Thank You All For Your Love and Prayers!

Robert and I are so thankful for all of our family and friends' joy and excitement for us and our new family to be. Our family and friends are just as excited as we are and it warms our hearts to receive all of your love, encouragement, support, prayers and generous gifts you all have blessed our family with. The love and supernatural favor of God has been poured out upon us through all of you and we thank you for all of it.



Our family has been so wonderful throughout this whole process and have helped in so many ways. My mom, Mama Sherry, has given us so much of her heartfelt excitement, encouragement, gifts to help with our adoption, has helped me with registering at Babies R Us and Target, help with taking care of our home, bills and plants while we are away in Ukraine and has made some outfits to give to the orphans in Ukraine. Your love and encouragement has brought so much joy to our lives. For those of you that don't know, our children will be the first grandchildren for my mom so she is bubbling over with excitment and joy as we are in becoming first time parents. My brother, David helped me with some helpful hints on updating this website and had his friend, Karl, who is a Ukrainian native, now American Citizen, loan us some Ukrainain published books and magazines on Ukraine and the countries history to prepare us for our travels and to give us some insight on the lifestyle, people and surroundings. What a blessing that was to read more on the history of Ukraine and to get some preliminary scenes of Ukraine before we travel.



Robert's parents, have also been a blessing to us with all of their love, support encouragement and prayers. Robert's mom, Mama Maria, back when we were going through fertility treatments would give me my daily shot in the derrière whenever Robert was at work and couldn't do it. Her encouragement and prayers have touched our hearts throughout these past several years planning for our family. I also remember when God first laid on our hearts to adopt our children, Robert's parents were one of the first people we discussed it with. Our conversation with both of them regarding the subject of adoption was a heartfelt and memorable one that helped encourage us to move forward with the adoption. Maria McMahon, Robert's sister, has graciously helped me with registering as well, since I didn't have a clue as where to start. How would I know what brands and products are reccomended and good to use if I never used them before. Robert's Grandma, who is near and dear to my heart, as well as Robert's heart, has given us her love, excitement and has kept us in her prayers for a safe and speedy adoption journey. She is anxiously awaiting the arrival of our new bundles of joy like the rest of us and I am so looking forward in our children meeting and getting to know their Great Grandma or "babushka" which is the Ukrainian word for grandma. =)



Besides getting ready for our adoption journey, we've been blessed with a family barbeque over at our cousin's Debbie & Don Bingeman's home with many other family members including my Mom (Mama Sherry) and sister, Marli, Aunt Marie and Uncle Kenny, our cousins Wendy & Bruce, Jeff & Tammy, Brian & Harmony and of course all of their children there to celebrate our upcoming adoption. We were also blessed with a celebration send off from the Shabach Singles at Victory Christian Fellowship Church, was treated to a homemade brunch and fellowship from our dear friend Jerri Swann in her home. I also thank God for our friend, Kathy Jakubowski who has been a dear friend in both Robert and I's life and is always sowing into our lives, marriage and now into our family in one way or another. We also met with our pastors from our church, Pastors Gary & Faye Whetstone from Victory Christian Fellowship where they gave us some wisdom and insight on traveling and living in Ukraine (since they've been there on missions trips in the past), prayed with us and loaned us a copy of the bible school, "The School of Biblical Studies" www.gwwm.com (since we'll have a lot of free time on our hands while in Ukraine). If any of you are looking for power impacted deep revelational knowledge on the Word of God click on the website above and look for The School of Biblical Studies. It's a great way to get a deeper understanding of His Word and will benefit your life and others around you in more ways than you can imagine. We also visited with Robert's Grandma and his Aunt Marie and Uncle Russ and was blessed with their love and encouragement.



Today, the company that I work for, Catelli Brothers Veal and Lamb company www.catellibrothers.com gave me a baby shower and farewell luncheon celebration. What a tremendous blessing all of my family at Catelli Brothers have been to me in the past 3 years since I've worked there. It is such a family atmosphere in our office and I thank God for each one of them. Many of them have touched my life and heart in so many ways. For example, I could always count on my boss and owner of the company, Tony Catelli, to make me smile with telling a joke or demonstrating a practical joke towards someone else of course. He has given me the freedom to do whatever I needed to do to plan for our children either for the adoption or when we were going through fertility treatments with encouragement and compassion, which has touched my heart with overwhelming gratitude. His support has meant a lot to me for there are not many employers out there that are willing to allow their employees to come and go for doctors' appointments or adoption appointments to plan for a family like he did for us. He has also blessed us with the farewell/baby shower party today and I thank him, Gorge & Jim Catelli for their ever so generous gift. All of the rest of my family at Catelli Brothers also shocked me and Robert with their love and generous gifts of love, the photo album with pictures of President Andrew Jackson throughout and Dumbo"The Flying Elephant" and his care package of goodies. What ingenius ideas they are filled with. My family at Catelli Brothers holds a special place in my heart and I must say if Chris has misplaced something while we're in Ukriane tell him he can't blame it on me anymore. =) VIRY GOOD! You know I'm only teasing you Chris. You know I love ya and will miss you yelling across the office for me saying....UUUUHHHHH ...pause.......pause......KARRIE!!! You know Chris you keep everyone on their toes when you hold that long pause after you say UUUUUHHHH, not knowing who's name you are going to call after it....everyone is just looking at each other like...ok who's name will he be yelling for now. =) Carol, I thank you for lending your ear many times and friendship and love you've given me. Your sweetness and love for everyone at Catelli Brothers is truely golden. Joan, Lorri, Monica, Carolynne,Therese, Sharon, Nancy, Cheryl, Maria, Vanessa, Beverly, Diane, and Donna, all of your friendship is truely valued as well as your goofy sense of humors. Anita Coleman I thank you for your powerful effectual ferverent impactful prayers for us and for your friendship and encouragement. Boris Ayzenberg, I appreiciate your friendship and the time you've help me prepare for our trip to Ukraine and your help with learning a bit of Russian & Ukrainian. Don't be surprised if you get an emergency call from me to translate what our children are saying. You're my inside Ukrainian connection. =) I also thank everyone else at Catelli Brothers as well. You all are a blessing in my life and I am so looking forward in introducing you all to our children real soon.



By the way, if any of you enjoy eating Veal Marsala, Veal Piccata or Veal Provencale, you HAVE to try Catelli Brothers latest and greatest Italian Bistro Product Line. If you need a quick and outstanding meal that is reasonably priced go to your nearest ACME, Pathmark or A&P and purchase the Catelli Italian Bistro Veal Marsala, Veal Piccata and/or Veal Provencale. It takes literally only 5 minutes to make and comes with the veal and the sauce. UUUMMM it's YUMMY!! www.catellibrothers.com/retail/news.asp?intCategoryID=75&intArticleID=431



Now you can understand why we are so thankful to God and sentimental for giving us such a wonderful and generous group of family and friends in our lives. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful family helping us, loving us, encouraging us, praying for us and our children, and that are filled with such excitement in the new soon to be additions to our family. Robert and I thank you all again for everything that you've done and the outpouring of God's love, favor and wisdom that you have shared with us. We pray that your seeds sown will be multiplied back to you 100 fold. May God continue to pour out His love and blessings upon your lives as well.