Pierce Family Adoption

Swinging good time

2012-01-29T09:18:00.000-05:00

We looked at pictures of family members today and Calvinknew Keith by sight – which is exciting! We played with the big tube, thepiano, the blanket, and watched some more DVDs of sign language. Calvin likesthe bubble breaker game on the iPad. We had a great visit in bonding with eachother. The hour is going by faster with each visit. Calvin likes our routine ofchanging things up every 5 minutes. He loves eating a banana each day, too. My favorite thing was Calvin calling Tyler "Papka" - dear little dad. SO CUTE!

We came home and had some lunch. I took a 2 (yes, 2!) hour nap and then started on dinner. Sveta asked me to teach her to make Chicken Parmigiana (my favorite dish) and I thought it would be good to do a test run here in the apartment. It turned out really well. I even made the breadcrumbs! It turns out that drying out bread isn't that hard to do...who knew?

There isn't a branch of ward here in Vyksa, so we watched this talk by President Eyring online. It was very inspiring and made me want to be a better person. I am so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and for the revelation that I receive. I wouldn't be here in Russia adopting if I didn't know that this is where God wants for me to be.

The tube game.

The Russian cup-of-noodles and Chicken Parmigiana.

Calvin giving me a kiss on the cheek and Papa swinging him.

Shoes for Calvin

2012-01-28T05:47:00.001-05:00

We introduced the blanket that I brought for Calvin to himtoday. I was surprised at how much he enjoyed playing with it, as he is 5 yearsold now. He liked wrapping his Papa up in the blanket and having Papa lay onthe floor while he draped the blanket over him. One time he draped the blanketover his Papa with half of it hanging over the side of him. Then Calvin laiddown right next to Papa and put the blanket over him as well. It was reallysweet. He is warming up to us really well. We went over pictures of hissiblings and worked on their names. We brought some shoes for Calvin to try onand they fit him perfectly. In fact, he wore them the whole hour. However, whenit was time to go we asked for him to put his sandals back on. Calvin was verysad to do that – it just ripped my heart out to see him want the new shoes somuch. He didn’t cry, but his sad face showed his disappointment. And I cannotexplain to him that he will have the shoes when we bring him home. I am readyto bring him home and be able to take care of him.

Everyday we take a taxi to and from the orphanage. We pay 100 rubles each way - about $3. The taxi driver seems nice enough. I know when I first got here I was nervous about being robbed, but that may have been influenced from reading THE HUNGER GAMES, which is very intense about survival. I finished the first book but won't read the other two until I am literally safe and sound back in the US. I feel more safe now that I'm not reading the book anymore.

I enjoy seeing the various people out and about the town. I have seen parents not pushing their young babies in a stroller but pulling them behind them in a small sled. It makes me smile. I am hoping to get a picture of one before we leave Vyksa. Tyler walked to the SPAR grocery store yesterday and a nice old woman smiled back at him as he was walking - he said it made his day. Most people here look very unhappy. I often wonder how I would be if this was my life here in Vyksa. It's hard to know how I would truly be. I would like to imagine myself still being a positive person.

On top is pomegranate/chocolate and coconut/multi fruit yogurt. On the bottom is some juice. It's funny - I don't drink juice much in the US but I always drink it here. Perhaps it tastes better? I love all the fruit combinations.

Working on learning the names of his family members. Look at how he is so comfortable with me - I love it.

Calvin wrapping Papa up!

The top picture is the front door to our apartment building. We have a key with a small metal circle that you rub on the a space on the door and it unlocks it. It is very unique.

Who wants raspberry scented toilet paper? I guess we do! The bottom picture is an apartment complex similar to ours.

There is a small praying church around the corner from us. Here is a picture of what is inside of it. I confess that I do not know very much about the Russian Orthodox Religion.

Dancing the days away

2012-01-27T07:42:00.001-05:00

We are definitely in a routine with Calvin. He came inand greeted us the same as past days. He likes playing on the piano and todayhe told Tyler and I to dance while he played the piano. We did that 3 times. Wealso introduced him to pictures of our family members, including our dog andcat. We practiced saying their names and familiarizing him with the faces ofhis brothers and sisters waiting for him at home + Silas who isn’t as far away.We also showed him the Bubble Breaker game, where he pops colored bubbles onthe iPad screen. He REALLY liked that and asked to play it later. We broughthim another banana and gave him a few raisinets – he was excited about thechocolate. I think we are definitely bonding with Calvin and he with us.

Some wafers with soft white chocolate fillings. Tyler eats them like crazy.

Mama lubit Dennis

2012-01-26T08:43:00.001-05:00

We had a great visit with Calvin today. He started offacting quite silly, but calmed down once we started playing. We try to work in5 minute intervals. Work on one thing and then switch after 5 minutes. When hestarts breathing pretty heavy, we watch the DVD to calm down. We have broughthim one thing to eat each visit. Today it was a banana. He wolfed it down in notime. He is a good eater, which isn’t surprising because he looks very tall andhealthy – other than his heart condition. We haven’t seen his lips turn veryblue this trip – perhaps that is due to his recent heart surgery? When his lipsturn a little blue, we slow down our playing for him to relax. Today we introduced“Mama lubit Dennis” and “Papa lubit Dennis” to our ~~limited~~ vocabulary. (Mama loves Dennis, Papa lovesDennis). He repeats what we say. He is doing well with the sign language,too. He signed for “eat” all on his own. Amazing. I also started counting withhim using the hand signs for up to the number 5. He did well with that and seemsvery eager to learn. He is becoming more accustomed to the affection that wegive him. Today he was actually rubbing his Papa’s neck/hair. I attacked himwith kisses and he tolerated it quite well. I have a feeling that he willtransition well to ouro family. (Knock on wood). This time we prepped himbefore we left by each hugging him and saying Paka while looking him in theeye. He went back to the groupa just fine.

Today I started working on our family scrapbook for 2011. I am up to August of last year. It would be nice to finish it while I am here and have the time to do so. Tyler went to the grocery store and bought us a few supplies. I have observed that when I take a few days off on vacation that I feel a bit relaxed, but this trip has shown me that after a few more days I start to look at my life and see what changes that I need to make. I guess I don't relax enough during the hustle and bustle of my day-to-day life to to take a look at where I am in life. Tyler and I shared some spiritual goals that we are working on right now. He wants to watch his thoughts and to make sure that they are positive thoughts. I want to work on judging other people and to increase in charity. One day I decided I wasn't going to judge anyone and it was HARD. From the rude checkout person at the store to person who took my parking space - I realized that I wasn't thinking positive thoughts about other people. And I want to improve on that. I am grateful for all this time here in Russia if it makes me a better person when I leave.

And here are some pictures:

Playing with Papa

Getting some lovin' from Mama

2 random buildings here in Vyksa.

The cheapest pasta here is very wide with a hole down the middle. After you cook it, the noodles are seriously the size of worms with a hole. So odd, but CHEAP! And this apartment may not have a whisk, but I am super grateful for the potato peeler. We cook potatoes a lot and I am not skilled in peeling with a knife. The potatoes here look like they just came from the ground - very dirty.

Another day, another visit

2012-01-25T09:10:00.001-05:00

Calvin came in and greeted us in the usual way of hugginghis Papa and giving me a kiss on the cheek and a hug. We played with thevarious toys in the playroom, adding in a slide that kind of worked with Papaholding it up. Calvin was comfortable sitting on my lap and would even try toget on my lap when playing the piano. He didn’t spit today, but he stuck histongue out at me. I asked him to come over to me and instead he just went intothe tube to play. I pulled him out and looked at him in the eyes and repeatedwhat I had said. He did not like it, but he listened to everything else I saidafter that. We watched some of the DVD when he needed to calm down. He certainlydoesn’t act like a boy with heart problems – he is very energetic and likes toplay.

There was another boy that came into the play room today.There were two caretakers working with him. I think he was 2 or 3 years old andhas cerebral palsy. His name is Sasha and such a sweet little boy. They put himin an inflatable suit and worked with him on learning to walk. Calvin wasexcited to tell the caretakers everything that we were doing: the slide, thepiano, the DVD, etc. Before we knew it, it was time to go. Once we told him wewere going, he just walked right into the groupa room. We didn’t get to hug orsay goodbye, but Calvin didn’t seem upset over it – so I guess he’s gettingused to our coming for an hour and leaving each day. I can’t wait to pick himup and actually TAKE him home. Not to mention dress him in some nice clothesand give him a haircut! His outfit today was quite comical. You will see in thepictures.

Tyler bought me a blow dryer today! And there was muchrejoicing. I spent a good chunk of time reading THE HUNGER GAMES while Tylerread the third book in the series. We had sliced bread with butter and Russiancheese for lunch. For dinner, I made pasta with a homemade cheese sauce, corn,and fried chicken chunks in it with some garlic cheese bread that we bought atthe store. I am very satisfied with how well I can cook even in meagersituations such as this one. With no whisk, I used a fork to make the whitesauce. We boiled the noodles in bottled water (the tap is light brown in color andsmells of sulfur). There is mold growing in the bathroom (I’m quite allergic)so Tyler bought some bleach and cleaned it out. I am amazed at how good Tyleris to me. I am so blessed to be his wife.

We were able to Skype with Anna today. It was lovely to hearher voice. Iryna is recovering from her sickness, but Anna is now havingheadaches and Keith is having trouble with his bowels (having accidents atschool). Iryna is also misbehaving a lot. I know that they all miss us. I wishI could be there to help them feel comfortable. But I know I need to be herefor our new children. I am honored to be able to mother so many children. SoonI will have 5 children. FIVE!

My friend, Sarah, said that she hasn't seen any pictures of all the snow - so this is for her! These pictures are taken outside of Calvin's orphanage. Those two ladies are caretakers there.

I could not believe Calvin's getup today. Some sort of plaid shirt, black short shorts, khaki tights and blue sandals. Wow. OH - and his hair had this sort of wave thing going on - not sure if that was intentional or just his hair naturally.

Sasha in this inflatable suit. I've never seen anything like it - anyone else? Does the air just support him and his muscles?

My new (and travel size!) blow dryer which cost about $12. The fabulous meal that I made for dinner. Yum.

2nd visit pictures of Calvin

2012-01-24T04:47:00.002-05:00

The velco toys - can't think of a better name.

Calvin loved being rolled and rolling Papa in the tube.

More velcro toys

Another adoptive Dad took this picture of us three together and I snapped this awesome picture of Calvin smiling on the piano. Isn't he adorable?

This is the view outside our kitchen window. It is so peaceful.

2nd visit with Calvin

2012-01-24T04:32:00.000-05:00

This morning a taxi driver picked us up at 9:45am and wewent to see Calvin. He was very excited to see us. He gave Papa a hug and me akiss on the cheek/hug. He is a very sweet boy. When we came in the playroom, awoman told Calvin to tell us something – he recited a cute little poem, of sorts(we think). We wish we could have gotten it on video. He showed more of hispersonality today. He laughed a lot and was always on the go. We had toredirect him a couple of times when he did the opposite of what we asked him todo. He spit at us once, which we didn’t like, of course. I hope it won’t be apermanent habit. We did many activities such as play on the piano, roll a ballback and forth, and stack some blocks. We watched a little bit of Baby Einsteinand some Signing Times. We brought a birthday cake for him – his birthday wastwo weeks ago – and thought he could enjoy it with his groupa. He was morecomfortable with us holding him on our lap. It was a good visit.

Towards the end of our visit with Calvin, a Russian couplecame in to meet with a sweet little girl. It is nice to see someone localwanting to adopt – I hear that it isn’t very common. The girl was very quietand didn’t say much – complete opposite of Calvin! We brought in an outfit andcoat that we brought for Calvin to wear home, in case he does get to come homethis trip. He was very excited about it and was showing the clothing to some ofthe women in the playroom – they were taking down winter/New Year decorations.The 3T jeans fit in the waist, but he needs longer pants. I have some 4T jeansat home with adjustable waists, which should work just fine. It’s too bad Ionly brought 3T this trip. Oh well, a couple days of high waters won’t hurthim, right? The shirt and coat fit him really well. I am eager to see him in ashirt other than the purple turtleneck which he has worn the past 2 days…

Sveta told us to let her know what we think of the taxidriver. He was recommended to Sveta by the realtor of this apartment. One thingthat I didn’t care for was that he announced on his radio that he was takingthe Americans home…I’m already paranoid as it is to be staying in an apartmentwhen we were told of how some people in Vyksa react to Americans being here. Ipray daily to be protected and kept safe.

