Our Appointment at the SDA (Adoption Center)

Today we had our appointment at the SDA at 11:00am. We arrived about 10 minutes early and had to wait about 20 minutes before they took us into the room to meet with the psychologist. She was very nice and ask us to tell us a little about ourselves. We told her a little bit about ourselves and told her we adopted Andrew from Ukraine in 2005. We also showed her copies of our 3 annual reports that we sent to the Ukrainian Consulate each year since we’ve been home with Andrew, which tells about Andrew’s development (a requirement when adopting in Ukraine). We then showed her our photo album and she loved seeing the pictures of Andrew with our family so happy.

She then asked us what we were look for. We explained to her that we wanted to adopt preferably a girl under the age of 4 years old as young and healthy as possible. We told her we wanted to have the child be younger than Andrew. She explained that most of the young children had some serious illnesses. She then looked into the books and pulled out some files and immediately Andrew perked up to see the files of the children. The psychologist smiled and giggled to herself to see how interested he was in seeing the children. We explained to her that Andrew has also been looking forward in having a sibling and is very excited as well as us to complete our family.

We spent an hour or so in the meeting looking at file after file. We asked the psychologist to call about a couple children to get more updated details about them, however, since we didn’t find our child today, we have requested to have another appointment next week. So next Thursday, Nov 20th will be our second appointment at the SDA to look at more children. Please keep us in prayer. There are many sick children here and we definitely need discernment, favor, and for God to reveal us our blessing from above to us next Thursday. Andrew file became available the day of our second appointment in 2005 and we were blessed to be the first couple to see his file. There were many families waiting around all week as we were and the psychologist took us into the meeting room first to see all of the new children just released from the ministry to be open for international adoption. I believe that next Thursday we will have supernatural favor as well and find our child or possibly children that are meant for our family.

After our appointment we had to make copies of our documents to take back to the SDA. When we returned to the SDA we were waiting in the corridor waiting to hand in our documents, when I noticed Andrew was jumping up and down with his hands in the air as he was singing the song,”As the praises go up, the blessings come down.” You know, I think Andrew teaches me more than I teach him. Andrew is so right. In the middle of our adversities we need to Praise the Lord for the blessings are already on their way down. Just like in Acts chapter 16, when Paul and Silas were in prison, they praised and worshiped the Lord through their adversity and late in the midnight hour (when it seems to be the worse it can be) God turned their situation around and caused an earthquake to shake open the prison doors and loose their bands around their legs and freed not just them but all the prisoners. Therefore we Praise you Lord for You are Good and Your Mercies Endure Forever. You Lord are No Respecter of Persons. You did it before by opening the doors to our blessing Andrew, and You will do it again. Late in the midnight hour, God’s going to turn it around….He’s going to work in our Favor. Hallelujah! Thank you Lord.



After our appointment, we took a walk to the park to let Andrew play on the playground for a little while. So Robert and I played with Andrew as Alla made some phone calls. Andrew had fun burning some energy on the playground as we were trying to find a playground yesterday in our travels. Now that we know where the playground is we can come back tomorrow. Alla said that if the weather is nice on Saturday we will either take Andrew to the Zoo or the Circus.

Day out at Independence Square

Ukrianian Flag in Independence Square



Our first day in Ukraine was spent exploring Independence Square. We walked through the under ground markets where they sell just about anything from flowers to Ukrainian shirts, watches, cell phones etc. The under ground markets are also under ground malls, actual stores with clothes, jackets, and sometimes a food market.

Underground Markets

In order the cross the street the safest way you walk through the under ground markets/malls to get to the other side of the street. Pretty smart if you ask me. Our apartment is about a 10 minute walk to Independence Square. We got some of our money changed at a money exchange and the rate is actually better for us this time rather than last time we were in Ukraine. For every one U.S. dollars in Ukraine exchanges to 5.83 Ukrainian grivnas. Last time we were here in 2005 we received 5.4 grivnas for every U.S. dollar. Alla said that in recent past the exchange rate was down to 4.3 grivnas to every U.S. dollar.



