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):

Introducing Aaden Michael!

We are very happy to share these first photos of our new son, Aaden. He is 15 months old and is already running if you let him hold your finger! He loves to laugh when his daddy picks him up and raises him in the air and to snuggle with his mommy when he wakes up from his nap. The hardest part now will the wait to come back and get him. Here is our first photo with Aaden:

We are in Moscow!

We've been in Moscow now for a little more than 24 hours and we are getting ready to leave and head to Byransk. We spent that time touring the Kremlin and Red Square. It is cloudy and cold but it is still beautiful there. We haven't seen anyone from the adoption agency yet so no news or information on the baby. We leave here in 2 hours for the train station and should arrive in Bryansk sometime in the middle of the night. We'll have a little time to pop over to our hotel before we are off to the Ministry of Education to get our official referral. And then to the baby home to meet our little one. How exciting! I'm not sure if we will have internet access in Bryansk since it is far out from the city. If we don't, we will be back in Moscow Thursday morning and can post something then. I can't wait until the next post introducing the newest addition to our family :)

Leaving on a Jet Plane!

What a crazy day! We got a call at 3pm that we are leaving for Moscow on Saturday evening. It's been a whirlwind trying to get all the paperwork ready and make reservations. We are excited, nervous, happy - all at once. The little girl we were matched with last week has been adopted by a Rusian couple during our delays. So we know we have been matched with a new child but our adoption agency wasn't given any information. So we won't know gender or age until we get there, but we are up for an adventure and a suprise. I'll post more details tomorrow.

Another delay

We were told again today that the person in Russia was out of the office and we could not get our paperwork. At this point, I don't even know what to write as this has happened so many times that it is unbelievable to me. I am not going to post the new date they gave us as I don't believe them anymore. I guess it will just happen when it happens. I do promise to post once we get some good news though.

One more week

Yes, another delay. I know this is starting to seem unbelievable because that's how we feel too. But we got another call today that our paperwork can't be ready. The new day for everything to be ready is March 11th and our tentative date to travel is March 16th. So we start another countdown and another wait. What else can we do but dig deep and try to find some more patience? The right time will come and we'll finally be able to meet our baby. I'm just hoping it's soon.

One more day

Today wasn't "the" day. Seems that someone was out of the office in Russia and we weren't able to get our travel visas. Our adoption agency still thinks we should be able to leave on March 10th though. So we are crossing our fingers. Tune in tomorrow for some better news...