Bad Blogger From EE

So, I was reprimanded by Renee for not posting in several days and figured I better do an update for everyone who has been following along.

Things are just kind of ground hog day... ish. Same sounds, same images of the same dogs in the street, women in high heels, cats screeching outside our window every night, same food for breakfast, same trip down the same road to the Nicolaev Baby House, same familiar sickish feeling in our stomach from eating different foods everyday.

Same comical sights and whatnot. Like...
"Does this chicken wrap smell like feet?"

"why is there mayo and ketchup smeared all over the fries?"

 "is that raw chickens on buckets at that babushkas feet?" Can that be okay???

"is that white sauce mayo, sour cream,  or kefir maybe??? whatever it is..its warm..don't eat it!"

"look at that sign..the picture has a goat on a skateboard on it with a strike through it...no goats on skateboards allowed???"

We have learned to chalk all the little quirks up to it being what it is..Ukraine. And we wouldn't change a thing. Except maybe the toilet paper.

We are thankful for one another, for humor and honestly, for the time we have spent here. Yes, its groundhog day..ish but we will likely never return here.

Well, never say never.

 We are in a routine but trying to soak as much in as we can. We walk everywhere and try to venture out and see new things. Our perspective on walking places is completely different now. "how far is that pizza place? a little over a mile? oh, thats not far - lets go!" We walk everywhere except for to our visits to the orphanage.

Our routine is mostly the same but our visits with Sveta are not really the same everyday. She always wants to do something different. Somedays its playdough. Somedays its sit and be quiet..ish. Somedays its play hide and seek, slide, seesaw and run like a maniac. She is calling us mama and papa and today we almost cried...because she said "UH OH!" and "AGAIN!" when Eli was tossing her into the air.

 But...more importantly she is seeking us out to help her with things, to comfort her. We are learning what makes her tick and she is learning who we are. We know there is a long road ahead for all of us.
We have fallen more in love with her over the tiny bit of time we have known her.

We look at her, with tears in our eyes and say "she is our child"

Somehow, by his grace God in heaven made us her parents.

Giving daddy kisses.

 We laugh over Sveta's daily hairstyles. She is always sporting some kind of multi pony tail, hair bow fiesta. This one hairstyle was particularly festive. And always, she is the cutest little thing in her orphanage couture.

                    Bobbing her head to a hannah montana song Paige had on the ipod. So cute!

When she smiles, laughs, wraps her little arms around our neck we are reminded of why we came here.

For Sveta. To take her home.

Our home. Her home.

We have four days left of the ten day wait. Four days. On Tuesday, July 5th we hope to say goodbye to the orphanage. It will be bittersweet - she has been there since she was five months old. Many of her cargivers have taken care of her since she was a baby. Everyone knows her name.

But it will be time - time to begin our life as a family.

Almost there.

Hang on Little One...not too much longer.

The 10 Day Wait Begins!

You know if you have been here, done that...that after your court hearing you have a mandatory 10 day wait before you can pick up the court decree. Well...ours has officially begun! After 10 days we can take Sveta Josie out of the orphanage! We had planned on returning home for the 10 day wait but now realize it will actually be easier (believe it or not!) to both stay and all come home together.

So...we have NOTHING for Sveta! We had clothes, pull ups, toys for the plane, etc. at home but didn't bring any of it on this trip. We have ventured out to try and buy her clothes. We are going to try to wrangle her into them this afternoon to see if they fit....will let you know how that goes...ha! !/2 a day over and no one has yelled at us today or laughed at us. Well...we did get followed in a toy store because I guess we look very suspicious. The sales girl was practically on our heels the entire time we were in the store.

Flip flops and capri pants seem to put folks on high alert here.

I have to say THANK YOU for your comments and emails. It is our link to HOME and we are so thankful to have your support. THANK YOU to everyone who donated to help with plane tickets...this has been a tremendous blessing to us.