We found a free internet café located in a restaurant not far from our apartment. So around dinner time we came back for some Ukrainian borsch soup (warm beet and cabbage and beef soup with a dollop of sour cream on it) and sent a message to our family and updated the blog. That internet was much faster than our connection at home. The soup was wonderful, just like we remembered. I liked the way we could get the internet within the restaurant since it gave Andrew and Robert something to do while I updated the blog and checked our email. It was much better than using the internet café where the computers needed a thorough cleaning and there was nothing else to do but go on the computer.

Independence Square Buildings


Fire Twirler

The weather here is around 45 degrees Fahrenheit, clear with no wind or precipitation. A little brisk but not bad. We went out after dark for a quick walk to find a market to buy some more yogurt, water and bread for tomorrow. As we were looking for the market we came across a street entertainer that was twirling a baton that the ends were lit of fire. After twirling them around in the air and under his legs he then put some alcohol in his mouth to get the crowd excited and he spit the alcohol toward the fire to see a burst of flame coming from his mouth. After that he took his bottle of vodka and drenched a rectangular piece of card board with the vodka and lit it on fire as well. He then in his bare feet walked across the board several times until he put the fire out. Andrew said that “I bet his Mom wouldn’t want him to do that, Not Good.” After the show was over and as we were walking home Andrew kept asking us, “Why was that guy walking on fire?”. We explained to him that was his way of making money, however, it was very dangerous and that his feet are probably sore with burns on them, as well as that is not a good thing to do because you could get seriously hurt or even die.



We had a wonderful day out on the town and when we got back to the apartment we explained to Andrew that tomorrow is a very important day where we will meet with Alla, Valentina and some other ladies who will show us pictures of different children that we could possibly adopt. I told him how important it was to keep quiet while the ladies tell us all about the children. We all are looking forward to tomorrow and are wondering what child God has in store for us. We are believing for a girl that is healthy and is as young as possible, preferably younger than Andrew(who is 4 almost 5 years old). Please stand in agreement with us for God to reveal to us and make it ever so clear the child he has for us. Thank you and love to you all.

Hooray we made to Ukraine!

Andrew on the plane with pooh bear sleeping next to him.

We made it to Ukraine! Hooray!! We had 2 great flights. The first one landed in Rome, Italy on Delta Airlines and the next went to Kiev, Ukraine on Ukrainian International Airlines. Andrew was so excited to travel by airplane. We had a delay of about an hour before we even left JFK airport. We waited on the airplane for about an hour for our turn just to get onto the runway. Andrew was very anxious to get up in the air as the rest of us were. He kept saying over and over, “I can’t believe I’m on an airplane”. When we finally got up in the air it was dark and we could see all of the lights from the buildings and bridges. He thought it was cool to be in an airplane.

I brought a sliced apple with us in a Ziploc bag which I’m glad I did. Andrew was so hungry since it was around dinner time when we were sitting on the airplane waiting for it to be our turn to take off. He ate the whole apple and also ate all his chicken, salad, roll and a brownie that they served us on the plane. I was surprised he ate all his dinner since he ate the whole apple right before. Andrew was very good on the plane, the only trouble we had was trying to get him to sleep. He just wanted to play with his blanket rather than sleep. He finally fell asleep about an hour and a half before it was time to land in Rome.

When we arrived in Ukraine, Alla was there at the airport waiting for us. It was wonderful to see her again. It felt like we were just here yesterday. She surprised me with some flowers. I am so glad that we have Alla again! She’s the best! She gave Andrew a kiss and a hug and then we were on our way with Sasha in the car to our apartment. It was funny watching Andrew’s eyes move back and forth as he was watching Alla and Sasha having a conversation in Russian. He was quietly listening and watching the two of them talk. I wasn’t sure if he understood them or recognized the language or just was trying to understand what was going on. I asked Andrew quietly, “What are they saying?”, just to see if he could understand them. He quietly whispered back, “I don’t know.” I smiled and giggled to myself. Alla says hello to everyone!

We stopped at the market to get some food for dinner and breakfast before we went to the apartment. We had roasted chicken, bread and butter and chicken patties that were dipped in egg and juice. I love the Ukrainian juices here. We are in an apartment that is different from the apartments we were in before. This one is located in the heart of Kiev. We are near Independence Square and the Opera House and lots of high end department stores. There is even a Friday’s Restaurant nearby.


