Nothing, nothing, nothing

Just to let you all know, I know nothing new. We have resolved ourselves to the fact that we will just have to wait until after Jan 10 to hear any more information on the baby boy our agency told us about. That's ok, I have so much to do around here to keep me quite busy for a long time. Travis has decided he wants to switch bedrooms and he wants us to make his bedroom into a Raiders theme ... of course Daryle is extremely happy about that idea! I think I can make it work, we already have some Raiders things to put in his "new" room.

On a funny note, last night I had a dream that our agency called and said they had twins...a boy and a girl for us! They said the mother hadn't had the babies yet, they were due in May ( a red flag, of course that never happens with Russian adoptions!!) . It seemed so real, until Daryle woke me up! He reassured me that it was only a DREAM. Oh well ...

Making cookies for Santa Claus

Yesterday Travis and I decided to take advantage of a rainy day and do some Christmas baking. As a mom, I have always dreamed of that perfect time of making sugar cookies. I have tried in the past, but Travis just wasn't into it. Well, this year he was and we had an absolute ball!! We cranked up the Christmas music and away we went! Here are some pictures to show you how we did.
First, we got on our aprons .... he got to wear the coveted Raiders apron that belongs to Daryle!

Here is Travis using the rolling pin and cutting out the cookies.

After all the cookies were done, we got to decorate them with frosting and sprinkles. Travis took this very seriously. You can see he was concentrating very diligently.

Here you can see that little mischevious smile that I love so much!!

He finally decided on the cookies that we would leave out for Santa on Christmas Eve. Don't worry, I have put them in a safe spot and I know they will be a tasty treat for Santa very soon!

Yesterday Travis and I also did some shopping. Target already has Christmas decorations on sale, so we decided to get "our baby" a stocking for next year. Travis picked out a really cute snowman. When we got home, he wanted to hang it right next to his. He even gave the stocking a little kiss! Travis also picked out a little Christmas present for the baby, we will save it until they are home. I have no new information to report, so for now we are just enjoying the holidays and anticipating that we will be traveling to cold and snowy Russia very , very soon. Much love to you all!!

Family Christmas Celebration

Last Saturday my mom's side of the family met to celebrate Christmas. When we were younger, we ususally met on Christmas Eve. Now the family has grown so much that we have to meet on the weekend before Christmas. As always, a great time was had by all. Travis LOVES getting together with all of his cousins. He is starting to think everybody is a "cousin".... he asked if Great-Grandma was his cousin too!! Haha!! I didn't get too many cute pictures, but here are a few that show the fun the kids had. Merry Christmas to everybody!!

Here is Emily, Taylor, Travis and Lauren playing hot potato with Elmo.
Travis, Emily and Lauren visiting.

Trying to get a group shot .... that didn't pan out for me, I just got Emily, Travis and Mason ... about 6 others are MIA!

Perfect Attendance Award

Last Friday Travis got a Perfect Attendance award for the second quarter of school!! That is awesome!! Considering how sick he can get, we are so proud of him for being healthy! He loves school and as you can see from his face he was VERY proud to have his name called out. Congratulations Mr. Travis!!

Another nibble....

We now know that this little baby boy is around 13 or 14 months old...oh- my- gosh!!!!!!!!! Of course, that is assuming we will be able to accept this referal, that he will have a healthy medical, etc, etc, etc. Please pray that we have a picture and more information by Christmas... (maybe I will send an emergency letter to Santa!!) I'm not sure if I will be able to handle not knowing more very soon..... Of course I will handle it, I just may be a bundle of nerves!!

Throw me a bone....

Ok, I don't really have any "news" but I do have some "information"!! I guess you could say, our agency threw us a bone. I think it is supposed to tide us over until we get the real thing! I'll take whatever I can get!! Anyway....she said they had a referral for us but they are waiting to get the medical information. Here's the lovely part.....she doesn't know if they will get the medical information before Christmas or after January 10....sigh....however, whether we get the info now or not until after January 10 we will more than likely travel the end of January or early February (in that case happy birthday to me!). All of this is contingent on the fact that we are able to accept the first referral. For those of you who have read this far.....she said it is a boy!! That is all I know for now.....honest!!

