can u say roll tide?

We finally decided it was time to wear his bama jersey. It's a little to big but it's worth it to see him in it. He can't say roll tide yet but he is trying.

We had another great night and morning. We found out 1 food that he does not like, cheese popcorn, go figure the cheese king (Josh) does not like cheese or it could just be the popcorn, not sure yet.

I will try to send mor pics of all of us tommorrow, running out of time again, sorry.

Busy, Busy, Busy.

Today is Sunday, we walked outside and played in the small playground. He loves to swing and slide down a huge slide.We have had lots of fun today but we were glad for naptime to come. He only took a 2 hour nap today but thats still great.

While he was asleep I went back to the baby store. They let me exchange some of the clothes that I bought for him because of size issues. We had better luck with that today.

I also made a trip to the market and stocked up on a few of our favorite things.Things are so expensive here that it makes it very hard to get all that you need. Diapers, wipes -all very high here.

Here are a few more pics of Noah. This is how he sleeps most of the time and walking around the Vlad Inn.

info: He seems to be wearing a size 12-18 month old clothes for those of you who wanted to know about that. He also loves the bath still!!, because he likes to be naked.Hope you all enjoy the pics.We will talk with you all later because I can only blog for about 15 - 2

0 mins at a time because of cost.

Great first day!!

Hello everyone, Hope you are doing well.Noah is doing great and so are we.

Yesterday after we got back to the hotel it was time to eat lunch and Noah was so happy to try new foods. He ate everything and has at every meal since. He feeds himself with a spoon and fork an trust me not very much gets droped. He loves oatmeal, (apple cinn), grits and fruit, and of cours all sweets. We have only been giving him nilla waffers for snack time.

We started getting baths around 6:00pm last night and he loves the tub!! He loves to play in water and most of all he loves being naked. He will run from me when we change his clothes because it's something new I guess.He went to sleep at 8:30 and woke up at 6:30am. He ended up sleeping on a baby matress beside our bed but, NOT IN THE BED WITH US. He woke up gright and early, ate breakfast and started iff his busy new day.

He has deffinatly tested us on most things, playing with tv, cords, remote, stove door and so on.He knows right from wrong and will look at you with those develish eyes and smile while he is touching something bad but he is learning and so are we how to manage.

We talked with my parents om the phone today, Noah loves to talk on the phone now and any other time he is awake. He is so funny, his personality is awesome and sence of humor is great.He keeps us laughing.

First day as Family of 3!!

Today was court, it couldn't have gone any better. It only took about an hour and can you believe I done all of the talking ang just about all of the questions were addressed to me.Yeah, I loooove to talk.
We went and picked up Noah as son as court was over.It was time for him to eat lunch but they wouldn't let him eat because of getting car sick, so he was starving ehen we got to the hotel. He ate and then we started to long process of nap time. He was so tired but could't fall asleep so finally I layed down and layed him on my chest and he was out like a light. That was only after trying numerous things. He is in to everything but is such a big helper because he knows where everything is and belongs. We are about to go eat supper so I'll talk with all of you later or in the morning.
Thanks so much for all of the comments, we cherish your thoughts.

oh yeah- He is calling us mamma and daddy now for everything and he is already starting to understand what we are saying to him.
I want to send pics so bad but we can't until the 10 days are over.please be patient.

Noah is such a big boy now.

We just got back from seeing Noah. It was amazung to see how much he has grown in 5 months. He still looks the same in the face but his hair is a little darker and longer.He still looks like Josh though. They brought him in the same small room that we were in the last time we were here and when he walked in I grabbed in and he just held around my neck so tight that all I could do was tell him that mamma was back and never leaving him again. When I held him it was so perfect, it was exacltly what I imagined it would be and more.God definatly knew what he was doing when he led us to Noah!!!!
It was snowing while we were visiting him and we were letting him look outside of the window, they asked him if he wanted to go outside and he said NO. I figured he knew how cold it was. We were able to try severl outfits on him to make sure everything would fit . His snow shoes and boots fit like a glove. All of the clothes that we tried on him fit, so we were very happy that we don't have to go bey anymore clothes for him. He saw the snow boots in my bag and started taking his shoes off by himself and sat in my lap to get his new shoes on, he is sooo funny. He also can undress himsself and almost redress with a little help from mamma. He called us mamma and daddy the whole time this time so I guess they have been working with him. They also told us that he has been going to speach class and is doing very good. He is still a neat freak but i imagine that will change soon.
Our court time is at 9:30 am on Friday and we will leave there after an hour or so and go pick up Noah for good.Yeah!!! We are going to have to stop on the way to get him to pick up some diapers and some of his favorite foods although he's not very picky, they said that's called orphanage syndrome-they will eat whatever they are given. The social worker at the orphanage said that he is potty trained as long as you take him to the potty 5 times a day and let him sit there, he will not tell you when he needs to go and that's why they left him in diapers. I will be buying him pullups and working with him even more.
As far as the cis paper is concerned , It did come in the mail the day after we left for our trip and my best friend got it out of the mail and overnighted it to our agency.She will then send it to the Moscow Embasssy so it will be there and ready for us when we get back to Moscow.
We will blog shortly after we get Noah to the Hotel with us and let you all know that everything is ok.
Love you all , we'll talk later

