One Year Ago....

One year ago today we arrived in Tomsk, Russia and traveled to an orphanage to meet our son. He was very small and was sick when we visited with him on the first trip. He wasn't walking or talking yet.....boy has that changed!!

What a difference a year makes!

All is going great! I promise to get you all updated very soon on everything that's been going on the past 6 months and post some new pictures!

HAPPY EASTER!

Konner has been home 1 month today!

Mama Said.....

Every morning I think to myself when Konner takes his nap I'm going to update the blog, but I end up taking that time to try to clean up this house which used to look half way decent. My mom always had a picture hanging in the dining room that I used to think was odd, but I completely understand it now, it goes something like this: Cleaning the house while the kids are still growing, is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing. This is so true!

I will try to get everyone up to date on how things have been going and I promise to try to keep things current so it doesn't look like we fell off the face of the earth! I'll start from where I left off on the last post....

Konner has slept great since we got him home. I think it had a lot to do with the sleep deprivation in Moscow from cutting teeth and coughing all night long. We have been amazed at how quickly he gotten into his sleeping and napping habits. He wakes up promptly at 7:20 a.m everyday and is VERY impatient waiting for breakfast to be fixed, he eats lunch by 11:45 and naps from 12:00 to 2:00 and is normally in bed between 8:00-8:30 p.m. depending on when he gets done with his bath. It is very hard to get him out of the bathtub now without him getting mad, but we've finally found out that if you let the water out he will get out willingly.

We were told repeatedly before and after we left Russia that we had 30 days to get his immunizations up to date, so we had that done the 2nd week he was home. All I can say is OUCH! By law the most that they can give a kid at one time is 5 shots, so that's how many he had, 2 in one leg & 3 in the other. I felt so sorry for him. His legs swelled up & were hurting, he ran a fever all night long and Alan and I didn't get hardly any sleep that night. Good thing I'm out of work or I wouldn't have been able to function the next day. We have an appointment to get the rest of his shots the end of May and they said he would have 5 that day also, so looks like I need to take off work the next day.

I think we are progressing pretty well with the attachment issues. He still goes to almost anyone, but he immediately wants to come back to Mama or Daddy unless we are with family. Nobody else exists in the world if his PawPaw is around though, I'm pretty sure he is thinking "Mama Who?"! He loves playing with his sisters when they are here and they are very good with him. I think he realized pretty quickly that all he has to do is point at a toy and these sweet girls bring it to him! We've nicknamed him Konner the Con Artist!

He has picked up on some English. The only thing he can really say that we definitely know he understands what it means is bye bye. He starts waving anytime someone says it and starts walking toward the door and if you don't get up and take him outside he is going to be VERY mad! He LOVES the outdoors and it's very hard to get him back inside the house. It used to be a little easier when he was terrified of the cat and dog, but he has now figured out that they are more scared of him than he is of them. The first couple of weeks every time he would see them he would start shrieking in horror, but now he may yell at them, but no serious fear of them. He was beating up on our poor 17 year old dog today. She had sticks and pine cones thrown at her, her ears pulled and he even tripped her a couple of times! Good thing she likes kids! The cat runs as quickly as he can when he sees Konner coming, I guess he doesn't like being smacked on the head & having his fur pulled out!

I have to go back to work on the 15th. I'm not really looking forward to leaving Konner at the daycare all day, but I like my job and I actually kind of miss it. I think I would love to just work part time and still be able to be with my little man most of the day. Konner's been to the daycare 3 times now, but he's only stayed twice. He seems to like it pretty good, he just gets upset when I first leave, but they said he stops crying after a few minutes if they get him interested in something else. He was ready to go when I got back the other day though because he picked up his jacket and waved bye to the teacher when I got there! His cousin Isaac also goes to the same daycare and most of the kids from our church, so it's not like he doesn't know anyone there.

I'm still trying to get all my pictures posted on here. I did add a slide show of our first trip & I plan on adding one for each of the other two trips also. I added another song to my playlist also, I find myself singing it to Konner a lot when he's mad because I can't get his food fixed quick enough or I want let him go outside because it's too cold! "Mama said there will be days like this......."

