Hey everybody! It's 7:30pm Monday here and due to no DST in Ukraine we are now only 7 hours apart. So, it is 12:30pm there. Well, we have had a good couple of days. Our driver did not want to work yesterday due to it being Women's Day, so we just had a lazy morning. Then we got dressed and walked to "The Hunter" for lunch. It was all decorated with balloons and even a balloon "8" for March 8th holiday. They gave me a tulip and a glass of some beverage (I'm sure they told me what it was, but in Russian of course) that was pretty good for Women's Day. We then walked over to Furshet (the market) and shopped around in there for a while. We walked back and played with Jackson a little bit and watched "Surf's Up" with him. After he went to bed, Greg and I started season 1 of "24". For all you fans out there, this is one intense show. We watched 4 episodes back-to-back and finally decided we should head to bed! It was hard to stop watching, though!

Today, we got up and Yari picked us up to head to the orphanage. At the beginning of the visit Yarik was able to get Ryan to tell me "Happy Birthday, Mama!" It was super sweet. Philip still would not say it. However, I was trying to say the Russian word for Monday...then I said "Angleeski Monday" and he said the Russian word then said "Angleeski Monday". I almost cried....I know the language stuff will come, but it was music to my ears! The boys were especially rowdy today and Ryan cried when we left. I think they are as tired of us just visiting there as we are. We tried our best to explain to them that we would come in 3 days and take them with us forever. I actually can't believe that special day is almost here! But, today is my birthday and thanks to all of you who have already mentioned it to me.... It has certainly been the best birthday ever as I am getting the wonderful gift of 2 new sons. But, it has also been one of my loneliest! Greg and Jackson have done their absolute best to try to make me feel special today and I do.......but, I miss all the rest of my nearest and dearest. I just wanted to tell you all that this time away from you has just made me know how much I love you all the more! So, I can't wait to see you all!

Please pray for us tomorrow and Wednesday as we will be traveling a good bit to get the boys' new birth certificates. As always, we love and miss you all!

Hey everyone! 7:30pm Saturday here (11:30 am there) and Carol should be somewhere over the Atlantic. She is set to arrive in Birmingham at 5pm-ish today. Sasha came to pick her up about 9pm last night and asked us to go to dinner with him before they left. So, we went to our favorite traditional Ukrainian restaurant and as always it was good. I'm glad we went because none of us had been able to eat much dinner and Carol had not eaten anything because we were just busy getting her ready to go. She had a tearful moment before leaving us....she didn't know if she was sad, scared, or excited. But, she was very emotional either way. We will be glad to get a call from her about 1am our time letting us know she made it safely! We loved having her with us for so much of our journey and we will certainly miss her!

We had a great morning just relaxing and then we had our driver pick us up for lunch and market. After that, we went to visit the boys and as usual here lately they did not want us to go. It is so hard to continue to leave them there, especially since today was our 10th day of the 10-day waiting period. They are completely ours now. However, we are not going to take them out of the orphanage just yet. Monday is a holiday as I mentioned earlier, so none of the final "stuff" can be done that day. Then Tuesday and Wednesday we will be getting their new birth certificates with their new names, birthdays, and us as their parents. One of them is in a town about 100km from Zhytomyr and the other is in Kiev, 100km the other way. So, it will take both days to get them since we will do 1 each day. Then Thursday, we will get the boys and begin the passport process. They will leave the orphanage with us on Thursday...finally! It has certainly been a long journey, but one that is about to come to an end....at least the Ukraine part! Praise God for His gracious provision! We love and miss you all!

Hey everybody! It's 4:30pm here Friday (8:30am there) and we are just slowing down after a very busy day. But, first off, yesterday....we visited the boys and had a great visit with them. They were both loving and seemed like they didn't want us to leave. We had our driver tell them it's just a few more days until they can come with us! Afterward, we had lunch at McDonald's (Carol's request, not Jackson's if you can believe it) and walked around the mall ("Caravan") for a bit. We got a few more toys for the 3 boys (puzzles and magnet-art--so cheap) and got a sweater-jacket thing for Greg. Now he will fit in better with the Ukraine men! We found out some not so great news that because of a Ukrainian holiday ("Women's Day--if you can believe it") that falls on Sunday, March 8th, business will be closed on Monday. Yet one more day of sitting and waiting for us to get to start our paperwork to leave. God is really growing us through this whole experience! Anyway, today we got to the orphanage and it turns out they were having a program for "Women's Day". It was so great to get to be there for that. I got lots of pics and video that I think our boys will love to see for a long time to come! The older kids Philip's age were all dressed up and did various songs and speaking parts. Of course we didn't understand a word of it, but it was still great to see. And Philip and Ryan were both dressed so cute for it! It was a very fun visit...once again they didn't want us to leave! After lunch at the potato house we headed back home and quickly got to work trying to make arrangements for Carol to come home early. You heard me right....this morning she came down and told us that she loved us very, very, very much but that she had made the decision to go on home. So, we told her we supported her and appreciated all she had done for us so far. So, she will be arriving in Birmingham at 5pm tomorrow afternoon! I did tell her that I am a little jealous! Greg said that Jackson and I could come on home and start getting things ready there and that he would get Philip and Ryan home by himself. But, honestly Jackson and I don't want to leave Greg, Philip, and Ryan. So, we will stick it out together and still pray for God to get us home as soon as possible. A lot of you have been asking for dates and we honestly don't know. We think that at the longest we should be here would be leaving on Saturday, March 21st....and believe me I think that is the longest. We are very prayerful for Tues, the 17th or Wed, the 18th. Please keep us in your prayers....our spirits are very tender right now. We have such moments of elation and such moments of sadness back to back! As always we love and miss you all!

