2 years home

I been so busy with holidays, and the whole family being sick for more then a week, I didnt' have a time to post about Daniel J.

December 22, marked 2 years since  I pick it up Daniel J from orphanage, and we are so blessed he is our son.

December 26, 2009 we landed in San Francisco, and Daniel J were home with us. I will try to post later about his progress over these 2 years, and he did make a lot of progress.

We are so thankful to our God for Daniel J , for keeping him safe, and for allowing to be his forever family.

We love you Daniel J!

Still waiting...

We are still waiting to receive our travel date. At least we do know that our dossier has been approved and registered on 12/16/2011. SDA still don't give appointment dates. So we are still in waiting position, but at least we know that our paperwork is fine.

We had a great Christmas, but we were thinking a lot about our child/ren, we do pray for the. And I still keep repeating to myself that "God has a plan" lol.
Our facilitator thinks we will travel late January-mid February, but again only God knows. As soon as I know something I will post.

Thank you for all of your prayers, and encouragement.

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful day! Kids were good, and we got a lot of family time.

Happy Birthday Jesus!!!

Not traveling yet... but

It's been a long time since I posted my last post. We been busy, and holidays coming, and many, many other things had been going on, and I was not in the mood of posting.

Updates on our adoption. We been submitted in November, but SDA was not giving out travel/invitation for the last two month, so we been just waiting. Last week we found out the SDA had reopen, and functioning as usual so from our facilitator words, we should expect to get our official invitation next week.

We are praying for Gods perfect timing for everything. I will post more if I have time, also will try to post some pictures.

God Bless you

Not submitted

We didn't'  go through submission process, choose to be on the safe side, and did rescheduled our submission date for November 23. Will try to write a post on this. Been very long day, and it's time to go to bed.

Dossier in Kiev..

I just wanted to let everyone know that our dossier made it save to Kiev. Praise our God. Thank you everyone for your prayers. Its a long story, and  we were  sure that we will miss this submission day, but....

We took our envelope to FedEx on November 1st, around 4:30 pm, and they had their pick up for a day already. So they said that our envelope will leave their office on Wednesday, at 4 pm. When I check our tracking # on Thursday morning, November 3rd,  system couldn't find anything for our tracking #.
 Sergey had to call FedEx office to see what is going on. Lady at the FedEx office said, that they had some issues with pick up, and our package was still at the office. My heart dropped, I knew that there is no way that our envelope will make it before our submission.Actually our envelope left local office November 3rd evening, and did 3 stops in US before leaving to Ukraine. Also Fedex promised that our envelope will be there on November 10th, and it's after our submission day. But God is amazing God, and it took less then 2 business days for our envelope to make it to Ukraine, and be delivered to our facilitator!!!!


*** We are getting closer and we already preparing for our trip. Little by little we are getting warm cloth for everyone, and stuff that we will take with us. I am getting more nervous and cant' wait for everything to be over, and have our child/ren home with us.

Dossier on the way to Ukraine!

Yesterday we mailed our dossier to Ukraine, and if everything will go smooth we will have our submission date next week. We are very excited and ready to go to Ukraine to find our child/ren. But we put all our paperwork, time and everything into our Father's hands. Please pray with us for next week submission date, and for our paperwork get to Ukraine on time.


Thank you

God Bless you

We are alive :)

We are still home, and praying that by this submission date we will have our I171H.
We had our fingerprints scheduled on October 20, but we went to our local office and they took us in and we were able do our fingerprints on October 11.

Once our paperwork got to USCIS it seem like everyone who had to do anything with our paperwork had to take vacation at the same time :)) First it was our case officer, she took her vacation two times while reviewing our paperwork :) On the 14th of this month we finally were approved by our case officer, and our paperwork went to Supervisor, for another approval by him. And we found out he was on vacation all last week, and came back just today:) So we are waiting again and praying that he will have our paperwork out of his office today, or tomorrow.

I just know God has a plan, and now when girls that we liked to adopt are adopted and have a family, God does have a different plan for our family.

Looks like we will have to spend Christmas and New Year in Ukraine. It should be fun ! Last time I spend New Year in Ukraine , was  13 year ago.

Girls have a family

Last week we found out that girls, we prayed for , have a family. We are very happy that they got adopted. I guess God has a different plan for our family.

On the sad side, we didn't make it for our submission date, and now we will have to reschedule, and have it a little later. Delay is on our officer/case worker side. A week ago she was on vacation, and didnt' pull our file, and we didn't get scheduled for fingerprints. But now, we are not in a hurry to travel, since child/ren we want to adopt are unknown by us, only God know a perfect timing.

But it would be nice if we can come back home with our kid/s, before New Year.

Please pray....

quick update

We been super busy lately, and there is just no time for everything. I am not sure if  we will get our USCIS approval for our submission date, most likely our submission date will need to be reschedule. 