Our Bathroom

Our dining room

Our Kitchen

Our living room

Anyway we slept good last night. We all slept for 13 hours straight. We were a bit exhausted and are now caught up on our sleep. Alla says that our appointment with the SDA is at 11:00am on Thursday. Please keep us in your prayers for Godly wisdom, knowledge, understanding, discernment and supernatural favor and for God to reveal to us the child he has for us. Thank you and we’ll be in touch.

Preparing for Take Off

There is much to do in this month and a week before we travel to Ukraine. We are actively doing something everyday to prepare for our departure and return with our new addition to our family. First thing on our list to do was to book our airline tickets. So after 4 days of looking at different scenarios of flight patterns and dates on the computer we booked our plane tickets to leave out of JFK airport in the evening some we can sleep most of the flight (I hope) and in the morning we will change planes in Rome, Italy. This way we will get a chance to stretch our legs and get a little exercise before we get onto the flight that will take us to Ukraine. Whew, I'm glad we finally decided and booked our trip.

Next I needed to get all of our documents updated again so we have a spare dossier to take with us just in case something gets lost from the one they currently have. Then we need to purchase all of the travel supplies, medications and things we will need to travel with.

We also have been getting the room ready for our little girl since that room was currently a guest bedroom. Andrew has been helping us with that. He wanted to take part in the preparing for his baby sister and jumped in to sweep the floor after we moved the guest bed down in the basement. He then took an interest in playing with the the allen wrenches while Robert and I were putting the crib/toddler bed together. Andrew insisted on using the allen wrenches to tighten up the bolts that hold the crib together, therefore, Robert guided him to help him use the allen wrench to tighten the bolts together. He was so cute how he wanted to be a big boy and use Daddy's tools to help put his sister's bed together.

We've been preparing Andrew for all aspects of the process as much as possible. We have been reading the book written by Fred Rodgers from Mister Roger's Neighborhood called, "Going on an Airplane" to Andrew to give him a better idea of what to expect and what will be expected of him once we are on the airplane. I just love Fred Rogers and have always loved Mister Rogers Neighborhood. I remember when I was a little girl, that was the only show my sister Marli would watch. Fred Rogers always knew how to relate to children. It just so happened that we found this book out of one of the storage unit auctions we purchased.

Another book we've been reading to Andrew to prepare him for what to expect in relation to the whole adoption process is a book called, "Borah and the Burps". This book focuses on an Eastern European adoption experience but in a children's book. Borah is a baby in an orphanage in Eastern Europe (Ukraine or Russia) and it tells the story of what Borah experiences in his daily life in the orphanage and what his life is like after a family called the Burps adopts him. This book will help him understand what to expect when we travel to adopt his sister and what she might be experiencing once she comes home with us.

Andrew has been full of questions and excitement over our trip to Ukraine to adopt his sister. When are we going to Ukraine? How big will my baby sister be? I told him tonight that I don't know what she looks like or how big she will be, but I can tell you that she is going to have the Best Big Brother in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD! He just beamed the biggest smile and glowed with excitement.

I pray that the adoption of our new child will be a smooth transition for all of us including Andrew. I know he will be a wonderful big brother. He loves to be around young children and I know he will bond quickly with his sister and her with him as well as us.

We Have our Appointment Date with the SDA

We are doing the Happy Dance since we found out that our appointment with the SDA is on November 13th. We were surprised as to how soon we are traveling from the time we found out. There is lots to do to prepare for travel.

The expression that Alla uses all the time to describe the adoption process is so true....Sit...Wait....HURRY UP!!!! Boy is that true. We started our paperwork in May of 2007 and finally received our approval for our I-171H USCIS in January 08....then we Hurried up to get our dossier updated and then appositilled to get it over to Valentina in Ukraine before the SDA met their quotas for the year. Then we sat and waited for several months until it was time to update our documents again and then we were in the HURRY UP stage to get them update, aposittled and over to Valentina again...then sat and waited another couple of months and Hooray we have a date!! Now it's Hurry up again and get ready for travel.... WHEW!!! I'm tired just thinking about it but extremely happy our time is finally here.

