"Creative moments"

Here is a look at the curtains that I made for Noah's room. I know it's not much considering some new moms make clothes and bedding for eir little ones' but I am just getting started.

ps. I got a sewing machine for my Birthday and hopefully this is just the begining.

Noah's room

Here are a few pics since i have repainted , hope you like it.

Naval Port inVlad


Mc Donalds in Moscow

Checking out of the Vlad Inn
play room in Vlad Inn


Vlad symbol

Park in Vlad, close to Vlad Inn
rubles, money


The only bath water we had.

food that was bought in Vlad.
We thought it would taste normal.
It looked normal.
We only ate 2-3 things after all.
Vlad Inn photos

: Sorry, no more photos.

We put up photos of Noah, knowing that it was a risk for the Russian Federation to find them. While we were told it would be hard for them to do so, we decided to let everyone have a peek at Noah. We were only home for about 4 hours and we were told it would be in our "BEST INTEREST" to take the photos down. With all of that said, we will be happy to share all the pics that we have with anyone who would like to see them in person. We will be mailing some to Grove Hill and Fulton. For our friends and family in t-town, please give a call if you want to see everything. We know it's hard but, we appreciate you understanding. From what we can understand from Russia is that until the child legally belongs to us after the court date, we can't "exploit" him in photos. Out of all the rules that we have had to follow for Russia, please trust us when we say this is by far not the worst thing we are having to abide by. check out the new photos of Vlad that i'm posting today and let us know what you think.

Last Day in Russia

Hey everyone, hope you are all doing well today. We miss all of you very much and can't wait to see you and tell you all about Noah and our journey. We are so happy to be coming home today, but we are very sad that it's w/out Noah. We have to cutest pics of him to keep us laughing through these long 3 to 4 months.Again, we really appreciate all the blogging that you have been doing. I can't begin to describe how great it feels to know that you were thinking of us and Noah. Love shout out to : Mamma, Daddy, Amy, Shane, Keelie, Lindsie( f-5 ), Heather, SaraKate, Emma, Niki, Patrick, Betty C., Jerri& Jeniffer, and thanks to Fulton Church for all of your prayers, they were all answered.

Good Morning

Good morning, well here it is.Good afternoon to you. We are about to leave in 30 mins from the hotel, so here's a guick blog. We finally got SLEEP, GOOD SLEEP!! So we are wide awake and ready for our day half way back home. We are so excited to see all of you, we have missed everyone so much, even though we haven't really said it yet. You can't imagine how it is to be so far from everyone you know and how wonderful it feels to read you thoughts on the blog. We have been talking about you all and hope those of you who were sick ( Heather & Niki ) feel a lot better now, we hated to here you were sick. Hey to Keelie and Lindsie again, I love knowing that they are thinking of us at this time, it warms my heart. Mamma & Amy please let Josh's mom know how things are going.

I tried on some of the clothes that we brought for Noah. The large infants onsie fit perfect. The wind pants were baggy but we left those clothes on him when we left him. The 12 month onsie was tight but could have been stretched to fit if needed. He has large feet, we traced his hands and feet, so you could see them too.

Gotta go, Love ya'll
Josh, Leslie & Noah

"MISSION COMPLETE"

We just got back to the hotel from our final visit w/Noah. It was sooooo hard to leave him. I knew it would be hard and I did prepare myself as much as possible. I could have NEVER been ready for what was about to happen. They let us visit him 2 times today. When our time was up,(we knew what that dredded look ment) they let us carry him back to his room so we could hold him for as long as possible. Whe we opened the door for his room his caretaker held out her arms and I didn't think that I could phisically let go of him. Well needless to say I let go.

Well I need to stop talking about this b/c I doing good right now but I could have a meltdown at any moment.

I'm sorry that I didn't put more pics on the blog but this computer is very very slow when uploading anything. We have tons of photos, trust me you will be tired of looking at them once we are home. We have a lot of pics together also. Sorry that we are not sharing pics of Noah, but maw-maw, and paw-paw get to see them at home first. I will post his pics after we get home, I promise.

We will talk again soon, we need sleep for now, now that we can relax.
Love, Josh, Leslie & Noah Housley
ps. On our videos of Noah, he said hello to Keelie, Lindsie, maw-maw, & paw-paw, so be ready to have your heart melted.

We met Noah, finally!!!!!

We finally got to go meet him. We got there and had to meet with the orphanage doctor first. She told us almost everything we wanted to ask here about Noah. We were told that we had to wait for him to wake up from his afternoon nap so it may be a while, so we waited and waited. Finally the Doctor came back and said that he had awoke from his nap with a very high fever because he has had a cold since saturday. At first they said we would have to go to the room that his bed was in and look at him from afar, well I knew I was not going to leave that place without holding my baby!!!! So before we knew it the Social worker walked into the room that we were in and was giving me my child. WHOA it was Noah, right there in front of us waiting for me to take him from her. I immediatly I grabbed him from her and his little arms wrapped around my neck, as if he were waiting for us to. He was very sick and looked like he felt really bad, so we didn't hand him back and forth but a few times because I know his little body was hurting all over. He layed on my chest once we sat down with him and sat his tiny hand on my face, he would laugh everytime I would kiss his hands or he would grab my nose. He only smiled a few times but it was awesome to see. Josh got him out of my arms and held him for a little while, but as soon as Josh kissed him it startled him because of his beard and mustache, he cried so I would get him back for a little while longer. I wrapped him up in the Alabama blanket that I made for him from home, he seemed to be warm and cumffy in it. They soon told us that they were about to give him another shot for his fever and we would have to wrap things up. The hardest thing for me now is knowing that is sick and I can't be there with him. We are going back to see him first thing in the morning and if they only allow us a short amount of time again , we will get to go back in the afternoon the same day for another visit. We will let all of you know how things go , please pray for us and our little Noah.

P.S We forgot the usb cord for the camera, so all of the pics we've taken will have to be seen later. I'm glad we remembered the camera and video camera at all.

We love you and we'll talk later
Josh and Leslie Housley