Let it snow

Today it snowed. I mean it snowed a lot. Well maybe I am over exaggerating the snowing a whole lot thing. It maybe only snowed a half-inch and the walk ways were mostly clear. So really it didn't snow that much at all. But hey, it snowed. Shouldn't it be spring time already? This southern girl loves her warm weather and all of this cold stuff makes me wish I was in Florida or something. Oh that would be nice, and, back to reality. Walking in the snow today made me be even more thankful for the cars we have back home. That we can hop in and drive wherever we want in a short amount of time. We really enjoy our walk to the orphanage and it is a lot of fun to feel like a local. But, when it is freezing outside and the wind goes right through you, it would be nice to hop in a car and turn the heat to full blast.

Walking to the orphanage

We always wipe our super muddy feet off in that pile of snow outside of the house where we are staying. 

We love the food here in Ukraine. It is all different and very fried. Yum! I wish I knew how to cook Ukrainian style but since I don't, I have to get creative with the dishes I do know how to make. The grocery stores here are a lot of fun to go in a try to find ingredients that would work for different dishes. I love pasta and I have learned that Ukrainians do as well because they sell a lot of ravioli (which looks like tortellini back home), spaghetti and fettuccine noodles. So that means I am one step closer to knowing how to cook Ukrainian style right? So far I have cooked Ravioli and fried chicken. Ok I know that is only two dishes and we have been here almost two weeks but let me tell you why I have only cooked two meals. We have learned that the people here eat a small breakfast, a huge lunch and a very small dinner. So, trying to be somewhat Ukrainian, we try to eat a big lunch and small dinner everyday. Ok maybe it just happens to end up like that everyday but hey it seems like we meant to do it that way. When we first came to this city, our awesome interpreter brought us to a restaurant that was down the street a little ways from the orphanage. We loved the food, it was really cheap, and no one was ever in there. So we try to support them by eating there for lunch pretty much everyday. The workers are super sweet and they always blast us out with the English music channel whenever we come to eat. Isn't that cute? So we eat a ton of food for lunch and when it is time for dinner we are so full from lunch that we end up eating some type of sandwich. So that is my explanation of why I have only cooked two meals. :) I was so proud of them I had to take pictures to show you.

Yay for lots of carbs!

Speaking of fun things at the grocery store, I bought this can of what I thought was strawberry jelly only to find out it was:

canned strawberries. We did not have an updated can opener, just an old fashioned one that we had no idea how to use (as you can tell in the picture :) ). So my amazing husband worked really hard and got the can open only to find that it wasn't jelly at all. Oh well. 

We had a lot of fun with our little guy today. We played outside, had snack and then played inside. That is the normal morning routine so far. It was really cold today so we did not stay outside for long, which means we had to play inside longer. Playing inside for longer means we have to keep him quiet for a long period because everyone is working. Yeah...try to keep a four year old quiet for over an hour. That is no fun, for us or for him. :) So we have to get creative with a snack and juice, legos, coloring and whatever else quiet thing we can think of. When we visit him in the afternoon, everyone in the offices our visiting room connects to have left for the day. So that means we get out play dough (Yes even play dough can get loud. I bet you didn't know that it could), the ball, cars and we play around and get crazy (but not too crazy because we get looks).

This morning, we traced hands and feet. He loved that! Mom needed his shoe size and gave us the idea to trace his feet and then measure the tracing with a dollar bill. We do not have a measuring tape so we had to get creative (thanks mom!). First Ken traced his own hand to show him how to do it. Then Ken traced OLG's hand and he was hooked. He loved the feeling of the crayon touching his little fingers. It was super cute. We then traced his feet and he loved that as well. He loved tracing his own hands and feet. It was too cute! We spent about an hour tracing feet and hands. I think he is now ready for Sunday School.

He also drew papa (no hair)

and momma (that is pretty much how my hair looks here in Ukraine). Too cute!

