Day 8-Boys are with us

In the morning we wanted to go to local market to buy few things for boys, and get their airplane bag(gotcha backpack) ready in case I will have to go back US earlier and Sergey will stay during waiting period. But we remembered that markets on Sunday and Monday are closed, and we decided to go there on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Around noon we called an orphanage to see if we can come and see boys. We asked if we can take boys to Kiev with us to spend a day together and a night, and bring them back to the orphanage next day. They did let us!!!
At 3 pm we got to the orphanage and boys were already ready with their backpacks packed. Sergey had to write a note, and put the time when we will bring them back, and sign, and this was it, we were off with our handsome little guys.

Daniel A and Stanislav N are great little boys, and we feel so blessed to hold them, kiss them, and have opportunity to become their parents. I will write different post about their personalities and other info.
Here is our day in pictures! I hope you will enjoy it  we really did!!!

Our princess eating borsh for breakfast.

 We had to take 3 different public transportation to get to boys.  Subway for 30 minutes, we dont have pictures from subway. Then a big bus for 10 minutes,

  and then a little bus for 40 minutes.

 This sigh says: Stops request loud and ahead of time and the red one says: There is no stops here and there :) This made me smile

 And then a 20 minutes walk  to get to the orphanage.

Back to Kiev we took a taxi, because we didn't know how boys will act,and if they will be a good boys :)  And actually we are so proud of them, they were great behaved boys all the time! We did enjoyed them a lot!

 We ate at Puzata Xata, and I think this is the cheapest place to eat. We try to eat at home, but at lease once a day we go for hot food to Puzata Xata. We don't have a frying pan, or any other things to cook with at our apartment.

 These two are so cute together. Daniel A love his little sister, he is huge help, and he is always watching after here.

 There were a lot of things going on Kreschatik Street, and it was closed for weekend, and 1530 years of Kiev City. 

 My little cuties :)))

 Cotton Candy

 Stasik

 Daniel A, ElliAna and Stasik and they called me mommy :))) I am so blessed

 Playing with this little thing, that you can throw high in the sky with rubber band. It was fun, everyone was waiting for their turn.

Boys wasnt' sure if a guys is alive! It was funny, Stasik made everyone laugh when he came running back, yelling," Mommy, mommy I saw his red eyes, and they moved, he is alive " :))))

 Helping daddy to get stroller up the stairs:) They love to help

Big brother reading to his sister :) He offered to read to her

Before bed, skyping with boys and gram-ma at home

 That night they had this huge live concert outside, it was on  stage that was build earlier that week

 It was thousands people everywhere

 This is the stage

We are so thankful for this opportunity and we did enjoyed our boys!  We got to know boys better, and we are happy to have this time. God is great God!

Day 7-Relaxed

We didn't do much today. In the morning we woke up and both Sergey and I felt some kind of weakness and other cold symptoms. We decided not to go to see boys. Sergey went to the pharmacy to pick up some medicine, and by the end of the day we were feeling much better.

We did a little walk around Kiev. Today and tomorrow Kiev is celebrating,  city Kiev is 1530 years old. There will be a huge concert tomorrow across from Independence square. Kreschatik Street is already closed for weekend, and many people is outside just walking.
Tomorrow we plan to visit boys.

Day 6-Picnic with boys

We had to leave our apartment at 7am to go meet with our facilitator sign some paperwork. Our #2 apartment is far from everything, even from subway station. We had to take taxi to get to closest subway station and then we headed to meet up with our facilitator and his wife on the other side of Kiev. After completing some paperwork we headed to the orphanage to see boys. When we got to the orphanage boys were not there, they were at school, it was Daniels last day of school. We headed to school to meet Daniel and Stasik at school. After school foster parents of Daniel and Stasik invited us to have barbecue together. We did stayed for a picnic, and really loved spending time with our kids, and other kids at the orphanage. 

Boys live in family type of home, and they freely can play outside, and we really like the way all orphanage staff treating us, and we do feel welcome. 

Boys playing soccer

Daniel and Stasik

                                                                 This is our Stasik

                                                                       Daniel

                                                       This is little picnic area

                                                                     Kids with daddy!

We had a great day, and headed to our apartment around 3 pm.

***Because of the conditions of our #2 apartment, we did move to a #3 apartment. We do apreciate all the help from our "friend", but spending 1 night at apartment #2 was hard. So now, we are in #3 apartment and do have internet, hot water, and close to stores, and to the boys.

