See YA!

Well the next time you will hear from me I will be in Astrakhan! YEAH! Today I am finishing up last minute laundry! Then last minute packing. Everything else on my to-do list is DONE! I am as prepared as I think I can be! I am over on weight a little bit on pretty much every suit case, I wonder how much that will be??? But I am not willing to part with anything I packed. I did end up packing the snow suit for Little Prince. I read somewhere on the CHI site that it is required that you have a snow suit for the child up until April.

This afternoon we will be dropping off Little Princess at her Grandma & Papa Main's house. She is really excited about staying with them, which is such a relief to us. Luke wants to practice doing her hair before we leave. It is pretty cute watching him trying to put her hair in a pony tail. Poor kiddo, thank goodness she is at the age where she doesn't care what she looks like.

Here is my Little Princess at Easter! I will miss her terribly! She is such a mommies girl! Luke calls her my "Mini Me". Well I am off to finish up packing! We leave at 6:00am! Talk to you soon via Astrakhan!

3 days until take off!

Three days left.............I still can't believe it!! Yesterday was a stressful day as we had issues at the Secretary of State!! The notary we had used for all of our last minute documents has two stamps one that will expire in the next couple of days, and a new stamp that continues until 2012. So when notarizing my documents he used his new stamp so we would not have any issues. Because you see if we used the old stamp the documents would become expired while in Russia and not valid. Well apparently the (pleasant- HA HA) ladies at the SEC of State, said that he should have then used both stamps because he can't use the new one until the old one expired. WHAT??? Anyway long story short, all the documents had to be REDONE!! (Did I jinx myself or what, just the other day I was saying how weird it was to be done with paperwork). So thankfully I have a WONDERFUL employer, who let me travel to Springfield to get the new documents apostilled this morning. Now we are officially done with paperwork!! YEAH!

I also found out that our travel arrangements have been tweaked a bit. Apparently there is something going on in Moscow on the 31st-1st, so the room rates are really high (higher than normal), so we will not be staying in Moscow over night and then heading to Astrakhan. Instead we will fly into Moscow and then directly head the region that same day! Which at that point what is another 2 hour flight??

A tip to any families traveling soon. I purchased these space saver travel bags at Target for I think under $10.00 (3 to a package). They are the bags that suck out all the air and condense large piles of clothing into a somewhat flat package!! THEY ARE AWESOME!!! You might need to purchase that wrinkle release spray but so so worth it. I am shocked how much room I have in my suitcases. Just a suggestion!

Have a great day!

5 days Left

So the hustle and bustle continues. We got our VISAS yesterday, so we are ready to go on that end. Tomorrow Luke heads to the Secretary of State to get our final paperwork apostilled (hopefully) and that should be it as far as paperwork. YEAH!! It's a strange feeling as this will be the last time I will ever have to worry about paper work AGAIN!! Literally I have been doing adoption related paperwork NON -stop since Little Princess's adoption in 2005. I look forward to the days of having a clean desk with out piles of documents to be notarized or apostilled.

To all you ladies who read my blog (not sure how many men besides my dad) but today was an emotional day! I am sure it was a combination of anxiousness, stress and excitment all mixed together. The thought that I will no longer be a mommy to one little kiddo but I will be a mommy to two kiddos hit me. I also think being away from my Little Princess will become harder then I think. Not to mention being away from my best friend (my hubby) will be just as hard. Don't get me wrong I am over the moon excited to leave but just an emotional reality check of a day.

I am trying to think of ideas for Little Princess for her to track the days we are gone. For example, on our first trip we gave her a greeting card with a note in it for every day we were gone (SHE LOVES getting mail - so this was right up her alley). But since I will be gone so long the greeting card idea might be a little much. I welcome any ideas!!!

I wanna send a "BIG" shout out to our friends Patti & Matt who should be on their way home with their little one!! Congratulations!!

Happy Monday!

Yes, I said it HAPPY MONDAY! Most of you are probably thinking, yuck a Monday! Not me, because by next Monday I will be in Russia!! YEAH! This week will be a busy one finishing up all our last minute items. Tonight, haircuts are on the agenda. Then buying a suit for Luke. This past summer we cleaned all our closets out donating 8 large bags of clothing to the Salvation Army. Well Luke's suit went right in one of those bags. I kept telling him my golden rule, if you haven't worn it in over a year, toss it or donate it. Again, me not thinking we would need his suit in the near future let it go to the Salvation Army. I could kick myself now but what can you do?? Then Tuesday night, it will be my turn doing some last minute clothing shopping for Little Prince and I, probably Little Princess too! HAHAHA Sorry Luke.

I found out this weekend that there should be 2 families in Astrakhan sometime during my trip, which was a huge relief. I will be happy to have the company and maybe site see with.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!!

What was I thinking??

Okay so Good Friday started out with "What was I thinking?" First I must say that I have been running around none stop trying to tie up loose ends everywhere before we leave. So did I know today was Good Friday..........Yes! But I honestly woke up thinking TGIF!!! So I got up and did the usual routine this morning and me and Little Princess where out the door running late as usual (I go to work, she goes to daycare/school). We show up a school - keep in mind Little Princess attends our Church's daycare/preschool. The first thing out of Little Princess was "Where is everybody Mommy?" Yeah I wanna know the same thing??? Finally after the school door not opening, the maintenance man came to the door and said "Sorry, school is closed today in honor of Good Friday?" WOW!!! What was I thinking?? So instead of school Little Princess was a terrific helper at mommies work! She was such a trooper!! Luckily our offices closed early at 2:00pm, so Little Princess and I were able to come home and enjoy the beautiful spring like weather!!