This afternoon we couldn't go outside because of the snow so we played inside the whole time. After he eats a snack, we always pull stuff out of the backpack to play with. He loves the backpack because different things come out of it everyday. Well today he went over to the backpack and found a little flashlight that my brother had given Ken for Christmas. He was in love!! The flashlight is maybe only an inch or two long so it is not that big but he didn't care. It made light and that is all that mattered! I am not sure if he has ever seen or played with a flashlight before today. He would twist it on and off laughing his cute little laugh. He would go into the next room that had the lights off and spin around shining it on the walls and on the ceiling. We tried to show him that you can make shadows with a flashlight but he didn't really care about that. :) He loved to make the light smaller by putting it closer to the floor or wall until you couldn't see it anymore. He then discovered that tiny little batteries are inside the flashlight. So he would unscrew the flashlight take the batteries out, put them back in there, and screw the thing back together. Well there were four tiny batteries and they all had to be facing the same way so the light didn't come on most of the time when he put it back together. Papa was always able to fix it for him when that happened. He is one determined and independent little fella for sure. So we had fun with the flashlight for a majority of the afternoon. Thank you Uncle Matthew for such a useful gift!

In adoption news, our conclusion was turned into the court today. Yay! We were also told that our court appearance is at 11:00am next Thursday. We knew the date but not the time. I know you were dying to know the time!

Thank you so much for all of your prayers and encouragement!! You all are so sweet to us and we are thankful for you!!

The Judge

We had a surprise meeting with the head judge of our city yesterday. We had no idea we were going to be meeting with him so we did not really dress up, we were in the usual sweaters and jeans with comfy shoes. Oh well. It was not a super formal meeting so it ended up being ok. He just wanted to meet us and ask us a few questions to see who we were. He started off asking what state we are from and then let us know he had just been to Florida to visit his daughter who lives there. He asked us what religion we were and if we went to church every Sunday. We replied that we are Christian and that yes we went to church every Sunday. We were not sure where he was going with that but we later found out that he was making sure we were not part of an extreme religious cult that does not have their own children but only adopts kids (Oh boy). Ken spotted an orthodox relic on a shelf in his office so we assume he is somewhat religious. He was also wondering why we were so young and wanted to adopt now and not wait and have our own kids. Seems like everyone here asks that question. So we just let him know we have been married three and a half years, I work with kids and love it and that we both love kids and would like to adopt. Easy enough. So pretty much that summed up the meeting. Short and sweet. Because of that meeting, we were able to get our court appointment which is next Thursday March 31st!! So after our court date, we will have a ten day waiting period and then we can take our little guy out of the orphanage. The Lord is good!

Yesterday we went to a new “cafeteria” or restaurant and tried Borsh soup for the first time (shout out to Beth back home!). It is a Ukrainian traditional red beet soup served with sour cream. Ours also had some meat in it which made it taste really good. We both really liked it. I mean I don't know if I would cook it everyday but it was really good. Thanks Beth for the recommendation. ; )

Yesterday we were only able to visit our little guy only once because we had a lot of paperwork to do and the visit with the judge. I was so sad that we couldn't visit him in the afternoon. We wanted to call the orphanage and let him know we couldn't come in the afternoon but would be back tomorrow (Wednesday) but we knew that was impossible.

Today (Wednesday) we had a lot of fun playing outside and visiting with the chickens. We have started getting in a routine that when we go outside we kick the ball around then head to visit the chickens. He is really good at kicking the ball around! He loves the “modchick” or ball. He also loves to pick up litter. Yes! He is my little cleaner man, let me tell you!! So when he picks up litter on the ground he likes to investigate it. I mean he likes to use ALL of the senses to do this. Yes, even to taste it. So...whenever he goes for litter we know he is about to lick it so we try to get it before he can grab it. Ok that might sound a little mean but the orphanage dogs have been chewing on most of the stuff he wants to pick up. So we have to be quick and distract him with other things. We love going outside but it can be tricky not getting his clothes dirty when EVERYTHING is covered in mud. I mean he is a four-year-old boy and all little boys love mud. So we have to chase him a lot to keep him out of it (“Nyet” the Russian word for No doesn't compute sometimes). Well today he decided to face plant in some mud...great. But we got him cleaned up enough and nobody said anything...yay!

Every time we go to the orphanage we bring the kiddos in our little guy's group some cookies or candy. It always breaks my heart how much they love those treats and the hugs we give them. Whenever we come around they reach their little hands up and say “candies?” or “cookies?” because they want some type of sweet. I wish we could bring them all home with us but I know this trip we cannot. It breaks my heart. I have come to love all of the kiddos in our little guy's group. They are so sweet and special and have one commonality, no mommy or daddy. They did not choose to end up where they are, someone else choose for them. Now they are left to grow up with concrete walls and floors, no privacy, no love, no special treats. All they have to hold onto is that one day maybe their mommy or daddy will come and get them or that hopefully someone will choose them to be a part of a new family. They wait patiently for someone to show them love that only a mommy or daddy can give. Whenever we enter the orphanage the kids look at us with anticipation as if we are the ones to take them home. I wish we could, but this trip we can only legally bring home our little guy. I am praying that they will have a mommy and daddy come rescue them soon.