Today I cooked my first hot meal since we came to Russia oneweek ago: scrambled eggs and fried potatoes. It was nice to have somethingsimple, but hot, and a meal where I knew exactly what was in it – unlike thewiener wraps we got from the grocery store last night.

Tyler has been reading THE HUNGER GAMES series. We borrowedthe first book before we left and he finished it in a couple of days. Then wedownloaded the other two books onto our iPad so he could continue reading. Ithink I will start reading the series today. Tyler said he is eager to talkwith me about it. I also downloaded the TWILIGHT series so he could read thatafterwards. Tyler only reads non-fiction, so this is all very new for him. Idownloaded THE OBAMA’S to read. I enjoypolitical books. I read one several years ago about the “real” Hillary Clinton.(I am a republican, just so you know).

Things are pretty low key here in Vyksa. I am hoping to gainsome relaxation and renew myself before beginning this journey of 5 kids athome. Tyler found an ESPN tv station with college basketball. If he turns upthe volume, he can barely hear the English announcers in addition to the veryloud Russian ones.

We have a beautiful view outside our kitchen window. I lovelooking out into the trees and snow – it’s very picturesque. One thing I amlacking here in Vyksa is a blow dryer. Today I just washed it and dried it asmuch as possible with a towel. For someone with very thin, flat hair – a blowdryer makes a big difference. However, I suppose that I can survive without oneuntil we go back to Nizhny Novgorod. It’s just weird letting my hair air dry…

I am missing the ability to Skype with Anna every morning.The internet connection isn’t good enough to do audio, but I think we’re goingto try to type/chat with each other over Skype. I hope that will work. I missmy little kids back home. :*(

Pictures of Calvin

2012-01-23T12:17:00.000-05:00

First visit with Calvin

2012-01-23T11:54:00.001-05:00

This morning we packed up everything from Ibis Hotel and metSveta outside. We had thought to visit Silas this morning, but Sveta said weshould go to Vyksa to check out an apartment there – so we left for our threehour drive. I have never been carsick before in my life – but the drive toVyksa from Nizhny Novgorod makes me super sick. I had thought that watchingsomething on the iPad would help pass the time on the drive, but it made mystomach queasy. Not even an hour into the drive, I had to use the restroom.Sveta stopped at a nice looking restroom. I assumed there was a toilet inside.I was wrong. There was a lovely red port-a-potty outside. So Tyler walked meover to it – the ground here is very slick due to the ice/snow. We opened thedoor to find frozen poop on the back of the toilet seat. GROSS!!! I was able tosit far forward on the seat so I wouldn’t have to touch the poop. Guys are solucky, aren’t they? They don’t have to sit down to pee. Anyhow – I thoughtabout taking a picture, but figured that the experience alone won’t beforgotten soon enough.

We arrived in Vyksa and picked up a realtor who showed usthe apartment. It’s very nice. The price is $60 per day which is better thanthe hotel. It has a bedroom, kitchen, & bathroom. Sveta took us groceryshopping so we could have food for the next week. I am ready to be able to makesomething to eat. Plus we have a refrigerator here. In the hotel we used ourwindowsill to keep all the food cold. It worked because it was 10 degreesoutside! Ha ha! Oh, and Sister Foutz gave me some coconut yogurt. Wow. It's amazing! I love the variety of flavors here.

We went to the orphanage and met with the director. She issuch a lovely woman. She reminds me of my mom – short, classy, and very pretty.She said that Calvin has been waiting for us to return. She said that he is avery good boy and speaking a lot.

We visited with Calvin around 4pm. It was clear that heremembered us. He greeted his Papa with a hug and gave his Mama a kiss on thecheek and a hug – neither without being prompted to do so. We had a wonderfulplaytime together. Calvin is speaking in Russian a lot and repeated manyEnglish words that we said, such as “monkey” and “bird”. He is much bigger thanwe saw him last – very tall! Calvin is intelligent – he understands how thingsfit together. He put together some Velcro toys and didn’t need any help doingso. He enjoyed the Baby Einstein videos and actually sat in our laps. Last timeit was all that we could do to hold him for a second, but now he will sit inour laps – which is wonderful. He is still energetic, but able to calm down.When it was time for him to eat dinner, he said goodbye and cried as he wentback to the groupa. It broke my heart! Clearly he didn’t want to leave and Ican only imagine his worry that we won’t be back – since it took us 9 months tocome back! We told him that we would be back tomorrow. I hope that will comforthim. We bought a chocolate cake to take to his groupa tomorrow – his birthdaywas almost 2 weeks ago and it is a fun way to celebrate with him.

We do not have WIFI anymore (sob!) but we do have a Megafoneinternet USB thingy which isn’t working so well. It’s hit or miss to have aninternet connection, but mostly miss. I hope to be able to upload pictures, butthere’s no telling for sure that it will happen. I will try to post pictures very soon. Calvin is so cute!

The world is right again*

2012-01-22T13:43:00.001-05:00

This morning Andre picked us up for church. We went around the back side of the church building and up the stairs into the building. These stairs were THE WORST stairs I have ever encountered here in Russia. It wasn't just due to the ice and snow, but the tile underneath them was slick all by itself. I seriously thought that I was going down when climbing the stairs. Thankfully, the elder warned me about them beforehand and Tyler was also there to steady me on the way up. The joys of being in Russia in January.

Andre asked Tyler and I to share our testimony in Sacrament meeting, which we were happy to do. Elder Bressler translated for both of us. I went first and talked about how trials can lead to blessings. Infertility is the hardest trial that I have faced in my life thus far. And the trial of infertility led me to adopt Keith and Iryna and now Calvin and Silas. I would not have been blessed with these wonderful children had I not suffered with infertility. God has blessed me and I am grateful to Him. After Tyler bore his testimony, the branch president announced that there would be a special musical number by Sister Pierce. Well, this was news to me! So I grabbed my Children's Songbook and went up and accompanied myself singing "I Wonder When He Comes Again" - which is such a beautiful song. I was appreciative for the opportunity to sing and play and especially for how strongly I felt the Holy Spirit because of it.

After Sacrament meeting, we had Gospel Principles with Elder and Sister Foutz teaching us on the important of prayer. I know that I can do better in my prayers. I am grateful for the things I was taught and aim to improve in this area. I also want to increase charity in my life. I know that I can do more to become charitable. Relief Society was nice. Sister Owens translated for me. I spoke with Natasha afterwards - she is due with their second baby any day now. I told her that I would love to get together sometime while we are in Russia. I love how the members reach out to us and we feel like a part of the ward instantly. They are so kind and make us feel welcome.

After church we went home and Skyped with Anna. I guess Iryna and Danielle are both sick right now. Please pray for them to recover quickly. After skyping, Tyler & I took a nap. Then Andre picked us up to go over for dinner at the Foutz's apartment. She made chicken parmigiana (my favorite!), wild rice, homemade rolls, steamed vegetables, and homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. What a meal! They really made us feel at home. We had a great time talking and spent about 3 hours there. This is their third mission as a senior couple. I hope that Tyler and I can serve a mission, too.

Tomorrow we are planning to visit Silas in the morning and then drive up to Vyksa. I hope we can see Calvin tomorrow, but I don't know if that will be possible. If not, then we will see him on Tuesday. I am ready to see my little Calvin. It's been too long.

*Tyler lost his beanie hat twice today. And both times when he found it he said, "The world is right again". Let's hope he can keep tabs on it for the rest of the trip. I want the world to be right. :)

Day 2 and 3 with Silas

2012-01-21T10:04:00.000-05:00

For some reason, my laptop wasn't working with the WIFI here in the hotel yesterday, but it's back on today. Hooray! Here is my report for yesterday:

January 20^th, 2012

Today we met with Silas around 10am. He was in a much bettermood today. We went into a different room and he seemed more comfortableplaying there. He was more comfortable with us today. He liked playing with theballs. He enjoyed watching the DVD as well. We brought a banana, but hewouldn’t eat any of it. We found out that he had already had a banana forbreakfast, so maybe that is why. I held him for a little bit today and he wasmaking more sounds, mostly babbling.

And this is today's report:

January 21, 2012

We met with Silas from 10:30am – 11:30am. He was morecomfortable with us today. He started really showing his personality to us – alwayson the go! He loves playing with balls. He also likes the DVDs. I held him andsang him a few songs. He resisted at first, but began to enjoy it a bit moreduring the last couple of songs. It sounds like he is saying the word “Ball”when we play with balls. Such a smart little boy! He smiled a lot more today.

For the court, I have to write up a small summary of each of our visits with the boys. Sveta thinks we have a good chance of the 30 days being waived - your continued prayers are appreciated! I got a few successful kisses in to Silas today - normally he is so on the go that I can't catch him fast enough! His smile is so adorable. It is much harder to snuggle him this time around - he was much more snuggly back in April/May. :(

We are still in the Ibis Hotel. It makes eating a bit tricky, as I cannot cook, but we are getting by. We have snacks and will buy milk, bread, cheese, and yogurt to snack on. I had some banana pear yogurt that was fabulous. The yogurt and milk here are so creamy and delicious. When I make protein shakes with the milk it tastes more like a milkshake. So good. Sometimes we'll grab some pizza from the grocery store - it's not as bad as it sounds. ;) We keep our food in the window between the glass and the curtains. It's quite cold here - about 10 degrees - and so everything stays nice and cold there. In fact, I ate a small piece of dark chocolate, but it was as hard as a rock! Last night we ate dinner in the hotel restaurant. It was super pricey and tasted...okay. I had grilled veal and jasmine rice with butter, followed by a Russian style cheesecake - which of course I had to try. It was good, but tasted to me more like a custard pie. It was nice to have a hot meal, but it was over priced. In a table nearby, we heard two men with very thick (what sounded like Russian) accents speaking in English. I am guessing that one of them is not Russian, as then they would have been speaking Russian, but it was strange/comical hearing them speak in English.

We plan to go to Vyksa next week to see Calvin. I can only imagine that he has thought we have forgotten about him. His health is good, from what we know. We're trying to figure out where we will stay in Vyksa. There is a very expensive hotel made by Putin that runs about $250 a night. Yeah. We looked into get an apartment, but the realtor told Sveta that if she rented out to Americans that a big mob would form and storm through our door, steal all our stuff, and insist that they "get the Americans OUT!" And so we are hoping to find a less expensive, but safe hotel to stay in.

Today we bought an electric pitcher so we can heat up water to eat our instant oatmeal and to drink my delectable Choffy (Oh, how I've missed it!). Each day is quite low-key. We go see Silas for an hour and then go back to the hotel. Tyler is reading The Hunger Games - he is on the second book now. I have been watching Frasier and playing Dice with Buddies, Words with Friends, and Hanging with Friends. Plus we have watched a movie and we read our scriptures together. It is quite cold, so I basically want to snuggle up under lots of blankets for most of the time. I think I am finally on the right time zone - I somehow went from FL time to halfway between Russia and FL time - wanting to go to bed around 3pm here in Russia, which is 6am in FL. Tyler finds this hilarious. But - I think I'm over it. (I hope)

Last night I went with Sister Foutz - a senior missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - to meet with some other ladies from church for an activity. We painted envelopes and paper for invitations for an upcoming church activity. Tyler went with Elder Foutz to the church for a game night with the young adults and missionaries. A member of the branch presidency asked Tyler and I if we would each bear our testimony for about 5 minutes tomorrow during church. Plus - we got a ride set up for us. This was a worry for me, as we aren't too far away from the church, however it is VERY icy and snowy and super slick outside. I have already come close to slipping twice and I don't want to fall and hurt myself. So a ride is very much appreciated!

The Foutz's invited us over for dinner tomorrow - which will be so nice. They are from UT and have been so helpful to us already. Plus it's nice to be able to speak English with someone!

And now for your viewing pleasure, more pictures of our 5th child, Silas:

Pictures!

2012-01-20T00:06:00.001-05:00

The card reader decided to work, so here you go:

Me with my barf bag during the medical evaluations. I wasn't kidding about that...

Silas Richard Pierce! Isn't he adorable? He's not a baby anymore...

NOT HAPPY to be held by Daddy. :(

A little snuggle with Mama.

This is the closest we got to a smile. :)

He loved this rocking horse. Good thing we have one waiting for him at home. :)

Look at those cheeks! So cute!

