Ready to Go

Today was a Great Day.  We went to church last night, so we were able to sleep in a little, if you call 7:00 am sleeping in?  We watched our favorite church speaker on T.V. John Hagee, he is awesome.  Trevor had a 10:00 basketball game and while Tom had him, I was able to do a little more organizing.  Later in the afternoon, we went to a surprise 70th Birthday Party for our best friends Mom, whom our kids call Grammy.  The party was wonderful and Lowayne was very surprised.  The evening was fun to talk to a bunch of our family friends whom we haven't seen in a while.  It was nice to be able also to talk about the flight tomorrow and fill everyone in on the details.
We are ready to go, we have 1 suitcase to check and then 1 carry on.  I hope we have everything, if not oh well.
Hopefully we will be able to communicate while we are there.  Love you all for all of your prayers.  Bye.

Schedule

Well lets see, after the very late in the day phone call and email from our agency on Monday I have been busy getting things together.

Because of the late notice, I had to pay an extra $300 to get our visa application expedited, not to mention the cost of next day air, to Washington D.C. and back.  We are supposed to get our visa either Saturday or Monday.

We will leave on Monday Feb 1, we will fly Lufthansa from Chicago to Frankfort then 1 1/2 hour layover and on to St. Petersburg.  We will arrive on Tuesday around 1:15.  On Wednesday, We will go to the Ministry of Education for an official invitation and then we will get to see our daughter.  We will be able to see her again on Thursday, and then we will sign papers for our intent to adopt her.  On Friday, we will have a wonderful 9 doctor medical examination done.  Yipee for us.  They want to make sure that we are healthy enough to care for a child.  Umm, I think so, we have 4 already that don't seem to mind us.  Anyway, we will have a free day on Saturday and then return home on Sunday.  Wow a lot to do in a short amount of time.  We haven't confirmed where we are staying yet, still working on that one.  We will come home after the first trip and wait approximately 6 weeks before we can go back for a court date.  The weather in St. Pete is very, very, very, did I say very cold.  It is definately fur coat weather.  I'm wearing mine, now I need to find a cute hat to wear with it.  We were told that in Russia, most women dress in dark clothing.  I have packed 2 pairs of black pants, my cashmere sweaters, black and gray, and lots of turtlenecks and shirts to wear under.  I will pack one skirt in case we have a dinner at a nice restaurant or go to maybe the ballet.  Ha, could you see Tom at a ballet?  I don't think so, but a girl can dream can't she?  Well I'm back to the races, much to do when you still have 4 at home.

Yipee and Yikes

Yipee:  We got a date to meet our daughter on February 3.

Yikes:  Whos going to do all the paperwork?  Yikes everything is wait, wait, wait then all of a sudden, its hurry, hurry, hurry.  What a weird feeling.

Off to races I go.  Pray for me that it gets done in a timely fashion and correctly.

Baby Bedding Found

Well there it is folks, nope it isn't either of the 2 listed in previous posts.  I happended to be in Buy Buy Baby, a store I haven't gone in before.  I don't know if the store is even new becuase it has been so long that I needed baby items.  I was walking along and I spotted this bedding.  It is a discontinued piece from Glenna Jean and I thought that it was great.  It was on clearance so therefore it was a great deal.  On top of the great deal, I had a coupon for 20% off.  WOW, that was a great deal.  Now the carpet guys are coming this week to measure, we will place the order and hopefully in 2-3 weeks have all the carpeting done.  The painter is coming next week also.  Things are going, now we just need to go see her.

Ring, Phone Ring!

In my Community Bible Study one of our questions today was, Which fruit of the Spirit would you like to see more of in yourself this year?  For those of you who don't know what the Fruits of the Spirit are they are found in Galatians 5:22-23 :  Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindess, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self Control.  Well for those of you who know me, know that I could use all of it, but our leader wouldn't let us answer the question that way, so, I would love to have more Gentleness.  I know with a daughter coming into our family, I will need to be more gentle with her and towards her.  So Lord, I ask, Please instill in me more gentleness, not more Patience.  Amen

patience, what patience?

Andrew on the Chair Lift

Trevor and Austin

Nathan and Sara

Well Monday came and has passed, it is now Tuesday and still nothing.  I'm hoping today? No? Oh come on God, I guess God is teaching me patience again.  I know I didn't pray for it, but He must think I need it.

