Blessings From Abroad

Intro to our new blog!

2010-03-23T18:57:00.000-07:00

O.k It took us forever, but we finally finished our new blog. I guess these things take time now to do since the babies came home. Eli is always keeping us busy now. We had to go buy a gate just to keep him in one spot! He is just always trying to get into new things trying to understand how they work. He is a very smart boy!!
All 3 babies and 4 of the others have strep throat at home. Eli has it worse than the others. Poor baby cried all night holding his neck. His fever got up to 104.5 last night. We had to put him the bath to cool him of and break the fever. Today he seems to be much better after going to the doctor and getting a nice big shot in his little butt.
Me and Tony worked this weekend to get this new blog up which will be more about our life at home with 10 kids, instead of our adoption process. We just felt the need for the change. I hope we don't loose all of our followers from Reece's Rainbow.
I was just amazed at the support we had from our friends and our R.R friends. Hope you enjoy it. This is the new blog Livinoutlove.blogspot.com

A New Blog

2010-03-12T07:49:00.000-08:00

Here are the most recent pictures of our sweet babies. In our new blog we will include all of our family photos, and make the new blog more about all 12 of us, and not just the babies!!

Me and Tony are thinking about changing our blog to another one. Now that we have the babies home it is really about our life with them and as a family of 12. We will probably change it this weekend and everyone will be re-directed.
This has been an exciting journey to go through with all of Reece's Rainbow friends, and others that have followed along. This made our time in the Ukraine so much easier. We went through many struggles there, and had alot of silly things we had to deal with like the drama back at home. I know my family did not like me talking about it on my blog, but they did not understand it from where we stood. At home they had everyone to talk to . In the Ukraine all I had was my computer and all the friends that gave me so much advise and kept me going. This to me is like my personal journal that I open up to others to read. I guess if you don't like what it says, you don't have to read it!
So A big Thank You for those that gave us so much support!!
Now, the second stage will start. Our life at home. I feel we have so much to write about.
We have had many, many doctors apt ts. Nessie, and Elisa will have to have eye surgery to help them with their eyes, and Nessie may have to have surgery because of her reflux. Eli, well he is so healthy that the doctors make fun of him. He is 30 pounds now!!!! He does have to go to the ENT because of his hearing, but so far all is well.
Tony bought a really nice camera so we can finally post a lot of new pictures. We have all been having so much fun with it. I truly adore the moments we have right now. The kids love the babies so much. I don't think I could have asked for any better loving kids in the world.
Please forgive us if changing the blog makes it more difficult for some of you, but we felt like we needed this change to make this blog a better one!!

Look who's birthday It Is ????

2010-03-07T08:33:00.000-08:00

Elijah turned 2 on March 1rst. We just celebrated his 2ND birthday with my daughter Noelle who turned 7. We went to Peter Piper pizza with a few friends. When it was time for the cake we gave Eli his very own piece if cake. He just grabbed his cake and shoved the entire piece into his mouth all at once. It would have been very cute, except it was bright pink icing!! Afterwards he was on a sugar high the rest of the day.
Our next news is that 3 days ago Elisa started walking !!! After a few days of trying she can really do it well now. She can even get up from a standing point on her own. My baby is growing up!! The 3 babies are doing so well. They all have done so many new things in such a short period of time. We went yesterday and bought a new camera so we finally have new pictures to show you guys!
After giving a lot of thought to what we want to do next, I am convinced I want to adopt from Ethiopia next. Tony still likes Reece's Rainbow so we will have to figure out what God is telling us to do here. Right now we are just trying to enjoy our babies as we watch them grow so fast.
I have a few pictures here for you to enjoy of their b-day party and Eli eating his cake. It was a lot of fun to watch! Hope you enjoy!

Eli on his way to his party!!

This is Eli having a blast with his cake!!

Mommy and Elisa(Leeska is what we call her) having a moment!

Miss Nessie trying to understand why Eli has a pink face!!

ELISA WALKING SHOWING YOU WHAT A BIG GIRL SHE IS NOW!!!

Babies doctor appts.

2010-02-25T07:34:00.000-08:00

We took all 3 babies to the cardiologist apt. yesterday and they all 3 got a good bill of health!! We were so excited to hear the doctor tell us that they are all o.k.
I have been getting many emails about the Haitian babies!! I did have one lady that reads my blog follow threw with the info I gave her. She said right now they only have 8 year olds and up/ My friend form church said that in the next few weeks the younger ones will follow, but they don't want to get people excited right now because A lot of people are wanting them! If you have tried to follow up on the info I sent on my earlier blog and have not received any response please leave me an email so that I can talk to my friend working for these people. She is eager to help place these children into good, loving homes!!
email-tbarch@prodigy.net Thanks, Leah

Homeschooling and parenting

2010-02-22T08:17:00.000-08:00

These are the only pictures I can find right now. Our camera brokeat such a bad time so we are looking to buy another one this weekend. Then we will get some good pictures on here!!

When we left to go to the Ukraine we put all of our homeschooling on hold, now it seems I can not find my way back into it. The kids are not doing well and My husband is getting really frustrated with them, when I know its my fault. Its just a lot harder with the new babies taking up so much of my attention. I'm trying really hard to make that special time to help them more, but I just wonder how so many of you guys that have adopted do this?? How do you make that time to home school, and give the babies the time they need?

The babies are going to the specialist tomorrow with their hearts. They have now gained another pound this week. I'm not sure that's so good for Eli. We don't know how to slow his weight down. They eat so much, then they cry when they are done.. Elisa is becoming so friendly with everyone. This is something we did not know if we would see or not. She was so afraid of people before that she would just look away. Now she dives out of our arms into other people standing around. She loves to show off. They have all started therapy as well. Elisa loves to throw toys, so they are working with her on that. We think that they praised her for this in the orphanage. She claps and looks around for praise as soon as she throws something.

As far as the Haitian adoption my friend said they are still looking for homes. Right now they are sending most of these babies here to Texas, but she said if you guys contact that info that they are willing to send them to homes that are home study ready. The older kids are disparately seeking homes. There is one girl that is 14 that she keeps talking about a lot. She said she is very sweet and friendly and that she needs someone to love her. I am tempted, but I promised my older daughter I would never adopt older than her!! If you guys contact that number or email and they do not contact you please email me because she said she would contact them directly herself. They are really getting a lot of calls right now, but unfortunately not a lot of calls that ready right now. Please contact me with any questions if you are interested. tbarch@prodigy.net

Give Me Your Eyes.....

2010-02-20T20:52:00.000-08:00

What do you do when you return home from such an amazing journey and you realize that God is not done with you yet.... When you realize that there is so much more He is calling you to do? We've been home from the Ukraine for exactly one month now and life is amazing! Sure, we're busy and life can be chaotic at times, but we are soooo happy...... but not content. Ok, I know that may sound strange, but let me explain. This adoption process..... this trip to the Ukraine..... this leap of faith has changed us..... FOREVER.

There is a beautiful song by Brandon Heath called "Give me your eyes" that talks about walking through life and not truly seeing.... not truly caring about the people all around you..... the people who are hurting and hopeless. We all fall into that trap of just rushing through life with our goals and our milestones never really paying attention to the needs all around us. That doesn't make us bad people, but I beleive it makes us miss out on all that God has in store for us. I beleive our inability to see through God's eyes makes us miss out on so many of His blessings. The chorus of this song is as follows:

Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me you heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see

So after completing our adoption journey we realize that we are not done. God has opened our eyes to a world of need.... to a world of children who have no home and no one to rock them to sleep at night. To steal a line from the song, He's given us the "heart of the ones forgotten" and the "ones that are far beyond (our) reach". God has given us a passion inside.... a burning inside that we don't quite know what to do with yet. We want to bring more children home. We want to start an adoption ministry at church. We want to tell everyone about our experience and encourage them. We want to advocate for those children who don't have families and help raise money to get them home. We want to show people that "special needs" children are truly special and share our experience with the world. But most of all.... we want to follow God.

Have you ever been so inspired and so passionate about something, but not know what to do with all of that passion? That's where we are right now. We feel like we're going to explode if we don't do something. We know that we're called to do more, but we don't what. People keep telling us to just enjoy what we have and they're right..... we are so blessed..... but we are not done. God has given us a vision for something so more... something bigger! We just don't know what yet.

Info On Haiti Orphans....

2010-02-20T10:08:00.000-08:00

This is one of the e-mails we've received from the Hope For Orphans organization regarding the orphans in Haiti. Hope For Orphans is affiliated with Focus on The Family and is a legitimate organization. They are not an adoption agency, but are advocates for the children in Haiti and have been working closely with our government to make a way for these children to be rescued quickly. There are e-mail addresses for a few of the key contacts in if you are interested.

Dear Families and Friends of HCRM, As you all know, we have been advocating on behalf of the many children that need homes at HCRM. Most, if not all of you have spent time in prayer about how the Lord might lead, or not lead your family to pursue any of these children through adoption. When we first got connected two to three weeks ago, we were praying for a long shot, that the doors be opened for these children to come to America and into forever families. Today is a BIG milestone in the process for the children that we have been advocating for. There has been legislation that was introduced to Congress today called the Hope Act. It is exactly what has been prayed for, that the government would allow these child (pre-earthquake orphans with documentation proving that parental rights have been terminated) to have Humanitarian Parole and be granted visas into the United States. While this legislation, coded H.R. 4603, was just introduced, we feel as though now is the time that we have been preparing for. If you, or anyone you know has a relationship with your Congressmen, please reach out to them and advocate for the Hope Act. Finally, you will see there are 15 children/sibling groups attached to this email. These are the children that have not been matched with any families, and no one has pursued them. Please spend some time with the Lord, as these children do need homes. We know that the Lord will bring ALL these children into homes, so we want to re-iterate that pure motives from the Lord are what you should go on, not an emotional decision. Please do not forward this these profiles to anyone, as we want to be respectful of these children. However, if you do know of individuals that are PAPER READY (current HS), please have them contact me, so I can introduce these children to them. As a reminder, Hope For Orphans is not a child placing or adoption agency. HCRM is the adoption and placing agency that retains the legal guardianship of these children. All matching is done by HCRM. Hope For Orphans is merely mediating and advocating for these children. For those who want to pursue a child or children from this list, you should send an email to rpennington@familylife.com and smcbride@familylife.com. Your email should include:
which children you would commit to if able (in rank order if more than one)
a scanned copy of your current home study
a scanned current picture of your family
a scanned copy (IF YOU HAVE ONE) of your I-600A or Approval
contact information to include cell phones and e-mail address Thank you for your prayers and consideration for the very special children. Pray that the Lord will bring their Forever Families to the surface.

Adoption Info

2010-02-19T12:14:00.000-08:00

I had a very big response to the last post. I guess I did not think that that many people would be interested. This is awesome though!!
The lady that is giving me the information actually adopted 3 kids from Haiti a few years back, since then, she works for Angels Orphans in Haiti. They gave her the information that they were sending these children here to San Antonio last week.
I know a lot of you have responded and I am trying to return ever ones emails as fast as I can. The thing is I have to find out where each person lives so that I can ask the woman in charge when and if they are sending these kids to your areas??
I would just post her info on here, but I want to make sure with her first that she does not mind me doing this. She has sent me a list of kids that are coming this week and pictures, but they are all 5 and older to about 18. In the next 2 weeks they will be getting the younger kids. She said if people wanted to foster first they would allow that to while the family was getting their home study done.
To all the people that responded I will email you tonight after the kids lay down. I will try to email you the same email I got that has the pictures of the kids and the contact info. I wish I knew more on this, but they just allowed these kids to start coming into the country so they are moving very fast before anyone changes their minds. Thanks so much for being patient with me!! Leah

Just in Case

2010-02-17T10:23:00.001-08:00

I just wanted to write really fast in case anyone reading would be interested. Our Friend from church has been working with people in Haiti and some of the children there. She has sent an email asking if anyone was interested in adopting some kids there. Right now they are sending older kids, but they will be sending the younger ones as well.
They are asking for people that are already home study ready that might only need to get finger prints and such. This will be a very fast adoption, and they say it should only cost about 500.00
If you know of anyone that would be interested please send me an email and I will send you the email of the people in charge. Me and Tony are praying about taking a younger child, but not a baby. We feel God has blessed us so much in giving us such easy children, and he has done this for this reason, so we can continue to do his work and what he wants us to do. At this time we are not sure if we will or will not do this, but please pray about this for you and any of your friends and let me know. Thanks, Leah

Passing the cold bug around

2010-02-15T08:16:00.000-08:00

We thought we were done with this awful cold bug in our home, but it now looks like it is making its second round. Elisa can not breath at all, poor baby. She has such a croupy cough as well. The other 2 are still finishing up their antibiotics, but they seem to be getting worse instead of better. I have heard that this is normal when you adopt from over seas, the babies get sick a lot at first??
The babies did get dedicated yesterday, but I do not have the pictures yet. They all did very well, and looked very cute. After church we went out to lunch with a Friend. I was very amazed at how well all 10 kids at lunch. The babies only fused a few times when they wanted more food, but it was a good experience.
I'm getting better at taking all 10 out with me into public, you just have to get passed all the nasty stares that some people give you!!
Eli has been cruising all threw the house. He has managed to pull our blinds down and knock over 3 of our plants this week. We also find him trying to go up the stairs about 3 times a day. He loves to pull out all the pots and pans and bang them together. Its actually really funny. Nessie just sits a lot playing with her toys. Elisa is getting better at trying to walk with us. Her therapy started last week and went very well. Today Nessie, and Eli's therapy starts. I'm glad they have made such process!!
We really want to adopt again now that this has gone so well for us, I just do not know when. I'm waiting for God to let us know who he wants us to adopt, and when?? Ill post pictures tomorrow, Thanks, Leah

Life is Good

2010-02-10T11:30:00.000-08:00

As we adjust to the new ways of life here at home me and Tony find ourselves thinking that there is still more in store for us than we thought. We thought for sure that after adopting these 3 children that we would feel complete. As soon as we got them home and everything fell into place without any complications at all we soon starting thinking about adopting again. I know Tony would do it right now again, but I am the one this time that is making the decision to wait a while. There are so many kids out there that it is hard to find the right one, its hard to say no to certain ones. I know it is something that we will have to pray about for a long time. I want to give these babies all the attrition that they need for now.
We are amazed at how well they are doing. They nap from 12-2. Then they go to bed at 8 and sleep all through the night. They do not get out of bed until 9 in the morning. Vanessa is a little bit fussy right now. We think because she has a lot of stuff going on with her little butt. She has scare tissue from something that has almost closed her little hole there and it has got to hurt. She is going into the Doctor on the 23rd for that.
They are all starting therapy tomorrow. I'm very happy to get this started. They have already come so far.
I guess everything is going very well. The only thing that I could complain about is family and the fact that my family has no desire to even see the babies. Me and Tony were very surprised that certain family members have not even called us once to check on the babies, and they have not seen them either. It hurts our feelings I guess that they seem to think that they are so busy with their life's that they cant even call us. I know if they needed anything at all we would be there in a heart beat, even with 10 kids. I don't feel like they really think that this is important because we just have so many kids now. I guess I just don't have that connection I wish I had with family. My own parents still hardly know my other adopted children that I adopted almost 4 years ago. I guess there is not much I can do about it but pray that God will open those doors to communication. Tony has had a hard time with this to. I wish he didn't think about it so much, but I think it really bothers him even more than me. He feels like I do that this is such an awesome gift. We want everyone to enjoy them with us, and some people cant even pick up the phone to see how they are.
I know its all petty, but these are the things we are working on right now. We want them to know there entire family.
Other than that, they will be dedicated at church on Sunday. I'm praying that some of the family will attend that. I will post pictures after Sunday when they get dedicated. Thanks, Leah

After 2 Weeks.......

2010-02-06T18:47:00.000-08:00

The babies have been home for 2 weeks now and they are already making so much progress. The first few days were home, the just sat in the playroom. They didn't want to play, didn't want to be held, and they hardly moved. They would just sit there and rock to the music we had playing the background. Today is a totally different story. They've all discovered the excitement of exploration. They love playing in the playroom (formally our formal dining room), but they've also figured out that other parts of the house are exciting as well.

Vanessa likes to crawl on top of the other kids. If you lay down in the room she will usually crawl on top of you and get as close to your face as possible. She loves to explore our faces with her eyes and her hands and she always wants to kiss..... big slobbery kisses! When she wanders outside of the playroom she usually ends up in the kitchen. She's so much fun......

Elijah has discovered the cabinets and, of course, the pots and pans. He would spend hours banging pots and pans together. He also like to find the dog water and tip it over. Then he gets himself soaked by playing in the water. When we bring him in our room he makes a b-line for our shower. It's a big walk-in double shower and he absolutely loves it. Of all of the kids, he explores the most.

Elisa has progressed the most though. She seemed so miserable the first few days, but she has come out of her shell. She is very attentive and is always looking for us. When we walk around the corner she immediately makes eye contact and then smiles the biggest most beautiful smile. Whenever we walk near her she reaches for us and gives us a huge hug. She doesn't wander around too much, but when she does, she finds the closed carpeted area that she can..... and then lays down face first on the carpet. It must feel soothing to her. She still loves her music also. We crank up the stereo in the house and she bobs her head and claps her hands. We're so happy with how much she's warmed up to us.

