It's been so nice to have time off of work and just be with Matthew. He is such a wonder to watch and be around. I adore how much he absorbs in one day. He is fascinated by everything and picking up the language so quickly. He still loves to flush the toilet several times a day and insists on doing everything himself. I love to hear him say, "Danilov do it." He hasn't quite gotten used to hearing his new name and goes between Matthew, Kirill, and Danilov.
Every woman that he sees is "Mama" and that is endearing to me. He doesn't understand the concept of family and what a mom really is. It will come with time. It took Luke a very long time to understand that.
Matthew was meant to be in our family and I can't wait to have him wake up each day!
With all of this time on my hands, I was able to complete his adoption video. Enjoy!
So, our first day at home alone was very busy. I forgot how curious Luke was when he arrived home and how much energy it takes to fulfill this curiosity phase. We started with the vacuum and at first, Matthew was afraid of it. He peeked his head around the corner and just screamed with laughter each time I turned it on. He finally became brave enough to run in and actually touch it and then run away. I think he thought that it would eat him! After 30 minutes of this game, he finally was brave enough to pull on the cord. It was love! He pulled that cord in and out about 200 times before mommy was about crazy. Carefully, I comforted him and tried my best with our sign language and few Russian words to let him know that he could see it tomorrow. That wasn't good enough for him and he ended up crying for about 10 minutes. I told you that it was love!
Luke is loving his new brother and they had a lot of bonding time over Memorial Day weekend. He is learning that his brother doesn't like to be hugged...yet. Luke is a great hugger and he will have to patient with this one. I know that Matthew will come around when he sees how much his big brother loves him. For now, we play a lot of games together as a family and try to teach them both how to play fair and get along. Most of the time they are great together!
Scott and Matthew made it HOME!! We couldn't be happier with the homecoming of Matthew. He is such a blessing. They arrived home early Saturday morning at 1:00am. Luke made a cute sign to hold up and we ended up running so fast at the airport that it was dropped. It was fun to see the excitement of Luke when he saw his new brother.
Scott and Matthew made it safely out of Russia and now have a 20 hour layover in Korea. As usual, Scott had a few things to deal with in the Vlad Airport. It seems like we always have problems there. It's a tiny airport for such a large city. They are doing well and look forward to a little time to rest in the hotel. Korea has a beautiful airport and it's one of our favorites! They'll have lots to do there. We're now counting the HOURS until they arrive!!
Scott sent this video today and it is a hoot! He asked Matthew how he would be getting home and this was his response...
Looks like we have a smart little man on our hands. We didn't even think that he could talk and look at him now. He is a little shy and Scott says that he hides behind his leg whenever a stranger is near. That is such a great thing! He is bonding so quickly to Scott and that melts my heart. They get on the plane in 3 hours!! The first step to coming home is getting closer!
Matthew continues to change each day and Scott is having a great time getting to know our little boy. It amazes me how much he is just like Luke. When Scott sent this video, it made me laugh! Luke's favorite thing to do when we returned to the US was vacuum! These precious little boys are hard workers. They love to clean, put things away, and have order in their lives. Life in the orphanage means following rules and helping out because there are so many kids to take care of. Luke is still pretty good at cleaning, but has lost a little bit of his love for doing it without being told. :)
We are only 3 days away from bringing our little man home!
Scott is having a great time hanging out with
Matthew and getting to know him. We talk everyday with the wonderful use
of Skype. When we brought Luke home, we didn't have the ability to do
this and it has been such a blessing to see them each day.
Here's what Scott wrote about Matthew.
"Matthew was exhausted yesterday and he is still asleep 12 hours later as
7 am approaches. 7:30 am each day is an exciting time here, as the daily 8-hour
communication freeze ends when the Vlad Motor Inn's restaurant reopens and they
power up their Wi-Fi. It is funny to see all the adoption couples move
out in the hallway to obtain the signal. We spent an hour in the crowded
hotel park yesterday. It was a beautiful day and Matthew ran around with
a five year old boy most of the time. He hopped on a bike with training
wheels and tried with limited success to get it moving, but he loved to have me
push him around while he steered. A crash or two did not curb his enthusiasm.
