Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Leaps and bounds (oh yeah. . .and we have a court date!)

Today we made HUGE progress with Evan! It started this morning when the caretaker immediately handed Evan to Richard upon our arrival (usually we ease into having Richard hold him since Evan is still a bit wary of him). Richard continued to hold him for our entire morning visit and Evan did not cry once! This is HUGE and WONDERFUL! We also got a record number of smiles out of him and he even began to whimper when his caretaker came to get him for lunch. Very, very good visit!

This afternoon's visit did not go quite as smoothly as this morning's visit had, but we are attributing most of that to the fact that he was sound asleep when we got to the orphanage. He was woken from his nap and given to us half asleep, so, needless to say, he was a bit disoriented. He recovered quickly however and we had another wonderful visit with him.

One thing that we have discovered is that he loves when we sing to him (especially when Richard sings). It definitely has a calming effect on him and, even though we don't have the best voices, it seems as though he could listen to us sing to him all day. He does the cutest thing while we are singing. . . . He starts swaying his head back and forth to the music. It is so cute and it just melts my heart!

We also received our court date!!! Thursday, December 6th at 10:00 am we will go to court and hopefully walk out as the parents of five beautiful children! If all goes well, we will be flying back to Kiev on Thursday afternoon, Richard will sign the necessary papers at the US Embassy and we will head home sometime next weekend. My mom will be traveling back to Ukraine with me once the 10-day wait is up to help me bring Evan home and if all goes well with the birth certificate, passport and Embassy, we should be getting home around Christmas Eve!

We are halfway there!!!

Here are a few pictures of Richard and Evan from our visit this morning. Their faces say it all!

7 comments:

adoptedthree said...

OH so C-U-T-E!!!!

I hate to say it but I love his little outfit! Some of the UA outfits are just so silly they have to be cute!

That would be nice if you could spend Christmas with the little ones at home and then fly out the next day or two!

Ask Masha if you can maybe take you to visit the monastry and caves outside of Donetsk in the hills (that we went to with her mom). It might be a fun little outing over the weekend!

Anonymous said...

So cute! He looks good on you Richard. :) I'm so happy to hear things are going well.

Anonymous said...

I'm just so happy for y'all that Evan is becoming more comfortable with Rich -- and that he loves Rich's singing. That is just so great. Does Evan realize that you are going to be his new mommy and daddy? In Czech its maminka or matka and tatinek or otec for mother and father. Wow, what a great Christmas holiday this will be for y'all. Thanks for the photos.

adopting2fromUkraine said...

Such sweet pictures! Can't wait until we have some to post.

Shelley said...

Yea for having a court date! Evan is so cute...and I am very impressed that they have him dressed to look like a boy! You may want to leave an outfit for him to have his passport photo made in....Xander's was in a dress!

Kelly said...

Valerie and Richard, there are tears all over my keyboard. That photo of Richard and Evan where Evan is smiling is priceless. I thank God every time I think about your wonderful family and that God brought you to Evan. I think of the first day I met that little guy, and the miracle that is now unfolding. HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Kelly

PS. I am sending an email to your account, Valerie, with a photo request! :-)

liesel said...

I'm laughing at the first comment, about the outfit being so cute, because that's the same boy outfit Ava wore in all the pictures I have of her. They must just pass the clothes around whether they are gender appropriate or not!!! Does Ava have the chicken pox? Is she OK? I am starting to worry....