I didn't realize to the extreme of how happy and excited Andrew is about completing our adoption of his hopefully baby sister as he says, until we went to back to school night to meet his pre-k teachers. The aide in the class came over to me and made a point to express what a wonderful little boy we have but also to tell me about a conversation she had with him earlier that day. She said that she asked him if he had any brothers or sisters and he said that he is going to have a baby sister soon. Then Mrs. Hunter asked him if his mommy had a baby in her belly, and he replied, "No, my Mommy got another lady to have a baby in Her belly for us and that baby will be is baby sister". And we are going on an airplane ALL THE WAY OVER TO UKRAINE where I was born and adopted to adopt her and bring her home." Mrs. Hunter said Andrew was beaming with excitement and was so proud.

I couldn't believe he said all of that to her and went into such detail. I told him the night before that, that we should be going to bring home his brother or sister soon, to prepare him of what is coming up soon and to make him realize that she or he will be part of the family forever and will be here to stay.....just in case he didn't realize that before.

Sorry for the length of this message.....just a little excited!!! =)

Andrew's First Day at Pre-Kindergarden

Andrew was so excited about starting Preschool this year since he is going to the township Pre-K in the mornings and will be picked up by bus and dropped off by bus. We waited and waited for the bus and ended up missing the bus the first day of school. Come to find out that the bus was 15 minutes behind schedule. So I took him to school and was glad I did since Andrew was a little apprehensive with the new surroundings. It was good to see all of the teachers outside of the school collecting the children in their class as they got off of the bus.

Andrew and I walked into his classroom. He was excited to see a cubby hole and closet with his name on it. I ended up getting a picture of him before I scooted off to work. Our little boy is growing up.

I must say I was a little apprehensive with putting him on the bus so if your wondering if Mom had a few tears I must admit my eyes were a bit on the wet side.

Andrew's Eye has Improved

It's been about a month and a half since Andrew got his glasses and we've been patching his eye for 6 hours a day. We were scheduled to go back to our eye specialist to see if there is any improvement in his right eye. The doctor was so happy with his improvement as well as how much better he can see with his glasses that the doctor said to decrease the hours of wearing the patch to 2 hours a day for the next month and then we are done with the patch.

Hallelujah!! I must say it's been frustrating to keep after Andrew with keeping his eye patch on and then to catch up to him to pin him down to put another one on I am certainly not going to miss. He was getting to the point where he would hide the box of eye patches in his room somewhere and when I'd go to look for them Andrew would say that they were not in his room. When he was so insistant that they weren't in his room it only made me look harder til I found them in his closet. The next day I found the box of patches underneath the bathroom counter.

I must say that Andrew's teachers have been awesome with keeping up with putting his patch back over his eye whenever he would remove it. We appreciate them all for helping with keeping Andrew's patch on.

Aquarium Field Trip

Andrew's day camp that he is attending this summer while I'm at work 3 days a week took a field trip to the near by aquarium on my day off so myself, my Mom and sister, Marli ended up attending. It was a lot of fun spending the day watching the kids get excited over the fish, petting the starfish, sharks and stingrays (Andrew refused to stick his hand in the water, which I don't blame him).

Andrew surprised me by wanted to get his face painted. He has never wanted to get his face painted before, but since some of his other classmate friends were getting theirs painted he wanted to do the same. Here is a picture of Andrew as a leopard. They did an awesome job and I was glad I was there to capture it on film since it was all washed off of him by the time I picked him up from school after the field trip.

Andrew's New Specs

During Andrew's 4 year old check up at the pediatrician's office they tested his eyesight by having him name certain objects on cards that were held a short distance away. He told the nurse the correct name for each object on each card. Then the nurse had Andrew cover his right eye and had him look through these binoculars to name the objects through the binocular view. Andrew did great with his left eye, however, when the nurse had him switch to cover then the left eye to test the right eye Andrew kept trying to peak. So I then proceeded to cover his left eye with my hand and he kept saying that he couldn't see and kept trying to move my hand off of his good eye to peak to tell the nurse the correct answer. She had me bring him back to have him retested in a couple of months again, however, we ended up with the same response.

When I brought him home and I shared this with Robert he had Andrew sit on his lap and tell him what picture was showing on the laptop computer screen with Robert's hand over Andrew's left (good) to test his right eye and we got the same response, "I can't see, I can't see" and then kept trying to push Robert's hand away from covering his eye.

