Winter Wonderland in Seattle

Well, as we wait, wait, wait for our referral from Russia, we are enjoying the holidays in our Seattle Winter Wonderland. It is currently snowing and we are experiencing a deep freeze. It is simply fun. I was throwing snow balls at Michael (and be hit with them) as we played with our dog, Bernie. I kept thinking as we have been sent photos of friends babies playing in the snow, that will be our time soon, hopefully.
Well, off to bake and watch holiday films.

Disney Fun!

Ahh, the bumps in the road. . .

Good thing Michael and I are used to doing everything we do in life the difficult way. Well, our dossier is now having to be redone due to a notary stamp expiring too soon from our social worker. She is now having to go back and re-do all of the papers. The sad part about it is it is delaying this process about a month, plus we have to go back down to Olympia and have everything re-apostilled. Ugh! Another hundred dollars, half a day off work and more driving.

Like I said, at least we are used to it, however an abnormal amount of patience is required. :)

"Does that come in adult size L?"

Fun, fun, fun! This is the fun part, get it? Anyhoo, I took a photo as I knew some of you would greatly appreciate the wear.

Our Dossier is Complete!

Well, now for the wait. I am already consumed with things to do so it won't be difficult getting through the wait time. I say that now, right? ;) I am relieved the holidays are in between this wait as this way I can keep even busier and think about what it might be like next holiday season.

We have chosen a name after much discussion. Our little boy's name will be "Logan". Logan Aleksandr Booth. This was decided on America's historic day electing Barack Obama. It seems to me, it makes it a bit more special and surely memorable.

I must get my Russian going as I think Michael is way past me. Figures, maybe it is because I am doing all of the paper work hehe ;). Give myself an excuse.

I just finished five hours of copying, signing, and mailing. It is quite exhausting. After a day of starvation, I quickly pounced on my appetite with a Bell Burrito and taco. Hmm, tasty! Tastier it seems when you realize all you have been swallowing lately is coffee.

I am heading to look for a Russian restaurant in our area. I can't wait to get a few recipe's going.

Next on my things to do, create the life book.

The room is almost done!

It is really funny in the beginning as you have this image of how the room may look and suddenly your husband has become an interior decorator over night and wants to share his input on every little detail. It has been a fun experience working on this room with him. At times it has been a bit hilarious as I can speak about what I would like done, however when it really must be done, it is a whole other story. I wanted a shelf put up under the window, poor Michael drilled it in, it fell out, he improvised as the package did not come with all of the parts. Two hours later, dry wall is all over the wood floor, his clothes and face, hehe, and it still wasn't up. It didn't take me much to drag him out and continue the next day, however it has a weight limit of about 6 lbs. Haha. So I pushed on it to make sure our little one would be okay, (clearing my throat), I think you can guess what happened. I have to give Michael credit, his patience is unbelievable. Great practice, now for mine, hehe. Here are a couple pics of the room as we finish it up. It is difficult to see, however it is a honey pale yellow with a matching shaggy rug, wood floors, black furniture, khaki drapes, blanket, and organic khaki crib interiors. We put up the Russian jersey we received from Michael's parents when they went to Russia. We are bolting down the hockey stick and have a toy chest with the Boston Bruins logo. The mini directors chair is still coming with the same logo. We are almost done but I still want to make some creative touches.

Furniture Building

Hiegh Ho, Heigh Ho, we're off to build a crib we go....well Michael is off to build a crib. I was the handy assistant. I love how they put on many of these furniture pieces, "Easy to assemble" lol, that's a crack up. It took about four hours for each furniture piece.

Home Study Approved!

Well, after plenty of hard work and rearranging our entire house to make room for a baby's room, we had our home study and it was approved! Hooray! We are one third of the way there. . .

We had fun putting together the baby room. We have pale honey yellow walls (very pale), black furniture, Boston Bruins toy chest, pale yellow rug, a hockey stick on the wall and a Russian hockey team jersey brought back from Michael's parents when they visited Russia last year.

We are now going over names. Of course, Michael gets choice of girl and I get choice of the boy, lol haha, well no doubt he has great influence in the choices. I have always loved Ayden, means little fire, fiery and Liam, means unwavering protector both, Gaelic, which is a huge factor to bring our culture into the name. The middle name is Alexander. He likes Campbel, Scottish Highland Clan from 1320 led by the Dukes of Argyle and a family name for Michael. It means crooked mouth. We both have mulled over Logan, means hollow, again Gaelic in origin.

I have a feeling this will be a topic revisited for many days....

Back to copying forms.

Our Russian Adventure Begins...

On August 21st, Michael and I made the decision officially to adopt a child. We chose Russia after doing extensive research. This we realized soon enough would be no small task, yet everything Michael and I have ever chosen to do has been an uphill, challenging road. "Nothing good comes easy"

We made this decision at our favorite spot in making very difficult decisions, Disneyland Resort.

This is going to be an extremely interesting path. With words I heard from another parent this is truly a Paper Pregnancy. Michael and I received the home study documents, about 30 pages or more to fill out and send out to the FBI, friends, and family members. We have done our fingerprinting, we are ordering our original copies of our important legal certificates and we are getting to know the UPS and FEDEX people very well.
Shortly there after, we received our first dossier papers. OH MY GOODNESS!!!! "Simply breathe" has been my motto following the large pile of documents to be filled out, notarized, and apostilled. "Simply breathe". After some serious funding and an amount of paper work to give us a temporary full time job beyond the our normal work, we have been busy organizing and preparing for three interviews next week with our social worker. I have been told by many this is a serious amount of time, commitment, and patience when it comes to getting through the beginning process. The mid part is the waiting for a referral and the last part is the first trip to meet our new child and the second trip for three weeks to stand before a Russian court judge, to bond with our child, and travel a bit of Russia to gain more knowledge of our child's culture.

At the moment we have been advised to create the children's room with furniture and the house must be completely child proofed along with an emergency ladder, fire extinguishers, carbon monoxide detectors, gates, and smoke alarms in every room. Whew!
"Simply breathe".

The children's room brought us to a higher level of reality and we were amazed that this might actually be happening. This didn't even include the 15 or so books my mother has sent me on parenting and cute one's for the child. Bottom line, our book shelf for the child is full.

We are still going through beginning mountains, (not bumps in the road), however hopefully after the 4th time sending in Michael's passport, it will be returned so we can further our paper work.

Off to organize paper work.