I dropped a bomb on you, baby.

Hey all!
Now that family has been told on the phone, I can tell the rest of you. We have news! First of all I should apologize again to everyone for not telling anyone sooner. Jason insisted, and I didn't take much convincing, to wait to share good news until it was certain. After the delays and issues we've had with Katya and Roman's adoption, we didn't want to have another thing for family to be excited about and then disappointed about along with us.

The first part of the news is that we decided back in October to go ahead and pursue the adoption of another little girl who had become available. This is the same little girl we had met in Estonia last May when we were with the kids. As it turns out, she is Katya and Roman's first cousin and has lived in the same group with them for years. So they know and love each other. Because of that, and because of the fact that we didn't (and still don't) know how long it will take to get Katya and Roman home, and we didn't know if EVERYTHING in our adoption world would take 4 times longer than it should, we went ahead and started, figuring a head start on our next step to a big family can't possibly be insane. Right?

OK so now that we agree on that, I'll introduce you to her. Her name is Anastasija and goes by Nastija (pronounced NAH-stee-ah or NAH-stya). She is 9 years old, as of September 23rd. I'll try to post a picture of her on here later. She's a real cutie!

We decided to wait, as I said, until it was certain that we are getting her, to tell you all about her. Jason wanted to wait until we enter the US with her. But that would be just a little too much for everyone to take, I think, so I convinced him to tell everyone when we find out her court date. Then that would give us about a month before she comes home for everyone to learn about her.

As some of you already know, we did not end up getting a month notice. We got about a week. We found out late Tuesday and our court date is this coming Thursday afternoon the 22nd. We have to leave tonight! We couldn't believe how fast it came. I knew they were trying to get us a quick date because of the problems and delays we've had all along the way, but we didn't really expect it to happen that fast. So we are SOOOO excited.

I should mention, for clarity's sake, that she is not replacing the other kids. We will fight to get them home no matter what it takes. The kids, by the way, are ECSTATIC about us taking their cousin, even though she is coming home first. They have the best attitude about it. They are viewing it as a bonus that we get to visit them for a couple weeks while they wait for their documents to be resolved, and on top of that, their cousin gets to go to a good home. They also are happy that she will be their sister. They are disappointed, just as we are, that they can't come home at the same time. But they don't seem to be jealous of her at all. They are genuinely sweet and wonderful about it. We will continue to be watchful, though, of jealousy and things like that, though. We keep encouraging the kids that if we had it our way, they'd have been home with us a long time ago, and that we won't give up on them. To which they always reply that they know, they thank us, and tell us not to worry and not be sad. They say that if we are sad, they are sad.

Here are a couple of emails we got from the kids lately (Note: Thank you's to Grandma and Grandpa were because Kathy and Vinny sent with our last package a couple gifts for them):
From Roman...

we are not going to be sad , just want sooner to leave with you , we so much want to go with you and we hope that you will take us with you to America and there everything going to be good. we got your parcel and I like your car very much thank you and thank you for all candies too. I want that court to be soon can you tell me exactly when its going to be? I want to leave so badly and be able to tell grandma and grandpa big thank you, huge thank you and that we love them a lot and want to meet them

good I love you very much , and all relatives I love very much , please tell them not to worry

we love them so much just as we love you very much

From Katya:

mom and dad I hope that Roman and I will be able to see you on 23rd and I want to be with you in hotel and Roman wants that too. we got letters from you I liked them very much, tell grandma and grandpa and all relatives that I love them very much and Roman loves them very much as well. I want to be be with you on 23rd and I want Nastija to be with us and so we can be a family for whole three weeks in the hotel I hope you will have enough time to buy tickets.

and I very hope that president of Russia will sign papers. Roman, Nastija and I going to write you, just wait .

I love you so much!!!!!!!!!!


Aren't they sweet?!

I gotta run, still have packing to do. Hope you enjoy the bomb being dropped on you. :)

Love,
Molly