Day 5

We woke up, packed, took showers and were ready to move by 10 am. Around 11 am our "friend" came and drove us to his apartment. I will try post a pictures of our ride to our new apartment, if I get a chance to take a pictures. It's hard to explain what car we were in. I was very surprised when it did start. I am not trying to be mean or anything, it's just interesting how different life is here to the life we use to have. I am thankful to our friend for spending his time, and offering us his apartment and driving us there. The apartment was were in very bad condition. 

Also I will do a different post with pictures of our apartments.

After we moved, we took a taxi to Independence Square, had lunch and after lunch had a great opportunity to meet another adoptive family. We had a great time, and did spend a rest of our day walking around, talking, sharing stories, and having a good time.  They and their family are  great example for our family. 

This was first time for us to have a opportunity to meet someone who I been following on the blog for long long time. 

We didn't go to see boys today. We are planning to go tomorrow. 

We are moving to different apartment

Today we are moving to a different apartment. We have a friend of friends who lives here in Kiev, and he offered us an apartment, place to live while we are Kiev. We love our current apartment, it's one bedroom, but very nice and close to everything, but we do pay $55, and in our situation cheaper is better. We will give him money but it will be much cheaper what we pay now.
We have an idea about our new apartment, but until we see it we don't' know if we will be able to live there for rest of our stay in Kiev. For now our plan is to go stay there for a week, and then we will see if we can survive longer in this new apartment. What do we know about our new place?!  This is kind of working place for this "friend", he doesn't' live there and has a shop in one bedroom(he makes little airplanes), and he has one more bedroom where we can stay. There is no microwave, hot water, or internet (we do need internet to skype our kids at home). We have no idea if there is a washing machine, AC.  But for now it's good, and we do need to save money. It's on another side of Kiev, and far from all stores, and Kiev life, but we will do what we have to do. If it would be only me and Sergey it would be fine to live there for long time, but with a baby and no hot water, it will be hard.

I am not sure when I will be able to blog again, I will do keep all the notes, and when can will post it.
Also I will go back to Day 1 in Kiev, and add pictures to most of my posts. Will let you know when I do that.

Thank you for your prayers and suport. Love reading comments, they do help a lot :)

Day 4-met our kids

Early in the morning we were ready to go by 7 am. We left our apartment, and took Metro to the other side of town and met our facilitator and his wife at 8am. Then we stopped to pick up a lady, who's job was to go with us, and follow all the procedures , and be with us during our first official visit to meet kids.

Around 9:30 am we got to the orphanage "Father's House", or "Otchij Dim" , and our kids were there :)
We sat down at director's office for 5 minutes, and then they call our kids to come to the office. It was very touching moment, there was some tears of happiness involved.

Now I can share some information about our kids. It's two boys, two brothers 9 year old and 7 year old. These two boys turned our world around when we found out about them(back in January). They are a reason for us not to go ahead and choose another children. We love these two little boys. Our kids love them, and we all can't wait to bring them home.

Now is the funnies, coolest part. Long time ago, before we found out about our boys, we were joking that when we go for another adoption we will probably have another Daniel. Guess what?! One of the boys name is Daniel! :) When we first committed to these boys, we didn't' know their names, after we choose to adopt them we found out their names,  can you imagine our surprise ... :)

Meet our kids Daniel 9 and Stanislav 7.

God Bless you

Day 3 referral received

In the morning we got ready and went to bazar (book's market) on Petrovki. We bought a few Ukrainian books for kids to read at home. Our kids do read in Ukrainian, and to buy Ukrainian books in US is very expensive.

After bazar we were walking around Kiev, took some pictures, stopped at "Puzata Xata" for lunch and at 4:00pm went to SDA to pick up referral. It did start rain a little on our way back home, and we did stoppedAnd only around 6pm we got home. It was a long and very fun day. We love walking and just watching people, and life around in Kiev. We really enjoying every second of our time here. Also we are taking this opportunity to spend some time(me and Sergey) together, because when we go back home, Sergey will be working, and he will not take any vacation for some time.

During our first trip to Ukraine in 2009, we couldn't do much, and see many places do to winter and very cold weather.  I was pregnant with our baby girl and we  had our 2 year old with us. And all together we spend only 5 days in Kiev, because our son was from Donetsk region.

During our second trip January 2012, it was very cold also, and for two weeks we went out only few times. We had all our kids with us, and it was hard to go out with everyone in freezing cold.


Now we do enjoy Kiev, and weather and each other :)

I think I never mentioned that our kids are in Kievskij region and it's only 20-30 minutes from Kiev.