Back in Nizhny Novgorod/visit with Silas

2012-01-19T13:47:00.001-05:00

Tuesday morning we woke up early and headed to the airport. The kids and Danielle came along, too. Danielle is caring for Anna, Keith, & Iryna while we are gone. (Thanks, Danielle!) I hugged all three of my kids, but lost it when Anna began crying. She certainly has inherited my propensity for crying, poor baby.

We flew from Orlando to NY and had a 4 hour layover before catching our 11 hour flight to Moscow. The only thing we forgot at home were our many plug adapters. We bought a couple of them at JFK airport. The 11 hour flight was okay. It's hard sitting for that long. I drank water and milk, but soon found out that I was extremely dehydrated. If I would have known, I would have made a bigger effort to drink more. As it was, sleep was a bigger priority at the time.

We arrived to Moscow and I felt horrible. I was nauseated and had a headache - I was very dehydrated. Note to self - make sure I never become dehydrated again. I felt SO awful and when you feel that badly, you begin to doubt everything. Why was I in Russia? How can I handle this? When will this headache/nausea end? Augh!!!!! You get the picture, I'm sure. And so, in this state, we met up with Sveta and went to have our medicals evaluated. Imagine trying to assure a panel of doctors that you are in excellent health while you are holding up a barf bag to your mouth...thankfully, we did pass.

There was another couple there to be evaluated and 3 single women. The couple was from Germany and we enjoyed getting to know them a little bit while we waited in the lobby. The medical evaluation is meant to evaluate our health. We had to have various blood tests for HIV, Hep, syphilis, etc, plus bring x-rays of our lungs and TB - which we did previously to coming to Russia. And the x-rays had to be the actual films - which weren't the most fun thing to carry through two airports without bending them...anyhow, the doctors asked each of our about our health, surgeries, etc, all in front of the other adoptive parents. Then we went to one side of the room with a thin room divider and we took off our shirts and a female doctor listened to our breathing. Privacy wasn't exactly high on the list. Ha ha.

Then we went to the US Embassy for Tyler to check in with them since he is in the military. By this point, I knew that I was dehydrated and so I was drinking as much as possibly could. This means that I had to use the restroom and OFTEN which isn't easy to do in Russia like in the US. When we reached the US Embassy, I had to go to the restroom. Badly. I walked with Tyler to a gate - we weren't sure which one to go in - and the man didn't speak any English. Tyler showed him the form which was followed by a conversation where he spoke Russian and we spoke English = not very successful. By this time, I am doing the pee-pee dance because I had to use the restroom. I even said "туалет" several times (which means toilet) and he wouldn't let me inside. Then he gets on the phone with someone and after what felt like forever, he came out and directed us down to the corner. By this point, I literally thought I was going to pee my pants - not something I wanted to have happen. We walked to the corner and they directed us on down the next street. Now I am crying as I anticipate losing bladder control any second. We get to the right gate, go in, and I ask for the toilet. I am told to wait until someone comes to get us. A very nice man shows up and takes me to the restroom. He agreed how difficult it is to find a toilet in Russia. Bottom line: I made it to the restroom, but I seriously doubted that I would. I hope that one day this experience will be funny, but it isn't just yet.

Tyler met with the nice man for a few minutes. There was a store in the Embassy which sold American food. We bought some STILL water (we are finally learning how to tell the difference between the carbonated and still) and headed back out to Sveta and our taxi. It was 5pm at this point and we started our drive to Nizhny Novgorod. We arrived to our Ibis Hotel around 1am. I slept off and on during the drive. The adjustment to the time change seems more difficult this go-around to Russia. Plus, in addition to the dehydration, I have had diarrhea since touching down in Russia. I am 99.9% sure it is from the airplane meal. I find it funny that I would have diarrhea BEFORE even eating any Russian food. Thank goodness we packed our Immodium. That is certainly helping.

The Ibis Hotel is very nice. It is $110 per night, which includes WIFI. We came in and crashed. I woke up around 9am and then did a few things and slept again until 2:30pm. At 3:30pm, Sveta picked us up and we went to see Silas. He is so precious! He is taller now, but still quite thin. His face has grown into that little boy look instead of a toddler's. He certainly did NOT remember us from last April and was quite afraid of us, too. He would start breathing fast and kept running towards the door. I pulled out our iPad and played some Baby Einstein Dvds on it. He really liked that. I held him a little bit, but he wasn't really sure who we were and kept his distance for the majority of the time. He liked riding on the rocking horse and would look at us every so often. We got a couple of smiles out of him and tried feeding him some raisinets, but he refused them. I know it will take time for him to warm up to us - it's all part of the process.

We are hopeful about bringing him home as soon as we can. I'm not sure when it started, but he has been turning blue (in his lips) when excited and has also experienced some seizures. The orphanage director is going to write a letter to the judge asking for the 30 days to be waived, as he needs surgery for his Tetralogy of Fallot immediately. It makes me sad that he is suffering these things.

I know that you are looking for pictures, now. Some of you may have already scrolled through this post wanting to see Silas. Unfortunately, my card reader isn't working right now. Nice timing, eh? It worked before we came to Russia. Ugh. I will try to find a portable card reader soon so we can post pictures.

This evening we went to a grocery store to buy a few items. We do not have a fridge, but have been keeping items by the window to keep cold. Did I mention that it is snowing here and there is snow piled up everywhere outside? I love it! Tomorrow we are going to see Silas in the morning. I cannot wait to see him. I am so excited to be a Mama again! Tonight we are going to chat online with our kids back in FL. It will be so good to see them and Danielle tells me that they are excited to talk with us. Isn't technology amazing? All for now! Paka!

Here we go

2012-01-16T22:04:00.001-05:00

We're leaving tomorrow. I can't believe it's here, and yet, it's about time! (Right?!?) Tyler just ran to the store for something we forgot and he will finish packing up when he returns. I am not allowed to pack the luggage. That is Tyler's job. I learned a long time ago that when I pack, Tyler will just unpack it all and do it his way. He's really good at it, so why fight it?

I have TONS of movies and tv shows to watch while in Russia. I am relieved that I won't be twiddling my thumbs during all the endless downtime there. I don't know how long it will be before I can get internet access and post updates - but stay tuned. And please pray for us to arrive safely. The winter weather will be difficult and I pray that the cars will function well for us there.

Packing

2012-01-16T09:24:00.003-05:00

We are leaving very soon and are packing up today. My stomach is all tied up in knots as I anticipate this trip and leaving Anna, Keith, and Iryna behind. I know that they will fine. I know it, just worry for them and the sense of loss they will feel with their parents gone. I want to do something nice for them that they can open while we're gone - suggestions?

Counting down the days

2012-01-14T22:43:00.001-05:00

We leave in a just a few days and my mind is going into overdrive getting everything ready to go. But, you know what? I'm ready. I'm ready to get over there and see my boys! It's exciting to see them again.

And here is a fabulous blogspot article for those who have adopted. MANY things ring true for me in it.

Calvin turned 5 this past week. We had a nice big feast on his birthday - I only wish he could have been here for it. :(

Apostille

2012-01-11T20:21:00.000-05:00

Yet again, I made another trip to apostille documents for our adoption. It is a very long day driving for 12 hours to get 3 documents apostilled. I am tired...

We leave in less than a week. (!) I am excited to get things moving, but feel very heartbroken over leaving my three little ones here for an undetermined amount of time. I know that they will be very well taken care of and all that, I just know that they will miss me and I will miss them so very much.

I have been putting several movies and tv shows on our external hard drive to take with us. I am also bringing a book (BOSSYPANTS) which I took and read/laughed through during our first trip to Russia, which was almost 9 months ago. (!!) Any suggestions of other things to bring? I thought about taking a game, but not sure which. What about fun apps for games that don't require WIFI? We love angry birds. Suggestions?

February 9th

2012-01-04T16:53:00.001-05:00

We have our court date: February 9th. I just bought our plane tickets yesterday and we leave in less than 2 weeks. SO much to do. We are planning to return the day after the court date. I don't anticipate the judge waiving the now 30 days, but we were told that even if she does waive those 30 days that it will take up to 2 weeks to get all the paperwork together for us to leave. So, for now we are praying that all will go smoothly. I would appreciate your prayers, too.

As you can imagine, with us flying to Russia not once or twice, but three times - expenses are adding up and fast. I have updated our ChipIn on the blog and would welcome any financial assistance that you can give us right now. You can also click here to donate. Since we did not have our court date in December, we will not be able to take advantage of the $30,000 tax refund this coming spring. Instead, we will get a tax credit which won't help us too much. This is another difficulty that we are facing. We had hoped to have the whole Russian adoption paid off with the tax refund. Well, God has other plans and I know that He will help us through this because He has asked us to bring Calvin & Silas home. Any help you can offer would be very welcome.

Thankfully, Danielle can still watch the kids while we are gone. We will be in Russia for 3 1/2 weeks this time, roughly. It would have been less, but because the weather is bad and the roads are difficult - we cannot visit both boys in one day. And so we need 1 1/2 weeks to visit EACH boy prior to the court date. I am happy that things are finally in motion. For now I am trying to clean house and prepare every needful thing for this trip. Your prayers are certainly appreciated!

Arrived

2011-12-19T14:35:00.002-05:00

I tracked our forms through DHL. com and they arrived to Sveta. I feel confident that this Friday we will have our court date - the date we have looked to have since the summer. It's finally upon us, at last. Check back here on Friday!

Another week

2011-12-17T12:20:00.001-05:00

I tracked the forms that Tyler mailed and they did not arrive yesterday. In fact, they are still in Moscow. I hope they will arrive to Sveta soon, especially before this coming Friday. I am eager to hear when our court date will be! :)

Plane tickets

2011-12-13T16:53:00.002-05:00

I am happy to report that when we called our airline about our needing to change flights, they just subtracted $250 from each ticket, cancelled our flight and we have up to a year to book flights. So, thankfully we don't have to book a ticket now when we're not sure when we're going back to Russia. What a blessing!

Danielle is here with us getting to know the children. She says that she is still able to watch the children whenever we do go back to Russia - another blessing!

Tyler is in Tallahassee today - he said he would make the long trip this time, thanks honey! I got him The Hobbit book on tape from the library and he is enjoying that. He took the new forms that the judge needs + a letter from our doctor (stating how badly the boys need to come home and be treated) + another police clearance, because ours is now outdated because of how long everything is taking. Sorry for the long run-on sentence there. I am not sure if we will be able to get by with other documents before having to renew them. Time will tell.

My concern now is how the boys are doing. Poor little Silas needed heart surgery a year ago. And Calvin may need more surgery, too. I worry for my boys.

Change of plan

2011-12-10T14:18:00.001-05:00

Yesterday as Tyler and I were going about on adoption errands, we received a phone call from Victoria stating that on Thursday (just the day before) the US made a law requiring another form to be in the dossier. So when Sveta showed up at court yesterday, the judge asked for this form (only one day after this was passed, people). Of course Sveta didn't have the form. We don't know what the form is, actually, but we were told to get the form, fill it out, notarize/apostille it and if Sveta receives it by next Friday then we could be guaranteed the court date of January 23rd. That's right - JANUARY.

The issue is that we can't get it there by Friday, as it takes almost a week for FedEx to get it to Russia from here and we don't even have the form yet, not to mention notarizing it and apostilling it (that takes a day in and of itself). So, most likely we won't be able to count on the January 23rd court date and we have to change our flights ($250 per flight change) before Tuesday (our original date to fly to Russia) but we don't know when to schedule them in January - if it will be January at all. And we don't want to have to pay $250 per ticket AGAIN. Frustrating. Plus this may affect our visas, as they are single entry and expire on March 10th - more on why that may be a problem further in this post.

I do not doubt our decision to buy the visas and plane tickets. We were asked to do so by God and we did it. I do not know the reason, but I can think of many examples in the scriptures of people asked by God to do things that didn't make sense to them. We do not always understand things, but I want to be faithful in all things. A favorite quote that I came up with is this: "A test of faith requires a test." And this is a test, but my faith is strong. We will make it through this.

Today I was shown this link which talks about the 10 day waiting period becoming a 30 day waiting period. If we go mid February and have to wait for 30 days, we will be in country longer than March 10th, hence messing up our visas and requiring new ones (more $). So we would most likely go to the court date, fly home and then fly back - but our visas are single entry, so we would have to get another one. Ugh.

Since we were planning to leave on Tuesday, we had called Santa Claus and asked him to come last night. We decided to keep our appointment with him so last night was technically Christmas Eve for our little family and this morning we opened presents and have had such a great day. I think we needed a little Christmas to raise our spirits. So, Merry Christmas from Tyler, Jill, Anna, Keith, & Iryna!