Here are some pictures from playing outside today:

He loves the rooster

He LOVES to slide!!

He loves to pick up litter :)

Mayor, Mayo and Wet Wipes

Today we found out that the Mayor of our city has signed our paperwork approving our adoption and has given authority back to the inspector (who had this position before the change) to do the "conclusion" of our adoption. This is the step before our case goes to the court. The inspector wants to do the "conclusion" on Wednesday and then we will go and get a court date. YAY!!! The Lord is SO good!!! This is very good and a huge step considering all of the changes going on. Thank you so much for all of your prayers!! 

We are loving living in Ukraine!! The food is amazing, the people are very sweet and everyone dresses really nice. Seriously, all of the women here wear three to four inch heals no matter where they go. Whether it is a short walk down the street or a long stroll through the thick mud road. I love it! I am also in love with all of the women's jackets! They are so different and so beautiful. I love the ones with fur on the cuffs and on the hood of the jacket. I feel so frumpy compared to all of the locals here for sure. I am walking around in my travel flats (which are not cute), my Columbia jacket and non-skinny jeans (I figured it would be too cold for those). I was not planning to look cute. Oh well. :) I am also loving the food here. Being from the south, I have a deep love for fried food and pretty much everything here is fried. Fried chicken, fried pork, fried potato pancakes (my favorite dish so far), french fries, fried crepes, fried homemade potatoes (which are cut up and mixed with a bunch of ingredients) and the list goes on.  So life is good. I also have a liking for mayo. I mean I like it on my hot dog, hamburger or whatever else you put it on. I thought I liked it more than most people but let me tell you what, Ukrainians (where we are) love the stuff!! We have had it on most dishes we've been served such as fried chicken/pork, pizza, crepes, fries, and salads (think of slaw made with 80% mayo). So I pretty much get my fill of mayo each day.

Today was such a fun day with our sweet little guy. For our morning visit we spent most of our time outside. It was warmer today and the ground was dry for the most part. We had a lot of fun. We brought the ball and he kicked it around everywhere, we slid down slides, we got on swings together, walked/ran around the yard and watched some chickens. In the back of the orphanage are some yards filled with chickens. They were so much fun to watch. He loved when the rooster would crow and when the hens would peck at the ground. It was like a free petting zoo without the petting part. :)

In between our visits to the orphanage we ventured out to the main square in town to buy paper, a notebook and internet minutes. OLG loves to color and loves for papa to draw “machinos” or cars so we thought blank paper and a notebook would be perfect for him. Due to our lack of language skills we do a lot of pointing and laughing. I am sure we look ridiculous but oh well we were not sure if we needed to learn Russian or Ukrainian. I was reading in another blog before I came that they used Google Translate to help translate some things. I thought that was a great idea but we didn't get that turned on before we left. Whoops. I think it is fun to learn by trial and error so I am fine with not having it.

Our afternoon visit was pretty funny. We were prepared with new and exciting things to do. We had new paper and a fancy new notebook with a car on the front of it. We thought that would be perfect and he would love the car on the front and spend a lot of time drawing in his brand spanking new notebook. Well we always start our time off with a snack and juice. This time we had remembered to bring wet wipes to wash his sticky hands off with. So after snack we got out his new notebook with the car on the front, he looked at it for a few seconds, thought it is sort of cool and then grabbed the wet wipe to clean the room. He thought the wet wipe was the best thing in the whole world!! He played with three different wet wipes for over an hour and a half! A Wet Wipe of all things! He washed the glass exit door on the front and on the back (papa picked him up to get the top parts of the door), the walls, the sink and whatever else he thought needed to be clean. I felt bad at first like he was trying to impress us with his cleaning skills, then I realized he was really having fun. Whenever it would get dry, he would go to the sink in the bathroom, re-wet it and pick up where he left off. Sweet! Not only does he like to organize, he likes to clean. Yes!! He is so like me! ; ) He had so much fun cleaning. I am pretty sure he had more fun with that Wet Wipe than everything else we have brought for him to play with. Who knew? I have pictures and can't wait to show you our little cleaner man!

I am loving reading your replies!! They are great encouragement!! Thank you so much for praying for us!!

