin. Then I began speaking with a woman who was adopting their third child, an adorable 22 month old girl, from Ukraine (they had adopted the older 2 siblings last year). In about 30 minutes our names were called again, Rance's visa was printed and ready! I wrapped up my conversation with the lady and out we went!

We're now back at the apartment and soon the packing will begin in earnest!

Still cannot believe the adoption is finally complete!! We are really getting excited to be home!!

Please pray for packing to go smoothly, for the boys to go to bed early so we can finish up and get some sleep ourselves. Yuri will be at our apartment to pick us up at 2:50am...yah. It will be interesting trying to cram all of our stuff into his car and then waking the boys up at such a crazy hour. Our flight leaves Ukraine at 5:30am, which is 9:30pm tonight STL time. We have layovers in Munich, Germany and Chicago. Total travel time:22 hours.

Please pray for no delays in our flights and for safe travel!

We're praying the boys will sleep during our first flight to Munich and the first part of our transatlantic flight to help with the time change back to the States. Then we're praying they will be well behaved for the remainder of our flight time.

My next blog update will be Stateside!! I know you are all anxious to see pictures, please be patient with us, they are coming, we promise!

U.S. Visa:Part One

2011-02-07T12:45:00.000-06:00

This morning Matt and Rance left the apartment at 8am to head to the International Hospital here in Kiev to start on the first part of getting an immigrant visa for Rance to enter the States. Since Cavin was still feverish and not feeling well he and I stayed behind. Matt said they had to wait a long time before they were seen by the doctor. Definitely glad I stayed behind with the fussy baby! They finally got in and Rance was examined by the doctor. Then she looked through his medical history, filled out a vaccination chart in English and then filled out a bunch of paperwork for us to submit to the U.S. Embassy on his medical history.

Meanwhile I was beginning to wonder if they were ever going to come and pick Cavin and I up for our appointment at the Embassy at 10:30! Finally around 10:10 Yuri called to tell me they were close and to head downstairs. Our appointment was smooth and easy. I stood at a window and a very kind lady helped me finish filling out the parts of the paperwork we were unsure about. The lady had sent Matt and the boys to a waiting room around the corner to play while I finished up the paperwork. It took me about 20 minutes to get everything finished up and then we were on our way!

Tomorrow at 2:00 we will go back to the Embassy for our second appointment, which is our official interview. We don't really know what to expect, but I imagine it will be fairly simple. We should have his visa around an hour after our interview! Once we have his visa we are completely ready to come back to the States!

Tonight we will begin reorganizing things and packing up!

One of Rance's new phrases is "I don't know." He first heard it during a phone conversation with my mom and has since mastered the phrase. Today while they were waiting for the doctor Rance was trying to name Ukrainian letters using the English alphabet. He would ask what a letter was and Matt would say it, then he would repeat it. Until they came to a letter in the Ukrainian alphabet that is unknown to Matt, he would say "I don't know," which Rance would then repeat. Its pretty cute!

We also tried McDonald's again today. We would have rather ate elsewhere but like in the States, its much cheaper than other places to eat, so that's where we headed. The first time we tried a cheeseburger which Rance didn't know how to eat and wasn't fond of. So today I tried chicken nuggets with sweet and sour sauce, and we he devoured all 4 of them, using the entire thing of sauce! He even tried to eat the sweet and sour sauce straight from the container, which we quickly told him no too. But it made me think of my Grandpa Tuley, who first introduced me to sweet and sour sauce! He loved that stuff, I suppose he would be proud I have continued to pass the love of the sauce down to my kiddos too. Lol.

I'm off to get the boys to bed and to get some stuff done before we finally get some sleep.

Please be praying for us to get the visa tomorrow shortly after our appointment!

Please also continue to pray for Cavin to get better! His fever is still hanging on, his nose is still running, and he still isn't feeling well. We are praying he is much better by Wednesday when we travel.

Our Last Sunday!

2011-02-06T11:46:00.000-06:00

Cavin has still been battling whatever sickness he has. Thursday night he spiked a low grade fever that turned into a higher fever on Friday. Knowing he had an infection and a fever was a natural part of fighting infection, I decided to just give him tylenol and wait it out a few days.

His fever would break with the tylenol and then go right back up as it wore off. This continued Friday, and all day Saturday. Worried he might have an ear infection and being so close to flying, I decided to call Dr.Yuri and he came back to the apartment Saturday night. Dr. Yuri agreed that the fever was part of the process of fighting off an infection, but also knew our concern with flying. We both decided it would be best to get some antibiotics and get rid of the infection before flying. He walked down to the pharmacy and came back with an antibiotic that we began giving to Cavin Saturday night.

Cavin slept well last night but you can tell our poor little guy is sick. He has still had a fever, although it hasn't been as high as it was. Hopefully he is on the mend and will be better by Tuesday night before flying Wednesday morning.

Saturday morning we kept hearing this beeping sound and couldn't figure out where it was coming from. I went to change Cavin's diaper and lo and behold, the thermometer was on, in the pantleg of his pj's! In case you're wondering, his foot temperature was 97.1! Lol.

We have taken his temperature often so Cavin has naturally learned what the thermometer is for. Several times he has grabbed the thermometer and tried to put it down his shirt to take his own temperature. The funny thing is most times he can't get it back out, so he just lets it fall down his shirt or pajama's and goes on about his business!

Rance is doing well. He absolutely loves baths. Last night was the first night since we got Rance that we haven't done baths for the boys. Dr. Yuri was here late and we just didn't get around to it. Rance was pretty sad about it, but we promised he could take a bath "tomorrow." He is currently playing away in the bath tub while I type this.

**First for Rance
-Putting his head completely under water! I guessed he just did this by the amount of coughing I just heard and Matt just confirmed it. Now to teach him to close his mouth...

We have been going through the slide show we made him a while ago to introduce him to his family at home. He has Grandma and Papa down and is working on the names of all of his aunts, uncles and cousins! He had a really hard time saying Christen, the first few times he said it, it came out more like "Christmas!" Now he's got all of the names down and they have been added into the other words he randomly says throughout the day.

Tomorrow morning at 8 Matt and Rance will head to the embassy for Rance's medical evaluation/exam. Then they will come by and pick up Cavin and I and we will head to our first appointment with the U.S. Embassy for Rance's visa.

Prayer Request!
-That we will receive Rance's visa Tuesday night!
-For Cavin to get quickly get better so we don't have to travel with a sick baby!

Passport!!

2011-02-05T08:15:00.001-06:00

Sorry for the lack of updates the past few days. Cavin has not been feeling well and has been demanding more of our time with keeping his nose clean and some fussiness here and there.

On Thursday evening we had a doctor come to the apartment to check on Cavin. He had been fighting a cold for over a week and I felt like it was getting worse, especially his cough. I also wanted to make sure he didn't have an ear infection before flying. The doctor was really nice, and did great with Cavin. He said Cavin had a viral respiratory infection and walked with Matt down the street to the drugstore to buy medicine. Then he walked back with Matt so we could write down the directions for the 6, almost all of them were all natural, medicines. Love that he was able to come the night we called, was so nice and thorough and helpful, and it only cost us $40.

We have been enjoying our time together as a family at "our" apartment here in Kiev.The boys have really started to bond and playing with each other, which melts my heart! Of course they are still learning to share with each other, and that's not always easy.

Rance has been doing really well for the most part. We have had a few tears, but only one time were they unrelated to getting in trouble. =) We continue to try and teach Rance English.We think he is beginning to understand a lot of what we say and he is learning new words everyday.

Yesterday we were walking and he was skipping so I began singing "Skip, skip, skip to my lou....skip to my lou my darling" and Rance caught on rather quick. He sings it "Skip, skip, skippy my lou, skip, skip, skippy my lou, skip, skip, skippy my lou skippy my lou my darling.." Its too cute!! Its nice for us to have a break from the alphabet song too!

Yesterday afternoon we found out that Rance's Ukrainian passport was finished! An answer to prayer that it was finished sooner than we had planned! We got a call late last night letting us know that it had arrived in Kiev. We are now completely done with everything in Ukraine, just need to get his U.S. visa and we're good to go! We have already been pre-approved for a visa for Rance, but we still have to fill out a lot of paperwork this weekend. Then Monday we will take Rance to the Embassy doctor to be checked out, then to our first appointment at the Embassy to turn in our paperwork. Tuesday we will have our interview and then we are praying we can get his visa picked up Tuesday night...normally this is the case....but due to our experience here we are a little nervous about this!

Today we walked just across the street to a pizza place. Before we left we asked Rance if he wanted to eat pizza and he got a big smile on his face and shook his head yes. However, he didn't seem to like it all that much and needed some prodding to finish his one piece. Hopefully he grows to love pizza as much as his daddy does, because we eat it a lot!

**Firsts for Rance
-Eating Pizza!
-Riding in an Elevator (Our apartment is on the third floor)
-Riding on an Escalator (Nervous to get on and off the first time, but thought it was pretty fun after that!)
-Ice (Both Cavin and Rance tried ice for the first time on Friday! They both loved it!)
-Cold Cereal (This morning instead of hot oatmeal we let the boys eat cold cereal, Matt wasn't sure if he would like it because it was cold, but I was like, of course he'll like it, its sugar coated! I was right, he loved it!)

Tonight we will begin finishing up laundry that we need to get done and beginning to reorganize and repack our suitcases. We are hoping to have pretty much everything done by Sunday night as we know Monday and Tuesday will be busy with getting Rance's visa.

Its hard to believe we will be leaving on Wednesday. We are so ready and excited to be back home, but after being here for over 2 months it seems unreal!

Second Day of the Second Month, 2011

2011-02-02T14:11:00.001-06:00

Thankful for a low key day!

Rance woke us up singing his ABC's just before 8, which just made us laugh. While they ate some yogurt for breakfast we began to pack things up. Around 10 we were packed and everyone was ready so we walked a block to another one of our favorite cafe's for brunch. Then it was back to the hotel to load all of our stuff into the trunk of a small foreign car! It took Oleg and Matt a few tries to figure out how it would all fit, as there was no room to spare!

Then we were off to Kiev! We were not expecting to be able to return to Kiev until we had picked up Rance's passport. Thanks to Olegs lawyer friend in Kirovograd, who is picking it up when it is ready and sending it to us on the bus, we got to return earlier!

It took us about 5 hours to drive to Kiev thanks to poor road conditions and getting stuck behind slow driver. We arrived in Kiev around 5pm, just in time for evening traffic!!

We finally got to our apartment and got unloaded. Cavin had barely napped and Rance hadn't napped at all and they were both getting sleepy so we were thankful to get out!

After visiting with Yuri (facilitator in Kiev) for a little while he headed out and we put a few things away and then headed out for dinner.

**Firsts for Rance:
-McDonalds!! We ordered him a cheeseburger happy meal.
-First time eating a sandwich. We had to show him out to eat it! Lol.

He only ate about half of the cheeseburger and a few french fries. So far he has devoured everything we have given him, so we're not sure if he didn't like it or if he wasn't hungry. We had stopped around 2 for a snack.

Then we walked to the grocery store to get milk, yogurt, fresh fruit, lunch meat, cheese and bread.

**Firsts for Rance:
-Using toilet paper.

We had begun to get a little worried as Rance hadn't had to use the bathroom since leaving the orphanage. We had just went to the dairy department of the grocery store when he said he needed to use the toilet. We were thankful the grocery store has a public restroom and that we were right next to it when he needed to use it! Matt said Rance wasn't so sure about the toilet paper, but hopefully he'll get used to it. At the orphanage each child had a special towel to use as they could not afford toilet paper.

Once we got back to the apartment we let the boys play for a while before starting in on bath time and getting them to bed.

**Firsts for Rance:
-Sleeping in a room by himself! Maybe!

Our apartment here (same one we stayed in the first month in Ukraine) has a loft with a bed in it, where Rance currently is trying to go to sleep. We'll see how it goes.

We are thankful to be back in Kiev, in an apartment that is almost 3 times the size of our hotel room in Alexandria. Much more room for two very active little boys!

**First for All of Us:
-First time in over a month we are alone, without our facilitator.

It is so nice to have some family time, its nice that Rance doesn't have a facilitator to rely on, and that we can be more independent and do more on our own!

One week from today and we will be on U.S. soil! Finally!!!!

02.01.2011

2011-02-02T13:48:00.001-06:00

Morning arrived way to early after a sleepless night. Matt and I were up at 5:30 to get ourselves ready so we would have plenty of time to wake both boys up and get them fed and ready to leave by 7am. We weren't sure how the morning would go, but Rance woke up rather easily, with no potty accident, and ate his cereal concoction daddy made him like a champ! We were thankful to be ready with a few minutes to spare!

Oleg picked us up at 7 and we were off. We were headed to the region where Rance was born and lived before coming to the orphanage. We thought it was about a 2 hour drive from Alexandria where we were. Ha. 4 very long hours later we arrived. Riding with two wiggly little boys with Matt and I in the backseat was interesting to say the least. Not to mention how many times we heard Rance sing the ABC's!

First item on the agenda: get a new birth certificate for Rance with his new name and listing Matt and I as his parents. Its an answer to prayer that we were able to do this at all on Tuesday. Last week Yulia found out that the birth certificate office was closed from January 31-February 5 as they would be working on in office documents only. Thankfully between Yulia and Oleg calling and begging one of the ladies at the office, she said she would work us in first thing Tuesday morning. PRAISE GOD!

**Firsts for Rance
-Playing outside! Rance said he couldn't remember the last time he had been outside the orphanage. So sad! He ran around, jumped around, carefully stepped on the squares and had a grand time. Cavin of course, was trying to keep up, but couldn't quite figure out how to jump. Truly priceless!

While the lady prepared the new birth certificate we walked down the street to a cafe to eat lunch. It was freezing in the cafe. Normally places are cold here, but it was so cold you could see your breath. This cafe was definitely proof that looks can be deceiving. The dining area looked pretty nice, chair covers, table cloths, nice curtains and rugs. However, I walked through the back to the bathroom, passing the kitchen on the way. Let's just say this, I wouldn't have used the bathroom if you paid me a million dollars, and I am amazed that we didn't get food poisoning after seeing the kitchen.

After an hour wait we picked up the new birth certificate! Yulia said that normally its a 3-5 hour wait and we were again thankful for God's provision as we were on a very tight time schedule.

Next on the agenda: Changing Rance's personal number (like our social security number).
We were able to wait in the car while Oleg changed the number for us. It only took about 20 minutes.

Then we were off to Kirovograd where we would get the paperwork notarized and apply for Rance's passport.

It took us about 2 and 1/2 hours to get to Kirovograd where we again waited in the car while Oleg worked with a friend who is a lawyer to get some paperwork notarized. Then we went across town to the passport office. Oleg, Matt and Rance went in while Yulia, Cavin and I waited in the car...again! At this point it was 4:30 and were just thankful we were in time to apply for his passport. It took them about 40 minutes in the passport office and then we were done for the day!

We stopped to get gas, had to stop and get a few more official pictures of Rance for other documents and then we headed back to Alexandria. We ate at the "cafe on the road" which is connected to a gas station that had become our favorite place to eat. We wanted to eat there one last time before leaving. They have this honey cake that is to die for. I asked for the recipe everytime we ate there but sadly never got it.

**Firsts for Rance:
-French Fries and a Juice Box!

As usual, Cavin had charmed the waitresses and while we were eating Yulia said that Cavin's favorite waitress, a very tall blonde, had just said that she was waiting for Cavin to get done eating! As soon as Cavin was done he climbed down and headed towards the counter where he was promptly picked up, passed around and smothered with kisses. Rance tagged right along. He had a conversation with one of the ladies, and I wish I knew what he said!

We headed back to the hotel for the night, where we had two little boys with lots of energy from being in a car all day. Bath time was even more crazy! We finally got them both to sleep and thankfully they both slept well through the night and so did Matt and I!

Monday, January 31, 2011

2011-02-02T13:20:00.003-06:00

We left at 12:30 to walk to the courthouse which is about a 20 minute walk from our hotel. The official court decision was supposed to be ready at 1:00 when the courthouse reopened from its lunch hour. We waited in line until about 1:20 to go into the office to find out that they did not have it ready for us. They sent us to another office. We walked around the corner and into the second office to find out they didn't have it either. They sent us to the office next door.

You can imagine our relief when they said they had made 15 copies (as requested by our translator) of the court decision and given them to the judge. So then we headed upstairs and Yulia, our translator asked about the court decision. I guess the secretaries had better things to do than prepare our copies of the court decision as I don't think they had even started on them when we came to pick them up. Major frustration.

