Here is a picture of all my boys tonight!

Hoping to have baby A in our Christmas photos next year!

Christmas cookies!

Here are 3 out of 5 of my boys making Christmas cookies yesterday!

Pictures of the orphanage!

We're home!

We got home today and i'm so happy to be home with the boys! Sorry about the lack of updates, but we didn't have internet during most of our stay, so I will give a day by day run down of how our trip went.

Day 1 ( Dec 15th ): We left Austin Texas at 7:00 a.m. and sat at JFK until 8:20 p.m. ! It was the longest day of my life because I was so upset about leaving the boys. I couldn't stop crying :(. We had an overnight flight and arrived in Moscow mid afternoon ( Moscow time ).

Day 2 ( Dec 16th ) : Our coordinator picked us up from the airport and took us to a train ( along with the doctor who was to evaluate our baby ). We had to ride the train for 6-7 hours to get to the region that we were going to. We finally arrived in NN at 1:30 a.m. and checked into our hotel.

Day 3 ( Dec 17th ): We went to the MOE to officially recieve our referral. I'm not sure why, but I was SO nervous about going to the orphanage, and meeting the baby. Our appointment at the orphanage was at 11:30 and we got there just in time. Then the scary part. The orphanage doctor starting listing all of these medical issues, half of which I had no idea of what she was talking about . Then they brought the baby in. She wasn't feeling well because of a fever and cold, so she was crying. The doctor that we brought along with us examined her and said that she had her concerns because the baby was so small. She said that there weren't any signs of FAS, one of my biggest fears, but she was delayed in her motor skills. We spent about an hour holding her because she wasn't feeling well and then the director told us that our time was up.

Day 4 ( Dec 18th ) : We visited with our baby girl again and she was feeling much better. She was SO cute and SO playful with dh. We signed the papers to adopt her and now the LONG wait for a court date. She's loved the toys and books that we brought in. She also tolerated me putting a hairbow in her hair :). We took a ton of pictures and a couple of videos. I'm still worried about her size (she's in 3-6 month clothing ), but i'm sure that she will grow once at home with her family.

Day 5 ( Dec 19 th ): Our last visit with baby girl :(. She wasn't feeling well again, so we did a lot of cuddling. We were so sad to leave her because we know that she needs so much more then what the orphanage can give her, but we had to say our goodbyes. We took an hour long flight back to Moscow for the night. We got in Moscow at 1:00 a.m. !

Day 6 ( Dec 20th ): Time to go home. Our flight wasn't until 3:45 p.m., so we just kind of hung out at the hotel for most of the day. When we got to the airport, we met another adoptive familyhttp://www.rileyadoption.blogspot.com/ and we took the time to chat with them for a few minutes. Their baby boy is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!! We took a direct flight to JFK and got in at about 6:30 p.m. ! We then had to stay in a hotel overnight.

Day 7 ( Dec 21st ) : Flew out of JFK early this morning and got home at 11:30 a.m. today!

I guess we're ready!

Or at least I hope we are :). I'm so tired right now, but I have to wait for that last load of laundry to get done before I can go to bed. Anyways, just wanted to say bye {wave} and I promise to post as soon as I can. We're due to arrive in Moscow at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday and then we have to take a night train to the region that we're going to, so i'm not sure when I will get the opportunity to post ( hopefully soon ).

THANK YOU!

I want to thank all of you who have sent me " good luck " wishes. It really means a lot to me. I'm becoming more excited and less scared. I can't believe how quickly time is moving. I feel like i've been really organized, but there's STILL so much to do to prepare! The boys are very excited about grammy taking care of them, so i'm feeling less anxious about leaving them. Nicholas talks about his baby sister all the time. He can't wait to show her around the house and to give her dolls, and all the other misc. stuff that we have gathered for her. I think that he's going to be a good big brother :). I've been gathering toys and blankets for the trip ( see pictures ) and can't wait to bring them to the orphanage. I hope that the babies/toddlers enjoy them. I will try and post tomorrow, but if not, I will definitely post while we're in Russia.

