ok we are home fine

well the boys are doing well so far. they sleep all night and in their own beds. we havent had much time blogging lately due to i have a severe infection in my jaw and cheek . the boys are about to go to church for the first time. we did last night surprise their daddy at work. so we had our first resturant visit and might i say it went well. Markus seems to love fish and mac and cheese. Aleks had bread sticks and chicken. i have taken new pictures and im going to try to post them after bedtime tonight. thanks to everyone who has been supportive of us durong our adoption.

today we head to america

we are sitting here waiting on igor to came take us to the airport. the snow is coming down . markus and aleks seem to wonder whats going on everything is packed and all the toys are in their backpacks. i havent slept well for the last 4 nights. so hopefully once we are home i will get some sleep. lastnight markus decided he wasnt going to sleep either. oh he has been walking more and more. well everyone keep us in your prayers and we will blog again in america.

we have some great progress

markus is starting to like the sippy cup , although he hasnt figured out how to hold it yet , he will drink out of it. at one point tonight he had the cup on the floor and he was trying to get it in his mouth. he is also trying to walk alot more.

Yesterday we had some welcome guests. Dan and Alice Crawford along with their son to be, Andreas. It was great to finally meet them and to hear some other English speaking voices. Although Andreas wanted to make sure that we knew we were in 'his country' with his own fine langauge. We couldnt understand a word he said, but who cares. He seemed to enjoy playing with some new toys and with Aleks. Until Aleks hit him in the eye with a tablemat. He was fine again though when Dan and i returned with pizza. Andreas sure liked the americana pizza and all Alices good work of keeping him to his schedule and diet was undone immediately as he feasted on pizza and pop. (Sorry Alice, just trying to Americanize him lol) We spent around 4 hours talking and time just flew by and it was soon time to get a tired Andreas home. we may get to meet up again this evening but no one was sure what was happening regarding getting Andreas back to the orphanage. Aleks sure did like having someone to play ball with, as marcus is way too small at the moment. We made sure we got some photos and agreed that it would be great if everybody was to try to get together back in the USA after all the adoptions were finalized.

things are back on track

well today went well. the people at immigration emailed the consulate the copy of our I-600A . so he was able to accept our paperwork.we go back on wednesday to get the papaers .we did however , realize after our visit to the embassy we didnt have igors cell number and he wasnt outside. after 30 minutes outside in the cold we walked back to old towne. now he (igor) has our camera to get photos of some children. once we get to the house again we will send all the photos to AHI to have for the families.

Beaurocracy strikes again

We heard from Barbara at the agency a couple of hours ago, she said that our immigration papers had not been sent to the embassy here. We tried to call the US Government office in Louisville, but alas, they are closed on Wednesdays. We ended up speaking to our congressmans office in Ashland and the lady there told us we should not have traveled unless we got a letter from the USCIS. Even when Viola explained to her that we filed the i600 before the Hague ruling, she didnt appear to know what she was talking about. She did say that she would call the government offices and see what she could find out, because the office doesnt close on Wednesday for congress people. We are awaiting her return call to let us know what she finds out. So now we have 2 3 year old sons that we have passports for, and can leave Estonia but we cant bring them home with us. We have an appointment at the US Embassy in Tallinn at 9am tomorrow morning so hopefully we will know more then. As the boys have European union passports, we could always fly to England and stay at my sisters house whilst we get this sorted out, but hopefully there will be a quick fix, and we can fly home as scheduled next Thursday. One problem that could hold things up, is the fact that Monday and Tuesday are official holidays here in Estonia for Independance day.

Sick boys

Both boys have had a bad couple of days after taking in 5 shots each. They are on the way to full recovery although markus is mad at the world because we wont give him his drink on a spoon anymore. We decided we need to try to get him used to a sippy cup before the long journey home next week. Aleks just had his first taste of Mcdonalds chicken nuggets and fries, he loved the barbecue sauce. Aleks loves taking a shower, Markus hates it. Aleks brushes his teeth good, Markus fights to keep his mouth shut. Today Alice and Dan arrive in town on their preview trip with Andres. It will be good to meet up with some English speaking friends.

well today wasnt too fun. although it is steve's birthday , we had to take the boys to the doctor and they both had to get 5 shots each. now they are cranky . the doctor gave me a handful of papers and said that markus had complicated medicals . so we still dont know too much . but im going to try to get them translated once we return home.

. the boys are doing well i think. there are times i do wonder what they must be thinking of having steve and myself with them all day long. aleks has called himself dallas a few times. and he tries to repeat anything you say although most the time it is still baby jibberish. markus actually did say momma last night whilst we were playing in the floor together. (so we have one who says daddy and one that says momma)

ok here goes ....

we went out walking today and we made the mistake of putting their snowsuits on them from the orphanage.apparently they thought we was ging to go back there. once we made it back to the apartment and took the suits off they were find again.so when we go out anymore we wont wear those suits . dont want the boys freaking out .we have began feeding markus baby rice ceral about every 2 hours. he seems like he has lost weight since we saw him in july.aleks eats anything but we been feeding him oatmeal at night before he goes to bed . he needs the food. we go to the doctor on monday (steve and igor are dropping me off thats what i been informed) steve is going to get our translated papers, then we get the passports from what i understand. so on thursday we can go to the embassy.

more photos

the best day

today at 11:55 am estonia time. the judge made it official. james markus hill and dallas aleksander hill , are our sons .

in tallinn

well we are in tallinn , jelena was at the airport waiting on our arrival and brought us straight to the apartment and phoned igor so we would know when we were meeting with him.she is very nice but i think so believes we are getting a little girl . and not two little boys. but we went along with her just to move things along.we went out and did a very little shopping because it was dark outside and i didnt want to get lost our first night here. we are going to go to the big market tomorrow. my niece is happily joined us to help watch over the boys if we need to doanything and cant take them with us. we meet igor at 10:30 in the morning . we hope to go get the boys before court but i dont think it will happen. but hopefully tomorrow before my family back home is awake. the boys should be our offically and i can email and let them all know. i will blog tomorrow after court and let everyone know how things went , and also i hope to get pics.

final blog without the boys i hope.........

well tomorrow is the beginning of the best days of my life i hope. each plane leads me closer to the children i've wanted my whole life. the best part no physical pain (just joking, but true). i cant wait til i can blog that they are our sons. next time i blog i will be in tallinn , estonia.

packing complete...

now we just wait to go on monday. i know i have probably forgotten something. the closer it gets to monday the more nervous i became. i know everything should be fine, but there is a small part of me that feels something will go wrong. i already love these two little boys as if they were my own already, so court on wednesday is just a formality . (that i hope goes smooth).

5 days and counting........

well we are getting everything together. i had all the paperwork ready for over in Tallinn. and last night after filing taxes i had to go back and redo all our I-864 forms.( oh what fun). we went shopping again for the orphanage. we decided since Christmas was just a few months ago that clothes was the way to go. we found out that the Crawford's will be visiting Andres while we are in Tallinn so hopefully we will meet up . as i sit here and thought about next week it dawned on me that this time next week it should be official that the boys are ours.