He just jumped back on the bike.
Scott just sent a photo of Matthew in his new outfit! He took him from the orphanage today and he is doing good. Scott said that it took him over 2 hours to fall asleep!
Send lots of prayers his way!
Well, yesterday I started to feel very guilty that I didn't travel with Scott to Russia. I looked at all of the videos of Matthew and realized that I should have gone. I stayed back to help save money and I think that it may have been the wrong decision. I hope that Scott is doing well and taking many, many photos. He tried to Skype yesterday and we could only talk a few minutes before it cut out on us. Once he is in the hotel room in Vlad, he should get a better connection.
Luke and I can't wait to see Matthew and find out how Scott is doing at being the only parent right now. It's such a huge job and I pray that Matthew has an easy transition. He'll leave the orphanage today and that's always very tough. It's been the only home that he's known for the past 2 years of his life. Sweet dreams little boy. Your mommy loves you dearly.
We took Scott to the airport early this morning for one final trip to Russia. It feels so good to know that we are on the last part of this journey to bring Matthew home. We pray for safe travels and that Scott will have an easy time with having all of the parenting duties in Russia. Skype is a wonderful thing and we will keep in touch with him each day. Luke is so excited and we started a new count down calendar for Matthew.
Only 13 more days and he'll be home!
We had our court hearing this morning and it went very smoothly. It lasted a little under an hour and they didn't ask any difficult questions. Our time in court was much more formal this time and we were asked to stand each time that we had to speak to the judge. We had a female judge and she was very pleasant. She even told Scott that it must be destiny to have this child because he looks so much like Scott. After the court, we got to see Matthew one final time. Scott will return now in 30 days to bring Matthew home. We found out that he'll be staying around 8-10 days when he returns to finish all of the paperwork. He was a bit shocked and will have to become a full time daddy because he'll have Matthew with him in the hotel room.
It has been a wonderful trip and it was such a great experience for Sarah. She will now have these great memories of meeting her brother and getting to see what kind of life he had. We feel blessed and our family is complete.
It was so cold here today and it actually snowed last night. Such a big change from the warm weather we had in China. Sarah and I had fun walking around the beach and collected some beach glass before our hands were too frozen to hold another piece.
We saw Matthew again today and he was extra shy. He was crowded in a room with 6 adults though and 5 of us are true strangers. That's a lot for one little boy to take in. Once we got to take him outside and play with him, he warmed up and we got to her him speak an entire sentence! He's been so quiet, we didn't know if he could really talk as much as they were saying. I put a few photos of him without showing his face. I'll have lots of photos after we bring him home in May.
We are finally settled down at the Vlad Motor Inn and our jet lag is wearing off. It's amazing to think that we are now 15 hours ahead of our time in DC. We all woke up the first few nights at 3am and had a big "can't sleep" party. It's really nice getting a chance to spend time with Sarah and we have LOTS of time in the hotel.
We also got to see Matthew yesterday and it was nice to see that he is still so happy and growing. His face is thinning out and his laugh is still cute as ever. Sarah got to experience the small room or I like to call it a closet that we get to play with him in. It is so tiny and adding one more body doesn't help. We're headed out to see him again in 30 minutes. We have to wait for him to have his breakfast of rice and milk. They told us yesterday that he also loves to drink hot tea. Sounds just like Luke!
I'll post more later on our doctor visits. There were interesting...
We arrived in Beijing and had a great time visiting some of the sites. It doesn't quite feel like Easter without a beautiful church service, Easter eggs, hunting for baskets, or cute kids in their Easter outfits. We are so blessed though because we are safe and spending family time with Sarah.
China is pretty amazing. It's one of the cleanest cities I've been in and I've been in quite a few. The parking garage at the airport had painted floors and workers were buffing them! Never seen that before! We had a 14 hour direct flight here that went very quickly. We slept through half of it and that makes it a short flight.
Today we got to see the OlympicVillage. I loved it! The Bird's Nest was incredible!! We also drove by Tian An Men Square and saw some cool night markets. Tomorrow is going to be a little easier with a short flight to Vladivostok.
Good night from Beijing!