We Just have remember, God has a plan. 

Last week we been working on our last pieces of dossier documents, and we have most of them. Still waiting for employment letter, and house letter, but we should have it in our hands this week.

We are still praying and thinking about girls, and I am working hard to find out any info I can to get back in contact with them. 

We still need a lot of finances for this adoption, and we know that God is in control. 

Please pray

Labor Day Weekend!

We had a great Labor day weekend. Sunday spontaneously we decided and went to the ocean. We had a good time as a family! 

Daddy and his princess! This girl not scared of anything! 

My little handsome boy! He is starting to show this cute personality, always make everyone laugh !

 My oldest handsome son, with beautiful eyes! He is best son, and best big brother! 

 Guess who took this picture! Danik did a great job! 

 Just me

Kids played in the sand!

 Danik has a little helper :)

Playing in the water :) Everyone had a great time! 

Brothers

And Monday we spend all day home. Was very nice, quite day.

Our lunch. Corn, potatoes, pork, shish kabobs, and kids had hotdogs. 

 Everyone waiting  for food...

 Garlic Bread

 Salad

It's seems like lately we do have better family days. I really want to post about changes in us, and Danik in the past few months.

He is With You - Mandisa

This song is very powerful! Every time I hear this song, it makes me realize that I am not along, and there is time for everything. And after hard times/tears will be laughter, and joy! This song always lift my spirit up!

Been a hard week...

This week was a hard week for me. I am emotionally very tired.

Danik got in-trouble in school few times, made few bad choices.Nothing big, just  boys stuff :)  Also he made bad choices at home, and got in some trouble.
He got his first citation at school yesterday for kicking his ball after a  drill. He and boys were playing basketball game and when drill went on  for recess to be over Danik needed few more shots to win, so he through a ball few more times to be a winner. Actually it made me smile. I wasnt' happy that he did follow school rules, but Danik is very competitive and if we regulate his skills in good directions he will be very successful in his life.

Denik, and Elliana were on and off with whining and crying. I think they are fighting a cold or something. Baby doesnt' sleep through a night yet, and it been hard this last week.


Also we are still waiting for USCIS response. Last thing that they told us it was that we do have a case worker, and she will contact us, but nothing yet.

Other documents getting together, and by the end of next week we should have all or most of the documents needed for dossier in our hands.  We trust God with our adoption, and we know that HIs hand is in every our move.

I love God, my family, and my life :)

Few pictures, not too many words.

This is what I found in our kitchen, on the wall. From Danik. Bring tears to my eyes. 

Portland, OR at the park

 Visiting my grandfather, in Portland, OR

 My mom and kids

 My mom and Danik

 My handsome boys :))

 This is new Hollywood smile from baby Elliana :)))

Got our certified letters

We got our Certified Letters in the mail August 24th, and Sergey's was not a correct format, it was not certified. So Yesterday, Sergey spend his morning on the phone with Department of Justice, and today we got the correct copy of his Certified letter. One thing off our list to do :))

Also our medicals are at doctors office, Sergey put in request for employment verification, our Realtor working on house letter, USCIS has our home study and everything looks like under control :)))

God is good. And thank you for all your prayers, we feel them. :)

submission date!

We have our submission date, and are very excited.  Now, that we are getting closer to meet our child/ren, satan is attacking more, and we are Praising our God. If satan is trying to get in the way, it means we are doing Gods thing and satan doesnt' like it.

I will not post our submission date here for now, but I will tell you it's soon, and I really hope that we will be able to get all our paperwork ready by that date. I haven't hear anything from USCIS yet, and this is main document we need in order to be submitted.

Please pray with us, we need your prayers about all the documents and process.

Will think twice...

I wish all people would first think about other people, then money. Unfortunately for some people money is more important then little children life, and their happiness.

Until we bring our kid/kids home, I will not share a lot of personal information. Also I will not talk/write about child/ren that we want to adopt, or planning to adopt. For now, what child God has in His plan for us we have no idea, only God knows. We can think, we can plan but God has His own plan.


***After  receiving few comments(i will not post them now), I am making this decision to think twice before sharing info on here. And I wish people would know all the details before commenting.

Home study in Ukraine..

Today I received an e-mail from our facilitator "V". Our home study is in his hands, and ready to be register with SDA.

His question was if we know when we will have our USCIS Approval, and I have no idea. If everything will go as last time, we should have it with next 4-5 weeks.
"V" will register us and ask to have a  submition date probably late September, just to be sure that we will have all our documents. If we would send our home study to USCIS when we received it, we would probably have done our fingerprints, and in next 2-3 weeks would have our approval. Oh well..... I am getting over it.. :)))

God has a plan....

Everyone who is praying for us, girls, our adoption, thank you so much!