Dobre Day! Good Day to you! It's 5:19pm here (9:19am there) and we are just sitting here...literally just sitting here. Yesterday was a "Groundhog Day" kind of a day. For any of you that know that movie, it was just the same as most days have been so not much new to tell you all about. The boys were definitely cute...all 3 of them. We offered to let them play with the trucks we had brought them before that they love...and they chose those foam animal stickers and coloring again. It was a pleasant, wonderful surprise! By the way, if any of you are in the dollar store and see some of those foam stickers, pick some up for them please. I'll pay you back. Seriously, they love them...and Jackson is very willing to play that with them. Anyway, we just came back to our home away from home in Zhytomyr and sat some more! Today, we walked to our favorite restaurant since Andrew (facilitator) was using our driver to do stuff for our paperwork. So, we got very muddy but got some good exercise and some sunshine, which was wonderful! But, after we got together with Andrew we found out that he thinks the rest of our adoption journey is probably going to take us farther than our March 15th flight date. Maybe 2-3 more days than that. We know that this is just the journey that God has us on to bring our boys home, but boy it's starting to drain us! We would like to ask you to pray for us and pray specifically that God will expedite our process as He sees fit! We shared a little bit of this with Sasha and he said the Ukrainians have a saying which translates to "It's wonderful to be a guest, but more wonderful to return home" and that is definitely true for us! I know that years and maybe even months from now this time will seem like a brief moment....just like the past 5 years of begging God for another child is hopefully going to seem. But, that doesn't seem to help the homesickness and helplessness that we (me, Greg, and Carol) are feeling. We need a spiritual and mental boost from the Lord. "Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength" Isaiah 40:31, "Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again: rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which trenscends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Phil. 4:4-7, "I lift my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of Heaven and Earth. He will not let your foot slip. He who watches over you will not slumber. In deed, He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you. The Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm. He will watch over your life. The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore." Psalm 121.

Thanks for loving us and praying for us and walking with us on our journey. We love and miss you all...as always!

Hey everybody! 6:32pm Monday here (10:32am there) and we have just finished our mac 'n cheese! We are winding down for the evening and are getting ready to play some Trouble with Jackson, but I thought I would put a post on! We had a lazy Sunday morning then got bundled up and walked to eat some lunch and to the market. While we were eating, it started snowing those huge, feather-like snowflakes again so we just walked around some shops killing time until the snow let up. We then grabbed our groceries and began the trek back home. The weather here is quite unpredictable (for us anyway) and so naturally it began warming up as we were walking. The warmth was nice, but it melted our road and we had to bog through the mud again to get home! Yuck! I really will NOT miss this mud everywhere! We bought some Ukrainian "hot dogs" which we had for dinner last night. They were home-baked bread, kind of like a crescent roll, with a "hot dog" in the middle. It didn't taste like our hot dogs, but it was okay. We watched "Journey to the Center of the Earth" with Jackson and called it a night. We got up this morning and went to the orphanage for the early visit. We took some foam animal stickers that we had brought from home and they were a big hit. The boys all played with those stickers for about an hour and a half! It was great....we needed a calm, easy visit to prove again to us that they do know how to sit still! HaHa! After the visit, we went for pizza and headed home! It was an early day for us, so the afternoon has somewhat dragged. We are just so ready to come home and get started with our "new family" life. We also can't wait for you all to meet our new sons! Well, we will go for now....we love you all!



By the way, we can't believe we missed such a nice snow at home....but, believe us we are ready to get away from the snow for a while! Hope you all got to enjoy it before it all melted!

