My Most EXCITING post yet!!!

Yay, I finally get to write the "we got the call" post!! After a year and a half the day finally came when we learned the name of our precious little girl. We got a call from our agency a week before Christmas that they had a referral of little girl for us to meet. I'll never forget that day. Of course for some reason my cell phone was messing up that day and going straight to voice mail, it wouldn't ring so I was super bummed when I realized I had missed a call from our agency. When I heard the voice mail, it was our director with the sweetest message, but not stating any details, just asking us to call her back. I got a little butterfly in my stomach and thought it had to be "the call" because if it was just a paperwork issue someone from the office would have called. Of course when I heard the message it was too late for me to call back so needless to say I didn't sleep at all that night. The next morning I called and left her a message and then had to wait. In the meantime I got an email from another family using our agency and they said they too got a call from our director, but it was just to say Russia would be shutting down for their upcoming holiday and to not expect to hear anything until around the 15th of Jan. so I thought that must be it. Thankfully that wasn't it at all, she was calling to give us the most wonderful Christmas news we could ever receive. We learned her beautiful name, her birth month and year and some medical information. We took what medical information we had to the doctors at Texas Children's Hospital, who are wonderful by the way, and met with them the following Tuesday. We signed a letter on Christmas Eve day requesting a meeting with the MOE and to meet this little girl. She is our little Christmas Miracle, we couldn't have asked for a better present or a bigger answer to prayer. Now that I know who she is and have seen her sweet face, the days are going so slow. I thought the waiting before was hard, but this is terrible. Now, I know her and know she is suppose to be ours and I just can't wait to meet her and bring her home. Everytime I hear the new song by Carrie Underwood, "Temporary Home", I start to cry. I think of her and see her sweet face in my mind. She's just in her temporary home now and we are going to bring her to her forever home very soon.

The Travel Dates
Since we got our referral so close to the long Russian holiday we had to wait to hear about travel dates until they got back this week. Yesterday we got a call from our agency with an appointment date of February 1st to meet with the MOE. We are using airline miles, thankfully, what a blessing, so we have a kind of crazy flight schedule, but actually a pretty cool one. We fly out of Houston Friday night Jan. 29th and land in Frankfurt, Germany Saturday morning. This was the only route we could take using our miles, which is actually really cool because Germany is the only country in Europe where we have friends. They live about 30 miles from Frankfurt and we will be able to spend the day with them and have a place to stay that night. We haven't seen them in about 9 years so we are super excited about this extra perk!! We fly from Frankfurt to Moscow and then Moscow to Kaliningrad on Sunday the 31st. We get into Kaliningrad at 5:20pm, so we'll have had plenty of time to adjust to the time change over the weekend and get a good dinner and a good nights rest before we meet with the MOE on Monday. On the way home we get to make the whole trip in one day which is a little nicer. I know I'll be missing my angel boys terribly and would hate to have to take 2 days getting home to them. Now I can start the countdown to meeting our Christmas Miracle, our little girl!!

For Waiting Parents Like Us

I wanted to share something I've been doing that a friend of mine who adopted from China 6 years ago did for her daughter. Of course I pray for the safety and health of our little one every day, but my friend shared with me that she would also pray that her daughter would see her new Mommy and Daddy in her dreams and when the day came for them to finally meet she wouldn't be scared because she would remember them from her dreams. So I added that to my prayer list, that our little girl would know us when we meet her and remember us from her dreams. I also shared this with a family friend who started this process of adopting a little girl around the same time we did. She is in Ethiopia now getting ready to bring home her 8 month old daughter. Her mother texted my Mom today and wrote, "I know our prayers for E to see her mothers face in her dreams were answered." What a blessing!! Just thought I would share, I'm so glad my friend shared it with me.

I Need Some Help,Can't Decide

On the left side of the blog, under our Easter picture, I've added a poll and would love any one's opinion. I want to put up a wall quote in her room and can't decide which one. I thought this would be a fun way to help me choose, so please vote and help me pick which one to use.

Court Package....Check

I got our last document back from being apostilled in Austin so our court documents are finally ready!!! I'm so glad our agency had us start on this when they did. It really did take a while to get all the paperwork together. What I thought would take about 2 weeks to put together ended up taking about 6 weeks, but it's ready now. Now we just need our referral, our little girl. I'm praying for you little one, everyday, and will continue to until you are finally safe in our arms. On our way home tonight we were all in the car laughing and singing to the radio and Eddie said, "I think we've got one pretty cool family" and Austin said, "yeah, we're just missing one thing, our baby sister, then it will be really cool." My heart melted. Anyway here's the stack of documents.