This one is gonna be short and sweet....ending with Miss Sveta....I think Masha was saying something to her about her mama and papa...look at Sveta's face! Kind of like "Really, okay let me drink my juice?!"

Foresight

  "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart."

Born May 29, 2007. Five pounds, 17 inches. She spent the first six months of her little life as a tiny, sick baby in a hospital. After six months she was sent to the baby orphanage and has since lived her entire life within the same walls.

Today, in a courtroom in Nikolaev, Ukraine nervously standing before a judge and jurors we we became her parents, her mommy, her daddy, her FAMILY.

Today she became a daughter, a sister, a grandchild. Loved, cherished, never, ever given up again.

Held in our arms - For LIFE.

Today this tiny little person with shy eyes and hands which always want to be wrapped in her mommy's became........

Our DAUGHTER. Svetlana Josie Houser. She will be called Sveta. Our Sveta Josie.

The Lord gave me her middle name as I was staring at her photo months ago. "Josie"

The next day I looked up the meaning on the computer.

Josie - "The Lord will multiply. God will increase"

Oh, and how He has. He has multiplied our love for Sveta, he has increased our family. He has shown His glory in this long journey to her. The Lord led us to people here in Ukraine who are doing His work in the orphanages and we are in awe that He led us directly to them and brought us all together.

Last night at dinner we met with these amazing people and learned more about their work here and how they have been praying for so many children, and for Sveta to have a family. They have known her since she was a year old. We found out things we never would have known. Tears filled the eyes of almost every person and God's presence was powerful at that table.

Never, ever give up on the adoption journey. It is a emotionally draining process. At times you wonder why in the world you are doing this. But continuing to look UP at the one in control and we can regain focus. There are so many children here who need and desperately LONG FOR a family, the love of one mommy, one daddy.

Today there is one less orphan in the world.

She is our precious, spunky, yet shy little girl.

She is cherished. The Lord placed us on this journey and some called us crazy. We knew all along He holds the foresight and knew the outcome. He has planned the lives he wants us to touch, the paths he wants us to take, the gifts He wants us to use for His glory.

And sweet Sveta - He has set her apart and made no mistakes in her creation or the path which led her to us.

And so today, Friday, June 24th, 2011 Svetlana Josie Houser was adopted into our life, our family.


We look upward, praising God and say "Father, we thank you"

Oh how we thank Him. The author of all salvation.

Our ten day begins tomorrow and we should be able to take Sveta out of the orphanage around the 5th or 6th of July. We will continue to keep everyone updated!

Humor. Must have humor.

Court is actually tomorrow at 11am! Somehow the dates/days got mixed up. So, when everyone in the US are sleeping we will be having court for Little One. We are so thankful for your comments on the blog, for your emails, prayers and support.

You can't imagine how much it means to have this link to home. I have been trying to comment on other people's blogs but it won't let me.

SO. If you are reading this...Renee..why are you moving?! I am having trouble with email also but can somewhat get email at our gmail account. And Michelle - I miss talking to you everyday!!!

The past two days have been rough I suppose. Just missing the P's and home. It's worth it for Little One but homesickness has set in big time.

We have to get by with humor though. Today we entertained an entire store of young girls simply by being complete idiots and not realizing we were buying conditioner when we needed body soap. The whole store of workers came up front to laugh and giggle when Eli picked up a bag of mason jar lids and said "whats this?!!!" They were colorful and had a big smiley girl mixing something in a bowl. I just kept repeating to myself "only two more weeks, only two more weeks."  We did manage to buy some shirts yesterday and the girls in the stores were really sweet, tolerant and helpful. I have no idea what Eli's shirt says though. Something like "Long Gone" but is spelled "Goun"

WHO KNOWS.

I ate an entire bowl of cabbage for lunch. It was delicious but...it's cabbage.

I am not dead.

Yet.