Order in the court

2011-12-07T14:12:00.001-05:00

Just got a phone call that Sveta has all the forms she needs and will be going to see the judge this Friday to get our court date! God has surely blessed us. What a miracle!

A miracle

2011-12-06T10:16:00.001-05:00

My good friend Sarah had been planning to watch our children during our trip to Russia. We had thought we would be going in September. Then October. Definitely November. And here we are in December and we're leaving next week. The timing isn't ideal, as I loathe the idea of being away from Anna, Keith, & Iryna, but I feel God calling me to go and I will obey. I was talking with Sarah yesterday and she said she wouldn't be able to watch the kids. She just found out she is pregnant and was called to be the Relief Society President - a very demanding calling at church - and this is her first Christmas with her husband. I understand these reasons, but I will admit that I was scared to death after our conversation. We had already bought tickets to leave and we were one week away from being in Russia.

Tyler came home for lunch and we made a list of family in OK to ask. We made phone calls. Nothing was working out. I finally sent out an email asking local friends if they could help us. We thought about splitting up the kids over the course of the month. Then it happened. I got an email. My friend, Emily, said her sister, Danielle, could do the job. I asked her how long she could watch them - Emily said the entire time. I spoke with Danielle. She said her time here in FL was flexible and she could stay as long as we needed her. I was blown away. Not only was it a miracle, but it strengthened my resolve that buying those plane tickets was the right thing to do - God was helping us to do His will for our family.

And so...I am planning and packing now. We leave one week from today. Your prayers and support are, as always, greatly appreciated. :)

Leap of faith

2011-12-05T10:18:00.001-05:00

Tyler and I have felt impressed that the time is coming for us to go back to Nizhny Novogorod. We have been waiting for months to get our court date and feel that it will be soon. We already started the process to get our visas, but then we felt that we should push ahead and buy our plane tickets...so we did, for next week. We are praying fervently that we will get our court date and that we won't have to change our plane tickets. Please exercise your faith with ours and keep us in your prayers. I know that God is a God of MIRACLES and I know that He has the power to make this happen.

Visas

2011-12-03T13:35:00.001-05:00

We just mailed off for our visas. We want to be ready to leave as soon as possible. I hope to have a court date next Friday.

I was thinking that I could gather together some small toys to bring for the other orphans for Christmas. Any ideas on some easy to make ones? If you have any McDonald's-like toys to donate, let me know. I think those would be super easy to transport. :)

Friday

2011-11-30T08:55:00.001-05:00

Spoke with Victoria last night and it seems likely we will find out our court date this Friday. I feel impressed by the Holy Spirit that we will be leaving for Russia very very quickly. Please pray for us!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:FL

Waiting

2011-11-22T18:00:00.001-05:00

We still haven't received a court date. Sveta had to get more forms signed and that has taken more time, but she is doing her best and I am grateful to have such a competent facilitator. I am hopeful that she may be able to go to court this Friday and get us our court date.

It is becoming clear that if we get our court date this week or the next that Tyler & I could be in Russia for Christmas. I have shed tears thinking that I will be apart from Anna, Keith, & Iryna during this wonderful time of year. We even decorated our house for Christmas early so I could get some time with it in case we leave soon.

I am trying to think of some positive things that I can do if I am in Russia. I can bring my Christmas music and play for the children at the orphanage. I also can buy sweets and treats and perhaps bring some little toys and wrap them for my new boys and other orphans. Maybe get some shoes to take for orphans. Have any of you been separated from your children for Christmas so you could bring home your new children? I am up for some ideas!

Good news/Bad news/Good news

2011-11-12T11:54:00.001-05:00

Good news: the social worker is back from medical leave!

Bad news: we need yet another form before Sveta can go back to see the judge. And we don't know how long this form will take.

Today is Silas' birthday! He is 2 years old. My youngest baby boy. I can't wait to hold him again. Happy Birthday Silas!

I AM A CHILD OF GOD

2011-11-07T14:11:00.002-05:00

Did you notice my new tabs at the top of the blog? Yeah, I just made them. And they weren't too difficult either! If you click on the second tab - the one that says I AM A CHILD OF GOD - you will be taken to another page (not to worry, you can always come back here afterwards ;) ) and see some prints for sale - with more on the way. Please share this site with others - they would make wonderful Christmas presents and will help us raise the money we need for our adoption of Calvin & Silas in Russia. Your support helps them SO much!

Medical leave

2011-11-02T14:56:00.001-04:00

Well, I have a lot of Halloween candy leftover from this week. I was thinking to take it with us and give it out to the orphans in Russia. Would that go over well, do you think? I know that Reese's peanut butter cups are highly treasured in Europe and we have a ton of those.

I just spoke with Victoria from AAC. I wanted to know the status on the paperwork that Sveta is compiling for the judge. She informed me that the social worker who can issue Sveta paperwork is on medical leave and they don't know when she will be back at work. I could just cry over all these delays that keep happening. I want to bring the boys home before Christmas and now I am beginning to lose hope that it will happen. I have faith that the adoption will be successful - I just wish it would happen sooner. :(

Today at court

2011-10-21T14:15:00.001-04:00

Sveta went to court today and successfully submitted the dossier to the judge. Now she will begin going to the orphanages and vital records to get more paperwork. What paperwork? Honestly, I do not know what she has to get - but she has to get them and she said it should take anywhere from 3-4 weeks before she will submit those papers to the judge on a Friday and we should get our court date that day. Once we have the court date, we will book our flights, get the last minute medical things - x-rays and such - for the Moscow medical evaluations, visas, and make solid plans with Sarah - who will be coming up to take care of Anna, Keith, & Iryna, while we are gone. The court date is actually 2 weeks after we need to be in country. It will take time to do the Moscow medicals, Tyler has to check in at the US Embassy, and then we need to visit both boys 7 times prior to court. Calvin's orphanage has agreed - last we heard - to allow us to come later in the day so we can visit both Silas and Calvin in one day. It will be a headache (literally!) to drive to and from Vicksa each day (remember how bad those roads are?!?) but we can do all our visits in a week instead of 2, so that is very nice. Any questions?

Arrived

2011-10-19T20:56:00.001-04:00

Sveta emailed me to say that she received the form I mailed her today. She is going back to court on Friday. I hope to hear more information then.

Form

2011-10-18T09:04:00.001-04:00

I got an email from Sveta stating that the judge wouldn't accept the dossier without that form that I sent last week. It should arrive tomorrow, so Sveta will return back to court this Friday. I hope things can start moving faster now.

Sveta said that the boys are doing well, just wondering where we are. :(

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Judge Fran Jamieson Way,Melbourne,United States

One more form

2011-10-11T23:00:00.002-04:00

So last Friday I got the following email from Victoria:

Dear Jill,

Just wanted to let you know I got an e-mail from Sveta today that she has received both packages, from you and from Olga. She will be reviewing the documents over the weekend and hopes to let me by Monday.

Woo-hoo! I was so excited that the dossier and the Ukrainian birth certificates had arrived on Friday instead of the following Monday. Then I received this email:

Dear Jill,

Sveta just got back to me that unfortunately judge has visitation hours only on Friday’s now L And there is also a new procedure that Sveta can only start getting all the documents for court for the kids – birth certificate copies, copies of parental relinquishments, etc., once the judge approves your dossier, so it will be another 3-4 weeks if everything goes well next Friday L

Sorry for the bad news…

Yeah...so, we won't be leaving for Russia this month and maybe not next month, either. I am hoping and praying that we will be able to leave for Russia AND bring home the boys before Christmas. I would appreciate your prayers, as well, for this to come to pass.

Yesterday morning we got a surprise call from Sveta - our facilitator in Russia. She said that one of the forms was missing a line stating Tyler's monthly wage. Even though this is in another form in the dossier, it has to be on this second form as well. So, Tyler put together the form today and had it notarized and tomorrow...you guessed it...I will be driving BACK to Tallahassee to apostille one document and then I will mail it to Sveta from there. I went to the library and checked out HARRY POTTER (first book) on tape and plan to listen to it it on the drive. I enjoyed THE HOBBIT last time I made this trek and I am hopeful that Harry will keep me going tomorrow. Although I don't like the idea of spending the whole day in the car, I am grateful for something that I can do to help bring my boys home.

Dossier

2011-10-04T21:57:00.000-04:00

On Friday I drove up to Tallahassee and picked up the licensure verification and apostilled the dossier! Then, on my way to mail it, Tyler called and said that there was one paper at home that I needed to include - thank goodness it didn't need to be apostilled! So I came home and Tyler tried to mail it on Saturday, but apparently FedEx doesn't handle international packages on the weekends. Bummer. So, yesterday after I paid $193 - it was en route to Russia! They said it would arrive next Monday.

Today I found out that Olga mailed the twins' Ukrainian birth certificates yesterday and that they, too, would arrive on Monday! Neat, huh? So, Sveta will take the forms to the judge on whatever day the judge handles adoption cases and then we anticipate getting our court date sometime next week! I am thinking it will be late Oct/early Nov. I hope. It feels so nice to have things out of our hands - no more forms to run around and get filled out for the third time. Now we wait and prepare and anticipate news. Stay tuned.

Good news all around!

2011-09-28T10:30:00.001-04:00

First good news: The auction was a huge success! My goal was to reach $1,000 and the final amount was $1,013! Thank you all so much for your help! This will definitely aid us in bringing home Calvin & Silas! So from us and soon them - THANK YOU!

Second good news: I now have the medical forms for Tyler & myself. I contacted the Dept of Health in Tallahassee and told them that we haven't received the licensure verification of our MD and they said that they have a second original that has been notarized that I can pick up on Friday when I go up to apostille the dossier! It's all coming together! Hooray! So I will mail the dossier on Friday to Russia! Woo-hoo! SO EXCITING! Boys, we're on our way! :D

Adoption Related Items

2011-09-27T09:32:00.000-04:00

The CHRISTMAS IN SEPTEMBER auction ends tonight at 11pm EST. Thank you all for your support and generosity in our endeavors to raise money to bring Calvin & Silas home. There are a few items that haven't been bid upon, almost all of them being adoption-related items. I thought that posting the pictures and links here would allow you to see what's available still and maybe you or someone you know would like to have them.

Adoption Card. Click here to view.

Adoption Day Card. Click here to view.

Gotcha Day Card. Click here to view.

There are other adoption-related items that are on the auction:

Mother in many languages necklace. Click here to view.

Adoption onesie (custom made - choose country and heart location). Click here to view.

Forever Love Original 8x10 (custom made - choose country and heart location). Click here to view.

Give Hope Africa Adoption T-shirt (Unisex). Click here to view.

Gotcha Day Blessing Book. Click here to view.

Loopy Russia Bows. Click here to view.

Personalized Wood and Sterling Pendant Necklace. Click here to view.

Welcome Home Adoption/Birthday Party - Full Printable Party Collection - African/Zoo Theme. Click here to view.

Women's Give Hope Africa Adoption T-shirt. Click here to view.

Closing in

2011-09-26T08:58:00.003-04:00

Well, tomorrow is the last day of the auction. I greatly appreciate all the support thus far - the auction ends tomorrow at 11pm Eastern Standard Time. Please help to spread the word. Click here to see the 81 items (yes, 81!). After the auction is over, I will post how much we raised to bring Calvin & Silas home! :)

Auction

2011-09-24T13:30:00.000-04:00

3 more days left until the CHRISTMAS IN SEPTEMBER auction closes! It will end on September 27th, at 11pm EASTERN standard time. There is still time left: click here to see the 66 items! Thank you for your support!

Delays

2011-09-23T14:50:00.002-04:00

I have held off writing a post because I wanted to be able to write something positive, yet I cannot keep waiting for that. Do not worry, nothing is wrong with the actual adoption of our boys - it's just that things keep delaying our mailing the dossier to Russia. At one point we thought we had everything and were preparing to notarize/apostille/mail to Russia. Then we found out (the day before!) that our medical forms had expired and we needed to redo them. So we found another MD for Tyler & I (ours moved to England - Air Force) and started that process. She had us do (yet another) TB test and did a blood draw to test for infectious diseases. We had the same MD do the medical forms for the kids. I have those completed forms now.