I just got an email from our HS social worker checking in on us. She is always so supportive and helpful. This time she just wrote to say she was so excited we were getting closer and ready to help with whatever the next step may be. We will need a HS addendum for sure. I'm actually glad we have to do that. I so value her advice and opinion, I'm looking forward to that meeting. In this uncertain world of adoption, it's so reassuring to know you have support. I'm thankful God put her in our lives, she is a true blessing.

More Paperwork

I feel like most of my recent posts have been about paperwork, boring I know, but that's really what I've been doing lately. I received the certified docs back from the state today. I opened the package and thought "yeah paperwork is done for a while". Well not quite, one out of 15 documents couldn't be appostilled because the notary signed it but didn't stamp it. Are you kidding me? I can't believe I missed that, I overlook these things over and over before I send them off, but I missed it. So back to UPS to get a new notary, with a stamp this time, and then back to Pearland Postal Plus to FedEx it back to Austin. Another $30 to send just one document, ahhhh. I do have to be thankful though. In TX once you've met your $100 max for appostilles you're done. You don't have to pay for every single document, I can't imagine what our total would be by now. The FedEx costs more than the actual documents. Even the guy at the Pearland Postal Plus was surprised to see me, he said, "I thought you were done for a while?" I wish, almost. Anyway, it's a family that runs it and they were all so sweet today. Every time we go in Ty asks me to show him on the big map hanging on the wall where our baby sister is. Well today, the whole family, Dad, Grandma, brother and sister of the Pearland Postal Plus all came over to see where exactly in Russia she was. We all stood around this big map and looked at her teeny tiny region half way around the world. It was pretty cool, they can't wait to meet our little angel.

Court Package is Complete

Wednesday Eddie and I got our last document notarized and now our court package is complete, minus the medical and FBI check which we have to do after our first trip. We have everything we need in order to register with the court on our first trip. We've had to start using the notary at UPS and paying for it now because our bank has three notaries but they all expire within the next couple of months, very helpful. Unfortunately, I realized this after we had waited in line for about an hour to notarize about 10 different documents. I got to my car just to check them over one last time and realized her notary expires in 2 weeks. They'd be expired before I even got them back from Austin much less to Russia. Anyway, it's finally done now. Yesterday I took it to the Pearland Postal Plus and it's now on it's way to Austin to be apostilled, what a relieving feeling that is.

Being A Mommy

Tyler got a couple of mosquito bites this morning so I put some Benadryl itch cream on them to help the itch. When I was done rubbing on the cream, he looked at me and said in the sweetest voice, "Thanks for helping the itchies. I'm so glad I have a Mommy, if I didn't have a Mommy I'd be scared." I'm so fortunate to be a Mommy and stop the itchies, my Tyler is such a blessing. It made me so happy and at the same time sad to know that our 3rd little one is without a Mommy right now. Whoever our little girl is, she's there waiting day after day without a Mommy. At least she doesn't know she's waiting and it's just regular life for her, but I can't wait for the day when she will get to know what it means to have a Mommy. We're praying for you everyday little girl that it will be very soon.

Hmmmm, I hope it's right.... SOON

Eddie's not getting home until late tonight from a business trip in Denver, so the boys and I ordered take out. I thought, "wouldn't it be cool if one of those fortune cookies says something about adding a new little one to our family." Well, it didn't say exactly that, but it did say, "Pack your bags, you're bound for an exciting destination". Okay, I don't really believe in these kinds of things, I put my hope in a much higher power, but I'll take this one. I'm ready to pack those bags. I'm holding on to that little piece of paper for her baby book.

Paperwork

Yesterday I received all of the apostilled documents from our placing agency. They are so quick and efficient when it comes to paperwork. Now I'm just waiting on the letter from Eddie's boss and the documents from our Homestudy agency and I will have everything we need for our court package in hand ready to go. Now we just need our little girl. I feel like I have everything ready, her room, the paperwork, Eddie's time off from work taken care of, the miles saved up for airfare, the Marriott points saved up for hotel rooms, Grandparents ready and "on call" to come watch the boys, but no little girl. I know it will happen, I know she's waiting for us just as we're waiting for her, I'm just tired of waiting, I'm ready to see our little girl. Okay, now that I've vented, I need to run. I'm headed to the kitchen to make a Power Ranger cake for Austin's 7th birthday party tomorrow, thank goodness for character shaped cake pans is all I can say.