Oh and they all LOVE bath time now. At first they screamed and cried, but now we have trouble getting them to get out of the tub. They've also put on some weight. The girls have each gained 4 pounds since coming home and Elijah has gained 2 pounds. I guess that's what American food will do for you.

Overall, the transition has been much better than we expected. The kids sleep through the night, they go down for nap time, they eat well, and they've warmed up to all of the other kiddos. Although they've all had runny noses since we got home, they have been such a joy. We are sooooo blessed with these three angels and we are so thankful for how smooth this transition has been. Here are some recent pics of the kids playing:

About our Kids

2010-01-31T10:07:00.001-08:00

I wanted to go back to a few of the questions that were asked in the comments. I know my husband is an awesome blogger and he should be the one to always write, but I had this on my mind today. Someone had asked before about how old all of our kids were. If you guys are just starting to read I understand that a lot of you don't really know all of this.

Our oldest daughter is Faith. She is 12 years old. Then we have Grace who is 9, and Noelle who is almost 7. After Noelle was born we decided to adopt domestically. We adopted Dylan (10), Christian (9), and Haily (almost 7). They were a sibling group available through the state. During this adoption we got pregnant with Emma. She is now almost 4. The babies we just adopted are Elisa (almost 3), Elijah (almost 2) and Vanessa (almost 2).

Our oldest daughter went with Tony to the Ukraine to bring the babies home. She is such an amazing person. She loves the babies and loves to help out. I know God has so many great things in store for her life. She is the first one to respond when the babies cry or need anything. She has been such a great help to me.

I am so happy with the progress of the babies. Yesterday we had a baby shower for them. They did so well with everyone holding them and picking them up. They love to sing and dance. This has truly been an amazing experience that I recommend anyone do if they feel called to do so. I am so excited every time I look at Reece's Rainbow and see more babies finding homes. I am really happy about Vivienne and Laura finding homes. I tried so hard to see them when I was there. I believe she was sleeping in the baby bed beside me because it was her room I was in. They had her laying in a bouncy seat in her crib. All the babies there looked well loved and well cared for. I hope everyone reading this knows that the babies where we adopted from were all loved so much by their caregivers!!

Here are some pictures of before we adopted since I do not have current ones of all of us. This way you can see our entire family before that new babies.

Leah and the kids on our cruise (top right is Laura, our French exchange student)

The Whole Family (before the babies)

All the kids on the beach......

Faith (The responsible one and the second mother of our house)

Dylan (our big hearted boy)

Grace (the spunky one)

Christian (Our boy with a million questions)

Noelle (the sensitive one)

Haily (all smiles or all tears)

Emma (The spoiled one)

Emma on the beach

The sun is always shining......

2010-01-29T17:02:00.000-08:00

Since many of you who read our blog are either thinking about adopting or are already in the process, I thought I would share some of my general thoughts while they are still fresh on my mind. First let me point out that our adoption was not the smoothest or quickest process. We began the process in Feb-09 and had along year of ups and downs. As we announced our exciting news to friends and family, the responses were less than supportive. People questioned our motives, our logic and even our sanity (well I even question that sometimes). We thought everyone would be jumping up and down to support us, but they didn't seem to understand. Then, one month after committing to Elisa and Vanessa, Leah called me crying after her medical evaluation. Her doctor would not sign the paperwork because he was worried about her health (bad back, arthritis, 7 kids, etc). We were devastated, but did not give up.

During this same time period, we decided to put our house on the market as we knew we would need more room when the adoption was complete. This was a huge step of faith for us as we knew there was no guarantee that the adoption would go through (especially after the problem with Leah's doctor). Additionally, I was in line for a promotion that would force me to leave San Antonio. Who in their right mind wants to buy a new house right before being relocated? We knew the real estate market was weak and expected the sale to take at least 6 months. So we listed the house and the first people through the door made a full price offer. Our first thought was "praise God", but the very next thought was "oh no!". We would have to move in the middle of the adoption process causing us to redo our home study along with many other documents (including the USCIS paperwork). Oh and none of this could be done until we found and closed on a new house which we were hesitant to do until I found out about my possible promotion.

Oh.... And in the midst of selling our house, we were throwing our one and only fundraiser dinner. We had invited hundreds of people to a benefit to help raise money for our adoption. We were so stressed and overwhelmed at this point in the process. Everything was up in the air...... the adoption, my job, our house, etc. But we did not give up. God was with us and we had His peace and His presence throughout the process. The fundraiser was a huge success raising a little over $7000. We committed to buying a new house and had our home study and other documents modified to reflect our new address. Leah and I (and our 7 kids, 2 cats, and 3 dogs) actually lived with our good friends for about 2 weeks while we were between houses.

Then, the day before we were to close on our new house, we got a devastating call..... my dad had passed away suddenly. There was no warning, no signs, nothing. This event eclipsed everything else going on in our lives including the adoption. So we moved into our new house
while preparing for my father's funeral. As we prepared to grow our family, we lost someone so dear to us. It was so hard to move forward after this event, but we didn't give up. Despite the circumstances and the delays and the frustration, we knew God had called us on this mission and we knew that only He could close the door on this adoption.

So we finally got Leah's medical paperwork signed and in late September we began preparing our dossier. There were also many delays in this process, but those delays turned out to be a blessing. See when we first committed to Elisa and Vanessa, Leah and I really wanted to adopt Arthur (Elijah), but we never considered 3 children. All of the delays in our adoption process gave us more time to think and pray about Arthur and when we realized he was still available, we knew we needed to add a third child. So at the 11th hour, we changed one simple form and added Arthur. While all of this was happening, deadlines were quickly approaching. We needed everything submitted and approved by the end of November or we were going to have to wait until March and redo most of our paperwork. On the very last Monday possible, our paperwork was submitted and we received our approval and travel date.

Our first trip was in early December and most of you were reading our blog at that time, so I won't repeat the details other than mentioning that everything went well. On the second trip, everything went well until the passport office shut down. For a few days we were told that we would not get the babies passports for approximately 2 months which would mean leaving the country without our children. We prayed and prayed until we found out that we were going to be able to get our passports. We were one of the only families in the country to get passports at this time so we knew this was an answer to prayer. Everything went smooth from that point on which leads us to where we are today...... one BIG happy family.

In closing I want to encourage all of you who are adopting or thinking about adopting. Hopefully your process will not be as long and difficult as ours, but you will have your share of problems. You will run into people who just don't understand..... you will have paperwork that has to be re-done over and over again....... you will have concerns about finances...... and you will have doubts about what you are doing. With all of this trouble, always remember why you chose to adopt..... always remember the beautiful children who are counting on you....... and always remember that God is in control!

It all came together for me as we were leaving the Ukraine to travel back home with our children. Our entire adoption process wasn't this bright exciting event..... it was riddled with troubles and uncertainty...... with clouds that often overshadowed the bigger picture. For our entire 5 weeks in the Ukraine, I don't believe that the sun came out once. Every day was overcast with clouds covering the sky, making for dreary days. As we ascended in the airplane, we lifted above the clouds and we took the following pictures while the sun was rising:

It was beautiful to see the blue skies and bright shining sun. I forgot all about the cold dreary weather we were leaving. It was truly a metaphor for our entire adoption process. No matter how cloudy it may seem..... or how difficult the process may seem..... the sun is always shining when you rise above the clouds.

Good Luck and God Bless!!!!

A Few Pictures....

2010-01-26T19:38:00.000-08:00

Daddy, Emma, and Nessie (Vanessa)

Elisa in her playroom

Eli's adventure on the front sidewalk!

Faith and Elisa!

Emma on her swing!

I love Nap Time!!!

2010-01-26T10:41:00.000-08:00

I have never done nap time with any of my kids, and I have never understood why it was so important to moms. Now I do. I can not wait until nap time anymore. This seems to be the only time I am able to get any of the cleaning done. The kids are doing really well to the adjustments. Eli came home sick and it has been passed around now. Two of my kids have it now, and Nessie is just now getting it. She seems to cry all day long because she does not understand why she doesn't feel well.
We are so amazed by Elisa. She has so come out of her shell. She is a totally different child than she was in the Ukraine. She is spunky and so so happy. She loves to dance, and loves to clap her hands. We are so in love with these babies.
Eli still just stares at his hands. He is such a handsome boy. He weighs 30 pounds, big big boy. Elisa weighed 22 and Nessie weighed 20 pounds.
I agree with Tony, He said to me last night that he can not believe that these babies had not been adopted before now, and that people really missed out. They are just the most amazing kids!!
We have got a lot of pictures for you, but I'm not sure how to download them. Tony's knee swelled up last night double in size. He has been in so much pain that he had to go straight to the Dr, today. They are going to have to drain a lot of the fluid from his knee today. When he gets home he said he will post the pictures right away. They already look so much better than they did before.
I have so many people ever day asking me how can I do this, this is to much, but each time we adopt, we follow where God leads us, In return I know God finds me these children that God knows will be perfect for our family. They are just well behaved children, Its not as much work as people think.
All in all, We are the ones that are truly blessed. We will post pictures tonight. Thanks for reading our post, and following along with our adoption!! Leah

Adjustments for Everyone!

2010-01-23T17:16:00.000-08:00

So we're home now, caught up on our sleep and it's time to get into a routine..... yeah right! The first day we were home, we took all 3 kiddos to their new pediatrician to get them checked out. Eli had a fever and cough, Vanessa had a very nasty rash on her backside (had it since birth according to the orphanage docs) and Elisa was very lethargic and not eating. In fact, Elisa has not been the same child we met in the orphanage. We weren't sure if she was sick or just having trouble adjusting. Needless to say, we were very worried about Elisa.

The pediatrician put Eli on an antibiotic and told us that Vanessa would have to have surgery to remove the inflamed area on her bottom. He was shocked that the orphanage doctors did not know what it was. We also showed the doctor some scarring that Vanessa had near her private area. He was puzzled by the scars and thought she may have had surgery to correct hip dislocations, but there was no record of this with the orphanage. When we got to Elisa, the doctor seemed concerned. She had been sleeping most of the time, wanted nothing to do with anyone and was not eating at all. He wanted to have her admitted to the hospital right away. After discussing our options, we decided that we didn't want Elisa's first weekend with us to be spent in the hospital.

We made it our goal to get Elisa to eat and get her to open up to us. On Friday morning, we had a breakthrough...... YOGURT. Elisa loves yogurt and ate and ate and ate. She ate so much food on Friday and this morning she was a different child. She was loving and playful and was smiling. We're still not sure if she had just been sick or needed food, but whatever it was is behind us now. The babies are adjusting well to their new home and the whole family is doing great. Our other children fight over who gets to hold, play with or feed the babies. I'm sure that will change in time, but for now, we are all closer than ever. As I sit here right now in the play room I am watching the babies play and am so grateful that we were able to adopt them. We picked them based on a picture and a feeling inside.... and a medical history that turned out to be mostly incorrect, but in the end, they are a perfect fit. They are perfect and they are ours! Praise God for choosing us to follow this path and to experience this kind of joy!

Oh and for those of you requesting pictures..... we are so sorry! We will post them as soon as we can, but honestly we just been enjoying the kids and have not taken many pics. We'll get some out soon. Thank you all for all of your encouragement......

Home Sweet Home!

2010-01-22T11:21:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the delayed post, but we all had a little sleep to catch up on. We began our journey home at 2am on Wednesday which was 6pm Tuesday night in San Antonio. We had a short 3 hour flight from Kiev to Frankfurt and then a 2 hour layover in Germany. The kids did well on the flight, but when we got off the plane things got interesting. They all started screaming at once because they were hungry. We had food for them, but could not prepare it fast enough. As we weer struggling to get them all calm, we noticed people all over the airport staring at us. I wonder what they must have thought. After about 30 minutes, they were calm and so were we. We boarded the plane at 10am (2am in SA).

This next flight was the long one. It was a 10 hour flight from Germany to Chicago. Faith and Elisa sat in front of Brittany and I and the two babies (Vanessa and Elijah were sitting on our laps). One of the greatest delights of our trip home was watching Faith with Elisa. Faith is 12 years old and handled Elisa with such poise and patience. Elisa was the most difficult by far, but Faith had a way with handling her. Elisa definitely has some sensory issues, but Faith knew just how to work with her. She would pat her gently and help her get comfortable and even when she was screaming, Faith was calm. I was amazed at the maturity of my oldest daughter and she made me so proud to be her father. The kids all had their moments on this flight, but overall, they did very well. I got peed on twice and thrown up on 4 times (all by Vanessa), but that just helped us bond....

We were worried about what to do with our 5 hour layover in Chicago, but the long layover turned out to be necessary. We started at customs where the lines were long. We made it through relatively quickly and then picked up our baggage. At that point, we went to the Homeland Security area where we had to turn in our immigration paperwork. Although this process took about an hour, the people working there were great. Seeing us with all of the kids and baggage, they waved us through the customs security point and told us to have a nice day. After all of that, we had to recheck our bags and then take a train to another terminal. The Chicago airport is HUGE, so it took a while to get to our gate. By the time we got there, we had about an hour to get some food and feed the kids who were getting pretty fussy.

The last leg of the trip was a breeze. We left Chicago at 5:30pm (SA time) which was 1:30 am in Kiev. Needless to say, the kids were tired and they slept through the entire flight. We arrived home at 8:30 pm to end our 26 hour journey.At the airport we were greeted with yelling and cheering from our family and closest friends. I believe there were about 20 people there waiting for us. I was so tired at that point that I probably didn't look at excited as I was. We passed the babies around from person to person. They hardly woke up as people were kissing them and pinching their cheeks. This was just the start of all of the loving they are going to get from now on. We got home and went straight to bed.

It is such a relief to be home and to know that no one can take these babies away from us. Throughout the 2 trips to the Ukraine, there was always an underlying tension that something may go wrong; we may get denied, they may get sick, we may not get passports or may not get visas. There was always another step that we had to go through, but not anymore. When I laid them in their cribs I could finally breath a sigh of relief. We had completed the journey that we started almost a year ago and Elisa, Vanessa and Elijah are now home. Now it is time to begin the next phase of this journey.........

We're Coming Home!!!!

2010-01-19T05:41:00.000-08:00

We got our visas today for the kiddos and are coming home in the morning! The whole process at the embassy took less than a few hours. We're so excited and can't wait to get home to the rest of our family. Please pray for a safe and quick flight home....... and that the kids sleep a lot on the plane!

Leah, Dylan, Grace, Christian, Noelle, Haily, and Emma...... We're coming home!!!!!!!!!

More PIcs of the girls.....

2010-01-18T13:30:00.001-08:00

As demanded by my wife (pics only)

2010-01-18T13:11:00.000-08:00

PICTURES FROM OUR GOTCHA DAY!

A Newfound Respect For My Wife!

2010-01-18T07:34:00.000-08:00

Shortly after getting off the train, we took the kids to their medical appointments. They only had room for two of us to go, so Faith and I took the kids ourselves and left Brittany at the apartment in Kiev. It was so hard taking 3 kids with just two of us through the ice and snow. The appointment was a joke. After waiting for about an hour, we saw the doctor who turned out to be an adult cardiologist.... not a pediatrician. She was asking us about the kids and what they did normal or not and we kept telling her that we had only had them for less than a day. We asked her a bunch of questions and she could not answer any of them. She kept saying that she works with adults and not kids. So basically, we were just paying to get medical release for the US embassy.

After almost a full day with the kids, we are exhausted. Feeding time has been crazy! Elijah grunts non-stop if we don't keep something in his mouth at all times. Elisa spits and throws her food and Vanessa is of course... perfect. She just eats and drinks and giggles. They are all down for naps right now and we are glad. I don't know what it is, but it is so rewarding to have them all asleep at the same time. I have so much respect for Leah! There are 3 of us and we struggle to keep up with the kids and I know when we get home she will have it all under control. She is an amazing mother and I am so grateful for her.

So tomorrow is our final day in Kiev. We go to the Embassy at 8:30am to do a bunch of paperwork and then go back to pick up the kids visas. If all goes well, we will be on a plane at 5:45am on Wednesday..... and home Wednesday evening. I cannot wait to be home with all 10 of my children. As I writing this, Elisa woke up and Faith brought her to me. She is sitting on my lap watching me type right now. So it's time for me to let you go so I can spend some time with my baby.

We Have Our Kids!!!

2010-01-17T15:12:00.000-08:00

Today we got our kids! We went to the orphanage at about 5:30 expecting a big send off for the kids. What was I thinking? We walked in the door, gave them our clothes to change the kids in to while we waiting in the lobby. They brought the kids out and hardly even said goodbye to them. We had gifts for the caregivers which they thanked us for, but there was very little emotion shown by them as the kids walked out the door. Were they happy that they were being adopted??? Were they relieved???? Were they sad???? Oh well, one thing I know for sure is that we were elated! They looked so adorable in their little snowsuits.... you know the kind that are so puffy that they can hardly move their arms or legs.

We took them back to the apartment and immediately Skyped Leah so that she could be part of their first day with us. We fed them dinner which was an adventure. It's been so long since I've fed a baby, let alone 3 at once. Food was all over the place, but Elijah and Vanessa ate great. Elisa hardly ate a bite that she didn't spit out or throw across the room. We never got the orphanage to tell us what they ate, so this is all trial and error for us. Tonight was all error with Elisa, but it will get better.