Glad I could get this song stuck in your head too! ;-)

Life With A Two Year Old

I am SO far behind! I've had a lot of people asking if we were still in Moscow and telling me I needed to update the blog. Things like that are now easier said than done! I guess I should start where I left off in Moscow......


Our coordinator came to our room on Tuesday and had us some paperwork which she took to the Embassy for us to get our appointment, so we had yet another day to fend for ourselves. We decided after nap time Tuesday to venture out on our own and do some sightseeing. We took the metro into Red Square which wasn't too bad, but I wouldn't recommend it. The stroller definitely helped with all the walking we had to do. We had decided before we left that we wanted to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe' and buy some souvenirs while we were out and we did finally get that accomplished. We almost gave up on finding Hard Rock until we finally found a nice lady who spoke some English who walked with us a good little ways to show us where to go. Here is Konner eating at Hard Rock.

We decided to take a taxi back to the hotel instead of torturing ourselves with the metro again and it was so much easier! It wasn't cheap, but at that point we didn't care, little man had been out as long as he could stand it and still be an "angel".

Wednesday we went to the Embassy to have our "interview". It was the easiest part of our whole trip. There were about a dozen other families there and being able to understand everyone in the room with you was wonderful. You really don't have an appointment time at the Embassy, all the families are told to be there at the same time. You pay your fee, go to a room with all the other families, wait to be called to the window and then they go over all the information about the child and make sure their new name is spelled correctly. The interview part takes about 5 minutes and then you sit back down and wait about 30 minutes and they call everyone back up to pick up their envelope for Customs in the US.

I had vaguely mentioned to my blogger friend Tina that bath time was scary, so I should explain that to everyone. When these kids are in the orphanage they clean them with a rag and a pan of water, so they are never actually "submerged" in water. We found out how traumatizing this apparently is when we got to Moscow the first night. I ran some bath water and stripped little man down and it was kind of like putting a cat into water. There was A LOT of screaming and A LOT of crying. I washed him and got him out of there as quickly as a possibly could because I could see he was definitely terrified and we were afraid people in the hotel were going to think we were trying to kill him or something. The second and third bath we had the same problems, but he had stopped screaming as loud. I had tried to get him to splash the water some which he almost liked and he was a little interested in his "parts". Wednesday night, much to our surprise, he suddenly decided maybe it was OK and a few minutes into the bath he was splashing water ALL OVER the bathroom and squealing in delight, he even stuck his face in the water a couple of times! Since we have been home you can't hardly get the child out of the bathtub! If you take off his clothes in the bathroom he's kicking his leg up over the side of the tub trying to get in and cries when he has to get out, even though he is shriveled up like a prune and is sitting in cold water!



We had a decent flight home. Konner threw up on Alan when we got on the plane to go to Munich, but other than that it was OK. He was so tired and felt so bad that he slept a good part of the flight back to Charlotte. When we got to Customs we were detained for about 30 minutes waiting on them to go through our envelope with our paperwork. It wasn't that bad, we were just ready to get out of there and our family was waiting. Alan's parents, brother, and Mary and Molly were waiting for us at the airport and we were so happy to see them and Konner just loved it! When we got home we were surprised by all my family waiting in the dark in our living room! Our nieces and nephews had made a Welcome Home banner for us and everyone had fixed us dinner, made us some sweet tea (we really missed this while we were gone), got us some milk, juice, and cinnamon buns for breakfast Friday morning. They really thought of everything and I can't tell you how wonderful it was not to have to worry about that stuff as soon as we got home!

Well, that gets you caught up to us getting home. We are currently trying to adjust to life with a two year old who seems to think that he is the boss most of the time! I will try to get another post done tomorrow (hopefully) to tell you what's been going on since we've been home and try to get some more pictures posted.

I did figure out today that my friends Tina and Kellie who are both currently in Tomsk were at the same baby home together today (the same one Konner was at). Tina's currently waiting out her 10 days and Kellie is meeting her little girl for the first time!