Tomorrow at 8am we have to be all the way across Kiev to meet our facilitator. And after we meet we will pick up one lady that has to be present during our first official visit with kids. Can't wait to see our kids :)  

Day 2 in Kiev

Monday was our second day in Ukraine. In the morning we just stayed home, Sergey went to get some coffee, we made breakfast, eggs and sausage, and had some bakery goodies with coffee. We did our laundry, got ready and were waiting for our facilitator to come to go to SDA.

 At 2:00pm we had our appointment over at SDA. Appointment went well, and it was very relaxing, and fun. We were shown files of our kids, and this was it. We did look through few other files, just to be nice. Also we did a little fun chat with SDA worker, she was very nice, we met here during our January visit. Thanks to our facilitator for being so friendly, and for knowing many people at SDA, it helps a lot during a process.

After appointment we went home, so ElliAna could take a nap. After nap time we went for a long walk,  stopped at "Puzata Xata" for food and after good meal were walking around and  enjoying Kiev.

Tomorrow we will go to pick up our referral papers at SDA at 4:00pm, and Wednesday morning will be heading to our kids orphanage. We are so excited and cant wait to see them.

*I never thought that I will miss my boys at home so bad. I  never left them for this long, and this is so much harder than I thought it would be. I know why we are here, and it makes is a lot easier. We do talk to boys over Skype every day, and I know my mom takes a good care of them. She is great!

Thank you for your prayers, and all your support!

Day 1 --Kreschatik Street

It was Sunday, and we spend most of our day outside, enjoying the weather and city. On weekends, Kreschatik Street is closed, and many many people walking on the middle of the street, and there is many shows going on all day long till late night. There is a lot  to see, and we had a great day! 

 It was long and nice day!

We are in Kiev

Yesterday late we safely arrived to Kiev. So far everything is great, except we couldn't' find any supermarket closer to our apartment that works 24/7, and couldn't a place to buy a bottle of water till this morning. We went to bed around 1 am and were fully awake by 5 am. It will be a long day :)

Monday is our appointment, and we can't wait till we officially will see our kids.

We love our apartment, I will try to post pictures later.

Thank you everyone for prayers and support

We are so thankful

Thank you , thank you, and thank you again for everyone who are thinking, praying and participating in our adoption. I have no words to express my appreciation to you guys! I saw this morning two contributions on ChipIn and we are thankful to you our friends.  God is so great and opening hearts many people to help us by donating, praying, and just being there for us. It means a lot to our family, and I know God will bless you guys in many different ways!

We are leaving in few hours, and as soon as I have opportunity I will post a blog update on our trip.
My mom came last night to stay and be with our boys for first two weeks, and then my cousin will come and stay with boys until we come back from Ukraine.  Our baby is coming with us, please pray that she will do great on this trip.

We cant wait to see our new children, and hug them and tell them that we are there to bring them home!

Thank you again

God Bless you

ChipIn

I just want to say thank you to everyone who was praying for our financial situation. Yesterday, my sister's family blessed us with $203, and their financial situation is not that great. We are thankful to God, and we know that we are on the right path.

I was thinking to put a ChipIn on side of our blog for last few months, but wasn't' sure. There is not a lot of traffic on my blog, and I am not that great of a blogger :(. And today I got a comment from mamaporuski , and she suggested to put a ChipIn anyway. Thank you for being such a great support to our family during our adoptions.

I know that our God is greatest God, and our family still learning to rely only on our God, and not on people.
Please keep praying for finances, and our trip, we are leaving tomorrow at 9:05 pm.

Please pray

Please pray for us, and our finances.

 In our current situation:  flying a month earlier than expected and  with current ticket prices we had to loan money from my parents to purchase tickets. Tickets are really expensive!!! Also it's Euro 2012 time in Ukraine, and living expenses will be greater than we planned. We will have to take more money to cover our living expenses while in Ukraine.

We will leave to Ukraine Friday, May 18.  Our plan is to be there until court date(it should take around 3 weeks) , and after court we will go back home because we have no one to watch our boys for longer than 3 weeks.
Also  Sergey doesn't have enough vacation to cover all 5-6 weeks off work. We will  have to go back 2nd time to Ukraine,  to pick up our kids.

 Sergey will have to fly by himself to Ukraine and take time off work again(hopefully he will still have some vacation time left to use it or he might have to go with out pay) , and he will be gone  for another week. And we don't have finances to purchase his ticket and our new children to bring them home.

Please pray, we do need a lot more money to complete this adoption, and we know God is provider and He is God of all widows and orphans!

