3 Showers in 3 Days...is that POSSIBLE??

Yes, folks, apparantly it is possible to have 3 showers in 3 days! All I can say is - wow! We are blessed and loved!

On Tuesday, my grade level had a shower for me with all the teachers and staff at my school. Then, we had plans later that night (or so I thought) to go to dinner with friends of ours from church. I quickly came home, unpacked all the gifts from the shower, and tried to do what I could to keep our living room from looking like a bomb of toys and clothes had gone off. We headed out to "dinner" and walked up to our friends' door, not expecting a THING! Well, Greg knew the whole time...but I was clueless! We opened the door to a houseful of friends from church- it was awesome! I had been had...AGAIN! :0)

Needless to say, ever since Tuesday, I have been in "nesting" mode. Greg's even said....more than once!...that all I have is Landon on the mind b/c I totally lose track of anything and everything else on my to do list. All I have wanted to do lately is finish his room, and get the house all set up and clean for his arrival! The room doesn't look ALL that different yet- a few more of the accessories to his room theme, but I have started on the basement play area! It's been SO much fun to set up!

Before I paste in some pictures, I wanted to let you all know that we did hear from our agency on Tuesday (just minutes before walking down to the library at school for the meeting...I mean, shower!) They said that our paperwork had arrived, and was "well on it's way to being submitted"- YEAH! We are praying specifically that we can get our court date this week. When we were in Russia, our coordinator estimated that we would get one the first week of November, but that's all it was...an estimate. But, that's what we are praying for! I'm not sure how far out the dates are scheduled, but I am guessing it's at least 3-4 weeks from the scheduled date. So, this week could mean end of November, or beginning of December. Who knows? We could drive ourselves crazy trying to figure it out- so we don't! We are keeping plenty busy getting our house ready!

This is the corner we have organized for Landon in our basement- LOVE the area "rug," Jeannette!!!

(which for those of you who don't know, is where our family room is located)

Landon's crib- the window valances are laying over the edge. His Nana is working on making side panels to go with them from one of the plaid crib sheets they sell to go with the set. I ordered the curain rods today on line- they are so cute! They have a football, baseball, and basketball as the rod-ends! Can't wait for them to come in! Also- we are awaiting a special visit from a close friend of ours- she is going to do a mural of St. Basil's Cathedral over his crib area. We are still undecided on size, exact placement, etc. But, I will definitely post pictures when that is finished!

On the wall area above this dresser, we have big white letters: LANDON  We are going to be mounting them soon!

I can't wait to read books to him in the rocker before bed!

We cleaned out our tupperware cabinet today to make room for sippy cups, and little plates and bowls! Cleaning takes on a whole new level of fun when there is such a good reason as Landon's homecoming!

And, lastly, I couldn't resist- here is big sister Dakota, AKA, Squirrelly on Halloween. She has been spending lots of time laying in Landon's room...SO cute!

PS- Daddy made me take this costume back- he said I was toturing her! LOL!

I hope to be posting soon about a court date! We can't WAIT to get back to our little boy! We miss him more than words can say. I must say to Greg, "Hun, I miss him!" at least 10 times a day!

Landon's room is getting there!!

Well, I was planning on posting today to let you all see some pictures of Landon's room. However, since Greg's family suprised me with a shower today, I have a very FULL room to show you! What a wonderful thing! :) I will get some shower pictures up in the next few days, but for now, here are just a few pictures of his room.

My friend Alicia came over last week to help me paint, and Friday, I did the second coat. Talk about perfect timing to bring home the shower gifts! Not only did we just finish painting Friday night, but literally a half hour before the shower started, Jill helped me wipe down the furniture, and Greg and Chris carried it in, and put it in its place! Couldn't have worked out better! As soon as we have the wall decor done, and the toys organized, I'll update with better pics.

We are almost ready for you, Landon! Please court date, COME SOON!!!

A tiny Update

Well, we got our medical evals done last week by our primary doctor- long story short, we were able to just have them done here, and not have medicals done in Russia. Apparantly in the Moscow region, the judge isn't requiring that as of now. Well, on our medical report, there are 8 doctors listed, one of which is the "General Practioner". The rest range from dermatologist to pulmonologist. We were told to ask our doctor if he could initial down the list of all 8 doctors and just put "good eval" next to each one. He wasn't comfortable with that (and we don't blame him), so he just put those little quotation marks all the way down the list, and signed at the bottom. We had the document notarized and apostilled late last week, and sent it up to Grand Rapids, MI , our agency's headquarters over the weekend. They then scanned it, and e-mailed it to their counterparts over in Moscow that are the liason between our agency and the courts. From their best estimate, they think the judge WILL approve that document as is. We just have to pray now, that when the document physically gets there, in the judges hands, he or she WILL approve it.