So we waited, for almost an hour for the two secretaries to "work" on putting together our official copies of the court decision. The decision is two pages, which were signed by the judge, sewn (kind of like bound) together on one side, then stamped with the official seal. One of the secretaries kept coming in and out of the office, twice with a mug to go get more tea/coffee. Then after about 20 minutes she came out with her coat on and just left. I was like, seriously??

We finally got to the orphanage to pick Rance up at 3:30. We gave his new clothes to a caregiver to get him changed while we signed papers to "check him out" of the orphanage. Rance came downstairs dressed in his new clothes with a huge smile on his face. We finished up signing papers then put on his hat, coat and gloves and then he practically ran out of the orphanage. I did manage to stop him to get a picture of him outside of the orphanage!

We went straight back to the hotel where Rance began exploring every little thing. We finally tore him away to eat at the cafe connected to the hotel. He didn't understand why we had to wait on the food to come to us, as he is used to being called to eat when the food was ready and on the table. We had to keep reminding him to slow down!

**Firsts for Rance:
-First time to eat a hot dog! Ukrainian version at least.
-First time eating with a fork! They used only spoons at the orphanage.

During dinner Yulia somehow found out that the caregivers woke all of the kids at the orphanage up twice during the night to take them to the bathroom. Understandable for sure considering all but a few of the kids were special needs and doing laundry with no dryer with that many kids for potty accidents just isn't realistic. Still.

After dinner we went back to the hotel room where Rance continued to bounce of the walls exploring both his new freedom and a new enviornment. Cavin continued to try and keep up, but at times would just stare in awe of all the cool things (and trouble!) his big brother could do (find)!

**Firsts for Rance!
-Talking to Grandma Tuley and Grandma Clapham on Skype!

We finally wrangled both of the boys into the bathtub. This was the first time we had seen Rance without clothes on. We knew he was skinny, but this was the first time we really saw how skinny he is. He is literally skin and bones. He was a little unsure of the bath but having Cavin in there with him seemed to help him relax as soon it was crazy in the tiny bathtub!

**Another First for Rance:
-Took his first bath!

Rance told us at the orphanage that a caregiver helped him bathe and that water was poured over his head. I asked him if it was with a shower hose and he said no. I asked him if they used a bucket to dump the water over his head and he laughed. So who knows.

After baths and getting them dressed we finally got Rance into bed (cot) and Cavin to sleep. It took Rance a while to fall asleep, but he slept through the night! Matt and I didn't sleep well at all however, just couldn't get comfortable and get to sleep. Matt got up twice to ask Rance to go potty. The first time Rance just said no, the second time he said no, covered his head with the pillow and rolled away from Matt!

**Firsts for Rance:
-Getting tucked into bed by a mommy and daddy, complete with prayers, kisses and I love you's!

We had been warned that bedtime was the hardest on orphans with their new families and that we could face lots of tears throughout the night. Matt and I were both relieved and thankful there were no melt downs with Rance and that Cavin wasn't acting jealous at all with having Rance in his space and him being with us all the time. Instead we had lots of hugs, smiles and "love you's!"

Four!

2011-01-31T13:37:00.000-06:00

It still seems unreal but we are officially a family of four!!

We have had a good evening and both boys went to sleep rather easily. Praying we all get a good nights sleep as we have a long day tomorrow!

More to come about today sometime soon!

Orphanage Tour!

2011-01-30T13:12:00.001-06:00

Cannot believe tonight was our last visit with Rance at the orphanage. It seems like it has taken so long to get to this point that its hard to believe we've finally arrived at this long awaited time! Tomorrow we will get the official court decree and finally get to pick Rance up from the orphanage! God is faithful!

Here is a tour of the orphanage....

This is the front of the orphanage.

This is immediately inside the front door.

This is right on the other side of the curtains. To the left is the room for the kids 4 and under that we rarely got to see. To the right is the kitchen, offices and the room in which we visited Rance.

This is the room in which we were allowed to visit with Rance everyday. We visited 38 days, for a total of 76 hours spent in this room!

This is the upstairs "foyer."

This room is to the left of the upstairs foyer. Each child has a locker where they keep their outfit and pajama's and slippers for the week. You can't see the other set of lockers which includes Rance's, but they are immediately on the left when you walk through the door. The door on the right is the toilet and the door on the left is the sleeping room. You can see a glimpse of a doorway just before the lockers on the left which goes into the main room where Rance's group spends all of their time.

This is the sleeping room where all of the 9 kiddos in Rance's group sleep. Rance's bed is the fourth one back on the right side.

This is the room Rance's group spends all of their time in. Rance said he doesn't even remember the last time he was outside. Its not a large room, I am standing against one wall to take this picture. Its not child friendly in its decorations, just plain white walls and plain white lace curtains. There are few toys for the children to play with, in the left corner is their "house" area, with a small table and 2 plastic chairs and 2 dolls. Then there is a small kitchen set and then the wooden "desk" with the mirror is their barber shop. The wall I am standing against is just shelves that hold their stuffed animals and few toys. In one corner there are some plant stands with small green plans and an aquarium, but I don't remember if there are any fish in it or not.

That's all we were allowed to see and take pictures of. Its a rather small orphanage with only 23 kids in it (soon to be only 22!!). It is also a special needs orphanage. Rance was put there because of his eye condition, there were a few with down syndrome and several with symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome and several that looked healthy and normal!

Tomorrow we wait until the court gives us the official court decree saying Rance is ours and then we will go straight to the orphanage to pick Rance up! We will have to sign papers, change Rance's clothes and help Rance say good bye and that will be the last we will see of this place!

We have asked Rance several times if he is ready to leave the orphanage forever, to never come back, and each time he says yes without hesitation. However, I think tomorrow will be hard on him and I know it will be hard on the caregivers who love him very much and his friends who will be left behind.

As we were taking pictures Friday night of the orphanage and of Rance's group both Matt and I's hearts were breaking. They were breaking for all of the sweet children left behind, one little girl in particular stole our hearts right away. She is also Rance's closest friend.

There is a caregiver there who loves Rance very much and is very close to him. We wanted a picture of her with Rance but she wouldn't even come in the room because she said it would be too hard on her and she knew she would cry.

So tomorrow while we will be so excited to finally make Rance a part of our family, we realize we will be breaking hearts of those left behind in order to do so.

Please pray for the caregivers and the other children, specifically the other 8 left in Rance's group tomorrow. Pray that God will comfort their hurting hearts and pray that the children will understand why they were "left behind."

Please pray for Rance. Although he says he is ready I know leaving tomorrow will be hard on him. This orphanage is almost all he has ever known.

Please pray for Cavin as he will adjust to having big brother around full time, not just for two hours everyday.

Please pray for us, pray that we will be compassionate for those who are hurting and that we will have wisdom to help guide Rance through this life change.

Taxi

2011-01-27T12:22:00.000-06:00

This is our mostly faithful taxi.

We have been using this taxi for over a month. We discovered they were $5.00 cheaper per round trip to the orphanage and back, which doesn't sound like a lot, but times that by 30 days and we've already saved over $150! The orphanage is about a 20 minute drive one way from the orphanage, depending on who we get stuck behind and the weather conditions. We are thankful they were willing to cut us a deal and have been able to drive us wherever we need at anytime.

We have 2 drivers, Roma and Oleg. They are both in their mid to upper 20's and are really nice guys. Through our translator we have gotten to know a little about each of them, as they have learned about our story as well.

We say this is our mostly faithful taxi because its a very old car and we've had a few occurrences when it would not start. Its funny because each time it happens it is with Oleg, the younger and seemingly not as car smart of the two drivers. The first time happened when Oleg came to pick us up to take us to the orphanage. It wouldn't even turn over so within a few minutes he was pushing us down the road to get it started.

The second time it happened when Oleg was picking us up from our visit at the orphanage. This time the car would turn over, but still not start. Oleg tried several different things but still couldn't get it to start. He finally called another taxi to drive out and get us. We finally suggested push starting it about the same time a group of 4 teenage boys were walking down the road. So the 4 boys pushed from behind (Oleg wouldn't let Matt help) and Oleg pushed from the driver's side door. We were thankful for the help as the roads in the village where the orphanage is are not cleared of snow. The car finally started as we neared the end of the road!

We especially love the way the taxi lights up at night, you know me, I love colors so this taxi is perfect for me! Ha! Roma laughed at me as I took a picture, but I wanted to remember our mostly faithful taxi, especially all lit up at night!

New Clothes!

2011-01-26T13:57:00.001-06:00

I have been browsing for clothes for Rance for quite a while now, trying to see what was out there, what store had the best prices and where I could find what. All of the stores are tiny and just like the States, have only a few racks of boy clothes compared to the racks of girl clothes! Plus, you're lucky if they have more than one size in what they do have. Top that off with most of clothes being far from cute and me being picky and frugal, well, its been a challenge to say the least!

However, I knew I had to get some things for Rance to wear while here for 10 days before flying home. So yesterday I began by going to the outdoor market in the freezing cold. We got there right as most people were closing up shop so we didn't get to look much at all. Then we hit all but a few of the kids stores in town on our way home. I came home with one long sleeved t-shirt with Spiderman on it. Not that I liked it, but Rance seems to love Spiderman (about the only superhero he knows I think!) so I knew he would love it.

Today's Shopping Start Time: 9:30am.

Today we got up earlier and headed to the clothes market. We got more snow overnight and this morning was the coldest it has been yet. We walked all over the clothes market. I finally gave in and bought a pair of tennis shoes that I liked the best out of all we'd seen in this small town (very small selection!!). By that point in time we were so frozen we could hardly feel our fingers and toes and our legs were beginning to numb, and I hadn't really found anything else I liked, so we decided to call it quits on the outdoor market.

We decided to grab some pizza for lunch and to warm up before continuing our journey! On the way to the pizza place we did stop and buy a coat I had scoped out the day before. Much to our translators embarrassment I think, I had her ask for a discount on the coat twice! I had a really hard time buying a coat, they are so expensive here, and I knew I could get a great deal on one in the States right now. Unfortunately with this bitter cold weather we have to have a coat for Rance now. I ended up paying $48.50 for the coat, and it still bothers me that I had to pay so much!

After lunch we went into several banks to see about getting some cash. We ran out of the cash we brought with us and they sure don't make it easy to get cash here. After checking with several banks we realized we were just going to have to deal with the ATM fees as that's the only way to get money. Just thankful we found an ATM that will let us get more out per day than what we had been using!

We were once again freezing so we went back to the hotel to use the restroom, warm up and rest a bit.

After convincing ourselves to brave the cold again we bundled back up and headed out. We found a pair of Spiderman tights at one store (to go under his pants-its cold here and we are outside a lot!) that I knew Rance would love. Then at another store we got a pair of jeans, the only pair of jeans in this entire city that I found that were plain and not covered with pictures or writing. Jeans are also expensive and I am still getting over the fact that I had to pay $23.50 for a pair of children's jeans!! Our translator wasn't with us because she was working with some of our documents at the notary so I couldn't even negotiate! I would have come back later, but they only had one pair in his size and I wasn't going to lose this pair of plain jeans!

Finally at one last store I found a pair of grey sweatpants that are mostly plain, although they have "savage animal" embroidered on the knee. Not sure what that's all about, but they are about the only pair of sweatpants I have found in his size in this entire city so I gave in and purchased them. He needs something comfy to wear on our 24 hour journey home. At the same store I found a long sleeved t-shirt, a white long-sleeved undershirt and a fleece pullover. All but the white under-shirt were 30% off (bonus!) and I got all of this for only $31.50!! For here, that's a bargain!

Shopping Day Ended: 3:00

We had to end our shopping adventures to head back to the hotel to get things ready for our visit with Rance. We took all of our purchases for him to try on. At the orphanage Rance wears slippers, a pair of tights with a pair of shorts over them, with a long sleeved shirt or two. He typically wears each outfit for at least a week. None of his clothes are his--when he's not wearing an outfit another child is. He couldn't believe this was all for him! He said thank you after each item was pulled out of the sack and was thrilled to wear an outfit for our entire visit! Looks like a completely different kid in real clothes! If possible he is even cuter!!

I still have to find underwear, socks, a pair of PJ's, a hat and gloves, hopefully tomorrow. Matt has already informed me that after two days in the bitter cold shopping he and Cavin are done and will be staying home tomorrow while I finish!

Only 4 more days until we get the court decree and get to pick Rance up from the orphanage!!

Only 2 weeks until we fly home!! (If everything goes as planned--praying!!)

Here are a few pictures of the outdoor market. After this my hands were too cold to function to take anymore! The market is open Tuesday through Saturday from 7-3. Everyday each booth owner/worker has to cart in their goods, unload them and set them up. Stand out in the freezing cold or hot weather all day, and then repack everything, load it up and cart it back to storage. Not an easy job, for sure.

Sick

2011-01-21T07:08:00.000-06:00

The past few days have been very hard and difficult on Matt and I, due to me being quite sick. For the past week I had wondered if I was not getting a kidney infection, but I wasn't sure about it or going to a doctor here.

I woke up in the middle of the night on Tuesday feeling very sick and in a lot of pain. I finally broke down and decided to go to the doctor mid morning on Tuesday. I was very nervous about going for two reasons. One, I had seen a hospital here and they are scary. Two, I had no idea how much it would cost and we are already running out of money. But my pain was more overwhelming than my worries so we called a taxi and headed out. My guess was I had a kidney infection gone bad, along with the flu or food poisoning.

The hospital was what I expected, very shabby looking on the outside, dark, all cement, cold and old school. We started off seeing the head of the hospital, who was very nice. He ended up calling in another specialist, who was also very nice. Together they examined me and decided to run some tests.

So we went up a few flights of stairs (definitely not handicap friendly!) where I was to get blood drawn. I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but the "lab tech" came with a tray of glass viles with liquids already in some of them and a box full of glass slides. She went on to tell me not to worry, everything was sterile, a speech I heard with each new person. Then she pulled out a suction bulb connected to a long, skinny glass tube that narrowed on one end. Then she opened up a package to reveal a small looking scalpel which she then used to "prick" my finger. Then she used the suction bulb connected to the glass tube I described earlier to "suck" the blood out of my finger. I felt like I had went back in time for sure!

After getting blood drawn they wanted to do an ultrasound, which was in a completely different building. So we walked over in the snow, and got right in (I think it was because I was an American!). The ultrasound doctor was the only one who spoke any English, and his was very limited. Very thankful for our translator!

Then we waited. Finally one of the doctors got the test results and looked over them. She wanted me to see two more doctors, the chief of surgery and a doctor of infections. I asked what she thought was wrong, and we were told that my white blood cell count was really high and something about an appendix. Not really sure, and knowing how much pain I was in, we went along with what they suggested.

The chief of surgery checked me out and deemed me "healthy." This was a huge sigh of relief! Then we saw the doctor of infections. So 6 doctors, bloodwork and an ultrasound later, I was finally diagnosed with a severe kidney infection. Then we debated over the treatment. The doctor wanted to hospitalize me, and I was hearing none of it. We finally compromised. I would stay at the hospital and receive antibiotics and fluids via IV, rest at the hotel for the night, then return in the morning.

So Matt and Cavin headed back to the hotel to get things ready to go see Rance while our translator and I went and bought the supplies and drugs for my IV and then headed to the hospital to begin my treatment. My IV was classic, a metal stand in which the two glass bottles were placed, one with antibiotics and one with saline solution, held onto the stand with rubber bands. It took about three hours in all. We finally got back to the hotel and I climbed into bed and tried to warm up as my fever rose.

In the meantime, Matt and Cavin had a great visit with Rance. He said Rance asked several times where mama was and Matt did his best to tell him/show him that I was sick. Matt took a few pictures of their visit to show me as well, which was very thoughtful and sweet of him.

My fever finally broke late Wednesday night so I was able to get a much needed good nights rest.

I returned to the hospital Thursday morning, and after an examination it was decided to do another round of antibiotics via IV. I asked about pills but the doctor was worried about them being effective enough, so I didn't argue, having never been this sick before.

Today, Friday, I am feeling much better, although I am still feeling weak and a bit queasy. I hate being sick, and it is even worse when you are not home, harder in a foreign country, and well, a bit scary when you are in a very poor area. However, I am very thankful for nice doctors and medicine, even if it was all "old school" to make me feel better.