My allergies/sinues have been horrible so our driver took Eli to get some herbal remedy he said would "cure" it.  I believe I squirted some kind of tree leaf up my nose. Our driver kept saying it would work. He kept referring to a koala bear. How this all relates to my allergies I don't know.

Have mercy.

Must. Have. Humor.

At least we haven't been yelled at by a babushka.

Yet.

Hey, we have two weeks. Who knows what will happen.

We missed our morning visit today because of my horrible sinus problems which seems to be turning into a head cold. The cigarette smoke is everywhere and is doing some major damage on me! Okay enough whining. You want pictures or a video right???

Pray for our court hearing tomorrow. Eli will be doing the talking. I will be trying to not keel over from being nervous!

This is Little One leading us to where she likes to have snack and play. You will hear a little of her ummm...leadership qualities in this as she tells me to "sit!" 

Remember us tomorrow - around 3am central time! Hope to have wonderful news in the next post...and...

Little One's FULL NAME!!! (which we again debated until literally an hour before Masha had to turn in the paperwork!)

Praising God

Praising God everyday for His mercy, His guidance and for the beautiful moments we are making here in a far away land. For the friends we have made along the journey and for God's fingerprint on every snapshot of this walk. We are still on track to have court on Thursday! We will know for sure tomorrow (wednesday) around 3pm our time. Our interpol has come back, just waiting on one more paper to be signed!

We have been having some good visits with Little One and are finding out more about her personality.

Spunky.

Opinionated.

Sweet hearted.

There is not one single reason I could ever come up with that would be an excuse for not saying YES to bringing this little person into our family. After coming here we are completely blown away at how God has worked to bring this little person so full of promise and love into our family.

She is a shining little star.

People tell us she is lucky.

No...WE feel lucky. That God chose US to be her mommy and daddy. Chose Peyton and Paige to be her brother and sister.

Most of the time I am in shock of how huge His love is. His love is what brought us here - to this place, over 4,000 miles away from our home.

His love is carrying us each and every moment, through the incredible reality of missing our other children, to the day we will someday leave the gates of the baby house with Little One for good.

For now though, we are taking our days very easy. A quiet routine is settling into place as we get to know Little One and as she gets to know us (without getting too mad at us for not knowing how to play playdough correctly!). Yes, she speaks very well and quickly when she is ticked off at us! I believe she may have called us big dummies yesterday in her native language.

She even threw in a bit of hands on hips, head shaking and foot tapping.

But in the cutest, most adorable way you could ever imagine, of course.

She is slowly becoming less "hyper vigilant" - meaning when we first met her she always seemed almost on guard as to what was happening around her. She would be engrossed in an activity and would hear something - a car, a baby crying - anything and would stop what she was doing. Her eyes would widen and she would watch/listen/wait to see what was going to happen.

She is now asking Eli to help her with things in her little voice...she will say "papa..."(and then alot of words we dont understand!) But we are learning what she wants and together we are learning to understand one another. She does say mama alot but we know the kids call most any female "mama" at the baby house. She is very, very protective of us though and will literally growl and push at other children in her groupa who get near us. Eli has nicknamed her "alley cat" because she is so fiesty.

We understand though.

She has waited a long time for a mommy and daddy.

We are yours Little One.

Forever.

To end...we are so excited because we got to eat lunch with two other American families, the Krulik and Evans families (Danil and Vera's families)! It was sooo good to talk to other people in English! You simply don't realize how much you take for granted until you are in a foreign land. So amazing at how God has placed us all on this path at the same time, from the same area. Danil and our Little One knew one another well from the baby house and the first time I actually saw Little One she was in a short video with Danil. Amazing how God has weaved this journey for our families.

Everyday we get to see precious Vera with her mama and papa. She has a smile that lights up the world!

Here is a pic of us from today - the Evans and Krulik families, adopting Vera and Danil! It was so fun to talk to them and enjoy a meal together. Praising God for his mercy every day.