Our Little Guy (Day 3 and 4)

These past two days have been so much fun and I think we are starting to build a routine with our little guy. We walk about fifteen minutes to the orphanage each day and visit hime from 10-12 (he eats lunch at 12) and from 4-6pm (dinner is at 6).  He is definitely doing a lot of different things to get our attention. His favorite one is running away and waiting for us to chase him. We love chasing him around the room, picking him up and loving all over him. This is really cute but I'm not so sure the workers like to see him darting out of the room we are in. Ok let me tell you about our room. When you walk into the room, there is a couch to the left, a bathroom door to your right, and two office doors to the back left (the doctor's and secretary's office). Then there is an entryway to another room to the far right. This room has only two doors, an exit to the outside and back in the main room. We are so thankful for a big area to play in but it is hard to keep a four year old contained with so many exits (especially for two hours with a language barrier--"Come back" doesn't mean anything to him!). There are three office doors, one bathroom door, an exit to the outside and an exit to the rest of the building. So we mainly stay in the back room to play and take turns sitting in the doorway to the main room.

The language barrier thing is a hard one to get over but we have tried and he lets us know really quick if he has no idea what we are saying. When we are about to leave, Ken will whip out a small notepad with phrases on it and tell him it is time for him to eat, we love him and will be back later in the day or if it is in the afternoon visit that we will be back the next day. Most of the time he says "no papa"  because he does not want us to leave or he will smile his cute little smile and start laughing because papa said it a different way than he was used to. Too cute! "Papa" here in Ukraine means daddy while "daday" means Uncle. All men are called "daday" and all women helpers in the orphange are called momma.

We have tried to get out something new and different to play with each time we come to visit him. We visit him twice a day for two hours each time and it has been four days in a row so far. To add on top of that, the ground outside is so muddy (from all the newly melted snow) that we can only walk around the orphanage instead of playing on the swings, slide or whatever because we are not supposed to get him dirty. We have tried playing in a  play shelter type area but he likes to run and try to get in the mud (like any boy would do). So we have to get creative with our time. We have so much fun though!! We have colored, played outside, read books, played with cars, legos and a Zsu-Zsu pet.

Yesterday when we came to get him all of the kids in his group said to me momma and our little guy said to them "My momma, My momma!" I love it! We brought him a ball we found at the store here in the city and he loved it! He and Ken played for a long time kicking, bouncing and rolling it all over the place. He was so cute with it. We also brought him a bananna for the first time. He loved it and couldn't eat that thing fast enough. He loves getting in papa's backpack and pulling out different things. He loves the Zsu-Zsu pet so he pulls it out pretty reguarly. We had to bring him to lunch a little early because his group was having a special guest come in to do some things in the afternoon. I was sad to leave him a little early but we were coming back later so it was ok. :) When we came back at four he was all dressed up in a longsleeve white shirt with some pretty new jeans, socks and sandals. We brought him some juice and cookies and of course I brought red juice! Ken and I were so careful not to get it on his bright white shirt. I held him in my lap while Ken helped hold the juice box out away from his shirt. It was a really funny looking! He is a pretty independent kiddo so us helping him was a little strange but I didn't care. I was not going to get red juice on that shirt!!

Today we started off our time with chocolate instant breakfast (which has lots of vitamins) and cheerios. He hated the instant breakfast stuff (who can blame him?) but loved the Cheerios!! He ate the whole bag. He loves to share food. He always shares with papa and today he tried to share with a little girl who was near our room but she didn't want any. Too cute! We brought him bubbles this morning and he loved them!! We showed him how to blow and he wanted to try after that. Well sort of. At first he stuck the whole bubble wand in his mouth like that is what you do with bubbles. Papa then showed him again how to blow and he caught on really quickly after that. It was too cute!! Whenever he got bubble soap on his hand, he would lick it off like icing. Blah! We tried to show him to just wipe it on his pants but he just wanted to lick it off. Oh well. This afternoon visit we introduced playdough. We taught him how to play with it and he caught on really well! He loves playdough.  At first he stuck it on the door and on his forehead but then he started making things out of it. He is a very smart kiddo for sure. We got out the legos to make different impressions on the playdough. He started building a house and it kept moving around on the floor so he decided to use the playdough as a foundation for his house. Too smart!! He made a bunch of different things from the playdough like a snow baba (a snow man: they call snowmen "snow grandmothers") a snake, a lego house foundation, and some rocks for his lego plow. We had so much fun today and cannot wait to come back tomorrow!!