Day 3 in Moscow

Well, we never made it out to go sightseeing since it's been snowing or icing everyday since we got here. We've all got cabin fever. We went to the end of the block last night and ate at McDonald's which was ok. Tonight we went to TGI Friday's and for the first time in over a week, I AM FULL!!!! It was very good, just like home! Konner is very good when we go out to eat, we are just amazed.
The medical doctor came to our room this afternoon for Konner's exam. He was very nice and said that Konner was in excellent shape. He's cutting some teeth and drooling something awful which makes him cough, but other than that he said he's fine.
Tomorrow our coordinator for Moscow will pick us up and take us to the US Embassy so we can get an appointment for Wednesday for our interview. Leo had told us that she would take us to some of the sights in Moscow if we wanted her to, so we will ask her in the morning. This may be the only opportunity we have for all of us to get out of here together.

We Made It To Moscow

We finally got to our hotel about 2:00 p.m. Moscow time, which is 8 hours ahead of home time. Konner did very good on the flight other than being a big wiggle worm. He finally went to sleep about 3 hours into the flight & only got to nap for an hour. He doesn't normally get up until 7:00 in the morning and they had him up and ready to go out the door when we got there at 6:00. He's been awake ever since his nap, so I'm expecting him to knock out any time. He's currently wide open in our room, terrorizing everything!
We spoke to our coordinator for Moscow earlier and it looks like the doctor will be here to do the medical stuff in the room first thing Tuesday morning & we won't go to the Embassy till Wednesday. That means everything will stay on the current schedule and we won't be home any earlier than originally planned.
Tomorrow we may venture out and see if we can do a little shopping for souveniers and not get lost!
I can't get the spell check to work on Blogger & it's also not letting me post any pictures, sorry you'll just have to wait till we get home!

Last Day In Tomsk!

Yes, you read that correctly! I wasn't sure if I would have time to update the blog tonight since we are having a little party type thing at the orphanage tonight with cake and tea and then I will have to come back and pack up. We picked up Konner's passport this morning and we received an email from our agency saying that there shouldn't be any problems at the Embassy because they would have to have given all the agencies notice if they wouldn't accept the old passports anymore.
There may even be a possibility that we get to come home one day early depending on how quickly we get things done in Moscow the first of the week. We'll keep you updated on that as we learn more.
Nap time is almost coming to an end, so the next time you hear from us will be from Moscow on Saturday!

Alone Time

We went and picked up Konner this morning at 10:30 and kept him till 6:00 this evening. We had a GREAT time with him! They gave us his schedule which we followed as well as we could. We fed him some lunch when we got to the room which consisted of mashed potatoes, crackers, part of a banana, and some apple juice. It took him a few minutes to figure out the sippy cup, since they give them drinks in tea cups at the orphanage which normally ends up all over them! After that he took a nap and it went very well. It only took us about 30 minutes to get him to sleep. He was trying his hardest to get mommy to play instead of sleep and kept poking me and smiling and laughing at me. It was kind of hard not to laugh at him! He slept for about an hour and a half and woke up with the biggest smile on his face! We introduced him to cartoons and baseball (Alan did this of course!) and he was very intrigued by the TV. He even watched Hannah Montana and we recorded some of this for his big sisters to watch. I'm sure Mary & Molly will know what they are saying even though it's in a different language!
He was less than thrilled, as were we, when we had to change him back into the orphanage clothes and put his snowsuit back on. He knows he's going somewhere when the snowsuit comes out.
We will get him again tomorrow for the day, so tomorrow night will be our last night away from him.

I should also mention that when we took his hat off today they had cut (shaved) his hair. I told Alan when we got here that I was going to tell them not to cut his hair again and of course, I forgot. Guess we'll buy some cute little hats to wear till it grows back out.