Right now, it's 11:30pm and we're on the train to Kiev. Brittany and Vanessa are asleep already, but the rest of us are wide awake. Elijah and Elisa are just looking around trying to take it all in...... and so are we.... our first night with the kids! We will have medical appointments tomorrow and them go to the Embassy for Visas on Tuesday. We are praying that all goes smoothly and we get to come home as planned on Wednesday. The only glitch so far is that Vanessa's birthday is different on her birth certificate than we were told. The only problem with that is that some of the paperwork has already been filled out with the old date and was signed by Leah. I'm sure this is common and we can simply make the correction, but it still concerns me a bit.

Anyway, I need to get back to enjoying my new kiddos. I hope we get some sleep tonight, but if not, at least I'm with my kids!

Getting Ready........

2010-01-16T05:56:00.000-08:00

It's Saturday in the Ukraine and it's getting cold. Yesterday was a pretty quiet day. We were unable to see the kids due to the appointments that we had. We met with the inspector (social worker), the lawyer, and the orphanage Director to sign the final paperwork and arrange our "Gotcha" day. At the meeting, we received the baptism papers for each of the children. It seems to be customary for the children in the orphanage to be baptized at the age of one. Each of the children had a small booklet and a small cross necklace which they gave to us. This will be great for the children's memory books.

After the meeting I was taken to Vanessa's room so they could show us how they applied medicine to her "backside". She has perpetual inflammation in that area and they wanted to show us what they used on it. It looked pretty bad, but they said it was not painful to her. Evidently it's been that way since birth and she has never been able to where diapers. We will take her to a doctor as soon as we get home to see what they say. When we left the orphanage we went to the pharmacy to buy the ingredients for the medicine. Yes.... I said ingredients. The medicine they use has to be mixed at home which our facilitator will do for us tonight.

Later in the day we went to the bank to withdraw the money the children had in their bank account. These accounts are created by the government for all orphans and it is customary for adoptive parents to donate this back to the orphanage. It was a much larger sum of money than I expected. We were actually given the option to designate the money to the care of a specific child and we chose to do so for a small boy who has lung cancer. We must have been at the bank where all of the "welfare" accounts are held, because there was a long line of elderly people all the way out the door.

As we waited and watched the people come and go, I was overcome with both sadness and gratitude. These people were so old and worn down. They had clearly lived hard lives and were continuing to do so..... many of them shivering due to the cold. I helped several ladies down the steps as they were too fragile to get down on their own. Several things occurred to me as we stood there for about 30 minutes. First, my grandmother is from this region and was fortunate enough to get married to my grandfather and come to America as a teenager. I saw her face as each of the elderly women walked by and I was so grateful that she was living comfortably in America now. I also thought of Elisa, Vanessa and Elijah and how blessed they would be to come home with us. Not only are we taking them away from the orphanage, but we are taking them away from a very hard and difficult life. Oh how blessed we are........

So today we are getting ready to pick our kids up. Tomorrow (Sunday) is our "Gotcha" day and we are so excited. We're picking out their clothes (actually, the girls are picking out clothes) and setting them aside for the big day tomorrow. It's taken so long to get to this point... where we will finally have them in our care. Tonight we will go buy diapers and formula and all of the other things we will need to care for them at the apartment. We finally feel as if we're nearing the end of this very long road. At this time tomorrow, we will be together.... FINALLY TOGETHER!!!!!

What's Going On......

2010-01-14T13:48:00.000-08:00

OK, so here's the scoop on what's going on over here in the Ukraine. As you know, we were suppose to get our passports this week and then travel straight to the US Embassy in Kiev to get visas for the kids. Well, at the passport office we found out that passports are not being issued at this time. There was no explanation... just that they would keep us updated. After doing much research online today and chatting with other families in this same predicament, I have a little more history on what is going on.

Evidently the company that produces the passport books has not been paid or is in some court dispute with the Ukrainian government. On top of that, there is a huge national election taking place here on January 17. It is a presidential election and several other key offices. Many believe this passport issue is tied to the elections which tells me that this is all political. If so, the results of the election may or may not resolve the issue. There is a whole bunch more information on this issue, but the bottom line is that we are caught up in dirty politics where passports (and now adoptions) are being used as political fodder.

In researching this issue, I've stumbled across many families who are here in this country dealing with the same issue; many of whom are in the same city as us. With all of this bad news, I know that God is in control and that He has a heart for these children. God wants each of these children to be home with their new loving families and we know that He is faithful! As I said in my previous post, God answers prayer and I know there are a lot of people praying for us right now. I would like to ask each of you to pray for these other families as well in hopes that we will all be home with our families soon.

With that I will leave you with some more pictures to help us remember what we're doing this for......

God Answers Prayer!!!

2010-01-14T02:25:00.000-08:00

One of the Psalms says that in the morning we should lay our request before the Lord and wait in expectation. I can't remember which Psalm it is, but it has always stuck with me..... the fact that we can ask something of our Father and not just wish for it, rather we can wait in expectation...... we can expect it! As you know, we've been praying about the things going on over here in hopes that we will not be delayed in bringing our kiddos home. I can't share much detail right now, but I will tell you that GOD ANSWERS PRAYER. I'll share more detail when I can, but for now, know that God is faithful.......

Thanks you all for your prayers and encouragement! You are a blessing to us! Tony

I have 10 children now... but can't bring them home yet!!!!

2010-01-13T10:44:00.000-08:00

Wow..... what a roller coaster of emotions. Yesterday (Tuesday) was a long and awesome day. We got off the train at 6am and came to our apartment to drop off our luggage. We were then whisked away to begin the process of getting birth certificates for Elisa, Vanessa and Elijah. We were in the car for 5 straight hours going from place to place.... signing one document after another. The girls slept through most of the trip. At about 2pm we signed the final document and I was presented with 3 birth certificates showing Leah and I as the legal parents of our new babies! I was overwhelmed with joy! It was like being in the delivery room and being presented with your new baby..... except my babies weren't here yet.

So as we drove back our facilitator called and explained that we would be going to pick the babies up and take them to get passport pictures. I had been praying all day that we would get to see them and not only would we see them, but we were taking them with us on a ride. It was a small sample of what the trip home might be like. Brittany was holding Vanessa who was smiling and cooing the entire time..... of course. Faith was holding Elijah at first as Elisa was being a little fussy. After a few minutes in the car, Elisa warmed up and I passed her to Faith so I could hold my big boy Elijah. Elisa was just looking around, really observing the buildings and cars we drove by. I wondered if this was her first trip in a car since leaving the maternity home. If so, I'm glad it was with her new family. Elijah decided to lay down across all of our laps and stare at our faces for about an hour. It was so fun and the kids did awesome!

So as we're waiting for passport pics, I got a call from our facilitator telling me that they would not be processing any passports at this time as there was some sort of political issue (a strike-type situation). She was not clear on the implications of this, but was certain that it would cause delays for us.... just not sure how long of a delay. We went ahead and took their passport pictures and applied for their passport so they would process when things resumed. It was so fun taking pictures with them and trying to get them to smile or at least look in the right direction. It almost made me forget about the bad news I had just received.

We dropped my new children off back at the orphanage and came to the apartment for dinner and rest. I had such mixed emotions last night as I thought about my three new kiddos and how long it has taken to get to this point. I also thought about the passport delays and couldn't help but think of the worst. What it the delay is not just days or weeks, but months? That's when I started praying. I know this is all in God's hands and that He is in control. I don't know what His plan is, but it will be perfect. Please pray for some quick resolution to this issue. I

really want to pull the kids out of the orphanage and bring them to the apartment,

but our facilitator is advising against that until we know more about the passport situation. Maybe I'll do a little research tonight to see how I can bring kids home without a Ukraine passport. Oh well, I can't be discouraged when I've just adopted these three beautiful children.

Travel Day (going to see my babies)

2010-01-12T04:52:00.000-08:00

This post was written at 11am on Monday, January 11........

We're on our way to the Ukraine to get our babies. Currently, we are stuck at the Dusseldorf as our flight has been delayed by about 2 hours. We're sitting on the floor at a crowded gate listening to people complain (at least that's what we think they're doing, but we can't really understand what they're saying). We really don't mind the delay as we have about 5 hours to kill in Kiev before we hop on the train to Odessa. So here's a quick update on our trip.

Yesterday was another nice day in Paris. Laura and her friend took us to the Eiffel Tower where we traveled up to up to the second floor. The top was closed, but the view from the 2nd floor was still amazing. After that, we took the subway down to the Sacred Heart Chapel (not sure how to say it in French) which sits at the highest point in Paris. The chapel was beautiful, but unfortunately they did not allow any pictures to be taken inside. We spent the evening with Laura's family, having dinner and hanging out and also saying goodbye to Marie who flew out last night. This morning, Laura's dad picked us up at 5:45 and dropped us off at the airport. We got to the airport on time, but stopped at one of the shops at the airport to buy a few drawings of Paris to take home to the kids. The man took so much time wrapping the pictures up that we almost missed our flight. Seriously, the check-in lady came into the store and began yelling at me that they were going to leave us behind.

We made it on the plane, but I did not have time to put the drawings in my bag as we were boarding the plan and, like and idiot, I left them on the plane when we got off here in Dusseldorf. SO, in summary, I almost missed our flight in order to buy some drawings that I ended up leaving on the plane. Sorry kids, but I'll get you something in the Ukraine.......

When we arrived in Dusseldorf we were greeted by Marie and her sister at the airport. As it turns out, Dusseldorf is Marie's home city. They brought us a genuine German breakfast that we sat down and ate together. It was very nice of them to take time out of their day to visit us at the airport. So that brings us to where we are right now..... still waiting. We have about 30 mire minutes until we leave for Kiev, so I guess I will pack up my computer. I can't wait to get to Odessa tomorrow and visit my babies. I hope they remember me......

It's All About Family.....

2010-01-09T15:48:00.000-08:00

Today was another cold and snowy, but amazing day in Paris. We spent the day traveling by subway to see the rest of this beautiful city. The highlight of our travel today was Notre Dame. We spent several hours touring the church and the architecture is just stunning. I ran across several people who were in tears purely because of the beauty and how moving the experience was for them. For me, the beauty of the church along with the sculptures and stained glass that depicted scripture reflected the glory of Christ and a reverance towards God hat I simply did not anticipate. I was moved!

So if Notre Dame was the highlight of our day, dinner with Laura's family was absolutely the highlight of the evening. Laura's mother cooked a genuine French meal for us and it was wonderful. They didn't just throw the food on the table and say "dig in" like we often do in America...... the meal was presented as it would be in a restaurant. Bread.... then salad... and then our main course. Laura said that they always eat their meals this way which really impressed me. So we sat around the table talking about our day and our new kiddos and our lives..... As we talked I watched Laura and Faith kidding around with each other and reminiscing about when Laura lived with us..... I watched Brittany and Marie do the same, remembering their times together. Laura's mom shared her experience growing up in a big family on a farm in Southern France.

After the meal, we were presented with a truly unique French desert. As they brought the desert to the table, they also brought small paper crowns. While they served the desert in slices (similar to how we would serve pie), they explained that one of the servings would have a surprise in it. They were so giddy as they explained the "game" and even brought out little treasure chests of "surprises" from past deserts that they had with their family throughout the years. We all laughed and joked as we eagerly ate our desert and waited to see who would get the prize. A few minutes into it, Faith pulled out a small ceramic piece that had been baked in the desert. She was the winner and got to wear the crown. It was fun and it felt like we were with family.

Our time in Paris has been made so wonderful not just because it's a beautiful city, but because it's like a reunion. We spend the days with Laura who is like a sister to Faith and a daughter to me and the evenings with Laura's parents who have welcomed us in like we're part of their family. As I reflect tonight on the past few days, I realize that even here in Paris, it's all about family....... As I think of Leah and the kids at home, it's all about family....... and as we prepare to pick up our new babies, it is all about family.

I've realized on this trip that families go beyond parent and siblings, and biological children and even beyond adopted children. Our family is comprised of people who we share our lives with. People who we love and care for and who recipricate that same love. It extends to foreign exchange students and their family who lives 4000 miles away and it even extends to the daughter of a friend who gives up 2 weeks of her life to help us adopt. No matter what we experience here in Paris, who we experience it with will always be more important that what we experience which confirms that......... IT'S ALL ABOUT FAMILY!

TRULY BLESSED......

2010-01-08T15:44:00.000-08:00

After 12 hours in the air, we arrived in Paris at about 6:30am this morning (Paris time). None of us slept very much on the flights, so we were quite tired when we got off the airplane. That all changed when we stepped out of the airport and began to flag a taxi. The temperature was in the teens and the wind was cold. We were wide awake now and ready to take on the city. That was a good thing since we could not check in to our hotel until 2pm and Laura (our exchange student/ tour guide) did not get out of school until about 5pm. So we left our luggage at the hotel and did went to the first place any tourist in Paris would want to go........ McDonalds! Sorry, but we were cold, it was close and we really just wanted a cup of coffee before spending several hours on our feet. BTW, McDonalds in France is NOTHING like McDonalds in America. The menu is different, the decor is different, and the food is very different.

So at about 9:30 we worked up the courage to venture out into the cold and tour the city. The area we are staying in is a small but wealthy neighborhood on the edge of downtown Paris. The area is full of open markets, shops and restaurants. Knowing we would tour the major landmarks with Laura over the weekend, we were just looking for the closest thing we could find to help kill time. The closest monument was Champes Elysee so we pointed ourselves in that direction. On our way, we stumbled upon a beautiful Catholic church. Partially out of curiosity and partially because we were freezing, we walked over to the doors to see if they would open. With one tug, the doors opened up to reveal a beautiful domed sanctuary with massive stained glass windows along an entire wall. We spent a few minutes touring the church and were greeted with only smiles and polite comments from the few people we ran into within the building.

Now back in the cold to find our monument. After much effort weaving in and out of the streets we found the Champes Elysee or Arc de Triomphe and it was beautiful. It rested in a central area where no fewer than 10 streets intersected at one of those confusing "roundabouts" like the one in European Vacation. Thank God we don't have to drive while here. As we arrived, we discovered that we could not possibly cross all of the traffic to get to the monument. The only way to get there was through an elaborate underground tunnel system that also serves the downtown subway system. It was definitely worth the hour long walk and the numb fingers and toes.

So we headed back towards our hotel with a plan to stop and eat lunch to kill the final few hours before checking in to our hotel. For lunch we found a quaint little local cafe where we met a nice english-speaking waiter who translated the entire menu for us. Faith and I played it safe, but Brittany decided she wanted something authentically French. Despite several warnings from the waiter she ordered something he described as a French delicacy. As it turns out, it was stomach wrapped like a sausage. The smell was horrible and although I did not taste it, the flavor didn't appear to be much better. But like a trooper, Brittany ate most of it and did so with a smile..... The creme brulle we had for desert would help redeem the term "French delicacy" in our mind.

After lunch, we checked in, took a nap, and waited for Laura to get out of school. When she arrived, it was so good to see her. She truly is like part of our family. After a little discussion, she walked us to her flat (apartment) which was only about 10 minutes away. Oh and as we were leaving, Marie (the German exchange student who had lived with Brittany) arrived. We checked out Laura's apartment and then road with her father downtown for dinner. He took us on the scenic route which allowed us to see the Champes Elysee (now at night) and the Eiffel Tower. We got out for a few minutes to take pics of the tower, but only lasted about 15 minutes due to the weather. We got some beautiful pictures though.

Dinner was at a fancy restaurant in Downtown Paris. The food was wonderful and the company even better. We spent our entire dinner remanicing and laughing about the times when Laura was staying with us and Maria was staying with Brittany's family. It was a great evening with great people in a beautiful city while on our way to pick up our beautiful new babies from the Ukraine. The only thing more I could ask for would be to have the rest of my family here with me, but I know they are all back home preparing for our families growth. As I go to sleep tonight, I can't help but think that we are truly blessed. WE ARE TRULY BLESSED!!

They are on there way!!

2010-01-07T14:53:00.000-08:00

Tony and my daughter, and my (adopted) niece! left today at noon. The last I heard at 4 they were in D.C. heading to Paris.
The exchange student we had named Laura has the entire day planned for them to explore Paris in 2 days. I have to admit I am a little sad that I did not get to see what they about to see.
Tony will then head to the Ukraine to pick up our babies.
I am running around the house trying to do all the last minute things. I am having to by three of everything!! Highchairs, toys, bounces. A friend of mine is throwing me a baby shower once they get home. It will also be a time for all of our Friends to meet the babies.
Tony promised to start blogging as soon as the plane lands, so I will following along with all of you as he goes across the country to bring them home!!
Tony If you are reading this in Paris, I love you and Miss you. Cant wait to see you back at home with 3 babies strapped to your back!! Love you , Leah

Heading back to the Ukraine

2010-01-06T19:11:00.000-08:00

Well Tony Faith and our friend will head back out tomorrow at 12.00 I'm so excited for their journey. They will going to Paris first to visit our exchange student, then to the Ukraine. In the Ukraine they celebrate Christmas on Jan.7th. After this they still have big parties for another year. I guess they said the entire country shuts down and they just drink and have a lot of fun. Tony is trying to avoid as much of this as he can, But I thought it would be neat to see how they do things there. He should be there for about 11 days. There will be one person to help care for each baby.
I guess Tony will be writing for the rest of the trip since he will have the babies. It will be hard being the one on this end this time. I want to be there and be with the babies!! I can not wait to have them all here and at home with me.
Well, Id better go make sure he has what he will need on this trip. We are all getting so excited. Its so real now, they are almost home. What an adventure this has been!!!!!!!!!!

