15....

15 Days.......in 15 days I will be surrounded by the loves of my life, my husband and sons......in 15 days I will be sleeping in my own bed....in 15 days I can take a shower in the comfort of my own bathroom.......in 15 days I will be able drive my car to Target (or wherever I would like to go).....in 15 days I will have a closet full of clothes to choose from and not just 3 shirts and a pair a of jeans to rotate through.....in 15 days I will be making Ryan’s lunch for school and loving it.....in 15 days I can go to Starbucks and order the biggest black ice tea possible.....in 15 days I will be able to drink water from the tap again.....in 15 days I will be back in a country where I can understand the language...in 15 days lives will be changed forever....... All of these statements are so true and I could be sitting here dwelling on them for the next 15 days, but I’m not...... You see in 15 days I will board a plane to American with our son and he will become an American citizen and his life will be changed forever (and so will ours).... So even though there are many comforts of home I am looking forward to upon our return...the biggest and most grand thing I am excited about is our son Mykhaylo Aaron Chellson will finally know the true meaning of a family....he learn just how many people are at home patiently waiting to meet him....he will finally know what love from a mommy and daddy feels like....and he will know what its like to have a mommy sing him to sleep...he will know what it’s like to have mommy’s magic kiss for making his boo-boo’s to feel better....he will know what it means to have a daddy who kisses him good morning/night everyday....he will learn how to wrestle with tough guys in the house......he will know what it’s like to have a big brother look out for him and love him unconditionally...he will learn how to play baseball from one of the best big brothers around(according to Ryan)...in just 15 short days a door will close on the life Mykhaylo has known for the last 3 years and we will say goodbye to his wonderful orphanage and this beautiful country that has allowed us to be named his parents....so you see in 15 days we will be beginning a whole new adventure in this adoption journey.....The road to get here has been long and filled with surprises but I wouldn’t change a thing about any of it....So even though I miss my comforts of home I am so truly humbled by this journey and so very excited about the journey we are about to travel on once we arrive home!!:) 

Ok now that I have rambled on about the next 15 days....please enjoy some pictures of our beautiful boy from the last few days!:)

They went from winter hats and coats to fishing hats and shorts...all within a day!!

Couldn’t help but take a self picture of us while I was visiting!!:)

His smile lights up the room...ok we were really outside but you know what I mean!!;)

Sitting on the bench like the big boys do!!:)

He LOVES this A.L.F stuffed animal....

PLaying with A.L.F.....I think this is one of my favorite pictures!!:)

Again..he LOVES A.L.F....

Having a quiet moment with another stuffed animal!

No shelf in our house will be safe..he LOVES to empty eveything off of it....hhhhmmmm...kind of sound like another son of mine!!:)

Love and homesickness....

Hi everyone, I hope you all are having a wonderful week. I’m going to keep this post short and sweet so you all can get to the best part...the pictures!!!:) We are 3 days into our 10 day wait and it’s been 2 days since david left. Things around here are going well but I can feel homesickness creeping back in.....my heart aches for my husband and son back home, and I am also missing my friends and home like crazy too but I know soon enough I will be home with our sweet little boy and life with be crazy busy once again. Each passing day gets me closer to coming home and at the end of everyday I truly feel blessed by having this special time with our little boy who I am so crazy in love with! Each day he does something new and his little personality shines through more and more and I am LOVING every second of it!!

So nothing new has really been going on just the daily grind and counting down the days to breaking our little guy out!!:) Hope you all are having a great week and enjoy some new pictures...

Always full of smiles when I visit!

This is a face of a boy who is going to be keeping me VERY busy when we get home..

This is his proud face.....he was so excited to walk up the little ramp thingy (of course he was holding my fingers but I made him work for it!!!)

Blossoming right before my eyes...

Standing all by himself!!:)

Simply beautiful......

I love this boy like crazy!!!:)

Catching up and court!!

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and a great start to you week. I know we sure did! This past weekend was one of the busiest we’ve had since we’ve been here. We went to both visits each day, so David could get in as much time as possible with our little guy. Then yesterday we woke up early and our day was filled with applying for “Aaron’s” passport....(we had to do this since David went home this morning and will not be coming back)....and then we headed over to the court house for our appointment with the court (more on that in a second). Then we had a wonderful evening visit where I let David enjoy most of it with his little buddy! And we finished Davids last night here with a wonderful meal at the Irish pub right around the corner from our apartment. David left this morning at 3am to head back home...if we could have it our way he would stay for the whole trip but Ryan is missing us like crazy and David has to get back to work. So this means that I’ll be here finishing out our trip on my own but thankfully I’m not truly alone....I have wonderful roommates (Beth and Lee) to keep me company until we all leave in a few weeks!!:)