A new week ahead...

This week is going to be a busy one, you can be sure of that!! The last week before Christmas break is always craziness!! Our second graders are putting on a Holiday Fashion Show.....it is usually so much fun, but a lot of practicing before the big day. They all look so cute in their dressy clothes. Only 4 1/2 days....but who is counting???!!!??? :-)

We are keeping our fingers crossed that we might hear something this week.....if you can say a prayer or two we would greatly appreciate it!!! I can't promise for sure that I will be able to post right away if we do get a referral, because we have to have the medical report checked out by our doctor first. Trust me, it is going to take GREAT RESTRAINT from me, but we will see. I may be able to throw out a hint or two. Keep checking on us..... there will be good news one of these days!!

E-mail

On Friday sent my agency an e-mail and asked if our paperwork had been sent to Moscow, since that is what I was lead to believe. Today, this is the response I got:

Hi Lisa!
All the documents came in but we had to have them apostilled before they can go, then we have to bind and copy the dossier. The packet will be ready to go out this week.

WHAT??!! They haven't been sent out yet?? (Heavy sigh....) So I sent my mom this e-mail:

I am just forwarding this response on to all of you...all I have to say is UGH! I know I need to be patient, it is just so darn hard!! I guess at least another week before we know anything.... Lisa

This is what I got back from her:

... All you have to say is UGH??? My goodness, I think you are taking this very well!!!
This is what I have to say UGH!!!!
Love, Mom

And that is all I have to say about that..............................

Speechless...

Last night Daryle and I had an amazing experience. We went to his company Christmas party and had such a nice evening from the moment we walked in the door. It is always nice to see people and catch up since some of our friends live out of state. Even though I don't work there I know a lot of the people since Daryle has worked there for over 10 years. Anyway, every year after dinner his company does a "Gift Giveaway". All of the employees draw a number and they get the gift that has that number on it. They are all always really nice things. Usually, there is one "big" prize, this year it was a television. So, everybody got their presents and at the end the person who won the t.v. asked Daryle and I to come up to the front. We had no idea what was going on. He asked Daryle to talk a bit about the adoption and how we had a casino night, etc. Then, he announces that he would like to donate the tv for an auction with the money going to our adoption!!! We just stood there, stunned!! Right away, somebody else put their present up for auction too! So, those two auctions went quite well ...then suddenly two more people donated their presents for the spur of the moment auction too!! We were overwhelmed with the kindness, generosity and true spirit of giving that Daryle's co-workers displayed. Not only were people donating their nice presents, other people were actually bidding on them!! WOW!!

I have to say, coming up with the money for both adoptions has always been one of the most stressful parts we have had to deal with. We do fundraiser after fundraiser and just keep our fingers crossed and say a lot of prayers that it will all work out and we will get what we need to bring our children home. When things like this happen it gives me hope and faith that indeed God is leading us down this path for a specific reason. We may not know what that reason is right now, but we do believe in our hearts that there is another child out there who is destined to be in our family. Thank you to all who participated last night, it left us speechless, overwhelmed and humbled. We are incredibly blessed to have such amazing people in our lives. Whether you came to Casino Night, bought or sold cookbooks for us, particpated in last night's auction, or have said a countless number of prayers for our family, we want to say "THANK YOU!!" You all mean the world to us!

Preparing for Christmas...(no new news though...)

Well, let me start off by saying we haven't heard anything this week about the adoption. We only know that our papers were being sent to Moscow this week, so we are hoping that they are either on their way or they are already there. I am so glad we have the holidays to keep us preoccupied right now, because otherwise I know I would be feeling even more anxious than I already am!! I am getting to the point where I just want to know if it is a boy or a girl and how old they are!! Patience....
So, I will give you a short update of our Thanksgiving and how we have been decorating the house for Christmas.
Here is Travis with Grammy at the park on Thanksgiving afternoon. We had a really nice day!