Oh!! Please pray that the mayor would sign our paperwork tomorrow (Monday)!! Last week the mayors office approved and signed off for us to see our little guy at the orphanage. Now we need him to sign it so we can be approved to adopt him. Because of all the changes going on in Ukraine, the offices in our region that normally handle adoptions have been shut down and the inspectors who normally sign off on adoptions now have different roles. So the mayor is the only one who can sign off on our paperwork now. Thank you so much for praying!! :)

I will leave you with some pictures of his ear, hands and foot. I cannot wait until after our court date so we can show you all of him!! He is one cutie patootie!! :)

Our Little Guy (Day 1 and 2)

We have had so much fun getting to know our little guy over the past two days! On Thursday morning we got up at 5:30am to travel to the orphanage which is about two hours away.  When we got there we first had to get some paperwork filled out from the inspector saying that we could go to the orphanage. After that, off we went to visit our little guy!!

When we got to the orphanage (around 9:30ish) we had a meeting with the director, doctor, psychologist and our inspector. They let us know everything about him and how he has been during his time at the orphanage. All of the ladies kept saying "oh you are so young" (well I think everyone that we have talked to that has any kind of official role has said that) and we just say "yes and thank you" and move on. After they told us all about him, they brought him to us. I had tears in my eyes when he walked in!! He was the cutest thing you have ever seen!! He had on a worn light blue collared shirt with a little black vest, little grey pants that were way too big held up with a belt that wrapped around his little body and little brown shoes. He walked over to me and smiled his precious smile and held my hands. He is a reserved at first but then very outgoing. Ken had gone out of the room to get some toys for us to play with him. We did not know he was going to be brought to us during our meeting with all of the ladies in the room so we had not brought anything with us. When Ken came back in, OLG was not sure of this new "papa" at first but quickly warmed up to him. Yay! He looked at the little animal book that was in Ukrainian for a long time and then played and played with a green monkey squishy ball  that we got at Target. All of this was going on while everyone was observing how he reacted to us so they could write up a report. Can we say awkward?! We were trying to interact with him with four different people watching us. It was fine though and everyone was so sweet. After we 'passed' their observation, we were able to bring him to a little side room and play with him more. Oh boy and did we play! He was like a little boy being set free. He ran and ran around the room while Ken chased him (we later learned we were supposed to be more reserved because people were trying to work...whoops). The kids are not really allowed to be loud, run round or anything like that so this was a first for him in a long time. He loved our watches. He was facinated with how to put them on and take them off. when he got them off, he would put them on the floor and move them around like cars. He is creative! We were able to play with him for two hours and then had to leave so he could eat lunch.

While he was at lunch we went and got a lot of paperwork notorized, ate some lunch and went to buy some toys for him. We bought him some little plastic cars and some cheap legos because he loved taking things off and putting them back together (our watches) and moving them around on the floor like cars. He loved both of those toys! He played and played with them like a kid at Christmas time. It was so cute. We were able to play with him for a few hours and then had to head out so he could eat dinner.

The next day (Friday) we got to the orphanage around ten and played until he ate lunch at twelve. When we got there, his group was walking around outside. When he saw us he said "mama and papa" he then asked his group leader if he could come to us and he ran to us! I love it! We could not really do anything outside because of all the mud left over from the newly melted snow. We were not supposed to get him dirty so we walked around and then went inside to play.

Later that afternoon, we brought him yogurt, cookies and a coloring book and crayons. He loved the yogurt. He has never had anything like that and he ate it up like he was never going to eat it again. It was sad and sweet at the same time. We then gave him a box of crayons and a coloring book. He took all of the crayone out of the box, organized them by color and put them back in the box. I was amazed! Haha he already has a love for organization...just like me!! He loved to color and put stickers in the book. He was so cute. After a while we gave him a zsu-zsu pet which is a hamster on wheels that makes noises. He LOVED it!! That is his favorite toy so far! He loves to watch it go around the room and for it to go through his little legs. He would also hold it, kiss it and lay on the floor and pretend to go to sleep and snore. Too cute!

I cannot wait to show you pictures of our little guy. We cannot show face shots until we have gone to court and he is ours but i will try to post other pictures of his hands, from the back, or whatever.