Our pediatrician ended up referring us to a specialist to have a closer more indepth look to see what is going on with Andrew's eye. Come to find out that there is no damage to the eye, he's just not using it. The doctor said that it's not considered a lazy eye since there is no drifting of the eye he's just not using it and that Andrew is nearsighted in his right eye. The doctor perscribed for me to patch his left eye for 6 hours a day starting today to force him to force him to use his right eye along with perscribing glasses for him with a light perscription.

Boy oh boy, the first few days with using the patch was frustrating for all of us. Andrew would let me put it on with no problem and then the minute I let him out of my sight Andrew would take it off. So back and forth, back and forth we went with putting it and a few minutes later him taking it off. I finally realized that I have to keep him busy and his hands busy to be successful with keeping the patch. So since he loves to help out making food items in the kitchen I had him make some brownies, and then we made some banana bread. He loves to pour the ingredients into the bowl and stir....as well as lick the bowl.

Our Dossier to be Submitted on September 2

OHHH My Goodness! We had returned from our long weekend with the Ukrainian Angels Family Reunion and in catching up on wash and housework I forgot to check my email.

Here I had an email from Valentina waiting for me since Saturday. She said that she had some good news in that our dossier will be submitted to the SDA on September 2, 2008. WHHOO WHOO!! It was so good to hear some news of progression in this adoption. Over the past few months of not hearing any news I was starting to feel a little down about the whole thing.

We are so excited and we are so looking forward in completing our adoption. Maybe we'll be traveling before the holidays and back by Christmas. Wouldn't that be awesome!! It certainly would be a Christmas we will never forget. I would be courious to see how the Ukrainians celebrate Christmas even though they celebrate around January 6th or 7th.

We shall see what God has in store. We really were hoping for warmer months to travel in however, it looks as if it will be winter when we travel. It's all in His timing not ours. He works everything out for good according to His Plan and His Purpose.

Ukrainian Angels Reunion

This year we were excited to take part in the Ukrainian Angels Reunion. They have a reunion gathering of the families that have adopted from Ukraine that have used Ukrainian Angels to help guide them through the process adopting over a weekend once a year. Since they just happened to be having it in a fairly close by town, Hershey, Pennsylvania we decided to join them. Okay, well it's about a 2 hour drive from us, however, the other years since we've been home with Andrew have been a lot further away. Each year they select a different part of the United States to have it.

It was a nice to finally meet some of the families that we have chatted with and followed (their blogs that is) as they found their Ukrainian Angels. Each family from Ukrainian Angels is such a blessing to give of themselves and share their experiences when adopting their angels in Ukraine. The wealth of information that is learned by each family sharing on the Ukrainian Angels forum totally prepares you for your journey when traveling in Ukraine.

We also met a family that had just returned in January of this year that adopted a young sibling group of 3 children all under the age of 3 years old. What cuties they are. Two, three year old twins (boy and a girl) and a two year old brother. It was interesting talking with Michelle and Bob the parents of the children to see how they have adjusted since returning from Ukraine. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting them and all the other families. It was really nice to have the same connection as to how your family came together. Not only for us as parents and what we went through before, during and after travel but also for the children. It helps the children have somewhat of a connection to their heritage as well as they get to form relationships with children that have been adopted from their birth country and have shared some of the same experiences before, during and after adoption.



After the reunion, we took the day to experience Hershey Chocolate Factory and Hershey Park. Andrew loved both the Chocolate Factory and Hershey Park. We took the tour through the chocolate factory and sat in the moving car that took you through the factory and showed you all about how they make their famous chocolate.



I asked Andrew at the end of the day what he liked best about the day and he couldn't stop talking about the singing cows from the Hershey Chocolate Factory. Between the cows and the Falcon ride at Hershey Park which took us up above the whole park and spun us around (Mommy's tummy wasn't feeling too good after that) I don't know which he liked better. Andrew wanted to do that ride again but that was enough for me. I used to be able to handle all of the different types of rides but lately it's the spin around rides that my stomach can't handle. Even at Sesame Place last year the tea cup ride got my tummy turned upside down after Robert spun us as fast as he could.



Coming off a chocolate high. Catching some ZZZZZs.