However, I called to find out if our records were done for Tyler & I today and the nurse responded that it takes 7-10 DAYS to get the results. The blood was drawn on Tuesday of this week. So, the earliest we could have our forms is Tuesday, September 27th, but it could be as late as Friday, September 30th...we were planning to get our forms notarized today so I could make the drive to Tallahassee on Monday, but now that option is out the door. And even if the forms are done by Tuesday, Tyler will be out of town until Thursday, so the EARLIEST I could go up is a week from today, because he has to be with me when we notarize the documents. This may seem silly and I am probably just overemotional, but I am frustrated that things are taking so long. I am so ready to have our dossier on its merry way to Russia. Why all the holdups?!?!?

I am ready to hold my boys again. I wonder if they feel abandoned by us. Do they look out the window every day to see us coming to get them? Do they feel alone? Scared? Worried? I am not there to make things right. I want to be there to reassure them that I love them and then bring. them. home.

On the bright side, I received the following message from Victoria (our placement agency):

Dear Jill,

I got an e-mail from Sveta, she called both orphanages and was told the boys are doing well and they look forward to your coming to pick them up.

I am grateful for those small blessings that keep me motivated, like this email about Calvin & Silas. I guess I just need to keep myself busy until I'm back with my boys. Until then, I just look at these pictures to keep me going.

Police report

2011-09-16T13:56:00.001-04:00

Today Tyler & I got our police reports for our dossier. It felt strange going to the police station - I don't think I've ever been to one before. I didn't have to go for the Ukrainian adoption, so this was new for me. We got our paper stating that neither of us has been arrested before in our town.

Next on the list: Tyler is working on our financial form and next monday/tuesday we get our medical forms. Once we get all those and our birth certificates for the twins arrive from Ukraine, it's time to notarize/apostille documents. I have a few days left open next week for a trip up to Tallahassee to get them all done and then I will mail them to Russia from there. Can't wait to see my boys again - I hope it will be October!

A week or so

2011-09-12T14:01:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I talked with a nurse on base and there is a doctor there who is registered in the state of FL. Tyler & I both have appointments with her early next week. Today we will call and get the state registration verification process going, which usually takes about a week to finish, and then we'll meet with the doctor next week and I am hoping that we will notarize/apostille next week! I pray that this will happen! And I am hoping that our judge in Nizhny Novgorod will have our paperwork by Oct 1st!

Texas is too far...

2011-09-11T19:25:00.000-04:00

So we found out that the doctor here on base that we met with is registered in TX and not FL. This means that we will have to get a referral off-base to a doctor who IS registered in FL, so we can fill out the medical forms for Tyler & me. So many hoops to jump through...

Victoria said that Sveta called Calvin's orphanage last week and they said that Calvin is doing well with his recovery from heart surgery. I am eager to see him in person, but it's nice to hear something about him!

The CHRISTMAS IN SEPTEMBER silent auction is still going on. You can check it out here.

Open for business!

2011-09-06T11:01:00.002-04:00

The CHRISTMAS IN SEPTEMBER silent auction is now open! Here is the link:

http://www.32auctions.com/organizations/2051/auctions/2218

Details: the auction will run for 3 weeks. I will add more items as I receive them - still accepting donations! Get all your Christmas shopping done and help support us as we bring our boys home from Russia! Thanks for your support. :)

Help us bring Silas and Calvin HOME!

Christmas in September

2011-09-03T13:16:00.002-04:00

I am doing a CHRISTMAS IN SEPTEMBER silent auction to raise money for our Russian adoption for Calvin & Silas. If you have any donations you can offer, please let me know! Thank you!

Redo

2011-09-01T19:24:00.000-04:00

Well...I was hoping to go notarize and apostille our dossier tomorrow and then mail it out. I was thisclose to being able to do it all...and then Victoria from AAC said that our medical records that we did back in May had just expired. I guess they only last 3 months or something. This wouldn't be too big of an issue, except for our MD just PCS'd (Air Force term for transer) to England. Oh, and our pediatrician just retired. So we may have to have the kids meet with a new pediatrician and then get those papers redone. Ugh. Anyhow, it will take 1-2 weeks to get the forms redone and that means that it's very likely that we won't go to Russia before October. :*(

I600A

2011-08-29T10:21:00.001-04:00

The I600A form came in the mail on Saturday. Now we are waiting for the certified copies of the twins' Ukrainian birth certificates to arrive from Ukraine. Once they arrive, we will notarize all the dossier documents, apostille them, mail them to Sveta and she will translate them and present them to the judge in Nizhny Novgorod. Then the judge will give us a court date. Progress!

Some news

2011-08-23T13:01:00.000-04:00

Tyler spoke with Victoria from AAC yesterday and she said that Sveta called Calvin's orphanage a few weeks ago and they said that Calvin is doing okay health wise. I wish I knew more than that - but it's nice to hear SOMETHING!

We still haven't received our form back from the USCIS, so Victoria asked us to contact them because it may have been lost in the mail. Olga was able to get the birth certificates for Keith & Iryna in Ukraine and has already put them in the mail to us. Once those arrive and we get the form from USCIS, we will notarize and apostille all the documents and then - the moment we've been waiting for - we will mail them to Sveta to be translated by her and submitted to the judge. Can't wait to find out when we get to bring home Calvin & Silas! I miss them so much and feel like they must have forgotten us since it's been so long since our first trip. :(

It's August

2011-08-01T23:17:00.001-04:00

It's August. *sigh* It's August and we didn't have all our documents for our dossier in July (we're still waiting on several of them), so they haven't been mailed/translated/shown to the judge in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. It's August and that is the holiday month for government officials in Russia. It's August, so I won't get to find out when we're going back to Russia for our court date until at least September. It's one more month that my boys aren't here with me. It's August. Blah.

Kelly

2011-08-01T23:13:00.002-04:00

Dear Kelly,

This post is just for you. You won the Pink Necklace Auction. I do not have a way to contact you. Please send me an email at jilldpierce at yahoo dot com, so that we can arrange for payment and shipment of your necklace.

Have a great day! Love, Jill

Running back to Russia Silent Auction Winners!

2011-07-11T15:03:00.003-04:00

Before announcing the winners of our "Running back to Russia" SilentAuction, I would like to again thank each and every one of you who helped makethis auction a success. We were able to raise almost $500 and we are soappreciative of the help and support of so many of our family and friends. Allof you are such a big and important part of this journey and we feel blessed tobe able to share this journey with you.

Now, without further ado, the winners of the "Running back to Russia" Silent Auction:

Customized Letters – Tisha ($20)

Haircut in OH – Valene ($30)

Thirty One Items Voucher – Elizabeth ($20)

Choffy – Tina ($15)

Hawaiian Gift Box – Sarah ($30)

Homemade Lemon Curd and Scones – Shanna ($15)

Long Turquoise and WoodNecklace – Tisha ($15)

Sea Glass Necklace – Nichole ($25)

Ribbon Gift Collection – Jolene ($15)

European Bangle Bracelet #1 – Tisha ($10)

Monster – Valerie ($10)

Main Dish – Local only to FL – Tina ($10)

Teddy Bears – Breezeinandbeauty ($15)

Little Red – Tisha ($18)

Pink Necklace – Kelly ($10)

Baby Sign Language Starter Kit – Christine ($30)

Haircut in FL – Malina ($20)

Baby Girl Hair Clips – Malina ($5)

Robot, Monster, or Cupcake Shirt – Tisha ($16)

Mookite Necklace – Tisha ($15)

Dessert – Local only to FL – Tina ($12)

European Bangle Bracelet #2 – Tisha ($12)

Felt Cookie Sampler – Christine ($7)

White Ukrainian Quilt – Valerie ($50)

Must Haves zipper pouch – Nichole ($10)

On The Go organizer – Tina ($18)

Haircut in OK – Tisha ($15)

Elmo Burpcloth and Blanket – Sarah ($5)

Winning bidders have the option to pay via personal check/money order which youcan mail to me or pay via Pierce Family Adoption Chip-In which uses paypal. Asyou may know, there is a fee by paying with paypal and so payment by check, orincluding the cost of the paypal fees in your payment are greatly appreciated. JEmail me at jilldpierce@yahoo.comto receive our address if mailing a check.
When you contact me, please be sure to include your contact information so thatwe may ship your items to you or pass your information along to those who willbe shipping your items.
We would also like to announce the winners of our giveaway! We are so gratefulto all those who participated by donating, bidding and/or"advertising" that we decided to choose two names. And the two luckywinners are. . . .

Kera and Tina, thank you both so much for donating toour auction and for helping us get the word out! We appreciate your support somuch! For your prize you may choose from the cookies on my Warrior Kitchenblog. Email me your choice at jilldpierce@yahoo.com.

"Running back to Russia" Adoption Silent Auction

2011-06-26T08:00:00.022-04:00

When someone is expecting a baby, there are some things that we can do to help. Usually it involves throwing a baby shower and giving diapers and clothing, etc. While these items are much appreciated, they are different from the support that you are giving us at this time. With your financial support, you are actually helping us be able to bring Calvin and Silas INTO our home. YOU are making this possible. We have only spent a few days with each of them, but they already feel like part of our family. We pray for them everyday. We look at their pictures and memorize their features. We look around the house and try to imagine them here with us. I want you all to know that we are overcome with all of the support that you have given us in this adoption of Calvin and Silas. Your encouragement, love, knowledge and friendship are deeply appreciated. You are all AMAZING! Thank you! And with that, I’d like to welcome you to our “Running back to Russia” Adoption Silent Auction!

To be honest, I hate asking for money and I struggle accepting it. But I have been overwhelmed by the generosity and support of family, friends and even strangers as we work to bring Calvin and Silas home from Russia. I am excited to offer such amazing items in return for your support!

Here is how it will work:

Each auction item will be listed in a separate post (so be sure to keep scrolling so you don't miss anything!). At the bottom of each post, the current auction price will be listed. If you wish to bid on an item, simply post a comment with the amount you wish to bid.

I will try to update the auction price as often as possible, but please be sure to check the comment section to ensure that you are bidding high enough to become the highest bidder.

The auction will run from 8am, EST, on Sunday, June 26th until 10pm, EST, on Sunday, July 10^th. At the close of the auction I will post a list of the winning bidders and ask that you contact me so that I can get your contact information in order to ship your item(s) or pass your information along to those who have donated items to the auction.

You will have two payment options. The first is to pay via Pierce Family Adoption Chip-In which uses paypal. It is located on the left-hand side of this blog. The second option is to send your payment by personal/bank check or money order.

I would like to extend a BIG thank you to all of those who have donated their time and talents to making this auction possible: and, of course, my incredible family, for their support as I pulled all of this together! We appreciate each and every one of you SO much!

In addition to the auction, we will also be doing a GIVEAWAY and it is completely free (and easy) to enter!!! To enter the giveaway: simply post our auction information to your Facebook page, Twitter or Blog to help us get the word out! Leave a comment on THIS POST to let us know that you have shared the news and your name will be entered into the giveaway.

And just what are we giving away?? The winner of our giveaway will have the privilege (at least, I'd like to think it's a privilege) of choosing one type of cookie listed on my Warrior Kitchen blog. I will bake one dozen cookies of your choice, package them, and ship them to you. Or if you are local, I will deliver them to you. Click here to see your yummy options.

And without further ado, let the Pierce Family Adoption Silent Auction Begin!

Customized Letters

2011-06-26T07:59:00.023-04:00

Customized wall letters that spell a name, donated by Shelbee. This could be a child's name for a child's room, nursery, etc. Or I could make a families last name for the living room, etc. The winner would tell me what letters and color scheme/theme they would like.

$20

Haircut in OH

2011-06-26T07:59:00.018-04:00

Kera has donated a haircut. She lives in Dayton, OH. Please bid only if you live near or will be visiting the Dayton area.

$30

Thirty One Items Voucher

2011-06-26T07:59:00.017-04:00

Donated by Christy: www.christybusbey.com
Thirty One Gifts: Celebrating Encouraging and Rewarding Women, one purse, tote bag, home accessory and piece of stationery at a time.

A $25 voucher for Thirty One items! Click here to see items.

Some examples of items on the website are:

$20

Choffy

2011-06-26T07:59:00.010-04:00

Choffy is made from 100% organic cacao (cocoa) beans roasted and ground to create a rich drink that provides long-lasting energy and whole-body wellness. Not only does Choffy taste good, it’s really good for you. It contains no sugar, dairy, or chemicals.

Choffy is richer and more robust than hot chocolate, and brews just like coffee. It has a strong, intense taste on its own; some people prefer to drink it that way. Others love the deep chocolate flavor that’s revealed when you add a little creamer. Be creative!

