Bittersweet

The holidays this year in the Cooper house are I guess we could call "bittersweet"!!! We are so excited that we have met our baby boy, have held him, have cuddled with him, have given him his oh so perfect name and have fallen absolutely totally in love with him BUT we are so sad that he is not here with us yet in his new home to celebrate the Christmas holidays. We have decided that we will leave all of the decorations up and keep his presents under the tree until he arrives which we are hopeful to be sooner rather than later! This wait between trips is excruciating! Everything is ready and now we are just waiting for HIM!!! We continue to just try and stay as busy as possible as we wait for the phone to ring to tell us...."get going - your little boy is ready to come home!"

Merry Christmas our little angel!!!! Not too much longer and we will be reunited with you and this time we will never let you go again!!!

We love you!!!

Thanksgiving and Shower

My mom and sisters had a fantastic shower for us this past weekend while we were up north for Thanksgiving. Along with the shower, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner and visit with our families!!! It was also so great to see alot of friends that we had not seen for a while. We have so much to give thanks for this year including the wonderful family that we have along with our little angel who we cannot wait to bring home very soon!! We got so much fun stuff for "K" including wonderful books, lots of fun toys and I think he will be the best dressed kid on the block!! :) I sit in his room and dream of us rocking in the glidder reading books for hours on end. We are holding our breathe that we will be hearing very soon about a court date!!! The suitcases have started getting packed so we will be ready to head on the jet plane ASAP!

Stay warm our little angel....we will be there very very soon!!!! We love you!!

Trying to pass the time!

Our Dossier 2 has made it to Vlad and is in the process of being translated. We are hopeful that things will move quickly and it will get submitted to court in record timing. What a great relief it was to get that all completed, notorized, apostilled and mailed off.

Meanwhile, we have been cheering on our Fightin' Philadelphia Phillies, unfortunately, last night was "D" day and they lost the World Series to the NY Yankees. 2 Years in a row certainly would have been fantastic.....we can just hope for a 2010 World Series.

Here's hoping for a quick court date.

Hang on our little angel boy....we are coming back for you very soon.

Sleep tight and sweet dreams. We love you more than you can even imagine.

Happy Halloween

We can't wait for our little goblin to be here next year.

Today is our 10 Year Wedding Anniversary

What a wonderful day of celebration it is for us today. We are celebrating our 10 Year wedding anniversary!!!! We look forward to so much joy and happiness that is going to be added to our lives in just a few short months when we bring our little boy home. We cannot wait to celebrate 50 more anniversaries with our son!
Hang on tight there angel and dream, dream, dream of us, we are coming very very soon.
Our hearts are bursting with love for you!

We are home!

We made it back to the sunny south safe and sound!!! It was very difficult to leave Vlad and our little boy behind. We are working dilligently on the remainder of our documents required for our Dossier #2 and hoping to get back ASAP!
We are working on finishing your room and getting it ready for your arrival!
Hang in there our little angel......you are in our heart and always on our mind!! We will be there soon and you will be coming home before you know it. Stay warm until we can get back to snuggle with you!

Day 4

The day started out by going to the notary and having the official paperwork notorized and then delivered to the Dept of Education. We had some time before it was time to go for our visit with "K" so we went downtown to the seaport/wharf and were able to take a look around and take some pictures. They will be nice to add to our memory book.

Today on our visit with "K" we played outside as the weather was beautiful. We are taking advantage of the nice weather now as when we return for our 2nd trip, the weather will most likely be very cold and snowy! There is a nice playground outside of the Baby Home and also some riding toys that he enjoys mostly pushing around rather than riding on. He also liked going down the slide and swinging on the swing while Daddy pushed him.

As the visit came to an end, it was as difficult as we had imagined it would be. We left him with a blanket and teddy bear for his crib and also a photo album that the caregivers will show him as much as possible of his new family.

We will be saying Goodbye to Vladivostok tomorrow but not for long!!!!! We are counting the days until we can get back here to our baby boy and bring him home forever!!!!

We love you "K". Sleep tight little angel and dream of your mommy and daddy. We will be back for you very very soon.

