ASHLYN IS OUR DAUGHTER!!!

The 10 days was waived and we have Ashlyn with us right now :). Last night I went to sleep around 12:00 a.m. and woke up about an hour later . My heart was racing and I felt sooo sick to my stomach. I became panicked about going to court. If I had to go to court at that time, I don't think that I would have made it. I didn't go to sleep AT ALL. Thankfully, by 6:00 a.m. I was much calmer and just wanted to get it over with. We got to court on time and I was feeling pretty confident about giving my speech :). Welll, the judge came in and ruined it all by yelling and ranting. She was slamming her hands on our paperwork and all I could get out of it was Nicholas and Alexander ( my two younger boys names). That's how we started court :(. Luckily, she didn't rattle my nerves too much . My desire to be done with court was greater then my fear of court itself at that point in time. The judge smiled as she looked through the photo album that I made and she even took a few pictures to keep for herself ( including one of my boys ). Court only lasted for an hour and we were named Ashlyn's parents :). We found out later that our translator made a mistake in translating Nick and Alex's birth certificates, so that's what all the fuss was about. We found out at 2:00 that we would be able to pick Ashlyn up from the orphanage. If we couldn't do it today, then we would have had to wait until Sunday, so we were pretty excited. When we picked Ashlyn up, she was a little sad at first, but she quickly warmed up to us and was such a good little traveler back to the hotel. There was a lot of traffic and it took us 2 hours to get back, but she never once cried. Once back at the hotel, she played with all her toys and was just sooo happy. I laid her in the crib about a half hour ago and she hasn't made a peep. She's cuddling with the blanket and teddy bear that we left for her on our first visit. There's a lot more that I want to say, but i'm really tired from not sleeping last night, so I need to try and sleep. I'll post more tomorrow :). I'm going to also work on posting photos, so check back in :).

We got to see her today!

First of all, I want to thank all of you for commenting on our blog. It means a lot to us :). Secondly, we got to see baby A today. I have my concerns, because she's 19 months old and still isn't walking or talking. She's also pretty small for her age still , but she has grown some. It was close to her nap time when we showed up, so she was pretty somber and fussy when we first got there. The last 15 minutes or so were a lot of fun though. I handed her a few Cheerios and she poked at them, causing one of them to fling up in the air. She thought that that was pretty funny and kept doing it over and over again, but she wouldn't eat them. There's also a rocking horse in the meeting room, so we put her on it and she held on to the handles and rocked like a cow girl. She's going to love the bucking bronco that nana bought for her big brothers. We also showed her a photo album with pictures of our first trip to NN, and pictures of her big brothers and she LOVED that. She got really excited when she saw the boys :). We have court tomorrow and OMG i'm scared to DEATH! We have court at 10:00 a.m. Wednesday , so midnight Tuesday back at home. Once we get through court, we're hoping that we can get her from the orphanage, but only if all of the paperwork is together and court runs smoothly. If things don't fall into place in an orderly fashion, then we wont be able to get her until Sunday. We're really hoping to get her tomorrow, because I think that it's critical for Ron and I to spend as much one on one time with her as possible before we return home. I miss my boys terribly :(. Alex had a fever of 103 yesterday and i'm so sad that I wasn't there for him. The last time that he had a fever like that, was back in September, and he wanted me to hold him the whole time. Hopefully he's feeling better today. Well, the next time you hear from me, we should be done with court :).

We didn't get to see her today.

After writing in my blog this morning, Ron and I took a 4 hour nap. We woke up to the phone ringing. It was our translator, calling to tell us that we couldn't go to the orphanage, because it was too late, and the doctor wasn't there :(. I was really bummed out, but the good news is that we get to see her tomorrow, at 9:30 a.m. ( night time for all of you ). We also got some more information about the birth mom. We were told that she was beautiful and that she had a 13 year old son. None of her family knew that she was pregnant, not even her son. While she was pregnant, she took care of her body. She didn't take any drugs, or do anything harmful because she thought that she was going to keep the baby, and raise her with the baby's biological dad, but the dad bailed out. She couldn't afford to take take care of A by herself. Very sad :(. We were also told that she cried when she was told that A was being adopted. She wasn't told any details about us, such as being us being Americans . We met up with the other family that had court today. Everything went very well with them and it was nice to hang out with them for a few hours. Well, I don't have much internet time, but I wanted to update. I will post about our visit tomorrow.