Well let me tell you what we did on our Monday day off.  I called up my girl friend Kelly and asked if her kiddos could go skiing.  Well 2 of them could so off I went with 3 of mine.  We had a great day.  I didn't get to go skiing last year so I was happy to be out on the Hill.  Yes I said hill, because in Wisconsin that is about what you get.  No big mountains here in the midwest so Wisconsin will do.  The weather was great, the kiddos were great and no one got hurt.  The kids were exhausted but wanted to keep going.  I made them come in at 7:00 p.m. and we ate and got home for bed time.  All in all a wonderful time.

ring phone ring!

Nope

No phone call yet.  Hopefully Monday......Please God????

Can't Decide on Room Decor

I have been doing a lot of searching on the web about what our daughters room should look like.  While Tom was away with Trevor last weekend I spent a lot of time on the internet going in all different places to see what I want for her room.  Since she will be my only girl, I kind of want to make a really girly girl room.  I have been leaning towards the "Shabby Chic" look, but the rest of my house does not match.  The rest of my house is very boy, except for my dining room which is very elegant.  So I ask, does it matter that I have a pink girls room, amongst all the other boy things?  We will have to move Tyler, Trevor and Andrew, they have all graciously agreed to rearrange for their sister.  That is really weird to say "sister".  Tyler will have to move out of his big room with the attached bathroom, to go into Andrews room.  Andrew and Trevor will now be sharing a room (Tylers) because it is large and 2 beds will fit nicely in there.  Andrew and Trevor have decided to do a football theme room.  We have chosen the bedding from Pottery Barn for them, and Tyler will keep his White Sox Theme since most of the items are new anyways.

For our daughters room, she will have Trevors old room which was the nursery many years ago.  We will paint and put in new carpeting thru out all the bedrooms.  We have even decided to paint ours as well.  We still have the crib we used for the boys.  It is oak, but goes nicely with the room.  Also, we won't need to buy any extra furniture because we will combine the boys and it should all fit, if I don't buy to many clothes that is.  If I had my choice I would of put in all white furniture but we are trying to be as economical as can be in these days.

Here are the 2 choices I think I have narrowed it down to.  Oh believe me there was plenty more, but cost had a lot to do with it.  These 2 beauties are still within the budget.

Shabby Chic Chenille

Amelia, by Glenna Jean

So what do you think?

Is it too pink?

Let me know.

Happy Birthday Baby

Not a whole lot to mention this week.  We are thinking we will get a call from our adoption agency this week or the beginning of next week.

Today is Toms 45 Birthday.  Yikes, that means he is closer to the big 50 now.  We celebrated last night with a spiral ham and had Marilyn over.  She mades one of Toms favorite cakes, Chocolate Chip Nut Date Cake.  It was a favorite of Toms growing up, so she is happy to make it for him now.  Today we celebrated him and I by going to Portillos.  Yum, We love this place.  We were very good and both had salads.  I had the chopped salad, and Tom had the Poppyseed Chicken salad.  Both were delicious.

Andrew out in the snow waiting for his school bus

Celebrating Toms Birthday

Snow

Here we are in the Midwest and receiving some snow.  I say some because my kiddos would love to have A LOT more.  After school (yes they still had school), they will go out and shovel the driveways.  The boys have a great system of asking people if they would like their driveways shoveled.  Andrew is the one who goes up to the door with his big eyes and says that he would shovel the driveway for a nominal fee, can you see the big eyelashes batting?  He really is pretty good at it.  This should help them earn some more money that they can save in their banks or spend a small part of it.  The boys are really trying to save enough money for another remote for the PS3.  Do you know how expensive those things are?

I went to the bank today to get some nice, crisp, uncirculated $100 bills.  Why you ask?  Well for those of you new to this adoption process, Russia will only accept new bills, if they have a fold, tear, crinkle or writing on it they will not accept it.

I finished our FBI fingerprinting.  This was a huge chore for us.  Our local police department would not fingerprint us becuase we technically live in unincorporated area and I would have to go to the county to have this done.  Well where we live this is no small task.  It is far, inconvenient and not very friendly.  I called to find out when I could come and they said we only do fingerprinting on Fridays from 8:00 to 9:00 am, what are you kidding me?  When I called back in December, Christmas was on Friday, New Years was on Friday and they wouldn't let me come in on any other day.  Soooooo, I pleaded with the local police department and brought in a tax bill from another resident, and let us get them done there.  I sent them in to the FBI and will wait about 4 weeks to get them back.  I didn't put a rush on them, because we really only need them before we go to court in St. Petersburg, which by my calculations should be around March.