Hello from Vladivostok!!

It's so great to hear from all of you reading the blog. Like I said I would be blogging often so here os the stuff that went on today-try not to fall asleep while readind this(lol).
We got to the airport in Moscow at 4:15pm our time , checked in and began what would turn out to be the longest wait in an airport know to man. Our flight was sheduled to begin boarding at 6:30pm for the 7:10pm flight. They told us at 8:00pm that our plane was delayed, (duh) and that we would begin to board at 8:40pm instead. At 9:00pm we actually started to board, to only find out an hour after us sitting on the runway that we were having technical difficulties and would have to DEBOARD the plane and wait for another one to come take it's place.We sat in the airport until 2:30 am before we reboarded a new plane. Yes it was a new plane not the old one "fixed". I know because that was my #1 priority to find out.
We finally arrived in Vlad 9 hours later, and add 7 more hours for the time differnce, so we got in Vlad on Wed 26, 6:00pm. If you were not able to keep up that means we had 6 hours of sleep sine we left our house in Tuscaloosa at 8:00am Sunday morning. We are very tired and hungry so I'm going to blog mor tommorrow after we get back from seeing Noah.
info: We were told by our children's hope rep that we have the best Judge in town!!!
Please let us know if you have any guestions and\or suggestions at aby time. We love you all and will blog photos soon.

Leaving for Vlad today.

Today we are leaving out at 7:00pm our time and it should take around 10 hours to get there. We are giong to do a little sight seeing today to kill some time before the flight.There is a huge farriswheel down the street from our hotel so, we are giong to see what that is about.By the way, there is snow on the ground. When our plane was coming down we saw that there was snow everywhere. Yeah for me because I wanted to see it so much.
We revisited the oh so famous McDonalds last night for supper, it was ok I guess.That is the only thing we have eaten except for 2 or 3 bites on the plane(gross). We are about to go eat breakfast in our hotel, at least we know we do like their eggs!!
The weather is pretty cold here. The temp at night is in the 20's and daytime 35-40;s I'll try to get a few pics of the snow or sight seeing today and show you.

We are in Moscow, Russia

We finally made it over around 2:30am your time it was already 10:30am here.We are staying in the same hotel as we did the last time, so we know where Mc Donalds is!!! We have lots to do so i'll blog again in the morning before we board our plane to Vlad.

2 DAYS 'TIL TAKE OFF

Today is Friday and everything is about ready to go. Our bags are packed, and papers are in order. We are finally ready to go.Josh has been in town running last minute errands today, he's off today for Good Friday so that's been extremely helpful.
I'm not sure why no one has left any comments on the blog, I hope it is working alright. Please feel free to leave comments because I remember last time we were in Russia it felt so good to hear from someone at home.
I will try to blog daily but if I do skip a day here or there I will catch you up.We will have to wait for the 10 day period to end before we can post any photos of Noah so please be patient with that.Please remember we want you to see and read everything that's happening while we are in Russia but we can't tell you everything until we are back in the U.S. We love all of you and we continue to need your prayers.Hope to hear from you all soon.

mix-up, please read over to see changes.

I has it brought to my attention that I made a small mistake on some of the dates. The dates have not changed , I just was off one day on the calender. Here is a complete itinerary of our travel dates.

Fly from B'ham-Sunday, March 23, 08 at 1:30pm
arrive in Moscow -Monday March 24, 08 at 10:00am

Fly from Moscow -Tuesday March 25, 08 at 7:10pm
arrive in Vladivostok -Wednesday March, 26, 08 at 11:00am

Court date in Vlad- Friday March 28, 08 (We get Noah on this day)

Fly from Vlad-Thursday April, 10 08 at 1:30pm
arrive in Moscow Thursday April, 10 08 at 3:40pm (yes this is correct, we are gaining 8 hours flying west)

Fly from Moscow-Tuesday, April, 15 08 at 12:55pm
arrive in B'ham- Tuesday April 15 08 at 8:09pm

7 days to go.

