Friday, June 29, 2012

Today we had to choose a name for you...

Fornthose of you checking both, this is copied from Facebook. Sorry, I've been trying to post different things, but there just wasn't time today. Aleksandr Joel Davis - that's the name we wrote down for you today. We kept the Russian spelling of your first name as it is part of your heritage. Joel means, "the Lord is God" - Joel 3:25 "I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten — the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm — my great army that I sent among you. 26 You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed. 27 Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed." Your life may have started out less than perfect... And there has and will be some important time lost (as we continue on the course to get you home). However, we know that the Lord is God and He has worked this out amazingly and with great purpose. We can't wait to see what He has in store for your future... And... You'll have your choice of great nicknames... Alex, Alec, Sandr, AJ, Joel... They are all good. Our coordinator told us today that you are very vocal (which we know already... Didn't take long to figure that out). She also said it isn't normal for a 13 month old in a baby house to be walking as well as you are. We can't wait to get you home to really get to know you (although, your little nyet & da - yes & no -fit with the coordinator today did show a lot of what is in store) and welcome you to your new family. Wait until you meet ALL the people who are waiting to meet you and love you! :). First flight for home is at 5am (home time) Saturday (tomorrow). Please pray for safe travels, smooth flights and possibly a quicker flight home from New York (dreading the 22 hour layover there!) Thanks for more prayers. See you all soon!

Thursday, June 28, 2012

A few pics...

So, I wish I could just put a pic of little man on here for you all, but... I can't.  After court is when I believe we can post pics.  We did take a lot though... :)

Really what you need to do is imagine Alia as she was when we first brought her home, now add about 10 pounds, now add bangs and give her short hair (well, a little bit of a bowl cut... not shaved like hers, he has lots), then put her in some overalls... ok... you are really close. :)

It's amazing actually.  Never underestimate the power of God.  He can even bring a family together from 3 different countries. We showed our translator a picture of Alia and she said, "Wow! They actually look like brother and sister!"

Oh, and for now... just going to keep calling him "little man".  We have to name him tomorrow, but... we are still a bit unsure on what name we are going to give him.  His social worker at the hospital gave him the name Aleksandr.  The baby house calls him "Sasha".  We were going to rename him, but Alia says his name is Alex and that is what she is going to call him.  So, we need to figure out a middle name.  I can think of lots of great boy names that have Alexander as the middle name, but nothing is flowing for me with Alexander as the first name.  So, we will keep thinking and praying.  Oh, and I just can't keep the Sasha thing...

We started at noon today.  Waited for an hour at the first stop, then had to drive for a long time to get to second stop, then finally made it to baby house, just in time for naps.  A very sweet lady woke him up from his nap and brought him in so we could see him really quick. We got to hold him and take one pic.  He was in his jammies... looking super cute.  We received all of his medical information and everything they have about his family (pretty much nothing).

After that, we had to leave for an 1 1/2 hours, so we decided to eat.  Went back, and they walked him in the room sportin' overalls, shoes, and nicely combed hair.  He looked like a little doll.  They call him "Peach" for a nickname and also "pumpkin".  Peach, because his skin is so soft and perfect... pumpkin, because he weighs 20 pounds (guessing on that one... they told us why peach, but not why pumpkin). :)

So, we were only supposed to have him for a couple hours at most, but an emergency situation happened at the baby house and our driver had to help out.  We were able to hang out with him for an extra hour (not happy for the emergency, but thankful for a little more time). :)

I mentioned on Facebook about the picture of Alia.  That was probably one of the coolest times.  He just kept that picture in his hands and kept looking at it and smiling.  I tried several times to give him different pics, other toys, etc... nothing.  He was not going to give up that pic and he was going to make sure I didn't try that again. :)  Very cool.  He just kept saying her name too... and daddy.

He liked me ok and let me hold him and smiled lots, but he LOVED Brad.  Anytime Brad would move, he would crawl toward him and lean on him... as if to say, "Don't leave".  They made funny faces at each other and made funny noises.  He tried to copy everything that we did.  We played ball, stacked cups, made noise by hitting the cups together, stomped on the floor, etc.  Hoping that tomorrow is nice and we can take him outside (because the room we were in was small, hot, and boring).  Of course they will bundle him up, but hopefully not with a ski coat!. :)

Well, its after midnight and tomorrow is going to be a little early for us "vacationers".  Guess I better try and get some sleep. Here's a few pics from our day... one is about as fun as I can do...   :)  Only 3 more days until we are home... can't wait to hug my Alia!