Please continue to pray for me as I regain my strength and appetite (I would love some of my mom's Chicken Noodle Soup!), and for Matt as he mainly takes care of Cavin while I rest.

Court

2011-01-18T14:07:00.000-06:00

What a long and exhausting day we have had!

Thank you all so much for covering us in prayer as we had our court session today. Although we did not get the answers we really wanted, God was present and still moving on our behalf, according to His will.

The orphanage director went to the wrong court building so we didn't get started until almost 3:30. From what we have heard, court was "easy" for us as not many questions were asked. We were asked in the beginning to state our full name, date of birth and home address, and for Matt, his occupation. Then our translator, the orphanage director, the social worker and the persecutor were all asked to introduce themselves and give their credentials as well.

These were the questions we were asked...

1. Why did we choose Rance, a sick child. (Asked by the Judge, Answered by Matt)

2. Why we were adopting when we had a biological child of our own. (Asked by the Judge, Answered by Stephanie)

3. Why we chose to adopt from Ukraine. (Asked by the Persecutor, Answered by Stephanie)

4. Again, how did we choose Rance and why, knowing he was sick. (Asked by one of the two judge's assistants, Answered by Stephanie)

Then the social worker and the orphanage director gave a summary of their conclusion and why they were in favor of us adopting Rance. Then the persecutor said after hearing all of the above, she too was in agreement with us adopting Rance.

Finally they read through all of the official documents, which was boring and took forever. Then the judge and his two assistants left the room to make their decision.

Oleg was not allowed in the court room with us, and we were so thankful he volunteered to watch Cavin for us during our court session. What a blessing it was not to have to entertain him and keep him quiet while trying to pay attention and answer questions!

After about a 15 minute break the judge and his assistants returned and read us their lengthy decision, which basically said....

"The request of Matthew and Stephanie Richards to adopt Rance is satisfied!!"

It also included permission to legally change his name to Rance Matthew Richards and to list us as his parents on his new Ukrainian birth certificate. Court ended right about 4:45.

We knew beforehand that the 10 day appeal period would not be waived, but we were praying the judge would allow us to get the official court decision at the end of the 10th day. We were definitely disappointed to find out that we would have to wait until Monday, the 31, to get the official decision, and in turn, be able to get Rance from the orphanage and begin the paperwork to come home.

After court we waited around for what felt like forever until we left to go to the orphanage to tell Rance the big news.

Matt told Rance that we went to court today and that the judge said it was okay for Rance to be ours forever. Rance's response was, "tomorrow?" He is so ready to be with us always and forever! It broke our hearts having to tell him it would be yet another 13 days until we could come and get him forever.

I have much more to write, but its late and as I said earlier, its been a really long day and we are exhausted.

Again, we thank you all for praying with us, and we continue to praise God for his faithfulness to us throughout this journey!

Prayer Requests for Court

2011-01-17T12:48:00.001-06:00

Today we were at the orphanage visiting Rance when Yuri, our facilitator sent us a text...at 5:10.

"Hi. I am still waiting for the approval from the SDA. It is waiting to be signed now, please pray."

The SDA closes at 6, and it was supposed to have already been done, I knew something wasn't right. I felt sick to my stomach. Without the SDA approval we couldn't go to court. We would have to reschedule court for Thursday...two more days of waiting...

I begged God to move on our behalf. I know its only two more days, but after the past two days which have been extremely difficult, I couldn't think about waiting two more days.

I had not stopped petitioning God with our request, it was past 6, we had said good bye to Rance and were on our taxi ride back into the city. I knew Yuri should have called by now, so I began to prepare myself for another delay.

Finally the phone rang. Apparently a document that the SDA had needed to write their letter of approval was missing. Praise God Yuri was able to somehow take care of it, get the SDA to complete their letter of approval, and get it signed by 6.

With a sigh of relief I began to thank God and praise Him for working and moving on our behalf. All of our documents are completed, and we get to go to court tomorrow to legally make Rance ours!

When Oleg met with the judge to go over our paperwork and set up the court date he also asked about the possibility of waiving the 10 day waiting period, at least letting us start the paperwork. The judge said no on all accounts.

However, Yuri has again asked Oleg to speak to the judge tomorrow before our court session about the 10 day waiting period. We realize there really is no chance of him waiving the 10 days completely (it is technically illegal), but we are praying the judge will go ahead and allow us to start on the paperwork for Rance (changing his social security number, getting a new Ukrainian birth certificate and a Ukrainian passport).

Our 10 day waiting period will start on Wednesday the 19 and end on Friday the 28. There has to officially be 10 full days in which people have the option to appeal the courts decision, with the 28 being the tenth full day. This means we wouldn't be able to pick up the official court decision until Monday the 31. Without the court decision we cannot pick Rance up from the orphanage or start any paperwork (unless the judge gives us special permission as I mentioned earlier).

So, prayer requests:
-Pray that the judge will completely waive our 10 day waiting/appeal period.

-If not, pray that the judge will at least allow us to start paperwork during the 10 day waiting/appeal period.

-At least, pray that the judge will allow us to get the court decision on the 10th day of the waiting/appeal period, so we won't have to wait all weekend to get Rance.

Court is tomorrow, Tuesday January 18, at 3pm our time, which is 7am in STL. Oleg will be speaking with the judge before our court hearing about the waiting/appeal period options.

Thank you for praying with us. We will update tomorrow around 8pm our time as we will go directly from court to the orphanage to visit Rance.

Court Date!!!!

2011-01-13T14:48:00.001-06:00

That's right folks--we FINALLY have a court date!! We were beginning to wonder if those words were ever going to be written on this blog! Ha!

On our court date we will have been here 46 days. We never in our wildest dreams dreamt it would take this long. We have at many times, mainly as we met each delay, wondered what God's plan was in the adoption taking so long. We have never questioned his plan or his timing, but we have definitely wondered WHY?! Sometime I will write more about how God has used this time to work in Matt and I's hearts.

This morning Yulia went and got us registered with the court. In order to be registered they check every minute detail in the mound of paperwork we have acquired and make sure it is all perfect. Ours was, and we were easily registered. Then Oleg met with the judge who will be handling our case to again make sure everything was in order and to discuss a court date. Oleg also asked the judge about waiving the 10 day waiting period and the judge said no. So we will be waiting another 10 days with nothing happening. This was a bummer to find out for sure. But we can still pray the judge might change his mind, eh?!?

So Tuesday, January 18 will be the big day! We can hardly wait! Our 10 day waiting period will begin on Wednesday, January 19, and after the 10 days, we will finally get to pick Rance up!! Although we are definitely excited for our court date, we are most excited (and a little nervous!) about January 28--the day Rance truly becomes ours!

Today's visit with Rance was another good visit. Yesterday Cavin wouldn't leave without his punching balloon so today we took two! Rance and Cavin spent most of our two hour visit playing with their balloons. Well, Rance would play with his and Cavin spent his time trying to do everything Rance did. Too cute.

Everyday Rance asks questions in regards to becoming ours forever or us visiting him. Today he asked why we only come to see him once a day and only stay for a short time. We are hoping and praying that the orphanage director will allow us to spend more time with him after the court hearing.

Our return tickets were for Friday, January 14. When we booked our tickets and our adoption agency recommended that date as our return date we were sure we would have to pay to change them as our adoption wouldn't take that long. Funny. So we have spent this evening figuring out, more like guessing, what date would be best for our return. We have also been looking at our finances, as we planned on being gone for 6 weeks and will end up being gone for almost 11 weeks. Ugh.

We again thank you for continuing to follow our journey and providing us with support and prayers. It has been so hard to be here for so long, and each day it becomes more and more difficult to be away.

News

2011-01-12T14:32:00.000-06:00

January 11, 2011-

Yesterday's visit with R was just what we needed. It was one of our best visit's yet. Here's the highlight of our visit and our heart to heart talk.

We explained to R that his Ukrainian name will not be common in the States and that we have picked a special name for him. We asked him if it would be okay with him if we gave him a new name, and he said "yes!" with a big smile on his face. So we told him his new name and why it was special, and he loves it!

In Ukraine every child's middle name is their father's first name. Boys and Girls. Rance has never known his father, they are not even sure who he is.

Until now. So keeping with Ukrainian tradition...

We cannot wait to introduce you to Rance Matthew Richards!

He is doing really well answering to it already! He is probably doing better answering to it than we are breaking the habit of calling him his Ukrainian name!

January 12, 2011-

Today has been a hard day for all of us in Ukraine. Matt and I have had a down day and today's visit with Rance was a roller coaster. We are all getting so tired of the waiting and are just ready to be done and be home.

We found out that the SDA will not have their conclusion finished until Monday because the lady who does them is on vacation. Go figure! We wouldn't want to break our streak anyways! Ha! We were definitely disappointed with this news.

We did finish our application for court today. This was a better part to our day. It includes information about us, about Rance, his name change, and of course asks permission for us to adopt him.

So all we are waiting on is the SDA's letter of conclusion, and then we are court bound!

Please keep praying!

Meetings

2011-01-10T14:14:00.001-06:00

Apparently after all of the days off due to the holidays the regional administrator was busy with meetings all day today. So we are still waiting for his signature.

We are praying that the social worker will be able to get his signature first thing tomorrow morning.

Once we have his signature, our documents will be sent to Kiev to be filed with the SDA. After reviewing the documents we submit and a few other things such as interpol clearance, then they will write their letter of conclusion giving their approval for the adoption.

Once we have that, then we can apply for a court date.

We are praying to have our court date set by the end of this week and are praying that it will be during the first part of next week.

In other news...

Today was a good visit with R at the orphanage. They had visitors today who came in and put on a puppet show for the kids. We asked the orphanage director if it would be okay if we went with R and she said yes. It was a cute little puppet show about Christmas and they also told the Christmas story using a felt board for their visual aid. I felt like I had walked back in time! The kids loved it, and loved playing a few games and receiving prizes for playing! The toys they got were small, cheap, worse than happy meal toys and what most of us would consider "junk." Yet to these kids who have so little together, let alone anything of their own, they were treasures. It was so fun to watch their eyes light up as they got them and began to play with them.

Spending time with these children is heartbreaking and humbling.

How much we take for granted. How much we do not truly appreciate. How much we waste.

How selfish and greedy we are.

Signature

2011-01-10T05:21:00.000-06:00

The social worker finished her conclusion around 11am this morning. Now we are waiting for the regional administrator to sign it.

It is too late to get our paperwork to the SDA today, but we will continue to pray for things to move along quickly.

Back to Business!

2011-01-09T14:15:00.000-06:00

We are so excited tomorrow is Monday and it will be back to business on the adoption process!! So thankful that the holidays are over now, so hopefully things will speed up and we won't have any more delays!!

At 9am our time, Yulia, our translator will be arriving at the social workers office to plead our case and beg her to get her conclusion completed and signed within a few hours. We are really praying it will be done by noon at the latest so we can rush it to Kiev.

Typically the SDA only receives paperwork for adoption approval on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings from 9am-12 noon. We are praying they make an exception and will accept ours a bit past noon tomorrow! We don't want to wait until Wednesday!

We are also praying it will only take them a few days to finish their conclusion! If they could, it would definitely be a miracle, but we are praying for a court date this week!

Thanks for praying with us, we'll keep ya posted.

Boredom at an all time High

2011-01-08T14:16:00.000-06:00

It seems our boredom is rubbing off on Cavin. Or the fact that he has only a balloon, the busy book I made him, a small ball, a truck and an airplane to play with in our tiny room. We packed this punching balloon because Cavin loves balloons, specifically punching balloons. We always keep one blown up at the house! It has been great to have one here, as we can blow it up and then take the air out as needed to take it to a new place. Needless to say, Cavin has continued to have a lot of fun with his punching balloon while we have been here in Ukraine. Regardless, after you have punched it a million times, and thrown it off Dad's head a million more times, you have to start being creative. So Cavin created his own new use for his balloon. Not only did it entertain him, but us as well! Enjoy!

We have been keeping busy as much as possible, but the weather here is super cold. At least there has been snow on the ground the entire time we have been here to offset the cold! So we stay out as much as we can, typically until our hands are frozen and then we head back to the hotel. Some days this is longer than others depending on the temperature and whether or not there is a frigid wind.

One more day, and then its Monday and hopefully with Ukrainian holidays over for a while, things will speed up! Keep praying!

Merry Ukrainian Christmas!

2011-01-07T13:12:00.000-06:00

The social worker was not able to get her letter of conclusion which includes her approval of the adoption finished before noon, when the office closed for their Christmas holiday. So we will pray she is able to get if finished first thing Monday morning and the other person who needs to sign it will be there also!

Since this delay I have updated the estimated adoption time line on the right side of the blog. I will try to keep it as up to date as possible. The dates I have used are the "worst case senario" dates, which seems to have been our luck. Things could progress faster, which of course is what we are praying for.

We are just thankful that the sibling separation is complete, and R is ours! The rest of the process (paperwork and court) is more of a formality.

Even though we have told R that we will be there to spend time with him everyday until he is ours forever, he still asks everyday if we are coming back tomorrow. Yesterday he again asked, "how soon will I be with you forever?" Today he was very cuddly, and told us that he misses us when we are gone.

For the first time, R told us that he loved us today, in Ukrainian and then in English, with the help of our translator. I cannot even begin to tell you what that did to my heart! R is a very sweet boy with a very tender heart. I cannot wait to see how God is able to use his tender and compassionate heart for His work.

Yesterday we had bought and taken a bunch of kiwi to the orphanage for the kids there. Today we asked R if he had any kiwi to eat, and he told us no. Then our translator asked him something, and he answered, saying he did eat something green today and it had a lot of seeds. Apparently today was the first time R had tasted kiwi! He liked it!

Today we took 24 lemons to the orphanage for the kids. It was fun to buy something we knew they rarely ever got, and even more fun knowing we were able to provide a first experience for many of the kids! Although I still can't imagine eating plain lemon!

Today another first happened, we went to a new cafe to eat lunch. We got there around 12:30 and after hearing the menu translated, we picked what sounded good and Yulia placed our order. As normal, a few of the things we had picked they weren't fixing that day, so we had to pick a few new things. Once we placed our order the waitress went back to the kitchen and came back shortly after saying that it would be 20 minutes before they were able to start cooking the food, and then it would take them about 30 minutes to prepare it. (They opened at 11). So we asked if we could place our order and then go to the grocery and come back. She said sure, if we left some money to ensure we would come back. I am pretty sure that would never happen in the States!

Still Waiting

2011-01-05T12:28:00.000-06:00

It finally happened. On our way home from dinner Matt fell on the ice. Everywhere (except parts of the roads) are solid sheets of ice. Not kidding. Parents pull their kids everywhere on sleds. People pull their groceries on sleds. Everything is covered in ice. Thankfully he wasn't hurt too bad!

It has been another frustrating day for us. Apparently it takes an entire day for the mayor to sign the official separation document. It took until 5:00 to get the document signed. Its an hour drive from there to where we and the social worker are, so that means the social worker won't get the separation document until tomorrow morning.

And guess what? Tomorrow begins their Christmas holiday (their Christmas Eve) so the social worker's office will close at noon. So you would think it still wouldn't be a big deal to get a conclusion and approval of the adoption done in 3 hours, (they open at 9), but we will be lucky if we get it done tomorrow.

Without the social worker's conclusion and approval of the adoption we cannot send our paperwork to the SDA to get their approval paperwork, which takes them a week. We need both conclusions to get our court date....

It truly is unbelievable how long it takes people to get things done here. We are trying to be patient and not to get frustrated, but we have been here over a month and we are just ready to be home with our boys.

So on that note, we covet your prayers for tomorrow, that the social worker will graciously get her conclusion and approval of the adoption completed by noon.

This afternoon at our visit with R we talked to him a little bit more about the adoption process, hoping it would help with the meltdowns we have been having. In this conversation he said he is sad everyday when we have to leave, to which we told him it was also very sad for us to leave him everyday. We love this little boy so much and we are so ready for him to be with us always!

We asked the orphanage director if we could get the kids a little something for their Christmas. She said they would love to have lemons and kiwi, a treat they hardly ever get. I am more than happy to indulge them! Something so simple, but when the only fresh fruit you get on a regular basis is apples, I am sure its a treat!

Praying

2011-01-04T12:48:00.000-06:00

Today has been a hard day on everyone over here. Matt has not been feeling well the past few days and last night I also began not to feel well. Needless to say, today was rather dull. Matt got quite a bit of work done while Cavin and I napped and we just ate a late brunch at the cafe here at the hotel. Then this evening we went to visit R then ate some dinner. After a really cold walk back to the hotel we are hoping for an early bedtime.