Hey everyone! 6:35 pm here on Saturday (10:35 am there) and Jackson and I have just enjoyed a grilled cheese supper. Not sure what Greg and Carol are going to dine on tonight, though. Anyway, we have had a good couple of days. Friday, we went to the orphanage early and had a good visit. We weren't able to go into our normal room with the boys so they let us go into a "rec room". There was some really cute exercise equipment, small basketball goals, bowling sets, balance beams,and even a foosball table. We had a great time playing with them yesterday. We took bananas for the boys to snack on and Philip gobbled his up and was back playing in no time. But, Ryan and Jackson were both savoring theirs a little bit more....so Ryan was sitting down and said "Jackson, blah blah blah" and patted the seat beside him. So, I told Jackson he was trying to get him to come sit with him. Jackson did and it was so cute....I'll post the pic! But, I was very happy because it is one more sign that they are actually going to bond! Afterward, we ate pizza and asked Yari (our driver) to take us shopping at what looked like a flea market to me from the street. They have a few of these in town, but he took us to the "best" one and told us they call it a bazaar. For all my fellow travellers to Ecuador, it was just like the shopping we did at the market there. Booth after booth with tons of people shopping. It was great. The only thing is, I was expecting more stuff like in Ecuador....handmade jewelry, crafts, art work, etc. But, really it was mostly clothes, coats, and shoes. It was amazing....these booths on the side of the road with furs, leather, and designer knock-off clothes. We loved it! We definitely want to go back there to look some more. We bought the boys some tobaggans for when they leave the orphanage with us. After that, we went to the market and home. We bought a rotisserie chicken for dinner and it was delicious! We are all going to miss the food here, even Jackson. But, we certainly want a chance to get to miss it because we are finally home!

Today, we went back to the orphanage again this morning. We ended up going into the main room in Philip's age wing of the orphanage. So, we got to see how they sleep and see their little toiletry area where all their toothbrushes, towels, washcloths, and a bar of soap were lined up. It was really pretty cute! We had a fine visit today, but the boys were kind of rebellious. We think they are already starting to try to push us to see how far we will let them go. You all know us....not very far! HaHa! But, overall it was a good visit and we got Ryan to repeat a ton of English words and numbers to us. Philip repeated the number "18" finally, but that is all he would say! I know that will change when he gets to America and has only English spoken to him! We ate burritos at the Potato House today and Jackson had ice cream for dessert. I had the "hot chocolate" that I have fallen in love with. It is so thick, you eat it with a spoon. Greg and Carol had their Macchiatos they have fallen in love with. When we left the restaurant, it was coming the biggest snow we have seen here. For me, it was the biggest snow flakes I have ever seen. I told Jackson the angels were having a pillow fight in Heaven because it literally looked like feathers falling from the sky. It really was beautiful....and still life went on. People walking and riding all over. We told Yari that Alabama would be shut down for days with that kind of snow! Anyway, we love and miss you all....as always. More later!

Hey everybody! 6:34pm on Thursday here (10:34am there) and we have just gotten home for the night. Our facilitator went to court for us this morning to proof our birth certificates for us. He said it is very difficult to correct any misspellings or incorrect birthdates after the official copies have been made. He said everything was correct already and no changes had to be made! Then he and our driver picked us up and took us to exchange some money first. Lucky for us (not for Ukrainians), the Grievna(spelled like it sounds to me) has lost value since we arrived. We had heard that the exchange rate was around 5 grienva per dollar last year. When we got here it was 8.15 grievna per dollar. Yesterday, it was over 9 per dollar. We heard it is going to cross 10 per dollar before we leave to come home. We are getting such good deals on our food and stuff for the boys. But, we have also heard that prices will soon start to go up because of the poor exchange rate. Anyway, just wanted to give you all some details about our money because some of you had asked. After changing money we went to lunch, followed by some delicious ice cream, and then back home for a bit. Yari, our driver, picked us back up and we headed to the orphanage. Today was a fun visit with the boys. We took them some special trucks (Jackson, too) and they all 3 had a blast playing with them together! Ryan had a little temper tantrum and Greg just held him until he stopped. Then, he wouldn't let go of Greg for the rest of the day. That made Greg so happy because he worried about being too tough on them too soon! They all 3 climbed on Greg and he carried them around....it is the best work-out he has gotten while he has been here. Then Philip got down on the floor and started doing push-ups....up on his toes and everything. Greg got down and did some with him and Jackson, too....a child after Greg's own heart! He said the "Perfect Push-Ups" would be proud of Philip! We really enjoyed ourselves. Carol has made us a calendar to count down the days until we get to come home....so today was day 1 of the 10-day waiting period. One day down, only 9 to go....at least until that part is past us! We love and miss you all!

This just in.....Jackson lost tooth #2! Can't believe it...2 teeth in 3 days!