De JaVu.......

2010-01-03T13:59:00.000-08:00

So we've been home less than one week and we're packing again. In about 4 days, I'll be sending my husband and daughter to pick up our precious new babies. He leaves on January 7 and will come home on January 20. I cannot wait for him to walk off of that ariplane holding our new little angels. It almost makes me cry as I think about it right now. The timing worked out to where they will get to spend a few days in Paris with Laura, our exchange student who lived with us last school year. Laura truly became part of our family when she was here, so it will be so special for them to spend some time with her.

Brittany, the girl that will be travelling with Tony is the daughter of our very good friends. They also had an exchange student (Marie - from Germany) living with them last year. It looks like Marie will be flying to Paris to meet up with them, so it will be a wonderful reunion for all. So my husband will be in Paris with my 12 year old daughter and 3-18 year olds. This should be good preparation for when all of our girls are teenagers :-). Now that I htink about it, Paris might be more exhausting for him than brining our 3 babies home.

I just looked back and noticed that our fist blog was on February 20, 2009. So when Tony gets back on Janaury 20 it will have taken us exactly 11 months to get our babies home. What a long journey, but it will be sooo workth it. We've been working all weekend on sorting their clothes and finishing up their room. We also tore apart our formal dining room and made it into a play room for the babies. We put padded flooring throughout and will put child gates at the entrance to keep the kiddos safe. So these babaies have already taken over our house and they're not even here yet.

Well, I better let you go so that I can go buy some winter clothes for Faith to take with her. I jsut can't wait to get my babies home in my own house....... in their new house! Leah

Getting Ready to bring them home

2009-12-31T18:26:00.000-08:00

Today is New Years Eve. We spent the day with our friends from church. We had a nice time. While we were there we were thinking about it being 2010 now. Tony said it was neat because there is 2 of us, and 10 kids. 2010!! I thought it was cute. Then I spent the rest of the time thinking about all my blessings. I had an old friend that I don't speak to much to anymore tell someone something the other day that made me stop and think. She told my friend that she did not understand why we had so much and continued to receive more. She thought it was not fair to her. To us we do not feel as if we have so much, but I do understand what she is saying. I understand it so clearly though. I believe God gives us blessings for the things we do in life. I think when we adopt babies or even do things for others that God blesses you in return. I think when you just worship, pray, and live your life for Him, you will be blessed. I guess if she doesn't see it that way, then that may be why she does not understand!!

I do feel blessed. A lot of people have asked me this week, "are you really going to bring them all home?" We were surprised about how many people were really thinking we would not bring them all home. They do not understand how we will do it. I can not explain to people how we will do it; It just works! You just get on a schedule in life that works for you, and go with the flow. I have enough Faith in God that if I am doing what He wants me to do, that everything will just work out.

We were even more blessed today when I spoke to a friend about not having anyone to help Tony. Then she told me that her daughter could go. We were joking around, but it became more serious. Now we have booked her ticket with Tony and my oldest daughter. God has blessed us once again. They will leave next Friday to go get our new Beasleys. They will be there for no more than 11 days. For now I am just waiting and getting the babies room ready. I have to go buy all new clothes for Eli because he was so stinking big!!!! He wears 2t!!

Anyways, Im going to go sit with my husband. He is sad that nobody is still awake to celebrate the New Years with him.

HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE. GOD BLESS YOU!!!!! LEAH

Back Home

2009-12-27T20:33:00.000-08:00

After flying for over 24 hours we made it back home tonight. It was sad to say goodbye to our babies, but it was so good to see our kids back home. We opened our christmas gifts tonight. They all seemed to have a good time. Tomorrow we will spend time talking and just relaxing. We have to go out and get a few things for Tony and Faith to take back as well.

While we were in Odessa we thought about about moving up North. I guess the weather made us think more about it. Tony has a job position right now we are waiting on to move to Missouri. If this does not work out we may begin to look at other options in other places. We want to move further north and get some land for the kids. We have always wanted to be on a farm and have horses and cows, and the chickens. I grew up this way. Of course as a child I did not see how nice it was. Now I the kids would really enjoy it.

It would be hard for us to leave family and friends, but I know we would still get together. My side of the family I never see that often. It has always been that way. I get sad about it knowing that they do not see the kids that often, but its always good when I do see them. I know our friends would come often, and we would come back as well. Tony has always been close to his family so I know we would still see them to, It just would not be as often.

Tomorrow we will discuss it a little more before he goes back to work.

It is so good to be home even with the little drama that still hangs over here. I don't think it would even be so bad , but my kids overheard many conversations between family, and of course they all began to tell me everything that was said about me!! You know, its just sad that that is what we came home to, but Im not going to let it ruin my first day and week home with the kids!! I hope everyone has a great New year. I know we will. We have a lot to do to prepare for our new babies!!

Flying Home Tomorrow

2009-12-26T08:07:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Tomorrow we are flying home, but after reading the news today I am FREAKING out. It seems that yesterday in Amsterdam a man tried to set off a bomb in the airplane, but a passenger caught him. They were both burned badly. They said the man was from Al-Qaida. Now I am really very, very nervous. I do not fly in the first place. 9-11 has been in my head this entire trip and now this. We are flying to Germany from here, then the U.S.

Im just asking for prayers for safe travel because I can not get my head at ease now, Thanks, Leah

Back in Kiev!!!!

2009-12-26T03:25:00.000-08:00

So we're kind of getting used to the train. We left Odessa at about 11pm last night and everyone but me went right to sleep. I I still have trouble sleeping with all of the rocking back and forth on the train. tony says it puts him right to sleep, but not me. We arrived in Kiev at 7am and were immediately greeted by a new driver. After much searching (he got lost) we found our apartment. It's downtown Kiev and is very nice. We wasted no time, dropping off our bags and hiking down to the nearest McDonalds..... we were hungry!!!

Fortunately, we were only a few blocks from a central area where there was a McDonalds, a mall and all kinds of other things going on. For the first time in a long time, we felt no stress. We just wandered around the city looking at the different sites. We bought some souveniers, had some ice cream, visited a local church, and went to a cool underground mall. Oh, and the girls also road on small shetland ponies in the middle of downtown. I think we got scammed, but it was worth it to see the girls smile....... The entire city is getting ready for their Christmas which is not until January 7, so their were Santa's in the street and beautiful Christmas trees all over. They even had a nice outdoor ice skating rink in the center of downtown.

After several hours of walking, we began to tire and it began to rain. We spent the last hour getting back to our apartment in the cold rain, but we had fun. The people throughout this country have been sooo nice and patient with us. At every store and every restaurant, people try so hard to understand and accommodate us. Tony and I are very impressed with the Ukrainian people and the kindness they've shown us. This is a beautiful country with a lot of kids in need. We are so glad that we were called to take this journey and so excited about the next steps. We know it will be hard when we get the girls home, but God is with us and it is in Him that we will find our strength.

This entire journey has been a walk of faith... literally. Even the trip over here has taught us so much about our faith. Think about it.... when you travel to a country where you don't speak the language, getting in cars with people you've never met, and committing to spend a life taking care of children you've never met, you have nothing but your faith. I don't believe anyone could walk this path without a strong faith in God. Despite some difficulties while over here, we never doubted our call and never doubted our decision. We've learned so much and grown so much throughout this journey and look forward to continued growth and blessing as we continue. Thank you all for holding us up with your words (comments and e-mails) and your prayers. God Bless, Leah

Bitter Sweet Christmas Day......

2009-12-25T06:28:00.000-08:00

So much emotion today! First of all it is Christmas Day and we are desperately missing our kids back home. They are waiting to celebrate until we come home, but it just breaks our heart that they will not start their day with the same excitement that other kids will have. We began our day in Odessa with a few Christmas songs. Kind of cheesy, but it was fun for the kiddos. We were planning on going to the orphanage to celebrate CHristmas with our new kiddos, but we got a late start. Our driver was in some sort of car accident so we had to wait for a taxi. We arrived at the orphanage to an angry woman telling us the orphanage was under quarantine again (at least that's what we thought she said). We stood outside in the cold wondering what we were waiting for. After about 15 minutes we were invited in and were immediately greeted with Vanessa. Of course she was smiling and giggling as always. We had one small gift for each of the kids, but wanted to wait until they all arrived to open them. But what goes as planned when dealing with babies. We sat her down and she immediately began digging into the bag to see what was in there. SHe was actually more interested in the bag then the gift, but once we got it out she began to play. She was soooo cute.

Then came big Eli (Arthur). His demeanor has changed so much in the short time we're been here. He's more alert and more attentive and seems to smile all the time. He still grunts all the time though :). We sat him down and he also began digging into his bag for his gift. Again, more interested in the bag than the gift. He loved the gift though and would not stop playing with it. It amazes us how much he can do with his hands even though he only uses his thumb. We played with the kiddos for awhile wondering when Elisa would be brought in. After about 30 minutes, the nice lady whose office we use began asking about "Leezka". We shrugged our shoulders and she immediately marched out of the room barking orders at people. A few minuted later, Elisa came in. We knew she was coming because she was whining on the way in. She always seems upset when they bring her in, but quickly calms down when we begin to play. We wish so much that we could understand Elisa. She sits and closes her eyes tight and then loosely as if trying to calm her nerves. We let her be and wait for her to open up and respond. It's so cute but also so sad. Elisa opened her gift and all the kiddos were playing. It was a simple little Christmas, but special because it was our first with these three.

Our visit was short but meaningful. We told the kiddos goodbye as they were taken out of the room one by one. We shared gifts with many of the workers at the orphanage and told them Merry Christmas, although we're not sure they understood. We knew this would be the last time we saw the kiddos for at least 3 or 4 weeks. As we left, we got a call from the facilitator telling us that our train left at 11pm and our driver would be there at 9:30 to pick us up. We had planned a nice CHristmas lunch for our family, but were not sure where we were going to go. All this time in Ukraine and we had only gone to fast food restaurants or the grocery store for food. We picked a place we could walk to and decided to splurge. It was a very nice restaurant, but was completely empty inside. As we sat down, we were pleasantly surprised to find that they offered us an American menu. So we had, fried shrimp, grilled chicken, Chicken Kiev (loved it), salad, french fries, and grilled cheese. The food was great even though the shrimp was not fried and still looked like it was alive. Tony peeled and ate some, but really didn't care for it much.

No were are packing...... so excited to start our journey home, but so sad to leave our babies behind. It's a bitter sweet day! We will be in Kiev by 7am in the morning and then will stay one more night until our early flight back to America. Merry Christmas to all of you who are reading! Leah

Christmas Eve here, and we are approved for adoption!!

2009-12-24T03:46:00.000-08:00

We went to court today, and after about 30 tense minutes we heard the words we have been waiting a year to hear. The Judge said that the babies are now Beasleys. We were very excited to hear this. Tony wanted to go out and celebrate, but I was not as eager to celebrate. Last night back at home everything went downhill back at home. The entire side of Tonys family is fighting and I seem to be right in the middle of it. It even went as far as the family canceling Christmas dinner and get together. This has been very hard for me. I seem to not be able to focus on what I really need to, I have a very hard time when People are saying things that they simply do not understand. When you write over the internet things sound different than they should as well. People missunderstand what you are really saying. After last night I was even more upset about not being able to fly home now. I found myself asking God why we could not be flying home now, what is keeping us here 2 more days. Then I have to stop and think it is only 2 more days, its not that bad. While Christmas just wont be what I wanted it to be, I still have to remember why we are here. I get very upset that we are over seas from everyone at Christmas, and can not be with my family in the midst of all the drama at home.

Im trying to out my mind on other things now. Tomorrow since we will be here for Christmas we are going to try to get together with the Wetmores and have a Christmas dinner with her. We also bought gifts for our babies and will be with them in the morning.

Sunday our flight 5.00 a.m. This journey is almost done, I am now the proud momma of 10 kids!!!!!!!!

Please Pray for Flight

2009-12-23T00:42:00.000-08:00

Last night Tony informed me that our court date was moved to Thursday at 10. I was ok with that, but then our flight was booked when we came home and checked on it. We could have left at 11.00 on thursday and it would have been ok, but now we have court. I have been in tears all night. Really because we just told our kids that they would be getting a wonderful surprise on Christmas night. Its going to be very hard to tell them, no, your really not now. I know we will be leaving on Sunday and its only 2 days later, but it was about Christmas!!

Im just asking everyone to pray that something will work out for us so that we can home for Christmas!! Thanks everyone, Leah

Tomorrow is our last day here!!

2009-12-22T09:52:00.000-08:00

Well, I got to do my tour today. It is not what I expected it to be. First of all, the first room they took me to, none of our kids where even in. After they realized this they moved on to Elisa's room. As I moved around the room I was looking at all the babies trying to see who was in there when I heard a little kid screaming at me. I turned to look and it was my Little Elisa. She KNEW ME!!! She totally recognized me. I turned to her and she held her hands up reaching for me and just yelling for me. I was touched because of all the rejection I have felt from her. I went to her and held her little face in my hands and just spoke to her to calm her down. Ohh, the kids there were so beautiful. I didn't see many special needs kids there either. I thought there would be many more special needs children. After her class I went to Eli's, and Nessie's class. I saw them both right away. My big boy was cruising in his walker. I saw him look at me and start walking backwards to try to get by me. I sat for a while with both of them talking when I remembered that Darya should be in this room as well. Im suppose to get pictures for her family so I began to look around for her. Honestly, I could not recognize any other child in that room. I asked the teachers, but they did not know of a Darya, since this is probbaly not her real name, or her name that they use for her there. They said they had a Dasha. When I looked at this little girl she was in her swing. At first I said, No thats not her," Then I looked back again. After I looked for a moment I saw her jaw bone looked the same as Daryas. I really think it is her, but she has got more hair and just looks bigger. Im going to post her picture here and see if anyone else thinks it is her. I only have one picture, but I have her on video as well for her family, hoping that it is her. I was very sad not to see my sweet anya. They are going to look at her picture tomorrow and the picture of Viviane. I really hope that I am able to see them both before I leave.

After tomorrow we have a court date set for Thursday at 10.30 After the court date we are trying to set up a way to get back to Kiev to make out 5.45 flight out. We should be back home by 10.30 Christmas day. Im really going to miss my babies, but Im also looking forward to getting home. This has been a totally different experience for me. I know I had issues at the start, but time did pass fast. Now I feel silly for being so petty about little things. I think I just missed my kids at home so much that I let that take over everything good here.

I met with Tammi Wetmoore tonight. We went to get pizza together and then we went to have icecream together. It was nice to get out and do something different. Althought the taxi ride there was 1 hr. and 45 minutes. They drive so fast to that I had to close my eyes the entire time. Its really funny how people here just drive so fast and get right up on people, even people walking.!!

Well heres pictures from my visit today, then will be Daryas picture! (I think) Please tell me what you think before I send it to them getting their hopes up!!

Leah forgot the most important update......

2009-12-21T23:22:00.001-08:00

I GOT TO ROCK LITTLE ELI TO SLEEP!

Proud Daddy

We are in Love!!

2009-12-21T10:55:00.000-08:00

We were not able to wake up and go see our babies due to the icy weather. Taxis would not drive this far out. So this afternoon we finally found a taxi driver that would take us to the orphanage. It was much more quiet in the evening because some of the workers have already gone home. We found it to be much more relaxed. Elisa did so much better this time because people did not keep coming in and out talking to her. She has always like Tony and has always clung to him, but she actually liked me today!! She wanted to sit with me, and when I walked away she held her arms up for me. This made me feel much better inside knowing she did like us a little but.

Eli, wow, he is such a sweet, handsome baby boy. I really can not believe that someone had not adopted him before us!! Although he does seem very spaced out at times, he is alert unlike I thought. We tried so hard to get him to smile for so long. We were so happy last week when we got him to do this. Now today we got him to laugh at us to. This to us is a new baby. He is doing so much more than what they told us he would do for awhile.

Nessie, sweet Nessie. I thought I would never hear her cry. She is always so happy and smiling. Today we saw her pout for the first time. It was really cute because she just puts her little bottom lip out. It was very short lived to. She started smiling right away. She loves to be held, and huged. When you hold her, she turns and starts sucking on your neck. She sucks on anything around her. I think she would love a binky, but it may be to late now to start that.

Im going to put a few of our pictures from today on here. Tomorrow we will see them one last time before we leave. They are suppose to do the tour tomorrow as well. After that we will go back to Odessa, then home. We are still praying that we get home by Christmas night. It will be a big surprise for all the kids!!! Hope you enjoy the pictures!! Thanks, Leah

Good News and Bad news

2009-12-21T00:37:00.000-08:00

The good news is the snow began to melt yesterday, and we are almost sure we will be headed home on Friday. The bad news is that because the snow is melting it is to icy for any taxis to drive us anywhere. So, Once again we did not get to see our babies today. We are hoping that tonight we can try to get a ride there. Everyone is starting to get a little crazy in this apartment. We have simply been locked up in her to long.