So not that I’ve gotten caught up, let tell you about court! It was not at all what I expected and thankful that we had nothing to be nervous about since Beth and Lee went through it on Friday! We got to the courthouse a little early, so Nicko (our driver) took us over to a little coffee shop where we were able to enjoy a cup of coffee/soda before going into court. Then at 12:30pm we were whisked into courtroom. And this is the part I was expecting to be different.....for some reason I envisioned a big courtroom like we have back home but really the court room was more like judge chambers....In the judges’ office the walls were lined with chairs for everyone to sit in and the room was packed!!!! The judge began reading our petition to adopt and things got rolling quickly. Each department representative agreed that they supported our petition and then the spotlight was on us. David spoke first and told about our journey to adoption. He talked about EVERYTHING from our struggles with infertility to how we found our little boy...thanks to a mix up with the Ray family and for Shelly sharing a picture with Beth who shared it with me!:)......next it was my turn I spoke about my knowledge of Down syndrome and about my little sister and then let them know since I was a stay at home mom I would be able to provide for any and all of “Aaron’s” needs......next it was the director of the orphanage turn to talked, he spoke about the birth parents and the struggle they have had with having children and that his was the second birth for the mother. The direct also told how they left him at the hospital after test came back stating that he had Down syndrome when he was only two days old. For awhile they visited him and brought him toys and diapers and things but upon the birth of their 3rd child their visits have stopped and his biological father comes every now and then. He stated that his biological parents know he is being adopted and will be going to America to live and they are so grateful that God is watching over their son and they know his life will be so much better in America with us.....this part was bittersweet for me but it confirmed what I have felt all a long....WE were meant to be his parents and this is why we have journeyed across the world to make him part of our family! After the director of the orphanage finished we were asked to leave while the judge and jurors made their decision.......not even 5 minutes later we walked back in and the judge began reading....this is the moment when everything stopped for me....I don’t remember what she said but I do know she approved our petition to adopt and we would be named the parents for our son and his name would be changed to Mykhaylo (Michael) Aaron Chellson!!!! And that was it....all done in about 35/40 minutes!! 

It’s crazy to think that months of paperwork came down to just 35/40minutes of talking!! Court was simple and easy and I am soooooo happy it is over, now we have 10 days of waiting and we should be home sometime in early May....no exact date but once I know I’ll keep everyone updated!!:)

Now it’s time for the good stuff...PICTURES!!!! 

He loved this bike toy!!

listening to music on my phone...he absolutely LOVES music!!

Daddy giving him tickles...

Loving on daddy...

Mommy and her new son!!

Daddy and his new son!!

 Love this kid....but this is right before his hat came off.....

And this is what we found under his hat!!!!!!

Another Rainy Day.....

Well today is day three of not being able to visit our little guy....he has had a fever for the past few days and the director just wants him to rest and get well. As much as it stinks to not be able to hang out and play with our little guy, we are totally fine with him getting rest and getting well. We also know he’s not the only one sick, our facilitator called the director to see if we could visit this afternoon and he informed her that he was still under the weather as well as a few other kids in his groupa are sick too.... So for right now David and I are just hanging out and enjoying the relaxation of having nothing to do. Once we get back home we will both be hitting the ground running, so getting a little time to relax is just fine with us! Hopefully tomorrow we get see our little guy and spend some time together before David goes home next week! So please say a little prayer, cross your fingers, or just keep us in your thoughts that tomorrow we can start visiting our little guy again! 

We hope everyone is having a great week and hopefully tomorrow there will be a post with pictures from our afternoon visit tomorrow!! 

Futbol..Colds...and LOTS of pictures....

Hello again everyone!! So I am again sorry for totally slacking on the blogging. This last few days have been a little slow going. I experienced my first professional futbol game and I must say I am officially a soccer fan!! We only got to watch the last half of the game because the ticket line was CRAZY long and took FOREVER but the wait was so worth it!! Here are some pictures of the game....

 Here is the amazingly huge and beautiful stadium 

 This is the view of the ticket lines as we walked up...crazy long and full of TONS of ticket scalpers!

 This section had super cheap tickets and we didn’t know why until we got inside and we quickly figured out why...it’s where all the SUPER enthusiastic fans sit!!

A picture of of the actual game... 

A different picture of the same crazy fans but this time they all had their signs and scarfs waving.... 

The other crazy fans across the stadium who set off flares and almost started a small fire!!!

And finally no soccer game is complete without fans running onto the field only to be tackled by security...I’m being totally honest when I saw this was so AWESOME!!!:)

  So as you can see the game was absolutely wild but sooooo.... fun!! And the crazy part was the stadium was only a 1/4 full...it can hold 80,000 fans, and it was nowhere near sold out which makes me wonder what a sold out game looks like! We will definitely be attending more futbol games when we get home!!:) As much fun as the game was I could tell I was coming down with a head cold, by the time the game was over my nose was running like crazy and I was sneezing up a storm...so I spent most of the rest of the weekend in bed taking some Ukrainian cold meds and watching movies on my computer. 

  Sunday was Ukraine's Easter so it was a fairly quiet around our neighborhood and I only got out of bed to go to our visit Sunday since I spent the whole morning and afternoon sleeping and was feeling better and was missing our sweet little guy. Monday was a typical day of a visit and doing homework for me and celebrating Beth’s birthday.. 