I'll post more tomorrow, but don't know the schedule yet.  I know we get to go back to visit in the morning and hopefully again in the afternoon, but we'll see.

Love you all and goodnight (or day). :)
Steph

Guess who!  Cute ear, huh?

Outside of the MOE, this is the "Referral Angel" statue.  The Referral is what you have to have to go visit any specific child.  Anyway, it's a well known statue... so we took a pic. :)

Our "place" at night.  Cool, huh?  Check out that traffic at 11 pm on a Thursday night!  It's 12:45 now and there are at least 3 cars just driving down the road holding down on the horn.  Its insane!  Now 2 + emergency vehicles just went by.  This place is seriously crazy loud!

Ours is the second building... I think. :)
The buildings keep changing colors and flashing.  Check out the sky at 11 pm... still not dark.  

We had to wear these at the baby house. :)  I KNOW Ron is laughing at this one! :)  He is thinking about the box of these shoe covers that I keep at my front door. ;)


Good night all... will blog more soon.









Success!

Today was AMAZING! God is SO good. We have a little boy. He is beautiful (looking much like his big sis oddly, or not oddly enough). We saw God's hand and quickly understood why the rush of the past couple of weeks. We HAD to get there. He's ours! Anyway, it was many hours of our day to even get to meet him. We are really hungry now and have to pick up a couple of things. It's 9:30 pm, so we need to run out. When we come back... I will post lots more info on here. Thank you all SO much for your prayers and support. We felt them big time! I didn't Want to make you wait any longer. :) More soon...

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Sorry...

Sorry about the most recent blog. I typed it on my iPad with spaces and lines, but... It didn't copy that way. So, it's one long paragraph. :)

So good to have friends...

We are SO very thankful for all of our friends! You all are awesome! So encouraging. Your prayers help us make it through each day here. We can't thank you enough. Thanks for commenting on the blog and Facebook. Gives me something to do when I can't seem to sleep in the middle of the night. :) Also helps me remember to post because I know people care about what is going on here. ;) I forgot to tell you a cool story from yesterday... Some college kids stopped us on the street and asked if they could ask us a question and video the answer. We said sure (I mean...what else did we have to do anyway?). They didn't tell us what the question was, they just started taping. Guess what it was... "What is God to you?". Nice! I actually love that question! Totally not what I was expecting, but very happy to answer. What a great chance to witness a bit in the middle of a crazy busy pedestrian street in Moscow. Gotta love chances like that! Today we were VERY excited to have lunch, shopping time, and chatting fun with some new friends. They are here for the same reason and it was wonderful to have something different to look forward to today. :) Their meeting is directly after ours tomorrow. Then we will go to different baby houses to meet our kiddos. Please don't forget to pray. Here's a few specifics: -Peace with any decisions we have to make. -Trust that whatever happens is exactly what God wants and He will be our strength. -Knowledge to know if we need to pay for a doctor to clarify any medical needs or worries (we did not need this with Alia... We were totally sure that she was ours, so nothing else mattered). -Good sleep tonight -good impressions with the baby house director and workers. (this is a huge deal) -understanding and remembrance of all of the information that we will hear in a very short time -as much time as possible with our little baby There's SO much, but this is a great start. Thank you all again. Unless I'm awake all night and just happen to feel like I have something important to post (which may or may not be a good call for me to make at 2am), you probably won't hear from us until we have some news. We probably can't post any pics. Sorry, but this is normal. Of course, we will take tons! Maybe I'll do some creative editing... Hmmm...Guess you'll have to check back and see. I asked Brad at least 3 times in the last 2 weeks, "Are you sure we have to do this?" (while crying my eyes out). Each time he replied, "Absolutely. There may be a little baby in this foreign land that has no hope without us. Maybe a little guy that is supposed to be our son and we have to save him. We can't NOT go. We have to go.". That isn't the answer I was hoping for each time. I told him I didn't want to go... I didn't want to do this again. I was hoping for a country where you go for a week or so and then come home with your baby, not one where we have to go 3 times and leave the baby again... I hate that. Yet, In my heart I knew we had to go. Thank you God for this opportunity. The words to one of my favorite songs comes to mind. "Please take from me my life, when I don't have the strength to give it away to You." Another favorite song, "Got some rocks in my shoes, fears I wish I could lose, that make the mountains so hard to climb. And my heart gets so heavy with the weight of the world sometimes. There's a bag of regrets, should've beens and not yets that I keep on dragging around. And I can hardly wait til the day I get to lay them all down. But i know we're gonna make it and i know that everything He says is true. It's just a long way home (in more ways than 1)." God, may we be faithful to do what You have called us to do while here on this earth. Reveal your will to us. There are definitely rocks in my shoes tonight and fears I wish I could lose, but... I look forward to the morning.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Hello. It's 2am and yep, I'm awake. Can't seem to get this time change down. :) Brad and I had a wonderful day today. We enjoyed moving at our own pace and exploring some local Moscow. We were able to find the supermarket (which is good because now we can get juice and water MUCH cheaper! We both agree that we really like the area of Moscow where we are. People are mostly friendly and no one really stares at us because we are not much diferent then they are (at least until we speak). ;) Even many times, people speak to us in Russian first and then change to English when we try to respond. Many of them even know some English. We received our call today for our second appointment and then after that we will meet our child. We will have the meeting at noon on Thursday (this will be 3:00 am home time on Thursday morning)...for any of you who just happen to be awake then. :) if you like your sleep (as do I... Normally), please just remember to say a prayer for us before bed Wednesday night. At this point, I have no idea what to expect. We know what we came here for (in our plans), but trust that God already knows exactly what is going to really happen Thursday. We know that God had great plans for bringing us here (or it wouldn't have worked out the way that it has ... That alone was a miracle). Looks like one more day of exploring and then... The day we have waited for. :) Please pray for us... As well as the little baby that is about to have a totally rocked world. Can't wait to announce... And we will as soon as we can. Oh, and please also pray for some paperwork that is currently being ordered and worked on at home. Many of the clearances that we still need come from places who don't exactly work on the timeframe that we've been given. We know that God can get those docs to just the right people who can process them quickly and in His time. Love you all! Steph and Brad