We will only be able to see them one more time tomorrow before we leave. After court on Wen. we are suppose to take the midnight train back to Odessa where we will board a plane at 5.45 the next morning. We should still arrive home at 10.30 at night Christmas. I have not told my kids yet, because I was thinking what a great christmas surprise that would be for them.

We are going to attempt walking to McDonalds today against the request of our translator. She thinks its to unsafe to walk with the kids. If it is we can just turn around!!

Pray that we get to see our babies tonight and that the ice melt fast!! Thank,Leah

Fun snow day

2009-12-20T03:23:00.000-08:00

Today we knew that there would not be much going on, so we tried to make the best out of it. We actually had a pretty good day. The snow is starting to melt a tad, so we tried to make a snowman. I think we did pretty good to. The kids had a blast outside because it was not that bitter bite you in the face cold.

I also found out from our facilitator that we are almost for sure going to be traveling by train Wen. after our court date to go back to Kiev. From there the next morning on Friday we will fly home. We should make it back home by 10.30 at night. I WILL get to spend Christmas with almost all of my kids. Tony will still be coming back with my oldest daughter to bring the others home. I still have not found anyone to help with that either. Tony seems to think he will be o.k. Now that I meet Elisa though I know she going to throw some of her famous fits on the plane while he is trying to get the others just to sit on an 8 hr flight. I know that God will make it o.k. for him so I try to to worry about it to much.

The people that we have meet her so far seem to be very nice people, sometimes they get upset when we cant understand them, but not to often. There is a lady at McDonalds that loves it when we come in. She speaks very little english, but knows that we need her to help us order. She is very sweet. Even the landlord here at our apartment. She comes in to check and make sure we have clean towels, and sheets all the time. She also does all our laundry. I wish I could tell her how thankful we are. I will to get the translator to.

The dogs here are still running around in this freezing snow. I wonder how long they could stay quiet in a suitcase!! Just kidding. We found out today that there is another family here adopting a little girl in another orphanage. Our plan is to meet up with them at some point. That will be a good way to pass some more time.

We plan to go back th the orphanage tomorrow to see our sweet babies. We really dont like not being able to see them very much this trip. Elisa really needs to know us a little better before we come back. Im also going to ask to do our tour tomorrow. This will probaly make me very upset, but I really want to see all those sweet kids there.

Well, Im going to go help Tony making some soup. It seems to be one of the only things we really know what we are eating. Its very good to. Ill talk to you later, Leah

More Snow!!!

2009-12-19T11:44:00.000-08:00

Today we woke up to even more snow! Our facilitator called early to let us know that the orphanage would be closed yet another day. We were so disappointed not to be able to see our babies for a 3rd straight day and the orphanage is never open to visitors on Sundays. We miss them soooo much and can't wait to hold them and snuggle with them. Monday will not come soon enough for us. We think the snow is supposed to let up for the next few days, so we're praying that the orphanage will be open. If not, we will probably show up anyway and act like we didn't know it was closed. That's not so wrong is it????

So since we could not see the babies, we decided we needed to have a little fun. We went to McDonalds and watched all of the people shoveling snow away from and off of their cars. It was fun getting out of the apartment and seeing everything covered in white. When we got back, Tony and the girls went out to make a snowman, but did not succeed. They had a lot of fun though as I watched them through the window. We then walked over to the market and had a cup of coffee (hot chocolate for the kids). We had to rush home because we were late for a Skype date with our kiddos back home.

We had been Skyping them off and on, but this was the first time in a week when they were all together. It was so good to see their faces and to hear that they were doing well. They are out of school for the holidays and were all excited. Our family back home is doing a great job of taking care of them and making sure this time is special for them. If we're still here for Christmas, we thinking enjoying their Christmas with them via Skype. Kind of silly, but we would love to just watch them open their gifts. Of course, we will have another Christmas with them as soon as we get back home.

Well I've written all that I can about a pretty uneventful day. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers and for your encouraging comments and e-mails. We truly love reading all of your comments and are so thankful that so many of you are praying for us. Thanks, Leah.

Psalm 127

2009-12-18T16:56:00.000-08:00

Since our first appointment over here, people have been questioning us about two things..... the number of children we have (soon to be 10) and our age (thinking we're too young). Tonight I could not sleep so I opened my Bible and began to read. Within minutes I came to Psalm 127 where verses 3-5 read:

³ Children are a heritage from the LORD,
offspring a reward from him.
⁴ Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are children born in one's youth.
⁵ Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their opponents in court.

Just the week before we came over here, a friend from work quoted this scripture to me, but could not recall where it was in the Bible. Keep in mind, our next and final meeting over here will be in "court". A few minutes later I ready Psalm 139 where verses 7-10 read:

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

For those who don't know, the city we are currently in is on the edge of the Black Sea or what I will now consider "the far side of the sea."

God is so faithful and as I was reading my Bible, it was almost as if He was whispering these scriptures in my ear. We are so blessed to have a God who loves us so much...... to have the most amazing children and to be adopting 3 more amazing children. We are so blessed to have friends like all of you praying for us throughout this journey. Thank you all for your prayers and support! God Bless.........

Possible Court Date

2009-12-18T06:34:00.000-08:00

I called Alonya today who is our translator here and she informed me that we should have a court date by Wen. Im not sure why she did not call us to tell us this, but it makes us very happy to know we getting closer to bringing our babies home!!

If all goes well we can maybe fly home on Thursday and be home by Christmas. Tony thinks that we might not be able to get a flight ticket on short notice. I still have to go to Kiev to sign paperwork since Im not coming back with Tony. We think I might be able to fill out the same paperwork in the US.

We are very excited about this because we cant see the babies right now anyways. Im praying that we will get to go back one more time before we leave. I still have not been able to get pictures of the other babies for waiting parents. I was blessed by someone that they were able to get a video of Vanessa for us. It made us so happy to have that.

I just had to write to tell everyone our good news!!! We are getting ready for dinner here, then bedtime. Hope everyone has a good day!!

Still Friday

2009-12-18T03:22:00.000-08:00

Hello again. I know I already blogged today, but I went back to read some of my older blogs and noticed that I have been very negative with all my blogs. I really dont mean to be. I enjoy being with my babies here, but most of the time is spent in this little apartment with little to do. I dont handle being bored very well. I guess I am high maintenance!!

We saw a lot of snow trucks out today so I hope that they clear the roads a little bit so that they open the orphanage tomorrow. The mean lady that works there isnt there tomorrow. Then maybe we can do our tour. I cant ask to do the tour until she is gone because she will for sure say no!

We found a nice little coffee shop at the mall today we can sit and drink while the kids go play at the playscape they have there. So we are trying to enjoy ourselves a little bit!!

I know a lot of people have adopted 3 kids at once, but I guess it has not been done from this orphanage because we have had to explain in person to 3 or 4 different people why we would want to do this. People seem to think that we are getting some sort of funding or extra money if we adopt this many. Once we explain it to them they seem to get it, but they are very shocked. Even in the orphanage , I think thats why the mean lady doesnt like me. She makes us wear these masks, and when they are not on right they she comes and starts yelling at us in russian and other people help us put them on right. When she walks off the other people start laughing at her.

Oh well, We are counting down the days we have 9 days left !!!!! If we get our court day soon it may be earlier. Thanks to everyone that comments, it gives me something to do here to read all your comments. I also feel better when I have you guys cheering me on. Missy, Ill always be gratefull for all your support. Someday it would be nice to meet you in person. This is an amazing experince and I dont want my negativity to make people afraid to do this. If I had all my kids here with me this would be so easy and so much fun, I just miss them so much that it makes this process very long and heartbreaking!!!

There will be a great reward in the end though. Ohh I cant wait to go home and start buying walkers, strollers, and carseats!!! I bought all the clothes already, but boy o boy was I wrong on Eli'S size. I bought him 18-24 months. He at least a 2 t!! Isnt that crazy!! I miss them already!!

Well, Ill end now, Im going to people watch threw my window now. Send lots of comments!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Love, Leah

Friday in Odessa

2009-12-17T23:59:00.000-08:00

The snow is keeping us inside for the second day straight now. We were all ready to go to the orphanage today and the translator told us they were closed until Monday because of the weather. These are the things that keep making us so mad. She knew this since yesterday, but never bothered to tell us. The snow isnt even falling today, so I really dont understand. Im ready to just pack up and go home and send Tony back out to bring them all home.

Tony is still feeling very weak. He can barely walk around. I keep giving him a lot of water, but he can not eat anything. Its hard when you feel so helpless. We still have no idea when our court date will be. If its not on Monday or Tuesday then we will possibly miss our flight home on the 27th. I can not even think about that. This is hard enough missing Christmas with all my little ones at home.

I guess for now Im going to bundle the kids up and let them go make a snowman or something outside. At least they seem to be enjoying this snow a little bit!!

A Surprise Meeting....

2009-12-17T06:05:00.000-08:00

W got a call this morning from our facilitator telling us that the "administrator" wanted to meet with us before sending our documents off to Kiev. We were told that this is not at all normal, but not to worry. As we drove to the offices, navigating through snow covered streets, our facilitator explained that we were meeting with the head of the child welfare department who had some questions about our ability to care for 3 more kids. As we sat down, the lady was kind, but very direct. She said thank you for having such kind hearts, but then immediately began to ask about our income, our other kids and our ability to care for Elisa, Vanessa, and Eli. We handled the questions well, but the tone took us off guard.

She then began asking about social (government) programs that would be available to help us out. We remembered our facilitator telling us that Ukraine officials were often suspicious of American adoptions thinking that we were doing it for the money or some other benefit from the US government. If only they understood what we were sacrificing and spending to bring these children home. So we were a bit unsure about how to answer. I think we handled the questions well and the meeting ended with a few complimentary words from the administrator. As we parted ways with our facilitator she said everything was ok and for us to pray. We're hoping she meant to pray for our paperwork to get to Kiev quickly, but we didn't ask.

So, for now, we continue to put everything in God's hands and we know that He is in control. He has nothing but good in store for us and the children we came here to adopt. Thanks so much for all of your prayers and support. Leah

H1N1 hitting us

2009-12-17T03:45:00.000-08:00

Last night Tony began to feel a little bit sick, but we still went about our daily plans. During the night however, he got even worse. He has been running a fever now for the past day in a half. I feel bad because I feel helpless. The Dr. had given us medicine before we left, so I started him on that. We can not go see the babies because he does not want to get them sick. I think he has the flu, maybe the h1n1 because thats going on here really bad right now. To make it worse the weather is 5 degrees today. The snow is over 3 feet in some areas. Cars can not even get to where we are, so to go anywhere we have to walk pretty far to the main road. They said it has not snowed here in ten years. Now it will not stop. Its suppose to snow until Saturday. The snow is also delaying our court date because someone has to get our paperwork to Kiev.

So, we are just locked up in this little apartment not doing much. Emma likes to take a bath every ten minutes because I think she is getting bored. As Im writting I see that the snow is falling hard and fast again. Everywhere you look you see parents pulling there kids on a sled. The snow is very pretty to look at, but not so cool to walk threw. I have fallen twice!!!

I didn't mean for this to sound so negative, but I guess it does. I don't like not being able to see my babies. Elisa needs to see us a lot so she cab get used to us. Well, Im asking all of you to please pray for Tony. He has not moved off the couch in over a day in a half. He needs to be strong for the rest of the time here. So please pray that he gets over this fast and that he feels better. Thanks, Leah

Our little Eli's first smile (Arthur)

2009-12-16T04:58:00.000-08:00

I told you that I would show you pictures of our little Eli smiling so here he is. We have not had any good photos to show you of Nessie either because she keeps closing her eyes when we take the picture. We got a few good pictures today of her to. Nessie has got the best personality. She makes us laugh so hard. You just look at her funny and she laughs so hard. She is also a kisser. She loves to kiss, and she is very into Daddy's gotee. She just rubs it over and over. She is very lovable. Eli is so thick. Its hard for me to even pick him up. Tony tickles his legs and his tummy and he laughs. We didn't think he was ever going to laugh.

Elisa still likes her caregivers way more than she does us. It makes you sad when they walk by and she screams for them to get her. Then when they walk by she just screams and kicks the floor. When we try to comfort her she tries to hit us away. I would say we are not her biggest fans yet!!

Im hoping to take a tour of the orphanage as soon as the snow dies down. I want to get pictures of Darya for someone and I would like to see Vivianne and Anya. We thought long and hard about adopting these kids so I would love now to see them in person. Today we heard of another baby here named Laura. She is only 5 months old, just a little thing. Im trying not to see her because if there was a way to bring her home I probably would!!

Im going to end now because the snow is over 2 feet now and I just saw a dog running threw it. If Tony will let me I want to take a towel out and put it in a corner blocking the snow from the dog. Its just freezing out. So many kids are sledding today. The snow literally went up to my knees in some spots. Cars are getting stuck everywhere!! When we walked home Tony forgot his gloves so his hands were like ice. It took forever for him to get them warm and from hurting. No wonder he is getting sick right. Tony has a fever today. If it continues we will not be able to see the babies for awhile. He said he is just dehydrated, but Im not sure. We are just counting our days until we get to come home. We miss our family so much. O.k. Im out to feed the sad dogs now. Hope you enjoy the pictures!!! Thanks, Leah

A very cold cold day here!!

2009-12-16T03:12:00.000-08:00

Today the snow is falling very fast and its very windy so it hits you hard in the face. The kids here are out of school so you see a lot of kids snow boarding. Its well over a foot of snow in some places. We ran into the mean lady at the orphanage again today. She started screaming at us again because we did not have masks on. We were never told to wear them in the first place. I think she is just mad now because we have our kids and she cant stop us from bringing them. She's really nasty!

We had a breakthrough today with Arthur. Tony was tickling him today and he just started laughing really hard and finally smiled. He is such a cute baby. We got a lot of pictures with him smiling so we will post them tonight. We are at the mall right now letting our kids play. We are getting ready to leave which means we must venture through all this snow. It really hurts your face. If anyone is coming here soon I really advise you to bring something that covers your face. They sell those mask you can wear. I didnt and im paying for it now.

Ill post pictures tonight. Thanks, Leah

About the Dogs Here

2009-12-15T04:29:00.000-08:00

When you come to Odessa and you are a dog lover beware!!

There are so many stays here. They are on every single corner. Some of them are friendly, the others just want some food. Now that it is snowing it is so sad. There are a few that stay at this apartment. I really want to take them to the vet and get them some shots and try to leave them at a vet center, but Tony says that is a bad idea, and that they probably do not have clinics like that.

I even say a cat today that we were petting. The sweet thing snuggled under our gloves and shook the snow off her feet. I just wanted to pick her up and bring her in the get warm, but then what. Put her back out to freeze!! I can not stand it. Back at home I rescued animals. I always brought home the strays and got them their shots then adopted them out. Here I feel so helpless and the people here are really hateful to them. They scream and yell at the dogs to leave. Another one here today has really big ninnies so she probably just had puppies somewhere. I just keep thinking about where they are, are the freezing??? OHHHHH!! I know this is not for me to worry about, but I do.

Other than that the day is good. We should get our court date today, then we will know that we can head home a few days after that. Im sorry we posted 3 times today, but we get really really bored here!

Im going to try to go cook some eggs or something for these poor babies!!!( The dogs!!!!!)

Leah Beasley

SNOW!!!!!!

2009-12-15T04:08:00.000-08:00

We woke up today to a wonderful surprise.... a beautiful white blanket covering the ground outside and a heavy snow falling from the sky! The kids were so excited and to be honest, so were we. We went to visit the kids this morning and they only brought Elisa in. After many attempts to ask about Eli and Vanessa, someone finally told us that they forgot about the others. So we only got to see Elisa today, but we had a good time with her. She's still much closer to the orphanage workers than us, but we had a good time together. Here's a pic of the cute outfit she was wearing.....
When we got back to the apartment, we couldn't wait to get out into the snow. The girls got bundled up and out we went. They made snow angels, slid down the slide, had a snowball fight, played "freeze" tag and then attacked me with snow. They had the most fun being drug around by their ankles through the snow. This was fun until the snow made its way up their coat and it was time to go inside. It was such a great relief to get out of the apartment for a bit and let the kids let loose. Check out their pics........

I hope all of you have a wonderful day!!!!!

The Beasleys

Thanks

2009-12-15T02:59:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone that has offered to help us. Our second travel date back here will be the second week of Jan. The first week they have been parties here and get really wasted they said so they shut down everything. Kinda funny, but we thought we would travel the next week instead.

For all the people that said to email them, I will this afternoon.

Im at McDonalds now and just wanted to post a few more pictures before I leave here. Thanks

Monday night in Odessa

2009-12-14T10:07:00.000-08:00

Its getting dark here. We were only able to see our babies once today because they fear that the swine flu is here again, so they closed the orphange. Me and Tony think they should spped things up and let us take the babies early to keep them from getting sick!!! (Yeah right!!)