I had totally forgotten how crazy it was getting ready for our first trip until today. I woke up and hit the floor at 100 mph this morning. We have been packing for Noah all day, why didn't anyone tell us how much stuff we needed for a two year old? Ha Ha, He has more things that need to be packed than we ever did. We finally narrowed down the number of clothes to take for him, that was really hared for me but for some odd reason Josh was willing to lighten the suitcase. I just wasn't sure if I had enough cold weather clothes, sleeping clothes, toys, blankets, etc. We can buy anything that we need in Russia, but it's just so expensive there, but if we take it with us we are carrying way too much. We are really packing light this time around because we know once we head home we're not going to realize how much different everything is going to be. Josh said, " I know what's going to happen. I'm going to end up pulling 4 suitcases through the two biggest airports in the world and here you'll come pushing the stroller with Noah and the diaper bag on your shoulder screaming I can't keep up , slow down." So, long story long-we are packing light.

We purchased out plane tickets yesterday so there is no turning back. I thought it was so cute that Noah's ticket actually said "Noah James Housley". That's the first time it has been recognized as his new name. I know, it's awesome right!! I will be blogging throughout this upcoming week so please check back in a day or two for a new update.

We Got the Call !!!!!!

Today we finally got that oh so waited phone call from our adoption agency saying "Are you ready to go get Noah?"I was speechless, yes me Leslie speechless and that soon passed as I filled her ear with 101 questions. Our travel dates are: Sunday March 22, 2008 we will board our flight in Birmingham at 1:00 pm. We have a connecting flight in Atlanta with only 50 minutes in between. Then, we're off to Moscow by Sunday afternoon around 4:00. It should take us about 11 hours or so to get there (just like last time).We will then be staying overnight in Moscow and boarding our next flight on Monday at 7:00pm (11:00am in the us).The flight to Vladivostok should take about another 11 hours, and we will land in Vlad on Tuesday, March 26, 2008.Wednesday we will be able to go visit Noah again, I can't wait. Thursday is the day we are going to court, when we walk out of the court room we will be going straight to pick up Noah !!!!
We will then begin our 10 day wait in Vlad with Noah, the Judge can waive this if he or she chooses but we can't count on that to happen. April the 10,08 we will fly from Vlad back to Moscow, We will have a Medical appt for Noah on our second day in Moscow. The third day in Moscow we will go to our interview at the Embassy. After that is done we will ship out on April 15, 2008 coming back home. This may change a little but the dates are firm. I hope I have not forgotten to tell you anything but we will be talking to everyone before we leave for good. It is so hard for me to believe that one week from Thursday Noah we be with us the rest of our lives. We wanted to let everyone know that the prayers were all answered, I have always believed heavily in prayer, but anyone who ever doubts the power of prayer should read our adoption story. I also think that Noah was to be our child, from the beginning, from the minute he was born. I think God special picked us for Noah's parents too. As angry and full of hate as I was when I heard how our child was abandoned by his "birth person"I'm also very grateful that his birth person was able to bring Noah into the world. I plan to always tell Noah about Vladivostok and as much of his past that he would like to know, but at the same time telling him how grateful we are that he was born to be in our family and we just had to take the long way around to meet.
If any of you are wondering why I use the term "Birth person" it's because I do not believe that his biological mother has any right to use the term mom, mother, birth mom or any other terms on endearment. Some of you may think that I am being cruel to take that title away from a mother but in my eyes you earn that name, by loving, caring, feeding, bathing and so on for you child. I just don't believe she was ever any of those things for him. Well that's enough about all of that, if you have any questions about our trip or just anything else please don't hesitate to leave a message on the blog or go to our Yahoo e-mail and leave us a note. Thanks for taking the time to read our blog and I promise to blog soon, especially while we are gone to Russia.

Waiting for Friday

We have been waiting for Friday the 14Th to come because that's when our Representative in Vladivostok will go back to the Judge to get our court date. There's a chance it will nit be given out that day but there's a great chance it will. The Judge reviewed our paperwork last week and requested more documents to be submitted. I got 4 documents together the day that they asked for them, drove to Montgomery the very next day to have them apostilled and overnighted them to St. Louis. The documents were received that Thursday in St. Louis and mailed off to Vlad on Friday. When they tell us that something needs to be done , there is no slowing us down.We want them to know how serious we are about getting over there ASAP. Well I'm pretty sure they know we are serious but you know what I meant. That's about all that's going on right now with the adoption, but as soon as i hear anything I'll be sure to blog right away.Please keep us and Noah in your prayers.