Unlike coffee, Choffy supplies you with long-lasting energy throughout the day without the crash, jitters, or other negative effects of caffeine. Which means you can drink as much as you want, whenever you want. So if you wake up craving a cup of Choffy, it’s only because it tastes so good!

Choffy has much to offer beyond flavor alone. It is truly good for you! It comes in a 12 oz bag. And I'm including one of their divine vegan, glutten and dairy free truffles. A chocolate fix for only 20 calories. Donated by Melisa.

$15

Hawaiian Gift Box

2011-06-26T07:58:00.021-04:00

Hawaiian Gift Box donated by Stacey (who lives in Hawaii!)

This box includes 15 items:

Surf's Up mug

Island Heritage mug

Pineapple coconut pancake mix

Coconut syrup

6 piece hot pad/towel set

Tropical jam set

Chocolate Covered Macadamia Nuts

Chocolate Covered Toffees with Macadamias

Hershey Kisses with Macadamia Nuts

Island Princess Mimi Meles Toffee

Chocolate Macadamia Nuts

4 sample Mauna Loa Nut

a Hula Girl magnetic shopping list.

$30

Homemade Lemon Curd and Scones

2011-06-26T07:58:00.019-04:00

Homemade Lemon Curd and Scones by Paulette.

Traditional English scones are a sweet biscuit and usually use currants. I used orange flavored cranberries and orange zest in these delicious scones. A combination of real butter, milk, sugar and flour give these scones a wonderful crumb. Add to that a traditional lemon curd made with eggs, sugar, butter, lemon juice and lemon zest and you're almost ready for tea. Scones make a great breakfast or dessert.

The winner of this auction will get 8 scones and a pint of lemon curd.

Recipes:
Cranberry Scones
Lemon Curd

$15

Long Turquoise and Wood Necklace

2011-06-26T07:58:00.018-04:00

The necklace is 30 inches with a 2 inch extender chain. It is made of blue-green turquoise nuggets and dark chocolate colored wood beads, finished with a silver lobster clasp :) Donated by Trinkets N Treasures.

$15

Sea Glass Necklace

2011-06-26T07:58:00.014-04:00

Sea Glass Necklace donated by Shannon.

This exquisite example of hand-crafted jewelry features a striking beach glass setting. The elegant curves of beach glass, also known as sea glass or memaid's tears, are shaped naturally through the course of several decades. Most of my sea glass is handpicked from the shores of Lake Erie, where the ebb and flow of the waves smooth the rough edges of glass shards into beautiful gem-like pieces. If you like to learn more about beach glass, please visit my website:

www.BeachGlassMemories.etsy.com

$25

Ribbon Gift Collection

2011-06-26T07:57:00.019-04:00

Ribbon Gift Collection donated by Sarah.

It's the gift that's more than a gift card! A Ribbon Gift Collection not only promises your recipient will receive a gift they love, but gives them an experience they'll remember – choosing for themselves!

The Ribbon Variety Gift Collection offers dozens of current, popular gift items, with something for everyone. Enjoy the convenience of a gift card, with a personal touch. Variety gifts include everything from electronics and gourmet goodies, to travel gear, and more. You’ll see the name brands you know and trust, like Cross®, Conair®, Unlisted® by Kenneth Cole®, Proctor Silex®, Royal®, and Eureka®.

It can be hard to find just the right gift for a special occasion – or a special person. Ribbon makes giving that perfect gift simple and enjoyable because there’s no shopping or guesswork involved. You just choose one of the Gift Collections and, your recipient gets to pick their own special gift from a selection of up to 40 items. Ribbon is a simple and convenient solution to giving that perfect, unique gift they won’t expect. They’ll get their Gift of Choice delivered right to their door – with no shipping fees!

Ribbon Gift Card Ensemble comes with a Gift Card and a beautiful print Album that fit in a shimmer envelope for an elegant presentation. The Album showcases a selection of the gifts available to your recipient, while inviting them to view the most current selections and redeem their Gift Card for the gift of their choice.

You may view the products for this gift card here.

$15

European Bangle Bracelet #1

2011-06-26T07:57:00.018-04:00

European bangle bracelet #1 donated by Adrienne. More of her jewelry is found here and here.
This is sterling silver plated, with 4 charms each. Other European beads can be added, or changed out easily to customize each of these. It is 8" long including the Pandora style clasp.

$10

Monster

2011-06-26T07:57:00.016-04:00

Monster donated by Diana.

He's hand made, approximately 14" tall x 9" wide. Made of polar fleece and stuffed with fiber fill. Eyes are safety style eyes. Washable, whackable in times of stress, and has big arms for giving big hugs when needed.

$10

Main Dish - Local only to FL

2011-06-26T07:57:00.014-04:00

Donated by me (Jill) :)

I will make your choice of any main dish (any main dish, soup, vegetable, bread, etc) recipe listed on my WARRIOR BLOG. This is only for people who live local here in FL. Look through the blog for something that interests you! I do not want to boast, but I am a good cook! :)

Some examples include:

$10

Teddy Bears

2011-06-26T07:56:00.011-04:00

Teddy Bears donated by Diana.

This is a collectible set of original Furskins Teddy Bears circa 1986. Both are in excellent (near mint) condition. . They are each approximately 8" tall x 6" wide and stand on their own. All clothing and accessories included.

$15

Little Red

2011-06-26T07:56:00.010-04:00

Little Red donated by Paulette.

Red is a girl who can take care of herself. When faced with a crisis she makes the best of it. And she's frugal too. Here she is taking the head of the wolf to mom to make some stew.
Little Red is a cloth doll with cloth over clay construction for her head. Her face and body are hand painted, and made of an original pattern by Paulette Burton, also known on the internet as Craftewoman. Made in the Gothic style, she wears her signature red cape trimmed in braid over a black and white dress. Gothic Little Red Riding Hood is a one of a kind doll who will never be duplicated.

$18

Pink Necklace

2011-06-26T07:55:00.020-04:00

Donated by Miryam.

Miryam makes many types of jewelry. Here is a set she donated for this auction. She can be contacted at for future orders. Just let me know at jilldpierce at yahoo dot com.

$10

Baby Sign Language Starter Kit

2011-06-26T07:55:00.019-04:00

BABY SIGN LANGUAGE STARTER KIT donated by Melisa.

Your little one has a lot to say, and with sign language, you don't have to wait for her first word to know what's on her mind. The Baby Sign language Starter Kit makes it fun and easy for you and your baby to learn simple signs you can use to communicate before she learns to talk. The products in the kit can be used by the parent alone or the by parent and child together. Includes, DVD, CD and flashcard set.

Also, anyone who bids can email smile@signingtimeacademy.com for a 10% discount code for Signing Times as another way to thank you for supporting our adoption.

$30

Haircut in FL

2011-06-26T07:55:00.017-04:00

Aubrey has donated a haircut. She lives in Melbourne, FL. Please bid only if you live near or will be visiting the Melbourne area.

$20

Baby Girl Hair Clips

2011-06-26T07:54:00.005-04:00

Baby Girl Hair Clips donated by Adrienne. More of her jewelry is found here and here.

There is 1 set (2 clips) of the baby girl hair bows:

Precious Moments

2011-06-26T07:54:00.003-04:00

Precious Moments donated by Diana.

Collectible mint condition authentic "Precious Moments" figurine - "Make a Joyful Noise" circa 1989. All original packaging and tags included - Hand painted bisque porcelain. Ornament sized (approx 3.5" tall x 3" wide).

Robot, Monster, or Cupcake Shirt

2011-06-26T07:53:00.023-04:00

Robot, Monster, or Cupcake Shirt donated by Valerie.
A custom t-shirt (robot, monster or cupcake) I can do any color/size.

$16

Mookite Necklace

2011-06-26T07:53:00.022-04:00

Necklace donated by Adrienne. More of her jewelry is found here and here.

This is a Mookite Necklace (the Mookite stone is from Australia). It is 19" long with a Tibet silver clasp and a hand carved antler charm. The antler charm was carved by Marti Hicks a local Utah artist specifically for this necklace. The engraving depicts a 9 year old boy going though right of passage in an Anasazi native american tribe. This right of passage is when his spiritual descendants are declared and his lineage is made known until him, after he fights in a mental and physical battle to prove himself. I thought it was particularly beautiful because I know that when your boys arrive in America they will be sealed to your family, after a long fight to find love and acceptance in an orphanage.

$15

Dessert - Local only to FL

2011-06-26T07:53:00.016-04:00

Donated by me (Jill) :)

I will make your choice of any dessert (pie, cookies, cakes, brownies, etc) listed on my WARRIOR BLOG. This is only for people who live local here in FL. Look through the blog for something that interests you! I do not want to boast, but I am a good cook! :)

Some examples include:

$12

European Bangle Bracelet #2

2011-06-26T07:52:00.010-04:00

European bangle bracelet #2 donated by Adrienne. More of her jewelry is found here and here.

This is sterling silver plated, with 4 charms each. Other European beads can be added, or changed out easily to customize each of these. It is 8" long including the Pandora style clasp.

$12

Felt Cookie Sampler

2011-06-26T07:52:00.009-04:00

Felt cookie sampler donated by Valerie.

9 felt cookies: 3 chocolate chip, 3 iced sugar cookies with sprinkles and 3 M&M.

White Ukrainian Quilt

2011-06-26T07:51:00.032-04:00

History: I bought two types of white fabric while adopting the twins in Ukraine. I sent the material to my mom who made a white log cabin quilt top with it. I am going to finish the quilt with my mother-in-law over the next two weeks. The material is incredibly soft. If you adopted a child from Ukraine and want a blanket that has significant meaning, then this quilt is perfect for you. If you love white or enjoy quilts, then this is for you, too. Here are some pictures of the quilt top. The quilt will be finished and ready to go by the end of the auction. I will post pictures on this post once I have it finished.

Tyler is holding up the quilt top. It's pretty big - 5 log cabin squares by 4 log cabin squares, plus the borders.

The coloring on this picture is a bit yellowed - but it shows the texture of the material - the material is definitely WHITE and not cream or ivory.

$50

Must Haves zipper pouch

2011-06-26T07:51:00.030-04:00

Donated by Christy: www.christybusbey.com
Thirty One Gifts: Celebrating Encouraging and Rewarding Women, one purse, tote bag, home accessory and piece of stationery at a time.

"Must Haves" zipper pouch with organic flower print, hot pink thread. Valued at $20.61. 9” H x 11” W x 2.5” D.

$10

On The Go organizer

2011-06-26T07:50:00.016-04:00

Donated by Christy: www.christybusbey.com
Thirty One Gifts: Celebrating Encouraging and Rewarding Women, one purse, tote bag, home accessory and piece of stationery at a time.

All in one organizer with organic flower print, brown thread, valued at $27.48. 8”H x 12”W x 6.5”D.

$18

Haircut in OK

2011-06-26T07:50:00.015-04:00

Leanna has donated a haircut. She lives in OKC, OK. Please bid only if you live near or will be visiting the OKC area.

$15

Elmo Burpcloth and Blanket

2011-06-26T07:50:00.013-04:00

Donated by Diane.

These are homemade and are hand crocheted around the edges.

Fedex to Ukraine

2011-06-25T14:06:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, we mailed off the documents to Olga in Ukraine. She will receive them by next week. I am hopeful that it won't take long for her to acquire both birth certificates for the twins and for them to return to us here. It looks as though our dossier will be completely ready sometime in July and we will submit it then. I anticipate that we will have our court date in September and it can't come soon enough! :)

USCIS visit

2011-06-17T18:42:00.001-04:00

Our placement agency informed us that Olga - who handled the twins' adoption in Ukraine - is able to get certified copies of their birth certificates for us! Hooray! So, to do that, we had to have some forms signed/notarized/apostilled and then mailed to her in Ukraine. Yesterday we had them notarized and then I made that LONG drive to Tallahassee, FL, to have them apostilled. I'm recovering today from the trip - but it's definitely worth it! Plus, we had to stop in at Chick-Fil-A for some play time and chicken. I do what I can to make an 11 hour round trip drive as fun as possible. :)

Iryna LOVES Chick-Fil-A!

This morning, we all drove up to Orlando, FL, to have our USCIS fingerprints taken. They said we should receive our results in 2-4 weeks. I am eternally optimistic that we still MAY be going back to Russia in July. Tyler says it will be September - as the government offices are closed in August for holiday time. I am still holding out for July! I want to bring my babies home!