Thank you for all of your prayers and encouragement!! They mean so much!! :)

Life in Ukraine

Finally we have internet and I can post and update a few things on the blog which includes pictures. Yay!! The first half of the pictures are from our apartment when we were in Kiev for four days. The other half are from when we went sight-seeing around Kiev on Wednesday. 

In Ukraine, when you walk into someone's house, you take off your shoes and put on a pair of slippers. This is the entry to our apartment in Kiev. 

Here is a view of our apartment from the front door. 

This is a picture of the kitchen .

Another view of the kitchen.

**Ok everyone, turn your head to the right or your computer to the left! I could rotate the rest of the pictures but could not, for some reason, rotate these next few. Sorry for this inconvenience. ** 

The bathroom. Check out our cool washer the size of a toilet! Did you also check out the towel warmer above the toilet? I bet you want one.  

Our shower. You know you wanted to see how cool it was. ;) 

An awesome sideways view of our kitchen 

Our dining room with a super cute skinny fridge. 

**Ok resume your previous position. Thank you for your patience. :) **

Kiev in the background. 

Ken was there too...

Ken being brave on the ice. Notice how I wimped out and stayed behind...

When we were walking to the river a bird pooed on Ken's head. So this is Ken using the resources available to wash his hair. 

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The metro system in Kiev. 

Standing in front of the office where we went to get our referral in Kiev. 

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

St. Andrew's church, which was next to where we got our referral. 

This is a statue of Bogdan who was the main officer in the Russian army in 1888.

Up close and personal. 

The beautiful bell tower and entrance to St. Sophia (Orthodox) Church. 

Bells in the tower of St. Sophia. People tie things to these bells for good luck, blessings or prosperity. 

Bells in the tower of St. Sophia

Close up of the bells. 

St. Sophia from up in the bell tower. 

The tops of the churches here are beautiful. 

A picture from St. Sophia's bell tower with Bogdan and St. Michael's church in the background. 

St. Michael's bell tower. 

St. Michael's Church. 

A place behind St. Michael's where people get holy water

. 

The Statue of Independence in downtown Kiev. It symbolizes independence from Russia in 1991. It is the equivalent to our Statue of Liberty. 

A super cute playground behind St. Michael's Church. 

A pizza place we ate at when we were sightseeing. It was next to the place we got our referral and to St. Andrew's Church. We LOVE Ukrainian food but this place had an English menu and we did not have our translator with us. 

Our yummy pizza 

So, let me tell you about this broken mirror. We were sitting across the room watching a movie when out of the blue this mirror decided to jump off the wall and crash to the ground. Great! That is all we need. We didn't know how to tell the landlord that we didn't touch it and it just fell on its own, so we called our translator to intermediate for us. Hopefully we won't have to pay for a mirror that decided to fall by itself without our help!! :) 

Hope you enjoyed all of the pictures!! I will post more later. 

Meetings and Paperwork

Nothing really big has gone on in the past day or so. We were supposed to travel to our little man's town today but an official we need to meet with is out of town until tomorrow.  Because of that, we were able to sight see all day today. I am super tired but had so much fun! So we head out tomorrow for meetings and paperwork signing. After all of this signiture signing you would think we are famous or something. ; )

Please be in prayer for us tomorrow (Thursday 8am here time 1am est)!! We need to have a meeting with the mayor of the region we are going to and we need to meet with him tomorrow to sign a few documents. We are praying that he doesn't postpone or cancel with us. Gayla told us that we are the first for this region to have to meet with the mayor and go through a total of four people and signatures to get permission to see an orphan. Normally you only go and see one person, the inspector, and he will sign off for you. That process is super easy. But because Ukraine is going through a period of transition with adoptions, the region has closed down all of the offices that perspective parents go to to get things signed by the inspector. So this should be fun and tricky! We know the Lord is in control!!

Thank you so much for all of your posts and encouragement!!! They mean SO much to us!!

I will try and post pictures tonight of our adventure so far. I have been having problems putting them on the computer and uploading them with our super slow and sometimes nonexistant signal internet!! :)

Thank you for you prayers!!

It's a Boy!

I am so sorry for the long wait! We are happy to announce that we are adopting a little boy!! We are so excited! We came for two but the Lord led us to this little guy and we are so grateful for him. He is super cut with blonde hair and blue eyes and a smile that will melt your heart! He is one cutie patootie!  We will get our referral this afternoon around 4 or 5pm and about 9-10 am est. When we get our referral we will travel to see him either today or tomorrow. His orphanage is about two hours away so it is not that long of a trip. I cannot wait to share with you more about him! Until then! :)

We Made It!!