While we were there today Arthur smiled just a bit. He is so stinking cute isnt he. Everytime I looked at his picture at home I said I wanted to squeeze his chin and kiss his cheeks. The first time I saw him thats just what I did.

Elisa was really throwing fits today. The caregivers took her from me and laid her on the floor and I think she was telling me to let her just kick it out. She was obviously throwing a fit again. Tony felt bad and kept saying,"Its o.k daddys here." I thought it was cute because I was just letting her scream it out. She can make the cutiest face though. She is walking, and she talks a lot on Russian. So it will be harder for us to teach her to talk. She loves music. She dances back and forth!!

Then their is Nessy. My little Nessie. This child is just a joy. She loves everybody. She laughs just when you pick her up. She loves to suck on your chin!! She also sucks on her bottom lip all the time. She is so tiny. Her eye crosses really bad, so I guess we will go to the eye Dr. as soon as we get home.

The mean lady at the orpanage was not there today, but our facilitator said it was o.k. for the kids to go now. Now that they said this Emma has a fever of 102. I started her on an antibiotic the Dr. gave me before we left. Please pray for a fast recovery because I manic a little with her being sick here. I did get her the H1N1 shot though before we left.We are hoping that they will re-open tomorrow because we are trying to get Elisa to like us a little more before we leave.

Tony will be bringing the kids home woth my oldest daughter who is 12. Now that we have meet the kids we know that is just not possible, but we dont know of anyone else willing to go. He just can not hold all 3 kids on all 3 planes on the way home. Exspecially if Elisa is throwing her fits. We are trying to pay his moms way to go, but she broke her foot. If anyone knows any easy ways to help make his trip not so hard on him please let us know.

I'll leave you with more pictures so I can go take care of my sick Emma, Thanks, Leah

Sunday in Odessa

2009-12-13T05:06:00.000-08:00

Today we can not go to the orphange because they are closed on Sundays. We have been having a really good time with them. Last night I we got to have them all for ourselves. It was a challenge for us, but its preparing us for the real world. They were all well behaved, but at times the older one, Elisa could really throw a fit. When she gets mad she just starts flipping around yelling. So we just let her do it and ignored it. She would then stop and come back to us,

Arthur is so big that I can barely hold him. Im going to have to buy something to strap him on me somehow. Even the caregivers kept coming up and grabbing his cheeks.

Im loving seeing the kids, but I am still very homesick. We have to walk far to come here to McDonalds just to use the internet. This area though is much much better than Kyiv.

Ill leave you with a few more pictues of our sweet little babies today. The blue stuff on Arturs head is medicine. I guess when they get scab they put it on them. Ill keep you posted. We are just waiting on our court date now!!

Today we met our girls, and our boy!!

2009-12-13T04:35:00.000-08:00

This is from 2 days ago........

We were still doing our interview with the director when someone came in with our first baby, Elisa, whom we named Elisa Nevaeh Beasley. That is Heaven spelled backwards. We were not even expecting her to come in,so we were very surprised. She looked the same,but much much smaller than we had expected. She was so beautiful, but did not want to have anything to do with us. So she just hung to the caregiver while we smiled and spoke to her.
Then came Vanessa. We named her Vanessa, Victoria.Victoria was her name here. They call her Vikka. She did not look anything like we pictured her to be. She was a typical downs baby. She had all the normal expressions. She came to us right away and laughed the entire time. She totally melted my heart. Every time i even talk to her she laughs so hard that she has to stop and catch her breath.
After passing her along we received Arthur. We named him Elijah Gregory. This poor baby made us sad. He never once smiled, nor did he even try to. He was so overweight and large for his age. He has a beautiful face, and I know he will have a beautiful smile. Its just getting him to do so. Arthur was very very heavy for me as well. He is going to have to learn to walk fast!!!!. We were told alot of good news while we were there.
Elisa had her heart surgery in Feb. of this year. Vanessa does not have any heart issues anymore, nor does Arthur. So basically they do not need to see a heart Dr, at all. However we do not really go by what they tell us. They tell us Vanessa does not need glasses and does not have strabismus, but you will see from the pictures her eyes clearly cross all the time.
Arthur seemed to be having trouble breathing, but Im hoping he was just getting a cold.
The orphanage was not very kind to us because I had my children there they told us we could not bring them back. So now we don't know what we are going to do yet. We don't have to many options really other than just letting them sit in the front while they wait for us an hour.
Ill send you guys many pictures in the next few days. Right now we do not have internet in our apartment. We are having to pay a driver every day just to drive us to McDonalds to have internet. He does not seem to like us that much either. The lady at McDonald speaks english though so she has been very helpful to us.
Tomorrow is Sunday so we cannot go see our babies, so we will send more pictures of them on Monday.
I CAN NOT WAIT TO BE HOME!!!I never thought I would be so homesick. I dont think Ill ever do anything without my kids again. I wont even take a family trip without them. This feeling away from them is just miserable. The entire process just takes to long. Im praying, and I ask that you all please pray along that this is over very very soon desperately want to go home.

Thanks guys, Leah

Quick Pics

2009-12-12T09:04:00.000-08:00

Elisa Vanessa Arthur

Interviews Galore!!

2009-12-12T09:03:00.001-08:00

We received our call at 9:30 and were picked up for our appointment. It was the same driver and a nice lady named Aloyna who was to be our interpreter for the trip. She was extremely friendly and began to explain the days events. She was taking us to an appointment with the city officials who would make a local referral for our adoption. After that we would go to the orphanage and meet with the director to gain her approval for the adoption. We expected these appointments were just routine, but soon found out different. The drive to downtown was very nice and showed us much of the city. The housing was all old and run down, but the city had a historic charm to it. We went by the Opera House which is one of the top 3 in the world. It was beautiful from the outside. Perhaps we'll try to see a performance while we're here. I never understood opera anyway, so it won't matter that it's in Russian. We walked into our appointment and stood in a cold bland room. People kept coming in and going out making us move around the room to avoid getting run over. We feel like we're in the way everywhere we go on this trip. As we waited, the interpreter began explaining the appointment to us. We were to meet with the city chief who was in charge of all adoptions. We needed her approval to proceed. Aloyna said to be prepared to explain why were wanted to adopt, why children with DS and why 3 kids. She also said to explain why we wanted more kids if we already had 3 of our own. Leah and I looked at each other and wondered which of us should tell her we have 7 kids. We looked down at the homestudy in Aloyna's hands. Obviously she had not read all of our information.

For a split second I wondered if we could just avoid the subject all together. But that would not be right. So I told Aloyna about our family. 4 biological kids and 3 adopted. She looked up as if to do the math in her head and looked back at us and said "10 kids!" She looked worried and said that we really needed to explain this to the chief because they often think Americans come to adopt because we get some kid of government subsidy for doing so. In otherwords, our motives would be questioned. Now Leah and I were a bit worried. Could this adoption really stop now...... for this reason...... because we have too many kids? We wispered to each other that we would just tell the truth and explain our love for children and our desire to help...... and ultimately explain that this was something God had called us to do. On top of this, we were told while we were waiting that Arthur's name had been mispelled on the SDA approval and that they may reject the document until it can be corrected in Kiev. We walked in to an intimidating room where we sat at a long table and the chief sat at an executive desk. Everything she said was translated as she was saying it. It took a bit to get used to looking at one person and listening to another while they both spoke at the same time. The questions were gentle at first.... introduce yourself, where are you from, what do you do for a living? And then she asked about our family. We described our family and our passion and calling to adopt. We explained that we had fallen in love with Elisa Vanessa and Arthur through pictures online and that we knew they were meant to be ours. The chief laid her pen down and looked at us sternly and began to speak. The Russian language always seems harsh, but we've learned that it just comes out that way. The only word we understood was "spaseeba" which means "thank you". It seemed like forever until we heard the translation. The chief almost had tears in her eyes as she "gladly took her hat off to us and bowed to us as her heroes". She commended our love for children and our large hearts and thanked us for making such a sacrifice. Leah and I got chills as we realized what she was saying. We were approved!!!!

From here, we left to pick up an "inspector" who would accompany us to the orphanage to meet with the orphanage director. When we arrived at the orphanage, they looked at Noelle, Emma, and Grace with concern. They said they could come in and immediately gave the kids surgical masks to put on. The orphanage was very nice and well kept. We walked into a nicely decorated office and met with the orphanage doctor, our interpreter, a lawyer and the inspector. They began to give us the medical history of the children as well as what they knew of their biological parents. We even saw pictures of Vanessa's mother. Surprisingly their medical conditions seemed much better than explained to us before. Elisa had already had her hearts surgery and they didn't think the other two would need surgery. They told us about their temperment and in the middle of talking about Elisa, the door opened. In came an orphanage worker with a small child. It took us a moment, but we realized it was Elisa. She was so beautiful and small. She was much smaller than we thought, but she looked just like her picture... her picture from almost a year ago. She was fussy, but we both got to hold her for just a second before they took her for a nap. One by one.... in the middle of the interview, they brought the kids in. Vanessa was bright and happy, laughing the whole time she was there. Arthur was quiet and not very active and was HUGE. He had a belly that would make a sumo wrestler jealous. He just sat there contently while we loved on him. More on the kids later when we send videos, but the appointment ended well. Everyone in the room loved us and they were laughing at the thought of our large family. They conveyed a great respect for Leah and I and even told us to "write Obama a letter to ask for money to help support our kids". We're not sure if that was a joke or not as the people over here seem to love America's new president. We walked out of the orphanage with a card that would allow us to go see our new babies from 10-12 and 4-6 every day until we left Odessa. We were again approved and one step closer to bringing our kiddos home!

Midnight Train Ride (written on 12/10)

2009-12-12T09:00:00.000-08:00

So we rushed out of our apartment and jumped in a car to head to the train. It was about 9pm. Hopefully we didn't forget anything at the apartment. We arrived at the train station at around 9:20 and it was beautiful. The building was large with neon lights shining on it. We entered into a grand foyer with a high vaulted ceiling. It was a challenge to keep up with our driver who was leading us to our train. Up one escalator and down another to a tunnel where the train was. Our driver walked us to car #4 and explained to the attendant that we were American and might need some assistance. She agreed and led us to our room.... or was it a closet? She offered us drinks and we took a stab at ordering. Water and apple juice...... As we opened the drinks, we said a small prayer, hoping we would not be surprised. The apple juice was good, but one drink of the water and we knew we had messed up again.... YUK, it was carbonated...... AGAIN! We always make that mistake. The room was approximately 6' by 7' with 4 beds. It was stuffy, but we figured it would get better when the ride started. At 9:50 the train took off. Emma sat in the window mimicking the train sounds.... chug-a-chug-a-choo-chooooo! chug-a-chug-a-choo-chooooo!

The train rocked quite a bit, as it moved forward. As we looked out the window we could see glimpses of snow on the trees and hills we passed. Every so often we would see an old farm house with snow covering the roof. After a while it became just black outside. We turned on a movie on our laptop and began watching. Grace sat on the upper bunk playing on the macbook while the rest of us watched "RV" on the bottom. I (Tony) dosed off about 30 minutes into the movie. Leah and the girls watched until about midnight and then settled in to sleep. The rocking of the train put everyone to sleep except for Leah. She was up most of the night probably because it was so hot on the train. It was 20 degrees outside and felt like it was about 85 on the train..... go figure. A few hours into the ride, the train began to stop. Uh oh, we didn't realize there would be multiple stops. We started wondering how we would know when it was our stop. Would someone wake us up.... had our driver told the attendant that we would need help..... would we hear the name of the town we were traveling to? We knew we were to arrive at 6am, but what if we were asleep? So we woke up at every stop and checked the time. At about 5:45am, the attendant knocked on the door and said something we could not understand, but it ended with the word Odessa. Whew! We made it.

As soon as we stepped off of the train, a large man immediately grabbed our bags and introduced his wife as Sveta. She bundled our girls up better (the people here are adamant about kids being bundled up when outside). Call it faith, but we assumed this man was our driver, so we followed him to his van and got in. Neither the man nor his wife spoke any English, but they were very nice. We drove for about 25 minuted and arrived at our apartment. A nice lady met us the door and showed around the apartment. Again, she spoke no english, but was apparently the landlord who lived next door. Again, she was very nice. We were told that someone would come pick us up at 9:30am to take us to an appointment. We all took this opportunity to catch up on some well-needed sleep. Finally we were here..... close to our kiddos!

Change In Plans!!!!

2009-12-10T10:00:00.001-08:00

We just got word that they were able to get us a train ticket after all and we will be leaving in about 1hr (9pm here). We will be on the train overnight and will arrive in Odessa at 6am. From there we will quickly go to our apartment and change before a meeting with the social worker. We WILL get to meet our kiddos sometime tomorrow. We're rushing to pack and eat dinner right now, so we gotta go, but we wanted to post an update before we got on the train. Things are moving fast, so please keep us in our prayers. We'll update our blog when we can.

Love Leah

got the referrals!!

2009-12-10T06:27:00.000-08:00

It is late here on Thursday. We just got word that they gave us the three referrals!! Yeah.

They do not have room for us on the train tonight though. That really sucks!

So I guess we will rent a car and leave very early in the morning and drive 5 hours to Odessa.

I really dont know what to expect when we get there. Im hoping the food is better like people are telling me!

It snowed so much today. For me coming from San Antonio, Texas we never see snow. It was such a pretty sight to see all that snow falling. Its not to cold out though.

Ill write in the morning to tell you guys where we end up.

Thursday - Waiting on Referrals

2009-12-10T02:33:00.000-08:00

Hello to everyone!! It is about 4.00a.m. at home. Here it is noon. I cant say we are adjusting well to the time here.

I miss my kids so bad at home. Things are going slow here, so we really have a lot of time on our hands to watch the clock and think about what everyone is doing at home.

We thought we would get our referrals yesterday, but they said because there are three, that we had to wait until 5.00 today. When and if we get them today we will board a train tonight and ride to Odessa for 9 hours.

Then tomorrow, Friday we will get to finally meet our new babies. We did get to see there pictures yesterday. Elisa the oldest is named Elizabeth, they call her Liza. She was so pretty. It was a current picture. The 2nd baby Vanessa was named Victoria. They call her Vikka. It was her baby picture where she had no hair, then Arthur , he still had his same name, but his baby picture was so cute, he was so fat!! It was funny.

As Im writing my husband just pulled my daughters tooth out. She is wondering how much money the Ukrainian tooth fairy brings her!!

While we were at the super market yesterday a gentleman kept talking to us when we told him we spoke English. He then got really excited and started speaking english the best he could. He was a very sweet man. He bought us chocolates,and walked us home. There we gave him our address. He said he wanted to continue to keep in contact with us. We are having a good experience with people here, we just feel a little left in the cold. We stay all day in our apartment because we don't know what to do here while we wait, or we go to the mall and try to get food by pointing to what we want!!!

Oh, also when we had our appt. yesterday they told us that Elisa, the oldest had already had her heart surgery. That was good news!!

Emma, my youngest is complaining that her throat hurts so Im going to get her some medicine now. Please just pray that we get our o.k. to travel tonight because this is getting really boring just waiting here!!

I hope everyone is well back home. Let me know if you would like me to bring something back, Love, Leah

Tuesday afternoon here

2009-12-08T07:42:00.000-08:00

Hello to everyone

We are doing well here! I am very homesick today. Everything we have had to eat is so unusual to me, and very nasty really. Tony doesn't seem to mind.

Our apartment is very cute, but we are ready to go to Odessa. They say we might get our referral tomorrow so that we can take the train there and see our babies early Thursday morning. Im really hoping I do better there. I did not expect to be so homesick. I have half my kids with me so it really doesn't make since. I guess people not understanding me is getting really frustrating as well.

Tony and Grace went to bed at 3.00a.m. and slept until 2.30 . I did fine with that part of this trip. I adjusted well to the time change.

Well Im going to try to skype my daughter now so Ill write back tomorrow. Thanks, Leah

Day 2 - Way Too Early in the Morning

2009-12-08T05:53:00.000-08:00

It's 3am over here and all I can think of is...... WHY AM I AWAKE AT THIS HOUR? I was awake for 30 straight hours and got about 4hrs of sleep last night. Gracie and I (Tony) got up at the same time and couldn't go back to sleep. The travel yesterday went great. Flights were smooth and people were friendly. I got searched in Germany and thought I lost my wallet, but Leah has just thrown it in her purse. Leah did awesome on the flights and only got scared a few times..... Once we arrived here we were met by a driver who brought us straight to our apartment. It's very nice on the inside and has a balcony overlooking a busy street with lots of people and cars. We're at a very active intersection near a mall and a grocery store. After arriving here, the driver took me to exchange some money and showed me where I could find things. The people here are very nice, but move extremely fast. This is not an "excuse me" or "pardon me" culture, rather people move very fast and you would be wise to stay out of there way.
Our time at the grocery store was more about avoiding getting run over than shopping. Buying groceries was interesting to say the least. After a few minutes of trying to figure out what things were, we decided to just go for the essentials; eggs, bread, milk, cereal, hot dogs, bologne, ketchup, pasta, and coke. When we arrived back at the apartment, we realized that the bologne was actually cheese (don't ask) and the milk was some sort of yogurt (we think). We're not sure what the hot dogs really were, but they were mushy and smelled funny. So we put a little cheese on them and covered them in ketchup. The coke was good though..... Even the water is not "water".... it is some sort of sparkling water. We're going to pull out the old translation book today and give it another shot at the store.