Trip 3 Day 3

Good news today. Leo convinced the director at the passport agency to go ahead and process Konner's passport the old way. He was apparently pretty persistent and they knew he wasn't going to go away until they said ok. He informed them of the fact that we had already made three trips here and this law had changed during the middle of our process, and the baby home is now taking care of our child and would have to continue doing so until we get the passport, so it is also an added burden to them. They agreed and told him this would be the last time this was done and all passports in the future would be processed according to the new law. The new passport have to be issued out of Moscow, so all future adoptions will be a four trip process since you can't apply for the passport until you have all the documents from the office of Vital Statistics. We did have to sign a letter saying that we wouldn't hold them responsible if the Embassy in Moscow doesn't accept this old style passport. If all goes as planned we should be able to pick up his passport as scheduled on Friday, if they have it finished, if not we would have to wait until Tuesday since Monday is a holiday. Worst case scenario is that we have to stay a few extra days and get home later than originally planned.



We are going to go pick Konner up from the orphanage in the morning and bring him back to our hotel for the day! We are looking forward to some one on one time with him since there is always someone walking through the playroom when we are visiting with him, and he seems to think when one of the caregivers comes in that he is supposed to go with them.

It's Official!

He's FINALLY ours! Today we went to the courthouse and picked up our paperwork with the court decision. Then we went to the office of Vital Statistics and got Konner's new birth certificate. After that we came back to the hotel for a nap while Leo went to see about getting the paperwork for the passport. And the bad news.......Apparently things changed recently and with the new way they process passports it now takes 3 weeks to get the passport. Leo is going to try to meet with the director of that agency in the morning and see if he can get them to process it the old way so we will be able to get it this week. Please be praying that he can get this accomplished because if he can't that will mean we will have to come back home again and wait this out.

On a brighter note.....we got to go visit Konner today and he was all smiles as usual! He seemed to be tired and didn't want to play much with "the car", instead he was loving on his mommy which you know was just fine with me!!

I'm a BAD blogger!

It looks like we fell off the face of the earth after court! We didn't have a whole lot of news to speak of after court since that was on Thursday and we left very early Saturday morning to come home. We got back to the airport at 11:45 p.m. and we were very exhausted to say the least. I ended up getting sick about Germany with a stomach bug or something & didn't get back to my usual self until about Wednesday. With everything that's been going on I just didn't think about the blog, but my biggest blog stalker (Vicky) has been telling me that I needed to update it! So I guess I should oblige!

We leave again on Sunday to go back to Russia. Our 10 day waiting period will be up on the 3rd and that's what day we will get to Tomsk. We will spend a few days there getting Konner's passport and birth certificate. We will leave on the morning of the 7th & go back to Moscow & spend the weekend doing some sight seeing and shopping. The 9th is a holiday in Russia (Women's Day) so we will have to wait until the 10th to get everything done at the US Embassy. We will leave Moscow on the 12th very early in the morning & be back in the states that afternoon.

The family that traveled with us on our first trip desperately needs your prayers. They went back for their second trip this week and the last we had heard things were going very badly and it didn't look like they were going to be able to go to court. I'd also like for everyone to keep my blogger friend Tina in your prayers as she is waiting to get back to get her little guy and is having some problems also.
We've been thanking God all week for how fortunate we have been that things have gone as smoothly as they have. It just breaks our hearts that these other families are having problems.

Hope everyone has a great weekend! The next time you hear from us we will be in Russia!!!!!

The Verdict Is In......

After 3 1/2 hours of intense grilling from the judge we received a favorable ruling! In 10 days from tomorrow Konner will be all ours!!!!!! Everyone said they thought court went really well, although we weren't very sure about it. Alan's speech was so good that I didn't have to make a speech! I had to stand up and answer questions for about 5 minutes which was nothing compared to his. When he was done with his speech the judge and prosecutor asked him questions for about 30 minutes. I felt really sorry for him, but he did very well. I think they stopped asking me questions because they could see that I was getting way too emotional, yes me!

We got to go visit Konner at the orphange this afternoon and all the workers were congratulating us and telling us how happy they were for us and for Konner. One of the caregivers even exchanged email addresses with us because she wants us to send her pictures of him because he has always been her favorite. She also said she has some pictures to send us of Konner when he was smaller. We can tell that they all really care about our son.