Updated Dossier for the 3rd time

I contacted Cathy Harris our coordinator from Ukrainian Angels and Valentina our facilitator and lawyer in Ukraine to see if there is any chance our dossier would be submitted in June. She said that the SDA has already selected the dossiers that they will be accepting in June and ours was not one of them. I really dislike bothering Valentina since she is a very busy lady and I don't want to seem like a pest. I did however need to know a month ahead of time though whether or not to start updating our documents since our dossier documents were getting ready to expire as of the beginning of July.

Valentina suggested that we go ahead and update the documents and get them over to her since she had a feeling the SDA would be accepting families dossiers again within the next couple of months. So after almost 5 months of waiting for an approval here we are updating our dossier again. Hopefully this time around the SDA will take our dossier soon after sending it over.

We finally sent everything over to Valentina on July 9th. I was very happy to get that done and sent over to her as quickly as possible.

Circus Play - Andrew "The Clown"

Andrew's preschool puts on a play every year of "The Greatest Circus on Earth". All of the children take part in the play and act out their character parts. This year Andrew is excited about being one of the clowns in the circus. I found out why he was so excited. It's because he gets to squirt the audience with the squirt guns. But the only person he wanted to squirt was ME! I didn't care, as a matter of fact when I knew his part was coming up, I made myself available to the stage area so he could get to me easily. I knew he was going to squirt me since over the past few weeks he gave away the surprise.

I didn't mind since the past few plays he didn't really want to participate in. He would be on stage doing what he was supposed to do in the play until he saw Robert and I and then he would cry until the teacher took him over to sit with us. As soon as he sat on our laps to watch the rest of the play/s he was fine.



So when I heard he was excited about being a clown and he was planning on squirting me, I wanted to make sure he had fun in participating in the program. And he did! As soon as it was his part to squirt the audience he made a BEE-LINE for dear ole Mom! After squirting me several times I told him to go squirt the audience or his teacher. Well he ran back to his teacher and sat next to her. He looked adorable in the clown outfit. Here are a couple of pictures.

Arthur's - Adoption Cartoon

One day recently I was sitting on the couch next to Andrew as he was watching the cartoon Arthur. I realized that this was the episode where Arthur's Friend Binky and his family adopt his baby sister from China. When I realized that the show was on international adoption and that our dossier was waiting for our dossier to be submitted for our approval in Ukraine, I felt it was the right time to start talking and preparing Andrew about our up coming adoption.

On the show, it talked about Binky's family flying on an airplane to China to adopt and bring home his baby sister and how they all were adjusting to each other after they were home. Throughout the show I asked Andrew, what do you think if we adopted a little girl to be your baby sister? He was all for it...with no hesitation. I then asked him what he thought about adopting her from Ukraine instead of China. Andrew knows he was born in Ukraine and when he heard that suggestion he lit up with a positive response of Yeah Mommy. I then said we would have to fly in an airplane, "All the way over to Ukraine". He wanted to see a map of the earth to see just how far we would have to travel to get there. I then had to let him know that we it won't be tomorrow when we will be traveling and that we don't know yet but hopefully we'll be finding out soon when we can go to adopt Andrew's baby sister.

To my surprise when I dropped off Andrew at Preschool today, his teacher, Miss Erica told me that Andrew brought up the subject in school one day how he and his Mommy and Daddy are going to China to adopt his baby sister. I was surprised that Andrew told his teacher all of that that I had to laugh and then tell her the corrected version of the story. She said he was so excited about it when he talked to her about it. Miss Erica has told me several times at how impressed she is with Andrew's vocabulary and is impressed with his memory and listening skills. She says that he's quite the conversationalist and remembers things she taught him a week or two ago. She says that he is usually one of the only kids in the class that will answer her questions to the class when she quizes them on what she taught them a week or two ago.

Andrew's memory is like an elephants for sure. If you tell him something or he if you promise him something you best remember and follow through with whatever it was or he'll call you on it even if it's the next day or so...he remembers.

Selling Books, DVDs and Cds on Half.com - The Millilo Book Store

Robert and I have accumulated many books over the years as well as many are from the auctions we have won. Many people have told us about their success with selling their books on www.half.com . Half.com is affiliated with Ebay and runs similar to purchasing and selling books on Amazon. However, there are no up front listing fees on Half.com and your books/movies/video games/music stay on their site until you remove them or sell them. Once you make a sale they email you to notify you to send the item to the purchaser. Half.com collects a small percentage of the sale and sends you a credit for shipping costs twice a month on all of your sales.

