Introducing Dennis Jack Reed!!!

Today was apparently a good day. After all, we had our court date, and he's our son now. Our coordinator had even "won over" the heart of the judge and jury to waive our 10 days...
But this is never waived and has never been waived in Kramatorsk. Even now. The heart, or lack of such, of the prosecutor was not won over. He essentially said that if the judge ruled illegally to pursue with the "immediate decision", then we would be fighting the prosecutor for the next few MONTHS. He was against it the whole time and logic and reason and compassion was not going to pursuade him.
Nevertheless, Dennis is ours and we can show his pictures now and so here are a few...
As to what exactly the next few days and weeks look like, we aren't certain yet--we are waiting to see if tickets to Kiev are available, flight date changes, etc. But it is entirely possible that we are going to return immediately (as soon as practical that is) to home in California to relieve family and friends that have been holding down the fort as well as to get John back to work. John may have to take another week off mid July to return to Ukraine to get Dennis.
But none of this is certain yet and we'll keep options open and communicated later as known...

This is an early one of him and the balls from the ball pit that always made him smile.

This is a good one of the three of us...

Checking to hear Dad's heart beat...

Napping in mama's arms after a great long nature walk...

Ditto but dad's arms this time...

And the star of this blog!!!
--JR

One Step Closer

Our social worker visit couldn't have gone better last night. :)

It is so silly how I tend to get a little nervous the day of these visits, when we are old pros at the home study process. Between adopting three times before and having four post-placement visits, they shouldn't phase me anymore. But still, I found myself doing a little bit of extra cleaning. You guys know what I am talking about.

It got real when the part came when she asked us what kind of child or children we wanted to adopt. You know questions like, "Are you hoping to adopt a boy or a girl?" "What age range would you consider?" "Have you thought about birth order?" "What disabilities if any are you willing to consider?" "What made you decide on that?"

The visit ended with her looking at the room we are preparing for this child. We have already done little things to make this child feel welcome into our home. Sveta wanted to make sure that the blanket we got for his crib would be nice and cozy. William wanted to make sure that the bed was fixed properly. The girls have dug up baby toys that I had given them to play with when they played babies. Jonny helped me to pick out the comforter. All of the kids have helped me to move furniture.

Sure we still have a long way to go, but little by little, it is coming along great. I might get brave and paint a little mural of dinosaurs on the wall like I did for the boys' room upstairs.

Each day, we are one step closer.

On a final note, I wanted to thank my Aunt Tanya. Right before the visit last night, she called to ask about when we thought we would travel. She was considering coming up to help with the kids while we are gone. She doesn't know, but she brought tears to my eyes because she helped in answering a huge prayer request I've had --- That we find childcare for when we are gone.

This is the last time for a while --- I promise

I went shopping at Costco the other day and bought two more things. They were very cute and only six or seven dollars each. I promise to stop buying clothes for awhile, at least until we submit our dossier.

BTW, if our homestudy visit is tomorrow, how long do you think it will take until we get the finished product so I could submit our I-600? How long was yours?

Social Worker Visit Scheduled and a Crib

We are almost done with our home study paperwork. Just the medicals are left, and we are getting them done in the morning. I've written a check for the remaining balance of our home study fees and the social worker is scheduled to come out Monday evening. Everything is going very quickly this time, and I anticipate having our home study finished by the end of November. Much quicker than last time around.

Today I happened to run into someone from church that I knew would be great to ask about a crib. Turns out she had one in the garage that she was more than happy to give me. I was very thankful because now we can have it set up for when the social worker comes to visit.

I wanted to mention that I have another blog about our family's smiles and trials, so please come check it out. It's link is under my other blogs.

We're gonna be pirates!

Jonny and I after looking through many comforters online, decided on this cool pirate one. I think it looks great and will stay age appropriate for many years to come for him and our new son. Plus, I got a really good deal on it!

Sorting out the marbles

I already feel the nesting coming on. I know it sounds really silly, but I spent a good part of the weekend sorting through all of the toys in our playroom. My wonderful mother-in-law came over for a while and helped me. Annalyn chipped in to. We went through everything and separated out all of the choking hazards. No more marbles or legos.

Our plan is to move Adam and Caleb to what used to be our playroom, and make their old bedroom which is right next to ours, the new room for Jonny and his new brother.