We did a little sightseeing after court today. I say little because it's about 3 degrees which is a heat wave here! As promised I took some pictures of the snow. They also have some very pretty ice sculptures near the parks & the white house. I guess they don't have to worry about them melting!

Trip Two Day 3

We've had a pretty uneventful day today. We got to visit little man twice today. The first visit was cut a little short because it was time to eat. When they come to get him and tell him it's time to eat he's outta there! The boy must like to eat because we suddenly don't exist!
One of the orphanage workers told us at our last visit today that last night when it was time for him to go to sleep all he wanted to do was play and he kept throwing his blanket off. She said they told him if he didn't go to sleep Mama wouldn't come to see him tomorrow. She said he immediately went to sleep!!
We have been busy all day preparing our speeches for court. Alan is doing the 10 minute speech and I am doing the 2 minute speech. :-)
Be praying for us that everything goes very smooth tomorrow and that they don't ask a lot of additional questions.
I'll try to post a picture of all the snow here tomorrow. It's been around -5 and snowing all day.

Trip Two Day 2

Today we had our Pre-Trial court hearing. It only lasted about an hour and consisted of the judge asking us questions and verifying that all our documents were in order. We were assigned a court date for Thursday at 10:00 am.

We got to go to the orphanage twice today. Little man is doing great and we can't wait till this is all over and we get to take him home!

We brought him a car to play with that you shake up and it takes off and this has been a big hit, not only with him but with all the adults here also. They said they have never seen anything like this. I think so far we've been told to bring back 8 of them when we come! Here is a picture of the car.

I know what you're thinking, Jeff Gordon??? For the record I wanted to get the #9 car, Kasey is my favorite. But since it was Alan's idea he got to make the final decision and he's a closet Jeff Gordon fan! I hope Walmart still has these or there will be some disappointed Russians over here!

We don't have a lot planned for tomorrow other than going back to the medical clinic to have one doctor sign off on a form. Then we will get to go back to the orphanage!

Trip Two Day 1

After over 30 hours of straight traveling we were met at the airport by our coordinator at 7:30 am. We were at the hotel & he said he would be back at 9:00 am for a whirlwind day. So much for a little rest, but we were excited to get things started. We were taken to a medical clinic for physicals and consultations with several different doctors. They took our blood, run tests, took x-rays, had us take interviews with doctors & psychiatrists. We were pleased to learn that we had fooled the psychiatrist just enough to pass! That was just a joke for those looking ahead that are going to be going through this process. It was all very informal and easy, just part of the requirments.

The treat of the day came this afternoon about 4:00 when were able to go to the orphanage. We met with the doctor who went over his latest checkup with us and invited us to ask any questions we may have. Alan asked the doctor if our little boy was walking yet on his own and she said yes and we were soon to find out just how well he is walking. She told us that they had told him that his Mama & Papa were on their way to see him & he was very excited about this. About this time a nurse brought him to the door & he came almost running in with a HUGE smile on his face! He truly did seem very happy to see us, this made us feel so good. He just has the sweetest disposition about him all the time. He has changed so much in three months! He has grown a little, but he is still small, his legs have obviously gained much strength. His hair has grown out and he is a very handsome little boy!

We are scheduled to go to a Pre-trial hearing tomorrow and the court date is set for Thursday. Leo told us that we had a very good judge and that everything usually goes very smooth when he is in charge. Hopefully that will be the case and everything will stay in line to get wrapped up the first part of next month.

We haven't had a nights sleep since Friday night, so we are going to bed very soon. It is very cold here today -30. We were prepared, it didn't seem as bad as we had imagined. All else is well, hope everyone at home is well. Thanks for the prayers. We will blog again tomorrow.

Looking East

Happy Valentine's Day! We are finally packed and ready to travel. We will update as soon as possible upon arrival to Russia.
Paka!

WE HAVE A COURT DATE!!!!