Our visit with R was rather difficult today. Three times we had meltdowns involving tears, all of those times we couldn't get him to tell us what was going on. He just sat on our lap, all cuddled up and cried. It broke our hearts. Then as we were getting ready to leave, he curled up in a ball on a chair, and wouldn't look at us or talk to us. Although when his caretaker came to take him back to group he did smile and give both of us really big hugs.

Last night as we were leaving he crawled under the table by the door and said he was the guard dog, that he was going to keep us there forever.

I am praying with all my heart that the rest of the adoption goes quickly, as the waiting is not only difficult on us, but so much more difficult on R's tender and young heart. He does not understand why we cannot take him with us and why we are only allowed to visit him for two hours everyday.

So, today we did not hear the news we really wanted to hear, but it wasn't bad news either. The separation has been approved, but they need one more document before it is finalized. They need a document stating that we are open to communication between R and his siblings. So Yulia will go first thing tomorrow morning to prepare this document with the notary, and we will follow 30 minutes after to sign it once they have completed it. Then we will go to get it scanned and emailed to Oleg, who will then take it to the social worker.

We are praying the social worker will finish his conclusion document tomorrow, right after receiving the document we are sending. As far as we know, it is only a one page document, so nothing too time consuming, just a matter of him doing it. We are hoping he will finish it before lunch so Oleg can get all of our documents to the SDA in Kiev before they close tomorrow.

Please pray that the social worker will finish his conclusion document as soon as possible tomorrow. Please also continue to pray for R, that God will give him peace and understanding through the rest of this process. Pray for a restful night of sleep for all of us, and that Matt and I can both get to feeling better soon!

Prayers Please!

2011-01-03T14:12:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow is kind of a big day for us. Tomorrow everyone will finally return to work from celebrating New Years. They will work a whole 2.5 days before being off work for their Christmas celebrations. Not much time to get a lot done, in our case.

Tomorrow the long lost social worker will finally be at the office and we are praying he will sign off on the separation and we will not have to do a consult. I don't even want to think about how long a consult would take. The official separation document is all we are waiting for. Once we have it a bunch of documents will travel to Kiev and be given to the SDA.

Once the SDA has these documents, they will write a conclusion document giving their approval for the adoption. This typically takes one business week, and they only do it on Monday's, Wednesday's and Friday's. We are going to request to have it done sooner, so please be praying it will not take a full week!

We are praying the SDA will give us a date for when they will have their conclusion document finished. With that date, we are hoping to go ahead and get a court date set. Thanks to Yulia and Oleg, we already have all of the documents we need ready for court, other than one we will get tomorrow, and of course the separation and conclusion document from the SDA.

Prayer Requests:

-Please pray that we can officially get the separation completed tomorrow!!

-Please pray that our paperwork will get to the SDA as soon as possible, and that they will be willing to write their conclusion in less than the typical business week.

-Pray that the judge will allow us to go ahead and set a court date without the SDA's conclusion letter!

Today:

Today we went to exchange money and discovered that all of the banks were closed due to a holiday. So on December 31 they celebrate New Year's Eve, on January 1 they celebrate the New Year, on January 2 they continue to celebrate the New Year, and we have deemed January 3 their recovery holiday.

Not much else to report from today, did the usual long walk in the morning after breakfast. Bought a few toys for R's group for Christmas this weekend. We found out that they don't typically get anything for Christmas. So we decided to get a few toys for the group to share and will be buying something small for each kid at the orphanage. Thankfully this orphanage is only for kiddos 6 and under, so there are only 23 kiddos, which is a little easier on the budget. We found an aqua doodle, a magnetic drawing board, and a matching puzzle game for R's group of 9, 5 and 6 year olds. We are going to ask the director tomorrow about the something little to get each child. We are thinking probably fruit since the only fruit they normally get is apples. We would like to get them a cake to share or a piece of candy per child, but the orphanage director may not let us since they are not used to fatty foods in their diet.

If we come back to the States during the 10 day waiting period we may take up a collection of things the orphanage needs. This orphanage is nice, but in need of a lot. There are very few toys, and the few they have are very worn. Plus they always need clothes, socks, gloves and other clothing items for the children. This past week R was in a girl sweater all week, hot pink with even a few sparkles. It drove me nuts! Today was shower day and I was so thankful to see him in a blue shirt this evening!

Please continue to pray, and we will continue to keep you updated! Thanks in advance!

P.S.

2011-01-02T06:05:00.000-06:00

One of Cavin's newest words is "woah!" and it is so cute!!

Last night when we were walking home from dinner, people were again shooting off fireworks and each time one went off Cavin would say "Wo-ah!" or "Uh-Oh!"

It is so cute when he says it I find myself doing things to make him say it!

Hunrgy and Sick!

2011-01-02T06:03:00.000-06:00

Last night Matt's throat started hurting and this morning he isn't feeling much better. As I write this, he is taking a nap. Please pray that he will not get too sick and will be feeling 100% soon!

This morning we left at 10 to go eat breakfast. We went to the first place, they mainly had drinks and only a few food items on their menu. So we kept walking...and walking. We headed to another cafe we knew of, got there, then realized it was Sunday and they didn't open until 2. So we went back to this other cafe we had found on the other side of town, that was supposed to open at 11. We got there about 11:15 and they were not open yet. Yulia knocked on the door, and someone answered. They told us they were up late celebrating the New Year again last night so they were not going to open until this afternoon. This was true of the other two cafe's we walked past in order to get to the cafe we went to first.

We were quite hungry, not having had breakfast and walking around for an hour and a half! I will admit, my caramel latte and caramel pancake (crepe) were quite tasty, although not that filling for them to be my breakfast and lunch! Matt had a ham and cheese pancake (crepe) and hot tea. If you know Matt, he doesn't like hot drinks, so you know he isn't feeling well!

In just over a hour we get to go see R! Its the highlight of our days!

Forever

2011-01-01T14:34:00.000-06:00

Last night was New Year's Eve, the most celebrated holiday in Ukraine. We were lucky enough to have endured another sleepless night due to New Year celebrations.

Friday morning we came down to the city center to pick up R's new glasses. As we were walking to a cafe to eat, we walked by a hotel that looked nice. We went in and asked about prices and to see a few rooms. This hotel is not as nice as the first one, not as roomy, but was still nice with hot water and is clean. Not to mention it would save us $25 a night. So we moved hotels Friday morning, from our first hotel on the outskirts of the city to the new one, which is in the middle of the city center. It will be, and already has been, nicer to be closer to grocery stores and cafe's.

So Friday night we were right in the midst of New Year celebrations which included a LOT of fireworks!

This morning we went for a long walk, over an hour long. The city was dead, everything closed and only a few people out. We did find a pizza place open to grab some lunch. We rested this afternoon and then headed out to the orphanage for our visiting hours with R from 4-6.

As we were saying good bye to leave, R asked Yulia, our translator, if we were coming back tomorrow. I answered, "I don't know, should we?" I wanted to see what he said. He said yes, accompanied by a big smile. Then he asked Yulia a question..."when will they come to take me forever?" Holding back my tears, I answered, "as soon as we can, as soon as they will let us." With a worried look, he told us that someone had told him we wouldn't come get him forever until spring. Yulia chuckled and told him it would be much sooner than spring, but still a few weeks away.

As Yulia translated R's question, "when will they come to take me forever?" my heart was so overwhelmed with emotions. It was breaking at the thought of him being separated from his siblings because he was cross eyed and not wanted. It was breaking because I knew he had been alone in the orphanage for years, desperately wanting a family. It was breaking because I knew we had to leave him there, and still had weeks until we could take him. Yet at the same time my heart was overwhelmed with love for this sweet boy. I was filled with joy knowing he wanted to be ours, to be part of our family forever!

I know we have asked before, but through this process, please continue to lift R up in prayer. This process is so hard on him, and it will only become more difficult. In his young mind he doesn't understand the adoption process. All he knows is we want him and he wants us. I imagine it will become more difficult on him after court when he is ours, when we change his name, yet we still have to leave him at the orphanage for ten days. Not to mention the emotions he will deal with at wanting to leave with us, yet having to leave those he loves and all he has known in the orphanage behind. He has hardly been out of the orphanage, so culture shock will be overwhelming and difficult as well. I imagine he will be sick with the adjustment in food as well. From what I understand he eats porridge for breakfast each morning, soup and bread at each meal along with something else, I hope and pray. Not to mention the adjustment to clothes, toys, television and movies and so much more. I hate that he has to experience and feel so much at such a tender age. Please continue to cover him with your prayers.

It has been a long and emotional day to say the least, praying for a restful night for all of us, even as the New Year's celebrations continue around us.

The Past Few Days

2010-12-30T06:53:00.000-06:00

Thankfully the past few days have been "busy."

Yesterday, Wednesday, we walked up the road a bit to the cafe to eat a late breakfast/lunch. Cavin fell asleep on the walk home, so after Matt got a bit of work done, we all laid down and were able to take a short nap! Then we went to the "city" center to take R's prescription to the place where you buy glasses. We found out they had everything in stock, and then we ventured to walk to a bank to exchange some more money. It was really cold outside, with a bitter cold wind.

After exchanging money we got a taxi and went to the orphanage to visit R. He is starting to remember the English we are teaching him, which is exciting for us! He knows a lot of the colors, a few animals, and a few pleasantries such as hello, thank you, please, and bye.

Last night we also got to see a bit more of the orphanage. We got to see the room where they play, do lessons, and spend all of their time indoor. Its not a very big room, especially for 9 kids to play in. We had asked to meet R's group, which is the group of kids (all 5 and 6 years old) he spends all of his time with. They were all hanging out in the room when we went up to get the "tour." Some were watching television while others were reading books. They are precious kiddos, and they were not shy! They played with us right away!

Matt jokes that "human jungle gym" must be written on him in every language! In no time at all they had flocked around Matt and were having a grand ole time. It was so sweet to get to play with all of them just a bit, and to see R interact with other kids his age. We wish we could play with them more, but we are not allowed to, as they don't want them to get attached to us, or be jealous of R.

The entire time we were with them, which wasn't but 20 minutes or so, we were both fighting back tears. Yes, some of them had some health issues, but they were all so precious and eager for attention. We wish we could take them all.

We came home to eat dinner at the cafe in the hotel, to find they were hosting a company new year's party. Unlike us, New Year's in their holiday they celebrate the most. It was interesting to observe their party as we ate our dinner. It was not so fun to hear their loud discotech music until 4 in the morning! It didn't seem to bother Matt or Cavin, but I didn't get much sleep.

So far today....

We walked down the street to the cafe for brunch. Then we took a taxi to the orphanage to pick up the orphanage director and R. We went to the city center where our translator and the orphanage director dropped off a bunch of paperwork with the social worker. We left the orphanage director there and we were able to take R by ourselves to pick out glasses!! They didn't have much of a selection, so we will have to get some nicer ones once we get back to the States, but the pair we got today were about $15.00. Not too bad! We needed to get them now as they are part of his therapy to help his lazy eye.

We were thrilled to find out we could take R to get some tea and a snack after picking out his glasses. It was so fun to spend time with him outside of the orphanage. You could tell he has not been outside of the orphanage much at all, as everything was new and exciting! We had some strawberry green tea and a banana for each of the boys for a snack. I think R had the most fun playing on the ice outside. They do not clear their sidewalks or roads very well here, and so all of the snow has been compressed into ice. Makes me nervous to walk anywhere, but it was fun for R!

We are so ready for the day when we don't have to drop R back off at the orphanage, when he is truly ours!

We will rest for a while here at the hotel, and then probably walk back down the street to the cafe for an early dinner.

Please continue to pray for the adoption process to go as smoothly and quickly as possible, even with the holiday delays!

Please also pray for Matt and I as decisions are made!

Holidays

2010-12-28T13:58:00.000-06:00

We really missed being home for the holidays this year. It was hard being here, it didn't even feel like Christmas. I think we've decided to do Christmas on a small scale once we get home. Regardless we missed out on the family Christmas', and missed seeing all of our family.

Now we are running into Ukrainian holiday's. We were hoping to have already had our court date at this point so our 10 day waiting period would fall over their holiday week. However, things haven't gone as planned, and now we're really needing to get things going, and we can't due to people taking vacation time for the holiday's.

Right now everything has been put on hold. The guy we need to sign off on the separation is on vacation and will not return until January 2 or 3. One guy, one signature, and now nothing can be done. So extremely frustrating.

Their biggest holiday over here is New Year's. They do it up big. Then on January 7/8 is their Christmas celebration.

So now we wait more, with nothing happening. We are trying not to get down, but we have been over here for almost a month, and we are exhausted and just ready to be home, and now we face even more delays.

We are now hoping for a January 9 or 10 court date.

So now we will continue to battle our boredom, and spend the few hours we can with -R- each day.

The snow here had just melted, and it started snowing again last night. It snowed almost all day here. I would say we have almost 6 inches. It is beautiful and has provided a small consolation to a rather down day.

Cavin now says snow!

Updates!

2010-12-27T11:42:00.000-06:00

First of all...Cavin.

He is growing and changing so much. He has been a teething fool since arriving here. He has cut two molars, one lower incisor and the other one is working on coming through. His top gums are swollen as well in a few different places. He is really changing from a baby into a little boy, which is so bittersweet for his mama! He continues to fill our hours with joy, entertaining us, keeping us on our toes and providing strobe lighting on occasion.

He has been amazing, with no schedule, naps on the go, changes in food and everything else. We are so thankful!

-R-

We are falling in love with this sweet little boy! We get to spend two hours with him everyday during the visiting hours at the orphanage. We play ball, play with cars, and color and draw. We are working on teaching him English. He does really well repeating after us and is eager to learn. We can't wait until you get to meet him!

On Saturday the orphanage worker told R why we were there, and that we wanted to be his family. Since then he has been calling us Mama, and Papa (we're working on Dad, as not to be confused with Papa being used in our family for Grandpa), and Cavin as his brother. Not only are we falling in love with R, but so is Cavin. When R came into the room today Cavin's face lit up and he began talking excitedly. They play together really well. Today they played peek-a-book for quite a while. It was so fun to hear both of their laughter and excitement!

-Adoption Process-

Today we went into town to the notary to sign two applications to adopt R. One will go to the SDA in Kiev, asking them for their approval to adopt R. The other will go to the social worker, asking her to write a conclusion of our time spent with R and approving the adoption. These applications will result in letters of approval to adopt which we need in order to get a court date.

In the meantime, Olig and Yuri have also been at work, working on getting all of the paperwork we need to get a court date. We are hoping and praying to get a court date one of the first few days the courts are reopened after the holidays, January 4 or 5.

R is part of a sibling group, so Olig has been working on getting the separation approved. As of right now, we think the social worker has signed off on the separation, so we will not have to go before a consult. Still not 100% on this, but praying we don't have to mess with the additional step of a consult!

If we get a court date on Jan 4 or 5, then we will have the 10 day waiting period (very slight chance of it being waived), and then another 7-10 days to get all of R's paperwork in order to enter the U.S. This would put us back Stateside, estimated of course, on January 21. We're really hoping no longer as we are so ready to be home!

We will continue to keep you updated as things progress. Please continue to pray for things to go smoothly and quickly, and for God to continue to move on our behalf. Please also pray as we continue to get to know and bond with R. Lots of change and adjustment ahead for all of us!

God's Heart

2010-12-25T09:30:00.001-06:00

It has been a very long and emotional two days. Warning: this is going to be a very long post.

Just to let you know, what I write next, is totally my (Stephanie) journey, Matt's is slightly different.

Preface: The boy we had been referred to was perfectly healthy, except he had been born cross eyed. He has had two operations, and is no longer cross eyed, but his weaker eye is still lazy. To be completely honest, I wasn't sure how I felt about this.

We picked up our official referral letter on Thursday afternoon, around 4:15. We met our translator, Yulia, and then we headed out. It took us right about 4 hours to arrive in our town, literally in the middle of no where. We were tired and quickly got to sleep, feeling a mixture of emotions about the upcoming day.

We left the hotel at 9, I was feeling very tired with a heavy heart. We traveled into the town so Olig could speak with the social worker. We waited in the car for what felt like forever, but was probably just over an hour. Then the social worker came with us and we drove about 20 minutes to the orphanage.