The agenda this weekend will be spending time with both of our families for the Easter Holiday. We will head up to the Chicago area on Saturday, for some good eats and an egg hunt for all the kiddos. Then on Sunday will travel in the other direction to spend Easter Sunday with Luke's family. Again good eats and an egg hunt for all the kiddos!

Have a wonderful Easter Holiday!

9- days left!

The final countdown!

This will be a quicky!!

HOLY COW!

10 days and counting!

I am getting so so excited!! I can't wait to hold my little guy again! I can't wait to hear him giggle again or to see his sweet little smile! I can't wait to be his mommy forever and ever!

Recap

Busy busy busy.............I don't think that will stop until the day we leave. I am actually looking forward to sitting on the airplane for 10 hours, just to somewhat relax and do nothing. I know that sounds crazy, but I feel like I haven't stopped since we got the call.

I am happy to say that although Target got a lot of my money this weekend, a lot of things got scratched off my to do/to get list. Clothing is now my new concern. I have been following another families BLOG who is over in Astrakhan right now. They keep writing how nice and warm it is in Astrakhan and that has me thinking that by April it could be 60's-70's (wishful thinking). Which my little prince will be pretty warm in the gear I have gotten him so far. I wonder if I should still bring the entire snow suit for him or just the coat??? I am now not going to bring a winter coat for myself but a spring coat and going to bring more short sleeve shirts. One definite is that I will for sure be going over on my luggage weight limit!! At this point it doesn't matter and I really don't care.

Here is a picture of Little Princess at the Easter Egg Hunt this weekend. She was so excited!! Can you believe it? SNOW!

Here is a picture of Little Princess's Dora Easter Eggs. We did these last night and she was so amazed that we could change the color of the eggs. She thought it was so magical!! Too Cute!!

Busy Busy Busy

TGIF!!!

I was out of town for the last two days for work which turned out to be kind of a test run for Luke and Little Princess. I know that 2 days is a lot different then the 3 weeks I'll be gone, but I have to say I am proud of Luke!! The house was in one piece and Little Princess was a happy kiddo.

I am making progress on my to do list and honestly I am starting to feel a little panic setting in. I am having an issue finding long sleeve sleeper like pajamas. Every store I go to has all the spring PJ's, which the weather is nicer in Astrakhan vs. Moscow, but not nice enough for short and t-shirt sleepers. I think this weekend I will hit up TJ Max or Marshall's.

Little Princess has an Easter Egg hunt tomorrow at the Park District. She is pretty pumped!! I think she has reminded me 50 times, not to forget her Easter basket!! Then it will be a full day of errands and shopping.!!

Have a Great Weekend!!

Making Head Way

This weekend was progress on organizing the zillions of things that I have to do in 19 days!!! WOW! So to be more organized I decided to make a detailed list of everything thing that must be done. The list keeps growing and growing instead of getting smaller and smaller. So far there are only 2 things scratched off that list!! I know!! not much progress, but I am saying this now "I work great under pressure". This will mean that I will be a total lunatic a least a week before take off........but I'll getter done!

O' geez....as I am sitting here literally typing this I just thought of one more thing that has to be added to the list.......gather pictures for a photo album for the judge for court.

Little Princess 's preschool has been passing around the flu bug and I swear she has had it at least 3 times this season. So Sunday night, little princess came down with a fever. Poor thing just felt terrible and just wanted to cuddle with mommy!! (which I loved). She is doing much better today and back to her normal self.

Well, gotta run! Have a great Wednesday!!

22 days until take off!

Twenty Two days sounds like a lot time but when you have so much to do to prepare to leave, it does not seem like enough time. We received the call for our court date on Tuesday (3/4/08). Excitement, shock, joy and relieved are just some of the words that describe getting the call from CHI telling me we had a court date. I kept asking my CHI REP "seriously"? "are you serious"?

So this past week I have made our plane reservations and ordered our Visas. YEAH!!! The sticker price on our plane tickets was SHOCKING!!! We were able to save a little money on our Visas as we have more turn around time. Now that those two things are taken care of I can start to gather the remainder of the paperwork I need to take with me.

Luke (my husband for those of you who don't know) will be leaving a couple of days after our court date to be home with Little Princess. I will stay in Astrakhan through the 10 day waiting period and return home on April 24Th. YIKES!! I am starting to get nervous about being over in Astrakhan for that long by myself, but I CAN DO IT!!!!!

So on the agenda today: Organize paperwork

Little Prince's crib is over flowing with items I have bought along the way for our trip, so I think I will organize that as well, maybe even pack some stuff. For those of you who don't know I am an organizing freak!!!

Have a wonderful day!!

Welcome!

Welcome to my first ever blog!! I am an AVID reader of many CHI blogs and thought it was about time I created my own blog. So here it is..........I am still trying to figure this all out so please bare with me!

A little history about us before I jump right into where we are right now in the adoption process. My husband and I adopted "Little Princess" in November 2005 from Astrakhan Russia. Little Princess (this is the name I refer to her as) is everything and more then we ever expected. She is so amazing and I wake up everyday feeling thankful and blessed to have her in my life. We decided in July 2006 to start all over again, and add a Little Prince to the mix. Fast forward to March 2008! We received our referral in January 2008 for our little boy in Astrakhan Russia and are leaving for trip # 2 on March 30, 2008. Going forward I will chronicle our journey to bring Little Prince home.