Here is Travis with Great-Grandma. They played Connect Four together, I taught them both how to play...then I turned around for a minute to discover Travis was already trying to cheat!! Poor Great-Grandma!!

Here is Travis with his new cousin, Riley. Travis was practicing being a big brother, I must say he did a VERY good job! Riley seemed to like Travis and they enjoyed playing peek-a-boo together. I think Riley will be happy to know he will have someone his age to play with very soon!!

Last weekend we got out the Christmas decorations. We have a "friendly competition" with the neighbors regarding who gets the lights up first....well, we came in 2nd place this year, but only by a few hours!! LOL Daryle didn't put the lights up high this year, he had a battle with the extension ladder, I would say the ladder won! Anyway, I still think they look nice....this picture doesn't do it justice!

Here is Travis with our new addition, the penguin.

Here is our other new friend on the lawn, Mr. Polar Bear.

Frosty is back!!! He has been part of our family for a few years now. Travis loves it when Frosty comes out to play for few weeks!

Ok, now for a funny Travis story. I have several nativity scenes in my house at Christmas time. One is wooden and for kids, another one is sort of for kids (I told Travis he could play with it) and a third one Travis was really interested in because it is a Native American set with a tee-pee, cactus and a coyote. Anyway, I told him he could be "in charge" of those and Mommy was in charge of the big, nice one on the entry way table. So, he was playing with them for awhile. After he went to bed I went to turn the lights off, and this is what I found....

Evidentally, he put all three baby Jesus' in the manger, with all of the animals and people looking on! (Also notice the car inside the manger, I suppose that is Jesus' car??!!) I especially like how they seemed to arrive there by school bus, tractor and race car! I was laughing so hard!! I called Daryle over and we cracked up, I ran for my camera to get these shots!! It sure gave us a good laugh, he is such a funny kid!! Then I went over to where the Native American set was, and all the people were in a semi-circle looking at NOTHING!! I didn't get a picture of that one, sorry! So, the next day I casually asked him why all the babies were together and he said, "They didn't want to be lonely." AHH, of course!!

I hope my next post is the news you are all waiting for!!

Birthdays, Thanksgiving crafts and paperwork

First of all, Tuesday was Daryle's birthday. Happy Birthday Daryle!! Since I had class on Tuesday night we decided to celebrate as a family on Sunday evening instead. Here are "the boys" licking the beaters from the first cake. (Yes, yes, yes, something happened...maybe I forgot the eggs...and the cake was like a crater!! Thank goodness Target is close by my house now!!)
Here is the second (and final!) cake. It was yummy and turned out pretty good. Good thing we didn't actually put 38 candles on there...we could have set the house of fire!!!

Today at school Travis' class had a "feast" of fruit salad, homemade butter and crackers and popcorn. He also made a Pilgrim hat and a Native American headband (notice the pattern on the headband!). Here he is modeling for you all (and I can't forget to mention "Spikey"... his webkin!) Here he is looking like his normal angelic self!! Happy Thanksgiving!!

And for the never ending paperwork....I had a call this evening from our agency that we needed to redo our intent to adopt form. I had to handwrite this letter and the poor gal put the wrong stamp on the back (it has to do with notarizing and apostilling) and so she called and asked if I could redo it and send it down to Tuscon right away. She was so apologetic...I said no problem that it was the least of our worries! Those of you who went through the adoption process before know that this is really no big deal! I got off the phone, wrote the letter up, stamped it, and it will go out in the mail tomorrow. It will probably get to Tuscon on Saturday. She also told me that our paperwork was being sent to Moscow next week! She said the papers from Colorado were on the way and should be there next week. WooHoo!!! Now we just have to wait.... patiently.... for "the call" about our baby!! Sometimes I have to pinch myself, I can't believe this is all really happening!