  Today I think has been the hardest day for me yet....we arrived at the orphanage around 9:45am to find the nanny and doctor/nurse (not sure if she was a Dr or nurse) talking near “Aaron” in the playroom for his groupa...and I immediately new we were not getting our morning visit in. (The last few days he’s felt warm when we’ve had him and hasn’t been as playful as usual so I have been expecting this.) So the nanny who is so sweet wrote down “T” with a degree sign and then an arrow pointing up to let us know his temperature was up. So we asked if we should call before we came for our afternoon visit and she said yes. So long story short we asked our facilitator to call for us and she was told by the director of the orphanage that he wanted “Aaron” to rest for the rest of the day.. Which is what made it so hard, normally at home if Ryan isn’t feeling good we'll lay on the couch and snuggle and just hang out and today that’s what I wanted to do with our little guy but since he’s not “officially” ours I don’t have a say in getting to snuggle.....So today instead of our visits we did a little bit more exploring off of another metro stop and then hung out at the apartment. 

  I know you all are waiting for some fun stories about our visits but the last few days have been kind of quite and boring...sorry no exciting stories today..hopefully I’ll have some tomorrow if we can visit our little guy. But before I go here are some pictures of Saturday's visit!! Sunday and Monday pictures are still on our camera!!:)

               Books and Blocks...what more does a boy need..?? 

           Giving loves to the picture book we brought for him...

                    

    Playing with the little fox stuffed animal we found in the room..

          Playing with daddy and the fox toy...love his little smile!!

    Holding tight to the fox..he was loving on it!!

I know you can't see it but he has a HUGE smile and is laughing at daddy.....have I said how much we love this kid!!!!:)

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!! More posts coming soon!!!!:)

Things that make me laugh a little...

Hi everyone! So for this blog post I decided to switch it up and do a little blog on the things that make me laugh here in Ukraine! So enjoy the pictures and hopefully you’ll get a little laugh out of it too!!:)

 We were told that ALF was a big show over here about 5-6 years ago....this made me laugh since it was big for us back in states about 15 years ago!!:) 

It’s a mobile Dunkin’ Donuts!!!!.....Ok, ok, I know it’s not Dunkin’ Donuts but the colors match and that's what it reminded me of!

  

 This firetruck was going about 10...maybe 15 M.P.H. with its lights on.!!
 I hope no one was in real trouble! 

 Seeing the tractor roll through town made me feel like I was back home for a minute!:)

 There really are no parking lots here...so people just park on the sidewalk and pack their cars in tightly!! 

 Even Ukraine has an energy drink truck...here it’s the Non-Stop Energy Drink truck instead of Red Bull!!:) 

Oops......this is what happens when you fail to follow traffic laws...the drivers here are CRAZY (and that’s putting it nicely)!!!!

I have no words except.....Welcome to Ukraine!!!

Please don’t be fooled by these pictures above and below this writting...I was NOT excited about this rat picking me out of our group of 4 to take a picture with it!! If we were at Disneyland it would have been no biggy, but here these people dress up as random characters and stroll around the square waiting for people to take pictures with them. I DID NOT ask and was TOTALLY grossed out by this.......but everyone (David, Lee and Beth) seemed to think it was hilarious...hopefully all of you will too! 

 

That’s it for now folks. I hope you liked the pictures and i’ll update our blog later about our visits with our little guy. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend...I’m off to take a nap before we head out for a fun evening at a professional futbol (soccer) game!!:)

Exciting little update...and picture..of course!!

Hi everyone!!! I hope this blog post finds you all doing well, David and I are doing wonderful!! We found out this afternoon (our time here in Ukraine) that we have a court date!!!! We are so excited and grateful to have gotten such a speedy court date. We know that usually a court date can take a while to receive, which makes us lucky to have gotten a date within the next 10/11 days. So hopefully soon I’ll be writing the post I have dreamed about since starting this process...the post introducing “Aaron” into our family and finally reveling his real/new name we’ve picked out for him!!!:)

So other then that bit of exciting news nothing much has changed...we are going to our visits twice a day and I am totally starting understand how exhausting the 2 visits a day can become. We have to take the metro (a.k.a. subway) to the orphanage and since our visits fall at high commute hours the metro is usually packed...a one way trip can range from 30 to 60 minutes depending on the time and how fast we decided to walk...so that means that our travel time ranges from 3 to 4 hours a day of just riding the metro and walking...our visits are 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the evening.....so that’s about a grand total of 8 to 10 hours a day of metro riding, walking and playing with out little guy....and it may not sound that bad but it is so exhausting and yet so worth every sore foot and body part I may have from all the walking. Our little boy is doing amazingly well and showing what some love and affection can do for him!! Each day he is excited to see us and we can’t wait to break him free of his orphanage. But for know we just visit and enjoy our time we have with him!!:)

I hope everyone is having a wonderful week and here are some more pictures!!

Trying to get to the camera! 

Having fun with mommy.! 

Surprised by the music coming from my phone.....he LOVES music!

Loving on daddy!

Mommy trying out the carrier we have....and it fits PERFECTLY!!:)

He loves his daddy! 

Covered in blocks and being silly with daddy!!