We made it to Ukraine!! We made it here about 4:20pm Ukraine time and about 9:20 EST. I am writing this post with barely any sleep so bare with me. We got off the plane outside and took a bus to the entrance of the airport. From there we went through customs with ease and walked out of customs to this waiting area thinking we would go get our bags and find Gayla who would be picking us up. (Gayla will be our translator and facillitator while we are here. We are So thankful for her!! )  Well...when we walked through the doors of customs, we quickly realized that our baggage was not out in that waiting area (where it would be in the states) but back in customs. Oh No! so we walked right back through the doors (not even sure if it that was legal) and grabbed our bags, went through the baggage xray thing and out to find Gayla. Whew! So all of our luggage made it here to Ukraine and we are so thankful for that!  We found Gayla and off we went to the downtown/residential area of Kiev.

We stopped off at a shop with Gayla  to buy bread, milk and water and to exchange some cash. After that we headed to check into our apartment where we will be staying for the next two days. It is super fun Ukrainian style mixed with the80's but I love it! From there we ate at this wonderful Ukrainian cafeteria type restaurant. It was really good. I got a pork meat ball thing with red sauce, potatos and this chicken, corn and pineapple salad. Ken got a traditial Ukrainian chicken dish that was a piece of chicken  breaded and fried with butter in the middle. It was amazing! He also got the same pineapple chicken salad thing I had and something else. I know you wanted to know exactly what we ate didn't you? :) We had so much fun getting to know Gayla at dinner! She is super sweet and we are so excited to spend time with her.

I will post pictures of the apartment tomorrow. I can't get them to work with me right now. :)

Please pray for us as we head to our appointment tomorrow 9am here time 2am est time. :)

Ukraine Here We Come!!

I am so pumped about heading to Ukraine!! Before we head out I want to share with you some super cute hats that a sweet lady (Mrs. Ellie) made for us. These hats are special in many ways. First off,  Ken's aunt was a avid craftswoman and was for some time. When she passed away unexpectedly about a year ago, she had a lot of yarn left in her craft room. Ken's Grandmother's friend (I know there was a lot of connecting there but hold on! ) took the yarn and knit all 50 of these precious hats for us to take to Ukraine. They are so sweet and special to me.  Another thing is that it has been so neat to look each of these hats and wonder what orphan will wear each one.  The other day I started crying just thinking about how many children don't have a mommy or daddy to love on them, to tuck them in at night, to feel secure with or to just hear the words, "I love you." So these hats are a special gift in many ways. I tried to get creative with them and took pictures to show y'all... :)

All 50 hats! I wonder which one our kiddo(s) will wear?!

We love you kiddo(s) and can't wait to meet you!

Celebrating our travel date!!

This past Christmas we were given a gift card to Ruth's Chris.  I had never been there before and I am not big into fancy expensive places. Just give me some Pizza Hut and I am fine! I was very excited about getting the gift card though because it is not some place I would go everyday and I don't think we would have gone there otherwise and spent so much on one meal. So we decided to save the card for a special occasion which happened to be when we got a travel date to fly to Ukraine. These past two weeks have been very crazy and we were not sure if we would be able to go. But this past Tuesday night,  Ken had a night off from his Marriage and Family class. Dr. Scott told all of the students to use the time that would have been spent in class, to spend time with their spouse. Hum...how convenient!! So this past Tuesday we were able to go to Ruth's Chris and enjoy a special meal and our last without our kiddo(s).  We had so much fun and the food was wonderful! I might have to reconsider choosing Pizza Hut over fancy food now!

You know this is your first "expensive" restaurant experience when you post a picture of your doggie bag. 

Babushka

You might be asking yourself "What in the world is a Babushka?" You may even be wondering if I know how to spell. Well the word "Babushka" is the Russian word for an elderly Russian woman, especially an elderly grandmother (it can also mean a triangular woman's scarf worn on the head). In Ukraine, they speak Russian in part of the country and Ukrainian in other. Since we have no idea what area we are adopting from, we have have heard that it is better to learn Russian because most everyone speaks it and if not, it is understood. So with that said, my mom and Ken's mom are soon to be Babushka's!! Well omit the "elderly" in the definition and voila it is perfect!   I found this cute background for my blog that is called "Babushka." It couldn't get any better than that!! :)

We Have a Date!!