WE'RE HERE!!!

We got to NN at 7:30 a.m. , Monday morning, after about 27 hours of traveling, but we feel pretty good. The flight was EXCELLENT ( Singapore )! We ate dinner shortly after take off, watched Juno, slept until the last 2 hours of the flight, watched another movie ( I think it's called I'm Legend, or something like that ) and ate breakfast . We had about an hour drive to the train station and then we had to wait about 2 and a half hours before we could get on the train, so we pretty much just "people watched" while we waited. We took the overnight train to NN, about 7 hours, and now we're here. Our coordinator told us that we would most likely get to see baby A today, so we're very excited about that. He's going to call us after 2:00 p.m. to let us know when, but it probably won't be until after 5:00 p.m. because there's another family at court right now, as I type. I can't wait to meet this other family :). We're both from the same agency and they also live in Texas. We've been emailing each other and talking on the phone quite a bit, but we haven't met yet. They're adopting 3 biological siblings. Just a reminder, we're 10 hours ahead of most of you, so most of my posting will probably be done while you're all sleeping.

CHRIS GOING TO A FORMAL DANCE LAST NIGHT!

We're leaving tomorrow!

WOW, it's hard to believe that we're leaving for Russia tomorrow night. We're taking a direct flight from Houston to Moscow, leaving at 11:45 p.m. and arriving in Moscow at 8:00 p.m. Sunday night ( Sunday morning in the US ). We'll then be taking an overnight train to NN ( 7 hours ). Our total travel time will be about 24 hours. I believe we're going to see A on Tuesday and I can't wait. I wonder if she's grown any, or if she's walking yet. She was 19 months on April 24th :). The boys are very excited about meeting their baby sister. I will update as soon as I can.

8 days

We leave in 8 days WOOHOO! We got our visas today, so that always makes it feel official. People keep asking me if i'm excited and I AM, but i'm also very nervous that something will go wrong with the paperwork or court. I'll be excited after court is over with :). There have been a few blogger friends ( you know who you are ) that have been sooo helpful to Ron and I , throughout this process, and I thank you for that :). This weekend we're getting our yard in order and tieing up loose ends. My oldest son is coming home next week, so we'll be busy with him. Thanks again, to all of you who read my blog and for supporting us in this adoption!

1 week and 3 days, also some pictures of Nick and t-ball

Not that i'm counting or anything :). Things have pretty much fallen into place. We paid our agency fees and ordered our new money. We have A's suitcase all packed and i've gone over our dossier about 2o times, making sure that nothing is going to expire before court. I'm feeling a little better about leaving the boys this time because they're so excited about having grammy here. I have the most AWESOME friends/neighbors . They're just as excited as us to have Ashlyn home, and are helping out by taking the boys ( to give my mom a break ) and many have offered to bring meals to my mom and boys while we're gone. Tomorrow i'm going to shop for the last minute items that we need ( snacks and stuff ) and that should be it. I can't believe that we'll be Ashlyn's parents in 2 weeks!!!

2 weeks and 6 days

Before we leave for Russia!!! I go back and forth between being excited and being scared to death. Leaving the boys for 12 days is freaking me out still. I thought that I was going to loose it when I had to leave them for just 5 days, so i'm not sure what it's going to be like leaving them for 12 :(. Hopefully we'll be so busy that the time will just fly by. What really helped me the last time was talking to the boys on the phone. They never once were upset that we were gone, so i'm sure that they will be the same this time. I'm thinking about leaving little notes/treats that my mom can give to them each day. I'm sure that they'll love this :). There's an end in sight now and it will all be worth it when our plane lands in Houston on May 8th. I also worry about something going wrong with the adoption, or at court. I'm very nervous about going to court in Russia, but from what I hear, NN is a very adoption friendly region. Here's what we've done so far to prepare:

1. Visa applications have been sent.

2. We purchased our airline tickets.

3. Purchased my moms ticket to come out here.

4. Hired a house cleaner to clean our house while we're gone.

5. Worked out carpooling for my boys school/activities.