Normally the orphanage director speaks with us (interviews) first, however she was not there when we arrived. So we sat down with a few of the ladies from the orphanage. It was weird that no questions were asked. Not long after we sat down one of the ladies said "We like you, although you look really young." After finding out how old we were, she said "you look much younger than that!" Then another lady brought the little boy we came to see in (we will call him R for short). He was very shy and timid, and kept his eyes down. I did notice though that his eye was either not fixed, or was still very lazy.

I immediately closed my heart, and said no, this isn't the one for us. We played for a bit in the office, then went to a room to play some more. Matt played with the boys while I asked a bunch of questions.

There really is no way for me to express the gamut of emotions I was feeling. The entire time we were there I was on the verge of a breakdown, constantly holding back tears. I couldn't think or feel anything. I just wanted to say no and leave. We were only at the orphanage about an hour when it was time for R to go eat lunch, and we decided to leave. We talked with Olig, our facilitator here, and we called and talked with Yuri who is still in Kiev, trying to explain our hesitations, my main one being his eye problems.

We came back to our hotel and I had my mom call me, and I was able to attempt to express what I was feeling and what was going on in my head and heart. Matt was starving, so we went downstairs to the cafe and he ate some lunch and I drank some coffee. While we were eating, I asked Matt if he would be willing to take 3 kids. He said sure, why not. So I had a conversation with Olig about what it would look like to adopt Slava (the little boy we met on our first referral) and his two older siblings. He said it might be possible, although he would be worried the judge would question our financial ability to care for a family of 6.

So we went back up to our hotel room and got Cavin down for a nap. We were exhausted, but couldn't sleep. We began to pray and talk about our options. If we said no to this referral, we would have to go back to the States and come back in the middle of January when the SDA opens again for referral appointments. When we came back, we would only have our third and final referral appointment left, which could be risky. We talked again about trying to adopt Slava and his siblings, and realized we were not in a place where we could take on three kids, especially older ones.

Matt, knowing me the way he does, had been quiet and allowed me to talk through my emotions, basically agreeing with everything I said. However, with that decision, Matt made a much needed and very valid point. In my heart, I had not let go of Slava. Because of that, I was not able to even consider, or really look at R, this child we had just visited. In a lot of ways, I felt the same as I did after losing the triplets. I could not think of getting pregnant again, of having another child because in my heart, I couldn't let go of them.

After realizing this, I asked Matt what he really thought and was feeling in regards to R. He said he wanted to say yes to him, but knew he couldn't if I also didn't feel it in my heart to say yes. So we prayed, begging God to heal our hearts from the loss of Slava in a way that would free us to really consider another child, and to guide us in the making the right decision for our family and for R.

After praying, I felt a lightness in my heart that had not previously been there. Honestly, for the first time, I could think about meeting (for the second time) R and was actually excited about it.

Olig had said we could go back to the orphanage and see R again at 4pm, and we said definitely. The whole way there I prayed. I begged God to work in my heart, as I knew only He could open my heart to another child so quickly after losing one.

We got to the orphanage, and I saw R, I mean really saw R, for the first time. He is beautiful. He is shy. He is sweet. He is loving. He is precious. Yes, his weak eye is still lazy, but after really looking at him, after opening my heart to him, I no longer even noticed it. Within 20 minutes of being there, I looked at Matt, and with tears in my eyes, I shook my head yes, knowing in my heart this was the child God has for us.

My fears, and my perceptions were preventing me from seeing the heart of God.

I think the reason I was on the verge of an emotional breakdown the entire first meeting is because God and Satan were battling for my heart. It wasn't until I fully surrendered my heart, my fears, and my perceptions, that I saw God's heart, and what He clearly had given us in R.

Now I think about saying no to this boy and my heart breaks. And to think I could have missed out on this, on R, because of silly fears and misguided perceptions...

Travel Day!

2010-12-23T05:18:00.000-06:00

Olig is picking us up from our apartment at 3, to load up all of our stuff and take us to the SDA. We are picking up our official referral papers today between 4 and 5. As soon as we have our official referral we will be heading out to the town where the orphanage is, which is about a 4 hour drive. We will get settled in tonight so first thing tomorrow morning we can meet with the social worker. After that we will be able to go to the orphanage, be interviewed by the orphanage director, and then meet this little boy!

Please pray for God to continue to prepare our hearts, and this little boy's heart for our meeting!

We are not sure if we will have internet or not until we get there. If we don't have internet access it may take us a day or two to find a place with free internet to update the blog. We will update the blog as soon as we can!

Referral!!

2010-12-22T07:31:00.001-06:00

What a day it has been! Our appointment was supposed to be at 11, we got there at 10:30 to find they were running almost an hour behind. More waiting!

We finally got to our appointment and began looking through files. Yuri had one child he had found out about, so they were also looking for his file while we were looking through others. After a lot of thought and prayer we chose the file of a little boy!! He is a healthy and cute little boy!

Funny that I wrote the post I did last night, if you haven't read it, you should. Its funny because our little boy is again, 5. I am thankful God had prepared my heart in this way, that I am not hesitant or disappointed that we could not get a younger child, but that I can just be excited to meet the child God has placed before us!

Tomorrow, Thursday, at 6pm we will be able to pick up our official referral letter. Olig, who will be taking us again, wants to leave right after we get our letter to travel to the town where the boy is. This means we will be able to meet this little boy Friday morning!

Please pray for things to go smoothly and quickly! We will keep you updated as things progress!

Tomorrow!!

2010-12-21T15:12:00.001-06:00

Because of the holidays and the government shutting everything down for them, not many kids are registered as orphans within the Ukrainian government this time of year. Because not many are registered as orphans, not many are becoming available for adoption. In Ukraine, it takes a few months to get a child registered as an orphan, and then for the first year, they are only available for Ukrainians to adopt. After their first year as an orphan is up, they become available for international adoption.

This is a big part of the reason why we have not found a child yet. Yuri has been calling all of his contacts to try to find a healthy child for us. He even has Olig literally travelling all over Ukraine to different orphanages looking for a little boy for us. Because there are thousands of orphans, the SDA cannot present us all of the files. Typically they only show us the files of those who have most recently become available for international adoption. So Yuri and Olig have been scouring Ukraine, looking for a little boy who has fell through the cracks.

Yuri says they have found a few options for us, although he hasn't told us any details, not wanting to get our hopes up. What he has shared with us, has made us think he is finding older kids, as in 5-6.

This has been something we have been wrestling with since being here. We really want all of our kiddos to be close in age, so they can grow up playing together and form close relationships to one another. This is one of the main reasons why we are really wanting a 2-3 year old. We also want a younger child because we as much of our son's life to be spent with us as possible. The more time we have with him, the more time we have to mold, teach and shape him into the man we want him to be. Also the younger he is, the less time he has spent in an orphanage, without the love of a family. In our minds, these are all really good reasons to want a younger child.

However, since being here in Kiev and after having many candid conversations with Yuri, we have come the realization that the child we are given will most likely be older than we were hoping and wanting. This was really hard for me to be okay with, really until today.

We are adopting because God has called us to adopt, to take one of his children to be our own. To raise this child with the love of family, and more importantly, to train this child in the ways of the Lord, so he may have a servants heart for Him.

It finally dawned on me today. This isn't about the child we want, or our preferences in a child, or what we think is best for our family. This is about the child God has for us, and that child may look very different than our personal preferences. This is typical I feel of God's plan for our lives. If we truly allow God to be in control, and if we really follow his plan, our journey ends up looking completely different than what we had planned. Although it may be hard to accept initially, in hindsight, His journey is always so much better than what we in our imperfectness had originally planned.

With this realization, all worry and anxiety in my heart ceased. I have always been excited, but now I am estatic! I cannot wait to see the child God has for us!

We have our second appointment with the SDA tomorrow at 11am.

Prayer Requests:

-That Cavin will sleep well tonight. There has only been one night since being over here that he has slept through the night, all night, in his own bed. Also that he will be cooperative during our appointment tomorrow!

-That we will know the child God has for us.

-In order to travel to visit the child we choose, we have to have official referral papers from the SDA. Normally we would get these the next evening after our appointment. We are going to ask to get the official referral papers tomorrow night, just one more way to speed things up! Praying!

Wife Hunting

2010-12-20T10:21:00.001-06:00

Although we have a kitchen, the cooking utensils are lacking, and well, the groceries are completely different, not to mention the Ukrainian alphabet has symbols so reading what things are is difficult. Yet we can't afford to eat out every meal, every day. So we have compromised. We aren't doing any cooking, but we are able to buy stuff to make sandwiches. Unfortunately they do not have precut meats and cheeses, so you have to order them from the "deli" but I have done really well with pointing, hand motions, and using my fingers. So far we've basically got what we've wanted! Lol. For breakfast we have been buying cereal and muffins. Then we allow ourselves to eat out once a day. Typically we eat a late lunch out, to help get us through the day of munching otherwise.

Saturday, with a hankering for pizza, we found an Italian restaurant. Shortly after sitting down Matt says to me, "I am not meaning to eavesdrop, but have you paid any attention to the conversation of the table behind you?" I hadn't, so I was like, what's the big deal? Matt said, "It sounds like the guy is trying to convince the woman to come and live with him..." So even though I shouldn't have, I was dying with curiosity and I began to listen in on the conversation. I couldn't believe what I was hearing!

At the table behind us sat a middle aged man, probably in his 50's, seemingly a well to do business man from the States, a Ukrainian woman probably in her 30's, and another woman who was the translator. The man was telling the Ukrainian woman all about his life in the States, even showing her pictures of his home. I heard him say a few times, "I don't need a cook, although it would be nice, and I don't need anyone to clean my house or do my laundry as I hire someone to do so." He basically told her about every detail of his life, his work history, his likes and dislikes and the such. He also talked about his view on relationships and life, which was interesting, and in my opinion, distorted, just a bit.

We were telling Yuri about this on Sunday while he was giving us a tour via car, and he was like, "oh yah, wife hunting." We were like "WHAT???" and Yuri told us about it like it was no big deal. Apparently its a very normal and frequent occurrence here in Ukraine.

Either way, it provided us with very interesting lunch conversation.

Second SDA Appointment

2010-12-20T09:08:00.000-06:00

Our second SDA appointment will be sometime on Wednesday. Tomorrow we will go to the SDA to sign for an appointment time. We were hoping to have our appointment on Tuesday, but Yuri says more kids become available on Wednesday, so we will take Wednesday!

Please pray that God has a healthy little boy for us on Wednesday!

Sights of Kiev

2010-12-19T10:50:00.001-06:00

This is the street our apartment is on.

Walking to eat lunch and go to the grocery store. Yes, this is the sidewalk, they park all over the sidewalks here, they even have people whose job it is to assist you in parking on them!

This is indoors, but is a pretty large fresh market. You can get all kinds of fruits and vegetables, nuts, dried fruits, seafood, and flowers.

It also has a section of butchers where you can get cuts of meat.

The Motherland Statue and The Museum to the Great Patriotic War (World War II)

The statue was erected to celebrate the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany and to honor the Ukrainian soldiers who fought. The Museum is in the bottom part of the statue, and is the museum we went to today. It was really interesting. I was surprised to find out that Ukraine was so involved in WWII and was so heavily affected by it. It is estimated that 27 to 28 million Soviets died as a result of the war on The Eastern Front, through combat, starvation, being imprisoned, and killed in cold blood and other factors. That is almost half of the estimated total deaths of 60 million for WWII.

This was my "favorite" part of the museum, it was the memorial room, full of pictures of those lost in the war, personal notes and memorabilia.

This is Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, also known as the Kyiv Cave Monastary. It was founded in 1051 with the original caves and is where Orthodoxy first started in Kiev. I really wanted to tour the monastary, but Yuri said no sound is allowed, and he didn't think that was possible for us having Cavin with us.

This is the national bank building.

This is St. Michael's Cathedral. The original church was built in 1108, with the main parts of it beginning construction in 1710. However parts of it were destroyed during WWII and have since been rebuilt and restored.

This is St. Andrew's Church and was built between 1747 and 1754.

This is the SDA building, where we go for our SDA appointments. It is right across the street from St. Andrews.

This is Saint Sophia's Cathedral, it is right across the street from St. Michael's. Building began on the cathedral in 1037, with the cathedral being finished in 1707 and bell tower being completed in 1752.

This is the Golden Gate, built in 1017-1024 and served as a main entrance into the old city of Kiev. The ruins of the gate are enclosed by the structure in the picture.

Just a building on one of our walks.

Just another building.

This is the Ukraine Independence Monument, which includes the statute of a woman in Ukrainian national costume on a 40 meter column, symbolizing the independence of Ukraine.

This is the Kiev Opera House

This is another street view, not far from our apartment.

Pure Cuteness

2010-12-16T10:41:00.002-06:00

Even though it has been a rough couple of weeks, with the heartbreak of losing the sweet little boy we met, and now being bored out of our minds as we wait, we have at least had this cute little guy to entertain us!

"Mischief is my business, and business is GOOD!"

This is one of Matt and I's favorite shirts that Cavin has. I found it at Old Navy, read it, showed it to Matt and told him we HAVE to buy this. It was even more perfect with it was on clearance for a few bucks!! It describes Cavin perfectly!

Cavin has really started to talk. Here are some of the new words and phrases he says.

Touchdown (He says this anytime any sport comes on tv, daddy is working on goal, since soccer is whats always on over here!)

-Dog and Woof
-Cow and Moo (Lots of four legged animals say moo as well! We're working on learning the others!)
-Cat and Meow
-Night, Night
-Cheese (Not in relation to food, but in grinning for the camera!)
-One, Two, Three, GO! He says this all the time, before he does stuff. Like this morning he was saying it and then falling onto his air mattress bed. He also likes to say this before he throws things.
-Snack. This is one of the words we hear most often, and is almost always accompanied by please in sign language. Its just one more thing that makes him just like his daddy! This afternoon he fell asleep on my lap and Matt picked him up to go lay him down, and he stirred in his sleep, mumbled snack and kept on sleeping. Loved it. His favorite snack at the moment is pretzel sticks. He eats them constantly, and just like Bugs Bunny eats his carrots. Too cute.

Here are some priceless pictures of his facial expressions and mischievous things he's been up to lately....

This is currently one of my favorites, I love it when he wrinkles his nose!

Changing his diaper normally involves a wrestling match. I don't think this boy knows how to hold still!

Upstairs in the loft in our apartment, jumping on the bed. He thinks he's big stuff when he goes up there by himself!

We frequently enjoy strobe lighting thanks to Cavin. We'd move the suit case, but he can still reach the switches!

Cavin, all bundled up and fast asleep in the stroller while we were walking to lunch!

Thanks to these stairs in our apartment that go up to the loft, Cavin can climb the stairs and then climb onto the kitchen cabinets. He loves to play in the sink. Thankfully there is a door to the kitchen we can keep closed!

No cabinet locks here...

More Waiting...

2010-12-15T09:00:00.000-06:00

We found out a bit ago that our second SDA appointment will be on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

We are disappointed, to say the least. Were we Stateside, we wouldn't mind waiting, but being here and having to wait so long is so hard, mainly because we are so bored.

Here is what we do everyday. Get up, eat breakfast and feed Cavin breakfast. I normally play on the computer and we watch a bit of tv. Then we get showered and get ready to go out. We typically eat lunch out and go for a brief walk. Most days we need a little something so we stop by the small grocery store to get a loaf of bread or a bottle of milk or something of the sort. It is really cold so we feel bad keeping Cavin out any longer than we have too. Our walk and lunch normally takes an hour or two. Then we come back to the apartment where we sit around and basically do nothing the rest of the night until its time to go to bed.

We are literally bored out of our minds, which makes waiting so much harder. It is also really hard on Matt knowing he is away from work when nothing is happening, and that this is taking so much longer than we had hoped.

We were so hoping and praying for the adoption to take the shortest time frame possible, when we're looking at being lucky at having it completed in the longest time frame we were considering.

So, we're now looking at at least 5 more days of nothingness. We could use your prayers, to say the least. If you have any suggestions of something we could to to pass the time, that would be welcome as well.

News...

2010-12-14T15:18:00.000-06:00

We, well Yuri, has exhausted every resource he has to try and get us the little boy we met, but God must have other plans for this sweet boy as we are not going to be allowed to adopt him due to a Ukrainian law. The last contact we were working with was to call today if the judge decided she could help us, and she never called. =(

Although our hearts are grieving, God has given us peace. This little boy will forever be in our hearts. I will try to introduce him in a post sometime soon. Once you see his picture you will be able to understand how we fell in love so easily with this child. His sweet personality is evident in his face.

