A Blog Over

My friend, Jackie, had her blog redone and it looks awesome. Then when she told me about who did it, I couldn't resist doing my own. Blogovers with Love is a group of wonderful designers who donate their talents in exchange for a donation to a children's charity. For a small donation, you get a beautiful blogover and get to help a worthy cause. You can't beat that. So I thank them so much for doing such a great job on this blog and I encourage anyone else who may need a blogover to check out their website. Thanks Jen & Sarah!

Some videos of Klintsy

One of the moms on my Bryansk Adoption Yahoo Group posted her and her husband's videos on You Tube of their trips to pick up their little girl. Their daughter was in the Klintsy baby home with Aaden and these videos are from this past December and January. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of Aaden but we weren't that lucky. But since our video camera broke while we were in Russia and we didn't get to video it, this was such a blessing to find. These videos give you more of sense of what it's like in Bryansk and Klintsy than just the pictures I took:

This first half of this one is in Moscow. Once you see them on the train (it's the same train we took), that is Bryansk and Klintsy. You see them walk into the orphange and then it's back to Moscow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhH_glzjRrA&feature=user

This one starts out in Moscow with the Kremlin all lit up for the holidays. Then it changes to their daughter in the Klintsy orphanage and you get to see more of the inside and where the babies play and sleep. We didn't even get to see this when we were there. After the credits there's more of the inside of the orphange.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDE_4I9zlVc&feature=related

This one starts out as they drive into the town of Klintsy on the way into the orphanage to pick up their daughter. It's a great example of what the town looks like and the outside of the orphanage. The hotel they go to after they pick up their daughter is where Michael and I stayed in Bryansk. At around 2 mins 15 sec they switch to Moscow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcdWzPtr70s&feature=related

I hope you enjoy these. We really did :)

What a wonderful day...

We were so blessed yesterday as our friends and family got together to throw us a baby shower. It was so much fun to finally be able to celebrate with everyone and share our in our joy as we prepare for Aaden to come home. It was a very special day for us. Thank you to everyone that shared in it.

I can't even believe all the gifts we recieved! I think we got just about everything we need plus more (thanks to the experienced moms out there that thought of things I never would have!). Now I have plenty to keep me busy for a while as I go through it all and start to put Aaden's room together. It's already starting to look like a little boy's room. As we get closer to finishing it I'll make sure to post some pictures. Thanks to everyone for sharing in our excitement and making our shower an extra special day!

One little step closer

We found out late last week that all our paperwork has officially been submitted to the Bryansk courts and they have not asked for anything else. Of course things can always change in this process but we are told this is one of the points where you can hit delays if they ask for more paperwork. Since they didn't, we are taking this as a good sign. One step down, a bunch more to go! Now it will be at least a couple more weeks (or more) before we hear about a preliminary court date, which is the next step before we get the date to travel. We are hoping things continue to go smoothly so we can bring Aaden home sooner rather than later.

A little more about our boy...

Sorry this took so long but things were so busy when we got home. This is Aaden when he was only 5 months old. It is the only baby picture we have of him and we feel so lucky to even have this. I got it off of the Russian Children's website before they took it off.

Aaden was born on December 19, 2006. He has blond hair and blue eyes and was about 30 inches tall and 20 lbs when we were there in March. He was born premature at 30 weeks so we are quite impressed with how far he has come. He was the sweetest little guy, he came right to us and didn't have a problem at all. He was so close to walking - if you let him hold your little finger he would take off running and he could stand and play with his toys without losing balance. I know when we go back, he will be walking so I guess we'll have to childproof the house now :) We were told to expect him to be a bit delayed so we thought we'd get a few months before we had to do any of that but we are so happy that he is healthy and on par for his age.

Now begins our next wait. We need to get a court date before we can go back to Russia and the average time is about 1-4 months. We will spend about 3 weeks there - going to court to start the finalization, then they'll be a 10 day waiting period, and then Aaden will officially be part of our family! We'll have custody of him only the last few days we are in Russia and then we'll have to run around getting his passports and going to the US Embassy to officially make him a US citizen. It's so exciting to finally be this close and to have met Aaden and know what an amazing little guy we have waiting for us on the other side of all this.

Until then, we are keeping busy trying to get the house ready. We hadn't done anything because we wanted to wait to find out the age & gender so now I'm definately in nesting mode. I hope the wait is short but if not, I think I have plenty to keep me busy for a while! Here's a few more photos we took during our trip (there was a flu epedemic going on so they made us wear those masks):