Please pray with us for that to happen! If the judge approves all of the paperwork (that document was the ONLY one we had to do after returning home from our trip...we had the others done over the summer when I had more time), then, THEY CAN GIVE US A COURT DATE!!! This is the part we are waiting for. As much as I want this date to be ASAP, my heart hurts for those who have waited since early Spring for their date. You see, when that lady sent her adopted child back to Russia on a one-way ticket flight, she changed the world for SO many of us who are in the middle of a Russian adoption. As of last week, there are talks that the new treaty between our countries will be signed by January, so we are also praying for that.

We will keep you posted and let you know as soon as we get that court date! Until then, we are going to keep preparing Landon's room, and the rest of our house for our little man's arrival! We have plastered our fridge with pictures of him, our desktop background, and my desk at school! Everytime I see his face, it just lightens my mood, and I am able to put life's problems into perspective.

Bittersweet...

Well, we are home safe and sound from Russia. Sharing the photos and videos with our family has been a wonderful time of re-living the time we spent with our boy. We love everything about him- from his dimple on his left cheek when he smiles, to his long eyelashes, to the way he swings his left arm when he runs, to the way he looks into our eyes and steals our hearts! We miss him more than words can say!

On the plane, there were these little TV screens on the back of the chair in front of us, and you could view the in-flight status. Just watching the image of our plane going further and further away from Russia just made me more and more sad. Our Landon is a world away, and all we can do is wait, prepare our homes and our hearts for his arrival, and trust God to take care of him while we can't.

Looking back, it is amazing to see how God has been in control of placing Landon in our family this entire time. The exact date (check the time line on the right if you don't believe me...I had to check myself!!) that we sent in our formal application for Russia was the same date he was brought to the orphanage. From the start we prayed for him. We prayed that he would be healthy, and well cared for until we could bring him home.  The only thing we can do it this point is continue to pray for the same. It is obvious by his size (we keep joking he's going to be bigger than us soon!) that he has been well-fed, and compared to some images you may have in your head of orphanages, he is in a nicely kept place and cared for by  ladies who we can tell are doing their best. Of course, nothing's as good as a home and a family, but we keep telling ourselves he is obviously doing okay, so don't be sad! (easier said than done though...)

We are working on getting his room ready, and making sure our home is ready and safe for this active 21 month old! (He can clear a table top in seconds! lol!)

We love sharing our journey with you, and so grateful for all your prayers while we were away. We truly felt them! And, of course, we are so excited for all the days to come!

And, lastly, our dear Landon, we are here missing you, and loving you, and telling everyone all about you! We hope you aren't missing us though, or wondering where we went. We will be back to get you as soon as we can! XOXO!!  -Mah-muh & Pah-puh

Last Visit....

Well, we made it through our last visit, but not without some tears. I couldn't help it.

When we got back for the afternoon, one of the caretakers brought up his snowsuit, boots, hat, and scarf to get him ready to go outside again with us. We kinda chuckled at how much winter gear he had on, since it was between 45-50 degrees out this afternoon. Sure enough, after about 40 minutes outside, we noticed wet hair under that hat. We decided to take him back inside and spend the rest of our time together in our hallway area. We didn't realize it until after we were in, but another family who is adopting was in that area too, so things were extra cramped. They are from Italy, which we found pretty neat! It was funny though hearing Russian, Italian and English all at the same time...we joked with the couple that our kids are going to be confused. :)

We only got to play inside for a little while, and it was mostly distracted by the other play going on, and the constant flow of caretakers up and down the stairs to do their work. But, it was still time with our boy, which we wish we could go back to. Before we knew it, one of his caregivers came up to get him ready to go down to eat, and to say goodbye to us. It all happened so quick. It was really sweet- she told him- in Russian- to kiss mah-muh and pah-puh. Yeah, that's all it took- I was a mess at that point. I just want to keep going back to see him everyday, but that's physically impossible for many reasons...and it honestly is physically draining to be in the car that long each day.

We are just trying to focus on all the things we need to do to get ready for his coming home, to keep our minds off of not being with him anymore. It is REALLY hard, but we know time will fly.

Thank you for all your prayers this week- we have been so blessed! We love our boy, and just can't say that enough! I must say it at least 20x a day! 

Please pray that we have a "quick", safe flight home. It will be a long 10 hours, so hopefully we will be able to sleep a few of those away.