Since we heard so much about Half.com we finally decided to list some books this past weekend. We listed 30 books on Sunday afternoon and to our surprise on Monday morning we had our first sale. Yesterday we sold 2 more books. Wow! How easy was that! Last night we listed another 14 more books so now we have our own little book shop. We’ll be adding to it periodically since we have many many more books to sell. If you’d like to check out “The Millilo Book Store” click on this link http://shops.half.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?HalfSearch&seller=getitnow1013 or click on the link to the right side of the page call “Millilo Book Store”. It will take you directly to all the books we are selling to help pay for the adoption of our daughter. It’s another way to fundraise for your adoption. It’s easy to set up an account with Half.com especially if you already have an Ebay id.

One nice thing about listing on Half.com you don’t need to type the description in to the listing. Since all you do is type in the ISBN number (number near the bar code) it pulls up the picture of the cover of the book, description and the price ranges of other people selling the same book for. All you need to do is describe the condition and put in your price. It’s that easy. Much easier than Ebay and your listings stay on as long as you want and you don’t get charged for any fees until you sell the item/s. Give it a whirl with a few books you have laying around the house. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Happy 4th Birthday, Andrew!

I can't believe Andrew is 4 years old. My how time is flying by. It seems like just yesterday we were playing peek-a-boo with him and helping him learn how to walk.

This year we had a home birthday party with family members and a couple of Andrew's closest friends. The morning of his party Andrew and Robert went out to pick up the cake and balloons while I stayed home to put the decorations up and set up the dining room table with all of the plates and decorations and party hats. It was hilarious when Andrew and Robert got home from the store. Andrew came running into the house since he couldn't wait for Mommy to see his birthday cake. When he came dashing into the dining room to find me he stopped dead in his tracks and saw all of the decorations and started screaming with delight. I certainly didn't expect that reaction from him. He was hilarious how excited he was to see the house decorated for his special day. Too funny! He even gave me a hug and told me I was the best Mom ever.

All of the kids had a ball with the different games we played and it was especially fun for everyone to see how many hits it took before the pinata finally broke. It was starting to get a little scary to see how hard the people were swinging that bat in our living room. I'm really surprised to see my father-in-law sit on the couch through it all being so close to the action. He certainly got a front row view. Robert finally had to finish breaking the pinata open to end the game just so no one would get hurt. The kids were funny to watch as they went after the candy. I got a kick out of our neice Julia when she was picking up the candy. She wouldn't put any candy in her bag, instead each piece went directly into her mouth.

All in all Andrew's birthday party was fun and everyone had a good time. After everyone left we had dinner and then we got Andrew into pajamas early since he didn't have a nap that day. It was funny to see that he still HAD to wear his party hat even though the party was over and he was lying on the couch next to us. When he fell asleep I gently took the party hat off of his head and a few minutes later he woke up and immediately realized he was missing his hat and insisted that he have his hat back only to fall asleep with it again.

Paperwork in Ukraine, Translated & Waiting to be Submitted

Okay now, our paperwork or dossier is finally in Ukraine, translated and in line waiting to be submitted to the SDA for approval and a date to meet with them to complete our adoption. I'm glad it's out of our hands and in Ukraine getting ready to be submitted and approved.

I must say that now that I look back on the last few months of waiting for our approvals (so we can send our dossier overseas to Ukraine to receive our approvals) I see now that if our approvals came any earlier, we wouldn't have had the funds for the next step in the process of the adoption. God is awesome how He knows the perfect timing for everything. We always tend to wonder why not now for whatever it is we are waiting or believing God for, but He knows the perfect time for everything.

I praise and thank God for all of the Ebay orders over the holidays and even throughout January which certainly brought the funds we needed for the next step in the process. He's always on time, never late and never early but always on time.

Snow Balls, Snow Angels & a Snowman

Today was a winter wonderland. The first real snowfall this year even though we didn't even get 2 inches of accumulation. Andrew and I spent the day together playing in the snow.The first winter after Andrew came home it snowed considerably, however, he was too little to really appreciate the snow and I bundled him up so much he could barely move in his snow suit. Check out this picture from 2 years ago of him in the snow.