I want to wish each of you a Happy Thanksgiving! We are thankful for so much, especially for our family and friends. ;-)

One step at a time

I heard from our coordinator today. She e-mailed me and said she talked to our contact in Moscow and that person told her that we probably would not be traveling before Christmas...however, it was probable that we would at least be matched with a baby before Christmas! The region shuts down from Dec. 31-about Jan. 9 so that means things will come to a stand still during that time period. So, from the looks of it we will more than likely be traveling in January if all goes well!! (Can you say BBBRRRR!!!???) With all of the hustle and bustle of the holidays I am sure time will fly by! Things in this region seem to move quickly from what I am seeing with other families. From the beginning I was told that this region moves fast, except for the summer and when they go on "vacation". For now, we just sit and wait for our baby to show up...literally!!! I can tell that day is getting closer!!

Last night we were watching The Race and they were in Moscow!! All three of us were glued to the screen to look at the buildings and the sights. We told Travis that his brother or sister was there right now waiting for us....I don't think he gets it but it sort of blew our minds just thinking about it! How amazing!

Quick Update

We found out this week that we are now waiting for some papers to come back from Colorado. Once we get those, then all of our papers will be forwarded to Moscow. At that time our coodinator in Moscow will match us with a baby!! We were told that it could take "a few weeks or sooner" to get the papers from Colorado! We could be traveling around Christmas!! It is so exciting and overwhelming all at the same time. So, it isn't really great news, but it is the news we have for now. Please continue to keep us in your prayers, along with our baby who is out there somewhere in Moscow waiting for us to bring them home!!

Casino Night Fun!!

Casino Night was a huge success!! Thanks SO MUCH to all of our family and friends who came out and helped us raise some money to bring home our baby! We couldn't do any of this without all of YOU! Here are a few pictures to recapture the fun evening. Also, thanks to all of the donors who donated prizes as well as to the Elk's Lodge for allowing us to have this event. Everybody who came had a FABULOUS time!!

Here I am waiting for our guests.

Here is the big table of raffle prizes....I would say the biggest hit was the $30 Target gift card....but I think everybody else was happy with their prize too!! A lot of people will be eating out at some nice restaurants very soon!!

Here is my dad.... the "Bar Maid".... he brought people drinks all night long! Good job, Grandpa!

The rest are just some pictures I took of our family and friends. From all the BIG smiles I would say a great time was had by all!!

Look! Even Grammy took some time out to learn a little bit about roulette!

WOW!! Looks like Cindy broke the bank!!!!

Here we have the "rowdy table"!! Somehow, they won a LOT of prizes!!! Congrats!

Thanks again everybody!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cookbooks are in!

Finally!! The cookbooks are pretty much finished. I went down and picked up 52 of the 250 books. The rest will be ready by Thursday. They turned out really nice! I will be selling them at the school boutique on Saturday and I will also have them for sale at Casino Night. If you would like to buy one, please let me know and I will be more than happy to send you one. We are selling them for $20 each. The book is 232 pages filled with favorite recipes from our family and friends all across the country. It is so exciting, I can tell we are getting closer to Russia already!!

Great News!

Today in the mail we got our approval from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services!! (This is the I-171H!!) This means that we will be able to go to Russia as soon as we get and accept a referral!! We are so excited! I was prepared for that to take at least another month, so this was really happy news!

I sent the complete cookbook to the printers this evening....hopefully they will be ready by the end of next week. Yeah!

Don't forget, Casino Night is fast approaching. We have 20 raffle prizes now and it seems like we will have decent turn out. It should be a lot of fun, we can't wait!!

Hawes Family Casino Night

November 15 is fast approaching!! This should be a fun-filled evening!! Don't forget, if you want to preorder you need to do that by November 8! We would like to get a head count so we know how many people to plan for...we need to have enough food and prizes! For $30 a person you get $500 in play money (or $600 if you preorder!) with a raffle to end the evening. If you want to come, just let me know!!