EXCELLENT NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are traveling to Russia in 4 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have a lot to do, so I will give a more detailed update later, but I didn't want to keep everyone wondering!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Still waiting

We still haven't heard anything, but we did get our visas in the mail today.

Testing out the new camera.

Here are a few pictures that I took with our new camera tonight. Nicholas is holding a very special bear. This bear started out in a 1st grade classroom in Massachusettes ( where we're from ) and has traveled around the US over the past few months. We're supposed to be taking pictures and writting about the bears visit with us, and then send him off to the next person on the list. HOW COOL will it be to bring the bear to Russia with us :)??? The kids would get a real kick out of it. I'm HOPING that the news is good tomorrow because we have all of our travel plans in place, my mom is due to fly out on Thursday, and i've made some meals ( froze them ) to make things a little easier for my mom. My SW is hopeful, so i'm trying not to give up just yet. I will update my blog the second that I know.

Still haven't heard anything.

Now that it's so late in the day, I probably wont hear anything until Monday {sigh}.

It's not looking good!

I was in contact with a family that adopted in the same region that we were supposed to adopt in and was told that it's illegal to adopt in Russia if you're an insulin dependent diabetic. I'm not sure what our options are now, but wow. We obviously wouldn't have invested all of this time and money into adopting from Russia, had we known this right from the beginning. I'm still waiting to hear what my SW has to say, but it REALLY isn't looking too good now.

Another problem

While I was shopping at Walmart for our trip to Russia next week, I got a call from our SW. She told me that it might be an issue that my husband is a diabetic. This is incredibly frustrating to me because I feel as though this is something that should have been looked into two weeks ago, before we booked everything . I'm not feeling very good about this, but I will update as soon as I hear something.

There's so much to do!

AND I don't know where to start, so I just thought that I would procrastinate more and surf the internet :). I can't believe that we are leaving in less then two weeks. Here is the itenerary so far.

Sat 12/15: Leave Austin 7:00 a.m. and arrive in JFK at 11:30 a.m.

Sat 12/15: Depart JFK at 8:30 p.m. and arrive in Moscow at 1:00 p.m. Sun/16 ( a couple of stops in between ).

Sun 12/16: go through customs and all that ( 2 hrs) and then we STILL have a 5 hour drive to the region that we will be staying in.

Mon 12/17 : Meet child

Tues 12/18 :Visit child ( do paperwork at some point in time ).

Wed 12/19: Drive back to Moscow ( stay in Moscow over night ).

Thurs 12/20: Depart SVO at 8:00 a.m.

Thurs 12/20: Arrive in JFK at around 6:00 p.m.

Fri 12/21: 6:00 a.m. fly out of JFK and arrive in Austin sometime throughout the day.

They arrived!

PHEW

Got the photo!

She's a cutie with dark hair! I can't wait to share pictures! On another note, what adoption would be complete without a mishap or two? Well, we are on mishap #1. We overnighted our visa application, along with our passports on Tuesday and they are MISSING!!!! Nobody seems to know where the package is right now. Ron has been on the phone all morning trying to straighten this whole mess up. SO FRUSTRATING!!!!

MORE INFORMATION

We got more information on our baby girl. My SW says that she's healthy and beautiful ( I should be getting the photo in my email soon ). She is 14 months old and has dark blonde hair and gray eyes. I have her given name too, but i'm not sure if i'm allowed to post it in my blog. OMG this is starting to feel so real now. Ok, off to check my email for the hundredth time.

We have travel dates!

I spoke with my SW yesterday and we got our travel dates. We're leaving on the 15th of December and coming back on the 20th. We're now in the process of preparing our visas and finding a flight. It's very expensive to travel around the holidays, but I would rather be traveling then not traveling , because we will be meeting our little girl. There is so much to plan and do before we go. Ron (dh ) is a diabetic, so I worry about having access to sugar if he has a sugar low. I also worry about leaving the boys ( the ABSOLUTE toughest part of this whole thing ). I worry about eating the food in Russia. Because we are traveling MUCH sooner then anticipated, we didn't have time to get the Hep A and B shots. Lot's to think about and do!!!