Today we will meet our facilitator today and discuss our court appointment for tomorrow. We've been told that there is a cool circus right around the corner from us, so we may try that this afternoon. If all goes well, we will be on a train to meet our kiddos within a few days.... hopefully no later than Friday. The weather is cold, but not nearly as cold as we thought. It's a little below freezing, but no ice or snow to speak of.

At the Ariport

2009-12-06T10:01:00.000-08:00

We're at the airport right now and are a few minutes from getting on the plane. In less than a day we will be in Eastern Europe preparing to meet our new kiddos. Many things have happened in the last few days to discourage our trip, but we feel stronger and more confident than ever. God is so faithful and we know that He is traveling with us. The girls (Emma, Noelle, and Grace) are doing great so far. It was a sad goodbye when we left the others at home, but we know we will see them soon. The tears of sadness will be followed by tears of joy when we return with our babies. Please keep us in your prayers as we walk the final leg of this journey......

Leaving Tomorrow

2009-12-05T19:51:00.000-08:00

Well, this is it!! We fly out in the morning at noon.
I am leaving with excitement to meet our babies, but a little fear as well. We have friends there right now that have had a very hard time. The people there did not like Americans and where trying to hurt her husband. Its really freaking me out a little bit.
My oldest daughter at home will be bounced around from one friend to another while we are gone, so Im a little worried about how she deals with everything while we are gone. I'm going to miss my kids so much. I have never ever left them even once in my life. Its really the hardest thing Ive ever done.
We will be posting as soon as we get settled into our apartment there. So I guess by Tuesday we should be able to post again. On Thursday of this week we should get to see our babies, then we will post pictures for you to see.
Thanks everyone again for your support. We have had many ups and downs here, but its all coming together now. Please pray for a safe flight as I do not do well with planes at all. Please pray for our entire journey. Thank you all. Ill write soon!! Leah

5 days left!!!

2009-12-01T17:59:00.002-08:00

I am running around like a crazy person trying to figure out the last minute things I need to get done before i leave. I'm hoping everything goes well there, but the way this process has gone I am not really expecting that to happen. I got an email today from a friend over there now not telling us exactly what has happened, but that it was not at all what they had expected and they were asking for alot of prayers. My heart goes out to them and I will continue to pray for them, and I can only wonder if that is warning for what we face there as well.

We bought a new laptop today to take with us so we can continue to try to update everyone once we get there. I am so excited to finally meet our new babies. I still am trying to figure out how Tony and Faith my oldest are going to bring them home by themselves. I think he will be o.k though. Tony is really good with the kids.

I will write again before we leave but as of now it will not be until Sunday at 12.00 a.m. We will fly home on the 27th of December. We will not be doing a private blog so people can continue to read this one. Thanks so much, I'm going to re-pack my bag for the 3rd, or 4th time now. Night Night, Leah

5 days lwft

2009-12-01T17:59:00.001-08:00

11 days!!

2009-11-24T18:50:00.001-08:00

We have 11 days until we leave. I'm so excited , but I'm stressed out at the same time. I never thought you would have to do so much to get ready to go on a trip. I have always just took what I wanted to take. This time I have to watch everything so close because we can not take alot.
I'm also stressing about the kids staying at home. My mother-n-law will be watching them, but she just had a major foot surgery and can not even walk. I'm afraid she will have to much work on her hands. The back up we had decided not to come and help at the last minute. I'm just praying that God heals Mema fast and she is able to help out without getting stressed out!!
Tomorrow my youngest son Christan is having surgery. His testicles never came down. So I guess they have to go into his stomach and pull them down. I know he is a bit afraid, but he is doing well for the most part. I think he is more embarrassed more than anything right now. I'm sure he just wants it to be over with!!
I'm going to put all my kids to bed now. They are making their Christmas list since we are not going to here for Christmas. This year is going to be very hard for all of us, but we will have the best Christmas gift of all in the end!!

TRAVEL DATE FINALLY!!!

2009-11-19T09:50:00.000-08:00

We finally got out travel date. December 9Th is the day we go to court. So we are planning on leaving around the 6Th. We are trying to be home on Christmas eve from our first trip, but we are not sure about this yet.
The 2Nd trip Tony, and my oldest daughter are going to bring the babies home. I know this is allot of work for the 2 of them, but I am not able to go the 2Nd time around.
I'm so excited that we are finally about to leave.
The weather there is suppose to be very very cold so we are going shopping this weekend to buy stuff for the weather. I'm not sure if we will find everything we need here in San Antonio because it just doesn't get that cold here!!!
We are taking my kids with us. I know allot of people gave us allot of good advise and we did think about not taking them, but in the end my baby would be miserable without me, and I would be without her. Therefore we decided to take our older child to help out with her if we are not able to take the younger one into the court.
I think Its a good bonding experience for all of us, even the new babies. Our kids at home can not wait to meet there new sisters and brother!!
Thanks so much for all your advice, and for everyone that has prayed for us along this journey. It has been an exciting experience that is about to get even better, Thanks, Leah

Monday

2009-11-16T07:50:00.000-08:00

Well, I thought my husband would be happy that my brother decided to help pay for my daughters to go, but he still thinks that taking them is not a good idea.
He thinks that they will be fine here, and that they will learn from it as well. I do think he is right , but I also know that they will never have this experience again.
My husband first concern is that everyone has said that the cars are so small there and that me, My husband and 3 kids will not fit into one car.
I have not been there, so I really don't know. If anyone reading this has been there, and knows more about this, would you please respond and tell us if taking them all would be worse for traveling??
I was so excited about taking them, but now I'm back where I started. Feeling sick to my stomach about leaving them behind.
Please pray that My husband comes around to wanting them to go as well. I know if its not meant to be, its just not.
Thanks so much in advance for your advice, Leah

Gallstones??

2009-11-14T10:29:00.000-08:00

Well, Im throwing up again today. This makes 3 months now that I have been doing this. The Dr.s finally said it was Gall stones. I had no idea to even look into this!!
Now Im trying to get it fixed fsat so that we can travel soon.
Good news though, My brother said he would give us 3,ooo so that we can take my other 2 daughters that have been so depressed about us leaving.
This makes me feel sooo much better about leaving. I know I wont have to stress the entire time about how she is doing!
Im trying to get her a passport really fast though. Im just praying that we get it here in time before they send us our date.
We are praying we know a travel date for Monday, so only a few more days!!

Ready to go

2009-11-12T10:28:00.000-08:00

Im ready to go now!!!
Im just waiting and waiting!!
I check everday as soon as I get up, then every ten minutes or so through out the day, but still nothing.
Please God let me go get my babies. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE, to be home at christmas with my other kids so we could celebrate together!!

2009-11-11T18:52:00.000-08:00

Wow, These pictures turned out alot bigger than I had expected. Anyways these are few of our Halloween pictures. The first one is my oldest Faith. She is the biggest helper I have ever had. She adores children and has the same heart for them that I do.

The second picture is Haily, Grace, Emma, and Noelle. Behind them is Gracies friend Emily. The last picture is Noelle with Emma.

I did a horrible job of taking good pictures this year because I was running around trying to chase kids everywhere.

We are still waiting for a travel date. We still think it will be sometime in the next couple weeks that we get a date to travel.

Now we are just trying to figure out what to do about Christmas. We know that Tony will not be here, because he will be in the Ukraine with my oldest daughter. I don't know if we wait to celebrate until they get back, or just go ahead and celebrate.

We are packing away trying to get everything ready to go. I thought I had all my bags packed until Tony told me that I had to use a duffel bag and not a suitcase. Now I have to re pack everything.

Ill post as soon as I have news of when we travel. Thanks for reading!! Leah

Getting packed

2009-11-07T12:12:00.000-08:00

Evey thing is coming together here!
We are still waiting for the H1N1 to settle down in the Ukraine and get a travel date, but we know it will either be in 2 weeks, or 3. We are excited that we might be traveling with another couple. That gives us someone to hang out with some of the time we spend there.
I never thought I might be over there at Christmas. That puts a lot of pressure on me now though. I'm trying to think, should I go out now and try to buy all their gifts before I go since I may not be here at Christmas. Or, should I not worry about it, and buy the gifts later and celebrate when we get back. I didn't think I would have to think about all of this!!
I don't want the kids to have to wait for us to come home though. I wonder how cold it will be there to. I don't do cold weather very well!!! I don't even own clothes for cold weather! I'm hoping i can just take a huge coat and be o.k.
We are trying to get our bags packed as well. The papers say not to take big suitcases because they will not fit in the cars, but that's all I have. I guess we will have to go buy duffel bags.
I am excited that most likely all the babies will be home for Christmas!!
I'm also going to try to get with the Torres family and plan my will, just in case. I just watched the movie passengers!! Not a good movie if you are already terrified to fly!!
Thanks everyone for reading our blog. Pray that we get a travel date soon!!

YEAHHHHHH!!!

2009-11-04T08:58:00.000-08:00

Well, Our paperwork was officially turned in!!!
This means now that we will soon get a travel date. We would normally leave 2 weeks from Monday, but the Ukraine has stoped travel due to the H1Ni virus. We will trust in The Lord that this will not stop us from bringing our babies home.
Vanessa, Elisa, and Arthur, we are coming to bring you home!!!
We still need a name for Vanessa, and Arthur. We want Russian names. So any ideas would be great!!
I'm finally getting my excitement back. This is getting all to real for me. The plane is a little freaking me out again, But I know what ever happens , is meant to happen anyways right??
I'm going to start packing a few things to help get me excited again!! I think it will be very cold the first of December right?? I don't even know if I own clothes for weather that cold!
Well, I'm going to run. We need to figure out if we are going to do anymore fund raising. We just realized all the money we borrow from our 401k we will have to pay on the entire year, because we don't get reimbursed until nest year from My husbands work. We were not expecting that! Its all good though. We will figure it out. We have this whole way through!! Thanks guys!

No news

2009-11-03T06:41:00.000-08:00

No news again today. We are still waiting. I will write as soon as we hear something. As for Elizabeth, I do not have your email. Please email me because I want to know what you know. Thanks so much tbarch@prodigy.net, Leah

Waiting again

2009-11-02T12:46:00.000-08:00

Well I got the email I have been waiting for today. I have been reading other peoples blog about the Ukraine shutting down due to the H1N1 virus. Today I got the email that said they would be closing for 3 weeks. They were suppose to have all my paperwork translated today, but still no word.
My husbands back ground check expires on Tuesday so if its not turned in, we are going to have to re-do it all over which will take months.
Ive done well along the way staying positive, but now Im crashing. I feel everything, and everyone is working against us. I just keep praying that they were able to get everything turned it, because I'm not sure what we would do if we have to re-do months and months of this again. These poor babies need a home now, not 6 months from now. Please keep us in your prayers. Leah

Trick or treat

2009-10-31T19:45:00.000-07:00

WOW, That was one fun tonight. We went on a hay ride that dropped us off at every street. The kids would get out and run house to house down the street. For most families that's o.k., but when you have 7 its not. I was always looking for each and every child to make sure they stayed together. I felt I had it under control when a mother came up to me crying. ( This is one of the same moms that did not support us adopting anymore kids because we had to many to even take care of in the first place) Appartenly she had lost her youngest child. While talking to many different people her daughter had walked away and disappeared for over 3o minutes. We all gathered together until we found her. I know she was scared to death, but I hope she realized anyone can have a hard time with their kids, not just because you have 2 or 7. She thought 7 kids you would never be able to watch them closely and take them anywhere. Well, I felt a lot better tonight that it really doesn't matter how many you have, It can happen to anyone. It was hard, but we managed!! They all had a blast anyways. Tomorrow Ill put there pictures up.
We are all waiting until Monday. Or facilitator was suppose to get our paper work turned in last Monday, but instead had to do it this Monday. If it does not get turned in our paperwork will expire on Thursday. So please pray she is able to get it all turned in!!! This is a huge deal for us. Something that is making us crazy to think about. I'm having an endoscopy done to find out why I keep getting ill so Ill be out of it anyway. Ill write again Tuesday to let everyone know if we were approved or not.
We found another family traveling on the 18th. We were told that we might travel before that, but I doubt it now. It looks like we could end up having a Russian Christmas!!!
I hope everyone reading is having great success with there adoptions, or there kids that they have already brought home!! You guys feel like family now, You have all been a great support system for us all. Goodnight, talk to you on Tuesday, with I hope good news!!

Going Crazy

2009-10-28T17:54:00.000-07:00

Well we thought we were suppose to know something by Tuesday of this week because we sent our Dossier off last week. We were told that our facilitator would sub mitt it on Monday.
We have been waiting until tonight when we learned that our facilitator has not picked it up from U.P.S. yet???
I feel like time is against us now. We have a few pieces of paper work that expire on November 5th. We are so afraid that they will not get it in time and that we will have to re-do it all. That had been what has happened to us alot along this forever journey.
I have been so stressed out here that I am going in for an endoscopy on Monday to see if I have an ulcer. I guess its just a mixture of things.
My son has had alot of problems in school with disrespect. To me and my husband that is one thing we just will not accept is being disrespectful. I go nuts when I hear that MY son is getting into so much trouble. Everyone tells me its because he is adopted and because he didn't get enough love when he was born, but I would like to feel that we have made up for that. He was only 4 when we adopted him, and I know he was loved by his grandmother. He is a very small child for his age,so others say that is his issue?? I really don't know. I'm at the point now that I am going to see a therapist with him. I just really hope he is not acting out because of the adoption. He loves kids so much. He is so gental and kind to babies . He said he would have alot of them himself. I just keep praying that God will tell me what he needs to change this behavior.
On top of that I have this adoption that has just been taking way to long. I love these babies so much now that I just can not stand the waiting anymore. I so desperately want to be there to hold all of them at once!!!!
We have done all the shopping for clothes, and strollers, and cribs. It just sits there waiting.
So, that's where we are, just waiting. I guess it wont be until next Monday now that we have an answer. Time to put the other babies to bed!!

Fundraising???

2009-10-21T12:53:00.000-07:00

We still have not heard anything about our paperwork. I guess I thought we would be told something right away. Apparemtly Yulia will turn it in on Monday and they will go over it. I guess on Monday we will hopefully know something.
At this point we are about 10,ooo short. We will be able to get the money by borrowing it, but we would rather not. So I'm thinking about doing another fundraiser, or even trying to Auction something off. I dont have all the details yet. I know I will be taking an extra child with me to that will add another 1,500 to the cost of the trip. Im just not to comfortable leaving the youngest 2.
I have spent the entire day reading every ones blogs, and looking up adoptions on YouTube. I don't remember when I have cried so much. I am touched, and I am moved to do something more. I know people tell me I am doing a lot, but I know there has got to be more.
I know somewhere in life I will own my own group home to help kids with D.S. I just can not get enough!!!
I'm going to to talk to my husband tonight and we will try to think about another way to raise some money. Ill let everyone know tomorrow, Thanks, Leah

Dossier

2009-10-20T15:06:00.000-07:00

Well today is Tuesday and still no word yet.
Missy, yes I'm tracking it everyday. We do know that it got there today. There was a few days of bad weather i guess, which does not make me feel real great about flying.
My Dr. has already prescribed me my Xanax to knock me out!!!!
I'm looking everyday on Craigslist to buy baby boy bedding, and baby boy clothes. No luck yet. Its probally smarter for me to wait until I get there to see how big he is anyways. I'm so excited to be bringing him home with the girls. I have always wanted that sweet little baby boy, now Ill him!!
We are just waiting to see what happens from here. I will keep everyone informed. Its all in Gods hands!!
Missy. I try to leave messages on your site, but for some reason it will not let me. I wanted to know if you already adopted, or if you are in the process of adopting? Thanks, Leah

Tuesday

2009-10-18T18:45:00.000-07:00

O.K. Tuesday is the day that the dossier is suppose to get to the Ukraine. Please continue to pray for us and our babies that everything is approved. I guess after that we will get our travel date.
Until then we wait, patiently( yeah right).
I will fill everyone in when we finally get the phone call we are waiting for!!!!

Thanks to all

2009-10-16T09:32:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone that has helped us along the way. A special thanks to Missy, and Elizabeth whom don't even know me. You guys have been faithful followers that have encouraged me along the way!!
Thanks to Meridith, and Andrea, and McKenna who have also been there walking us threw this process. McKenna, we would not have done this if it was not for you!!!
I'm so grateful that we are almost there. I know there will be a special joy when they are in our arms!! I owe it to everyone that helped get us here!! Thanks so much for your prayers, and comments!! LEAH

Dossier is on its way

2009-10-15T12:07:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if I spelled that right, but I tried to at least. The point is that it is FINALLY on its way there. We overnighted it today. Now we are just keeping our fingers crossed that everything is approved on that end.
This has been such a long journey and now the end lays ahead of us. What a good place to finally be in.
I guess after that they will send us a travel date!!