Das-Vee-Dan-ya! ....or Pah-kuh!
PS- yes, our Russian vocabulary has grown over the past week...when I was trying to fall asleep last night, I was trying to see how many words I knew, and I was at 15! lol!

Everyday is our new favorite day!

We just got back to the hotel from our morning visit with LG. It was maybe our favorite time togther...although we have said that more than once this week!

I started my day much more emotional than any other day. I am just hating that today is our last day together. I miss him already, and am trying not to cry again as I type this. (since we are in the lobby, surrounded by people). He is our little man, and we love teaching him how to do things, and we love showing him affection....okay, on to the details from our visit, so I don't cry.

When we arrived today, we heard the piano playing in his room. We had to wait for him on another little area between rooms. I got excited, thinking about how hearing the piano will be familiar to him, and I am already looking forward to playing songs with him at home on the piano, and singing together!

When he came out, he was very happy to see us again. We walked with him up the steps to our usual 3rd floor hallway playing area. He immediately went over to our bookbag that we put down...he knows that everyday we bring things in that to take out and show him. The first thing we pulled out was the talking little red truck that we showed him yesterday (Thanks, Aunt Laura!). He remembered how to push the button, and we enjoyed pushing that back and forth together. Then, we pulled out the lego dump truck that his Great Mommom bought him- he loved it! He tried to push on the top of that truck to see if the button worked the same way as the other truck- SMART boy! ...speaking of all the gifts we already have gotten for him...we can't wait to get our boy in the adorable BOY outfits his Mommom bought him! Everyday we return he is in more girl clothes and girl dress shoes! lol! Aunt Jill, I can hear you laughing!!!

Each day we return, the toys we left on the couch from the previous day are there, and he loves to keep playing with those- the shape sorter, the stacking cups, and the photo book that we made for him. (Thank you to Alicia and Marianne for those!). He was particularly interested in looking through our photo book together, and we must have spent about 10 minutes going through each page, and counting with him as he turned the pages.

We then thought it would be a good idea to try the coloring book and crayons for the first time- his Nanna got him those! He did SO WELL with coloring! I can't believe how well he was able to grip the small sized crayons (I remember using the big ones in kindegarten...so he's already ahead, lol!) He spent lots of time coloring back and forth, and pulling out different crayons. Of course, he didn't want us to take them away, but we didn't want to risk him coloring the wood floors or the white walls. Lots of good times today!!!

There is a stuffed dog on the window sill on the 3rd floor- everyday we have pointed to that, and said "DOG" to him. Today, he actually tried to say DOG too! It is so amazing to us! We are so relieved to hear him try to speak, because we hadn't really heard him say any other words other than "dah" until today. That was our only remaining concern...God is good! We have a healthy boy who will just have some much-needed adjustments to make.

I also got to hold him for about a minute while he totally relaxed over my shoulder- Greg caught it on video, and it is precious! I loved every second...and now am tearing up remembering it....I don't know how I'm going to hold it together leaving him today!

Okay, we have to get going already- we need to eat lunch now, so we can get back to see him shortly. I just wanted to update you a little on our day's activities so far!

Sad to think....we only have one last time with him for now....the only thing that's keeping me from crying is to think about all that we need to go home to do to make sure the house is ready for this active toddler!

Another happy thought....coming home to show our family what a great time we had in person!!

I know LG is going to love you all, and I can't wait to introduce him to his many new friends!

Our 2nd Day With LG

I have to start this post by saying, if we could afford to fly over one of our family photographers, it would TOTALLY be worth it! It is SO hard to enjoy our boy while trying to capture every single moment on photo/video….


Our day started out similar, getting to the orphanage after about a 2 hour (well, maybe only 1 hr. 45 min. this time) commute to the orphanage. When we arrived, and LG was walked up the steps to us, he got so, so excited to see us! He definitely loves being with us! I could tell by the way he lit up when he saw us again today.

This 1 ½ hour time was spent in that small hallway area again. Part of the hallway we were able to close off by shutting a door- he kept running into that little hallway, and wanting us to come in and get him…like a little run and chase game. He was laughing hysterically the whole time he did this, while we tried to remain over by the couches and not give him any affirmation for this, because we didn’t want the kids on the other side of the doors to hear us, and to be upset- we were clearly supposed to stay over by the couch. So, we decided to just close the door, which made the second half of our time go much smoother. He did better today with regards to running over towards the steps. We really tried to work yesterday on getting him to take “nyet” to the stairs seriously. Yesterday, when we told him, he would just laugh, and say “da” (yes), like it was all a game, but today, he mostly just stayed away from them. Greg was able to get him to throw the ball back and forth to him, which I was able to capture- what a memory that will be forever! We will never know for sure, but from how he acted yesterday vs. today with the little soccer ball, I think this may have been his first true game of catch.

