We have our son!!!

After a VERY long day....we are finally all together in the apartment!!!

The day began with a call from Natasha around 8am...we were up and getting ready for our 9:00 pick-up and she said her reason for calling was to let us know that our pick-up would now be at 10:00 - she said she was trying to get ahold of us all evening yesterday but she had the wrong # written down and decided to call our apartment place this morning to get the correct one. So, when we finally headed out around 10 we were greeted at our gate by Galina. We led her to where we meet Alec and she let us know that we had to pick up Natasha at the court. Apparently there was a typo mistake on something with our paperwork so Natasha had to have the judge correct it. When we arrived at the court, we found out that the judge was not there yet so we must wait...and wait we did - for an hour and 1/2 in Alec's car! When Natasha finally came out, we went to the birth certificate office. We were in that office for over an hour but finally walked out with an adoption certificate and a birth certificate (with his new name)!

At this point of the day, Natasha had some other places to go so Galina stayed with us. Our next destination was the orphanage but first we had to stop at a supermarket to purchase 2 cakes (it is a tradition for a family adopting a child to bring cakes to the orphanage for them to celebrate a child getting a new life). Once we arrived at the orphanage, we were told that we were early and that we had to meet with Tatiana (the director/doctor) but she is in court and will not return until at least 3:00 or 3:30 (it was 1:45). So, we walked with Galina to a nearby shopping mall where we had lunch. It took just the right amount of time and when we returned they brought him to us (in the clothes we brought for him) and then a couple of minutes later Tatiana came in. She answered a couple of remaining questions we had and then led us to the door. We walked outside with him at exactly 4:00pm :)

The car ride to our next stop was quite a fascination for him. He spent most of his time just looking around and taking it all in. When we arrived at the passport office, we had to wait a little for Natasha to arrive. She took John and Galina with her into the office (we were not both required to be there in order to apply for his passport) while Laurie stayed in the car with Alec and Baby O. We thought he might fall asleep in the car, but nope he just wanted to play the whole time - he was a very happy boy today :) An hour later, the passport group returned to the car and we were on our way to the apartment (his passport will be ready on Tuesday for pick-up).

When we entered the apartment he very quickly wanted to explore...he spent a little time taking everything in and playing with his toys and then it was dinner time. He did a great job with dinner and we were shocked to learn that he knows sign language for "more" (which we wouldn't know if it weren't for our friends Ty and Reed) so we knew when he was still hungry. We were a little concerned because he wouldn't drink from a sippy cup (they told us that he has been drinking out of a cup since Oct but they never specified what kind of cup and we just assumed). We tried a regular cup and it took both of us, but he chugged the entire cup of water. Bed time proved to really be our only challenge today (other than all of the waiting). He was over-tired and just didn't want to give in. It took a little over an hour but not really any tears before he finally gave in :)

All in all, it was a fantastic day. He was full of smiles and laughter (right away through bed time) and so were we!