I'm still compiling items for the Pierce Family Adoption Silent Auction. I am amazed at the kindness of others in helping us raise the necessary funds to bring Calvin and Silas home. It is humbling to be the recipient of so much love and support. If you have anything to donate, email me at jilldpierce at yahoo dot com

Silent Auction Preview

2011-06-12T22:09:00.003-04:00

As the time nears for us to submit our dossier and travel to Russia to bring home Calvin & Silas, we are working hard to raise the remaining funds necessary to complete our adoption. In an effort to raise these funds, we will be holding a silent auction on our adoption blog.

The auction will begin two weeks from today on Sunday, June 26th and will run through Sunday, July 10th. We have been working hard to gather and create a wide variety of items to auction and we are grateful to many of our family and friends for donating items as well.

As a sneak preview, the following photos represent a taste of the items that will be available for bidding:

And MUCH more! There are still two weeks left before the auction begins. If you are interested in donating an item to be auctioned, please contact me as soon as possible (you can contact me at jilldpierce@yahoo.com). If you run an Etsy shop or a business and would like to donate an item from your shop/business, I will include a link to your site in the auction listing in order to help promote your business.

Bidding will begin two weeks from today, so stay tuned.

Uneducated

2011-06-01T21:47:00.000-04:00

Tyler & I had a doctor's appointmen this morning to get our Russian adoption medical records filled out. Our normal PCM (PA C) isn't an MD and we needed an MD to sign our records for them to be recognized by Russia, so we met with Dr D. If you recall, he was the rude doctor we met with a while ago who wouldn't sign off on our first set of medical forms because he deemed me unable to care for more children since I"m overweight. Well, it was apparent that he didn't remember us. However, he was incredibly rude about my weight (kept pushing me to get gastric bypass). He asked me if I was "aware" that I'm overweight. Gee, no, I had no idea. Thanks for sharing, buddy. And then he shared a story about a 3 year old girl who was adopted from Romania who turned out to be severely mentally retarded - the family wasn't aware of her mental challenges prior to adoption, according to Dr D. He then went on to complain that now our state taxes have to pay "thousands of dollars" for this child to be in an institution (she's now an adult) who isn't "even an American citizen". I was highly offended. How could someone not view a life as more important than tax money??? Honestly! And when an American citizen adopts a child - that child becomes an American citizen!!!! I tried to keep my cool, since we desperately needed those documents filled out to proceed wih our adoption. And yet I did make sure to emphasize that when we adopted Keith, he was in the mental state of a newborn at the age of 4 1/2 years old. We didn't know if he'd ever talk, walk, chew food, etc. And he's made such amazing progress. I added that we never know the potential of a child, but all life is valuable. Who knows if it made a difference?

We did get the documents and a copy of his medical license (all for the dossier) plus pediatics called and they have the medical forms for the 3 kids, which is good. We're just plugging away on our paperwork. :)

USCIS

2011-05-30T19:29:00.001-04:00

We got a letter with our date for USCIS fingerprints for June 17th. From then it will be 2-4 weeks until they send us our approval letter and we can submit them to Sveta for translation. Here's what needs to happen before we go back for trip #2: put together all documents for our dossier. The two things we're waiting on: USCIS approval letter after they take our fingerprints AND our 2011 certified birth certificates for all 5 of us. My mom is taking care of getting certified certificates for Tyler, Anna, and me (Thanks, Mom!!!) and we are hoping that our facilitator from our Ukrainian adoption, Olga, can take care of getting them for both Keith & Iryna. Once we get all those certificates and the USCIS + all the documents that we're currently working on for the dossier, we will scan/email/mail them to Sveta who will translate them and then she will submit them to the judge in Nizhny Novgorod. THEN the judge will give us a court date. Once we have the court date, Tyler & I will purchase plane tickets for a little over a week prior to the court date. Once in country, we have to have a physical exam for both of us and then visit both boys 7x each - we've been told that there' a possibility that we can see both boys in one day!!! - then attend the court date. We are hopeful that the judge will waive the 10 days. If she does, then we'll get their documents together - passports, etc - pick the boys up and head home! It's a lot to get done, but thankfully we have an excellent facilitator (Sveta) and adoption placement coordinator (Victoria) to help us get it all done.

And the winner is...

2011-05-24T14:37:00.000-04:00

Congratulations Laura! Email me your mailing address at jilldpierce at yahoo dot com so we can ship you your mixing bowl! And please note that Anna's solemn face is because she didn't want for you all to see her left eye - she had surgery on it this morning. She's still a bit loopy from all the medicine but she wanted to be the one to choose the winner - poor baby. Congrats Laura! And everyone stay tuned for a silent auction with several items - coming soon!

Last chance!

2011-05-23T13:35:00.000-04:00

You have until 11pm tonight to enter to win the beautiful homemade red/black mixing bowl! You have 6 ways to enter! Thank you for your support! And stay tuned - we have a silent auction coming up very soon with many fabulous items! If you're interested in donating something to be auctioned, email me at jilldpierce at yahoo dot com.

Calvin's Surgery Update

2011-05-19T15:51:00.000-04:00

I just received an email stating that Calvin had a successful surgery in Moscow! Everything went well and they have moved him back to Nizhny Novgorod. Calvin will be at a local hospital for a couple of weeks for rehabilitation, so that he won’t be running around and exerting himself. And of course the doctors will be monitoring him. I understand that this is a standard pro-longed post-procedure to heart surgeries in Russia. I'm so excited that he's recovering well. I can't wait to see this smile again soon:

Speaking of smiling - there's still a few more days left for our beautiful red/black homemade mixing bowl! Please get the word out and you're able to earn an entry in 6 different ways! Thanks for your support!

Homemade Mixing Bowl

2011-05-14T11:39:00.000-04:00

Made by my fabulous friend Elizabeth: You are bidding on a hand thrown mixing bowl. Made from Phoenix clay this bowl is the perfect mixing bowl for pancakes for 2-3 or eggs for the entire family. It measures 4.5" high and 6" in diameter. It is a beautiful black and red color combination, the picture fails to pick up the almost metallic shimmer in the glaze that makes this my most requested color combination. The bowl is dishwasher and microwave safe and makes the perfect gift for bridal showers and/or weddings.

Here's how to enter:

Donate $5 to our adoption fund using the Chip-In on the sidebar of my blog.
Post about our fundraiser on Facebook. To link to Facebook, click on the "Share to Facebook" button right next to where you leave comments.
Blog about our fundraiser. To blog this, click on the "BlogThis!" button right next to where you leave comments.
Email about our fundraiser to at least 5 people + me at jilldpierce at yahoo dot com. To email this, click on the "Email This" button right next to where you leave comments.
Share this on your twitter site. To tweet this, click on the "Share to twitter" button right next to where you leave comments.
Post our blog button on your blog - you can grab the code on the sidebar.

Each of these gets you ONE entry for this lovely red and black hand thrown mixing bowl! Leave a comment for each entry. This listing will end at 11pm on Monday, May 23rd. Thank you all for your support in bringing home Calvin & Silas. We greatly appreciate it! Stay tuned for more fundraisers! :)

Update on Calvin

2011-05-11T14:30:00.000-04:00

Calvin was supposed to have surgery in Moscow last week. Sveta received word from the hospital that Calvin is still in the hospital, but has not had the surgery as of yet. There was the indication that perhaps some tests were being run before they could do the surgery. That is all we know so far. It's frustrating to not know more, but there it is.

Here is a list of all of Calvin's heart conditions:

Mitral Stenosis
Double inlet left ventricle
High pulmonary hypertension
L-aorta

If you have any experience with the double inlet left ventricle, high pulmonary hypertension, or L-aorta, please leave a comment or email me at jilldpierce at yahoo dot com.

Paperwork, Paperwork

2011-05-09T10:01:00.000-04:00

And so the paper chase begins! I am mailing off my USCIS today and will begin collecting other various documents that we need for our dossier. I am eager to get it all done as soon as possible, as I would prefer a July court date for trip #2!

We haven't heard anything about how Calvin's surgery went...still waiting for details. I hope he's recovering well.

I miss my boys! I wish they were here with me now. As we are back in the US doing dossier stuff, the posts on this blog will be less often as most of what is going on adoption-related is behind-the-scenes-paperwork-stuff. I will post when I have news and updates! Until then, if you want to follow my day-to-day-non-adoption-world, click here.

Back in the good ol' USA

2011-05-07T09:37:00.000-04:00

On Friday (in Russia), we cleaned up the apartment and rearranged it to how it was when we arrived. We packed up all of our things. The Sister Missionaries came over and we gave them the rest of our food from the fridge and cabinets. I withdrew some rubles to pay for the taxi in Moscow and we bought a few more little souvenirs. Sarah & I watched some HOUSE while the girls watched some SpongeBob Squarepants. At 9:30pm, Sveta and the landlord showed up. After getting all our luggage (4 carry-on suitcases, 1 large suitcase, 3 backpacks, CPAP, laptop (in bag), and my purse + coats for everyone + a box of orphanage donations downstairs, we packed it all up in Sveta’s tiny car. Iryna had to sit on top of one of the carryon suitcases on the drive to the train station. Sveta helped us get on the right train car, and put our luggage into our room. There are four beds in the room on the train car, with one communal bathroom per train car. Iryna & Anna took the beds up top (think bunk bed style) and Sarah & I took the beds on the bottom. The train left at 10:45pm, so it was time for bed right when we got on the train. Anna fell asleep before the train even left, whereas it took the rest of us a few minutes. At one point I was dozing off, and suddenly there was a woman in our train car – which scared me to death! She came to collect the tickets and even spoke a very few words of English that I could tell she was happy to be able to use with someone. J

There wasn’t a plug-in inside the room, so I couldn’t use my CPAP. There were plug-ins in the hallway down the train, but I didn’t see how that would work, having people trip over my cord all night and then I couldn’t keep the door closed. With 4 women in our car and no men, I didn’t think we should leave the door open all night. So no CPAP, but I did take melatonin which did help me doze off some. The bed was pretty hard, though, so I flipped from side to side all night and didn’t get much sleep due to my legs being numb.

Vladimir, our taxi driver, showed up at our door on the train car right after we arrived. He was really nice and didn’t speak much English – or so he said to us in English. He thankfully helped us by pulling some luggage on our much-longer-than-I-had-anticipated-walk to the taxi from the train car. We were prepared for a 2 hour drive to the airport, so imagine our surprise when we arrived in 30 minutes. I guess the traffic isn’t too busy in Moscow from 7 to 7:30am.

We had a LONG wait at the airport before we boarded out plane at noon and flew out at 1pm. The flight was pretty uneventful. They played some good movies, which helped pass the time. Iryna behaved exceptionally well until the last 30 minutes or so – and she was completely over stimulated and out of control. That made it “fun” for the 2 hours it took to go through customs, pick up luggage, find and ride the Air Tram, get on the shuttle, and finally get into our hotel room.

We were hungry, so I ordered from a local Italian place. I figured that it would cost more to eat here, since it is NY. I ended up buying $35 worth of food. It ended up being enough to feed an ARMY. We still have ¾ of it left, one day later. We went to bed at 7pm and I woke up at 4am, and then made myself sleep until 5:30am. We got ready and ate breakfast at 6:30am. It was so lovely to have an American style breakfast with a TV playing a news station in ENGLISH. Oh, how I’ve missed my country! We’ll leave this afternoon to fly back to FL. I can’t wait to see my husband, Tyler, and son, Keith!

We haven’t heard any updates on Calvin’s surgery. I hope it went well and that he’s recovering well. He had a hard recovery from his first surgery, so I hope this one will be smoother. Prayers are still appreciated, as heart surgery is extensive and very serious. Thanks!

Goodbye Nizhny Novgorod - we'll be back soon! Hugs and kisses to my boys: Calvin & Silas! Your mama loves you lots!

7th visit with Silas

2011-05-04T08:24:00.000-04:00

We played with Silas inside, because it was cold and threatening rain outside. Silas is babbling sounds, although they don’t sound like words yet. He doesn’t respond to his Russian name, hearing issues? He had a lot of fun and after an hour of playing with us, he was very tired and sweaty. When I dropped him off with his caregiver, I got the feeling that he didn’t want me to go. That made me happy and sad at the same time. I am going to miss him and Calvin when we go home this week. I only have one more visit with Silas, which will equal a total of 8 visits with Silas. We saw Calvin 4 times. I am hopeful that the judge will understand why we didn’t see Calvin more times.

Sarah was able to get some antibiotics and they are helping, but making her nauseated at the same time. She threw up an hour ago. L She is eager to get home. Can you blame her? Of course, I think I can speak for all of us here that we’re ready to be HOME!