Yesterday as we were with Yuri getting our petition notarized he was talking to us about a other child options, and my heart just wasn't into it. All I could think about was the child we had already met. Yet today, when Yuri called, this peace filled my heart, and I surprised myself at being excited about a child he was telling us about. I am so thankful for God working in my heart, helping me to trust His perfect plan when I am not able to on my own.

We were hoping to hear news of our second SDA appointment today, but we are going to bed still not knowing when our appointment will be. Frustrating to say the least.

We continue to pray that our appointment will be this week, which means it would have to be on Thursday as they do not take appointments on Friday. We hope and pray we don't have to go another weekend not knowing, and another weekend of doing nothing.

I think I will eat some of my delicious dark chocolate (that you can get for cheap here, which makes it even better) and try and get some sleep.

We thank you for your continued prayers.

Restless

2010-12-12T06:34:00.000-06:00

Today my heart is restless.

Deep in my heart, I cannot let the little boy we have already met go. I am praying for God to work a miracle and allow us to have this little boy.

If not, then I am praying God will work in my heart, to help me come to peace with His will, and to prepare my heart for finding another child.

Waiting...And Moving Again...

2010-12-11T11:36:00.000-06:00

Today has been a long, but good day! When we got back to Kiev yesterday we were put in a different apartment than the first time we were here. We like this one better, but it is already reserved for tomorrow afternoon for someone else. So we find ourselves packing up and moving back to the apartment we had the first time around, tomorrow at 1pm. This will be our fourth move in since arriving in Kiev!

We are definitely wishing we would have packed less, and a bit differently. Its been a pain moving all of our stuff around. We are debating trying to downsize and looking into getting a suit case sent back to the States. When we were packing we debated until the time we left about bringing a stroller and/or a carseat. I couldn't decide so Matt decided to just bring the carseat, which does pop up into a stroller, hoping we could use it on the long flights and could use it as a stroller here. Well, we got to use it on the first flight of three, and it most definitely doesn't work as a stroller here. So today we bought the cheapest umbrella stroller we could find and we are hoping to be able to just donate to the orphanage when we leave.

We are already glad we bought it! We do lots of walking here, which we love, but lugging Cavin around was getting tiring. Not long after we rolled it out of the store and put Cavin in it, he fell asleep! It was nice to eat some lunch in peace and get some groceries all while he was asleep.

We've been relaxing the rest of the day, trying not to go crazy while we wait. We are still grieving over the loss of our little boy, but we are thankful God allowed us to meet him, and will continue to lift him up in prayer. We pray he will find a family soon, and whatever family gets him, will be tremendously blessed, for sure!

We also continue to pray for the child God has for us. That we will have the ability to know who he is, that he is healthy, and that we will not be timid in meeting him after our first experience.

It is always hard to trust God when you don't understand his plan, but we will continue to have faith, because we know His will is far better than our earthly choices, wants, or desires.

We are hoping, now that we have adjusted to the time change and have a stroller to get around more with, to get out and see more of Kiev while we are waiting. Anything to help pass the time!

Broken Hearts

2010-12-10T14:54:00.000-06:00

The consult did not want to take responsibility for the decision, thinking the judge would rule in our favor. However, the last time the judge made a similar decision he got into trouble, so he also said no.

There really are no other options for us. We technically could appeal to their supreme court, but that takes a long time and a lot of money, and there are still no guarantees.

We are heartbroken, for ourselves yes, but our hearts are so broken for this little boy. We are just praying that God will comfort him and help him to understand why we were not able to take him.

During our seven hour drive back to Kiev this afternoon I went back and forth between a mixture of emotions. Throughout this process we have been praying for what is best for this little boy, and then selfishly begging God to let us have him.

Although we do not understand exactly why God is not allowing us to have this little boy, we can only pray he has something better planned for him down the road, hopefully soon!

In the meantime we will continue to look at the oranges we bought for him, but never got to give him and the pictures we took, and grieve for this sweet little boy we wanted so badly to be ours. As we cry over our loss, we will pray for God to wrap his arms around this boy, and to let him know he will always be loved by us, but more importantly he is loved by Jesus.

What's next? More waiting. We will have to start over again. Monday we will go get paperwork filled out to once again, petition the SDA for an appointment to look for another child. Then we will wait for them to accept our paperwork and invite us for a second appointment. Then we will start round two.

Please pray for Matt and I. Honestly, right now our broken hearts just want to go home. It is hard to think about trying to pick another child when all we want is the one we already met. Not to mention, so far all of the other children available have somewhat serious medical conditions we will have to deal with.

When we chose the Ukraine program we were told there were plenty of 2 and 3 year old, mostly healthy boys to adopt. So far, we have seen none. The options we do have are 5 and 6 year olds, with some conditions that may or may not be fixable.

I find myself struggling to trust that God has a child for us, when we found a perfect one and he did not allow us to have him. In my mind, I know God has a perfect plan including a perfect child, but right now my broken heart is just that, broken and grieving.

Thanks to all of you for your constant prayers on our behalf, it has been a tremendous blessing to us. We will keep you posted.

Consult Decision

2010-12-10T01:00:00.000-06:00

We are at an internet cafe while Olig is picking up our paperwork from the consult meeting.

The consult said no almost as soon as we walked in the door. We were expecting to be interviewed, but they only asked one question, why we wanted to adopt.

Our translator believes they were scared to make the decision because they didn't want to get in trouble with higher authorities, even though they have the power to make the decision.

We can appeal their decision, which the consult told us to do. The consult also told us not to be disappointed, that they think the higher court will be on our side.

Olig will be making some phone calls to see if in fact the court would be in our favor and it will be worth our time to appeal their decision.

Right now our hearts our quavering, but we are yet to give up on this little boy until they make us.

That's all we know right now.

Brief Update

2010-12-09T10:02:00.000-06:00

As you have probably figured out, we are in the middle of no where with no internet. After trying a few other places we finally found an internet cafe thanks to a very nice taxi driver!

Wednesday: We left Kiev at 6am after only a few hours of sleep, partly due to Cavin, partly due to all of the emotions we were feeling facing the day. It was a long drive, crammed into a Euro car with all of our luggage! We were thankful Cavin slept most of the way (until he wouldn't sleep Wednesday night!).

Once we got to the town where the orphanage is located we had to wait for our facilitator Olig to go over our paper work with the social worker in charge of our little boy. It felt like it took forever! While we waited Cavin played in the grass for a while, which was nice for him as it was the first time he got to play outside since arriving in Ukraine.

We then finally travelled to the orphanage where we were interviewed by the orphanage director and the social worker. At the start of the interview the orphanage director was not smiling at all, so it was hard to get a read on her. Then after our interview we were able to ask more questions about the child, such as why he is at the orphanage and how long he has been there, his health history and so forth.

As we were concluding, I saw a little boy walk across the hallway, and then come walking towards us. My heart lept into my throat. This was the moment we had been waiting for, for so long. He walked in holding the hand of the lady who works with him the most, with a timid smile on his face. Then he walked straight over to me and wrapped his arms around my neck. As tears streamed down my face I fought for control of my emotions. My heart immediately fell in love with this precious boy, and I felt many of the same emotions I felt when I held Cavin for the first time.

We were able to spend a few minutes getting to know him before Olig brought Cavin back in. We were both nervous on how the boys would react to each other. Cavin did not fuss with jealousy at another little boy being cuddled up beside me and our little boy instantly took to Cavin, smiling, touching his face and hair, and giving him hugs. It melted our hearts, and I found myself again with tears coursing down my cheeks, fighting back a wave of emotions.

We were able to stay and play with our child for over an hour. It was so fun to watch him play, to play with him, and to see how he interacted with Cavin. He called Cavin his poopiska (I have no idea how to spell this), our translator was unsure how to translate the term, but she said it is like a chubby baby doll.

We were teaching the little boy to call us by our first names, but while playing hide and seek, the little boy told his papa to close his eyes and not peak or he would tell everyone! This one for sure brought Matt to tears, and of course, I was still crying!

After leaving we ate some dinner and got checked into our hotel, which surpised us with how nice it is considering the area we are in. Thankful, to be sure.

Thursday: Visiting hours are from 10-12 in the morning, so we walked to the orphange, which is about a 20 minute walk, to visit with our little boy again. He was ready to meet us, giving us both hugs, calling us mama and papi. Today Cavin was his baby! Some other little boys came by the room we were playing in and ours excitedly told them "this is my parents, and this is my baby!" When they tried touching Cavin he told them not to touch his baby. He is already protective of Cavin, and Cavin is of course already trying to keep up and do everything he does! Too cute.

This little boy is very smart, very talkative and loving, and just precious! Definitely all boy as well, with lots of energy!

Update on Permission to Adopt:
Today while we visited with this little boy Olig traveled to speak with the officials about them granting us permission to adopt this little boy. They didn't say no, but again, didn't say yes yet. Tomorrow morning, Friday, we leave here at 6 to travel for a consult meeting with a group of regional officials at 8am. They will drill us with questions and will then be making the decision on if we can adopt this boy or not. They could make a decision tomorrow while at the consult, or they could take time to think about it.

**Typically when you receive a referral, you are receiving permission to adopt the child you have been referred to. However, the child we picked is in a special situation, so we are having to seek permission to adopt him.

This little boy is ours, whether they give us permission to adopt him or not. If they say no, our hearts will be broken, as I am sure this little boy's will be as well.

HUGE PRAYER REQUEST:
The decision on whether or not we will be able to adopt this boy will be made tomorrow. This is the last step of the process of asking for permission.

The meeting begins at 8am here, which is midnight for you all, since we are 8 hours ahead of you.

If there is any time we would ask to be covered in prayers, this would be the time.

Please pray for God to move in the hearts of the officials who will be gathered for the consult, that they may realize that this little boy needs a family, and we are already love him to pieces.

Please pray for Matt and I to have wisdom in answering the questions, and that they may clearly see our hearts in this.

Please pray for Cavin. Pray that he sleeps tonight so he can be in a good mood during the meeting.

We thank you all in advance for covering us with prayer. We are so blessed to have friends and family like all of you in our lives, who we know will read this and begin covering us and the officials of this consult with prayer.

Official Referral!

2010-12-07T12:44:00.000-06:00

We went this evening to pick up our official referral paper! Tomorrow morning our translator will pick us up at 6am and we will drive to the orphanage to meet our child! After meeting the child, we will accept or not accept the referral. If we accept the referral, then they will begin the process of deciding if they will allow us to adopt this child or not. We asked our facilitator here, realistically, what are the chances of them giving us permission to adopt this child, and he said we have a 50/50 chance. It could take them anywhere from a day to a week to make this decision.

Once they give us permission to adopt this child, then we will begin the process of getting the paperwork together to get a court date.

Prayer Requests:

-Pray for safety as we travel to the orphanage.

-Pray for us and the little boy as we meet. Pray that our hearts would be opened to each other!

-Pray for the officials who are in charge of making the decision on whether or not we are allowed to adopt this child. Pray that that God would move in their hearts to allow us to give this family a home and the love of a very large family! And pray that they would make this decision quickly!

Some thoughts on my heart, and that Matt and I have been discussing while here:

We had this verse made to hang in Cavin's room, as it means so much to Matt and I. We feel we have been in so many situations, the triplets, my difficult pregnancy with Cavin, and now this adoption, where this verse is the truth of our hearts.

"The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still." Exodus 14:14

Moses speaks this verse in the book of Exodus, right after the 10 plagues, Pharaoh demands for Israel to leave his country. Israel, with rejoicing walks out of Egypt as free men. After the Israelites were gone, Pharaoah changes his mind and decides he doesn't want to let them go free. So Pharaoh gathers his army and goes after them. As Pharaoh and his army approached, Israel saw them and became terrified and began crying out to the Lord. They begin asking the Lord why he had brought them this far only to be taken back. Moses then tells the Israelite people, "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."

We are once again in a place where we can do nothing but pray and beseech God to move on our behalf. It may sound strange, but I love being in this place, where I can do nothing, and God can do anything and everything. Although it is a place we should be everyday in our lives, for most of us, we only truly rely on God in the big situations or when we have no other choice because we can literally do nothing.

Yet at the same time we wonder why God doesn't move and work as he did in the Bible. We wonder why he no longer performs miracles and no longer speaks to his people. But in reality, God continues to do those things, WHEN WE LET HIM. But most people never give God enough control to LET him work in mighty ways in their life, or to hear him speak.

The truth is, if you do not see God working in your life, it is because you are not allowing Him to work by giving him control to do so. You are not taking steps of faith beyond your control, or your ability to do things. If you want to see God work, then you need to take steps of faith beyond your control, steps that are impossible without God intervening and working on your behalf.

For some, this may be scary, but for me, I love the adventure, the thrill of the ride. Like I said earlier, it may be strange, but I love being in a place beyond my control, because in that place not only can I see the might of God as he works and moves, but I am closest to him when I am most dependent on him.

Just some thoughts that have been playing on my heart. Now to get his apartment packed up and hopefully get some sleep, Cavin allowing, before leaving bright and early in the morning!

So Begins the Climb!!

2010-12-07T07:34:00.001-06:00

As we were looking through files yesterday we were literally heartbroken over the number of files there were. They literally had binders full of them, and that wasn't even all of the orphans, just the most "healthy" ones. We only found two children who met our health criteria (mostly healthy), maybe three. They were all older than we wanted, we wanted 2 or 3, these children were 4 and 5. But all of the two and three year olds had major health issues or deformities, or were HIV positive. There was really only one little boy who we felt really met what we were looking for, and who's picture we "clicked" with. He is a completely healthy, adorable 5 year old boy, blond hair, a sweet smile and freckles. =)

However, as I stated in our blog yesterday, there was, and still is, a mountain standing between us and permission to adopt this little boy. We prayed, and we asked God to move in our favor, and He has! This mountain has not been removed, but we have been given permission to start the climb, which is definitely answered prayer!

So we will go today to sign papers at the SDA to receive our official referral for this little boy. Then tomorrow morning we will travel to the orphange to meet him!!

We are so thankful for you all and we are honored that you have sacrificed your time to pray on our behalf. We pray that God will use our journey to encourage and inspire you, and help you grow closer in your own walk with Him.

Please continue to lift us up in prayer! Please pray that we will be liked by those at the orphanage, especially this little boy, and that we will be given permission to adopt him!

First SDA Appointment

2010-12-06T07:51:00.001-06:00

Well, we are still without an official referral. I am unable to give many details, but we have a little boy we are wanting, but there is a major mountain standing in the way. Not impossible to get over, but very rare. So if you could be praying specifically for Ukrainian officials who are making decisions on behalf of our case, we would definitely appreciate it.

Prayer is powerful, and we ask that you all join with us in asking God to move in our favor on this matter.

We are praying to hear their decision today. We will keep you posted as we know more.

"The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective..." James 5:16

Appointment Day!!

2010-12-06T02:38:00.000-06:00

Neither Matt nor I slept well last night. I couldn't get to sleep, and Matt was up at 4, unable to go back to sleep. I woke up at 6 and we have been wide awake since.

We brought a blow up bed (air mattress with sides) for Cavin to sleep in, but the only place in our room to put it is next to a window, which produces a very cold draft, which makes it too cold for Cavin to sleep. So he slept with us most of the night. We are going to have to come up with a better solution for tonight!

We are feeling a mix of emotions this morning, but we are mostly excited to finally pick a referral. We have been waiting months, even years for this moment and we can hardly believe it is finally here!

If you are up this early, please be praying for us as we go to our appointment (4-5am Saint Louis time)!! We will update with news as soon as we can!

A Blah Kinda Day!

2010-12-05T14:01:00.000-06:00

We were up at 3am this morning with a wide awake baby! Gotta love jet lag! We finally got Cavin back to sleep around 9am and we all slept until 1! It was much needed sleep! We decided to bundle up and go for a walk, to help us stay awake, so we walked around downtown Kiev for about an hour or so. We didn't really bring a stroller, so it is hard to do much, not to mention its freezing cold here, so we felt bad keeping Cavin out in the cold for too long, even if he was all bundled up.

Once we got back to our apartment we lounged around some more until we were ready to go eat some dinner. We went to a restaurant across the street that Yuri recommended. We both had a pizza and I had some delicious coffee. I don't know what they do differently in Europe, but their coffee is so much better!! For me to drink coffee in the States I have to add a lot of creamer, sugar or some kind of flavoring. But here, I can drink a plain cappuccino and love it!