Day 3

Today was another wonderful day - a day we will truely never forget. We officially accepted the referral today of "K" and signed the letter at the Baby Home which was then taken to the Dept of Education. Tomorrow morning we will go to the Notary to complete the paperwork to officially petition to adopt "K". Today he was babbling away and playing with all of his toys. He also enjoyed reading some of his new books. It is so amazing to us just how loving he is! He is truely a miracle to us and we are so blessed to have him join our family. After our visit was over and the caregiver came to get him, he wanted nothing to do with letting go and cried and cried as he was taken away. Although it was heartbreaking to see him cry, it was such a sign that he really likes us and is beginning to trust us. Tomorrow will be our last visit with him and the thought of it brings us to tears but we will do everything in our power to get all of the paperwork completed at lightening speed so we can get back here to him as soon as we possibly can.

Day 2 Visit

This morning we went to the Baby Home to visit with "K". He seems to be getting more comfortable with us and we even got some smiles and giggles today. He is such a little snuggle bug and just stares into our eyes!!! He is just so absolutely amazing!!!

We met "K" Today!

We are speechless........All we can say today is.....he is more than we could have ever dreamed of!!!!!

The Countdown Has Begun

Today marks 5 days until we meet "K" for the 1st time. We are getting very anxious to say the least! I am hopeful that before we close our eyes to go to sleep tonight, everything will be finished, packed and ready to go!!!
Hold on angel....we are coming very very soon!!!

Gifts for "K"

Thank you so much to Mom Mom, Aunt Kristen and Aunt Sue for sending a wonderful care package of gifts for "K" for us to take with us. These are just a few of the gifts but they have made sure that he will stay nice and warm during the months until we can bring him home to the sunny South!!!! He has also received his "My First Bear" which we hope he can keep in his crib along with the blanket that we have for him.

Travel Dates

We will be leaving on Sat, Sept 26th and will meet "K" for the 1st time on Tuesday, Sept 29th. We are over the moon with excitment!!! If anyone has any travel advice for us, we would love to have it. We will be staying at the Vlad Inn from Monday, Sept 28th until Saturday, Oct 3rd.
We are coming angel.....11 more days until we see your beautiful little face and hold you for the 1st ime!!

THE NEWS WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR!!!

We got our referral!!!!! On 9/9/09, We saw the most beautiful eyes of the little angel that we have been waiting for for forever!!!! We have heard from the IA doctor and they have given us the thumbs up! We are awaiting to hear about travel dates. Sleep tight little one - we are coming!!

The Start of a new month

Today starts month 7 since our dossier was registered in Vladivostok. The months seem to fly by but the wait for our referral seems to continue to get longer and longer. We thought we might have some great news to share last month but unfortunately that is not the case. We understand that we are currently #1 on the list with our agency and we hope maybe the wonderful month of August will be our month to get the referral we have been waiting for. Our excitment builds more and more everyday as we patiently wait to see the beautiful little face of our baby!!! We hope our little one is dreaming every night of the day his/her mommy and daddy are coming to get him. Until then, sweet dreams angel.

Might have some news!!!! Look for the next update.

Update

Well it has been a while since we have posted and mostly because we did not really have any new news to share. Today we found out that we are very very close to the top of the list with our agency for a referral. We are really unsure if that means we will be invited to travel in a week, a month or 6 months so at this point, we are being cautiously optomistic. Meanwhile, we are busy trying to get our house ready and our projects done around the house to get ready for a new little one running around. Our poor puppies have no idea what they will be in for, but I am sure Gunner will be thrilled to have a playmate to run around and play with. We have talked about many names and have a few ideas in mind but really know in our hearts that we have to see their beatuiful little face before we can chose a name.
So that's it for now - just wanted to share some happy news. Keep your fingers crossed that we will finally have the wonderful opportunity to see the face of the one we have been longing for sometime very soon.

Good News!

We were so excited to get the good news that we are officially registered with the Department of Education in Vladivostok. Now.....the wait begins!!!
Hurry up and show your face to us little one as we can't wait to meet you!
We started working on your room and will keep it a surprise until we know if you are a beautiful little boy or girl.