WE GOT A REFERRAL!

OMG, I can't believe it, but we got a call from our sw today, and it's for real, we are traveling to Russia in a couple of weeks. We were told that we would have a 12 month wait, but it has only been 3 months since we sent in our dossier. We are going on a blind referral to nizhni novgorod. The only information that we have is that it is a healthy baby girl under 2 years old. I'm in complete shock right now.

More pictures of the boys!

Here are a few pictures of the boys. Nicholas is with our kitty, Cinnamon. Cinnamon was a barn kitten, and such a little runt when we found her. She was SOOO tiny and we had to feed her from a special bottle. She has really grown over the past 3 months and she's very lovable and tolerant of the boys. Nicholas brought her into school for show and tell. There is also a picture of Alex sleeping in his big boy bed for the first time.

Update from the agency.

I spoke with my social worker from the agency and she said that although they thought that things would pick up this month, they have NOT received a single referal for September. They did receive 14 referals last month ( not sure how many were boys and how many were girls ). I believe that we are # 33 on the waiting list. Here is a cute video of Alex playing with our cats.

Poor Alex!

Alex had a fever last week that lasted for about 3 days. As soon as the fever went away, he started coughing and he ended up losing his voice. He doesn't like how his voice sounds, so he has been veeerrry cranky. Here is a video of him tonight.

Found out who our social worker was.

Our SW called my dh at work today. She introduced herself to him and told him that it would be about a 12 to 15 month wait right now. She said that there is no wait for a boy, but we don't need to spend $40,000 and travel half way around the world to get a boy ( we have 5 already ), so we will continue to wait for a girl.

It's officially official!!!

Hi Ron and Tracy,
I just wanted to let you know that I received and reviewed your apostilled dossiers this morning. Everything looked great! Congratulations, you are officially on the child referral list now! A social worker from my office will call you within the next 2 business days and introduce herself to you and answer any questions or concerns you may have. Please remember to complete the educational requirements as soon as possible (Frank Online School and Eyes Wide Open). It has been a pleasure working with you. I hope you have a wonderful day!

Suzanne Hopkins
Dossier Coordinator
Business Manager/Executive Assistant

Both dossiers have been Apostilled!!!!

I overnighted the dossiers to my adoption agency and i'm thrilled to be DONE with all the paperwork ( for now anyways lol ) . Here is a photo of my apostilled dossiers ( 118 items were apostilled ).

Oh yeah!

Here's a video too.

Nicholas' first day of school!

Where did the time go? I can't believe that he's in school already. He LOVED it!

Agency recieved the dossier

and everything looks GREAT! They sent it back and I should be getting it tomorrow. I will be getting both dossiers apostilled on Tuesday and then the official wait begins. I'm so excited to be moving on to the next step of the adoption process. Although I didn't drag my feet, the paperwork took almost 4 months to complete. My 5 year old starts Kindergarten tomorrow, so I will post a little update about his first day of school ( with pictures ) tomorrow. Now that family is gone, we are back from a month long vacation, and paperwork for the adoption is done ( for now anyways ) , I will be writting in my blog more often.

Two complete Dossier's!!!!!

WOOHOO!!!!!! I just sent a hard copy of my dossier to the adoption agency for review. They should be getting it tomorrow morning. I'm hoping and praying that it meets approval and that I can get everything appostilled next week. THEN we will be on the waiting list. The dossier preparation was a HUGE PITA. I'm not looking forward to having to do this again when everything expires.

Got it straightened out

We got the doctors to give us copies of their medical licenses ( with the number blacked out ). What a HUGE load taken off my shoulders!

I'm SO upset right now!