There isn't much to look at in Kiev, you can definitely tell they were part of Russia and a communist country. The wierdest thing to me was that they have malls underground. They don't have many cross walks across the street, you cross under the street, and the underground crosswalk will also be lined with stores. Very interesting!

We are so excited for tomorrow! It has been even harder to be in Kiev and still be waiting! We have been praying continually for God's hand to be evident in our appointment with the SDA tomorrow. What we are dreading the most is seeing the thousands of files of these children who need homes, and only being able to choose one. We thought they would give us a small selection of files to look through, but Yuri said they will show us all of the files of orphans in Ukraine who are under the age of 6. So we will literally see thousands of files of orphans tomorrow. It will be heartbreaking for sure. We are a little nervous and scared, but we completely trust that God has the perfect child for us!

Again, our appointment is at 12 noon tomorrow, which is 4am Saint Louis time. We covet your prayers and ask that you continue to intercede on our behalf, for God to reveal to us the child He has for us, and for God to move in mighty ways through our adoption process. We thank you in advance for praying with us.

Now to try and get some sleep...

We Made It!!

2010-12-04T12:39:00.001-06:00

We made it safe and sound to Kiev!

The 8.5 hour flight from Charlotte to Munich was rough. We were stuck in the middle aisle of three seats, with a super tall guy in the third seat, which left us little room to move! Cavin did amazing, especially considering that he was on one of our laps almost the entire time! We were hoping he would sleep most of the flight, but he only slept the last two hours of the flight, meaning we didn't get much sleep either!

Our layover in Munich was long. Much too long. We did finally get Cavin to go back to sleep in his stroller so w were able to stretch out on the benches and get an hour or so nap as well. I loved hearing German everywhere, it made me miss Vienna all the more! It was fun to try and understand what they were saying and remember the little we had learned while living in Vienna. To top it off, we got some yummy German food for dinner! It totally made our day, well at least mine! Did I mention Munich had almost a foot of snow on the ground?

The flight from Munich to Kiev was pretty uneventful. We did have an extra seat which made it nice for Cavin to be able to move around more. I think both Matt and I dozed off and on throughout the flight. In typical Cavin fashion, he fell asleep as we were descending to land. A highlight of this flight was the views we had of the Alps, they were snow capped and beautiful!

We made it through customs just fine, no one even stopped us and it was really nice not to have to deal with that hassle and just be able to walk on through. Thankful for God's blessing there for sure! Yuri, our facilitator here in Ukraine met us and drove us to the apartment he had found for us. The apartment is fully furnished and is nice enough. We dropped our stuff off and ventured to exchange some money and get some groceries.

Once we got back we sat down with Yuri to discuss what we are wanting in our referral. We began talking about some of the medical conditions kids have, and how hard it is to find a healthy child without a serious medical condition under the age of 6. I loved how Yuri said, "I'm not trying to scare you..." when that is just what he did!

We know God is going to provide the perfect child for us, but the idea of sorting through THOUSANDS of files Monday afternoon, trying to sort through and decipher medical conditions, is most definitely scary. We are nervous for sure, but are so thankful God provided Yuri, a Christian man with over 10 years of experience in Ukrainian adoptions, to be our facilitator! We are totally going to be relying on him to help us sort through the files and find us a referral that meets our needs.

Yuri said most times a family will not find their child with their first SDA appointment, but that it takes most families two appointments (we are allowed 3 total) with the SDA to receive the referral to their child. To get a second appointment is easy, it would just add up to another week onto our stay here.

HUGE PRAYER REQUEST: Please pray that there will be a healthy little boy (3ish) for us to be referred to on Monday!! We really don't want the time delay of a second SDA appointment and all that would entail.

Our appointment with the SDA is on Monday, December 6 at Noon, which would be 4am Saint Louis time..

In the meantime, please pray that we can adjust well to the 8 hour time change and get a good nights rest tonight!!

Charlotte, North Carolina

2010-12-03T15:43:00.000-06:00

We are sitting in Charlotte, waiting to board the plane to Munich, Germany. Cavin did great on our flight from Saint Louis to here! We were hoping he would nap, which he did, but he didn't fall asleep until the captain made the "we're beginning our descent into Charlotte" announcement. Typical of Cavin, always falling asleep just as we're almost at our destination!

We were hoping there would be an extra seat somewhere that we could snag, since the bassinet was already reserved, but its a full flight. So we will be holding Cavin all 8 hours of the flight. We are just praying he sleeps so we can get some rest.

"Pray continually..." 2 Thessalonians 5:17

1:16

2010-12-03T01:31:00.001-06:00

As I begin to type this it is 1:16am, and we are just getting to bed, yet I find myself wide awake with anticipation and excitement. I have not finished the busy books, I have 8 pages finished for each book, plus front and back covers, but I have not stitched the pages together yet. I was planning on using the sewing machine to put the pages together, but my bobbin turned into a huge knot, and in the process of trying to fix it, I believe I made it worse. Where is my Grandma Grubb when I need her sewing expertise? She is the one who taught me how to sew, and I have really enjoyed doing this project, with the little bit of sewing I remember from my childhood! After checking what TSA allows, I decided to call it a night and stitch Cavin's book together as we fly and sit and wait in airports. I can finish Rance's once we're in Ukraine in our downtime.

This evening amongst our packing chaos we rearranged Cavin's room to add the toddler bed we are borrowing from friends. It may sound wierd, but seeing that little bed set up and ready to be used brought tears of joy to my eyes and flooded my heart with love. We are finally going to get our son!! We are so close to being able to tuck this little boy into bed, probably for the first time in his life, give him hugs and kisses, pray with him, and tell him how unperfectly loved he is by his family, and how perfectly loved he is by his Savior!

We fly out of Saint Louis today at 12:50 and have our first layover in Charlotte. We only have an hour and a half layover, which will be cutting it close with our next flight being an international flight. We will for sure have to switch terminals, we are just praying we won't have to go through security again. Next up is our transatlantic flight to Munich, Germany, which is an 8 hour flight. As most of this flight will be overnight, we are praying Cavin sleeps and we can also get some sleep! We have a 5 hour layover in Munich, which will be tough beings we will be jet lagging, but thankful for the extra time in case our previous flights met any delays. Finally we arrive in Kiev Saturday afternoon at 4:20pm, which would be 8:20am Saint Louis time.

We have a long journey ahead of us, but we are so excited!!!! We covet your prayers, and will do our best to keep you updated as often as possible!

Now to attempt to get some sleep amidst our excitement!

Faith Like a Child

2010-11-27T19:03:00.002-06:00

We were blessed to have family at our home for Thanksgiving this year. My 6 year old niece, Grace, arrived with a very loose tooth. She played with it all afternoon, and finally, Thursday evening she pulled it! It was so fun to share in her excitement in losing her first tooth! We put it in a baggie and her mom wrote a note to the tooth fairy to ask her to leave, in Grace's words, "my awesome tooth" for her to keep.

My mom, one sister and my brother and I were crazy enough to brave the Black Friday sales through the night. We had a lot of fun, got some great steals, but were exhausted at the end! When we came home Grace was telling us all about the tooth fairy coming, leaving Grace 50 cents under her pillow.

The best part, with a big smile Gracie told me she wanted to give it to us to help us bring Rance home. As I teared up, I told her thanks and how special it was for her to help bring her cousin home.

I feel like so many times when we as Christians hear the phrase "faith like a child" we often equate it to believing, we must have faith, and believe like a child does. But thinking upon Gracie's heart to give, not even thinking about saving her money or what she could buy with it, but giving, made me realize Jesus meant so much more than believing when he said we are to have faith like a child. When God speaks to a child's heart, as he did to Grace's, she did it. Having faith doesn't just mean believing, it means doing.

So many times when God tells us to do something, we question, we doubt, we think about the sacrifice we would have to make, be it our time, money, or other things, and many times, we end up not doing in the end. When we see a touching video about people in the world starving, without clean water, or orphans, we may tear up, we may feel sorry for them, we may think about doing something, but we don't. We make an excuse. I am not talented in that area, I don't have any extra money, I don't have time, I don't want other people to think I am different, or someone else will do it anyways.

Oh to have faith like a child, a pure and innocent heart, uncluttered by the world, selfishness and greed, that we could hear God speak and simply believe and do.

Crazy!

2010-11-23T18:37:00.000-06:00

That has what our life has been! Pure chaos!!

On top of keeping busy with the normal things we have been busy trying to figure out the rest of the finances we need for the adoption. It has been stressful to say the least!

We have also been busy gathering the items we need to take with us to Ukraine. We still have a lot to do before we are ready to leave, as I am sure I will discover as we begin to pack next week!
I have also, Matt too, been working on some deep cleaning around the house. This has included cleaning out Cavin's closet to make room for Rance! We still have to get a bed and get the room rearranged before we leave.

Matt has been busy trying to get two months of work done in advance on top of keeping up with what needs to be done while we are still here. And helping me out at home as he can.

We've both been busy keeping up with Cavin. He is busy and into everything. His favorite toy: anything that isn't a toy! He definitely keeps us on our toes with his mischief!

We cannot believe we will be in Ukraine in only 11 days! Then meeting Rance shortly thereafter!

We will have some internet access at least, and will update as we can on our blog. However, a lot of information about Rance, such as pictures, we will not be able to post publicly until the adoption is finalized and we are home.

Some General Prayer Requests:

-For Cavin, for him to do well on our transatlantic flight. We leave Philadelphia at 6 in the evening and arrive in Germany at 8 in the morning. Pray that he will adjust well to the time changes, a new place, and the flexibility he will need to have in his schedule. Mostly, pray that God will begin to prepare his heart for his big brother.

-For Rance: Please pray for him as he meets total strangers, who speak a different language, who will be his family. Pray that God will open his heart to us, that he will be able to accept our love, hugs and kisses and will be able to bond with all of us. Pray that his basic needs are met as much as possible, such as food, being held and loved on, and played with.

-For Matt and I: Pray for calm in the storm. Pray that Matt can have all of his work done for while we are gone, and for it to be organized and easy for those who are filling in to understand. Pray that we can accomplish our to do list (it is almost done!) around the house, and prepare Cavin's room to share with Rance. Pray for us to continue to trust in God to provide the finances we need before travelling. Pray for God to continue to prepare our hearts to meet Rance, to be able to love him fully and equally to Cavin. Pray for us to have strength to be in orphanages amongst hundreds of orphans, and have the strength to walk away with just one (or maybe two!).

I am sure I will update, or at least I will try to, before we leave on December 3, and I will update as often as I can from Ukraine with whats going on and more specific prayer needs.

Thanks for taking this journey with us, we pray you will be blessed.

Travel Date!!!!

2010-11-15T13:13:00.000-06:00

We got our travel date today!!!! We will be leaving on Friday, December 3rd to fly to Ukraine!! Our appointment with the SDA is on Monday, December 6th! At that appointment we will look through referrals, and hopefully be able to accept one!

I cannot believe we are so close to meeting our son. I have felt so "pregnant" emotionally lately. I have been brought to tears multiple times a day just thinking about Rance being out there, in some orphanage in Ukraine.

Not much longer son, and you will be surrounded by love, a home and a family. Not much longer and we will be able to tell you how much we love you, but more importantly, how much more your Savior loves you. Even though your birth parents abandoned you, He will never abandon you, and no matter how imperfectly you have been loved, His love is always perfect. No matter how broken your heart may be, He is the ultimate healer. We cannot wait to tell you of His unwavering love, overwhelming grace and unconditional mercy, and of the great plan he has for your life.

Not much longer and I can memorize every line of your face, the perfect color of your eyes, the sound of your laugh, and see the beauty in the unique personality God gave you. Not much longer and we can tuck you in every night, feed you when you are hungry, hold you when you are scared, play with you and make you laugh, and tell you how loved you are everyday. You may be alone now, feeling scared, hungry, rejected and unloved, but not much longer son, not much longer.

There really are no words to express the excitement Matt and I are feeling today, finally having a date! Oh to finally know our son!

Please continue praying for us and for Rance!

*Please pray for God to provide the rest of the finances we need, $25,000 to pay for the adoption. We continue to trust and know that God will provide.

*Please pray for Cavin as his world is about to be turned upside down.

*Please pray for Matt. He has to have all of his work at the church for the time we will be gone finished in the next two weeks, as well as lesson plans laid out for the Bible class he teaches at the local Christian school. On top of that I know I will keep him busy with my to do list of things to get done around the home, packing, and life will continue to be busy for us.

Still Waiting...

2010-11-10T22:05:00.000-06:00

We are still waiting to hear news on our dossier, if it has been accepted, not accepted or if additional paperwork needs to be submitted. We are trying to be patient, but it is so hard! Once our dossier is accepted we will receive our invitation to travel.

We are so ready and excited to meet our son!!

In the meantime, our to do list is a mile long! I have a lot of deep cleaning things I want to get done before we leave, not to mention we need to clean out the other half of Cavin's closet, get his bedroom rearranged and add another bed for Rance!

This week we have been working on getting our carpets shampooed. When I have a chance, I have been working on the boys busy books. They are coming along nicely, I have really enjoyed doing them, but they are a lot of work! I will be glad to get them done!

Speaking of, I need to get back to work! As soon as we hear news, I will be sure to post it here!

Please be praying for us to hear news of our dossier's acceptance soon and to receive an expedited travel date!

Also be praying for Cavin, he will dealing with a lot of changes with this trip, not to mention the addition of an older brother!

Successful!!

2010-10-30T13:19:00.002-05:00

Yesterday we heard that our dossier was successfully filed with the SDA in Kiev! It has been taking the SDA 2-3 weeks to review files and accept them -or not, or request additional paperwork. Once our dossier has been approved we will receive notice of that approval along with an invitation to travel. We are praying it takes no longer than 3 weeks--2 weeks or sooner would be great!

Please be praying with us! We will keep you posted as soon as we hear something!

In the meantime we are finishing up some adoption training our agency requires us to take. We have been learning so much from this training and are even more convinced of God's call to adopt. I will share more thoughts on this later.

We have also been looking over our adoption budget and made the realization that we need $25,000. We have raised just at $10,000 in funds, leaving us with the $25,000 balance. This doesn't include the slue of medical bills we will have once we get Rance home. Ugh. This has been and most definitely still is a major stress for us. So this week will find us finishing up 2 loan applications specifically for adoptions and also looking into a home equity loan. So please be praying for us to make wise decisions in regards to this.

And, if you haven't given yet and would like to help us bring Rance home, you can still send in your check to Lifesong for Orphans no later than November 5! Just please follow the directions below.

1. 1. Please make checks payable to: Lifesong for Orphans. You may preference how the donation might be used by writing “preference Richards # 1448 Adoption” on the memo line of your check. (*Note: In following IRS guidelines, your donation is to the named non-profit organization. This organization retains full discretion over its use, but intends to honor the donor’s suggested use.)

2 2. Mail checks to:

Lifesong for Orphans

PO Box 40 / 202 N. Ford St

Gridley, IL 61744

Filing Day!!

2010-10-28T21:55:00.000-05:00

Today was our filing day, October 28th!

Although its a huge deal, it feels wierd not to actually hear anything. It could take up to 20 days for them to review our paperwork and decide on a travel date. We are most definitely praying it doesn't take them the entire 20 days!

In the meantime, we continue with our fundraising, we still need $18,000, which is more than overwhelming but we continue to trust that God will provide. We are still waiting to hear from one grant organization, we are still selling raffle tickets for two baskets, and my family is fixing to sell key chains. We are also hoping to get more donations through our Lifesong Account, see a post below to find out how you give! Just make sure you get our name and account number with your donation!

** When we receive our travel date we will have to pay the rest of our agency fee, $6,500 as well as the $12,000 Ukranian Program fee, as well as be able to pay for our travel costs. This is stressful in the least! So please continue to pray for us to have patience as we wait for God to provide in his perfect timing.

**Please continue to pray that our papers will be accepted before 20 days and we will receive an expedited travel date!

Dossier!

2010-10-22T12:02:00.001-05:00

After a lot of stress and hard work, one trip to Jefferson City and one downtown for apostilles, and we finished our dossier!