Monday, June 25, 2012



Our 4 hour walking tour today... we must have walked at least 10 miles.  We were able to see much of the tourist areas today.  Lots of culture! 
After the pics, there is some info about our meeting today... 1 of 2.
St. Basil's Cathedral - Beautiful!  We went inside, but weren't able to take pictures.  Very beautiful inside with a quartet of men singing traditional songs of Russian Warriors.  They were awesome.

Don't mess with this gun.  Look at the size of those bullets. :)

At the entrance to the Kremlin.

Inside the Kremlin walls.

Red Square

So, the first of our "meetings" was today.  We were totally not prepared, but not our fault.  Our luggage has still not arrived (supposed to come tonight between 8pm and 6am).  
Anyway, no make up, hair washed with body wash not shampoo, Brad in shorts (totally bad!), and we had been walking around the area for 4 hours (also not our fault, the agency set up the tour for today... I tried to change it twice).  Lets just say we were looking great!
We explained about the luggage and they just laughed (I think it was an understanding laugh).  They asked us several questions and looked at our paperwork.   There were a couple of questionable moments (which is normal), but then things started to really improve when they saw our family photos.  They asked many questions about why we wanted to adopt here. We explained that we were happy that our daughter and this child could share much of the same cultural background and many of the same items that remind them of where they are from (gifts that we bought for Alia from Kaz are very similar with some exactly the same as here),  Anyway, it was accepted.  So, now we wait.  They will ask us to come meet with them again.  We just don't know when.  Hopefully soon. 
Please keep praying for us.  There is still so much ahead, including the meeting with the baby.  
Sounds like we should know more by tomorrow night. 
We'll keep you posted.  
Love you all!
Steph and Brad


Sunday, June 24, 2012

Here we go again!!!

Well, here we go again. :)  Brad and I are sitting in a hotel in Moscow, Russia.  We left home yesterday (me crying my eyes out because since the day that we HAD to leave Alia at the baby house in Kaz, once she was mine... she's never spent the night without me).  However, her passport didn't come in time to make this trip with us.  So, she is staying with family for the week.
Our flights were great, but... our luggage didn't make it.  Please pray that it gets to us soon.  Although we had the most important stuff with us, we still really need what is in those bags.
We are in a great location and have already checked out the area around us.  It is a VERY NICE 75 degrees here. :)  Loving that!
Anyway, our first appointment is tomorrow... looking forward to that, but... won't meet the little guy until later this week.
So, even though it is 10:45 pm, its still pretty light outside.  I, however... probably need to head to bed.
We'll post more soon.
Love you all!  Thanks for the prayers (really, I was so worried about the flights and they were great... well, as great as a flight can be).  Please keep praying... there is SO much more ahead of us this week.  many decisions, craziness, worries, problems, etc... only 1 knows the future of this week and He sure has worked this out amazingly for us to even be here right now.  Can't wait to see what God has in store for us and for a special little guy who needs a family.