God Bless you

Thinking about girls.

Today I am thinking a lot about girls. Today is their birthdays, both girls were born on the same day, different years. I really wish to be there with them, and tell them Happy Birthday.

Facilitator "A" acting very "interesting", and I really hope that everything will go smooth in Ukraine.

We are praying a lot about girls, and our adoption process and we know that only God knows if "sisters" are ours. I wish I can just jump on the plane, go to Ukraine, and bring them home, but.....

Please pray for girls, and our adoption process.
Thank you. God Bless you

USCIS approval delay

Remember, almost two weeks ago we received our home study, and I was in Oregon at that time visiting my parents.
So, when my husband(he had to stay home and go to work every day )  told me that we got home study in the mail, I was very exited. First thing that cross my mind was "I should e-mail our home study agency to make sure they send our home study to USCIS", since we are needed only home study to be invited for finger prints, and get our approval". But I assumed that our agency did it, because they did it last time, during our first adoption. After coming home to California, I was keep thinking to e-mail our agency, and I never did. I was busy with school starting, and other things around the house.  Also I was waiting for letter from USCIS to get fingerprinted.

So, today, almost two weeks later I found out that we, ourselves have to mail our home study to USCIS office. We lost almost two weeks of doing nothing. I am very disappointed but trying to look at the brighter side of this little delay. God is in control, and he has perfect timing for everything. I remember our last adoption, and we had a lot of bumps here in USA with our paperwork. Only later we found out that only one day before our appointment with SDA, our son's case become available for adoption, and we were the first family who they showed Daniel's file. If everything would go smooth, and there would be no delays during our first adoption we would never meet Daniel.

I can say for now God is amazing God, and everything happens for a reason.

Our home study in the mail to USCIS  (hoping we will get invitation for fingerprints soon). Please pray with us!

First day of school!

Yesterday was first day of school for Daniel, and I can't believe it he is already in 4th grade. My boy is growing way to fast.

He was very exited to go to school. After school he came home and couldn't stop talking :) friends, school, teacher, lunch, homework, class, etc... even now, I have very exited little boy. :)

I still have to talk to his teacher about Daniel's background, and some other little things. Also I will mention our trip to Ukraine, because most likely we will travel all together, and Daniel will miss a lot of school. Our trip will be  hard, but fun :)

Home study

I was not blogging for some time, because I was out of town. Me and kids had a little road trip to Oregon to visit my parents. I will post more on that when I have more time.

We got our home study this week :))), and are planning to mail our home study and Power of Attorney to Ukraine tomorrow if we get done with notary, and apostile. Very exited about that, and can't wait to get our submission date  :))) ready to travel and bring our kids home.

More to come....

School starts soon for Daniel J

I can't believe that summer is almost over. Daniel J starts school on August 11, and I am so proud of him because he does enjoy his school. We never had problems with him going to school, except the first times after we brought him home. Poor child was crying and saying that he doesnt' want to go to school. After some talking, we did figure it out why. Daniel J was afraid that we will leave him there, and never come back for him. And I told him, we never leave him, or give him to someone else, he is always be our son.

And when I look at him today, it's amazing how far he did come from the time we brought him home. He is more calm, laughing, happy child and he is happy to be in school to learn something new(and of course play with his friends).

It just melts my heart when he come to me and tells me how much he loves me. I am not sure why he always mentions this, but he does say thank you  for adopting him often. I even started to joke with him, and tell him that I dont' remember adopting him, and I dont' know what he is talking about, he was always with me, and always been my son :))

My son loves his brother and sister, he loves to play with them, and helping me with out asking, lately he is more offering to help. I just love my son! I never dream to have a son like him. Thankful to our God for giving me opportunity to be Daniel's mother!

Six Flags fun

Last weekend we decided to go to Six Flags. It's expensive , but  I won free tickets we were able to go.

It was a lot of fun, and here is some pictures.

Few more things done

Today we notarized  our last document for our home study, and we should have our home study finalized hopefully this week. :) Also we did our fingerprints at local police station, and I will send them to Bureau of Investigation tomorrow. As long as I remember to get back our certified letter, it can take up to 6 weeks.

Once we have our home study we will start to get all other documents together. And next month or two looks like will be very busy for us, but we are very happy and can't wait to travel to meet our child/ren.

We are very happy that things started to move again, but also I do worry a lot about the process and girls, and "A" facilitator, just too many things. We are praying and we  know that God will never let us down.

SDA resumes processing adoptions in Ukraine

http://adoption.state.gov/country_information/country_specific_alerts_notices.php?alert_notice_type=alerts&alert_notice_file=ukraine_4


Happy tears :))) Praise our LORD!!!

Home study update....and "facilitators"

Summer, and everyone is very busy. I dont' have time to blog, which is sad.