Hope to see you there!

Happy Halloween!

On Thursday night Daryle and Travis carved this year's pumpkin...they did a pretty good job! Travis always tells Daryle what kind of "face" he wants and they sketch it out before hand. After much protest, Travis finally did stick his hand inside the pumpkin and pulled out some "guts"! He found he sort of enjoyed it, I think.

Travis was an astronaut this year...he came up with this pose himeself! He is so funny!

Look at that face....is he ready for some trick-or-treating or what??!!

We hope you all had a Happy Halloween too!!

Making progress...

Well, I think this picture says it all! We took the training wheels off of Travis' bike yesterday and it was a huge success!! He rides his bike like he has been doing this for years. Yeah!!

We were nervous about him crashing so we piled on all of the safety equipment, but he didn't crash at all! He is getting to be such a big boy! I have posted a short video of him riding around on his bike too.

Thank you to everybody who was able to send in recipes for volume 2 of our cookbook! The final touches are being put on right now and I hope to have it to a publisher within the next week. If all goes well we should have them ready to sell by November 15. Thanks again to all who have helped me put this book together!!!

Casino Night also seems to be coming together nicely. We have been accumulating raffle prizes for the end of the night. We have gift certificates for restaurants, autographed baseballs, jewelry, NASCR jackets just to name a few! If you know of anybody who owns a store or restaurant and would like to donate a prize to our raffle please let us know. The more prizes we have the better!

As far as the adoption goes, we are still just waiting for our I-171H to come (this is the orphan petition). That paperwork was only submitted one or two weeks ago, so we still have some time to wait on that. However, it is very likely that once we do get that approval that we could be traveling very soon.

We hope to see many of you at Casino Night and I will post the cookbook on here once it is ready to sell.

Look! No Training Wheels!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Ahh, Fall Break

Well, I realized Fall Break came and went before I had a chance to write a little bit about what we did. The first week was pretty low key since I had to fininsh up my research paper and project. However, on that Friday we went to the zoo with my cousin Anna and her little girl Clara. Spending time around younger children is good for Travis....he is learning how to be more patient! Here are some pictures from the zoo:

Travis and Clara at the beginning of the morning.
Travis on the little tractor....I think he may be getting too big for this one!! He looks like a giant child!
This was a cool swing in the children's area, they both had fun on this one.
Travis also enjoyed playing "baseball" in the backyard for two weeks. That is until all the balls ended up over the fence and we couldn't find them anymore!!

Week 2- Uncle Billy and Patti came to visit from California. They had never been to Arizona before, so this was a real treat. One morning we went on a short hike in the San Tan Mountains. These mountains are really close to our house. It was a beautiful day and we had fun looking at all the desert scenery.......rocks and bugs included!!



That week Travis also spent a lot of time building things with his lincoln logs. He has finally realized that he can make up things on his own, directions are not always needed! He does a pretty good job. He did this one all on his own. Future architect??
Here we are saying good-bye to our company. Uncle Billy and Patti were delightful houseguests, we had a lot of fun just hanging out with them.

This was hysterical!! Travis put this balloon under his shirt.....I promise it wasn't too many doughnuts!!!! And NO, he isn't "expecting" either!! (I think he might be trying to look like somebody he knows!! haha!!)

Travis is also a budding photographer. Patti has an iphone, Travis' new fun "toy"! He learned how to use her camera, it was a good incentive for good behavior, that's for sure! Here are some of the random pictures he took while sitting in the back seat of the car.

Here is a self-portrait of his foot on the back of the seat:
Views from the car going through Tempe:

Picture of the pumpkin outside our house...I love his perspective!
We did other things too, overall we had a very nice time and a lot of fun. Now Travis wants an iphone for Christmas...I don't think even Santa can pull that one off!!