We went to an outside market. I was hoping to find a “fuzzy hat” or a Russian t-shirt for my brother, Evan, but no such luck. I did see a huge contraption that held gallons of milk, complete with a hose to fill up containers that customers brought in. If I had had my camera, I would have taken a picture. Forget buying milk at the store, just go to an outdoor market and they’ll hook you up. J

A sweet observation: I’ve seen several romantic couples around town. Generally, the girl is holding a long stemmed rose. I think it’s sweet. J

I’m on day 5 of my yeast infection cream. Bad news: it’s not completely gone. I guess I’ll have to go see Dr C when I get home, but it won’t be until Monday. Bummer.

Today we’re going to start packing up and rearranging the furniture back to where it was when we came to the apartment. If I had known it had to be put back, I think we wouldn’t have moved it around so much. I wish Tyler was here to help. L We’re doing laundry and trying to use up all of the food we have. The landlord is coming over tomorrow night to get the keys and make sure the apartment is in good condition.

I should be busy cleaning and packing, but I just feel sort of down right now. It could be due to leaving my boys here in Russia and it should be at least 3-5 months before I can come back and bring them home. It could be that since it’s my second adoption, I know more of what to expect in bringing home two children who come from a foreign country and who don’t speak my language and who both have special needs. It’s not going to be easy. I was ignorant with the twins – I’m not walking into this adoption blindly. It could be my yeast infection that’s not gone. It could also be that we might be losing our tenants up in our Ohioan house, since they lost their job. It could also be that I’ve been in Russia for 4 weeks and I’m ready to be HOME. I don’t like sharing negative thoughts, but I want to remember how I’m feeling – so there it is. Positive encouragement and prayers is appreciated. In the meantime, here’s some eye candy for you:

Playground

2011-05-03T07:00:00.000-04:00

We played with Silas outside today. It appears that he doesn’t play outside very much. His coordination and balance was lacking. His favorite toy is the rocking horse – I can tell that I need to have one waiting for him when we bring him home. J He played on the slide with his sister, Anna, a lot, too. He and Anna have such a sweet relationship. Anna is so kind and helpful with him. She will be such a great mama someday. He seems much more comfortable with me loving on him now, which is nice to see. I love cuddling him and kissing on his big cheeks. He’s so adorable!

After we left the orphanage, we drove to the bigger grocery store. I bought a strawberry cake to take to Silas’ orphanage tomorrow for his caregiver and the orphanage director and I bought a chocolate cake for Sveta (and her mother and grandmother). Sveta has been such a wonderful facilitator; I wanted to give her something before we leave. I also picked up some Dr Pepper for me and some of the cheese pizza. J They also had some strawberry milky way candy bars that I picked up. They look…interesting.

So Tyler is trying to potty train Keith and his teachers at school are working with him as well. Here’s a dialogue from yesterday:

Ms Tammy said that Keith had a little accident right at the end of the day and he had just gone to the bathroom a few minutes before.

Ms Tammy asked, "What happened? You just went to the bathroom."

Keith said, "I turned the hose off."

Bwa-ha-ha-ha!

I took some pictures during today’s visit with Silas, but I left the camera in Sveta’s car, so I’ll post them tomorrow. By the way, the adoption button for my blog is fully operational! So feel free to post it on your blog to spread the work about our boys! Thanks in advance! :)

Adoption button

2011-05-02T08:31:00.000-04:00

So, I've been working on this adoption button for my blog! What do you think?

I am hoping to get it fully operational with a code and everything and put it on this blog so that anyone can post it on their website and help us get the word out about bringing our boys home. A typical topic that comes along with international adoption is fundraising. I don't know anyone who just LOVES to raise money, no matter how just the cause is. It can be frustrating, because you want to bring home these special children, yet you don't have $40,000 just hanging out in your bank account. If you do, well, I'm happy for you and if can spare some, please donate towards our adoption! So please, if you can, look for the adoption button that I'll be posting on the sidebar, and help us spread the word. We really need to get these boys home. They need to meet with pediatric cardiologists as soon as possible to get them on the correct treatment, medicine (if applicable), and surgery(ies) that they need. Thanks in advance!

Tyler & Keith are doing well back at home. Apparently, a group of black/brown widows decided that they wanted to infest our front yard. Lucky us. So, Tyler spent all day Saturday looking and destroying all that he could find. My hero! Tyler is also trying to potty train Keithy. Calvin is already potty trained, so it would be nice to just have Silas in diapers when we bring the boys home. Pray for Keith - he's learning how to hold his bladder, but not initiating the need to go to the potty.

Keith is happy to be back at school. His teacher, Ms S, asked him where he was. Keith replied, "Russia." Ms S asked Keithy where Iryna was, and he replied, "With Mama." He's really understands more than I think he does. What a smart boy! Speaking of school, I recently came across this website: The Writing Faculty. Has anyone else heard of it? Looks like a great resource. :)

Sarah is out with Sveta right now. Her back looks like it is healing, although causing her a lot of pain. Please keep her in your prayers. She's such a good friend of mine and has come all this way to help me - I feel bad that she's hurting. My yeast infection is still here. I'm on day 3 of the cream. I hope it is completely better by day 5!!! The next 3 days we are able to visit Silas, but not today because Russia is celebrating their Labor Day (May 1st). The girls and I have been playing wii, yahtzee, and just being together. I sure do love my two daughters. It's strange to think that soon I will have more sons than daughters. I'm excited to have more children to love and care for and to help with their medical needs. I feel so blessed to live in the US and to have such incredible military insurance - how can I not share my blessings with these two sweet boys? I can and I will and it makes my heart sing to do so. Thank you, God, for helping me to help these children. I am grateful to be your servant.

Consider the Lilies

2011-05-01T13:49:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a cold, dreary day, so we opted to stay inside all day. Sarah has a rash on her lower back that has been giving her some trouble and so she hasn’t been feeling well. I appear to have a yeast infection – nice timing, eh? So, I went down to the pharmacy and was able to get the 5 dose treatment. I’m on day two and hope to feel some relief very soon. With both of us just not feeling good, we watched a lot of HOUSE and ate some comfort food (macaroni & cheese).

Today is Fast Sunday, so I fasted that we would have a safe trip home – with the overnight train ride, and the flight to NY and the flight home to FL. I pray that we’ll be protected and that we won’t have any problems. Church was wonderful – I invited both Alexei and Sveta (both came) to hear me sing CONSIDER THE LILIES. The testimonies were wonderful and even Anna bore a very short testimony (in English). I am proud of her. My song went well – I wish that they could have understood the words, but most seemed to enjoy the song. I enjoy bearing my testimony through singing. J

In Sunday school class, we watched a video about Joseph Smith. I felt the Holy Spirit so strongly. He truly was a prophet of God. Alexei enjoyed the video and said that he feels it is true. This evening, the missionaries and Alexei came over for ham & potato soup, macaroni & cheese, and blini (with bananas & nutella) for dinner. They also shared a spiritual thought and I felt the spirit again. I love feeling the Holy Spirit of God. Sarah also received a priesthood blessing for her rash. It was a wonderful evening.

Here are some pictures:

Walking to church.

Elder Beck, Alexei, & Elder Bitner.

Sister Rosenbladt, Sarah, Elder Bitner and Denis playing foozball (spelling?); Iryna playing chess; Anna & I playing pingpong.

Russian Holiday

2011-04-29T09:28:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow is a holiday here in Russia – similar to Labor Day back in the US. Today the traffic was CRAZY busy and slow. Everyone was out on the streets. It normally takes 20 minutes to get to Silas’ orphanage. Today it took an hour. We had a great visit with Silas. He loves playing with Anna and he warmed up to me really fast. Iryna wasn’t interested in playing with Silas at all – I can’t figure out if she was jealous of him or if she just wanted to play with the toys. She didn’t seek out my attention, so perhaps it was just a fun room full of toys that held her interest. We got about an hour and 20 minutes with him. By the end Silas looked like he needed a nap! (He’s not the only one).

Sveta dropped us all off at the bank so I could exchange some money. All of our bills are super crisp and nice – I made sure of that – so I was frustrated that she wouldn’t accept one of the 100 dollar bills for the full amount. She said she would accept it for 8% less of what it should have exchanged for – no thanks, lady! I’ll just hang on to it until I get back in the states where they’re not so picky!

We decided to dine at the upscale McDonald’s for lunch. It was about $20 for 40 chicken nuggets, 2 small French fries, 3 packages of ketchup, and 2 medium orange sodas. I wonder how that compares to the US prices.

On the way outside of McDonalds, imagine my surprise to run into Alexei. We met him at McDonald’s a week ago when we went together with Tyler & Keith. He was sitting next to us and seemed to be very interested in our speaking English in us. We started a conversation with him and (through the help of the missionaries translating for us to him on the phone) we invited him to the game night last Friday night. He agreed and came to play games. We invited him to church on Sunday and over to our home for Easter dinner. He called (the missionaries) to say that he was feeling sick, so we hadn’t heard from him since then.

Alexei speaks very limited English, but is just such a NICE guy and he tries very hard to communicate with us. He said today that he’s going to the game night tonight and we said we’d see him there. We told him that we were on our way to do some souvenir shopping at a souvenir store (instead of the stands on the walkway) to find some souvenirs. He said he was going to eat at McDonald’s. We said goodbye and off we walked to the store. About 5 minutes later, you can imagine my surprise when Alexei and another guy were again by my side. He introduced us to Dmitri, who speaks a little more English than Alexei. They went with us to the store which was full of overpriced items and then walked us back to our apartment. Dmitri said he works with shipping vessels and that most of the workers are foreign and speak English. He seemed like a nice guy. We invited him to play games but he said he already had plans.

Now we’re back at the apartment and have a couple of hours before game night. I think that nap still sounds good! By the way, Tyler & Keith are now home and probably jetlagged. I am enjoying myself here in Russia, but I am eager to get home, myself, and get the paperwork going so we can come back to get our boys!

Thank you all for reading my blog and for giving me encouragement and support in this adoption. As you know, it’s not an easy process. There are many ups and downs with emotions all over the place. It’s nice to know that I have so many friends and family who are praying for me and helping me to continue on this journey that God has placed me on. I am so blessed to know you all. Thank you.

Carsickness

2011-04-28T10:05:00.000-04:00

Sveta drove Sarah, Iryna, Anna, & I to the village, Viska, to see Calvin. Remember how carsick Tyler & I have been on our drives to see Calvin? Well, poor Anna was carsick, too. In fact, she threw up in the car about 20 miles outside of Viska. We weren’t prepared for vomit, so it got all over Sveta’s backpack and the floor of the car. Bleah. Sarah volunteered to clean it up, as she doesn’t have a weak stomach. Smelling vomit makes me want to vomit. ::shudder:: Have I mentioned how amazing Sarah is and how we couldn’t do this trip without her???

When we arrived at the orphanage, Calvin was outside playing with the other children. He ran up to me when he saw me and I gave him a hug. From then on out he was playing and showing me toys, etc. I think that he has a hearing problem. When I said his (Russian) name or when other caregivers spoke to him, it was as if he couldn’t or didn’t hear them. Or perhaps he was “in the zone” and didn’t realize we were talking to him. I’m hoping that it will be something easy to fix upon bringing him home. I can hope, right?

The drive back was vomit-free and we learned to have a plastic bag in Anna’s lap to prevent any other spewing in the car. J There was Dr Pepper ($4 per can) at the grocery store in Viska, so I took advantage of that for the drive home.

Calvin is having surgery on May 5^th in Moscow. I spoke with Sveta about going to see him as much as possible before he leaves. However, the director said that he’s leaving either tonight or sometime tomorrow for Moscow – super early! If he will be there tomorrow afternoon, we’ll go back tomorrow to see him. If not, then today was my last visit to see Calvin on trip #1. L

Apparently, Tyler was supposed to arrive yesterday at 7pm in Miami. Sarah’s husband, Rodolfo, waited for 3 hours before going home. It turns out that Tyler’s flight from Moscow was delayed and so he missed his connecting flight in Atlanta. The next flight out of Atlanta wasn’t until 7am this morning, and even with that there was a chance of delay. Tyler left his cell phone at home (wasn’t that a smart move?) and so he couldn’t call Rodolfo to let him know what was going on. How frustrating! I hope that Tyler & Keith will arrive in Miami soon and start on the long 3 hour drive home from there. I’m sure Tyler is exhausted – I hope the airline put them up in a hotel since the flight was delayed…wishful thinking?