We have a travel date for Ukraine!! I was on my way to work last Monday when I got the call from Mrs. Kathy (the one who has helped us with the adoption process) saying  that our date for our referral process is March 14th!!! I am so excited and cannot wait to finally meet our kiddo(s)!!!  We had two weeks from last Monday and one week from today!! It is coming up so quickly!!

A few days after we found out,  our moms came up for a shower my Adult Bible fellowship class was giving me. How wonderful it was for them to come up and help me with little things around the house that I had wanted to get done before the kiddo(s) arrive. Well I say "little" but really they helped me make curtains and shams for the kids rooms and curtains for the dining room (pictures to follow soon). I am sure mom and Mary Kay never want to hear the word "curtain" ever again after this weekend!!  :) They were such a tremendous help and such a blessing to me.

On Sunday, sweet and dear friends Sarah, Whitney, Christy, Diana and Mrs. Maria helped throw the soon to be Lovett kiddo(s) a gift card shower. Isn't that the greatest idea ever!!! I loved the idea because we, at this time, have no idea who our child(ren) will be.  This way we will be able to go and buy necessities for them when we get home.  It was so much fun and they did such a great job with the shower!! I am so thankful for them. :) I was so blessed by the everyone there and how much they have been an encouragement throughout our adoption process. Whitney took pictures of the shower and I cannot wait to see them! She is such a great photographer!! You should check out her site!!

Earlier on Sunday morning, I was listening to the sermon when all of teh sudden I realized that the next time I sit on the pews in that church, I will have kiddo(s) sitting with me.  Wow! What an amazing thing!!

The Lord is so good and so faithful!! I cannot wait to see what He has in store.

Until next time!!

January at the Lovett's

So here I go again trying to jump onto the blogging band wagon. I have always struggled with writing my life down. I can never keep up with writing a journal and I think blogging has fallen into the same category. But ladies and gents (whoever is still out there) this time is different!! It is different because I want to have a record of what is going on in our life (you benefit as well)  and I want to keep everyone updated about our upcoming adoption!!

If I had been a faithful blogger, I would have told you about how January was the craziest month on the calendar by far in my history.  I would have told you that we had to send our updated dossier in by the end of January in order to be looked at and that we barely made the date. And that it was the Lord who helped us get all of our necessary paperwork through and in Ukraine on time.  But really, we seriously had a document that we, well, kind of forgot about. 

We moved mid December to a house with an extra room, you know, just in case we would need it. So we go home for Christmas and get back in January only to realize that we forgot to send in documentation updating our most important piece of paper, the INS approval form. It is basically is a piece of paper so important that if something is not right on it, the rest of the dossier paperwork is useless. So we were kind of freaking out to say the least. I got on the phone with our adoption agency and they informed me that in order to get that document updated they would have to come out and inspect the new house. I was like sounds great how soon can you come out?? Well they couldn't come out until the next week (Jan 12) and wouldn't get all of our home study updated until the middle of January(Jan 18). Yeah, talk about panic!! 

In the meantime we find out that when we send in out updated home study to immigration, it takes them you know an average of 30 days to process the information. Ok so lets do the math...we were not going to get our updated home study until the middle of January and would not be able to send it in to immigration until then. So folks there are not 30 days after the middle of January and we HAD to mail in our paperwork to the Ukraine by the end of January to make our court date (Feb 11th).  I of course had a melt down but then began to realize that if the God who created the universe from nothing, miraculously put Jesus in Mary's womb,  caused Sarah in her old age to bear a child, and has helped us raise money to cover our whole adoption surely the Lord would not leave us in the middle of the process he has brought us through. So I began to pray continuously for the situation. While I am crying and praying in the car,  Ken was on the phone with immigration and was told two times that our situation was impossible and that we would not get it in time. Well, Ken called one more time and a lady answers the phone, he tells her our situation and she tells him to overnight our updated home study when we get it and she would overnight it back to us!! Let me tell you that the Lord is so good and SO faithful!!!  So in the middle of January we finally got our updated home study and overnighted it to her.  She then updated our paperwork and we received the updated INS form with our updated address in 5 days not 30!!! We then sent in all of our paperwork by the end of January and it made it in time for our February 11th court date. The Lord is good!!  On that date, they tell us if we are allowed to adopt or not from the Ukraine. 

Well February 11th has come and gone and now we have to wait about 20 business days for them to let us know when we will travel. I don't think that date can come soon enough!! I am so excited for what is ahead!!