I just went to pick up all of our medical forms that needed to be filled out and notarized for the dossier, and the nurse ( rudely) tells me that the doctor WILL NOT give a copy of his medical license ( required to adopt in Russia ). I was practically in tears when I called my adoption agency about this. The dossier cordinator spoke with the nurse herself and told her that they could black out the actual license number. The nurse said that she would run it by the doctor, but she didn't sound very hopeful. WTF do I do???? This could seriously slow things down for us BIG TIME. We have 7 people in our family. Not only would we have to try and find another doctor who will do this, but we will have to pay a ton more money for physicals AND we would most likely have to wait a couple of months JUST to get in. I'm VERY upset right now!

Dossier almost complete!

Well, our Dossier is almost complete WOOHOO. The only two things that we are waiting on are for police clearance ( we were fingerprinted yesterday ) and we are trying to find a CPA to sign a certificate of asset form. I tried calling a couple of local CPA's yesterday but didn't have any luck. My husband is going to talk with the CPA at his work today. I can't believe that it has taken 4 months just to prepare the dossier AND I wasn't even dragging my feet on anything.

WE GOT IT!!!

We got the approval ( I600A ) to adopt a little girl from Russia. We are still in Massachussettes visiting family, but we can't wait to get home and complete our dossier so that we can officially be on the waiting list WOOHOO!!!

We made it to Mass

The boys and I left for Cape Cod on Sunday, at 3:00 a.m. and we made it to my sisters house by Tuesday afternoon. The kids were AWESOME during the long drive. I drove 12 hours on the first 2 days and 7 on the last day. We made a stop at Hershey Park to do the tour ride and buy some chocolate. After being in the car all day, Alex ( 2 year old ) ran around like a crazy man lol. He was trying to grab everything that he saw and he was following the chocolate bar characters around saying " hi chocolate ". Ron and I may take the boys there again on our way back to Texas. We may also go to New York City because Nicholas ( 5 year old ) was only a baby the last time we went to New York. He would get a huge kick out of the Empire State Building. We still haven't heard from immigrations yet ( sigh ) . I was hoping that we would hear something soon, but no such luck.

LOOK AT WHAT I FOUND IN MY EMAIL TODAY!!!!!

Hello Frank Family,

It is with great pleasure and excitement to inform you that Frank Adoption Center, NC has been reaccredited by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation as of June 27, 2007. Frank is one of seven American agencies to be reaccredited! We are formally notifying all of our families today of this wonderful news and you will find this information on our website by the week's end. We are also including a copy of the ORDER, both the English translated version and the Russian version for you to see.

Thank you so much for your continued support and patience during the past 13 months!

Warm regards,

We got our appointment!

We got our fingerprint appointment for this Friday. My sister and her kids are visiting from Mass. so we decided to make a day out of it and go to the San Antonio zoo. I leave for Mass. in about a week and a half, so it doesn't look like our dossier will be complete until mid to late August. SOOO frustrating ! I'm not even on the waiting list until the adoption agency receives our dossier. I will post pictures this weekend.

I know!

I have been incredibly bad about updating my blog, but I WILL do better. Our homestudy went very well and we recieved a copy of it within a week after our visit. I overnighted it ( is that a word?) to immigrations and now we are patiently waiting for our fingerprint appointment. We NEED to have this done before our dossier is complete and i'm leaving in 3 weeks to go back home ( Cape Cod ) for a month. I really dont think that the dossier will be complete until mid August and it's frustrating because we wont technically be on the waiting list with our adoption agency until this is finished. Yesterday was Alex's 2nd birthday and we celebrated it by going out to Mcdonalds ( his choice ) and eating yummy cupcakes. My sister and kids are coming to visit us on Saturday ( jumping up and down ). I haven't seen them since last August and i'm beyond excited right now.

Preparing for homestudy!

Here is Nicholas helping with the cleaning on Friday ( forgot to post it ).

Homestudy done!