Tyler is still trying to find a job, he has not even gotten an official interview.  He has been filling out applications but no available postions are there.  It is tough because of the economy, there are many people with out jobs.

Austin once again made the Honor Roll at Marmion Academy, he has done a fantastic job there.  He is still learning to apply himself when it comes to homework, but overall a terrific job by him.

Trevor - I forgot to let you know that Trevor was invited to a Football Combine, I know I didn't know what it was either.  For those of you like me it is where football players compete in different areas of athletics.  Example:  40 yard dash, standing long jump, vertical jump, weighted ball throw from your knees, football catch.  Well he won his age level (7th Grade) and was invited on a National Level down in San Antonio, TX to compete against 300 other players.  We are just really excited for him to be able to experience something on this level.  He really enjoys the game of Football and really is a good athlete, we are just waiting to see where God leads this boy.

Andrew is playing indoor soccer and Basketball, I need something to keep this boy active.  He loves to lounge and watch T.V. and play video games.  We have restricted the boys to just 1 hour a day on the electronics.  It really is a hard thing to monitor.

Hope your all doing well, what ever happened to those people who talked about Global Warming?  I think we need a little bit of warming, I'm freezing and it's going to be colder tomorrow.

Happenings

Here is Andrew and Cooper out Pheasant Hunting

While they were Pheasant Hunting,

Samson had a photo shoot

Over the Christmas Vacation,

Andrew had an Indoor Soccer Tourny

Here he is playing goal,

Not a good day

Trevor also had A LOT of soccer

he played in several 3vs3 tournys,

the team won 2 of them.

This is his Indoor game against a U14 team,

Trevor is only 12 so some of these boys were

quite large (man sized) and here Trevor is

getting a gentle nudge away from the ball

but, he came right back on a kid his own size to...

get this header.

Also, we won the game 1-0 and Trevor scored the only

goal.  Whoo hoo

We are patiently waiting for a call as to when we will be traveling.  For Russia, their Christmas is this week and then they have their New Year on Jan 13.  The whole government basically closes down.  We probably won't hear anything until the week of Jan 18 for our travel dates.

Happy New Years

I have to say that my friend Kelly makes New Years Eve so amazing.  We have been having a tradition for a number of years now that include Fondue.  I only have fondue on New Years Eve and I have to say it is so much fun.  Kelly decorates her house and has an amazing table set up with a great meal.  There are several of us who help out in some way.  We have an enormous amount of Beef, Chicken and Shrimp to cook, along with veggies and a wide array of dipping sauces.  We have salad and cheesy potatoes to go along with it and it really is amazing.  While the adults are eating fondue, the kids are playing, and playing.  This year we had 12 kids ranging in ages from 6 to 17, and they all play so well together.  When we are done with the fondue, we clean up and have the kids come and eat Chocolate Fondue.  For this we spare no expense.  We have the best recipe and the best items to dip in it, Strawberries, marshmallows, pound cake, cheese cake, rice krispy treats, banannas, and more I can't remember.  The kiddos love this and when they are done getting their fill, we send them away again and we eat our fill of the chocolate goodies.

We rang in the New Year with Sparkling Cider and poppers that spray confetti when you pull the tab.  The kiddos love to pull the poppers and get it all over.  It was a great night.  Even better at the end of the evening or should I say at the beginning of the morning, Kelly has all the kiddos sleep over and we get to go home with out them.  Wow what GREAT friends they are.

I think back to last year when adopting was just something we were talking and thinking about.  I had done all the research on agencies, and we had done a lot of praying to see where God would lead us.  This year, I have a picture of my little girl and I can't wait to go meet her.   A relative asked me if I was getting my hopes up and what happens if it dosen't work out, well my answer is YES my hopes are up, and YES she is growing in my heart more and more everyday.  If God decides to close this door, it will be devistating, but I know He would open a window somewhere else.  We really feel God is calling us to be her parents and Yes it scares us, but what would life be with out God to comfort us.  We truly feel blessed to be a part of her life already.

In Russia, their Chrismas is Jan 6, so everything seems to shut down in the government, so we will not be hearing anything until after the holidays there.  Our agency seems to think we will get a call and be expected to travel in late January.  Oh I can't wait.

Stay tuned, and hopefully with the New Year we will get a call soon.

Have a God Filled New Year and Stay In His Presence.