God Bless You

Travel date!!!

We have an appointment date, and will be leaving 19th of this month. We are so excited !! Soon we will see our kids, and bring them home, it's almost over.

Thank you for your prayers, and we are praising our God for everything!

Can't wait to share pictures, and the whole story here :)


*It's less then two weeks until our travel to Ukraine, and there is so many things need to be done. It will be busy busy two weeks

Waiting for travel date

We are still waiting, and should know our travel/appointment date any time now. I really hoping that everything will go smooth and we hear something from our facilitator tomorrow. I am already starting to pack and get ready for our travel. This time we will take only ElliAna with us, and we also have to make plans and arrangements for our boys.

We are ready and happy to be traveling soon. We were waiting for this day for sooo long. I can't wait to hug, and kiss, and hold my children in Ukraine. I will miss our boys home, but my mom will stay with them, and I know she will take good care of them.

Please pray for our family, for Gods perfect timing.

Blessings

Adoption Update

It's been long time since my last update. We been busy, and I really didn't feel like blogging. Way to much stuff was going on in our "personal/private" life. Nothing bad, and we are doing great, just don't feel comfortable to share everything.

Two weeks ago we send our two documents( knowing child letter, and petition for an appointment) to Ukraine. Yesterday we found out that our children finally available for adoption, and in our original request we did asked to have a travel date somewhere between June 15 and June 30st. Now we are trying to change our request and get our travel date one month earlier, somewhere in late May. Kids are available for international adoption, and we don't want them to wait any longer, also I know that SDA will try to send families to adopt our kids, so we do worry a little about that :)

Please pray about our process, and that we will get travel date in May. Also we will leave our boys home, and we are praying that everything will work out with our babysitters.

Happy late B-Day our baby girl!

ElliAna turned 2 years old on April 6. We have to learn to have a holiday, Easter and a birthday almost at the same time. Because this year ElliAnas Birthday just blended in with a holiday.
Time sure flies, and I can't believe it's been 2 years since we have met our daughter. She is so different from our boys, and real small lady :) A month before her birthday, our girl decided that she is ready to go to school, and stopped nursing, she still has a cup of milk before bedtime but no more nursing. I kind of miss those times, but do enjoy my freedom :)

 We introduce a potty chair to her somewhere in December/January, and she did good for few days back then. Then we went to Ukraine, and we didn't want to do the whole training during our trip, it was enough stressful for everyone.  After we came back to Ukraine, I just decided to wait till summer time to train her.
But ElliAna decided that she is ready and same time when she stopped nursing, she potty trained herself. :) One day she woke up, and said no more diaper, she had her undies on for whole day, with no accidents. And since that time, she never had her diaper on during a day. We did have few accidents with her , but only first 2 weeks, and now, she fully potty trained. We do keep her in diaper during night time, but for last week her diaper is dry, and sometimes she asks to go to the bathroom during night time. She is so smart, and we are so proud of her. Now, she is saying that she is a big girl and ready to go to school.

This little girl does learn almost everything on her own. She learned how to walk on her own at 9 month, and talk, and many little things. She is our little angel, brothers love her, and she is a joy to have around.
She talks better than our 4 year old Denny
She loves Dora and Diego
She loves books
She can change her clothes many many times a day and like to do it
She is very funny
Loving and smart
Just pure joy :)  (We do have our little tantrums, "terrible twos", but it's nothink compare what we had with Denny)


God Bless you! Your family loves you baby girl :)

Nothing much is going on...

We are busy, but there is nothing major going on now. We are waiting and can't do nothing to speed up our process.  We will write a letter to SDA about specific kids, but it's not going to happen this month, probably April. Our first document will expire in August, and if we have our court  by August we will not have to redo any paperwork, which is good. Our plan is to travel somewhere in June, so we will see.

We do have contact over in Ukraine and know what is going on in kids life. A week ago we found out that one of the kids are in the hospital for 3 days, to run some tests.  We are praying that testing will be accurate and what ever is diagnosis will be, it can wait till we bring kids home. I don't trust Ukrainian doctors, especially free ones. It's sad and I  would really love to feel different about the whole "medical thing" over in Ukraine but reality is , I don't.
I know that there is good doctors, but I am not there and it would be much safer and much better to bring kids here and then do what needs to be done. We are praying and hoping that kids can hang on and wait till we bring them home.

We have crazy things going on in our heads, we are planning on moving to a different state. It's really crazy idea, and we are still thinking, praying, more thinking, and more praying and waiting what we will have at the end of all this thinking..... :)