Our dossier (all the legal paperwork we stressed over the past few weeks!) began its journey to Ukraine last Wednesday, October 13! When our dossier arrives in Ukraine, it will be translated, notarized and submitted to Ukrainian State Department for Adoption and Protection of Rights of the Child (SDAPRC), the only legal Ukrainian authority for adoptions (under the Minister for Family, Youth and Sports) on Thursday, October 28th!! It will be checked for completeness within a period of five to ten working days. If any mistakes are found, the dossiers will be returned.

**Please pray no mistakes are found! Maria, our social worker with our adoption agency says our dossier was perfect, so we are praying the SDA agrees!!

If the dossier conforms to all requirements, an application will be approved and we will receive a confirmation of registration along with an appointment letter from the SDAPRC. We will then receive an invitation to visit the SDAPRC on a specific appointment date. On our behalf, Yuri, our facilitator in Ukraine, will be requesting the earliest travel date available. This could be as early as 7-10 days from the approval of our dossier to a month later. Although we are requesting an expedited travel date, that doesn't mean the SDA will comply.

**Please pray that the SDA will accept our request for an expedited travel date and join us in praying we will be in Ukraine by November 15th!

Trivia Night in Review

2010-10-14T20:22:00.000-05:00

Our trivia night on October 1 was a huge success! We had 14 tables of 8 people and the 8 raffle baskets were a hit! We had contest for the best dressed tables, and it was a hard decision to choose the top two! It was so fun to see each team's creativity! We played 10 rounds, with each round containing 10 questions. I think people had a lot of fun and I sure was impressed with their trivia knowledge!

We asked people to write a note to Rance for me to put in his "baby book." It could be a prayer, a Scripture, advice, anything. We want Rance to know how many people were a part of bringing him home. As we read the notes Matt and I were both brought to tears. What a powerful testimony this will be to Rance of the love surrounding him! If you would like to write him a note, it is not to late! I would prefer handwritten, but will accept typed as well!

Fundraising Update:
We have been so blessed by the generosity of others. We raised about $4,000 when it was all said and done from the trivia night alone! Put that with the donations sent into Lifesong so far, and we have raised a grand total of just over $8,000!!

The adoption as a whole will cost us $30,000-$35,000 so we obviously still have some work to do, but we are so thankful for how God has begun to provide! We can't wait to see how God continues to move in the hearts of others to help us bring Rance home! We are still waiting to hear from one of the grants we have applied for. We will also begin to look for a no interest adoption loan to help cover the costs. We will have to have all of the money paid before traveling to Ukraine, hopefully in less than a month!

It is not to late for you to help us financially. You can still send in donations to Lifesong for Orphans with the information given below, you can donate online through Lifesong as directed below, or you can donate directly to us (no tax deduction letter this way) and we will put it in our adoption account.

To Donate to Lifesong via Check:

1. Please make checks payable to: Lifesong for Orphans. You may preference how the donation might be used by writing “preference Richards # 1448 Adoption” on the memo line of your check. (*Note: In following IRS guidelines, your donation is to the named non-profit organization. This organization retains full discretion over its use, but intends to honor the donor’s suggested use.)

2. Mail checks to:

Lifesong for Orphans
PO Box 40 / 202 N. Ford St
Gridley, IL 61744

To Donate to Lifesong Online:
Follow the link below, click on donate and make sure you put "Richards #1448 Adoption" for the purpose! http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/donation.html

If you would like to donate to us directly, you can email me for our address!

Trivia Night: Help Us Bring Rance Home!

2010-09-20T13:01:00.000-05:00

Reserve your table now!!

A Fresh Breath of Air and a Broken Heart

2010-09-07T22:47:00.000-05:00

We have been overwhelmingly busy the past few months, I feel like we've barely had time to breath. July was a busy month and I am still not sure what happened to August!

The labor day break couldn't have come at a better time! We left Thursday evening, later than we had planned due to some issues in the church and with our fridge/freezer. But alas, we make it to my parents house in the middle of no where Missouri.

Although the weather was cooler than we had packed for, we couldn't have asked for more beautiful weather. We played outside all day, and Cavin loved it. We helped out around the house some, but it was so nice to relax and get away from the hecticness. Cavin got to go on his first tractor ride (don't worry Papa Richards, it was a John Deere!) with his Papa and he loved it!

Even though we live in an area with lots of large trees and there are lakes right behind our house, I forget how quiet and peaceful it is out in the middle of nowhwere. It was just what we needed.

We came home late Saturday night and crashed, gearing up for another long Sunday, one we knew would be brutally difficult.

This past week we had a 10 month old baby in our church pass away, and the funeral was Sunday afternoon at 3. So after church and quick nap we headed out to drop Cavin off at some friends.

I walked in, saw the precious little boy in his casket and walked right back out, trying to pull myself together. Through blurry eyes I found a bathroom and curled up in a ball in the handicap stall and wept. I wept for the loss of this precious baby boy, for his family, and for the loss of my own three precious babies. I managed to pull myself together to get through the rest of the service crying quietly and praying for strength, peace and comfort for the family.

Sunday evening was a nice reprieve to a very difficult day, BBQ with some great friends. It was nice to sit back, relax, laugh at the boys and enjoy hanging out. We ended the night with some great conversation aroudn the firepit and of course, S'mores!

Monday was back to the grind, somewhat for us, running some errands and gearing up for the week ahead.

One Year--Already!

2010-08-25T15:51:00.000-05:00

We still can't believe our baby turned one last week! He is so big now yet still so little!

Stats:
Weight: 18 pounds 10 ounces
Height: 29 inches

He was in the 25th percentile, but with his latest stats, he has dropped to the 5-10 percentile, so he's a little guy, long and lean like his daddy!

Cavin has 7 teeth now!

He is not walking yet, but is a very fast crawler and cruises around all kinds of furniture!

He already has several words in his spoken vocabulary! He says mama, dada, ball (of course!), bye-bye, kitty, no and one of the cutest, uh-oh!

He still loves to play by himself, he is very independent and into everything! He loves to get into his snack cabinet and get himself a snack! He pulls the sack out of the box and then helps himself! Its so cute I can't say no!

Balls are his most favorite toy. I joke in saying he can enter a room and spot a toy like my dad can enter the woods and spot a mushroom! He also loves books and to read!

He is such a happy little boy, full of smiles and laughter. What a joy he is! This past year has definitely been the best!

July 23

2010-07-23T23:29:00.000-05:00

Two years ago, this day was by far the worst day of my life. It was Wednesday. Tuesday morning I was told by my specialist that we could take a deep breath, that we'd made it out of the danger zone since I hadn't went into labor again or gotten an infection. Tuesday night Matt accepted a job offer. Then Wednesday. Everything happened so fast its a blur yet each detail is so very clearly etched in my heart.

I have typed so many words this evening, trying to express what is on my heart, but it is all so jumbled right now.

But in brief.

We miss our babies. Eli, Isaac and our precious baby girl Micah every day.

We serve a faithful God who heals the broken.

I don't know what I would do without Cavin. He brings so much joy to our lives with his cuteness and orneriness.

I am so thankful for friends who took time out of their life to spend today with me so I wouldn't have to be alone while Matt was at church camp.

Bittersweet

2010-07-13T15:58:00.000-05:00

I volunteered to be the VBS director at our church this year, mainly because I didn't want Matt to have to do it by his self. It was June 27-July 1, and let me tell you, it was a crazy week! Our theme this year was Hero Headquarters, talking about unamed children heros of the Bible. It was perfect. What kid doesn't want to be a superhero? It was also a lot of fun, and most definitely, a lot of work! We had over 280 kids register!

Anyways, my niece and nephew spent the first part of the week with us, and they are so fun and so cute. One night while I was feeding Cavin we began talking about their new baby brother or sister who would be joining us very soon, and how there would be three kids in their family now. My 5 year old niece then told me if I had two more babies then I would have three babies just like before (referring to the triplets).

My niece forgets NOTHING. Which can be quite annoying sometimes because even if you distract her away from an idea, she'll come back to it eventually. Its nuts. But I LOVE that she doesn't forget her cousins Eli, Isaac and Micah. I love how randomly throughout the past two years she brings them up in casual conversation. I love her perfect faith and acceptance of them being with Jesus. I love that they are still in her heart.

Throughout the next week I dreamt of my babies, of holding them and being with them. They were on my mind more than usual after talking with my niece about them, and with the two year anniversary of their death approaching.

Friday morning, July 9 we headed to Columbia to wait for a niece or nephew to be born. I cried most of the way there. We drove into the parking lot of the hospital where I walked out empty handed, and I fought for control. We went inside, took the elevator up to the floor where we were two years prior, a floor full of memories that made my heart ache. I held Cavin close and shifted my mind to the forthcoming arrival of a new baby into our family.

While we waited my doctor from the triplets walked by. He is easy to spot beings he looks like Santa Clause! I wasn't sure if he would remember us, but we walked out and asked at the nurse station to speak with him. I had wanted to show him our miracle, our happy ending. He was thrilled to meet Cavin and glad to know the outcome of the pregnancy I started with him.

We waited what felt like forever and then we finally got the news we had been waiting for all day, we had a new niece, Ruth Ann!! I will never forget my niece and nephew's reaction when they found out they had a baby sister, it was priceless. They were so excited!! She is a beautiful baby girl and I can't wait to spoil her rotten!

Now, a place I always thought of with sadness has become a place I can think of with joyfullness.

Fundraising Efforts Have Begun!

2010-06-25T15:48:00.003-05:00

Today we sent in the first of several grant applications we have been working on. We will be completing the others throughout the weekend and getting them in the mail next week. Please be praying with us as the applications for these grants are received and looked over.

Also, we have been debating several different fundraising ideas and have finally decided to do a silent auction. We are going to pair the auction with another event, either a concert, a dinner, or a carnival with blow ups depending on what we can get coordinated.

So, here is how you can help at the moment.

1. If you have a service, or a craft, or something of the sort you would be willing to donate, let us know!

2. If you have a contact of someone or an organization who would be willing to donate something, a gift card, service, tickets, craft, so forth...you can send me their information so I can contact them.

You can message me on facebook or email me at matt.stephanie.richards@gmail.com

We are very excited to begin raising funds and to see how God is going to provide!

Thanks for helping us bring Rance home! Stay tuned for more details about this event coming soon!

Adoption Update

2010-06-15T22:55:00.000-05:00

Here's what has been happening lately with the adoption!

1. We have filed our paperwork with the United States Department of Homeland Security for Immigration Approval.

2. We have been filling out applications for schoarships, grants and loans.

3. We have been brainstorming and discussing different ideas for fundraising events. (Feel free to leave a comment with your suggestions!)

4. We have been praying God will provide the funds we need to and that we will have Rance home by the end of 2010.

Next week we will begin working on filling out and gathering official paperwork for our dossier. Our dossier will be filed with the Ukraine governement on October 28th.

Please continue to pray for Rance, for funds to be raised, and for this adoption process to continue to go as smoothly and quickly as possible.

Blessings to you all!

Teeth

2010-05-27T09:39:00.001-05:00

So this week Cavin has been working on cutting three teeth! Craziness! He's pretty well had a low grade fever since Sunday, but thankfully, he hasn't been fussy much and when he has, teething tablets have done the trick. So far the left middle and the richt lateral incisor have broken through, still waiting on the right central incisor to break through his gums. Its close!

Nothing like getting teeth all at once, eh?

9 Months

2010-05-19T22:44:00.001-05:00

So tomorrow Cavin will be 9 months old. I can't believe he is already this big and doing so much!

He weighs 16 pounds 8 ounces and is 27 inches long.

He has been crawling (the real way, sadly the Cavin Crawl/The Combover is no more) for a few weeks. Its cute and getting him into all kinds of trouble!! But it does provide mommy and daddy lots of laughs!

He loves to talk, but if there are many people around he is usually pretty quiet and busy observing everything and taking it all in. He also likes to sing with mommy. He is beginning to repeat in his own way, what you say and do.

He gives really wet kisses and loves to wave bye-bye. He shakes his head yes and no and sometimes does a combination of both.

He loves to play with his daddy and as a result, loves to be upside down. You have to be careful when holding him because he'll just lean over and dive upside down. One of his favorite games to play with daddy is to drop a toy while daddy is holding him, then daddy will hold his legs while he gets to go upside down to retrieve his toy. Repeat until daddy gets tired!

Anything related to electronics are his favorite toys, cords, outlets, cell phones, lap tops, blow dryers, remote controls...

He is quite the ticklish little boy and I love his chuckle that you typically hear only when he's being tickled!

He is a very busy little boy and is very rarely still. He wiggles while you hold him, he wiggles while he eats, he is always moving. Our favorite is to hold him in the air and watch his legs go crazy!

And he still loves bath time.

We have recently found out he is highly allergic to anything peanut and most likely (his blood had a positive reaction) to milk, egg, wheat and barely soy. The allergist isn't concerned about the soy at all, and Cavin has been eating wheat with puffs and cheerio's so he thinks he's okay there too. We'll get to experiment with cow's milk and other dairy products very slowly and carefully when he's of age and see how he does. He may or may not be able to have them. The good thing is is 95% of kids allergic to milk outgrow their allergy by the age of 6. Egg will be a bit more tricky as his reaction was a bit stronger to it, but the allergist is hopeful that with time he will be able to eat egg as well.

You Guessed It!

2010-05-13T16:13:00.002-05:00

Well, actually Jillian was the first to guess it without cheating (errr...being resourceful!). I will say some of the names were, well, not so lovely, but there were a few guesses that I really liked! And of course, those of you who guessed Lance a while back were really close!

I was going to wait and update this later, but we're heading out of town for the weekend (which we are so excited about!). Anyways, I didn't want to make you wait until Monday since I have made you all wait long enough already!

Our adopted son will be named Rance.

We won't decide on a middle name for sure until we meet him! We can't wait to put a cute little face with our name!

Please continue to lift Rance up in your prayers!

Thanks for playing the name game with us!

Last of the Letter Clues!

2010-05-13T08:04:00.001-05:00

Eighth Clue: R

Seventh Clue: N

Sixth Clue: E

Fifth Clue: C

Fourth Clue: A

Third Clue: Not a traditional name, its not a name from the Bible, its actually from a book!

Second Clue: 5 Letters

First Clue: One syllable

Not its just up to you all to unscramble the letters! Comment with your guesses! If you're an anonymous commenter, please leave your name!

Name Game!!

2010-05-09T16:47:00.001-05:00

Immigration!!

2010-05-06T13:08:00.000-05:00

This week we recieved our notarized homestudy reports!! Finally!

This weekend we will be filling out Form I-600A, Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition to submit to the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

This is the paperwork that will allow our little orphan to enter the U.S. with us and become a legal citizen.

This will also cost us another $830.00.

We have a LOT of fundraising to do! We have some creative ideas but aren't sure if some will work or not, so we'll see how it goes. If you have any ideas for fundraising please leave a comment with your ideas! We'd love to hear them!

Clue Number 6!

2010-05-03T09:12:00.001-05:00

Sixth Clue: E

Fifth Clue: C

Fourth Clue: A

Third Clue: Not a traditional name, its not a name from the Bible, its actually from a book!

Second Clue: 5 Letters

First Clue: One syllable

The name is yet to be guessed, so keep guessing!!

Name Game

2010-04-29T13:28:00.000-05:00

Either my clues aren't very good or you all have given up as there have been few to no guesses after the last two clues were given!

We'll try again with another letter! Remember, I am giving the letters in random order! Anyone can comment so don't forget to guess!

Fifth Clue: C
Fourth Clue: A
Third Clue: Not a traditional name, its not a name from the Bible, its actually from a book!
Second Clue: 5 Letters
First Clue: One syllable

Name Game

2010-04-28T09:47:00.000-05:00

So apparently the last clue didn't help anyone out much as there were no new guesses! The name is still yet to be guessed, although there have been a few close guesses! My next five clues will be the letters from the name in random order!

Fourth Clue: A
Third Clue: Its not a traditional name, its not from the Bible, it's actually from a book!
Second Clue: Five Letters
First Clue: One Syllable

Name Game!

2010-04-25T21:14:00.001-05:00

Here is your third clue!!

It is not a traditional name. It is not a name from the Bible. It's actually from a book...

Second Clue: Its 5 letters.

First Clue: Its one syllable.

Comment with your guess!

Name Game!

2010-04-22T13:17:00.001-05:00

Although few responded, the game continues. Again, we're guessing the first name we have picked out for our adopted son, and if you happen to be one of the few we have already told, please don't spoil the fun for others!

Second Clue: 5 Letters

Anyone can comment, so leave a comment with your guesses!!