I'm going to go chase my 3 year old now who is trying to get my coke as we speak.
Please pray that the rest goes well from this point. Thanks so much, Leah

Delayed Again

2009-10-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

We are going crazy!!!!!
We were approved on Oct. 1rst. The mail went out on the 2nd. We have checked the mail everyday, and nothing has come. What is taking so long????
We are now afraid its lost because we just moved into a new home!!

We went to get our paper work appostiled today and they turned us down for it because the person that notarized one paper has recently gotten married. Therefore her last name has changed and it was not the same on the paper. The second paper was turned down because the date did not match.
Now we have to come all the way back to San Antonio and see if they can re-do it(which they did not want to do in the first place) We are burned out, and so tired right now.
Tomorrow we will try to go back to Austin to re-do this again, but man where they hard to deal with there.
In the mean time we are still waiting for the USCIS paperwork in the mail. Is that normal to take this long. I'm thinking it was lost or something. In the mean time we feel like we are being blamed for not having the kids home right now. People are saying that they should have been home by now and that we are putting their lives at risk because we are not there yet.
WOW, that is just frustrating, after ALL that we have done, especially this week. We have gone threw hell to bring these girls home. Yes, we have had to deal with things longer than most people, but that does not mean that this is our choice. We have no control over what happens right now. We are simply waiting for people to get things approved. Its hard, this is the end, and it seems to be taking longer than when we first started this process.
For those that think we are delaying this , and that think we are leaving them their longer than they should be, just know that we love these babies like they are ours already. We have worked so hard to bring them home and have been just as disappointed as they have that they are not here yet. By no means is this our fault, and it offends us greatly that anyone implies this!!!
We will continue to do our work and pray that the rest of this flows smoothly!

Taking sooo ,long

2009-10-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

Today is Monday. We had hoped to get all of our paper work sent out today so that we could get our travel date.
When we sent all our paper work to look over it seems we still have things to re-do. Being a holiday, some of them we can not get done. We are getting so frustrated as are other people in Reece's Rainbow. I know that some people think we are taking our time with all of this, but we are just as impatient and waiting for our babies as everyone else is. In the start of this we thought we would be traveling early September. Now we are mid October and still fighting to get this done.
We are trying so hard to get it all done so that we do not get into Nov. when they shut down the adoptions. I'm not sure why it had taken us so much longer than it normally takes everyone else, but I'm sure its all going to be worth the wait once we get there.
I'm still working on Grace my daughter that gets herself worked up and so ill. She will be staying with a friend of hers and their family. I was hoping that it would be exciting for her to be there, but now that we are rushing to get everything complete she is getting a little bit sick again. I just don't understand how someone can make themselves physically ill over fear.
It hurts me so bad to know that I am doing this to her. If I could just send Tony I would, Or if I could afford to take her I would!! I know this is something everyone has had to deal with, I'm just very very weak at it!!
Tomorrow the banks are open so we can finish one of the last things we need, then we will travel to Austin the same day to get the final processe done. Hopefully by tomorrow night we will have our dossier on its way.
Then, last step, the travel date. That's when I guess Ill break down and know this is really about to happen. I have NEVER been out of the country, and only flown twice. I'm TERRIFIED to fly. I told myself at a very young age that I wanted to adopt many kids when I was older, but I told myself, I would only do domestic because of my fear of flying. Now I'm about to face one of my biggest fears of all times. I'm really going to have to drug myself up with something to even get on a plane. Any suggestions??? What lets you sleep the longest??
I was actually wondering if I needed to set up a will for my kids before we flew there. Is that silly, or do people really do this?? I know I'm panicking!!!
Please pray for fast results in all that we do to prepare for the final end of this process!! Thanks

Its a boy!!

2009-10-10T09:08:00.000-07:00

We have decided after a few days of praying and thinking that we are going to bring home Arthur. We have never had a baby boy before, so this will all be new to us.
We decided that Anya has many conditions that we do not understand at this time. It would be easier to adopt another baby with the same disabilities would be easier for us, than having to deal with 2 different disabilities. I'm going to make it my mission to take alot of pictures of Anya when I'm there so that we can try our best to find her the perfect home.
As far as Artur goes, I cant wait to hold that little boy. We have had our hearts set on him since we first started this process, but we new we could not handle 4 babies at once.
Please continue to pray that we get a travel date soon so that we can get these babies home.
Now I must set out to find boy clothes and boy toys fast because I do not have any as of now.
Its finally getting exciting again now that it drawls to an end!!!

Approved!!

2009-10-08T10:21:00.000-07:00

We received the news yesterday that we are approved. We are going to travel soon to bring our babies home. We have not felt this excited since we started this process.
We do however need alot of prayers for Anya. We have done alot of research on her condition, and it really scares us a little bit. The sites say that she may even die before she turns 1. I don't know much about brain malformation either. We are seeking God right now to please help us answer these questions. If anyone knows anything about her condition ,please email me as soon as possible.
We have alot of paper work to get complete fast, then we will submit our Dossier off on Monday.
We are finally at the final stretch of this journey. We can not wait to travel , see the Ukraine, and to meet our new babies.
Please keep Anya in your prayers and pray that God will lead us to the right choice if we bring her home, or not. Thanks, Leah

Another week

2009-09-29T09:29:00.000-07:00

Tony came home this weekend after being gone for 4 days with our oldest daughter Faith, and our oldest son Dylan.
When Tony's father passed away he had asked before he died to have his ashes spread over the black hills of South Dakota. Tony was adopted from this place. Tony's dad had spent awhile there waiting for to bring Tony home when he was a baby. I have never been there, but the pictures they took look like a magazine picture. They were breathtaking.
Tony and the kids flew up there on Wednesday afternoon. On Friday the went into the hills and gently poured pepas ashes into a stream of water flowing down the hills. The kids talked about how everyone cried and the moment was beautiful until my oldest son fell into the water. After making fun of her brother my oldest daughter followed him in falling in as well. I guess it was a good way to break up the tension.
Pepa died suddenly in June after a long battle with Cancer. He had been cured of the cancer, but the chemo had taken its toll on his body.Pepa had had alot of issues with us adopting a baby with special needs. I still don't know how he felt before he died, but his wife had told us that he had come to terms with it before he had passed.
Now that they are all home they keep telling us stories of how beautiful this place was. I want to take all the kids after we get them all home. I think it would be a great road trip for the family to take.
I take for granite that I can travel with all my kids now and we can have fun no matter where we go because we love to all be together. In just a few years I know our oldest Faith will no longer be interested in traveling with us across the country. I'm going to try to get as many vacations in as I can before the kids blossom and fly away!!!
No news on any mail yet. Please keep praying. We are really trying not to get discouraged as our friends bring home their baby this week. I know he has his plans for everything he does, so we will wait in patience!!

Answers to Anya

2009-09-26T10:22:00.000-07:00

We have been praying about Anya for awhile now and we have been talking alot about her to Andrea and to McKenna. I have made up my mind that I really want to adopt her. Tony has been waiting for God to give him the right sign that she should be ours.
Today I was looking back to find her on the other angels. I could not find her on the site anymore so I was getting really upset that something had happened, maybe someone stepped up before me and had committed to her before we could. This made me very uptight to think we had missed our chance.
It was then that I decided to check under new commitments and that maybe they had moved her for us, because we had asked so many questions and because I had told them that I really wanted her. When I moved down I saw my baby laying there in her picture and it was such a beautiful sight. I new then that God had made this decision for us. We hadn't made the final decision to adopt her, but somehow it must have seemed that way. I think it was God. Tony had been praying for a sign the entire time, and now I think this is it.
I now we can do it. I have thought about it over and over, and I know we together can do this. We may have to hire someone to come in and help a little with cleaning and stuff, but its al l good, I know it is. Now I must prepare another place for Anya to sleep, and buy a few more items that she will need. Ten kids, WOW!!!
I check the mail everyday waiting for our paperwork and still, nothing!! We are getting very frustrated about the wait. I know this is normal, but we have waited a bit longer than most families on here. We just want the three girls home.
Thank you to everyone that helped to pray for Anya. I thank God that he helped answer our prayers. We just needed that extra kick to make the decision.
I will let you now if we get our mail in today or not, Thanks, Leah

Praying about Anya

2009-09-20T16:29:00.000-07:00

At church today I prayed alot about little Anya. I really have a special place in my heart for her, but I don't know if that means God wants me to bring her home, or try to have other people adopt her.

Tony has been looking at her profile with me and we have been looking up what she has. Right now she really cant move her arms and legs at all. They said with therapy though she should be able to do so later on. We are having our paper worked switched to add her just in case God tells us to bring her home. How hard that would be to say no though once you have her in your hands and holding her there in front of you!!!

I guess we were under the impression that when we got to there we could see all the babies and love on them. Our kids are getting very excited about the children coming home. They keep asking when will they be here. They don't seem to understand what we are waiting for. We tell them we are waiting for mail to come and tell us, so everyday they run to the mail and bring it home. " Is this it, Is it time!!!," Its been a month now that we last sent off our INS paper work, so it should be very soon.

Thanks you so much for the people who commented on my last blog. I think I was getting overwhelmed with people asking to many questions about adopting to many kids and telling me we should not be doing this. I know in my heart what God is telling me to do, so that's all I need to worry about. I have known since I was a little girl that God wanted me to have alot of children, and my husband has always said he wanted 12. I don't think anyone thought he was telling the truth, like his mother and family, but they are all in support of our decisions to do this. We are excited about the way our lives are about to change and the closer it gets the more real it all becomes. We are sooo ready and the room just waits here for our girls, we just need them to come home!! Pray that our paper work comes soon and that we get everything mailed off soon so that we can get our travel date!!!

The picture is our youngest Emma,She has been asking everyday for her babies to come see her!

2009-09-17T18:34:00.000-07:00

We are still waiting for our INS papers to come back. After this our dossier is on its way to the Ukraine!!!

The tension is still here about leaving a few of the kids behind when we go, but I'm really trying to prepare them by telling them the great reward in the end of all of this. I'm not sure that makes this any easier for them, but they do understand.

While I was looking at the Reece's Rainbow page about 2 months ago I just happened to look at the babies in the section titled "Other Angels" There I saw sweet little Anya. She is lying their all twisted up because she has no ability to move her arms or legs. It broke my heart to think these babies probably sit in their cribs all day because they are not mobile like the other children there. Ever since them I have had her on my heart so much. She just happens to be in the same orphange as Vanessa and Elisa to.

My husband talks with me about adopting her and being so much more than we have counted on. We have never dealt with children that have D.S. nor have we dealt with children that has what Anya has.

Having 7 kids right now we have so many people judge us the wrong way. They just don't understand why people would want this many kids, not to mention bringing 3 more special needs kids home at once with no experience. I know I should not care what people say, but sometimes it really makes you feel like you can not do the same things that just the everyday people do. Even going out to dinner, or going to a movie, or the mall. People stare and even comment at the sight of seeing us all together.

I know this doesn't have much to do with me bringing another baby home, but I feel like all that would get even worse. How do people handle this?

I walk with pride that my kids are mine, I love my children and the fact that God is about to bless me with even more, But I want the world to see my kids and how beautiful they are without judging me for how many I have. I was just wondering how people deal with this? I never knew so many other families had as many kids as I do until I began to read all the blogs on here. I was amazed at how common it was. I was amazed that their were so many with adopted children. I think people should be happy that we have so many and never question why we have the kids we have. We have them because we are truly blessed by God!

Now, going back to Anya, My question is could I really bring her home and handle it. I guess I need to ask this to the many moms and Dads out there that have children with DS. Can I take care of 2 new babies with D.S. and take care of another child that is totally not able to move right now!!

Any answers would be great at this time. I love her so much already, I just want what is the best for her as I do for all my kids. Thanks for reading again. Ill write back when we finally get in our papers!!! Leah

Still Waiting

2009-09-12T12:13:00.000-07:00

I feel bad that we do not blog much anymore, but there just doesnt seem to be much to blog about. We are really still waiting to get our INS approval. We received it once, but they needed us to add a few things. Now we are just waiting to get it back again. After that, we will send off the Dossier.
We are ready, the room is ready the kids are ready, Im sure sweet Vanessa and Elisa are ready as well.
I have a friend threw church that started this adoption a few months after we did. She is adopting a little boy named Max from the Ukrain. They are on their way home from their first trip now. They will get to go back to get him next Sunday. I want so badley to be in their shoes right now.
I have to admitt though Im sooo scared to leave a few of my kids. We have 7 total right now. We are taking 2 of them with us. We have another daughter Grace who has alot of anxiety issues. We actually started homeschooling because of her being so scared of everything. Anyways, she has started getting really sick again the closer we come to leaving. I feel so bad for her that I wish just my husband could go with my oldest daughter. That way I could stay with her to comfort her. I know they will be taken care of here, but my heart hurts to know how sad she will be, and to know that she is making herself physically sick and throwing up. I would love to take her, but each kid cost another 1,500 dollars. We are taking our 2 youngest already because they were so upset to. I know all parents go threw this, but I just dont handle it very well.
So while I wait for our travel date, I will also try to prepare myself on how to deal with saying goodbye for 3 weeks. Any suggestions would be grate right now. I almost wonder if I should try to come up with the money to take her to. Then I think Im not teaching her the right things. I dont want her to be so sheltered all of her life. I think she needs to face the world without me sometimes. Awwww!! Im so confused.
In the end I know what really matters are those other 2 babies on the other side of the world waiting for us to finally meet them, and I can not wait to go!!
Thanks for reading , Leah

Our Daughter Grace!

Final Stages

2009-08-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

We are so sorry to the people who are following our blog!!
We have had so many set backs lately that we really got upset with everything. As I read I guess everyone goes threw all of this as well. We thought we would be traveling by now!!
My husband Tony is the one who normally writes here and does a much better job, but he is frustrated as well. He just wants our babies home with us.
Our 3 year old daughter keeps talking about her sisters that are not here, that now I'm wondering if she thinks they are just pretend!!
We are finally getting back into the grove of things since Tonys father passed away. That was really hard on the family, Tony, and our middle daughter Noelle the most. Everyday there were things to remind us of him. There are still songs that come on and we all cry. I just have to keep telling my kids that he is with God now and that he is so happy now. My husband on the other hand is not so east to talk to because he knew that his Dad did not go to church. Tonys mission was to get him saved after he got cancer. He never succeeded with this. At the funeral the preacher spoke about his dad asking to know more about God which made me and Tony very happy. That's all we can go on for now.
As for our girls we are going to the USICS office today to talk to them. We are hoping for the best. If all goes well we just have to send off the paperwork to the Ukraine and wait for the travel date. I am not a flyer though. I am scared to death to fly. I have only been on a plane twice and only for about an hour. I'm just going to take alot of sleeping pills with me to help out.
Does anyone know about what size I should expect my babies to wear. One of them is 2 and the other is almost 1. I bought them cribs to, is that o.k? I just don't what to expect.
As for now I will go and see what they are telling my husband about girls and I will report back tomorrow. Thanks so much for reading!! Leah

Never enough time......

2009-06-29T12:36:00.000-07:00

For those who don't know, my father (Gregory Lynn Beasley) passed away suddenly last Thursday. The news was devastating as he was a relatively healthy 62 year old man. As I was driving to Austin arguing and pleading with God, I had an overwhelming sense of peace come over me. What I was arguing was not fair, God put in perspective for me..... You see, my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer exactly 4 years ago this month. He was given 4-6 months to live and he very quickly began to get sick. Pancreatic cancer is almost always fatal, but my dad was determined to beat it. He was determined to live to see his grandchildren grow, to see my youngest daughter Emma be born, to spend more time with my sisters and I. As his body began to wither away from the cancer and the chemo, my dad's will stayed strong and he fought..... Oh he fought!

In January 2006 he had a procedure done called the Whipple surgery which in and of itself was life threatening. They went in and removed every organ or piece of an organ that had any contact with the pancreas. They removed part of his liver, half of his stomach, his pancreas, sections of his intestines, and so on. I spent a few weeks with him at MD Anderson as he began to recover from the surgery. The surgery was a success and my father was without cancer. I believe that he was healed by God..... not through some flash of lightening, but through the doctors hands. So from that point on, my entire family had a renewed appreciation for our time together and our relationships with one another. My parents are divorced, but after the cancer we spent every Christmas together and every Thanksgiving. We no longer took for granted the short conversations we had and we never failed to say "I love you".

Fast forward to last Thursday..... My dad passed away suddenly from a pulmonary embolism. He died immediately and I was angry with the Lord for taking my father. As I was beating my steering wheel and sobbing uncontrollably, God spoke to me. I asked God why he didn't save my father and He said that He did. God saved my dad 4 years ago and he blessed our family with 4 wonderful years together..... Four years to say everything we wanted to say and do everything we wanted to do. God's gift to us was 4 years of with my dad and I would take those 4 years with a close loving relationship over 100 years of regrets and taking each other for granted.

This realization didn't make me miss my dad any less and it didn't make the pain go away, but it gave me peace. Many people.... most people take life for granted until something like this happens. We didn't do that and although my dad's life was too short, his legacy will live on. You see, I was adopted as an infant and I believe that my being adopted is what planted the seed in me to adopt children of my own. As Leah and I push forward to complete our adoption of Elisa and Vanessa, I thank my father for making the choice to adopt me 33 years ago.

I love you dad..........