Another wonderful memory I have from today is seeing LG touch his daddy’s face. Greg didn’t shave this morning, so he was a little “rough” which LG loved feeling. He loved touching daddy’s face! …Which, of course, makes for a tear-jerking moment, and an adorable photo!

As I looked back on videos from today, when we were looking at the photo book we made for him together, I noticed that when we got to the “Phillies” page in it, he stopped and pointed to the Mishka- how clever! Mishka’s shirt has the same “Phillies” symbol on it! What a smart boy!

It felt like our time in the morning went too quickly. Before we knew it, it was 11:15, and we didn’t want to make our driver have to walk in after us, so we carried him downstairs to his normal room to “yum yum,” which he knows as “eat.” When I put him down, and let him walk through the door, he turned around like, “where are you going?” and, we just waved and said, “pah-kah!” (bye-bye) while waving, and trying not to be too sad…knowing we would be there again in a few hours.

Today we decided to have our driver take us back to the hotel for the intermittent hours. It was a full 2 hour ride back, which left us barely 2 hours to go get something to eat, and to check our e-mail quickly. Then, back we went for our 2nd visit of the day. I put the bubbles into the backpack just in case we could somehow communicate that we wanted to go outside to play with him. To our surprise, as we were walking up to the orphanage doors, our driver (who doesn’t speak English) motioned “do you want to take baby outside?” to which we motioned, “YES!”

After our driver asked the caretakers if we could take him outside, we waited about 5 minutes, and our little boy emerged from his door (his normal play room, we are gathering) wearing a full snowsuit, boots, scarf, and winter hat with a tie! He looked like that little boy from “The Christmas Story” who couldn’t even put his arms down! We laughed, and picked him up! So excited to make our way outside! They gave us a stroller to put him in to wheel him around. Although we knew he could walk with us over to the play area, we put him in it (didn’t want to offend) and wheeled him over. Then he got into one of those little tyke toy cars, and started moving it backwards and forwards. While we were outside, he took a few tumbles, not being able to see the little step up concrete blocks they had lying around (probably because he couldn’t see down over his scarf to his feet! Lol!) But, he didn’t cry- he is tough! It seemed like as soon as we brought the bubbles out, all the kids in the orphanage got to have their outdoor play time too. There were about 10-15 other kids brought out for supervised play time. Needless to say everyone else was interested in the bubbles EXCEPT LG. Go figure! So, daddy was the star of the show for everyone else but his own boy, ;0) One of the caretakers started to sweep the concrete of leaves which made LG want to help. As soon as she gave him this half sized/broken broom we could not get it away from him- that’s all he wanted to do- sweep the concrete! Getting him to try the swing and slide was actually a chore! We are thinking that he’s not used to being put up on those items b/c they would require more one-on-one supervision- we could tell he had never been on a slide. In fact, after just a few times, our daredevil just dove onto the slide head first! And, once we got him into the swing, and pushed him, he whimpered/cried a little when we took him out.

I say “whimpered/cried” a little because he really doesn’t truly cry. It’s more of a fake whimper that he does at times. It’s hard to explain here, but after talking we think he is accustomed to not crying, b/c perhaps he knows it results in nothing. He only started doing the more cry-like thing today (yesterday was just a sad look down to his chin, while turning away from us) when we said or did something that he didn’t like. Since we had comforted him yesterday when he did that, today, he (again, we are surmising here) whimpered more, knowing maybe that we would respond. We also noticed that although there were many other kids outside with him (none were his age…at least a year, some 2 years older), he just wanted to be a loner. Even when we tried to initiate activities, he wanted to just walk away on his own, to play by himself. It made us sad…not for us, but for him- he is used to that!

It’s going to be a bit of an adjustment from orphanage lifestyle to a family- but we can’t wait to get to do that. He really, really needs more than just a few hours a day of attention and love. He remembered so many of the things we showed him yesterday, in just a few hours, so we know with a full-time family, he will thrive!

As we are about to “roll into” our last day with him tomorrow, I am getting sad. All I can pray for is that we have a quick turn around time. We only have 2 documents left to get apostilled (and they will be done next Wednesday). Our translator said she hopes to be able to notify us of a court date by early November (notify us…not the actual date…). Keep praying for LG with us! Thank you for all your comments and e-mails. Even though I haven’t been able to respond to all/most/any…lol… of them, please know that we do read them, and appreciate them SO, so much!

…Until tomorrow….