Today I e-mailed our social worker, and she said that we should see our home study draft tomorrow. :) Happy about that.  Our home study agency was saying that they have 10 days to get our home study draft, but it took way longer. Oh well, with Ukrainian changes, and with out knowing what it's going to happen  we are not in a hurry.  We are praying about adoption, and staying calm about all this situation. We know that God is in control, and the only thing we can do it's to pray... and trust God.

After I wrote an e-mail to "our female facilitator"(from now on I will call her "A"), almost 4 weeks ago,telling her that we will not be able to work together,  I finally got a reply from her today. She wants to work with us, and she gave us a lot of updates on sisters. I really not sure what we will do about this "facilitator" situation. I am really worry that "A" will do something and we will not be able to adopt sisters. Looks like "A", is in very good relationship with orphanage director. More praying and thinking.....

SDA will be close for...

Today I received an e-mail from our facilitator saying that the SDA is closing on July 11th. The question when it re-opens remains unanswered. By law it shall happen within 1-5 months period. I know that God has a plan for us, and He is always here for us with perfect timing. Please pray for our family, now we have some extra time to get our finances and get ready to bring our child/ren home. Also please pray for "sisters", and if they belong in our family, God give them peace and send people to take good care of them.


Now we just have to wait, pray. Once we have our USCIS approval we will start collect other documents for dossier. 

Father's Day Idea

 When he came home from work Friday night, that what he saw in our living room. Sergey was very exited, and like it a lot.

I know Father's day is over, but I want to post about this idea that I come up for this Father's Day. Me and kids did a little fun craft for daddy . Printed letters from regular word, and cut them out. Glue letters on black paper and this is it. :)

Happy Birthday my awesome Hubby!

Few days ago we celebrated  Sergey's birthday! Everyone who he wanted to invite for his b-day, ether left to camp, or were out of town. So we end up having only his mom over, and one of his cousin. Still it was nice, quite and we had fun together. Happy Birthday my Sergey, I am so lucky to be in you life! Love you very much and wish you the best in your life! I totally forget about camera, and didn't take almost any pictures but here is few pictures. 

I didnt' make this cake (i wish)

This is a cake I made, and actually everyone said it did taste better( i think they are saying this to make me feel better, oh well)

Daddy and a princess 

Facilitator update

After a lot of praying and thinking we decided to say no to our "lady facilitator". First we did talk to our facilitator, who we had meet during our first adoption, and he agreed to work with us , and help us to get our "sisters" home. Praise our God!   Because when we just found out about "sisters" and did ask our first facilitator if he can do our adoption, he wasnt' really happy, he didn't' want to get in in to "lady facilitator" business.

So after waiting for another week to get our contract and just simple questions answers from our "lady facilitator", we decided it was enough. We dont' need any more stress during our adoption process. Adoption itself is a stressful journey, rewarding but stressful. So now  we have our wonderful  facilitator Valentin with us. :)

Please pray that "lady facilitator" will not try to get in between us and "sisters". We are hoping that all this process will go fast and smooth.

Today we received last passport needed for our travel, our baby's passport.
Last week we received receipt from USCIS, and waiting for our fingerprint appointment.
As soon as we know something about our home study, we will start on other documents. I think for now we have to do our Certified letters( card fingerprints require for this one), as long as I remember it takes up to 6 weeks.

I think this is it :)

Father's Day Weekend!

Our weekend was very busy. Saturday we drove 1,5 hours to San Francisco to play on the beach by the ocean. Kids had a lot of fun (us too). It was a little windy, and not hot. It was perfect day to be outside, except we didn't' get a chance to wear our swimming clothes, oh well maybe next time. But we still had a lot of fun playing with sand.

Sunday we went to Auburn, Ca it's 20 minutes away from our home, and did some hiking and throwing rocks in the river. Had a nice lunch together, and had a relaxing day. Here is some pictures.

Castle, we tried to connect to an ocean

Everyone is busy

 Daddy digging...

Someone got into trap that daddy made :) Perfect size

Sergey is playing with Danik

Just happy :)

This little guy loves: sand, water, dirt, grass, anything, and everything that dirty or can get him there :)

Burning some energy

IT was very funny, boys got their P& J sandwiches and while Denik was eating his, Danik's sandwich bag flied away(remember it was a little windy). And still holding on to his sandwich , he went chasing a bag, Denik fell 10 times or more, chasing his baggy, but he didnt' let go of his sandwich . He was so proud of himself, when he came back.

LOOK MOMMY I GOT IT 

Snacking , watermelon. 

I like this picture, just so romantic

And again, I just want to thank God for wonderful husband, and awesome daddy for our kids. Sergey is my sol-mate  and I dont' even know why God choose me to be his wife. :)


*pictures from Sunday, I will post later. it's time to put kids to sleep. Also we have some new about our adoption, will share later.