We finally got the long awaited call from the agency today!!!! Our coordinator went to see the judge today & we were assigned a court date for February 19th. We will be leaving on the 14th (HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY TO US!!) Yes folks, that's one week from tomorrow! We will be in Moscow on the 15th, go to Tomsk on the 16th and we will get to visit with little man that day. The 17th we will have what they call Pre-Court where they go over everything & make sure it's all in order. Not sure yet what is happening on the 18th only because it wasn't mentioned. The 19th and/or 20th will be court. We will leave Moscow on the 21st and be home late on the 21st. There is a 10 day waiting period that is never waived in Tomsk, so we will come home during that time. The wait will be up on March 4th, so we will leave again on the 3rd and go get our son on the 4th. We will stay in Tomsk a few days waiting on his new birth certificate and his passport. We will be going back to Moscow on the 7th and will go to the US Embassy on the 10th & 11th. On March 12th we will be back in the good ole USA with the newest member of the Brown family!!!!

I have finally calmed down (a little bit) and have stopped jumping up and down and yes, this really happened at work today, the girls I work with already know I'm crazy so they're used to it!

So now, because I have procrastinated yet again, I have to rush around this week trying to find gifts for the orphanage and the workers, and the officials that will be helping us. I think there about 8 or 10 gifts that we have to buy. I am open to suggestions if anyone has any ideas!

By the way Happy Birthday Alan! He loved this birthday present today!

Inching Ahead

I think we spoke with our agency almost everyday this past week (including Saturday). We finally found out on Tuesday what the hold up was with getting a court date (Kellie if you are reading this skip to the next paragraph-for your own sanity later on). Apparently, after we signed the papers before we left Tomsk saying we "officially" wanted to adopt our little guy the court has to send letters out to all of his known relatives. These letters let them know that someone is wanting to adopt him and these relatives have to sign a form and send it back in saying that they still don't want him. The court received all of these letters back and signed the previous week! I am SO glad that we didn't know about this before because I would have worried myself to death!
Our coordinator had an appointment on Thursday to petition the court for a court date for us, but for the first time that our agency has ever heard of, court was cancelled because it was so cold! It was -45 F ! They were hoping he would be able to go on Friday, but it was still too cold (-32 F) so court was cancelled again. On Saturday we were told that our coordinator felt sure that he would be able to get to court the first part of this week and we should have a court date for sometime this month. After he petitions the court it normally takes about a week for the judge to assign a date. Hopefully we will hear something soon. Be praying for warmer weather in Siberia. I don't know how those people live in that kind of weather! It's definitely going to be a big shock to us since it was almost 60 degrees here today!

And the wait continues.....

Let me first start by apologizing to my "blog stalkers" for not posting recently. I didn't realize it had been so long since the last post. I guess I thought it had been updated because we are constantly answering the question "Have you heard anything yet?". Let me assure everyone that the moment we hear anything we will definitely tell everyone else, I promise! We really appreciate that everyone is excited for us and wants to know what's going on.
We were told last week that the judge has our paperwork and they are just waiting for them to say everything is in order and give us a court date. Our agency thinks that we should hear something this week. We've done about all the waiting we can stand and I'm running out of patience. We are still in contact with the family that traveled with us on the first trip and they've not heard anything either.
Please say a prayer for us that we will get some travel dates this week. Little man's birthday is coming up soon and we really want to have him home by then.

Happy New Year!

We haven't really had a lot of news lately on the adoption. We talked to our agency the other day and they said that they had already started their holidays in Russia, so we wouldn't hear anything about a court date until after January 19th. The only thing that we know at this point is that we miss our little man desperately and waiting stinks.
I hope everyone had a good Christmas. Ours was pretty good, a little sad though for obvious reasons. Little man did get some presents for Christmas which I'm sure he will love when he gets home. His PawPaw made him the cutest airplane you've ever seen!


Cousin Ada tested out the plane for him to make sure it was safe for flight and it was cleared for takeoff!


We will post again as soon as we hear any news.