Last winter we didn't get much snow and what we got turned to ice by the time we were ready to play in it. Therefore, when it started snowing I figured we'd better take advantage of it now because from what the weatherman stated, the snow was going to turn to rain and be gone by morning. So Andrew and I put on our snow clothes and as soon as we got out the door Andrew was rolling around in the snow like he was a log. It was really the first time he thoroughly enjoyed the snow. He plopped himself down on the ground and started making a snow angel without me even showing him how. I asked him who taught him how to make a snow angel. Here one of the characters on once of his cartoon shows was making one. Here is a picture of him making a snow angel.

Then Andrew thought he'd be funny and started packing the snow in his hands to plumette dear ole Mom with some snowballs. The snow was perfect for packing and making snowballs, however, it was a good thing for me that Andrew couldn't quite make a decent size snow ball or else Mommy would have been in trouble.

I decided to teach Andrew how to make his first snowman since the snow was packing so well. So I got down on my knees and got Andrew to help me roll and pack the body part of the snowman. He was getting all into rolling and packing the snow until the mound of snow was too heavy for him to move. So I ended up making the next 2 mounds of snow for the body and the head myself. Andrew lost interest and decided to pull our flags out of the ground that we had in our flowerbed. He wanted to use the small flags for the snowman's arms so that's just what we did when we were ready to decorate him. Let me just tell you that I forgot what back aching work building a snowman can be. My back was aching me bad that night and the next day from walking on my knees for an hour and lifting the heavy mounds of snow to make a snowman. But it was well worth it. Check out my two little snowmen in this picture below. How cutie are they?

Happy New Year - We received our I-171H approval

Happy New Year everyone! It sure is a happy one for us. We finally received our last approval on the USA side for our up coming adoption. We were waiting for our I-171H Homeland Security approval so our daughter will have immediate citizenship once we arrive home with her.

Now we will quickly get our documents approved by our coordinator, Cathy Harris from Ukrainian Angels and then send them to get them apostilled by the state before we can send them to Ukraine for their approval. Boy it seems like we've been waiting a lot longer for our approvals this time around than when we adopted Andrew. I'm glad that we were extremely busy with our Ebay orders during the holidays since that helped to keep my mind off of the waiting. From what I hear, Homeland Security has been inendated with people getting passports and other immigration approvals due to the new law about traveling outside of the US you need to have a passport.

We received an email from our translator in Ukraine and she told us to Hurry Up with our documents and to get them to Ukraine as quickly as possible since the SDA (adoption ministry) is only accepting 1,453 dossiers for the year of 2008 and they are already up to #700. Well that just excelarated my anxiety level a few notches since it's early January of 2008 and they are already on #700. It looks as if they started receiving dossiers for 2008 before 2008, since their offices were closed for a few days in January due to their Christmas Holiday.

We had to get most of our documents updated since it's been over 6 months since they were originally completed and the SDA won't accept any dossiers with expiration dates that are over 6 months old. So I need to get them all updated before I can get them apostilled and sent to Ukraine. As Alla used to say "Sit...Wait...HURRY UP!! Now we are in the Hurry Up stage to get our documents over to Ukraine so we can get our approval before they reach their quota for the year. We are hoping to get a Spring or Summer appointment date to travel to complete our adoption. But it's all in God's hands, therefore I have to cast my cares over unto Him for He cares for us and it's all in His perfect timing.

Christmas Giving and Glory in the Sky

It is always a joy to get ready for Christmas by putting up the Christmas tree and decorations. I just love Christmas and love to change the house into the wonderful decorations and bake cookies and other goodies for the holidays.

There are certain traditions that I want to implement into our family to make it a part of every Christmas season and one of them is to get our family including our children involved with giving to others in need. Robert and I do this year round, however, to show the love of Christ around Christmas time especially is more meaningful.

This Christmas season it was time to go through Andrew's abundance of toys and separate the ones he wants to keep and the ones he wants to give away to a little boy who doesn't have any toys. So to my surprise Andrew got into it more than I thought he would. We went through each toy and I had him put the toys he wanted to give away on his bed and the ones he wanted to keep away in his closet. To my surprise he filled his bed with toys so much so that we filled 3 trash bags full of toys. I kept making sure that he understood that the toys he puts on his bed were the toys he wanted to give away.