THANK GOD our homestudy is done without any major catastropies ( except the bloody nose that Sean gave Nick when he threw a ball to him ) . Another huge hurdle out of the way!!!!! It was a lot different than what I thought it would be like. I thought that we would talk more about our family life, values, and all that good stuff, but our SW was very business like and just asked a lot of questions about our parents and the kind of upbringing we had. She interviewed my husband and I together, and then alone. She also interviewed each of the boys alone. God, how I wished that I was a fly on the wall when she interviewed Nicholas ( 4 year old ). This is the kid that when asked what his moms favorite drink was ( Mother's day questionnaire at school ) proudly announced that my favorite drink was beer. WHAT????? I dont even remember the last time I drank beer lol. I drink wine a couple of nights a week, but I haven't had a beer in ages. Anyways, my homestudy should be complete sometime next week. The social worker is just waiting on one more reference letter ( thanks Aggie ) and then the daunting task of preparing the dossier.

Homestudy

Our homestudy is coming up in a couple of day's and i'm amazingly calm about it. I have no reason to worry ( unless Alex decides to bite Nicholas or something crazy like that) , so why worry. I'm just more anxious to get the show on the road. Over the next few weeks, I will be working on getting my Dossier complete and then the wait will officially begin. My mom and sister will be coming to Texas for a visit at the end of June WOOHOO. I can't wait to see them! Here is a picture of one of my nieces ( soooo cute ).

YEP

I'm having a good time shopping for girl clothes! I have bought 8 dresses ( with matching bows/headbands ) , 1 sweater, 3 shirts, and 2 pairs of pants. Right now, the wait is 12-15 months after the submitted Dossier, so we are looking at next summer, or early fall. We dont know what size she will be in, but I have been told that most of the children are small due to malnutrition. It makes me sad to think of my child being hungry, and not being able to do anything for her yet. I cant wait to get her home, where she belongs. Nicholas picked out a cute little blankie for his baby sister. He was excited to see all the dresses hanging up in the closet. Poor Alex has to endure my playing dress up with him lol. I have been trying all the dresses on him to get an idea of how they fit an almost 2 year old. He's been a good sport though and even got excited to " show Sean " each new outfit. Here are a few pictures of Alex modeling a couple of new dresses.

Nick graduates from preschool!

We went to Nick's preschool graduation tonight and it was so cute. I can't believe that he is going to be starting Kindergarten in a few months. Where does the time go???? He has been talking about having a little sister, and how he thinks that he might have some girl toys for her in his playroom. He's going to be a good big brother to his little sister.

We have our homestudy scheduled for June 2nd WOOOHOOO!!!!!!

We did our passports today and my picture came out awful!!! It's about a 12 week wait for passports right now, so we had to pay extra to have it expedited. Although we probably wont be traveling for awhile, we need a copy of our passports for the Dossier. I want to thank all of the people that have taken the time to write reference letters. I know that everyone is busy, but it's greatly appreciated.

We have all the paperwork filled out for the homestudy. The only thing that we are waiting for now is a recent bank statement (should be here this week) , our bloodwork results, and 2 teacher letter's. We got confirmation from the UCIS that they recieved our application for the I600 A ( petition to adopt an orphan child from another country). Our next step is the actual homestudy. The social worker will talk with Ron and I together, and then she will talk to each member of the family seperately. She will also tour our house and ask a lot of personal questions. Yep, i'm looking forward to all this lol.

Slowly but surely!

We almost have all of our paperwork together to submit for our homestudy WOOHOO. I can't wait to be DONE with it. I know that this is only the beginning , but at least it's a step closer. Christopher ( our 16 year old ) had his physical yesterday and Ron had his done today. Mine is scheduled for tomorrow. I have to bring Alex with me, so hopeful he will be cooperative. I brought him with me to Christopher's appointment and he dumped a whole canister of tongue depressors on the floor *oops*. I offered to pay for his mess , but the doctor said that there was no way of billing for it.

O.M.G

The paperwork is totally crazy!!! Ron and I have plugged away at most of it this weekend, but there are a few blank spots that we still need to fill in. We completed our I600 A and sent that out last week. My goal is to have all of our paperwork for the Homestudy done by the end of the week. We had to get letters of recommendations from each of the boy's teachers AND an additional 4 reference letters from other people. We have our physicals scheduled for Tuesday and then we should be good to go.